I felt two furies at once: protective about our own secret and angry at the slur on Bruce’s privacy, as if to try to escape the rumor mill were an act of contempt. But even the anger couldn’t cover the queer sickening feeling I’ve had fifteen different times in the last three years. How could Bruce be sick? You never stop asking that. There’s a strange recurrent wish to believe the epidemic has claimed enough, even as the shock waves widen. Above 8.5, an earthquake is said to liquefy the earth. I recalled joking with Bruce about AIDS in front of the gym two months before, ridiculing the
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