I REMEMBER TOM
I REMEMBER TOM
At twenty-one, I was a die-hard romantic in a relationship. It was the equivalent of marriage when matrimony and civil unions were not legal or legitimate options for queer men and women. The nuances of gay identity and gender roles puzzled me, and I did not understand the compulsion to attach labels to everything. Why was gay life demonized and misrepresented by a willingness to engage in casual sex? Why were we permanently reduced to our sexuality?
My partner and I refrained from using terms such as "queer," "lovers," "coming out," "outed," or "in the closet" when disclosing our sexual orientation to friends, family or broader humanity. We repudiated the hard-core gay identity with its clichés, preconceptions and stereotypes elaborated and defined by "straight" people. It would take years to value my sexuality as part of my identity.
My mother and stepfather were enlightened and accepting when I announced I had met someone special. After a year of living together, we received tasteful, Krosno fluted champagne glassware from my parents in place of a wedding gift. We picked out stunning Medici-inspired wallpaper for our Princess Avenue living room walls and oversized black and white chickens on vermillion-flocked wallpaper for the kitchen. We both liked to cook, and my inamorato bought me an old oak dining room table with matching chairs to entertain properly. I was working and commuting by train to Toronto, cooking at the Vineyard, one of the city's first wine bars. Returning to our home, one of our wolfhounds did not enjoy being alone for long periods and retaliated by chewing the wooden dining room table legs.
With the realization love did not mean a state of ever-lasting enthusiasm and fidelity, I was devastated to discover my firmly rooted sense of romantic love delusional and my partner unfaithful. It took me years to reconcile my unrequited love, and I would not abandon my romantic self-deception for a mindset of apathy or regret. After three years, we parted amicably. I stayed friends with him and his new partner, whom he met at a dinner party we were attending. They have remained part of my extended family.
TOM
Tom and I had been dating for almost a year. Our relationship was full of promise, and I was reluctant to label the long-distance union in the conventional sense. I was thirty-one years old, fiercely independent and living a semi-bohemian life in downtown Toronto. I would instead go to a library or film than a nightclub or Pride parade and seldom went to the gay village on Church Street.
Life was more conventional with Tom. I grew accustomed to seeing him on days off or when time or unforeseen circumstances allowed me to travel to London, Ontario or vice versa. In the infancy of our courtship, we planned intimate adventures, such as an overnight shopping trip to Buffalo, a weekend in Niagara Falls or an overnight stay in Bayfield. On a foray to Buffalo, Tom bought me a leather bomber jacket to replace one stolen from the cloakroom at a popular gay dance bar in London known as the Halo Club.
We are seated in an Italian restaurant in London, Ontario. Tom and I ate Caesar salad, prepared tableside by Vito, and the best deep-fried panzerotti oozing with mozzarella, mushrooms and tomato sauce I have tasted. Tom liked to woo me with regular Friday night dates and introduced me to unfamiliar restaurants I was unlikely to try. On my initial visit to Vito's Cave, with its charming grotto motif and large picture window facing busy Hamilton Road, we were seated at the back of the restaurant by the miniature waterfall. Chianti bottle candle holders drip wax, and the tables draped with red or blue checkered cloths provide an old-world ambience. Vito's became one of our regular haunts and one of Tom's favourite restaurants. Vito hailed from Bari, Italy and is reputed to have introduced pizza to the city in the late 1950s. Discussing events of our busy week, we lingered over specialty coffees.
Our other favourite restaurant was Mykonos, on Adelaide Street. In those days, the restaurant had seating for only a few tables at the entrance. We loved the irrepressible proprietors, Heidi and Bill. Our favourites were crispy battered halibut and chips, pasticcio, moussaka and the theatrics of saganaki torched with flaming ouzo. Being hugged and feted by Heidi and having our coffee grounds intuitively divined and fortunes prophesized by an in-house coffee reader was an added inducement.
I introduced Tom to the strip of The Danforth known as Toronto's Greektown and Queen West, a collection of up-and-coming neighbourhoods named after the thoroughfare. I dined with Tom at culinary hot spots such as the American Grill, Glossop's, Lolita's Lust and Joe Allen's. When I was trying to broaden his culinary repertoire, he loved to order a hamburger deluxe in an expensive restaurant to annoy me. We would stop at Brothers on Yonge Street, next to the Church of Scientology, with Formica tables and vinyl booth bench seating for calf's liver with caramelized onions and mashed potatoes. Two brothers whose last names differed because of the phonetic spelling a government official wrote for one when they moved to Canada operated the restaurant. A framed restaurant review posted in the front window stated, "All the reviewer wanted was a simple chicken sandwich."
Like many single gay men of our generation, our mutual introduction came by matchmaking dinner party couples with barely-concealed agendas. A critical aspect of civilized gay culture was the ambiguous dinner party soiree. The crucial ingredients for success were plenty of alcohol, witty banter, bitchy observations and lots of blatant sexual innuendo. Gay couples assembled these soirees to size up potential friends, compatible couples, lovers, and one-night stands. The best way to meet other gay people was through other like-minded individuals.
