Speaker 1: Hey, it's Jordan. Before we get started with today's episode,
Speaker 1: I wanted to share some really exciting news. We've been
Speaker 1: nominated for a Signal Award. The Signal Awards reward podcasts
Speaker 1: that impact American culture, and our very first episode on
Speaker 1: Stonewall was nominated for Best LGBTQ Podcast Episode, and you
Speaker 1: can actually vote for us and we can win this.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna tell you how to vote now, and
Speaker 1: there are a couple steps, but it's super easy. It'll
Speaker 1: take you like two minutes. So first, go to vote
Speaker 1: dot Signal Award dot com, click on the categories button
Speaker 1: and then select individual episodes, and then under the general
Speaker 1: tab click on LGBTQ Plus and you should see us there.
Speaker 1: It'll ask you to create an account, which takes like
Speaker 1: ten seconds, and once you vote, you'll get a confirmation
Speaker 1: email to confirm your vote. Now, voting does close kind
Speaker 1: of soon, like on October seventeenth, so get your vote
Speaker 1: in and let's win this. Because I know that I
Speaker 1: have the best listeners in the world, and a special
Speaker 1: thank you to all of you listeners. This really wouldn't
Speaker 1: be possible without you, so thank you again, and let's
Speaker 1: get into the show. But We Loved is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Podcasts and The Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2: So that night we went to bed, and when I
Speaker 2: woke up the next morning, the sheets were soaked, and
Speaker 2: I knew. I knew that was it and when that
Speaker 2: was one of the major symptoms when heard about its
Speaker 2: night sweats and I woke up and Joe wasn't awake
Speaker 2: yet and I was lying in sweat. I'm like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, he's got AIDS.
Speaker 3: As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
Speaker 3: I thought being gay was the worst thing I can be.
Speaker 3: Now as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn that by
Speaker 3: seeking out our history, and what I've found are people
Speaker 3: and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love. In this episode,
Speaker 3: we'll meet Larry Colton, a man whose life was deeply
Speaker 3: impacted by the AIDS crisis in San Francisco. Will reflect
Speaker 3: on the concept of legacy in the LGBTQ community, thinking
Speaker 3: especially about those who were lost to AIDS and what
Speaker 3: they left behind. For My Heart Podcasts, I'm Jordan and Solve,
Speaker 3: and this is.
Speaker 4: What we loved.
Speaker 3: As human beings. I think it's pretty normal to think
Speaker 3: about what kind of legacy we want to leave behind.
Speaker 3: For me, it's been a thought that I've obsessed over,
Speaker 3: really my whole adult life, ever since I came out,
Speaker 3: Like what am I going to leave when I die?
Speaker 3: I didn't realize it until recently, but so much of
Speaker 3: the pressure I was putting on myself was coming from
Speaker 3: something specific, my unconscious fear that I would die early
Speaker 3: because I'm a gay man. During the AIDS crisis, HIV
Speaker 3: was the number one cause of death among young men.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I wonder about all those young people that died
Speaker 3: and what their legacies are. When it's not children or
Speaker 3: wealth that you're leaving behind, how are you remembered? My
Speaker 3: next guest, Larry Colton, was deeply impacted by the AIDS
Speaker 3: crisis in San Francisco and that very same question. During
Speaker 3: the seventies and eighties, he was closeted at work to
Speaker 3: his family, but he found respite in the exploding San
Speaker 3: Francisco gay scene and in a partner he would soon
Speaker 3: meet there too. Joe, tell me what it was like
Speaker 3: to be gay in San Francisco in the mid to
Speaker 3: late seventies.
Speaker 2: God, this is so You're bringing up such interesting memories
Speaker 2: that I hadn't thought about. For years. It was sort
Speaker 2: of the beginning of gay liberation and gay freedom which
Speaker 2: had come out of the sixties and the seventies, and
Speaker 2: San Francisco being the epicene of a free space, a
Speaker 2: liberal city. It was. The housing was cheap, and there
Speaker 2: was a bar called The End of which I think
Speaker 2: quite frankly exists to this day, you know. And it
Speaker 2: was it really started at ten at night and would
Speaker 2: go till two, and it had a plastic disco floor
Speaker 2: that everybody would with lights underneath it. It's probably still there,
Speaker 2: and people would dance like crazy. Now remember that was
Speaker 2: Donna Sumbers. Who knows what was playing back then, but
Speaker 2: it was packed and it was so active, and the
Speaker 2: average age was probably mid to late twenties, you know,
Speaker 2: and everybody was free. You know. After the bar closed,
Speaker 2: you'd hang out with your friends on the street. You know,
Speaker 2: you might go get a hamburg or do something afterwards.
