Remembering Marc (Fall 1996)

By Warren Brown

 

I'm terrible at sewing. I've never been taught and haven't got the patience to learn. So I'll never produce an AIDS quilt for Marcus Joseph Bensemann, 1954-96. Instead I'll have to weave my words.

 

I met Marc in 1980, when we both began working as copy editors on an afternoon newspaper in Christchurch, New Zealand. He was 26--a year younger than me. Most of our workmates were in their early 30s and were obsessed with rugby, cricket and beer. A group of them congregated at a pub after work every night, but I never enjoyed their drunken company. Marc never went near the pub. He had his own mysterious social life, which he only hinted at.

 

In 1981, I met a guy called Dave in another pub and fell hopelessly in love. It was so unexpected. During my teenage years, I'd formed a number of intense friendships with other teenage guys. But being a stutterer, I had never spoken about those feelings with anyone, not even those guys. Later I'd learned that this was a normal adolescent phase before the heterosexual hormones kicked in. But by the age of 22, I hadn't grown out of it. So I'd read about homosexuality and waited silently for a good-looking, warm gay guy to seduce me. It took five years.

 

My love for Dave was the kind I couldn't hide. Workmates noticed my transfixed grin and asked, "Who is she?" I laughed and tried to be mysterious. In those days, New Zealand law threatened five years' jail for having sex with another guy and seven years' jail for sodomy. Being a journalist, a profession that doesn't tolerate criminals in its ranks, I knew that I risked being sacked. But I was too much in love to worry. I laughed off the prying questions. But it would have been lying to pretend that I had a girlfriend. So when my workmates persisted, I never mentioned Dave by name and purposely avoided referring to him as "her."

 

Only one person noticed my circumlocutions. At morning tea a week later, Marc stared at me in the eyes and asked if my lover was a guy. I couldn't deny it. So I nodded. "I thought so," he said, smiling. The relief flooded out of me. I was so glad that someone understood. Over the next few weeks, I told Marc the whole wonderful story. He seemed genuinely happy for me, and was not afraid to ask sexual questions. I laughed and told him simply everything.

 

Two months later, Marc casually confided that he was bisexual. I didn't know whether to believe him, since I had never seen him with a boyfriend or even a girlfriend. But it didn't worry me. He seemed to understand what I was going through and was sympathetic when my relationship with Dave soured. It was a wonderful release to talk to Marc about Dave, knowing I wouldn't be judged harshly.

 

Not long after, Dave and I broke up. In retrospect, the reason was plain. But at the time it seemed inexplicable. Dave wanted to compress our love affair into the weekends. When Sundays arrived, he rushed back to his closet to pretend to his family and friends that he was really straight. It wasn't until Friday nights that I could pry him out of the closet again and back into my arms. I was infuriated with him. But I kept getting mixed messages from him, depending on which day of the week it was. Being a stutterer, I had difficulty discussing the problem with Dave. That just added to the frustration. And because I'd never fallen in love before, I had no idea where my life was leading or why Dave was treating me in such a callous way. After years of living unloved, I didn't have the emotional experience to understand the situation or cope with its effects. It was my first experience of the politics of the closet. So I turned increasingly to Marc for support.

 

Dave and I made four attempts at a relationship, spread over more than a year. Whenever we broke up, I spent more time at Christchurch's gay nightclub, drinking and dancing, usually unable to speak fluently above the pounding music. Guys would buy me drinks and I'd go home with them. Most of the liaisons weren't satisfying. I didn't have the fluency skills to develop a meaningful relationship and was never able to achieve an orgasm on the first night. Needless to say, second nights rarely occurred. So I pined for Dave. But when Dave and I were together, we fought. Marc was wonderfully understanding and gave me much needed advice.

 

It took Marc nearly a year to admit to me that he wasn't attracted to women. That seemed odd, considering that he knew I was gay and wouldn't reject him as a friend. He never explained his diffidence. Possibly he feared that I might "out" him at work. But he casually admitted soon after that a medical student named Pete had moved into his house and wasn't paying rent. He rarely mentioned Pete, but his body language told me how much he loved Pete.

 

In many ways, 1981 was the best year of my life. The good times with Dave more than compensated for the arguments and break-ups. I had this naive belief that a more compatible Dave would come along in 1982 and we would live happily ever after.

 

It was not to be. In January 1982, I met a huge drunken guy at a workmate's birthday party who told me he wanted to have sex with me. I didn't like the look of him, nor of his wife. So I turned him down. Half an hour later he ripped my clothes off and indecently assaulted me, in front of about 30 guests, many of whom I worked with. I wanted to go to the police. But because of my stutter, I was paralyzed with the fear of having to give evidence in court in front of the news media.

 

It took less than 24 hours for news of the indecent assault to spread around work. And because the attack was so inexplicable to so many of my workmates, some made jokes about it. I didn't have the fluency skills to handle the situation. Because I didn't defend myself, the taunts got worse. My workmates concluded that I was gay, and their anger and contempt for gays boiled to the surface. I kept a brave silent face, but inside I cried for help. It was the worst way to come out because I had no control over the situation.

