Mitch

I met Mitch in 1999 when he was 18, and I was 23. I was in a Charlottesville-focused gay chat room when Mitch, hailing from Saint Louis, entered. He was questioning his sexuality and wanted more information about the lifestyle. We began a conversation that, intermittently, lasted three years.

In the beginning, we spoke of shallow topics; I learned he had a girlfriend who wouldn't blow him. She thought it was disgusting, and I remarked that I'd be more than happy to be his surrogate 98.6 degrees. After all, he was a ripped blonde boy with bright blue eyes, and the fair-haired ones have always been my kryptonite.

With the passage of time, our conversation deepened. I'll never forget my confessing to him that I did drag because I didn't find myself beautiful and only when I was a woman could I see beauty within myself. Mitch said he wished I could see what was so apparent to him and that if we lived close to one another, he would show me, through physical worship, how beautiful I was as a male.
Over the next few months, he related his dream of wanting to become an architect (Frank Lloyd Wright was his idol) and of how he was set to attend a University in Arizona in the fall. He was relieved high school was ending, because he was a prankster, always getting into mischief, and was certain he was going to get tossed out before graduation because he couldn't behave himself.

Mitch was a vivacious, rambunctious teenager; thus, it came as a shock when he wrote me just after graduating to say that he hadn't been feeling well for a number of days. He seemed to be getting weaker, and doctors were at a loss as to why. A few weeks later, his uncle called to say that Mitch had been admitted to the hospital, where he had been diagnosed with an unidentified debilitating infection. Already, the mysterious disorder had so ravaged him he had undergone a tracheotomy, was on artificial respiration, and would never be able to speak or walk again.

For the next three years, although Mitch lay in a hospital bed and I would never hear his voice, our dialogue continued. Twice each week, his uncle would visit the hospital, telephone me, and read questions that Mitch had written. (The young man could still write, though with great difficulty, due to tremors). Once a question had been read, Mitch would be given the phone so I could reply. Yet, the questions that were asked were rarely the ones that were answered.

The hilarious thing is that Mitch's uncle was a priest, and the words that passed from my lips to Mitch's ears were far from holy. For instance, I once told Mitch I was going to come to Saint Louis and give him daily sponge baths and blowjobs to make him well. While everyone else deferred to Mitch as an invalid, I treated him as though he were a healthy, sex-starved teenager. It gave him some hope in his life, when we all knew there was none. His uncle was always amazed, because he said Mitch never seemed happier than when he was talking to me. He frequently asked what I was saying to produce such joy, but I tactfully avoided answering truthfully.

There were times when Mitch's uncle couldn't decipher what his nephew had written, and I could tell him exactly what Mitch was trying to relate. Because I knew…and how I knew, I’ll never know…but I could finish that boy’s sentences as though they were my own. The bond we forged became so intimate that we didn’t even need his uncle to act as intermediary between us. Mitch and I devised a system whereby he would call when he was lonely and tap on the phone to identity himself. Some nights, I would hold one-way conversations with him that lasted for hours.

I’d tell him how much I loved him and how beautiful I thought he was. I swore, through tears, because I knew the day we never come, that as soon as he got well, we were going to get married, move into his family's summer home by the lake, and I was going to blow him three times a day, every day. I'd say that my love for him reached across the miles to make our hearts one; first, it shot into the stratosphere, into the far reaches of space, round past the rings of Saturn, and didn't stop until it reached Heaven, where the angels blessed our love, and sent it back to us.

Ours was an amazing bond that endured for three years, and I shall always thank God for sending that beautiful boy into my life.

Eventually, mercifully, Mitch succumbed to the infection. From the day I learned Mitch had been admitted to the hospital, I wanted to fly to Saint Louis, but he would not permit it. He didn't want me to see him in a hospital bed; he wanted to be remembered as a hot-bodied, thriving, mischievous teenager. That's why no one will ever read a grave marker for Mitch; he said he didn't want anyone to believe something so trivial as six feet of earth could contain his spirit. He had his body donated to science in the hope that the mysterious illness, which was never diagnosed, would be understood with time and would never be able to take another young man's life.

Although it's been a decade since I lost Mitch, I am never without him. Often, my thoughts will drift to him, and I'll say out loud, "I love you, Mitch." He will be with my until my last breath and then, if there is any justice or mercy in the universe, his soul, along with David's, will be at my side for all eternity.

My Angel

Lying in my arms,

He seemed smaller,

More vulnerable,

The life within him

Infinitely more fragile.

I lay awake,

Watching over him

Until sleep,

A dull, uneasy tide,

Crept upon me.

Hand in hand with Death,

It came in in the night,

Pulled him from my arms,

And swept his life away.