Speaker 2: But it was you met a lot of people, you know,
Speaker 2: and they were all friendly. Everybody felt the sense of
Speaker 2: freedom and liberation that sort of accompanied that time. There
Speaker 2: was one other bar that still exists, probably the oldest
Speaker 2: bar in San Francisco, on the corner of Castro and
Speaker 2: a market and they they used to call the glass
Speaker 2: Coffin because only old guys went there. But but you
Speaker 2: could but you could see in big windows open to
Speaker 2: the street. At that point, people weren't hiding, which realized
Speaker 2: that and then itself was a big change. Going to
Speaker 2: a bar that had big windows was really an acknowledgment
Speaker 2: of your life and a validation because you weren't hiding.
Speaker 3: Oh you're saying that this was one of the first
Speaker 3: bars that was openly gay. Yes, wow, okay, god, And
Speaker 3: that was that was a really freeing feeling. You get
Speaker 3: into the bartenders. It was like and you had a
Speaker 3: you knew almost everybody there, and as it supposed to
Speaker 3: any community, you find your own right where you feel
Speaker 3: comfort and you feel.
Speaker 2: Like you're heard.
Speaker 3: So you found your tribe. I did absolutely tell me
Speaker 3: about the bathhouses. I want to know about what sexuality
Speaker 3: was like at this time in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, it's it's funny because somebody I was with
Speaker 2: somebody at the other night we were actually talking about this. Oh,
Speaker 2: I know, somebody was showing me grinder, you know, and
Speaker 2: I know now I'm really dating myself and I'm looking
Speaker 2: really naive but John, I had a friend come over
Speaker 2: who's single, and all of a sudden, he's on Grinder
Speaker 2: and I'm like, okay, show me this. I want to
Speaker 2: know how this works. I want know who the hell's
Speaker 2: around me, whether I know anybody. And it was such
Speaker 2: an education, you know, and he's explaining to me, like,
Speaker 2: what's that word they use on grinder now? Like not yo,
Speaker 2: but what's up? Sup? Like what's up? I never like what?
Speaker 2: But anyway, it dates me.
Speaker 3: Bath houses were grinder back then.
Speaker 2: They were they were you know, it was just a
Speaker 2: sex place, right, I mean, that's what it was for.
Speaker 2: They would be given a towe when they came in.
Speaker 2: They had a locker they would just rope put their
Speaker 2: towels on and they'd start walking around. And they had
Speaker 2: private rooms, and they had public spaces, and they had saunas,
Speaker 2: and they had steam rooms. And in San Francis, the
Speaker 2: original bathos I first went to, which was in an alleyway,
Speaker 2: was really fancy. They had like a like a mini restaurant.
Speaker 2: They had a wall, aquarium, wall, huge waterfalls. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was very fancy and people would stay all night.
Speaker 2: I mean would just stay for like a day or two.
Speaker 2: But it was very popular and just packed, and especially
Speaker 2: after the bars at two. I mean you'd have a
Speaker 2: line out the door starting between two and three, you know,
Speaker 2: in the morning.
Speaker 3: So tell me about work. You were a businessman. What
Speaker 3: was it like working as a gay man in business
Speaker 3: in the seventies.
Speaker 2: I was twenty four. I started looking for a job
Speaker 2: and I ended up working in an insurance company because,
Speaker 2: quite frankly, at the time, they offered eight hundred bucks
Speaker 2: a month. One of my big fears which always remained
Speaker 2: with me, was I went to work for a regional
Speaker 2: insurance brokerage firm and nobody knew I was getting. You know,
Speaker 2: I always had a woman I took to a company events,
Speaker 2: and I always felt like I would they wouldn't want
Speaker 2: me if they found out I was gay. So I
Speaker 2: simply felt that I had a limited lifespan at that job.
Speaker 2: You really lived two separate lives. And I was moving
Speaker 2: up the ladder rather rapidly at this job, and I
Speaker 2: was all of a sudden, the receptionists rang my phone.
Speaker 2: I had an office and she said, there's somebody here
Speaker 2: to see you. And the way she said it, I
Speaker 2: think I almost had a heart attack. I said something's
Speaker 2: not right here. And I went out and it was
Speaker 2: a guy I knew from the bars who had somehow
Speaker 2: figured out where I worked and showed up in hot pants.
Speaker 2: Oh god, and he was the biggest queen you'd ever
Speaker 2: want to meet. And I almost died. I thought, my god,
Speaker 2: my cover has just been blown. You know who saw this?
Speaker 2: What the fuck? Excuse me? What are you doing here?
Speaker 2: I just was in the area and wanted to say hi.
Speaker 2: So that was the kind of fear you had about
Speaker 2: how one event of that nature might in fact really
Speaker 2: destroy your career.
