Steve
When I was a brand new college hire at digital equipment corporation in New Hampshire, the Co-operative Education Office in the company asked me if I would help represent the company at a minority student job fair being held at Georgia Tech. The company remained lily-white despite their non-discrimination policy because they couldn't get students of color to move to New England, where most of the company was headquartered.
I jumped at the chance to do a little travel on the company. I had to buy a decent pair of dress shoes, but I went. As I prepared to go, I put a message out on GDE asking for any Gay Digital Employee in the Atlanta area to give me the name of any gay establishment so I could find the local gay community while I was there.
GDE was a company-wide electronic forum in which gay employees could leave messages for each other. It was the backbone of a large, out, gay population within the company. Gay employees could find each other and discuss issues both burning and trivial.
Steve saw my message and wrote back to me, offering not just the whereabouts of the local gay establishments but also an invitation to dinner. I accepted gladly. I wondered what he'd be like and if I would like him, but decided to do it anyway for the adventure of it.
Steve had me call him when I got to town. He knew the hotel near the campus where I was staying and said he was bringing a friend to join us from dinner, a man named Henry Hearns. I got a little nervous as I waited for them: was this a smart move, letting two guys I don't know come to my hotel room in a strange city?
My fears were quickly allayed as he and Henry arrived and got out of the car. I immediately recognized Steve as a fellow gay nerd, with his nerd glasses and small but solid build. They arrived on time that rainy night, we exchanged pleasantries and quickly drove off for dinner at The Gallus restaurant (which is now gone; the entire building burned to the ground several years ago.)
The restaurant was completely gay: gay clientele, gay bartender, gay waiters. I hadn't been to many (any?) gay restaurants before and I loved that we could just be ourselves completely. We ordered wine and talked and giggled and talked and giggled the night away. Steve and Henry and I developed a long and tight bond that night.
| Steve loved Bette Midler,
and he was particularly fond of the Sophie Tucker jokes she would tell
as part of her act. This one never failed to get a giggle when he recited
it:
" I was in bed with my boyfriend Ernie last night when he says to me:
|
He called the Airport Embassy Suites several times, asking if Jeff Ford had checked in. During the last call they dramatically told him:
Pandemonium ensued. Ed and Mike were enthralled: no one ever called me "Miss" anything before! (Of course, the nickname stuck.) We giggled and screamed into the night. We tore that hotel up. We took advantage of every amenity: we swam in the heated indoor pool and the heated outdoor pool every day. We played Drag Queen Pool during happy hour. We used the complimentary hotel limosine to go to and from the nearest gay bar. In short, Steve became our partner in crime and the four of us enjoyed the trip immensely. My love for Atlanta and Steve was sealed.
The following year I was given the opportunity to attend SIG/Graph, a computer graphics industry convention being held in Atlanta that year. For this trip, I actually stayed with Steve. He opened his apartment in Ford Factory Square to me. We even shared his bed, sleeping together sexlessly, like sisters. During the day I would attend the convention, and at night we would either go out or just stay up late and talk. I knew by then that I could live in Atlanta, and that I wanted to eventually move to Atlanta.
Three years later, I finally moved, and Steve was my first friend in Atlanta. He invited me to join his Sunday brunch group. Steve, Mehboob, Mark, Chris and I would meet every Sunday at 12:30 at the Pot 'n' Pan after they finished gay bowling. That regular date with its cameraderie helped me get settled quickly in Atlanta.
Steve also worked at my company, in the same office. We worked in different branches---I was tech support and he was sales support--- but he and Henry and I would see each other each Wednesday for lunch offsite. Having friends like Steve and Henry, and the regular things we did helped me get settled and grounded in Atlanta.
Steve had been a counselor at the Atlanta Gay Center. He worked there weekly, counselling people before they gave blood, answering the phone and answering questions about AIDS transmission and testing, and giving people their HIV test results. He had the virus himself for as long as I had known him, and he was always very logical and unemotional about it. Having been trained by the Fulton County Department of Health and through research of his own, he was always educated about the different studies and drugs and he always took care of his health.
