Epilogue Two
Jim
Iwas coming up the stairs from the old underground bar portion of the building, not ready for what I have to do. It had been a long year.
I’m physically and emotionally drained.
I stopped on the top step in front of the door that leads to the area that used to be the main entrance, front desk and Stewie’s apartment.
When we didn’t have to hide anymore, Stewie got to work, with the help from Charlie and the money he had been sitting on all these years.
The walls of the apartment were torn down, and it was converted into the main bar with exposed brick along the right side where the desk used to sit, nice stained wood planks along the other, and tin ceiling tiles.
They built an even bigger bar top and space for fun and dancing.
It was needed because The Underground had gotten so popular, Stewie had to start turning people away or when it was finally allowed, lining them up outside until they could be let in.
He moved into one of the larger hotel rooms temporarily until everything was done, saying he didn’t need all that space anyway. After, he just moved into the underground space, since it wasn’t going to be used anymore.
I opened the door and walked into the packed area. The entire floor was standing room only.
It was somber.
It wasn’t lively like it normally was, the music low in volume and soft in beat.
The door opened onto the dance floor which used to be the hallway outside the apartment.
Now it was all one big open space for dancing, with tables and chairs along the walls.
The bar was straight ahead to my left on the wall where the front desk used to be, and a weird bathroom was constructed across from the bar that was merely part of the old hallway blocked in for privacy.
Sensing movement, Charlie looked over and saw me standing there. His shoulders dropped, and tears started to fall. The patrons around and near him turned my way, getting the message.
We knew this was coming. All week we were letting visitors in, when we could, to say goodbye, not wanting to drain everyone’s energy more than it already was. We have lost so many friends already with no end in sight. They have all been hard.
But this one.
I think this might be Charlie and I’s breaking point.
Charlie spoke to Trevor, one of the bartenders that came to cover just in case today was the day.
He’s a good kid, raised within the community.
He jumped behind the bar and Charlie came my way.
Will, John and Mickie were here also. I waved them over as well as Betty, David and a few others that we have collected through time.
We all headed downstairs together, what was left of our small family.
At the bottom and in the now open space was a bedroom set up, a couch and a television.
Laying on the bed, hooked up to an IV was Stewie.
His eyes were closed like he was sleeping, his chest rising not as often as it should.
There was a volunteer nurse here to assist from the PATF, The Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force.
Nurses and doctors would show up through the task force with medical supplies to help those suffering from the disease and any other health related issues it causes.
There is a stigma against our kind, even if we don’t have the thing that is killing us. Most doctors, nurses or medical personnel won’t even come near us unless they are completely covered in protective gear out of fear.
Those that volunteer are our angels, including the lesbian community, who rallied behind us, to gather support. When not enough people stepped up, they did. Some even went to school to become nurses themselves just to help.
When this epidemic started, it branded us worse than we already were. Outing us if we weren’t out yet. Families kicked their loved ones out onto the street with nowhere to go, if it came out they were gay. Especially if they had the disease.
That’s where we came in.
Charlie and Stewie shut down the hotel, made the bigger rooms smaller by constructing walls to split them, money loss be damned. Then they started to take in those that were homeless and needed medical care.
And most importantly, their final resting place.
We made some calls to the PATF to start a partnership with them, as well as a funeral home that was willing to work with us and our low budget.
If we were going to take in those that needed it, we were going to take full responsibility all the way to the end and give these boys the respect they deserved from the start.
The community and city residents that had an actual heart helped by donating money and coming to the bar over other places that were now open, because most of the profit was going to the upstairs, which was dubbed Heaven.
We even started to get a large lesbian crowd, making one night a week specifically for them to plan activities that they would want to do.
All the while, and without knowing, Stewie was getting sick. And he didn’t say anything. It wasn’t until I walked in on him while he was changing his shirt one day, where I saw his visible weight loss, rash spots and small purple blotches over his body.
He contracted the poison.
And by the looks of it, he was already pretty far along.
Stewie said didn’t want anyone to know, not because of the stigma, but because he was the one that was supposed to be taking care of the sick. Not the other way around. Plus, he didn’t want people to think he caught it because he was helping.
We sat down and told Charlie together, Stewie saying he couldn’t do it alone. After I left them holding each other crying, coming back over an hour later still in the same position.
Stewie worked and pushed himself for another three months, even when he said he was so tired, or running a fever. And he kept up until he couldn’t anymore, lasting about a year, too weak to keep working.
He was never alone.
Someone had been with him from the moment he was first told he needed to stay in bed. We all took shifts, playing games, watching VHS movies on the Television, and reading to him when his eyesight started to waver.
