In years past, Cleve and the other citizens of Castro Street had looked ahead to a time when they had rooted out prejudice against gay people altogether and healed the lives that the prejudice had scarred. They might be old men by then, but they would be able to entertain each other with reminiscences of the old days when they had all believed they could change the world, and know that to a certain extent, they had. Many of those people were dead now, and Cleve accepted that most of his friends would be dead before they reached anything near old age.
