I quickly close the book, overwhelmed by his image, but his face haunts me. I cannot stop thinking about him, and his shaved scalp, and his studded ear, and his devilish lips. I need to stop thinking about him, and I know there’s only one way to do that. I lie back on my bed, close my eyes, and unzip my pants. I see Bartholomew Emerson Grant VI come to life, enter my room, climb into bed with me. He kisses me, undresses me, tells me not to be scared. But then he’s gone, and all I can see are images of dying men with lesions.
I hate myself. I hate these thoughts. I hate Bartholomew Emerson Grant VI.
I close my eyes tighter, and my breath quickens. When it’s over, I breathe out all the air inside me, hoping that with the last bit of oxygen leaving my body, this sickness will leave me too. I know this is a phase. It must be. I grew out of needing my stuffed rabbit with me all the time. I grew out of hating eggplant, and of putting McDonald’s french fries on every Persian stew my mom made. I will grow out of this. I must, because I cannot ruin my mom’s new marriage. And because even though my mom can handle anything, I don’t know if she can handle me dying.
I need to live, and to live, I can’t ever be what I know that I am.
Art
It’s the irony that hits me first. That I have never felt more alive, while I’m surrounded by people who are dying. In a city that feels completely segregated, this community center is overflowing with people of all races, ages, genders, and income levels. Bankers and dancers, all in one place, with one purpose. To fight the power, to screw the system, and to show the presidents and CEOs of the world what we’re made of. There’s nowhere else in the city with this much energy in it, nowhere with this much color, this much diversity. Maybe death is the great equalizer. Except it’s not. Because gay people seem to be doing most of the dying. My people. The final irony, that here in this place, it’s okay for me to be gay. I try to be gay at home, but with my parents’ judgment and denial, and all those photos of Ronald and Nancy Reagan staring at me from within their silver picture frames, it doesn’t work out so well. At school, the starched gray-and-navy-blue uniforms they make us wear basically tell us to conform to heterosexual norms, OR ELSE. Here in this room, I don’t need to be gray and navy, I can be a proud-ass rainbow.
“There’s a new report out,” a woman says. She’s super tall, her hair is buzz-cut, and she wears overalls and a black bra, which makes me love her already. She looks like the kind of woman who could play Molly Ringwald’s best friend in a prom movie. I pull my camera up from around my neck, where it’s pretty much always dangling, and I snap a photo of her. She speaks with an edge to her voice, a tremble of anger and fear. “It’s hidden in the back of the newspapers, of course. They don’t like putting our stories on the front page. It says teenagers are the plague’s newest victims. Teenagers.”
The eyes of the room turn to me and Judy. Almost three hundred people are massed in this dingy space, but we’re the only teenagers. And fabulous ones, too. Judy’s wearing a frayed azure-blue top over striped leggings with combat boots. She designed the outfit herself. Like with a sewing machine. She’s brilliant that way. She jokes that the reason she’ll make it as a fashion designer someday is ’cause AIDS is wiping out her competition, but that’s not why. It’s ’cause she’s beyond talented. We keep our eyes on each other. “Oh God,” Judy whispers to me. “Please tell me they’re not going to make us speak.”
“Our whole culture is in severe denial,” the overalls lady continues. “TEEN. AGERS. They are out there having sex. And nobody is talking to them about the risks. We need to protect them!” When she says the word teenagers, she says it with a level of passion that scares me, like there’s something about being a teenager that’s so intense that the word needs to be spoken like a warning.
“I guess this is one advantage to the fact that no one wants to sleep with us,” Judy whispers. “We won’t get AIDS.”
Judy and I haven’t made a celibacy pact or anything, though that’s what our parents and our sex-ed teacher have recommended. It’s just the reality of our situation that there are ZERO romantic prospects in the world for us, which has the benefit of making us each other’s everything. I’m the only out gay kid in our whole school, and Judy isn’t exactly the kind of girl most guys go for, though she has certainly pined for a few. I think she’s gorgeous, of course. She looks like a cross between Cyndi Lauper and a Botero painting. But as she often says, gay guys finding her gorgeous doesn’t do much for her. Also, she’s allowed to make AIDS jokes ’cause her uncle Stephen has AIDS and makes AIDS jokes all the time. He says he’s too close to death NOT to make fun of it.
“Speak for yourself,” I say. “The whole basketball team wants to sleep with me.” I pause for dramatic effect, and then add, “They just don’t know it yet.”
Judy smiles and swats my shoulder, which is bare thanks to the tank top I’m wearing, purchased at the merch table at a previous meeting. Judy and I have been coming to these meetings for a few months now. At first, Stephen wouldn’t let us come. But we begged, and we got our way. He still hasn’t let us go to an actual protest, but we’re working on it.
“Shut up,” Judy says. “We are at a serious gathering of serious people discussing a serious issue about TEEN. AGERS.”
Judy’s uncle Stephen stands up, adjusts his shawl, and clears his throat. He’s high drama, and we love him for it. Once upon a time, he was also the most handsome, charismatic man I had ever met. Now he looks like a ghost. But at least he’s still alive. His lover, José, is gone, as in not with us anymore, as in deceased. The hospital threw his body in a GARBAGE BAG when he passed. He’s one of the ninety-four friends Stephen has lost to the disease. He keeps a list. He also keeps a pot of jelly beans and adds a jelly bean to the pot every time someone dies. He says that just before he dies, he will eat every one so that his friends will be with him. As he begins to speak, I snap a photo of him. “What about an action at the department of education?” Stephen asks. “We could demand a change in their sex education policies. We could demand condom distribution. We could dress up like librarians. I have the perfect blouse!”
Another man—thin as a rail with hollow cheeks—stands up. “We don’t have the time or the resources to be distracted,” he says. “We know who the real enemy is. The price of AZT is obscene. We have our plan, and it’s going to need all our attention.”
“Well, that’s what affinity groups are for,” Stephen says. “And I’m on board with our plan. Like all of you, I’m ready to risk getting arrested . . . again.”
There’s some laughter in the room, solidarity in the number of times they’ve all been booked and released. That’s the way it usually works. ACT UP members are given civil disobedience training, and they’re usually released without being put through the system. But there have been exceptions, and no one wants to be that exception. I see a man in a leather jacket in the corner of a room eyeing a handsome young dancer type. They cruise each other with heat. For meetings about a deadly sexually transmitted virus, these gatherings are surprising breeding grounds for hookups. I snap a photo of the two men.