[00:00:02.00]
(whimsical orchestral music)

[00:01:02.02]
- Sissy, I can remember sissy.

[00:01:05.00]
Um, seems like fag, used
the word fag, faggot.

[00:01:09.01]
I'm sure of it,

[00:01:09.09]
and um, queer, of course.

[00:01:13.06]
Mostly queer I think, queer or fag.

[00:01:16.05]
Um, but not many of them
ever called me that.

[00:01:20.05]
(whimsical orchestral music)

[00:01:29.09]
We're coming up a mailbox up here

[00:01:32.05]
that illustrates one of the
country pastimes for young boys,

[00:01:38.00]
and it's called mailbox bashing.

[00:01:40.07]
And in particular, if
they don't like someone,

[00:01:45.05]
their mailbox gets bashed all the time.

[00:01:47.04]
What they do is drive down
the road with a baseball bat,

[00:01:52.05]
and someone lean out the
window and crash the mailbox.

[00:01:56.03]
This is a teacher.

[00:01:59.01]
Mrs. Jones is an English
teacher in Sulphur,

[00:02:03.04]
And from what I've heard,

[00:02:05.02]
she isn't one of the
favorite ones by the kids.

[00:02:07.08]
So her mailbox forever stays banged up.

[00:02:14.04]
- [Interviewer] So, what, what is that?

[00:02:16.09]
- This here is all solid steel.

[00:02:19.04]
So when they drive through here

[00:02:20.08]
and hit it with a baseball
bat, notice this gash here,

[00:02:24.07]
it just kind of bounces off.

[00:02:30.08]
Do you wanna know where
my gay customers live?

[00:02:33.08]
- [Interviewer] So you have
some gay customers, huh?

[00:02:35.00]
- Sure, right there.

[00:02:37.00]
Me and Randy used to work
together at City Service,

[00:02:40.00]
1980, '81, '79, '80, '81,
and I always thought so then.

[00:02:46.01]
And then after I got to be his mailman,

[00:02:48.07]
I knew that, I knew for sure that.

[00:02:51.01]
- [Interviewer] And how does
being his mailman tell you?

[00:02:54.04]
- Mm, I see who he gets cards from,

[00:02:58.06]
and um, see who he sends cards to,

[00:03:01.05]
and see who he gets porn mail from.

[00:03:07.07]
I mean, the straight people
don't get the same porn mail

[00:03:09.05]
that I do, he does, some of it.

[00:03:14.07]
And um, some of his more
bold boyfriends will actually

[00:03:19.09]
send him postcards and
sign their name (chuckles).

[00:03:28.08]
Well, where you been?

[00:03:30.09]
I haven't seen you in weeks.

[00:03:34.07]
- [Man] You filming?

[00:03:35.08]
- Huh, yeah, he's just seeing
what, what I do in a day.

[00:03:44.04]
He wanted to see what it was
like to be on rural route.

[00:03:51.04]
Down here in the woods, riding
around, seeing all this.

[00:03:55.03]
- I like pretty girls.

[00:03:56.07]
- A lot of pretty girls?

[00:03:58.01]
Um, I haven't seen any today.

[00:04:00.05]
Where they at?

[00:04:01.03]
You keeping them hid in
your trailer over there?

[00:04:03.05]
- [Man] Yeah, uh huh, uh huh.

[00:04:05.03]
- [Danny] Uh huh.

[00:04:06.02]
- [Man] Uh uh.

[00:04:07.01]
- Well.

[00:04:09.04]
- [Interviewer] What'd he say to do?

[00:04:12.07]
- So, get on now.

[00:04:17.05]
(birds chirping)

[00:04:20.04]
- I grew up on the bank of
the Sabine River in the woods,

[00:04:25.02]
10 miles north of Starks, which
is in the middle of nowhere.

[00:04:29.08]
We had a farm and my
mother sold milk and eggs,

[00:04:33.01]
and that's how she fed us.

[00:04:35.04]
I didn't have a dad.

[00:04:36.03]
He'd been dead for years.

[00:04:38.07]
- [Interviewer] When did you
first come out of the closet?

[00:04:41.01]
- Well, I was probably 15.

