This one sort of snuck up on me. I wouldn’t have noticed but for the internets and the sign at Starbucks.
Quick thoughts: Number of people I knew personally who have died?
Top of my head, four, low for a guy who’s done as much theatre as I have. Rick, Bruce, Stephen and Adam. Three gay men and a guy who had hemophilia before the screening improved.
Number of people I used to know who statistically have got to be dead by now?
Lots, but only three come to mind. A waiter at the Sunset Blvd Hamburger Hamlet who once said “I just figure if I’ve got it, I’ve got it.” in response to my asking if he was being careful back in 1986. Two “hustlers”, one in my acting class, one who lived across the hall in my building on Santa Monica and Gower.
Nothing profound to say really. I remember some uncomfortable times waiting for blood tests to come back and throwing caution into the gutter a few weeks or months after getting yet another pass because I was Stupid. My last such test was for my marriage license and I’ve been on good behavior for nine years and two kids since then. Stupid fades under such conditions or maybe it just finds other things to do.
I remember wearing a red ribbon and eventually stopping. I remember doing a monologue from “The Normal Heart.” I remember lots of earnest plays and movies that seem dated now that the disease is understood better, socially accepted and manageable in the industrialized world I live in.
I remember going to see the final full display of the AIDS quilt on the Washington Mall, I don’t remember when, before I left for LA in 2000 though. It covered the whole thing. Little rectangles, three by six feet each and they covered the whole damn Mall from the Capitol to 14th Street. Walk that sometime and try to imagine all those artsy-craftsy panels, each one trying to sum up the life of one person who died too soon and the grief of someone who cared enough to memorialize them. I went looking for one of my friends and got caught up in it until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I got out, walking fast but I chose to walk the length of the thing, down the middle and it felt like walking through time, looking at the dates of birth and death, doing fast math to figure out the ages of the dead, averaging numbers of average people who, like me, maybe just got Stupid but weren’t so lucky as I had been.
I’ve kept walking and now I’m even more removed from the reality of AIDS. I know of one acquaintance who’s living with HIV. Maybe I know more but I don’t know I know them. I haven’t been to a memorial service or “life celebration” since forever and I’m glad. I like my friends alive.
I’d like the disease cured. I’d pay higher taxes if it would help. But AIDS doesn’t involve me anymore. It probably won’t until one of my friends I didn’t know about comes out and says “I’ve got it” or my kids get old enough for The Talk. Soon enough.
Today I remember AIDS is still there, involving more people than ever, a few Stupid but most just really damn unlucky.
And I only get to walk so far.
