You're talking about the 1970s now and not the 1950s. We were all more sophisticated by that time, and I just assumed he was gay. But I do remember when we were all sitting around on a roof one night and Larry turned to me and said, "You do know I'm gay, don't you?" There was a statement made. A declaration. We just never had really talked about it.

[ John] Winthrop was the man who first said America was "a city upon a hill," which [Ronald] Reagan then appropriated. There are incidents like that all through history. We have been here.

[Calvin Trillin] was very "shoe," which means he was a big jock, a big deal.

Larry [Kramer] and I often disagree. There was the whole meshuggaas we went through about his donating his papers to Yale, and I disagreed with him on a number of things about that. You wanted a gay center.

"Shoe" just meant you were a big jock on campus no matter what field you were in.

Another example of what I have to put up with from him. But there was a time I was mad at all my straight friends when AIDS was at its worst. I particularly hated the New Yorker, where Calvin [Trillin] has published so much of his work. The New Yorker was the worst because they barely ever wrote about AIDS. I used to take out on Calvin my real hatred for the New Yorker.

"Weenie" was definitely a word we used at Yale back then. But I'm not sure you were one, Larry [Kramer]. Also, you were going by a different name.