[00:04:43.05]
Dennis, the boy who was teaching me

[00:04:45.05]
how to play around with other
boys was the instigator.

[00:04:50.00]
It was in general assembly.

[00:04:51.02]
I remember first thing in the morning,

[00:04:53.04]
and um, had the whole school
right there in the gym,

[00:04:57.09]
and we get into a shouting match,

[00:05:00.03]
and it ends up in a tussle
that lands us on the floor

[00:05:04.07]
(chuckles) in front of everybody.

[00:05:06.09]
And the shouting match continues.

[00:05:09.01]
And he calls me queer

[00:05:10.05]
and starts naming names of
other boys who I'd sucked off.

[00:05:15.00]
And so I started naming names back

[00:05:17.09]
and calling dates and times and places,

[00:05:20.01]
and he wasn't happy,
and telling, you know,

[00:05:22.04]
out in front of everybody
that you were the one

[00:05:24.02]
who taught me how to do all this.

[00:05:25.07]
And you told me about so-and-so
and so-and-so in Dallas.

[00:05:28.04]
And so at lunch that
day, when I walked in,

[00:05:32.09]
I picked up my tray and
went through the line,

[00:05:35.03]
and I was like, okay,
I'm gonna sit by myself,

[00:05:37.08]
because nobody's gonna sit by me.

[00:05:39.06]
And when I turn the end of the
line to go toward the tables,

[00:05:43.03]
there were kids all over the
room, jumping up and hollering.

[00:05:45.05]
"Danny, Danny, come sit with us,

[00:05:47.04]
"come sit with us, come sit with us."

[00:05:49.07]
And I nearly dropped my tray.

[00:05:51.08]
And one of the girls said,

[00:05:53.06]
"We just want you to know

[00:05:55.03]
"that all over school they're talking."

[00:05:57.06]
I said, "I imagine."

[00:05:58.09]
She said, "And no one can believe

[00:06:00.09]
"you had guts enough to do that.

[00:06:02.09]
"We admire you and respect
you beyond all means."

[00:06:07.07]
And it was just like, you could have,

[00:06:09.06]
you could've literally
washed me out with the trash.

[00:06:12.00]
I was just amazed, and,
and that changed the whole,

[00:06:16.01]
the whole scope of everything.

[00:06:17.02]
Because after that, no one ever,

[00:06:18.09]
ever acted the least bit derogatory to me

[00:06:22.01]
through, like I said, the
next two years of school.

[00:06:24.06]
But I still had to face
my family and I knew that.

[00:06:28.09]
So I went home and the first thing I did

[00:06:30.04]
was I went in the kitchen,

[00:06:31.04]
and mom was always in the kitchen.

[00:06:33.04]
So I said,

[00:06:34.08]
"I think there's something
I need to tell you

[00:06:36.07]
"before you hear it from someone else."

[00:06:40.00]
I told her what had happened,

[00:06:41.03]
the whole scope of it
from the time we started

[00:06:43.05]
through the fights and all that.

[00:06:45.04]
And she just looked at me and she said,

[00:06:48.08]
"Well, I think it's a phase
that all boys go through,

[00:06:53.08]
"and I hope that that's all it is for you.

[00:06:56.04]
"But if it's not, it
doesn't change anything.

[00:06:59.09]
"I love you.

[00:07:01.00]
"I'll stand behind you and I'll
fight every battle with you.

[00:07:04.06]
"I'll be right there for you."

[00:07:06.09]
And that changed everything.

[00:07:08.09]
When she said that

[00:07:10.07]
it was just like the rest of
the world could go to hell,

[00:07:14.02]
because the person who mattered
most said it didn't matter.

[00:07:33.07]
How do?

[00:07:34.06]
- All right.

[00:07:35.04]
- Since the time with my mother

[00:07:36.08]
I've said that I am me and
I intend to live my life.

[00:07:42.00]
I haven't been out on the
street screaming that,

[00:07:44.05]
but I've just done what
I feel comfortable doing.

[00:07:47.08]
And I feel comfortable having
another man to care about,

[00:07:51.07]
and to hold in my arms and
to sleep with at night.

