Tom Is Dead

"From the cowardice that dares not face new truths,
From the laziness that is content with half-truths,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truths,
Good Lord, deliver me."

Kenyan prayer.


I've spent a couple of hours trying to find pictures of Tom on the computer and I can't find them; even though I definitely know they are here somewhere. It's as if that aboriginal thing that you shouldn't display pictures of the dead was operating in my house; or my guardian angel has an aboriginal sensibility. Whatever it is, I can't find them, and I had pictures somewhere of Tom and Colin outside this house; which would have illustrated the story.

Colin is an old friend of mine, a party animal from the 1970s, more interesting looking than handsome; I was always fond of him. Although he wasn't terribly good at being anything much beyond a party boy he was always a great companion, great company; and that in itself, as far as I am concerned, is a wonderful thing. I took him with me on the trip down to Streaky Bay a couple of years ago. He's in his 50s, HIV, dying of AIDS, always broke, one of the few long term survivors from the era. The various anti-viral combination therapies are keeping them alive much longer now; it's turning into a chronic but manageable disease.

Anyway; it was weird being around someone my own age who actually knew the same wild gang that I knew all those years ago; an awful lot of them dead now; Johnny Bygate; massively handsome, massively talented, brain hemorrhage; Lyn Hapgood; over dosed while pregnant; Ian; just last year; stomach cancer; Russell Keifal, well known actor of the era, he's still going; and old Colin; he refused to die although he's been "not well dear" for some years now.

The miracle was that he met a boy, Tom, an incredibly handsome lad in his 20s who was just finishing university and who lived opposite some old friends of his, the Davids, at the back of Newtown. Tom could have parked his shoes just about anywhere and had a solid relationship with a girlfriend. But for some reason, he returned Colin's ardour; and they developed a Brokeback Mountain type friendship; where they saw each other for affectionate and intimate weekends every couple of months. Colin, an old man and prematurely old with the disease, couldn't believe his luck. And with safe sex; Colin was deeply chuffed, God having somehow granted him the companion of his dreams in his dying days; while Tom, too, seemed happy with Colin; old men, what's wrong with that?

They'd been round here together at various times; on various escapades; but when they were together there wasn't much room for anyone else; and they would soon head off; where they'd smoke dope and bonk all night; and Colin would ring me up later, just to boast about it all; in a stunned, how is this wonderful thing possible John, inoffensive sort of way.

And now Tom is dead and Colin is in tears. He died on Thursday. I only heard yesterday; when Colin rang up, very tearful. He said it on the phone, Tom is dead, and it didn't make sense. Lover Tom? Yes. That doesn't make sense. I know, John, it doesn't make sense.

For Tom, in recent months, had looked magnificently healthy, off the gear, fit as a fiddle, more handsome than ever, finishing university; plenty of love and sex in his life. He seemed, indeed, enormously happy whenever I saw him. If either of the two of them was going to die; it was going to be Colin, who has been bouncing in and out of hospital for the past several years.

"Natural causes", was the initial report. But then later it was confirmed, overdose; his uncle found him at his mother's house. In the chain of death, who introduced who to who? Who knew who the dealer was? Did it matter where it came from? Only the good die young, I said, inappropriately, it wasn't the time to be trying to make jokes. And we just kept saying to each other: it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense.

THE BIGGER STORY:

THE army is investigating an online video that shows binge drinking and a person parading in a Ku Klux Klan outfit on what appears to be Australian Defence Force property.

The footage, titled "My experience in the Australian Army", shows young men, some in uniform, in a contest to drink alcohol through a long plastic hose they call the "super tube of death".

Several drinkers, whose faces are clearly seen, stagger off and vomit over the railing of a demountable-style building called "Block 651".