By CARLOS MARTÍN GAEBLER
“Our words are a kind of rescue team on a relentless mission to save past events and extinguished lives from the black hole of oblivion.” (Jón Kalman Stefánsson)
“Our words are a kind of rescue team on a relentless mission to save past events and extinguished lives from the black hole of oblivion.” (Jón Kalman Stefánsson)
I have always
wondered if my craving for friends has something to do with my being raised the
only boy in a rather dysfunctional family. I bet it has. Friends have always
played an essential role in my life; having loving friends has somehow compensated
for my family’s shortcomings, a circumstance that not all of my friends have
been aware of. Now that I have turned 60, I feel the time has come to look back
and celebrate the lives of those loving friends I have lost. They were all very
dear to me and they certainly contributed, in one way or another, to the man I
am today. These few sketches are about their lives and about our friendship,
seven unplugged friendships from the non-digital era, which are now going to
live on forever in cyberspace. This is my own private Paradise Lost.
After spending my
first two semesters at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Craig
Dorm, a residence hall for graduate students, the time had come to look for
alternative accommodation. A Portuguese colleague of mine at the Department of
Romance Languages happened to know of a friend of his who was looking for a new
flatmate at A7 University Gardens, and that is how good-natured, warm-hearted Ritchie Hazil Bennett (1956-1984) came
into my life in late August 1981. We hit it off and became friends straight
away. Bennett –he wanted to be called by his surname– was a nurse at the burn unit of Duke hospital. He would give me a ride to 42nd Street disco on Friday nights for our weekly socializing and dancing with other
guys, as there was no gay club in small-town Chapel Hill.
One of the
sweetest memories I have of our living together is sharing the luxury of
reading The New York Times, which I
had subscribed to, on Sundays. I remember waiting every Sunday to hear the
familiar thump of TNYT being chucked
against our apartment door. I now regret never having taken a picture of the
huge bulk of all the supplements folded together lying on our doorstep (just
imagine piling up four or five editions of the current The Guardian on Sunday
and you will get the picture). 
Juan Vicente Muñoz Martínez (1960-2002) was a straight friend who never
bullied me during my adolescence, as other straight boys had. We had met after
the evening booster classes at the German School in the mid 1970s. We lived in
the same neighbourhood, and we both shared a passion for tennis (he was a very
gifted player) and art (Juanvi being a fervent admirer of Dali’s work and boutades).
His lifetime
motto was: “Freedom is like the horizon;
whether you approach it or you get away from it, it always remains at the same
distance.” I was genuinely struck by his aura, as he was an uncompromisingly free individual, and a constant
source of inspiration in my life at the time. He sparked in me the curiosity to
read Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha and Steppenwolf. In our discussions (Juanvi was a quick-witted, incisive conversationalist), we enjoyed putting the world to rights. My anti-fascism must have started to
take shape under his wing in those years. Juanvi was a victim of machismo, as he was shot dead in the street by a man after reproaching him for verbally abusing a woman. The killer was later arrested and convicted.
In resourceful
Junavi I found a role model to look up to. Had I had the balls he had, I would
have spared myself endless years of closeted suffering until I finally summoned
up courage to come out at 22. In the spring of 1976, right before the end of my
first year at university, I had the chance to spend an academic year in the US
with an AFS grant program, just as Juanvi had done a year earlier in Pana,
Illinois. I remember there was a young university student at the AFS
suitability interview who might have been a couple of years older than me and
had already spent a year abroad with the same program. At one point, he asked
me maliciously if I preferred to look at an art book with pictures of classic
male nude sculptures to a copy of Playboy displaying photos of naked women.
Evidently startled by the question (it must have been the first time I had
looked at institutionalized homophobia in the face), I answered with the truth
and was proud of myself, but I wasn’t given the grant to travel to the USA at
that time. I would still have to wait five more years for the biggest leap of my life.