[00:07:56.02]
That's all I want.

[00:07:57.01]
I want to be left alone.

[00:07:58.04]
I want to be accepted for being me.

[00:08:02.02]
And I accept them for being them.

[00:08:12.04]
Morning, how are you?

[00:08:14.01]
- [Boy] Fine.

[00:08:15.00]
- Are you glad to be out of school?

[00:08:16.01]
- [Boy] Yes, sir.

[00:08:17.00]
- What you gonna do though, all of ya's.

[00:08:18.04]
- [Boy] Probably swim.

[00:08:19.03]
- [Danny] Huh?

[00:08:20.01]
- [Boy] Probably swim.

[00:08:21.00]
- Swim every day, huh?

[00:08:22.00]
Good for you.

[00:08:22.08]
Do it for me, 'cause I can't swim.

[00:08:23.09]
- [Boy] And play baseball.

[00:08:24.07]
- And play baseball, all right.

[00:08:26.04]
Have a good day.

[00:08:27.04]
- [Boy] You too.

[00:08:33.00]
- I was hired by the Postal
Service April the first, 1985.

[00:08:38.06]
All employees have a 90
day probationary period.

[00:08:46.04]
And on my 80th day, the Postmaster
found out that I was gay,

[00:08:52.03]
so he fired me.

[00:08:54.01]
And I told him when he called me in

[00:08:55.09]
and said what he was going to do,

[00:08:58.03]
I said, "You can't do that.

[00:09:00.04]
"I just don't understand how you."

[00:09:03.08]
He said, "Well, it doesn't
matter what you think.

[00:09:05.06]
"I'm going to do it.

[00:09:06.04]
"You're still in your probationary period,

[00:09:08.07]
"so I can fire you."

[00:09:10.01]
And he did.

[00:09:11.07]
The more I thought about
it, the madder I got.

[00:09:12.08]
So I started making calls
to see what I could do.

[00:09:15.09]
If there wasn't some way to fight it.

[00:09:17.06]
And a lot of them said, no,
there wasn't much I could do.

[00:09:25.05]
But then I talked to the ACLU,

[00:09:28.04]
and they gave me the name of
an attorney in New Orleans

[00:09:31.02]
who worked with Lambda
Legal defense and the ACLU.

[00:09:38.03]
So the attorney called the Post Office

[00:09:41.08]
to talk to the Postmaster.

[00:09:43.03]
Over the telephone the
man told the attorney

[00:09:46.08]
everything he wanted to know.

[00:09:48.08]
Why he had fired me.

[00:09:50.01]
He felt like that a gay
person wouldn't fit in.

[00:09:53.03]
They would have too much
trouble working in that office.

[00:09:57.06]
So he just couldn't
have me working for him.

[00:10:02.04]
Well, in the end, I was off four months,

[00:10:05.06]
and when it got to Baton
Rouge and then to Washington,

[00:10:09.07]
what had happened, the ship fell,

[00:10:12.05]
and it all fell on the Postmaster.

[00:10:15.04]
And when they offered me my job back,

[00:10:20.04]
they asked, their questions were,

[00:10:23.04]
"What will it take to
get you to just accept

[00:10:26.01]
"and get back to work?

[00:10:28.00]
"What, how much, you know,
what do you want out of us?"

[00:10:31.06]
Told them I just wanted my job back.

[00:10:34.00]
Then their next question was,

[00:10:36.01]
"Whose head do you want?"

[00:10:40.01]
You want, they asked, the
Postmaster at that time,

[00:10:44.01]
they asked me if I wanted him fired.

[00:10:46.08]
Really because he had screwed up,

[00:10:48.02]
and I could've pushed that
issue and had him let go.

[00:10:52.06]
But I told them no way.

[00:10:53.08]
I wanted that man as my Postmaster.

[00:10:57.00]
He would know who was boss after that.

[00:10:59.04]
He wouldn't give me any shit.

[00:11:01.03]
The man and I worked together
for four years after that.

[00:11:04.03]
The Postmaster, bless
him, was a very old man,

[00:11:09.01]
a very old cagey man,

[00:11:10.07]
and when he had to even ask
me the simplest of questions,

[00:11:15.01]
he would come with sweat on
his brow and his hand shaking.