Speaker 3: Well, tell me how was dating going for you at
Speaker 3: this point?
Speaker 2: Okay, So I just turned thirty at the time. I'm
Speaker 2: living in Marin County, which is across the Bay from
Speaker 2: San Francisco, and I commute to work by ferryboat. And
Speaker 2: it was just beautiful, I mean absolutely idyllic. You just
Speaker 2: couldn't ask for more beautiful. You see the San Francisco skyline.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, I read my New York Times
Speaker 2: or my San Francisco Chronicle, whatever I was reading, and
Speaker 2: I really wasn't paying much attention. But of course, at
Speaker 2: one point I see this really handsome guy who's got
Speaker 2: reddish blonde hair, blue eyes and really bashful and really shy,
Speaker 2: and you know, on multiple days all week we keep
Speaker 2: seeing each other and clearly there was energy going back
Speaker 2: and forth. So we were getting off the ferry and
Speaker 2: we introduced each other one another and next thing you know,
Speaker 2: we are if we fall head and heel over in love.
Speaker 2: So Joe was from an Irish family, eleven in the family,
Speaker 2: nine kids. He was having his own issues with his
Speaker 2: family because as you might imagine Irish Catholic, he like me,
Speaker 2: was not out to his family at all, Nor was
Speaker 2: I still at this point, so he was just getting
Speaker 2: started in his career. I was more established in mind.
Speaker 2: He was five years younger than I was. We just
Speaker 2: really hit it off and we spentnded spending all of
Speaker 2: our time together. But we also what was true for
Speaker 2: both of us is we really shared a passion for travel.
Speaker 2: We kept going to Meka Notes for a number of years.
Speaker 2: We went to Europe, we went to Asia, so we
Speaker 2: really that was one thing that we really truly loved.
Speaker 2: And he was an artist, he painted, and we just
Speaker 2: were released simpatico and it was a relationships that was
Speaker 2: really meaningful.
Speaker 3: Even though Larry and weren't out to their parents. They
Speaker 3: were still really happy. Larry was the outgoing and social
Speaker 3: one and Joe was the quiet one everyone was drawn to.
Speaker 3: They balanced each other out. A month into their relationship
Speaker 3: and Joe showed up to Larry's house with a moving truck.
Speaker 3: They hadn't talked about it, but Joe decided it was time,
Speaker 3: and Larry agreed. Their love wasn't anything fancy, but it
Speaker 3: was stable. It was them leaving each other love notes
Speaker 3: around the house. Joe would sign each one of his
Speaker 3: with the drawing of a pig, a running joke about
Speaker 3: how messy he was. They'd straighten each other's ties before work,
Speaker 3: and then they'd take the scenic ferry route into the
Speaker 3: city each morning. Their life was perfect until it wasn't.
Speaker 3: On July third, nineteen eighty one, the New York Times
Speaker 3: ran a small article on page twenty of the newspaper
Speaker 3: titled rare cancer seen in forty one homosexuals. The cases
Speaker 3: were mostly in New York City and San Francisco, but
Speaker 3: eight people had already died. That article created a caricature
Speaker 3: of who was being affected, gay men who had up
Speaker 3: to quote ten sexual encounters each night up to four
Speaker 3: times a week. Symptoms included purple or brown or red
Speaker 3: blotches that would show up on the skin, called capasi sarcoma.
Speaker 3: At one point, the disease was called GRID, gay related
Speaker 3: immune deficiency. It would eventually become known as AIDS. Larry,
Speaker 3: take me to the moment that you first heard about AIDS.
Speaker 3: Was it the New York Times article?
Speaker 2: Yes, it was. Actually there was a gay newspaper called Bar,
Speaker 2: but it first appeared in the New York Times. That
Speaker 2: was in the San Francisco Chronicle. Then it very quickly
Speaker 2: got picked up by the bar, which you'd get this
Speaker 2: newspaper at the bars or in the castro and little stands.
Speaker 2: It was a free paper. First you read about GRID,
Speaker 2: and that's what it was first, called.
Speaker 3: Gay related immune deficiency.
Speaker 2: Correct, And it felt so distant. I mean again, we
Speaker 2: felt we were so insulated from all this. We were
Speaker 2: more monogamous. It wasn't necessarily going to hit us, but
Speaker 2: we were. We had fear. We said, okay, what is
Speaker 2: this going to mean? How is this going to play out?
Speaker 2: And we sort of watched it unfold, and it unfolded
Speaker 2: first and foremost at the bars. People started losing weight
Speaker 2: somebody would come in with a blotch on their face
Speaker 2: or on their arm. You know that that's carposi sarcoma thrush.
Speaker 2: People would get rashes in their mouth, and you just
Speaker 2: saw people. You'd say, well, where's I remember the first one.
