Golden Rob

A Mini Epic
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Maria Fahey

English 9-3

4/21/23

Golden Rob

Tell me about the cough and the fall.

Father, tell me about the masses. The purgatory and

the taboo. Tell me of the aches and pains that one

could not speak on should they risk their lives. Tell me about

the predator lurking in the windy grass and the trees waiting to

take over the body of the unknowing gazelle standing quietly.

Tell me about the discovery of the infection and the ignorance of

the said masses and how they acted. For that reason so many died.

Now please father, tell me the story of the not so distant past, please.

Where did it start?

There were rats.

Rats in a crowded room, walls 12 by 12 inches. The rats, they did

their jobs. They had families, they had lives, lives in this little box

they called their city. And the rats, they were different from one
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another. Some rats, they loved differently, some rats they lived

differently. But at the end of the day when all the rats went to

sleep, they were all the same rat, equal in every way. Unknowing

to the rats in their city was a trap. A mouse trap. And some of the

rats, unknowing to them would set this trap off, and that would set

more traps off. The traps, they plagued communities, homes and

jobs. Some would call the traps “Unknown Stalkers”.

“So tell me, father.” Asked Michael’s son, “Where did this unknown stalker

come about?” Michael replied understandingly, “Well son do you remember all the photos

and stories your dad had of Uncle Rob? Well way back, when your father was younger, older

than you but young, his friend and your uncle was born different. He loved differently than me.”

“Why is that?” asked Jacob, Michael’s youngest son. “Well son he was just born that way. He

loved and wanted to love people of his same gender.” Michael said to his son, getting more

sullen by the second. “Why haven’t I met Uncle Rob papa?” Jacob said, confused about the

presence of the person it seemed like his father looked up to so highly. “Now one day, after

coming home from the hospital, somewhere your uncle rarely went to, he started to cough. He

started to cough so much. Me and my other friend Helen laid him to take a rest and he got paler.

We went back to the doctor, me, your grandma, grandpa and Helen.” Michael, now with tears

bubbling in his eyes, saw the curiosity on his son's face. “What did the doctors say Uncle Rob
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had papa?”, Jacob asked with a certain amount of fear in his tone. Michael responded, sounding

defeated “Well at first they thought he had pneumonia…” Michael now surprised by his own

new feeling of despair which seemed to onset so quickly. “The sickness mama had last winter?”

Jacob asked, “Yes Jacob, yes, but so much worse” said Michael. “They said he had Pneumocystis

Carinii or PCP, they said they could help him.” Michael said now on the verge of tears. “The

doctors, they said so many men that loved like Uncle Rob had it too and they said he had cancer.

Cancer at only 26 years old, cancer called Kaposi’s Sarcoma.” Michael said now with an angry

tone, one that scared his only twelve year old son. “They didn’t know what they were fighting

against”.

Robert was a twenty six year old gay man living in New York. He went out, danced and

loved to meet new people. He was always quite skinny and suffered from asthma at a young age.

His best friends, Helen and Michael were different from him. Helen never went out, she was a

hemophiliac and was always held down by her disease. Michael, a straight man, was sorting his

life out and had just gotten engaged. After a long night of partying and running around Robert

came home at around five thirty in the morning. He went to bed not knowing the predator that

was lurking in the shadows.

Michael could not sleep. He remembered watching Hill Street Blues on the television

with his two best friends and switching to the news. The speakers below their crappy TV

boomed, “Doctor Gallo and Doctor Montagna have discovered that a retrovirus was
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responsible for causing AIDS.” Aids, the name sirened louder than an atomic blast. Both

Michael and Helen were sitting stone coldly while Rob held a face of warmness and almost

happy defeat. He knew he had it and he knew it would not be long.

Michael worried. He worried what people would think of his friend, his best friend that

had been with him for as long as he could remember. He remembered when he first proposed to

Phoebe and how when he got home Rob gave him the warmest hug and popped the confetti

cannon that had been sitting on their kitchen table for the longest time. He wasn’t ready to see his

friend who had already faced so much hate for being gay face more for something he couldn't

control. He wasn’t ready to see his friend slowly pass away, estranged from his family who had

never accepted him. What would they think? They already hated him, their own son for being

openly homosexual, how would they treat him for contracting “The Gay Man’s Disease”. He

realized he did not care about the stigma and hatred Rob would face. He knew Rob was strong

and understanding. Really, Michael was devastated because he did not want to lose his best

friend.

