In an unnamed American city in the early 1980s during the AIDS epidemic, a gay man in his 40s named Jody owns a map store. A friend of his, Carl, a gay man in his 30s, is a frequent visitor to the store. Carl starts putting chairs in the store, and after Jody argues with Carl about it, he learns that each of them was owned by friends of theirs who succumbed to AIDS. Jody rarely leaves his store, and Carl places these chairs there in order to show him what is going on in the outside world and how important it is that he participates in it. After some convincing, Carl gets Jody to go get himself tested. Jody tests negative, but shortly later, Carl’s chair shows up in the store.
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