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statistician at the Great American Insurance Company. Joe went back to gilding furniture. Between Harvey’s $140 weekly salary and Joe’s $90, they could rent a comfortable apartment at Ninety-sixth Street and Central Park West. Joe decorated the apartment in late-fifties splendor. Harvey bought a pet toucan he named Bill and got on with adoring Joe, who seemed to get more handsome every year.
    One morning Joe woke up to find a cup of hot chocolate, a glass of orange juice, and a sweet pastry sitting on the apartment windowsill, with a note: “Someone is waiting for you outside.” Across the street in Central Park stood a snowman. “Hello” was spelled out in the snow at his feet. Joe finally had his fantasy kingdom. Both knew it was going to last forever.
    On their second anniversary in 1958, Harvey wrote one of his typical love notes:
    To my Joesan,
    To me you are my warrior—
    You are my knight—
    You are my day—
    May the many many days and years pass pleasantly, happy and rewarding, for we have many years to spend together—the first two have swept by and with each I have found I love you 365 days more and 365 times harderuminiumuns.
    Your dollbabysan,
    Harveysan.
    If there was oppression of homosexuals, it wasn’t of any concern to Joe or Harvey. They had a beautiful apartment, a box at the opera, season tickets for the ballet, and regular trips to the beaches of Puerto Rico. Who was oppressed?
    Joe’s mother died suddenly after that second anniversary. Soon after, doctors told Minnie Milk she had only a few years to live. Not one to waste a minute of it, Minnie insisted that she and Bill move to Manhattan so she’d at least have something interesting to look at out her window. She started taking up all the interests she’d been putting off, began guitar and singing lessons and got active in senior citizens’ groups.
    For Christmas, Minnie knitted Joe and Harvey matching afghans and crocheted booties. The pair did everything as a couple; they were treated as a couple; but Harvey insisted it would kill his mother if he ever brought up the fact he was gay.
    Milk still had his unpredictable moments. At a Manhattan restaurant in the late fifties, a patron muttered “faggot” one night when Joe and Harvey walked by. Milk reached over a divider, grabbed the offender’s collar, started shouting epithets of his own, and shook the man until his chair trembled. Joe was embarrassed. And surprised.
    Harvey was far more militant on any matter relating to Jews. Joe invited a German friend to dinner one night and Milk quickly turned the conversation to the Holocaust. What did the guest think about Buchenwald? When Joe’s friend said he didn’t know about the death camps until after the war, Harvey flew into a rampage: “How could you have lived in Germany and not known what was going on?” he shouted. “How could you not have been aware of the carnage? Huh? Were you deaf? Dumb? Blind? Huh?” Joe was now convinced Harvey had a persecution complex. Harvey told Joe he was anti-Semitic.
    Harvey reserved virtually all his affection for Joe, however, having few friends beyond an older man he worked with at Great American, Harvey’s surrogate father figure. Harvey had Joe’s teeth capped, took endless rolls of photos of Joe’s finely tuned body, and showered him with small gifts. Harvey confided that a plastic surgeon had developed a certain fondness for him shortly after Milk’s release from the navy. He’d fixed Harvey’s nose, but Milk turned down the suggestion that his oversized ears be tucked in, thereby saving the feature that political cartoonists would later find so useful.
    Life for Harvey and Joe fell into predictable patterns. Every Saturday, the pair took laundry to the Chinese cleaners and ran errands. Every Sunday, they slept late, ate Harvey’s matzoh meal pancakes, and lay in bed, reading the Times.
    It