Like a Love Story(37)

“The Lord be with you,” O’Connor says.

“And with your spirit,” the room responds. All except our row. We’re not playing this game. We’re not going to do his call-and-response and eat his tasteless wafer. We’re here on a mission, to get ideas about how to invade this space and open people’s eyes to the church’s complicity in our deaths. The mass is long and boring. In his homily, O’Connor makes multiple references to protecting “the unborn,” and I can feel the WHAM! woman’s blood boiling. It’s amazing how gung ho he is about saving the lives of fetuses, but then he turns a blind eye to all the actual humans DYING right in front of him.

When it comes time to take communion, we decide to head out.

But I’m not ready to leave. Not when I turn and see the prayer candles waiting to be lit. There’s a suggested donation to light a candle, but I know that God isn’t about money exchanging hands to make wishes come true. And I know that I don’t believe in a God who can grant wishes, but if there’s even a chance that such a God exists, then I have some wishes that I’d like granted. I figure making a wish is like an insurance policy, and so I close my eyes and light a candle.

I want to wish for Reza to come back to me, but that will be next. That can’t be my first wish, not when I’m surrounded by death. Not when Stephen looks so weak. So I wish for Stephen to get better, for a miracle drug to become available before his time is up, for the color to return to his skin and for the weight to return to his body. I light the candle and watch the wick come alive.

And then the next wish. Another candle lit. This wish, for AIDS to be cured entirely. Not just for Stephen to survive, but for every person with AIDS to be cured. And for all the queer kids like me to get to fall in love without fear looming over us like the spires of this cathedral.

And now, another candle. This one is for Reza. I close my eyes as I light the candle, and I imagine him across from me. I’m wishing for you, I tell him in my fantasy. I’m asking a God I don’t even believe in to make you mine. And I think the only reason I’m having these doubts about God’s existence is you. That feeling of connection I had with you, it made me feel, I don’t know . . . that there must be something bigger than us. It made me feel that maybe there is a God. So I’m asking God, and all those angels and saints that I don’t believe in either, to make you love me, and to watch over you, and to make you happy, but most of all to make you mine.

I open my eyes. I feel a presence around me.

Is it Reza? Is it Andy Warhol? Is it God?

Nope, it’s that unbearably chipper woman who greeted us at the door.

“You made a lot of prayers,” she says, as she places five bucks in the donation box and lights a candle herself. As she reaches her arm toward a back candle, the gust from her arm extinguishes one of my candles. Which one was it, the one for Stephen, the one for AIDS, or the one for Reza? I don’t even know. My heart speeds up. Is this God sending me a sign?

The woman’s wick stays lit. “It was a beautiful homily, wasn’t it?” she asks me.

“Sure,” I say, and quickly scurry away.

Outside, Stephen, Jimmy, and the rest wait for me at the corner, already engaged in heated debate about what to do next. Some want this protest to be more peaceful, less in-your-face, because if they offend too many people, their message could get lost. Others want it to be even more aggressive and bold, because their target is so aggressive and bold. “Let’s not argue now,” Stephen says. “These are just ideas. They need to be discussed at the meeting.”

“A word of advice,” the WHAM! woman says. “Whatever you do, don’t become divided. If there’s one lesson I’ve learned from the women’s health movement, it’s that you need to build a true coalition. If you show them that you’re divided, creating change will be close to impossible. They’ll just play you against each other.”

Those words echo in my mind as Stephen, Jimmy, and I separate from the group and head toward downtown. It’s a beautiful day, the winter sun shines on us, the air crisp and fresh. I love early winter in the city, before the snow turns to slush, before the cold has been with us so long that we’re collectively frozen into a stupor. Come to think of it, I love the beginning of every season. Everything feels more vital, more exciting, when it’s new.

“Shall we walk downtown?” Stephen asks. “While we still can.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jimmy says. “I’ll probably make it a few blocks before I run out of breath.”

Stephen locks his arm into Jimmy’s. “Come on, strength in numbers. We’re not dead yet.”

Stephen and Jimmy lead the way downtown. I walk behind them, just like Reza walked behind me that night after I gave him the flower. I pull my camera up to my eye and snap a photo of them from behind as they walk.

“Two widows,” Jimmy says. “Who would’ve thought?”

“Maybe José and Walt are watching us right now,” Stephen says.

“I doubt it,” Jimmy says. “If there is an afterlife, Walt is too busy drinking martinis with Bette Davis to be watching over me. He was done with me.”

“Don’t say that—he was not done with you,” Stephen says. Then he adds, “Maybe he’s huddled up with Walt Whitman, commiserating over how they hated the name Walter.”