I left the clinic and stepped out of its windowless confines into a bright spring afternoon. As I walked down 17th Street, I noticed the flowering bushes and the translucent green of new leaves of the trees above me, the stubborn blades of grass pushing their way through the cracks in the sidewalk, the spill of color from a garden, and the birdsong that persisted just beneath the rumble of traffic and human activity. Life. I noticed life. Mine had just been given back to me. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how resigned I had been to dying. But I wasn’t going to die, at least not from AIDS. I wish I could say I felt unmitigated joy, but I thought of the guy in waiting room who had given me the thumb’s up. He would have received his diagnosis by now. Which side of the statistics had he fallen on? How happy are you supposed to feel when you dodge a bullet only to see it splatter the head of the man next to you in the trenches? I needed an adult perspective.

I searched for a payphone to call Larry Ross. His secretary no longer asked me what I was calling for and put me through.

“I tested negative,” I said, not even bothering to greet him.

There was a small pause before he said, “Thank God.”

And then, in a phone booth on Market Street on a sunny spring day, I began to sob. Really sob. It was a sign of the times that no one who walked by seemed to notice.

“I don’t even know why I’m crying,” I stuttered.

“It’s gratitude, Henry. The slate is clear now. You got sober and you tested negative. You’ve been given a second chance at life.”

“Then why do I feel so fucking miserable?”

“Because you have a heart,” he said, “and you know not everyone is going to get that second chance.”

There was something in his voice, a tiny twist of regret, and then I remembered that he would also have received his results today.

“Larry, what about you? Have you got your results?”

Calmly, he said, “I tested positive.”

“Oh, no!”

“It’s like I told you before,” he said. “Our status was going to be what it was whether or not we took the test. The only thing that’s changed is now we know for sure. It’s always better for alcoholics like us to face reality than to live in the fear of the unknown.”

It seemed he was trying to convince himself of this as much as me.

“What will you do?”

He managed a small laugh. “Have you learned nothing from sitting in AA meetings? One day at a time. Take it easy. Let go, let God. This too shall pass. Stuff they didn’t teach at law school. It’ll come in handy now. What will you do?”