[00:11:19.04]
But and very polite to
me and very cordial,

[00:11:22.07]
and never a word of that talk.

[00:11:25.03]
Just apologized for what had happened,

[00:11:28.02]
and went on with our lives.

[00:11:32.03]
So that was a pretty
big scandal for Sulphur

[00:11:34.09]
that they hired me back.

[00:11:42.08]
I say if you hide and act like
you have something to hide,

[00:11:45.08]
if you have something to be ashamed of,

[00:11:47.06]
then they treat you like that.

[00:11:49.08]
But if you just act like, hey, I'm normal,

[00:11:51.06]
and this is how it is,

[00:11:53.03]
and there's no big deal about it,

[00:11:55.08]
then even people in
redneck Southwest Louisiana

[00:12:00.04]
can learn to accept that,

[00:12:02.07]
and basically respect you
for just being yourself.

[00:12:45.03]
- Well, we met in Houston
at a Country Western bar,

[00:12:49.04]
and after we had been dating for ah,

[00:12:53.06]
I guess a couple months,

[00:12:55.08]
I just decided that I
was gonna move over here.

[00:13:00.09]
I was getting tired of
living in the big city.

[00:13:05.07]
I was raised in little town

[00:13:08.06]
just about the same size as Vinton here.

[00:13:11.01]
It's about three, 4,000 people.

[00:13:14.03]
Just pretty much, you know,
real similar situation.

[00:13:29.07]
- I really think that Vinton
has a strange mix of people.

[00:13:35.04]
Middle-aged older people.

[00:13:37.04]
It's a sleepy little town.

[00:13:40.04]
A Cajun mix.

[00:13:41.06]
There are a lot of French Cajuns here,

[00:13:43.06]
but there's also a lot of people

[00:13:45.02]
who have come in through no man's land

[00:13:48.02]
in the Baptist Bible belt north of us.

[00:13:51.08]
There are people in
Vinton who genuinely care.

[00:13:56.01]
There are people who probably
hate us from a distance.

[00:14:00.07]
And there are people who
fall in between that,

[00:14:03.01]
that just wave and go on by.

[00:14:05.03]
And some of the local boys occasionally

[00:14:07.03]
will pee on the porch,

[00:14:08.06]
but we laugh about that.

[00:14:09.09]
And the only act of violence
I think I can remember

[00:14:13.06]
is they knocked out the slats
in the swing in the yard

[00:14:16.02]
one time when I was away on vacation.

[00:14:18.07]
But it's real minor things like that.

[00:14:20.03]
And of course, some of
the local boys pass,

[00:14:22.02]
and yell fag occasionally,

[00:14:23.08]
but I think they do that in San Francisco.

[00:14:25.09]
So we're quite lucky
that that's all they do

[00:14:28.01]
is pass and yell at a speed of
40 miles an hour or greater.

[00:14:41.09]
When I first got that little
traveling lawn sprinkler,

[00:14:45.02]
it was one of the brand new things.

[00:14:48.03]
Didn't anybody have it.

[00:14:50.00]
We used to have people stop.

[00:14:52.02]
Just stop in their cars and watch it.

[00:14:55.04]
That sprinkler, you know how
it travels around the hose?

[00:14:58.05]
We'd have people just stopped on the alley

[00:15:00.07]
or somewhere watching it.

[00:15:03.04]
"That's the neatest thing I've ever seen."

[00:15:06.05]
Nowadays they're everywhere,

[00:15:07.04]
so nobody thinks anything
about it anymore.

[00:15:12.02]
But you know how it is.

[00:15:13.09]
Queers have to bring
new ideas to the world.

[00:15:26.00]
- Oh, several months back,
I guess last year actually,

[00:15:29.01]
and a friend was dropping
by to pick up a videotape

[00:15:33.07]
that he wanted to borrow,

[00:15:35.05]
and he had this other
younger boy with him,

[00:15:38.07]
and when they pulled into
the driveway, the boy said,

[00:15:42.07]
"Oh gee, it's true."

[00:15:45.01]
And our friend didn't know what to say.