The first time I met Tom was at the home of friends of friends. Tom made eye contact across the table and kept trying to draw me deeper into a conversation. We talked for a long time. An animated conversationalist, he was attractive in a virile way with a responsive smile and a booming laugh. He seemed to appreciate my dry wit, and there was palpable chemistry and instinctive camaraderie. Neither of us was a dinner party circuit contender nor a genuine enthusiast of the genre. That initial rapport established our bond.
That same evening, Tom grabbed a filtered cigarette from his pack and told me about his fearless, enthusiastic companion Dan, a small, dependent West Highland white terrier. Dan was gradually going blind and resented interlopers. Overly communicative, Dan expressed his objections and frustrations with a distinctive bark or howl for every mood. It was becoming harder for him to differentiate between night and day. Dan needed help finding his food dish, water bowl, stuffed bear and other familiar objects. Tom was devoted to making sure his quality of life did not suffer.
Tom's bright appearance and buttoned-down demeanour belied his twenty-eight years. Our relationship ran hot and lukewarm. There was a reluctance to disclose our authentic selves. Common sense and the absence of undeclared commitment tempered our relationship. We were companionable and enjoyed the other's company.
In retrospect, we were clinging to unresolved anger and collateral damage from trauma-filled childhoods and previous relationships. It was never smooth sailing; it would take years of introspection and analysis to realize why. After months of dating, I told myself we were too different in temperament and discernment. With no definitive plan for where we were heading, we continued down a tepid path of least resistance despite differences.
A consummate pot smoker, Tom preferred a well-rolled joint and a bottle of beer over the civility of a well-made highball or glass of wine. Arguments and recriminations about excessive boozing and pot smoking with his brother and a coterie of stoners and hangers-on from high school days at his house were at the core of my objections.
A YEAR LATER
As the early rush-hour traffic passed on a cold December morning, a great horn owl with enormous yellow eyes hunkered down on the tree outside the dining room window. Was it boding awful news? The owl's presence felt like an omen or spiritual oracle.
Tom arrived on the red-eye from Rochester, New York, where he purchased grand pianos and vintage uprights to restore and retail as a sideline. These were affordable and serviceable keyboards one might buy for a potential fan. A talented piano and pipe organ technician, Tom's expertise was in high demand, and he was hesitating about opening a showroom. Tom picked me up at my apartment attached to the upscale northern Italian restaurant, One of One, which I managed. It was a few blocks from the CITY-MuchMusic building, the cultural pulse and hub of Toronto's youthful media scene at John and Adelaide Street.
On this occasion, we were in his new Chevy Cavalier wagon, and Tom was driving a busier-than-usual stretch of the 401 en route to London. I was and still am a backseat driver replete with sound effects and pressing my foot down on an imaginary brake pedal. It was Christmas Eve day. We were listening to George Michael's tape, Faith, on cassette but switched to the radio. Brenda Lee was singing, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. My mood was expansive.
We had just passed the iconic orange and blue Schneiders billboard beacon of the smiling, blue-eyed, blond-haired Dutch Girl in the winged white bonnet perched on a hill along Highway 401 in Puslinch, and I remember commenting on it.
Once we were out of heavy traffic, Tom suddenly became pensive and severe. "I'm HIV positive," he announced. "I am taking meds, and my doctor says I have a healthy T-cell count and the virus is virtually undetectable. There is nothing for you to worry about."
He sounded unconvincing and rehearsed. It was the kind of justification you might repeat over and over, a hundred times in your head, until you get it perfect. Without proper context, his confession was unfathomable, seeming to come out of nowhere. There had been no opportunity to choose whether or not to assume the risk of exposure to the virus. It was a conflicting, painful dissolution of the trust.
Tom said, "I went to the walk-in clinic to be tested and treated for a sexually-transmitted infection and was diagnosed with HIV."
Infected by his former partner, he would later disclose he was living with HIV for several years.
"I was unable to reveal my diagnosis because, at first, I was in denial, uncertain about the consequences," Tom disclosed, "I was humiliated. The stigma was too much. We were careful, and it did not occur to me that there was the remotest possibility I might unintentionally transmit the virus to you."
Nauseated, the knot in the pit of my stomach was overwhelming. A sickening betrayal and incandescent outrage replaced any empathy or understanding of Tom's dilemma. The initial frenetic impulse was to open the door and jump out of the fast-moving car. There was little I could do but roll down the car window and breathe in the harsh reality. Such deception was unfathomable, difficult to penetrate or even comprehend. Foreboding, illness and death hung over me like an ambient threat. My focus changed instantly and irrevocably at that moment. Actor Rock Hudson became the first prominent public figure to die of AIDS-related complications that year.
8 YEARS LATER
In June, I returned from the island of Sark in the Channel Islands to Winchester to rendezvous with friends visiting from Canada. I moved in with my friend John in his terraced flat that overlooked Winchester Cathedral. The summer was uncharacteristically damp and dull, with persistent rain. The poor weather left me with time to journal and respond to a steady and prodigious stream of correspondence I have kept for thirty years.
