why...

last night I came home to find a SF Medical Examiner's van in front of the apartments. this sent me into a numbness. perhaps it was my body trying to protect me. I found the gate wide open and a gurney on the landing. Wes' door was open.

as I went into my apartment I felt alarm, but still numbness. James told me that there was a paramedic van earlier but they hung around without any sense of urgency and then finally left. I watched from the window. finally one of the examiner's appeared and he went back in with a plastic bag. two men then came down the stairs and stood at the gurney. the examiner and his assistant appeared carrying a lifeless corpse. the corpse wrapped in a white blanket. they put it on the gurney and strapped it down - like a slab of meat. they then covered it with another whie cloth.

it was then that the medical examiner reached into a common plastic grocery bag and pulled out some keys that I realized the person wrapped in the white cloth was Wess. they locked the door and threw the keys back into the bag. they carried the body out to the van and then took the keys out again. the two that emerged earlier - friends most likely - got into their car and left. the ME then moved Wess' car into their spot - out of the way of my garage.

prior to this I hadn't seen him in a month or so. this very same day I ran into him twice. as I was doing laundry he stopped in to take the rugs he had in the drier. I asked him how he was and he said that he was doing pretty well. he intended to go to the Fort Mason book sale that afternoon and then he was volunteering at the beer booth across from Cala for the Castro Street Fair. typical of him - a very giving person.

I don't know why his death has affected me so. the question keeps going through my mind - why does it bother me more than my own father's death? I never once - not in public, not in private - cried at my father's funeral. not once. yet this man whom I barely know other than a run-in once a month or so, his death has put me of kilter. I can barely think of him without breaking down. WHY???

I think it's because I relate to him. Wess was a gay man who didn't give a crap what other people thought of him. he was what he was and didn't give as much as an excuse to anyone. he was comfortable with who he was. his death at a young age - (low 50s) is certainly tragic. the fact that I'd spoken to him twice in one day when I hadn't even seen him in a month - fortunate.

Wess - I don't know why exactly, but your death has affected me. I'm so sad at the fact that I'll never run into you again. You were always friendly. You always asked how I was. I miss you so much already.

May you rest in peace.