Swift as a Coursing River | Ongoing

13. New perspectives

Edwin falls asleep only after midnight. When he came home from the walk, he made dinner while his head buzzed on with everything that was said, everything he learned, Vincent and his plans. He watched several hours of TV to drown out the thoughts, but they came back with a vengeance once he went to bed. He doesn't know what to think, about anything. Vincent promised a challenge, but he wouldn't say what it was.

"It's not a real challenge if you can prepare yourself," he'd laughed. "It's going to be a real test of what you've learned."

Edwin doesn't think Vincent would humiliate him, but there's already a sense of embarrassment, of anxiousness, crawling up his body. It feels like Vincent is daring him to make a mistake, to prove Vincent right. He doesn't want Vincent to be right. He wants to be better, to not be an outsider, to be in on Vincent's mischievous, infuriating smile.

But when he's surrounded by Vincent's friends, he feels ignorant. He knows so little about the history of gay people. All these places, and shared memories, and banding together for safety and their rights, ...

He didn't know the Aids crisis was so bad for the gay community. Something opens up inside him and a sort of pain or sorrow diffuses through his chest that he doesn't know how to interpret. He feels so alone in his not-knowing. Was he so blind for suffering? Was it like that for everyone or just for Vincent's friends?

When he thinks of the eighties and nineties, he doesn't think about Aids. They talked about Aids in his med classes, sure, in gossip among friends and fearmongering on TV, but nobody knew much about the gay cancer. It seemed so far removed from reality, so minor, among everything else that was happening. When he thinks about that period, the rise of the far right contrasts with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the birth of his daughters with the wars in Yugoslavia. So much good and bad, but not half of his friends dying. It must have felt —

He can't imagine. He should have known. Empathised, even if he was safe in his heterosexual marriage. It wouldn't have made a difference, but it seems disrespectful, to not remember these people who died in such large numbers.

The not-knowing burns in him.

He needs to know.

***

After the basketball match, the usual group goes to the bar. Everyone's in a good mood. Edwin sits between Leo and Arthur, and other than Patrick, Robert and Willem, there's two older guys named Guido and Marc. Both of them sport a full beard, but Guido wears only leather, while Marc dresses more ... normal. He definitely has the bigger personality, though, chattering about a seemingly endless supply of mundane topics and jumping between unrelated ideas.

Edwin wishes he didn't sit between the two youngest men of the group, but he was trailing the team while they headed here, his head full, and by the time he went in, this was the only seat left at the table.

They chatter about the match, their week, and during a lull in the conversation, Edwin says: "I did an LGBT history walk on Sunday."

It stays silent for a second, and then Marc says: "A what?" and Willem exclaims: "Why?"

"I, uh -" Edwin looks down at the table. Maybe he shouldn't have started like that. Or brought up that part. He doesn't want to talk about Vincent. "Someone invited me. To learn more. About, you know ... gay history."

Willem guffaws. "I didn't peg you for that kind of person! You don't need to pass your history exam to be gay!"

"No, I know, but—"

"Edwin out here one-upping all of us to be the gayest!" Patrick raises his glass. "I'll drink to that."

"Cheers!" Robert says and downs the rest of his beer.