Speaker 2: I'm like, where's Larry? Where is he? I haven't seen
Speaker 2: it for a while. Oh, he's sick. It was like
Speaker 2: out of a classic movie. Simultaneously, you're starting to see
Speaker 2: obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle. Then you're saying the
Speaker 2: real obituaries in the bar magazine, and you realize this
Speaker 2: is really picking up steam, and it is very serious,
Speaker 2: and it was very, very scary, And again we had
Speaker 2: false hope because we felt we were insulated. But nobody
Speaker 2: knew the incubation period. Nobody really knew what was actually
Speaker 2: causing it was a certain sexual act, you know what
Speaker 2: was behind it. Joe and I used to go to Meekonos.
Speaker 2: We went each year because we just loved it. It
Speaker 2: was beautiful, free nude beaches, it was a great food,
Speaker 2: it was a wonderful place, wonderful respite. And our best
Speaker 2: friends Gene Dave would go with us and they were
Speaker 2: staying at a hotel and we were staying in something
Speaker 2: cheaper because we were cheap, and they said, come over to
Speaker 2: our pool and we'll sit around the pool. And so
Speaker 2: we went and Joe and David, our friend, my best
Speaker 2: friend actually were swimming, and his partner of eight years,
Speaker 2: you know, it was not a new relationship, although I'd
Speaker 2: been an open relationship, was sitting next to be in
Speaker 2: a chaise lounge and said turned his arm over and
Speaker 2: looked and said, Larry, look at this mark I have
Speaker 2: on my arm. I knew what it was right away.
Speaker 2: I mean I'd done my research enough to know what
Speaker 2: it was. And he said, what do you think that is?
Speaker 2: And of course I said, Gene, I have no idea,
Speaker 2: but you need to get a check when we get back,
Speaker 2: no question. Well that was the first manifestation of something
Speaker 2: that had hit Gene, and he was the first, the
Speaker 2: closest person that we'd known that was then at that
Speaker 2: point infected with AIDS. And he got back and very
Speaker 2: rapidly he developed tax tax taxio plasmos i camember when
Speaker 2: it was a brain disease where you know, he went crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean they had to institutionalize them and it just
Speaker 2: he he died very quickly. That was the one that
Speaker 2: brought it home. That was the one where we we
Speaker 2: knew we were in the middle of an AIDS crisis
Speaker 2: and it was now affecting us, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: it was like the avalanche began and people kept getting sick.
Speaker 2: It was very It was very hard.
Speaker 3: How did that change your relationship with Joe? Were you
Speaker 3: afraid to be sexual with Joe?
Speaker 2: I think we found solace being together because we felt
Speaker 2: that we protected one another, you know, in a way,
Speaker 2: we became more insular. I would also tell you, though,
Speaker 2: that we it probably curtailed with things we did. We
Speaker 2: were scared. We were not sure if if we were
Speaker 2: exchanging body fluids. We weren't. We weren't sure what we
Speaker 2: were doing to one another, you know, and so there
Speaker 2: was a fear factor, no question about it. One experience
Speaker 2: I would tell you about, which was really attending an
Speaker 2: assisted death for a very a very young man was
Speaker 2: an earliest wow, and he just became covered in posts zarcoma.
Speaker 2: It just covered and he couldn't swallow. It was just horrible.
Speaker 2: And he was the partner of my dear friend who
Speaker 2: lived to marin. The young guy who and these are young, healthy, gorgeous.
Speaker 2: This guy was maybe twenty five to twenty six, and
Speaker 2: he developed once our posts, he got some on his
Speaker 2: face and then all of us. They were like red
Speaker 2: red dots, which are probably the size of anywhere from
Speaker 2: a dime to a nickel to a quarter, and they
Speaker 2: could be isolated on your little bit, any parts of
Speaker 2: your body. But in his case, they just it was
Speaker 2: almost like having the measles of the mumps. It just
Speaker 2: covered him. He was trying to go on with his life.
Speaker 2: So they'd have us over and you knew it wasn't contagious,
Speaker 2: that was not an issue we had. We got that.
Speaker 2: But you go over and you just see him covered
Speaker 2: and you could just see his misery. And Scott, my friend, said,
Speaker 2: you know, my partner has decided that he wants to
Speaker 2: to die. He does not want to go on because
Speaker 2: he knows it's just going to get worse. And he said,
Speaker 2: will you would you agree to come over to our
Speaker 2: house and there'll be somebody there to administer the drugs
Speaker 2: and I want, I need you to to go take
Speaker 2: me for a walk, you know, so we can because
Speaker 2: I can't be in the house when this happens. So
Speaker 2: that's what we did. Then you go to work, Hi,
Speaker 2: how is your weekend great? How are you have a
Speaker 2: good weekend? Great? You know, so you just lived a
Speaker 2: separate reality.
