Prologue
_______________
The Middle of My Life
[Mexico]
January 19, 2003
I was not born knowing how to love. It came to me late in life and continues to be difficult. Politics on the other hand came naturally, my mind attuned from birth to the ways of power and survival. But Morris Kight, my political godfather, died this morning, and in the wake of his death I’m left to think about my life and what matters most to me. Today I am fifty-four years old and I need to know how to love those few, living and dead, who occupy the center of my life.
The rough-purple sunset gathers color on the Pacific’s horizon in front of my house in Mexico. In 1999, I left Los Angeles, Morris Kight, and the whole gay movement and moved to the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. Here with Kate, my partner of thirteen years, four tiny dogs and two large cats, we’ve built a house and started a new life in this pueblo called Todos Santos, a town that has no elevation on the topography of political significance.