I felt attracted
to beautiful Dan Patrick Moseley
(1960-1994) the second I met him in Seville in the summer of 1981, right after
my first year at UNC. He looked like the quintessential good, all-American boy. I loved his eternal smile, presided over
by his gorgeous long eyelashes, the intoxicating scent of boy, his charming southern accent, and his captivating aura. He was literally in love with life, and his ever-smiling face
said it all. He was a modern-time Peter Pan given over to pleasures, so to
speak.
He came from a hard-line, conservative North Carolina family to whom he was not out at
the time. Straight-acting, self-conscious Dan was never comfortable displaying
affection in public (he didn’t allow me to put my arm on his shoulders in this
photo on the beach), but he was a knowledgeable lover indoors. I wish Dan and I
had been proper boyfriends.
He showed real
enthusiasm for my doctoral dissertation on American gay-themed fiction (which I dedicated to
him), and he kindly sent me several books for my literary research, among them
his own dog-eared copy of the classic The
Front Runner, a story which I continue to find gripping
and stimulating. When he visited me in Spain in 1991, he brought me a lovely
framed print by Kip Gerard of the arts Varsity cinema in Chapel Hill, a gift I
have always treasured.
He wrote me a
very honest letter announcing he had been diagnosed HIV positive and he explained
how he was trying to cope with it. As we know, there was no medical treatment
for AIDS at the time, but Dan kept in good
spirits notwithstanding. He died among family and friends in 1994 in North
Carolina.
My friend David Franklin McCarn (1959-2000)
belonged to a brilliant generation of young American scientists, writers,
historians and artists who was literally swept away by the AIDS epidemic during the 1990s. He was a microbiologist, and
between 1989 and 1990 he co-authored several research works (some while affiliated with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute).
When I was doing
my field research on gay-themed American fiction at NYU, professor George
Stambolian, who kindly guided me through the process, warned me of the fact
that many of the writers I was interviewing in NYC that summer of 1987 would
soon die, as they were all HIV positive, and that deadly premonition fulfilled
itself a few years later. Today’s historians have a job ahead of them to
document the lives of so many gay men of excellence who, like Robert Ferro,
Vito Russo, Keith Haring or professor Stambolian himself, to name just a few,
perished in their prime before modern medicine could help save
their lives.
I remember
meeting tall, butch-looking David at a social do in Chapel Hill, and we spent
that same night together at my place. We took an instant liking to each other, and
became good friends and writing pals after that. He was remarkably articulate,
and his letters were beautiful pieces of writing, overflowing with honesty and
tenderness. I still enjoy reading them immensely after all these years.
I truly prized my
friendship with Julián Iñesta Mena
(1965-1992). I met him on the dance floor of Centro’s, the local hip spot during the “Movida” years in Seville, on Saturday, April 14th,1984
(on the anniversary of the Spanish Republic, one of my most cherished dates on
the calendar). While dancing, he asked me if I wanted to have a sip of his beer; I didn’t hesitate a second. That sip inaugurated
eight years of friendship.
I fondly remember
once when we ran into each other outside the university office where I work,
and kissing each other hello on the lips, right there, in front of everybody. I
was so proud of him (and of us). How elegantly Julián carried himself. I also remember both of us having dinner together and listening to the radio on November 9th, 1989, the historical night the Berlin Wall fell at long last. What a relief we felt!
I couldn’t
believe my eyes when I was recently shown a photo of Julián Iñesta Jr., his brother
Eduardo’s son. His nephew is now 19 years old, and the spitting image of his
uncle at his age. The wonders of DNA replication.
Looking back, in
a way, by insisting that I get tested regularly for HIV, Julián saved my life,
for I learned to look after myself and play safe. If I have survived the AIDS epidemic, it is partly due to him wanting to protect me. Thank you, babe.
