CHAPTER EIGHT
IT STARTED INNOCENTLY ENOUGH. IN 1988, DEAN WALKED down Christopher Street in Greenwich Village and on impulse stepped inside The Beach, an oasis of white—walls, floors, chairs, table and uniforms—to Dean, it seemed like a beacon of purity in the midst of a strip of garish debauchery. He felt awkward and unsophisticated as he stepped up to the service counter. On the other side, Dean saw Michael Hart in a white tank top, “a blond Adonis with piercing sapphire blue eyes and a smile that could light up a midnight sky.”
Michael was a savvy businessman who built a personal care salon with a sexy advertising campaign and long hours of hard work. He normally put in 16-hour days and ate his breakfast and lunch while he worked. He closed only twice a year: on Christmas, and on the day of the Gay Pride Parade, because the mob outside his door made it impossible for employees or customers to gain access to his business. Because of his success, Michael had a constant need for contracting work and hired Dean to do renovations for his new business. Soon, Michael and Dean were an item.
Dean abandoned his licentious lifestyle of serial boyfriends and made a commitment of exclusivity with Michael. They split their time between Michael’s apartment in Manhattan and Dean’s house in Newark.
Michael, a reformed drug dealer, provided the discipline Dean needed. He didn’t allow Dean the addict’s refuge of denial. Michael made Dean face up to his addiction and enter a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program. He poured all the liquor in Dean’s home down the drain to eliminate the temptation that can overwhelm a recovering addict. He made sure Dean attended AA meetings every few days without fail. Now Dean got high taking in Broadway shows and dining at good restaurants with his partner.
For Michael as well as for Dean’s other gay friends, going out in public with Dean was a heady experience that bordered on the bizarre. He was an obvious focal point, attracting attention no matter where he was. People stared at him when he entered the theater. They couldn’t take their eyes off of him when he sat in a restaurant. Women dropped phone numbers on him with hope twinkling in their eyes. Gay men approached him with the subtlety of mating sharks. Eating at an outdoor café was out of the question—the endless disruptions made it impossible to concentrate on a meal. Inside, at least, the audience was limited.
At times, Dean saw the reaction of those around him as a curse. He grew suspicious of people’s motives and hidden agendas. He wanted to be accepted as himself—for his contribution—not just because of his façade. Some acquaintances said that he expressed a yearning to be one of the Gay 500, an informal A-list clique of wealthy gay men in Manhattan from a diverse range of professions. Dean was bound to be frustrated in the desire. The Gay 500 was just another urban legend in a city that gives birth to myths quicker that it can debunk them.
Dean found a few refreshing friendships with those who had no desire to bed him, but simply enjoyed his company. They were the rare people in Dean’s life who found him a great listener and entertaining conversationalist—the men and women who shared his curiosity about life and everything in it. Michael was a newer and even more refreshing experience for Dean—a sexual partner whose interest was deeper and more genuine than that of simple lustful infatuation.
Michael noticed that Dean was unhappy in the construction field and encouraged him to attend electrolysis school.
Dean received his CPE—Certified Professional Electrologist—status from the American Electrology Association in 1993. At first, he worked two days a week at The Beach and continued with his carpentry work. Two days expanded to four, then, in no time, he was booked solid—six days a week—at $100 an hour. He had a large and loyal following who recognized and appreciated that Dean loved his work. He enjoyed taking care of his clients, nurturing them and making them happy.
Nonetheless, working at The Beach caused a lot of stress in Dean’s life. Though his relationship with Michael continued to flourish, his interactions with his fellow employees were strained. Dean’s good looks stirred up jealousies and his status as more-than-just-another-employee generated resentment. His friends said The Beach was a “den of vicious queens.” Dean never felt he fit in there—but he stayed to work with Michael.
Dean then discovered the new technology of laser hair removal. He took classes to learn how to use the strange wand-like instrument. He learned how to sear individual hairs down to their roots. He used his own body to practice his technique. In time, he removed every strand of hair from his torso and his limbs, with the exception of his lower left leg. He left that hair growing in anticipation of new technological advances that would require future personal experimentation.
