Fantastic! Thank you, Pod Castle, thank you Brian for the fantastic reading, and thank you Mr. Francisco for giving us a story a gay character that I could hang my hat on.
For once, HIV/AIDS was a maguffin in a gay romance and not the central player. Here we have a story about a man's first true romance set against the backdrop of a generation gap in his family. The differences between the gay men of the 1970s and those coming up, now, are very, very different. As a former reporter for a GLBT newspaper, this is exactly the sort of thing I covered in my stories. To see it expertly woven into the narrative was nicely done. The fine touches of detail contrasting the community of "old queens" of community builders from the hey-day of San Fransisco's 70's Mecca to today's diaspora of gym bunnies and much more accepted (although still reviled in many quarters) gay culture was excellent. To set a coming-of-age tale against that was lovely and heart-breaking. As mentioned in the outro, it may sound cliche when said, but it was beautifully "haunting".
The ghosts, of course, were both literal and allegorical. I have met men from that day. They are surrounded by the ghosts of the friends they lost to AIDS during the 80s. For them, too, there are many "Another Suitcase, Another Town" nights. Those ghosts drive them in their actions just like they drive the younger generation, today whether they like it or not. The generation of James and Casper live in the shadow of the Stonewall generation, the Pride generation, and -later- the AIDS generation. Heck, they live in the shadow of the Mattachine and Bilitis Generation even if they've forgotten them. The upshot of it all is that they're finding their own identity at the same time they're finding their feet, discovering college-age sex, having their first relationships, and trying to figure out what it means to be a part of this subculture that gets re-written every few years. The past looms over them -the ghosts, as it were- even while they try to ignore it.
In the end, while dire and leaving me wanting to know if James is HIV+ or not, that's not the point of the story. The tale is slice-of-life showing a young man in that magical summer where he experiences his first love, navigates the differences between generations, and finds himself. The ghosts were crucial in that: intangible, ever-present, and -again- haunting.
I remember my first relationship: that's what this story did to me. It made me long for that first heartbreak in the same way you pull off an annoying scab. Would I really go back and suffer through it again? No, of course not. But there was a magic in that time when I flew across the country on borrowed money to meet a man I'd fallen for. It lasted longer than 6 weeks.
"Tio Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts" is a brilliant example of coming-of-age in the shadows of ghosts: ghosts of different generations, ghosts of the past, and ghosts of trepidation and an unknown future. I've listened to it twice, now, and will -again- many more times.
Thank you, PodCastle, for one of the very, very best!
Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)