ABSTRACT
The last person with whom I had sex before leaving The City was a man I'd met at a garage sale, a benefit for the victims of the Folsom Fire; his last name was Cox. He was a big bear of a man, whose furry chest felt very good against my back, and I liked him a lot. He also ran a mail-forwarding service, to which I subscribed, so I heard from him regularly for the next year. Then . . . something happened. I stopped hearing from him. On my next visit back to San Francisco, in glancing through the Bay Area Reporter, which had recently started running obituaries, his name was one of the first ones I saw. I don't remember exactly when that was, but his was the first name that brought home to me that yes, men who I knew were now dying of this disease.