In the coming months, it had become spring. Rob had always put on a happy face,

whether that was after hospital visits or when he would sit down to eat dinner with Michael and

Helen, and of course occasionally Phoebe. He had now officially been diagnosed with

HIV/AIDS and was carrying on as his happy self. Always feeling weak and looking ghostly pale,

Rob now shuffled along on a pair of crutches, decorated up and down with stickers and drawings
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Michael and Helen had put on them. “Golden Rob” was written on the side of the left crutches

leg, a reminder that no matter how pale or frail Rob looked he would always be a bright, shining

star in the world. Rob had gone out with Phoebe to look at wedding dresses. Phoebe always

admired Rob’s sense of style but also his brutal but loving honesty. Walking down Park Avenue

they had just gotten out of the store, both disgusted at how tacky the dresses looked, laughing

about it while ignoring the worsening coughs Rob had developed. They had sat down in two

green chairs, hugged by the growing pink and forestry trees marveling and rambling about how

great of a person Michael was. As they were just about to leave, Rob spotted a man in the

distance reading a blue and orange book titled “And The Band Played On”. Just then, Golden

Rob felt his shine start to rust. He felt as if he hadn’t done enough, he hadn’t seen the world and

wasn’t able to find a person who he really loved. Phoebe, still laughing at the jokes being

cracked, opened her eyes to see a single tear fall down Rob’s face. She asked what was wrong,

only to hear Rob murmur in a sullen tone “Oh honey, I’m not ready to go”.

The last few weeks of Rob’s life were some of the best. He had been able to find peace in

those he loved. Every morning he woke up to a box of donuts, all chocolate, his favorite. He

spent every day out with his friends eating lunch in the park and doing all of the things he

thought he would do over the course of years in less than a month. Michael and Helen brought

him to Victorian Gardens every weekend to experience the childhood joy he was never able to

grasp as a young gay man in the conservative environment he grew up in. In the final week of his
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life, Rob had finished his hospital visits and stayed in the Mount Sinai hospital now permanently.

Michael and Phoebe had gone to a gift shop that engraved words of affirmation and love into

mini plastic golden statues. Approaching the hospital Rob stayed at, the two saw a group of

protesters holding signs that read “SILENCE=DEATH” and “AIDS, WHERE IS YOUR

RAGE?” They took the elevator up holding their last box of donuts and a souvenir statue. When

they reached the third floor they were greeted by the nurse. “We’re here for Robert Rayford”

Phoebe said in an upbeat voice that was masking a devastated tone. “Right this way” the nurse

said, starting to walk hastily to the third room to the right. Michael saw Rob laying in the

hospital bed, skinnier than ever and hooked up to countless pieces of machinery. He sat down

next to him, laying down the donuts, realizing that Rob kept all the old boxes they had gotten

him, all full of stale partially eaten pastries. And on the table next to him he laid down the statue,

one that said “We love you Golden Rob”.

Rob died the next day. He was surrounded with love and affirmation from those who

loved him the most. “He was not a rat” Michael said to his son, “He was a lion and he was the

bright shining star that all of us needed”. Michael and Jacob walked away from the cemetery

Rob had been laid to rest at, leaving one last final glance at his tombstone, one that read “Robert

Rayford, Friend, Uncle, Brother and Partner” with a bow sitting next to his portrait.

Acknowledgements: None
 *Because the HIV/AIDS epidemic is a controversial topic I have obtained and provided multiple

pieces of information used in the story and their real world presence.

The Real Robert Rayford, assumed to be the first man

in North America to contract HIV/AIDS.

“And The Band Played On”, a book written by

Randy Shilts, recalling the public’s perception of
the AIDS epidemic.

Doctor Gallo and Doctor Montagna at the announcement

of AIDS being a retrovirus.

*Little is known about Robert Rayford and his involvement in the transmission of the early stages of the epidemic but this story should not be taken into account when thinking about Rayford's
role in the spreading of HIV/AIDS. The story is not based on the real world presence of Robert Rayford but rather uses his likeness as a symbol of the early years and of AIDS active spread and
epidemic state/title during the 1980’s and 90’s.