Speaker 3: How many funerals did you attend?
Speaker 2: One of a two weeks and that? So that was
Speaker 2: not a lot, honestly, you know, not a lot, not
Speaker 2: relative to what others were going through. I mean, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean that was the thing. It was so horrible,
Speaker 2: but that, relatively speaking, was not bad. I mean that's
Speaker 2: how weird it got.
Speaker 3: How are things going with Joe at this point?
Speaker 2: So things were going well, but his parents always wanted
Speaker 2: him to go to grad school. So one day he
Speaker 2: comes home and says, you know something. He was working
Speaker 2: at an insurance company. He really wasn't going anywhere. It
Speaker 2: was fine, he said, you know, I put it in
Speaker 2: an application to go to London School of Economics for
Speaker 2: a year. And I was pissed. I'm like, excuse me,
Speaker 2: we didn't just talk about this. Where is this coming from?
Speaker 2: He said, well, you know, I always wanted to do it,
Speaker 2: but I didn't feel what the time was right, and
Speaker 2: I really wanted When I've been accepted and I'm leaving
Speaker 2: in a week.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I was aghast, I was hurt. I was
Speaker 2: trying to process what is this about? And he says, like,
Speaker 2: I totally don't want to leave this relationship, but I
Speaker 2: want this experience, you know, and I'll come back a lot.
Speaker 2: So it's you know, we can still you know, it'll
Speaker 2: all work out. And I'm like, okay. I mean, if
Speaker 2: that's what you want, I have to honor that. I
Speaker 2: was hurt, but I'm like okay. But within six months
Speaker 2: he called me and said, I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 2: I miss you. I'm unhappy. This really isn't for me.
Speaker 2: I want to come home. So he did. He came home,
Speaker 2: he dropped out, came back to the Bay Area. Then well,
Speaker 2: one thing, two things happened. Number One, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: he gained a huge amount of weight, and it was
Speaker 2: like it didn't make any sense. It was not like
Speaker 2: normal weight. It was like it like he looked bloated.
Speaker 2: And he I remember him saying to me. We went
Speaker 2: to a restaurant and he said, do you think I'm sick?
Speaker 2: I said, Joe, don't be ridiculous. How could you be sick?
Speaker 2: You know, we've been monogamous that d duh. I remember thinking, well,
Speaker 2: I don't think so. But I wasn't one hundred percent
Speaker 2: sure of what I was saying. But I think we
Speaker 2: both dismissed it, at least I did so. Fast forward
Speaker 2: to my birthday. We decided to go to Paris for
Speaker 2: my birthday. This is when all things really started, the
Speaker 2: shit really started to hit the fan. We decided we'd
Speaker 2: go with two of our best lesbian friends, and we
Speaker 2: were just very close and he picked me up and
Speaker 2: I looked at him and he looked sick. He looked ill.
Speaker 2: I said, what's wrong? He said, I don't feel well.
Speaker 2: I'm like, maybe we shouldn't go. He said, no, I'll
Speaker 2: be fine, it'll pass, but I'm just not really feeling well.
Speaker 2: So we got on the plane and we went to Paris.
Speaker 2: We checked in the hotel in Paris. So that night
Speaker 2: we went to bed and when I woke up the
Speaker 2: next morning, the sheets were soaked and I knew. I
Speaker 2: knew as that was it and when that was one
Speaker 2: of the major symptoms when heard about its night sweats
Speaker 2: And I woke up and Joe wasn't awake yet, and
Speaker 2: I was lying in sweat and I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: he's got AIDS. And so he woke up and he
Speaker 2: was shivering, and he said, you know, I wanted to
Speaker 2: take a bath. So he said, I'm just let me
Speaker 2: take a bath. I'll feel much better. So he did,
Speaker 2: and I left and I walked from the hotel to
Speaker 2: Luxembourg Gardens, which is all there forget sat down early
Speaker 2: in the morning, probably eight or nine, and I said that.
Speaker 2: I said, you know something, Joe has aids. First of all,
Speaker 2: what are we going to do? Do we go home
Speaker 2: now immediately? How are we going to tell his parents?
Speaker 2: What's how long does he have? What does this new
Speaker 2: world look like? It was like, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: the world had turned upside down. I had no idea
Speaker 2: how we were going to navigate it. And then it
Speaker 2: took me like five minutes to think, hold it, what
Speaker 2: about me? I'm probably going to die too, you know.
Speaker 2: And it was sort of like this double shock. Then
Speaker 2: I remember thinking, don't worry about yourself. Let's deal with
Speaker 2: the first problem at hand. Let's get him home. So
Speaker 2: Joe he called his dad and said, this is this
Speaker 2: is what's happening. I'm not feeling well. He still didn't
Speaker 2: know or admit that he had AIDS. He called his dad.
