In Every Port

by Karin Kallmaker

At first there were just those who started in Castro. Gay men and women, many in couples, holding each other, carrying their candles before them. Kind candlelight illuminated faces tormented with despair and grief. She stopped looking at the faces. The expressions were private — emotion laid bare by shock and anguish.

  She saw men with candles dripping wax onto their hands but they didn't seem to notice. She saw lovers, holding each other, crying. The chill of the misty night settled on her hair, her face, but she was only dimly aware of the cold. The sound of weeping joined with the drums, and the march went slowly on.

  As they left Castro the crowd began to swell, began to change. Now there were older people, heterosexual couples, all carrying candles. Many were in tears. She thought about Harvey Milk's Homogeneity. Did it take death, pain, suffering to bring people together?

  They turned onto Polk, and Jessica looked behind her, back toward Castro. The candles flickered for miles, tiny stars down the length of Market Street as far as she could see, and yet there was only the sound of singing, of footsteps, and the drums. The voices rose and fell like a requiem, so full of sadness that the music seemed to come from the ground itself, laden with passionate grief.

  At City Hall, the crowd stopped. And as one, they raised their candles over their heads. Then, a moment of silence.

  For an incredible minute, she heard nothing. The emptiness of inner despair carried itself to the air and all was silent and still. There was no breathing, no crying, only the dull roar of traffic on Van Ness two blocks away, and the hiss of melting candlewax.

  Then someone began singing "Amazing Grace" and as the crowd began to join in choked, aching voices, she heard a familiar, sweet voice at her side.

  Somehow, she wasn't surprised to find Cat standing there, singing, her candle raised. She put her arm around Cat's shoulders. When Cat's arm slid around her waist in comfort, Jessica began to cry at last.

  In the uncertain hour before morning, near the ending of interminable night, Jessica thought, tears streaming down her face, will the sun shine on our despair? Will there be cm end?

  Other people began to cry again. But Jessica stood still and Cat finally turned to her.

  "Nothing really matters, does it?"

  "Except you," Jessica said in a raw whisper in her aching throat. "I can't believe he's gone."

  "Let's go home," Cat said. "They can't take that away from us."

  "Never."

  They put the tips of their candles slowly together and the joined flames flared into one bright, comforting light.

  Comments from the Author…

  Harvey Milk was the first martyr of my generation. JFK, Bobby Kennedy, and Dr. King were dead before I was old enough to know they were alive. I have seen them only as shadowy figures on black and white film.

  Harvey Milk was no shadow. In doing research for this book, I was appalled by the lack of information about him, his words and his work in standard reference sources, and so I relied heavily on the San Francisco Chronicle and the moving, vivid documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk, which is available on video cassette now. Keep some tissues handy; I need only hear a few bars of Mark Isham's score for the Candlelight March to get a familiar lump in my throat. Anyone wanting to know more about Harvey Milk and what he stood for should read Randy Shilts's Mayor of Castro Street.

  To Homogeneity!