Poetry by Hank Trout

Celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, AIDS Run & Walk Chicago kicks off on Saturday, October 2, 2021, offering participants both in-person and virtual ways of rais-ing funds. The event benefits AIDS Foundation Chicago (AFC) and community beneficiaries from AFC’s more than thirty CommunityDirect partners in their efforts to create healthcare equity and justice as well as to raise awareness and funds for individuals who are living with or vulnerable to HIV and AIDS. In recognition of the havoc wreaked on the most vulnerable communities by the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s theme, "Forward Together," reflects AFC’s aspiration to move beyond COVID and focus on what we need to do to create a better future for people living with HIV and AIDS. Also in deference to COVID-19, organizers are offering walkers and runners three ways to participate:

In-person at Soldier Field on October 2: Participants have the option of participating in three unique courses (Walk or Roll Course, 5K Run Course and 10K Run Course) along the Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan. Pre-registration is now open through September 27. Registration will be available on-site; the event is ADA-accessible.

At Your Own Pace, At Your Own Place: Participants may to choose to start and complete their race at a location other than Soldier Field using RunGo, a virtual smartphone app.

Stay-at-Home Supporter: Participants can register for free and fundraise (minimum of $50 required) from afar for the cause. An annual fundraising event since 1991, AIDS Run & Walk Chicago has drawn more than 23,000 advocates and raised more than $5.5 million to battle the pandemic.

For more information, to register for AIDS Run & Walk Chicago, or simply to donate to AFC, log on to https://www.classy.org/event/ aids-run-and-walk-chicago-2021/e332905.

POETRY

For Larry Kramer

A plague! It’s a plague! Forty million infections is a fucking plague!

Larry gripped the podium like a life raft He leaned toward the microphone His deeply set eyes flashing in anger His lips down-turned in snarling disgust His eyes scanning the room for comrades Or for enemies

J’accuse! he yelled, J’accuse!

He called us Faggots Drug-drenched callous sex-crazed faggots Flitting from Manhattan to Fire Island and back At the drop of a pair of pants Thinking with our cocks At the baths, in the bushes, on the piers, at the Anvil No better than heartless rutting pigs Straights didn’t believe him, gays hated him Because we believed him You know what my real crime was? I put the truth in writing

He wanted us to be better, so he told us the truth The truth did not set us free The truth did not make us better

We started getting sick We started dying 1,112 and Counting he told us in 1983 And his rage flared hotter than a brushfire The flames engulfing everything in his sight He spewed his righteous venom on President Reagan He accused Mayor Koch of murder He rained hellfire on the CDC and Dr. Fauci He damned Senator Daniel Moynihan for inaction He excoriated The Advocate and the rest of the gay press He poured buckets of bile on his own community I am sick of closeted gay doctors who won’t come out to help us fight I am sick of gay men who won’t support gay charities I am sick of closeted gays I am sick of everyone in this community who tells me to stop creating a panic I am sick of guys who think that all being gay means is sex And I am very sick and saddened by every gay man who does not get behind this issue totally and with commitment—— to fight for his life For forty years Larry led our fight With five others he founded GMHC Gay Men’s Health Crisis To educate, support, sustain New Yorkers living with AIDS To lobby city and state legislatures for action To fight like hell for the right to live

When Larry’s fiery rage scorched the mainstream gays at GMHC They expelled him from their club He cried, he sulked, he hurt, and then He fought back harder with like-willed men They birthed the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power And taught us how to ACT UP We stormed the FDA demanding access to medicine We marched, we yelled, we sat-in and died-in We spread the ashes of our dead on the White House lawn We covered Jesse Helms’ house with a condom We learned more about HIV/AIDS than the doctors treating us We got stronger, louder, angrier, prouder

Those of us whose lives he saved Revere Larry as a savior A beautiful, loud, flawed, necessary savior

I don’t want to die, he told us I can only assume you don’t want to die. Can we fight together?

Yes, Larry, we fight together We march, we rage, we disobey civilly, We write, we sing, we play, we ride We have learned to love each other and ourselves Enough to take care of each other.

We fight For Larry For life

—Hank Trout

Hank wrote this tribute to Larry Kramer as a fundraiser for TogetheRide (formerly AIDS/ LifeCycle), benefitting the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the AIDS Project Los Angeles. If you would like to donate, please go to http://www.tofighthiv.org/goto/HankTrout.