Hi History Makers, Eric here. A few months ago we launched Making Gay History's Patreon

channel, a place where we're sharing new video interviews never before heard clips from

my archive that didn't make it into the episodes and more. If you're not a member of our Patreon

community yet, I hope you'll join today. Just $5 a month gets you access to these Making

Gay History extras, and you'll support us as we work to bring LGBTQ history to life

for the voices of the people who lived it. Find out more at patreon.com slash Making

Gay History, or go to Making Gay History.com and click on the link in our homepage banner.

And thank you so much.

I'm Eric Marcus, and in this season of Making Gay History, I'm revisiting my past to share

some of my experiences from the 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic tore us from my community.

All too many people didn't make it out alive. Life would never be the same for the rest

of us. This audio memoir is about that time and those people. This is chapter 5, in or

out.

It's the Friday Before Gay Pride Day in June of 1986, and I'm sitting in a hospital room

with our friend Mark, the bow tie wearing graphics designer from work. I'm suited up

in a mask, gloves, and protective gown. It's to protect him, not me. His immune system

has been decimated, and he's battling pneumocystis pneumonia. His breathing isn't great. His

chest heaving as he sips air through an oxygen mask. I've brought him some watercolors

so he can paint. We're talking about what he's going to do when he gets out of the hospital

like going back to work and maybe a summer getaway to the countryside for the four of us.

These are as much plans as they are daydreams. We've all become familiar with the hospital

admission and discharge dance. One infection suppressed. Lift to fight the next one.

...