Dean’s world teetered when Michael developed fullblown AIDS. Both men had known they were HIV positive, but now the reality of that diagnosis hit hard. A feeling of fatalism grew in Dean—the sense that there were no limits, because he might not be around long enough to face the consequences of any of his actions. “There is no greater feeling of emptiness than the void that envelops you as you sit alone in a hospital room watching your lover become more emaciated by the hour, listening to the cavernous echo of silence punctuated by the labored breathing of a once-healthy and formerly-stunning example of male beauty.” Dean sat by Michael’s side as he suffered through toxoplasmosis, cytomegalovirus and pneumocystis. “There is nothing like watching a life slip away while sitting on a hospital chair to give you a feeling of helplessness and insignificance.”
Dying of AIDS was a lonely path for a gay man. The sufferer was often discarded by family and friends and left to die alone. In other cases the family stepped in and pushed what they perceived as bad influences out of the sick loved one’s life. Those men lost contact with many who could have brightened their final days.
The break-up of Michael and Dean’s relationship was an ugly chapter in Dean’s life. Many believed Dean turned his back on Michael when his lover became ill. He received a lot of criticism for abandoning Michael in his hour of need. Other people who knew the couple said that the truth was far more complicated: that Michael’s family swooped in from Jacksonville, Florida, and Dean was out of the picture. Michael’s parents came by the Newark house to claim their son’s belongings. Housekeeper Elizabeth took an instant dislike to them—they struck her as uppity, bossy and greedy. She eyeballed them the whole time they were in the house, with all the tethered suspicion of a leashed guard dog. She feared that without her constant vigilance, they’d walk out with everything of value in the home.
Michael, vulnerable and dependent in his illness, could do nothing to change the sequence of events. He moved back to Florida with his family, leaving Dean in New York.
Dean summed up the situation simply: “As with many patients with terminal illness, Michael got very angry at his disease. Eventually, he turned his anger toward me, as I was nearest to him. He was frightened and so was I.”
At least Michael was not alone. His family gathered round and supported him in his final days. Michael died in the Sunshine State in November 1995.
WITHOUT MICHAEL AT THE SPA TO PROTECT HIM, THE NASTIness toward Dean at The Beach escalated. With no one holding the reins on his substance abuse—and with the increased awareness of his own mortality looming over every moment of his day—Dean renewed his drug use, at first with the occasional use of microdots and ecstasy. Then it flew out of control as the occasional became frequent, and his heavy consumption of alcohol and cocaine resumed.
CHAPTER NINE
JASON OPSAHL ENTERED DEAN’S LIFE IN 1995. JASON, A talented Broadway performer, was born to Robert and Muriel Opsahl in Savannah, Georgia, on December 9, 1962. He was their fourth child. Jason had three older brothers: Robert, Bart and Craig.
Dad was in the Air Force, and the family moved around with his changes in orders. They lived in California, Michigan and Minnesota before settling down in Orlando when Jason was still a small child. He made his first entrance on stage in a production of Oliver! at an area educational institution, Rollins College. Jason was just 8 years old. That exp
erience set him on an exciting career path.
Through high school, he sang, danced and acted in regional theater as well as at Orlando-area theme parks.
Jason majored in Theatre Arts at Rollins College in the nearby town of Winter Park on the shores of Lake Virginia—it was the oldest recognized college in Florida. He graduated in 1984 and headed to New York City and the bright lights of Broadway in 1986.
For five and a half years, Jason took whatever roles he could get—even playing the part of Sperm No. 2 in The Fertilization Opera, an off-Broadway show.
But shortly thereafter, doubting his ability to succeed, Jason made a trip to Orlando for the ten-year reunion of his Boone High School class. While there, he heard about auditions for Tommy Tune’s new show. He tried out—and then waited • and waited. Finally, in early December—just days before his birthday—he got the news. He was cast as a wrangler in The Will Rogers Follies starring David Carradine.
