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The Ice Queen or the Dragon Lady

I met Byron—who was with Jerry at the time—in the doorway of a gay bar. I was leaving, and they were arriving; it was one of those precisely timed chance encounters.

He called himself the Ice Queen or the Dragon Lady, and he could be either. Byron was a voracious consumer of literature, music and art, Roseville pottery and antique furniture and studly boyfriends. He was wise beyond his ways and means, and from time to time, he was some colossal pain in the ass. But I loved Byron. He was my gay teacher, and he carefully constructed my rhinestone and flower strewn path to esoteric wisdom. He introduced me to nearly all of the mind-stretching books I read in the 1970s.

Byron was an exotic creature, and he used to love to flaunt himself, especially if he thought he could shock a straight person. “Let’s go down to the “Po” and blow some natives’ minds,” he once said to me. But he took people under his brightly-feathered wing, and they loved him for it. He was dedicated to the gay hotline, remembering his own lonely times as a homeless teenager. Even in illness he gave service to the AIDS community.

Byron also had a strong self-destructive streak, periodically descending into decadent episodes, irresponsibly divesting himself of accumulated wealth, or abandoning cherished friends. He would disappear from my life. But I had an intuitive connection to Byron, and more than once, I may have saved his life. Whether it was waiting on his hi-rise steps for several hours to get an audience with the royal personage, or bailing him out of jail at 2 in the morning, I was there for Byron most of the time. On Aug. 8, 1989, Byron had a grisly exit from life from AIDS and hepatitis C, but he was surrounded by loved ones.

I left him a couple of days before he died; a strange thing I’ve regretted and others have scorned. I stood at the foot of his bed and said, “Byron, in my own way, I love you. But I’m leaving now.” He said, “Ok,” that was all. And I left. I was asked to and did write his obit. And then, this song forced itself upon me, I guess to set the record gay.

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