My Dead Friends

You know, after Tom died, I thought who will be next? I concluded that nobody would be next. I didn't expect any of my friends to die immanently. So, Simon hey? That was a quick next.

Gorgeous Simon. Outrageous Simon. Hysterically funny Simon. Was there any one ever funnier than Simon when he was firing? (Gretchen the German milk frau, playing How to Host a Murder, comes to mind) Generous Simon. Sad Simon.

Fergus died of AIDS, tragically young. And here's another one who I had, sadly, forgotten about, Tom Waters. He leapt off a building, early one Sunday morning, tweaked off his face after Sleaze, after an argument with his boyfriend, Phillip. Anthony went mad. Tom de Brant died of cancer. And now Simon Mansfield, dead before forty.

My dead friends. They were all friends. I can still see them all together, laughing, loving. All dead.

I wonder what your life time friend allocation is? I seem to be racing through mine.

You know. Really, it is very inconsiderate, them dying. I'd made this great bunch of friends. They carried my history and stories of me of when I was coming out and finding my feet. They were the people who know me.

Do you mean I have to do it all over again? Or at least, continue to make friends. I thought there would come a time when I could coast. Friends? Check. Taken care of.

Lottie says after each person's death. "Oh Christian, it's a good thing you have so many friends."

I've got friends from school, primarily straight boys. Of course, there's another one, Alex, he's dead too. I have friends from my teenage years, as a teenager in a Christian youth group. Funnily enough, we were primarily straight couples who were very sexually active. I've had two girlfriends, we were very young. And I have gay friends, who changed my life and complimented my inner most feelings so completely.

And I'm the world's most unreliable friend. "Christian never rings, but that's just Christian," they all say. "We all know that."

I don't know how I get away with it.

So, it's tier 1 friends, who are taking the hits, at the moment. My gay friends. Tier 2 and tier 3 are all doing okay. No casualties to report. Except Alex, of course. And I read in the Old Grammarian news letter that another of my peers had died, Lewis Horizon, although, I haven't seen him since school. Tragically young, it said.