It took me for
ages to hear from my friend Keith
Douglas Pruitt (1960-2008) again. For a long time, I just couldn’t remember
where I had written down his surname. Until only just recently I remembered it was
listed together with all the phone numbers of my old friends from North
Carolina. I knew that, being such a distinctive surname, it wouldn’t be hard to
find it online. And that is exactly what happened when I googled him, but
tragedy took over the screen when I saw the word “Obituary” springing up next
to his full name. I was in shock upon learning of the terrible news of his
death at 47 in New York City. He had been found dead in his Greenwich Village
apartment on November 12, 2008. Autopsy reports indicated that he had choked to
death. He had been treated for esophagus problems stemming from a home fire in
which he had been badly injured the previous year.
Keith and I
became dancing buddies at 42nd
Street, the gay disco in the Durham area which we both attended every
Friday or Saturday night during the school year. We would spend hours boogying
bare-chested on the dance floor, sweating to the disco beat. Out on the
dance floor, Keith was something to behold. He was all smiles, friendliness and good
vibes, the all-round good guy. We would jump on the dance floor every time the
hit Celebration came on. We were
celebrating our freedom as two gay kids who had just recently come out and
literally wanted to have the cake and eat it.
I remember
phoning him for a farewell at his family home in Annandale, Virginia, right
before leaving UNC in May 1983. After that, I lost track of him (there was no
internet then). After he graduated, he started a multi-faceted career as a composer,
piano player, and actor. I was blown away when
I saw him on screen starring as the lead singer of The Lafayettes in John Waters 1988 production of Hairspray.
In 1994, while he
and his boyfriend were holding hands on a Greenwich Village street, they were
savagely beaten by three homophobes who shouted anti-gay insults as they beat
them with golf clubs. Keith took them to court and participated fully in the
prosecution of the criminals, which resulted in their being convicted and sent
to prison. Sadly, they were released a while ago. May these lines be a celebration
of his life, his talent, and his courage.
Wholesome, warm-hearted Anthony James Adinolfi (1951-2017),
Tony for all of us, exerted an enlightening influence on me. I met this
vocational nurse at the Carolina Gay Association, the place I timidly
approached (I was still closeted) as soon as I arrived in North Carolina. And
it proved the best option to start socializing among gay peers. As soon as we
met, he took me under his wing, introduced me to the volunteers who made up the
staff of CGA, and pointed out books to check out. Tony’s reading assignments
included the book The Joy of Gay Sex.
Co-authored by doctor Charles Silverstein and writer Edmund White, it
advertised itself as a sex manual and
sympathetic advisor to confirmed and neophyte gays, and I was certainly one
of the latter. Here was a book at last about my own self, offering me the
sexual education that neither my parents nor my country’s puritanical
educational system ever gave me. Soon after gulping it down, I was in love with
my first boyfriend, Bill Matlock. I was so overjoyed that I came out to my
parents over a transatlantic phone call, ha, ha, ha!
I tried to track
him down on the internet for years because I missed his vibes and his
affection, but to no avail. Suddenly, I came across his obituary and was
devastated. Luckily, I managed to find Tony’s husband’s name and was able to
contact him after so many years and send him my condolences. I so wish the
internet had existed in the 80s and 90s, which would have assured me the gift of
his friendship across the Atlantic.
I reckon that, in
a way, these are the memories of a survivor who was fortunate to meet a
generation of men who cultivated their inner beauty, who had no need to
customize their bodies, take steroids, tattoo their skin, shave their body
hair, or pluck their eyebrows, to be beautiful human beings.
The greatest gift
you can give anyone is your undivided attention, and that was the case among
us. They were all articulate and honest expressing their feelings in writing, as
their letters on paper show. We all used to communicate by telephone and by
post, those nearly extinct forms of human communication nowadays. I have
nostalgia for that era. I feel melancholy and lonely without them. I miss their
letters and their conversations, I miss their brains, I miss their joie de vivre. I miss them all, because
the friends I choose are family to me.
If there is an
afterlife, we shall meet up again and have another dance or a few more laughs;
if not, it was a pleasure meeting you guys. See you down the road. cmg2019