Speaker 2: He said, Dad said come home right away. He was
Speaker 2: in New York, Okay. So we drove. We went to
Speaker 2: the airport, we turned around, we went back to the
Speaker 2: we went gotten a flight to New York. Joe was
Speaker 2: ill all the way home in that flight, just barely,
Speaker 2: I mean, no energy. He was what was happening? He
Speaker 2: was getting pneumonia you know which, which, of course we
Speaker 2: didn't know, but it was bad. And we got off
Speaker 2: the airport and his dad was in the it was
Speaker 2: in the waiting room. He said, I'll take it from here,
Speaker 2: and he took Joe. That's how Joe's dad found out
Speaker 2: he had AIDS and he was gay?
Speaker 3: And how did he get HIV? Was it sort of
Speaker 3: dormant all these years?
Speaker 2: Of course I had to ultimately ask him how could
Speaker 2: this be? Well, what had happened is when he went
Speaker 2: to London School of Economics, he ran into a friend
Speaker 2: of ours, very handsome young man, gay man, who was
Speaker 2: also at the London School of Economics. Of course they
Speaker 2: slept together. The guy was turns out how to aid
Speaker 2: and died almost right after that. But that is where
Speaker 2: we both were convinced that was the time because none
Speaker 2: of us, we were being honest with one another. We
Speaker 2: hadn't done anything else for years, and this guy virtually
Speaker 2: turned around and died, so we assume that's where he
Speaker 2: got it. And so it changed. It changed our world.
Speaker 2: It changed our world overnight, you know. So Joe came
Speaker 2: back with his dad and he said, my parents know
Speaker 2: everything now, you know, and they want me to come
Speaker 2: live with them. And of course they lived about ten
Speaker 2: blocks from me, so I knew their house. I mean
Speaker 2: I knew, I knew of it. I had not been
Speaker 2: in it, so really I would get up in the morning,
Speaker 2: go spend an hour or two with him early, go
Speaker 2: to work, come home, go to be with him, and
Speaker 2: then go back to my own house. And that became
Speaker 2: our life.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: Going back for a second though, when I got back,
Speaker 2: I thought, I've got to get tested. I need to
Speaker 2: get tested because this is my second part of my journey.
Speaker 2: And I got tested and I was negative. Wow, and
Speaker 2: we cried. You know, It's like he was so happy
Speaker 2: for me. It just it was a moment of like this,
Speaker 2: how can this be? And you know, you realize you're
Speaker 2: going to live and your love is going to die
Speaker 2: and you're on this journey. It just was surreal, you know.
Speaker 3: Larry had just learned that his partner Joe, had AIDS
Speaker 3: and that he did not. He tested negative for HIV
Speaker 3: as Joe, whose illness began to progress. Larry realized that
Speaker 3: he would need the support of everyone around him, and
Speaker 3: to obtain that, he would have to reveal that he
Speaker 3: was a gay man. Like many during this period, AIDS
Speaker 3: and its urgency forced Larry out of the closet.
Speaker 2: As soon as that happened, I got in the car.
Speaker 2: I went to my mom's house, who also lived in
Speaker 2: Marin County, five blocks from me. My dad had died
Speaker 2: when many years earlier, and I sat down with her
Speaker 2: in the garden and said, Mom, look at it, in
Speaker 2: case you didn't know it, I'm gay. I have a
Speaker 2: partner of who I've been with a long time. You
Speaker 2: know him, You've seen him many times. He's got AIDS
Speaker 2: and he's dying. And she said, I am here for you.
Speaker 2: What do you need from me? But on Monday I
Speaker 2: realized I couldn't live a dual life at work anymore.
Speaker 2: So I went to the gentleman who owned the business.
Speaker 2: At that point, I was senior vice president. I was
Speaker 2: like maybe third or fourth in command. And I went
Speaker 2: in and I sat down with him in this beautiful
Speaker 2: office over looking at San Francisco. I said, Dick, I'm gay.
Speaker 2: I have a partner. He's dying and I expect your support.
Speaker 2: Do you have any questions? He looked he was in shock,
Speaker 2: but I was. I was so empowered at that point
Speaker 2: it didn't matter. I owned it, and everything shifted. Everything shifted.
Speaker 2: I mean, my time was spent with Joe trying to
Speaker 2: be with him.
Speaker 3: And you're kind of going through forgiveness at the same time,
Speaker 3: right forgiving you for cheating on you.
Speaker 2: No that you know something. I never I'm one of
Speaker 2: these people that like, you know something. We're human beings,
Speaker 2: you know, cheating It's like I could cheat, you know.
