Asphalt Boogie: Life And Death In Gay L.A.

I opened my eyes and peered around befuddled trying to imprint on something real. Antiseptic white walls displayed office prints of scarlet and olive-green airplanes dueling in leaden skies. Sparkling clear chrome-topped jars filled with cotton balls Band-Aids tongue depressors and unknown shiny instruments that bent the wrong way lined the walls on white Formica counter tops. A clean wide strip of white tissue paper scrunched under my bony ass separating my 501?s from the cool plastic of the examination table as I shifted my weight trying for balance. Scents of alcohol and disinfectant tickled my nose along with the familiar odors of Dr. Jules? one-milligram tar cigarettes smothered by Old Spice. I focused on the doctor?s plaid cotton collar trapped in a V of white smock avoiding his diagnostic stare. No saliva remained in the world. My tongue formed words from a dry dusty desert. ?It certainly is different when you know for sure. Suspecting is one thing but knowing is so final.? My little-boy voice squeaking and cracking shamed me. Asphalt Boogie chronicles the life of Robin a young homosexual from the pre-AIDS 1970s when gays in LA celebrated their lives in discos and their sexuality in bathhouses?through the black years of the AIDS epidemic and into times of hope.