Charlie gave him constant updates about what was happening upstairs in the bar, and some of the wild stories that occurred.
They would even reminisce about the old days, the happy times that they experienced together, not only building a home, but a family.
Occasionally, I’d wake in the middle of the night and find Charlie never came home.
The first time it happened, I panicked. I found them together in bed, Charlie holding Stewie, having fallen asleep with the television volume low.
Their bond is that special something everyone hopes for in friendship and family.
But times were challenging too, because life for ‘our kind’ can never have peace.
For instance, the Stonewall incident of 1969 in New York City immediately set off identical raids across the country in other major cities, making the statement that our kind isn’t welcome anywhere, trying to silence our protests and riots elsewhere before they began.
When we finally got raided by the police, two months after Stonewall, a large number of those visiting were arrested, including all the staff and a big portion of our patrons, including David.
He was trying to protect a man the officers were unnecessarily rough housing because of how he looked and dressed, so cuffs were slapped on him for interfering with police.
They laugh about it now, because of course Stewie being– well, Stewie. It turned into more of a spectacle than it should have, saying he didn’t approve of being cuffed unless he was in bed, and only with the right Dom. And kept saying “Red Light” over and over as he was being dragged off.
All this was a mistake, because we came back harder with an uprising that had sparked a global movement.
We even started celebrating the riots in 1973 yearly, with a parade in the city called Pride, Stewie stating, “show all of your colors of who you are and that we are not afraid.” Which was all ironic, because in 1978, someone out of San Francisco created a symbol for us. A rainbow flag.
Stewie was on to something and he didn’t even know it.
It ended up working out, for the most part.
Charlie and Stewie were charged with public nuisance, illegally serving alcohol, serving minors, and disorderly conduct.
The police and the district attorney tried adding more charges including sodomy and jail time for everyone, even patrons, but the judge shut it down, asking if anyone was actually caught in the act.
She fined Stewie and Charlie a thousand dollars each, gave them a slap on the wrist and sent them on their way, while also telling the police behind closed doors to let us be, unless there was real cause of action.
A week after that occurred, the judge showed up to The Underground herself, shocking Stewie stupid.
Her name was Debra, and she wanted to apologize for what she had to do because of being constricted by the law.
She told them that if she was able and when the time was right, she’d assist in making sure they were able to run legally in the future.
When Charlie asked why, she said her young son, Trevor – yep, the same Trevor upstairs – is showing signs he might be gay.
What better way to support him than by supporting the community he may be a part of in the future.
Now, two months after he crawled into that bed for the first time, our family is crowding around Stewie, all of us placing a hand on him. Connecting us to him so he knows he is not alone, even if he’s not really aware. I think they are, just enough until they aren’t with us anymore.
Charlie was on his right side. He laid his head down on the pillow next to Stewie, silently crying.
I could see his lips moving but I couldn’t hear what he was saying until the end, “It’s okay.
We are here, and you are safe. You can go when you want.
” And after a small choking sob, he added, “I love you.” Then kisses Stewie’s blotched and extremely pale face. He held his very thin hand lightly.
It wasn't long after that. Maybe fifteen minutes, when his chest rose for the last time.
We stayed with him for about an hour while we waited for the funeral home to show.
He would go straight there instead of the hospital for final rights, out of precaution.
They just don’t know enough yet about the contagion and refuse to listen to non-medical personnel about our experiences with patients.
They won’t even listen to other certified medical workers. The fear is too great.
Stewie is leaving behind a legacy that will be felt for decades to come, and it is our plan to make sure it lives on, even after us. So that there will always be a place for those to come to either, for fun or for safety.
A month ago, a lawyer had showed up randomly, saying he had an appointment with a Stewart Walker, confusing both Charlie and me.
After confirming, we showed him down to Stewie’s home.
Less than an hour later, he came back up and asked for Charles Campbell.
They sat at one of the tables along the wall for twenty minutes, Charlie wiping tears off his face, shaking his head.
When the lawyer left, I didn’t even wait.
I went and took him in my arms, and let him cry into me until he calmed enough to tell me that Stewie signed over everything into his name.
Including his parents’ old property that he never got rid of after they had passed, keeping it for some reason, while choosing to continue to live at the bar.
We watched as they took Stewie away. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, all holding shots in his memory. If they were within reach of Stewie as he was passing by, people reached out to touch him in one final goodbye.
The fight is nowhere near over.
The fight for our lives to beat this epidemic.
The fight for our rights to love.
The fight to be us.
The fight to be safe.