On the first day of rehearsal, Jason stopped at a nearby deli. As he left, Jerry Mitchell, another dancer and aspiring choreographer, was on his way into the shop to pick up some lunch. Jerry had never seen Jason before, but wondered if the young man coming out of the deli was in the show, because he thought the tall blonde had the attractiveness, magnetism and presence of a Broadway star. When they two men met on the stage after lunch, they smiled in recognition.
Jerry sat beside Jason in the dressing room. Soon, Jerry knew he’d met a man with whom he could be completely honest. He discovered that he felt comfortable talking to Jason about their lives, their dreams, their fears—things Jerry never could share with anyone else. It was this quality in Jason that formed the bedrock of his later relationship with Dean Faiello.
With his Broadway debut on May 1, 1991, Jason and his angelic high tenor voice won the hearts of New York’s theater crowd. In the first act, Jerry Mitchell played the role of the Indian of the Dawn. To say his costume left him half-naked would exaggerate the amount of clothing he wore. “Besides the headdress and bells, not much else covered my body,” Jerry said. His scanty attire before the curtain rose was a constant source of humor for the cast and crew, who gave him a lot of light-hearted ribbing. One day, Jason said, “You ought to wear that to dance at Splash”—a gay bar on West 17th Street between Broadway and the Avenue of the Americas. “You could raise a lot of money for Broadway Cares,” a joint effort between the Producers Group and the Council of Actors’ Equity Association to fund AIDS, HIV and HIV-related health issues.
That off-hand comment helped give birth to a charitable effort that remained dear to Jason’s heart all of his life. In 1991, Jerry, Jason and six other dancers put on the first one-night benefit event performance of Broadway Bares at Splash. Their entertaining but raucous routines raised $8,000 for the charity, now known as Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. In a year when the theater world lost many lives to AIDS, the cause was near and dear to many hearts.
Broadway Bares continued as an annual fundraiser along with two other theater-oriented yearly events: the Gypsy of the Year award and the Easter Bonnet Competition. Jason devoted his talents to all of these money-raising opportunities for the organization. In the second year, they added women to the Broadway Bares show and the take for charity escalated.
Jason worked every year with the production and performance crew for twelve annual shows in a row, functioning either as emcee or as caller for the go-go dancing rotation at the finale of each performance—or both. Each year, the theme of the production changed and a new theme song was written. In years when the music suited Jason’s voice, he would take on the responsibility of singing as well.
In Jason’s final year with Broadway Bares on June 16, 2002, at the Comic Strip on Second Avenue, the dedicated performers brought in $400,000 for BC/EFA. His active participation in this show, combined with his zest for life, his never-ending words of encouragement to his fellow performers, and his willingness to always put others before himself earned Jason the nickname of “the mayor of Broadway.” His cachet tantalized Dean, who yearned to bask in Jason’s glory.
WHEN JASON AND DEAN MET IN 1995, JASON WAS PERFORMING on Broadway in a new show, Tommy Tune’s revival production of Grease. He had not planned or prepared for his audition. Often at try-outs, he sang “When You Wish Upon a Star,” weaving a web of wonder around all who listened. “He made you believe every word, because he seemed to believe it. He made you feel like a child again,” Jerry Mitchell said. “The belief shone from his eyes. He was the real Peter Pan—the goodness of a child in the package of a man.”
At this audition, though, he performed a song he’d never sung before and danced a routine he hardly knew. He didn’t expect to hear back from director Jeff Calhoun. But he did—the biggest surprise of all was learning he landed a principal role: Kenickie, the leader of the pack at Rydell High and the romantic interest of Betty Rizzo, the head of the girl gang, the Pink Ladies, played by Rosie O’Donnell. It was the start of a beautiful friendship.
It also gave Jason entrée into a high-flying social world—occasions that crawled with a plethora of Hollywood stars. Dean finagled an introduction to Jason through a mutual friend. Jason was captivated by Dean’s good looks and charm. Jason saw the good in everyone—and initially, overlooked every flaw. He escorted Dean to events. It was a new experience for Dean and he loved the glamour of it.