Speaker 2: It's like, you make a choice about how you want
Speaker 2: to live your life. Somebody cheats, gives a shit. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 2: it never really to me was an issue. I felt
Speaker 2: sad that that had been the experience and that had happened,
Speaker 2: but I never blamed him for it. I'm like, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, that's just chances of life, you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'll never understand intimacy and sexuality with morality. I mean,
Speaker 2: what's it all mean anyway? You know? I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're a good human, you do it. You just
Speaker 2: live your life in a moral way. So that didn't
Speaker 2: bug me. A year after he got sick, he said,
Speaker 2: I want to go on a trip to Asia. And
Speaker 2: we're sitting at the doctor's office. I'm like, are you
Speaker 2: fucking crazy? Look at you. At that point, he was
Speaker 2: getting very thin. He was having a hard time metabolizing food,
Speaker 2: so he couldn't eat much. I mean, he was declining.
Speaker 2: He said, Larry, if I die there, I'll die happy.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, and I look at the doctor. He said, Larry,
Speaker 2: if he wants to go, he goes. So I plan
Speaker 2: this trip. I'm like, okay, this is going to be
Speaker 2: the last trip. We were going to Bali. You know.
Speaker 2: I tried to make it as seamless as possible. And
Speaker 2: it was a beautiful trip. We went with the two
Speaker 2: ladies we'd gone with the Paris so it was almost
Speaker 2: full circle and I have beautiful pictures of that time.
Speaker 2: But he was in decline. He had a hard time eating.
Speaker 2: But we had chances to talk about life and death,
Speaker 2: and have those conversations that needed to be had. He
Speaker 2: did say a couple of times, what do you think
Speaker 2: happens after you die? But I asked him, you're afraid
Speaker 2: to die? Said no, I mean he wasn't afraid, And
Speaker 2: so it was a beautiful trip. Hard trip, but a
Speaker 2: beautiful trip.
Speaker 4: At the end.
Speaker 2: I mean, Joe, his illness progressed to where he couldn't
Speaker 2: eat at all. He had a pick line and he
Speaker 2: was fed intravenously, you know, so he could no longer
Speaker 2: eat for months on ends. It was just they took
Speaker 2: him up to a machine and he would give him nourishment,
Speaker 2: and he was getting thinner and thinner. And this was
Speaker 2: the guy who was probably one sixty five to one
Speaker 2: seventy down to maybe one ten. You know, it's like
Speaker 2: he was a skeleton.
Speaker 3: Larry, what was that like for you to witness that we.
Speaker 2: Were in and out of the hospital Mount Sign of
Speaker 2: Hospital so many times, you know that he kept getting
Speaker 2: you know, and he got to be put in the
Speaker 2: hospital and he'd be there five days, ten days. I
Speaker 2: started living in my sweatpants at the hospital. And Joe
Speaker 2: was one of those people where he was always optimistic
Speaker 2: and always up and always smiling, and despite everything, everybody
Speaker 2: loved him at that place. They they when he came back,
Speaker 2: I mean to the point where they asked him if
Speaker 2: he'd be on the front of their magazine, you know,
Speaker 2: to show their aids for it off, and he'd looked
Speaker 2: like a skeleton. I'm like, he said, sure, I'll do it,
Speaker 2: and I had that picture to this day. Joe, he
Speaker 2: would send me notes, you know, he always did funny
Speaker 2: things just to bring my spirits up, to keep me going,
Speaker 2: always have put on a good face. And you looked
Speaker 2: how his life was deteriorating. So you learn, you become
Speaker 2: intimate in a totally different way. All the pretests, all
Speaker 2: the bullshit just falls away. And that's raw love, you know,
Speaker 2: and that's what we all seek, right, you know, to
Speaker 2: have a pure love, one not encumbered by ego or selfishness.
Speaker 2: It's just it's very It was very transformative for me.
Speaker 3: It sounds like your love in a way kind of
Speaker 3: deepened during this time.
Speaker 2: Oh it did it? Did it? Did it? Absolutely did?
Speaker 3: Larry, If you don't mind, would you take me to
Speaker 3: that moment where you like cove of Joe.
Speaker 2: It was clear clearly we were getting to the end,
Speaker 2: Joe was at home in his bedroom and had he
Speaker 2: had a view out of Marin County in the water
Speaker 2: was quite beautiful, and his parents had decided to go
Speaker 2: away on a mini vacation, but nobody felt it was imminent,
Speaker 2: so they left and I went over after they left
Speaker 2: because it allowed us more freedom and more intimacy and
Speaker 2: less intrusion. And he sort of said, you know, I
Speaker 2: think it's time, you know, and and I thought, wow,
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know. I was just in the moment,
Speaker 2: and I thought, you know, I think it is time.