[00:15:47.09]
He was like, "What do
you mean, oh, it's true?"

[00:15:49.06]
And he says, "Oh, well,
all the time during school,

[00:15:52.05]
"everyone called this
place the queer house,

[00:15:54.05]
"and I just never knew
if it was true or not."

[00:15:58.01]
So it's, it's very well-known throughout,

[00:16:01.01]
throughout the town.

[00:16:02.09]
- When Brady and I bought
this house in 1980,

[00:16:05.08]
it was condemned and
it was kind of a town,

[00:16:11.02]
you might say a town pride

[00:16:12.06]
that no one in town wanted
to see it torn down,

[00:16:15.06]
because it was the last old
gingerbread house in town,

[00:16:18.05]
and everybody had to look at it every day.

[00:16:20.07]
So when we bought it
and began restoring it,

[00:16:24.05]
every week it was on the
front page of the paper,

[00:16:28.04]
and pictures of me or Brady or both doing,

[00:16:32.02]
I mean, every wall we changed,
every room we painted,

[00:16:36.02]
got a picture made and put in the paper.

[00:16:39.05]
When Brady died,

[00:16:41.03]
there were rumors about
this being the AIDS house,

[00:16:44.00]
and that if you came in
here, you'd get AIDS,

[00:16:45.08]
and Brady died of AIDS
and blah, blah, blah.

[00:16:48.08]
But when he died,

[00:16:51.03]
there were a group of people here

[00:16:52.07]
waiting for me to get here.

[00:16:55.00]
The neighbors brought over food.

[00:16:57.09]
There were cards from all
sorts of people through town

[00:17:01.01]
sent to me, not to his family, but to me.

[00:17:05.01]
Um, there was a card
from the city of Vinton,

[00:17:07.05]
from the employees of the city of Vinton,

[00:17:09.03]
and from a couple of
the businesses downtown,

[00:17:11.07]
and from people in
general throughout town,

[00:17:13.07]
the editor of the local
newspaper and stuff.

[00:17:16.02]
And I was so, I was especially touched

[00:17:19.03]
because they didn't say um,

[00:17:23.06]
I don't know, they weren't so general.

[00:17:25.03]
They didn't say, we're
sorry you lost your friend.

[00:17:28.05]
They said more like,

[00:17:30.06]
we know you've lost
someone you cared about,

[00:17:33.02]
and we share your loss.

[00:17:36.06]
I was with Brady, um,

[00:17:39.07]
when he died in May,

[00:17:41.00]
the following September
would have been 11 years.

[00:17:45.09]
After Brady died, we found
a will, a handwritten will.

[00:17:53.04]
The court declared it invalid.

[00:17:56.04]
The family came in,

[00:17:57.05]
and literally threw us out
at 11 o'clock at night,

[00:18:01.07]
and wouldn't let us take
anything except our,

[00:18:06.02]
a change of clothes for the next day.

[00:18:10.05]
They have tried to seize
everything in the house,

[00:18:13.00]
from the paintings left to me personally,

[00:18:15.09]
and things I inherited from my mother,

[00:18:17.09]
and grandmother and father,

[00:18:19.06]
to things that Ben had just brought in

[00:18:21.08]
a week before they broke the will.

[00:18:24.05]
We have reversed the judge twice.

[00:18:26.05]
On two occasions he's made a ruling

[00:18:28.03]
that appeals court turned him
over and sent it back to him.

[00:18:32.00]
This has been going on for three years.

[00:18:34.09]
It could go on probably indefinitely,

[00:18:38.04]
because they're sure that I will die soon.

[00:18:42.00]
Brady was the first AIDS case most anybody

[00:18:45.01]
in Southwest Louisiana
had any dealings with,

[00:18:47.00]
and it was very quick.

[00:18:48.03]
From the time he was
admitted to the hospital,

[00:18:50.01]
to the day he died was only
six, six or seven weeks.

[00:18:53.05]
So they figured all along that
I was sure to follow soon,

[00:18:57.05]
and it just hasn't come to pass for them.

[00:19:00.08]
And I've been to the doctor too again,

[00:19:04.08]
and my T-cells are real, real low, 20.

