He can't be more than 18 or 19, brown hair, tight T-shirt, tighter jeans, light blue eyes that have yet to be deadened by the street. It's obvious what he wants: a quick hustle, sex for money, drugs, his next meal. Yet he approaches Neal Shaffer with some caution. Maybe he pauses because of the time and place: a balmy September afternoon behind "the strip" on Cedar Springs Road in the parking lot of the AIDS food pantry. Maybe it's Shaffer's gait, which is slowed considerably by nerve damage that even morphine can't relieve. Or maybe it's Shaffer's black tote bag, standard issue for all pantry consumers and the mark of an AIDS... More >>>