I want to write about how Steve died, but I can't seem to make myself. Whenever I sit down to write, my fingers just stop moving. I guess I don't know where to begin.
I was always astounded at the cool, seemingly emotionless way Steve dealt with his HIV status. It was just one of the realities in his life. He never had histrionics around it. If asked, he would patiently explain what was happening, but he didn't let it run his life more than absolutely necessary.
Steve was very healthy right up until the day he died. Since he was an active participant in his health care, doing tons of his own research on opportunistic infections, the drugs and their side effects, he always had the best and most current drugs available at the moment. And if he experienced any of the side effects he would alert his doctor and they would adjust the dosage or change medications altogether.
Talking to Steve about HIV was always fascinating for me because he was infinitely patient with me and would indulge my questions, explaining the various intereactions of the diseases and the drugs used to treat them.
With 20/20 hindsight, I can look back and see the trail of events that led up to his death, though it wasn't a clear trail at the time. It started with a case of diarrhea that wouldn't go away. He and his doctor ran several tests over several months to determine if is was a reaction to the various drugs he was taking or if it might be a parasite of some sort.
Coupled with the diarrhea, Steve self-diagnosed himself as having PCP (Pneumocystis carinii Pneumonia). He talked about it with his doctor but the doctor didn't agree. Steve thought his doctor was wrong, and began doing his own research. After a couple of weeks he found a study that revealed that patients who had been treated with a certain drug didn't develop the normal symptoms if they later developed PCP.
Once Steve showed him this study, the doctor agreed to test his sputum to see if he had PCP, but Steve wasn't able to produce enough sputum to test, so they had to perform an outpatient procedure to get a sample. During the procedure, the doctor applied an anaesthetic that Steve had an allergic reaction to.
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Steve, on his near death experience My friend Matt asked me to ask Steve if he saw a white light during his near death experience. Knowing how disdainful Steve was about those things, I was reluctant to ask him, but I really wanted to hear his answer so I made sure to ask when I visited him. When I asked him, Steve got this conspiratorial tone and laughed and said "You won't believe how many people have asked me that. No, I didn't see a white light! You know what I think? I think people see that white light because they are programmed and they see it because they expect to see it. "But you know what I've been telling people? I tell 'em 'Yeah, I saw a white light, but all of my f*cked up ex-boyfriends were in it so I came running back!" |
On the table, Steve had a seizure and his heart stopped. The doctor was able to revive Steve, but Steve had been unconscious for 6 minutes. 6 minutes!
Someone told me what happened, and I went to West Paces Ferry Medical Center to visit him afterwards. They were keeping him in intensive care for observation during his recovery.
When he was allowed to go home, his sister and his parents were taking care of him and I went to visit. He was in good spirits and told me about the procudure and how he felt about it.
We, his friends, worried about him. Within a week, Steve had another seizure. His eyes rolled back in his head and his heart stopped. Luckily there was someone nearby who was able to revive him.
One Sunday afternoon, long enough after the incident that his friends began to relax and think the worst was over, Steve had another seizure. Luckily he was with someone who could revive him. When he was conscious again, they paged the doctor and went to his office. While Steve was talking to the doctor, he had yet another seizure. The doctor tried unsuccessfully to revive him for several minutes. He was pronounced dead right there at the scene.
We, his friends, were as ready as people can be when a loved one dies. Steve had prepared us and Steve had demonstrated that he was prepared for that inevitability, which forced us to at least pretend we were ready for it as a possibility.
Still, it was so sudden. One day he was here, the next he was gone. When we went to his house we found his will completely prepared and ready in the top level directory of his computer. There was nothing messy or ugly about Steve's death. He was completely prepared.
Steve and I were the same size, so I inhereted some of his clothes. You know, sweatshirts and flannel shirts and even a couple of pairs of boxer shorts. I still wear them. It's an honor to wear the clothes of my dead friends.