[00:19:09.06]
And the ratio is down to .04.

[00:19:12.09]
Which the doctor always said
the ratio was more important

[00:19:15.03]
than the actual number of cells,

[00:19:17.04]
as long as everything stayed the same

[00:19:19.05]
ratio-wise and all that.

[00:19:20.09]
Well now, you know, the
ratio is shot to shit,

[00:19:23.02]
and the cells are real low too.

[00:19:25.02]
So I'm going to go ahead and
file for my medical retirement,

[00:19:29.02]
um, disability retirement.

[00:19:31.06]
Have been getting figures
together and, you know,

[00:19:35.01]
options and things like that
about that for some time.

[00:19:38.07]
Other than that life goes on.

[00:19:40.08]
Still a pushing.

[00:19:44.03]
(Danny growling and laughing)

[00:19:51.08]
I don't fear death.

[00:19:55.09]
It's the few weeks, the few days,

[00:19:58.00]
or the few hours before death

[00:19:59.07]
that I'm not looking forward to.

[00:20:06.05]
Because I don't want the
people that I care about

[00:20:08.09]
to have to watch me,

[00:20:11.00]
because in many ways it hurts them

[00:20:13.01]
so much more than it's hurting me.

[00:20:19.06]
- I'd already pretty much

[00:20:20.07]
sorted through my feelings about death.

[00:20:25.08]
In regards to Danny, um,

[00:20:30.01]
it's definitely not something
I like to think about.

[00:20:34.02]
- [Danny] What's that bone doing in here?

[00:20:35.08]
- I have the, the skills such as they are,

[00:20:40.01]
um, to be able to take care of him,

[00:20:42.06]
if, if it got to that point,
that, that um, you know,

[00:20:46.09]
if, if he got sick,

[00:20:48.05]
I could take care of him here in our home.

[00:20:55.02]
When I first moved here,

[00:20:57.00]
I got started working
with people with AIDS

[00:20:59.08]
at a hospice over in Orange,

[00:21:02.04]
doing any number of things
from feed them, cook for them,

[00:21:08.03]
clean them, help them walk
if they needed any help,

[00:21:11.09]
if they, if they could walk it all.

[00:21:14.06]
It was difficult work,

[00:21:17.03]
but really it was a wonderful experience.

[00:21:21.09]
- I, I can think of so many
positive things about AIDS

[00:21:25.05]
that I, most of the time.

[00:21:27.07]
I get down and depressed
and I cry and all that,

[00:21:30.09]
but most of the time I can think of

[00:21:33.02]
more positive things
about it than negative,

[00:21:37.07]
because I've lived my
life on the philosophy

[00:21:40.03]
that all things happen for good,

[00:21:43.00]
and that there's something good
in everything that happens.

[00:21:50.04]
Probably the main positive thing

[00:21:53.04]
that has come from having AIDS

[00:21:56.01]
or being HIV positive, or having HIV,

[00:21:58.06]
whichever scope you look at,

[00:22:00.03]
is the inner strength that
I know it has given me,

[00:22:04.01]
and I think it's given a lot of people,

[00:22:06.07]
in that, as I told him,

[00:22:10.07]
when you think about most
normal people, healthy people,

[00:22:16.03]
figure they're gonna live to get old.

[00:22:18.04]
So they don't bother facing
death, dealing with death.

[00:22:21.09]
What am I going to do?

[00:22:22.09]
How's it going to affect me and
others being sick and dying?

[00:22:26.05]
So they don't deal with those things.

[00:22:28.00]
But then when you realize that, you know,

[00:22:31.01]
you do somewhat when you have HIV,

[00:22:33.00]
but then when you get down to the point

[00:22:35.01]
to where you have HIV
and few or no T-cells,

[00:22:39.01]
there's a whole different spectrum.

[00:22:41.01]
You have to accept the fact

[00:22:43.06]
that I can't look for
my old age retirement.

[00:22:47.01]
I'm not looking for a retirement home,

[00:22:49.01]
and I don't plan on
getting all of these things

[00:22:52.05]
that people put off
for five, 10, 20 years.

[00:22:55.09]
But you face death, you deal with it.