 

Marc had missed the party. The first he heard were the whispers and taunts at work. Later that day, he took me aside and demanded to know what had happened. When he heard, his face turned white and his jaw sagged defeatedly. Not surprisingly, Marc distanced himself from me at work. I didn't think anyone would have wanted to shoulder a fraction of my torment. He was just protecting himself and his job. I don't blame him.

 

Three weeks later, a crippling lethargy struck me. The doctor diagnosed glandular fever and ordered time off from work to rest. So I retreated to bed, alternative sweating and shivering, too exhausted to walk to my kitchen to cook meals. I slept for most of the time. But when I awoke, the horror of the indecent assault played over and over in my mind. It seemed I lost the will to live. After six days, a reporter from work turned up and was horrified at the emaciated condition she found me in, even though there was food in the cupboards. She poured food down my throat. From then on, my strength slowly returned.

 

Marc turned up days later, and offered me a ride in his car to cheer me up. I was too exhausted to say anything but thank you. It rained the whole way. Not much was said. But I remain forever in Marc's debt for the kindness that day. It showed he cared. It provided the psychological boost I needed to recover from my illness.

Returning to work three weeks later was an ordeal. The taunts and jokes continued, but I didn't have the energy to care. I endured them for six months. My health fluctuated. My career was going nowhere. So I inquired about a job on Christchurch's morning newspaper, and was employed almost straight away.

My only regret was leaving behind Marc. Because he worked days and I worked nights, we rarely saw each other. The night work destroyed my social life and I lost contact with the gay community. The following year, Marc and Pete went overseas for a six-month holiday. By the time they returned, my love life was non-existent and my fear of speaking on the phone was intensified. So I never phoned Marc, even though I wanted to hear about his adventures in America and Europe. The last time I saw him was in 1985. he introduced me to his new boyfriend, an American named Kurt. Not long after, Kurt moved to Auckland, the Marc followed him.

In March this year, I visited Auckland for the first time in 22 years. It was to attend the Australasian Speak Easy Convention. But I felt half-hearted about the convention, mainly because I'm not too enthusiastic about the "speak more fluently" approach toward treating stuttering in New Zealand and Australia. The real reason I attended was as an excuse to contact Marc and find out what he's been up to for 10 years.

 

I knew the suburb Marc lived in and where he worked. But when I got to Auckland, I couldn't find Marc's number in the phone book. A feeling of dread washed over me. So I went to his workplace, hoping to leave a note for him when he arrived on the night shift. All I found was a muddy hole in the ground where the building had been. Unhappy, I retreated to a nearby bookshop, and absently picked up the first book that caught my eye. It was "Growing Up Gay" by James Allan, a series of 12 biographies of New Zealand gay men. As I flicked through the pages, the chapter name "Marc Bensemann" jumped out at me. Stunned, I bought the book and hurried off to a nearby park to read it. Suddenly everything I wanted to know about Marc's last 10 years was revealed. Kurt had died of AIDS. Marc was HIV-positive.

 

I felt a desperate need to contact Marc. But there seemed no way. My fluctuating disfluency seemed trivial compared with the challenge facing Marc. So I moped through the rest of the convention, missing sessions when my melancholia became too intense. Over and over, my mind replayed the day when Marc had taken me for a ride in his car. Most of the symptoms of glandular fever are similar to those of the HIV virus. It seemed the roles were reversed. I had a crazy desire to return his kindness--to give him strength to carry on. But in a city of 1 million people, Marc could not be found.

 

After returning from the conference, I tried writing to Marc via Body Positive, an Auckland self-help group for those who are HIV-positive. There was no reply. So I wrote to the editor of "Growing Up Gay." Then "Out!" magazine arrived. Inside was an obituary of Marc.

 

The next might a stranger called Mike phone from Auckland to say Body Positive had passed on my letter. He said he was Marc's lover. We talked for five minutes. Apparently Marc had died on the first day of the five-day Speak Easy convention--the day I'd felt so jumpy and depressed that I'd literally run from the convention at the end of the day to escape a sense of foreboding. Marc's funeral had been at 1 p.m. on the last day of the convention--the day I'd fled the convention again, taking a ferry trip to Devonport. As soon as I'd stood on Alexandra Head at 1 p.m. and watched storm clouds rocket across Auckland Isthmus, I had wished with all my strength that Marc would be all right. Sadly, it was too late. Mike assured me that it was Marc's wish not to see anyone in his final days. He had died at home, nursed by Mike and a Christchurch woman I'd vaguely met through Marc.

 

Although Marc was an important part of my life for only two years, he played a crucial role. Much of my understanding of what it means to be gay came from talking to him. He was the rock I needed, to anchor me, when the rest of life was stormy. Even when he was living far from me, I took strength from the knowledge that he was a gay guy who was really worth knowing. I'll never forget him.

 

It breaks me up inside to think about how we lost contact. If I'd confronted my fear of phones, we might have seen more of each other and maybe kept in contact after he moved to Auckland. But I never phoned Marc, for fear of stuttering. Even though he knew I was a stutterer, I couldn't bear the thought that he might reject me if he heard how disfluent I was on the phone. I grieve for my stupidity too.

 

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