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Ruth Coker Burks Biography

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“When I met them sick in the hospital, it was too late. But out there in the world, I seized on every bit of joy I could scrape out of the pan. These men had lived on the margins so long that coming into the light to ask for help scared them to death. I had to walk them through the steps, keeping things fun.”

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Book:All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South
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“I started carrying an old tour book for the Florida Keys in my bag with me at all times. I'd had it since I was a kid, and after my daddy died, I read it to escape back to memories of him taking me there. As I read it to my guys, we'd leave whatever hospital we were in, and go somewhere beautiful, away from trouble and worry. They'd all come home to Arkansas, a place that had birthed them but wouldn't claim them. So we left. . . . We went someplace else, where they were safe and warm. Where there was nothing to be hidden and nothing wrong with admiring the way the sun shone down on the beauty of men. As it it existed for that very reason -- to be admired and loved.”

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Book:All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South
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“Paul and I had one umbrella between us, and we rushed through the rain to get to the tent. "This is for family only," Billy's mother said. We stood there in the rain for a minute, away from them, huddling under Paul's umbrella.. And I gritted my teeth. "Paul," I said slowly. "Throw that umbrella away. We're gonna stand in the pouring rain, and we're gonna get as wet as God wants us to get." I paused. "And then we're gonna hug every member of that family, so they know what they did to us. SO they can *feel* what they did to us. All of us. Because they are assholes.”

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Book:All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South
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“He wanted me to know he thought I was getting away with something wrong. I thought about the time Billy was sick and said he wanted strawberries. How Paul asked him, "Do you want them cold or room temperature? Cooked down or raw? Narrow it down, because whatever you want, I'll get it for you." Anything Billy wanted, Paul got, whatever it took. And this pathetic excuse of a man had no idea what that kind of devotion meant, and he didn't deserve an answer. The denial of real love-- *that* was the perversion.”

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Book:All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South
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“Paul and I sat in lawn chairs in my yard, and usually we could cheer each other up by talking about Billy. It was September 1993, and he had been gone four months. We had started the thing you do, where you collect the stories you'll tell over and over again. You begin to polish the edges of a memory--something funny he said or a specific performance--until the edges are smoothed and the story is comforting.”

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Book:All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South
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