[00:23:01.05]
And then the inner strength

[00:23:03.06]
that comes from conquering that feeling,

[00:23:07.08]
and facing it, dealing with it,

[00:23:10.06]
and then rising above it
and saying, okay, so what?

[00:23:15.00]
I'm going to die, but I'll
still live until I do.

[00:23:19.07]
And I think that's a strength

[00:23:21.02]
that normal, healthy people never feel.

[00:23:25.00]
And it's a good feeling when you,

[00:23:27.04]
you know, when you sit down
and say, okay, that'll happen.

[00:23:35.09]
So I'm gonna live today,

[00:23:39.06]
and I'm gonna do today
what I wanna do today,

[00:23:42.01]
and I'm going to hopefully
make it better for me,

[00:23:45.04]
or make it better for
somebody else through this.

[00:23:48.08]
And if I die, oh well, I'm
still gonna live until I do.

[00:23:58.04]
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, stamp, stamp, stamps.

[00:24:02.01]
I thought you had a letter in your hand.

[00:24:04.05]
- No, I don't.

[00:24:05.08]
I want a book of stamps.

[00:24:07.01]
- No problem.

[00:24:08.08]
(woman chuckles)

[00:24:10.04]
There you are.

[00:24:11.04]
How you doing?

[00:24:12.02]
I heard you've been sick.

[00:24:13.09]
- I have been, but I feel better now.

[00:24:16.09]
- [Danny] Well, good, good for you.

[00:24:17.09]
- I mean, I have a heart condition.

[00:24:18.09]
I guess I'll stay sick (chuckles).

[00:24:20.08]
- Well, long as you have some
good periods in there too.

[00:24:23.09]
- Yeah, I have some good days.

[00:24:25.05]
- That's good, well, it's good
to see you out, take care.

[00:24:28.03]
- [Woman] Thank you, thank you.

[00:24:32.04]
(whimsical orchestral music)

[00:24:40.05]
- Ben and I have been looking
at some property in Arkansas.

[00:24:45.00]
There's 32 acres in a little hippy

[00:24:48.02]
gingerbread house up there.

[00:24:50.05]
It's way, way out in the country.

[00:24:52.01]
It's pretty isolated.

[00:24:56.04]
I've always said that if life

[00:24:58.03]
hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

[00:25:00.00]
And basically when they
started passing around AIDS,

[00:25:03.00]
that's what it was doing.

[00:25:04.00]
It was giving lots of us lemons.

[00:25:08.09]
So I guess I'm gonna take my own advice.

[00:25:11.06]
Ben and I've talked about it,

[00:25:12.09]
and we agree that it's time to slow down,

[00:25:17.06]
and retire and move up to Arkansas,

[00:25:19.05]
and plant a little garden
out behind the house,

[00:25:22.04]
and clear off the cliff
and make a place to sit,

[00:25:26.03]
and watch the sun come up and go down,

[00:25:28.09]
and just do something I've never done,

[00:25:32.04]
and take life easy for awhile, I hope.

[00:25:43.01]
(dogs barking)

[00:26:04.08]
I do consider myself to be the
luckiest human in the world,

[00:26:09.09]
from everything that we spoke of.

[00:26:12.09]
From a family, they accepted me years ago,

[00:26:19.07]
to a lover, the first one,

[00:26:23.01]
probably the first man that
I really loved and cared for.

[00:26:26.09]
And it lasted.

[00:26:28.09]
And we fought and we
built a life together,

[00:26:31.04]
and were accepted.

[00:26:33.05]
And then to have him die in my arms,

[00:26:35.02]
and then to find someone else.

[00:26:38.09]
And through it all to have a family

[00:26:41.00]
that accepted me and stood behind me.

[00:26:45.00]
And then to be given a second
chance at another man to love

[00:26:48.06]
and to love me back and a good job.

[00:26:52.07]
I consider myself very lucky,

[00:26:57.02]
very, very lucky.

[00:27:01.08]
(Danny sniffs and sighs)

[00:27:05.00]
(both chuckle)

[00:27:08.06]
Sorry about that.

[00:27:12.01]
I know, I know (sniffs).