Jason and Dean took trips to Orlando to meet Jason’s parents and brothers. The family, in turn, visited the couple in New York. At one point in their relationship, Jason needed a loan. Dean obliged. In exchange for loaning Jason a couple thousand dollars, Jason assigned Dean as beneficiary of his Actors Guild pension. At the time, the fund’s value was roughly equivalent to the amount of Dean’s loan. Dean had no idea that in a matter of years, the fund would grow many times over—and prove to be a heated battleground.
In early January 1996, Jason was in the cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber: Music of the Night, a revival of the original 1989 show. On opening night at the Tupperware Convention Center in Osceola County, Florida, leading man Colm Wilkinson’s throat infection kept him off the stage. Jason stepped into the role, and his flawless, versatile singing voice earned him a cheering ovation from his hometown crowd.
During the show’s run, they picked up sultry-voiced Melissa Manchester as the star. Melissa, Jason and Julie Patton opened the curtain in Houston, Texas, with a performance of “As If We Never Said Goodbye” from Sunset Boulevard. Critics praised Jason for his performance in the opening number as well as his songs from Cats and Phantom of the Opera.
Jason’s schedule of on-the-road performances strained his relationship with Dean. Always sexually active, Dean’s committment to a long-distance relationship was tenuous, at best.
In 1997, while rehearsing for Harmony, a Barry Manilow musical, fate forced Jason’s career into an unexpected hiatus. In September, without warning, he went into seizures. After emergency surgery to remove a tumor, Jason received a diagnosis of anaplastic astrocytoma level 3, an aggressive form of brain cancer. The doctor said he only had only six months to live.
Jason faced astronomical medical bills. Rosie O’Donnell stepped forward and helped with that expense. She also provided airfare for Jason to fly back and visit his family.
Dean never made a vow to stick by his partner in sickness and in health. But even if he had, it was not an oath that Dean was equipped to keep.
Three weeks later, Jason returned to Orlando, Florida. His brother Bart smiled as he watched his younger sibling jumping on the trampoline in his backyard, defying the odds. After a year with his family, Jason’s recovery from brain surgery appeared complete. He hit the boards on Broadway again, exhibiting the same enthusiasm and intense energy he possessed before his medical crisis. If anything, his spirits were even higher than before. He approached each day thankful to be alive and appreciative that he was able to work again. The final curtain closed, however, on his relationship with Dean.
CHAPTER TEN
AROUND T
HE SAME TIME HE HOOKED UP WITH JASON, DEAN made another change in his life. He paid a visit to the Medical Health Care group and spoke with Dr. Laurie Polis. He told her, “I want to move my practice to a medical setting.”
Laurie was born on December 18, 1956, in Mount Vernon, New York. In 1978, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree and an RN from the State University of New York in Buffalo. She received her medical degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 1983, earning honors in medicine, psychiatry and pediatrics. She served her internship at the Lenox Hill Hospital of New York and completed her residency in Dermatology and Dermatologic Surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, practicing at their affiliated Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.
Along the way, she received certification from the Diplomat National Board of Medical Examiners and the American Board of Dermatology. The state of New York awarded her with licenses to practice medicine, nursing and acupuncture.
She retained academic positions as well. She taught at various dermatology departments, working as an adjunct clinic instructor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, as a clinical instructor at Beth Israel Medical Center and as an Assistant Professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Laurie married an obstetrician–gynecologist and they had twin girls in 1991. In that same year, Laurie opened the Medical Health Care Group on Crosby Street in SoHo, serving as Administrative and Dermatology Director.
Highly regarded by her peers, she presented the keynote address at numerous medical meetings and conferences. She racked up an impressive number of publication credits and television interviews as an expert in dermatologic problems and treatments.
When Dean came calling, Dr. Polis was affiliated with four hospitals and a consultant for a long list of corporations including Pond’s, Gillette, Clearasil and Novartis Pharmaceuticals. She took her continuing professional education seriously. The list of post-doc courses she had mastered grew with each passing year.
Under the Knife Page 5
