There are three stories in a trilogy.

The 1st is: the Place in Between

The 2nd is: Getting to the Happily Ever After

The 3rd will be Nightfall

I've started it but I'm not sure when it's going to post. Most probably in the Spring Anthology.

I have several things going on at once. Well- screw it. I produce better under pressure.

Nightfall is about the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Back when AIDS was mysterious and we didn't know much about it. It's about the fear, the panic, the shattering loss that so many of us went through.

I've been wanting to, no NEEDING to write about this.

Most of you are quite sure that I'm a lunatic and I have more issues than Scientific American. This period of time is when I picked up a number of those issues. I'm going to tell the story and try to show the emotional impact and how devastating it was.

Don't think it all darkness and gloom. There's much more to it than despair. There will also be love, loyalty, courage, faith and hope.

Light always flees the darkness. You just have to make it through the night.

I will do my best with it.

____________________________________________________________________________

The phone was ringing in my apartment when I got home from work but I missed it.

I got out of my clothes and hit the showers. Construction work was fun and it paid well but, it was hot, dirty and dangerous. It didn’t take too much of it for me to figure out that I didn’t want to do it for a career. For now it was paying the bills.

The phone rang again and interrupted a perfectly wonderful dream as I was napping on the couch.

“Hello.”

“Jimmy. Thank God I got you.”

I recognized the voice immediately and he didn’t sound good. “Hi Lee, how are you?”

Lee sighed and said, “Randy had been bugging me to get some moles on my back checked on. I went to one of the docs here at UT and he sent me to the UT Medical Center to see a specialist. They took one off to do a biopsy. Jimmy, have you heard of GRID?”

My stomach lurched: Gay Immune Related Deficiency. I had. It was all over PRM and it was scaring the shit out of the folk all over the country.

All I could think to say was, “Jesus Lee.”

“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. They said I might have it and they’ll know with that biopsy.” Lee’s voice cracked as he said, “I’m a basket case and Randy is— he needs you guys. “

There was nothing else he had to say. “I can guess how Randy is. Look I’m going to call Alec and Travis right now. Clay is off shore. Hang in there. We’re coming.”