Speaker 2: And then he went blind all of a sudden, he said,
Speaker 2: I can't see anymore, just like that. It was like instantaneous,
Speaker 2: and you're sort of speechless. You know, You're just, you know,
Speaker 2: in so many ways, you're just a witness. All you
Speaker 2: really are or can be, is a witness with unconditional love,
Speaker 2: you know. And I'm so I held his hand on
Speaker 2: that I'm here, and he was sort of sat up.
Speaker 2: Then he laid down and I laid down next to him,
Speaker 2: and about two hours later he passed away. It felt
Speaker 2: like love. Uh, and uh, it was just so huge.
Speaker 2: It felt like the spirit had left the room. That
Speaker 2: the battle was over, and what I realized was he
Speaker 2: had waited for his parents to leave so I could
Speaker 2: be with him at the end.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: I think that was his greatest That was the greatest
Speaker 2: gift really to allow me that last moment.
Speaker 3: A few years after Joe passed away, Larry was struck
Speaker 3: by the question how do I preserve his legacy? In
Speaker 3: San Francisco. An opportunity arose in the mid nineties to
Speaker 3: create a national memorial for the lies loss to AIDS.
Speaker 3: It would be called the AIDS Memorial Grove and would
Speaker 3: be a ten acre plot located in San Francisco's famous
Speaker 3: Golden Gate Park. At the heart of the grove would
Speaker 3: be a terrace where thousands of names of people lost
Speaker 3: to AIDS would be chiseled into the ground in the
Speaker 3: shape of a spiral.
Speaker 2: It took me two years degree past Joe. I couldn't,
Speaker 2: you know, I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't date. I couldn't.
Speaker 2: I couldn't even see it. I just couldn't see it.
Speaker 2: I didn't have any desire, so I really really went
Speaker 2: into I worked and I just did not go out.
Speaker 2: And then uh, I became an activist, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: what Joe did for me is he ignited something because
Speaker 2: I was out and now I was really out and
Speaker 2: what my goal was to fight AIDS. I joined the
Speaker 2: board of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and that was
Speaker 2: really you know, it was that was when people were
Speaker 2: dying left and right. People would go on the board
Speaker 2: and die, you know, a year later, you know. So
Speaker 2: it was a very It was an epicenter of AIDS
Speaker 2: at the time. But what really was my favorite, what
Speaker 2: really tells it ties us all together, is I heard
Speaker 2: about that in Golden Gate Park they were going to
Speaker 2: they were going to think of building a grove called
Speaker 2: the A's Memorial Grove to memorialize those who had died
Speaker 2: of AIDS. And that really struck me because I thought
Speaker 2: to myself, be a permanent place of remembrance, and also
Speaker 2: it's a place of regeneration and growth, because they were
Speaker 2: taking a grove that had gone to disrepair years ago
Speaker 2: and was overgrown, that we're going to clean it out
Speaker 2: and rebuild it and have some kind of a memorial.
Speaker 2: So I jumped into that, helped build a grove we have.
Speaker 2: Joe's name was a first name put in the grove
Speaker 2: and It's something that we go back to occasionally just
Speaker 2: to remember. And so that was really meaningful.
Speaker 3: How do you remember Joe?
Speaker 4: Larry?
Speaker 2: Oh Lord? I keep Joe alive through a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff in my house, the stuff we had together. You know,
Speaker 2: his sister's older sister and I are still dear friends.
Speaker 2: We connect on a regular basis. His parents have since died.
Speaker 2: I have pictures that I now have my laptop that
Speaker 2: come up occasionally. I mean, I have remembrances. So he's
Speaker 2: just honored in stories like this. Why do I do this?
Speaker 2: Why am I doing this with you? I'm honoring him.
Speaker 2: You know, he lives on and he's he's his his
Speaker 2: courage gave me courage, which has changed a lot of lies.
Speaker 2: So his his legacy was passed on in my acts,
Speaker 2: and that will be my legacy as well. So they're
Speaker 2: really combined.
Speaker 3: But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolves. New
Speaker 3: episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
Speaker 3: to tell your story, email us at but We Loved
Speaker 3: at gmail dot com, or send us a message on
Speaker 3: Instagram or TikTok at but We Loved. We are a
Speaker 3: production of the Outspoken podcast Network and iHeart podcasts, but
Speaker 3: We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers
Speaker 3: Areshena Ozaki, Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our.
Speaker 3: Executive producers are Me and Maya Howard. Original music by
Speaker 3: Steve Bone special thanks to Jay Bronson and Roquel Willis.
Speaker 3: If you loved this episode, leave us a rating and
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Speaker 3: for listening. I'll see you next week.