It could have been any day in the history of the AIDS epidemic and it could have been any city, because such little dramas were, ultimately, what all the numbers behind the AIDS statistics were about: promising people, who could have contributed much, dying young and dying unnecessarily. As it was, however, the day was January 5, 1986, the city was San Francisco, the person was William James Kraus, and the number he would soon be assigned in the statistics was that of the 887th San Franciscan to die in the AIDS epidemic.