Winchester Cathedral is the resting place of the English novelist Jane Austen, among other notable luminaries, many of them royalty. Consecrated in 1093, the medieval Cathedral was celebrating its 900th anniversary with restrained fanfare. The festivities included a highly anticipated return of Benedictine monks and nuns. Despite my low spirits, I visited the Cathedral daily as there was no admission, and I was fascinated by its gravitas and history.
High-speed trains made inaugural journeys from France to England via the Chunnel beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover that summer. The biggest news story was the announcement of the separation of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales. The Maastricht Treaty was about to come into force and establish the European Union. Queen Elizabeth had spoken about her 'Annus Horribilis' a few months earlier, and I was suffering my version.
Before I left Canada for England, my beloved maternal grandmother had died. I sold my house and La Cucina, the restaurant I co-owned with my parents. A few months later, in February, my long-time friend Catherine, a primary school French teacher in Stratford, was shot at close range and murdered by her husband. The families had been close friends. Catherine and her husband had recently separated. He was facing a charge of first-degree murder that would inexplicably reduce to manslaughter. Her mother wrote to thank me for my sympathy letter and to tell me about the two services put on by her friends in Stratford and Toronto. There was also an exceptional singer who sang 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' with a guitar accompanying.
Grieving, I went to the Cathedral, dedicated to numerous saints, to take in the enormous antiquity and solemnity, light votive candles and stand in quiet contemplation and Memoriam for Catherine and my grandmother.
Tom started sending me regular correspondence focussing on his declining health. His immune system was becoming progressively weaker he had developed a persistent, dry cough. Tom could no longer tolerate alcohol and stopped drinking and was wearing a nicotine patch to curb his cravings and withdrawal. He had stopped smoking. His lymph glands became swollen, and he could no longer mask the pain.
My younger brother Gary and two of my close friends, Gary Johnson and Daryl Bray were battling AIDS simultaneously. The disease was attacking some people more rapidly than others and bombarding them with one impediment and opportunistic infection after another. The vilification of HIV/ AIDS as the gay plague, brought on by anonymous, obsessive sex, by the media turned gay men into pariahs. HIV/ AIDS ravaged gay men at staggering rates.
In September, Tom revealed he was an incest victim. By his recollection, his father started sexually abusing him when he was seven. Flashbacks and anxiety attacks overwhelmed him, and he could no longer repress the emerging memories. It was difficult to confront the pain and anguish. Tom wrote about his spiritual crisis, dissociation, deep shame and the guilt of being repeatedly victimized. The trauma of his family relocating eight times in fourteen years and having to attend eight different schools and make new friends each time made for excruciating reading.
Whenever someone discovered his father's elusive predatory behaviour, the easiest solution was to move the whole family and start over from scratch. His father was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for 18 months after a boarder discovered him abusing Tom. When he was released, Tom's father resumed his façade of feigned respectability. Denying any wrongdoing, he continued to refuse to apologize or be held accountable for his egregious behaviour. The dichotomy of feelings between the father Tom loved and the perpetrator he hated was unbearable. Tom's letters became more coherent, detailed, graphic and disturbing.
Tom confronted his parents about the sexual abuse he endured. Reacting violently to his allegations, they reciprocated by attacking his credibility and accusing him of lying and betraying the family. They refused to discuss the matter with him or his brother and threatened to disown him and move away.
He had counted on his mother's support and love and felt abandoned. He questioned his mother's role as a bystander, playing a pivotal part in aiding the sexual abuse by sheltering his father. He did not understand why she did not do something to stop it. He remembered she was concerned enough to take him to a child psychiatrist, but he has no recollection of what happened. There were fears of reprisal, and physical and emotional retaliation was his father's deterrent and coercive strategy. His father counted on his wife's shame not to risk the threat of exposure and humiliation or make the situation any worse.
Tom's medical problems became more frequent and challenging to treat. His immune system was severely compromised. He developed thrush and a mass in his left testicle the size of a pea, which he neglected to mention to his doctor. He was smoking again and convinced the tiny lump was cancerous. Large patches of itchy and dry skin developed on his legs, with an intensity ranging from endurable to intolerable. He wore cotton gloves to stop scratching before the wounds started to bleed and become infected.
To prevent tuberculosis, his doctor prescribed a new medication called Rifabutin. His doctor administered a cocktail of antiretroviral drugs, and the virus temporarily did an about-face. Soon after, he began smoking pot again to regain his lost appetite. He was starting to lose weight and muscle tone. A cocktail of antiretroviral drugs reversed the condition,
Afraid of losing mobility and independence, Tom's illness took a financial toll on him. The doctors suggested homecare, daily visits from nurses, homemakers and Meals on Wheels. They assured him there were government-assisted AIDS facilities and he would not die alone on the streets. When they were still speaking, his parents made it clear they were in no position to attempt such a fraught undertaking as caring for him.
He asked if I would consider rooming with an AIDS-stricken piano technician and his blind dog.
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