It starts like this: Once upon a time there were two little boys, who grew up on opposite ends of the country. They were American boys, and they grew up the same way, catholics, with siblings and working class parents. They went to school, were both popular with the girls, and they both took a walk or two on the wild side. High school came and went and when it was over, there was war. They were both very smart boys, and both tested into comfortable jobs, serving the Navy. Years went by and eventually, they met, and of course, became friends. And after a long weekend in California, when one boy met the other boy’s pretty sister, they became family as well. Who would have guessed that 20 years later both men would...wait. No.
I think it goes like this: A man takes his little girl out onto the jetty. She is small and afraid of the waves, the ocean spray that hits her cheek, but the man is relentless, he moves ever forward, ignoring her pleas. He knows that it’s a big bad world, and he knows it’s his job to teach her about the beauty and the brutality contained within it. When she comes to a rock or chasm to big for her to pass, he hoists her up with one arm, then sets her down to make her own way again. Here and there he stops. He points out a crab on a rock, a sea urchin in a crevice, a cormorant floating on the waves in the distance. Then he stands and moves on. When she looks up at him, he is a dark silhouette in the sunshine. He doesn’t know that to her, he is a god. Which is why it’s a shock when, just 15 years later he is...no. No.
Maybe it goes like this: She is still a girl, only fourteen, but lovely. Since her father’s been away, he’s taken to watching over her, knowing that she will face the same hurdles all girls like her face, and some that most girls will not face. He wishes he could somehow make it easier for her. They talk one night, at the end of a party, when he’s drunk or stoned or a little of both. He tries to tell her all the secrets of this world. He wants to wrap them up in a bow and give them to her as a present. It’s better to be rich than famous, he says. Better you should write, he tells her. Your brain will outlast your beauty. She hangs her head at this, and he knows she doesn’t believe him, doesn’t believe that she is smart or beautiful. For a moment he thinks to himself that time is short, but then the alcohol mixes with the other things in his blood and he convinces himself that he has all the time in the world for her, all the time that seven short years can...no. No. NO.
Perhaps it starts like this: A woman of 25 standing in a crowd of thousands. It’s a hot Los Angeles morning, but they are all prepared. They wear t-shirts and athletic shoes and they carry bottles of cold water. The woman is standing over a table, writing names onto a piece of paper, which will later be pinned to her back. Already she feels pulled taut by the day, and she thinks for a moment of folding the paper in two, of throwing it away and going home. Instead, she finishes lettering the sign. She hears a gasp beside her and she knows that the person next to her has read the sign. She steels herself for a moment then looks. It’s just a girl, no older than 12 or 13, eyes wide. The woman smiles at her. The girls says, you mean they both...? And for a second it is too much to bear but the second passes and the woman smiles and says yes, and it hits her again, like a wave it hits her, that they are both...stop. Just stop.
What if it starts like this: A woman in bed, in the arms of the man she loves. It is not a love she ever expected, but it is a love she waited for and a love she deserves. She considers the man beside her, and she knows that loving him, allowing him to love her back, is the only truly brave thing she has ever done. She wonders if he knows that. And as she thinks about him, she realizes again how much he is like the other two. How he shares some of their mannerisms, their sense of humor, their heart. In some ways, he is the best of both of them, and she wishes again that this man, the one beside her, could have met the other two. She thinks that they should all meet by the ocean, and in her mind they are all there, these three men and her, each of them owning such a large piece of her heart. It isn’t until she feels the tear slip down her cheek that she realizes that she’s crying, that she realizes that they’re...wait. Stop. Breathe deep, in and out.
I keep trying to tell this story, and no matter how I start, I find myself at the same end. And so I try to move around it, the same way I try to move around the television and the radio and the internet. The same way I’ve tried to move around this very space, avoiding the topic. And you know, I don’t always have to avoid it. A lot of the time – most of the time - I’m able to look at it head on, unflinching. But whatever the reason, every now and then, the fact that my father and my uncle are both dead and that AIDS is the scythe that cut them down is a fact I cannot bear to look at.
Some days it feel like a sucker punch, right to the stomach. Other days it feels like a rage, low and boiling in my blood, waiting to find vent.
Some days it’s hard to watch TV or listen to the news, because they’re talking about epidemics, and pandemics. Because they’re showing the faces of people who, despite the best advances in medicine, are still ravaged by this disease. Will still die, of this disease.
When we think of AIDS now, we think of Africa. Because Africa, this lost continent, does not have to be lost. It was not always lost. In fact, was never lost. It was...discarded. Discarded by drug companies because the people are poor and black and cannot pay. Lost because someone pretending to be god has told them that a condom is a sin. Lost because not enough people care enough to find out why it’s different there, and what those differences are. But lost, nonetheless.
24.5 million Africans live with HIV. Another 2.7 million are infected every year.
Close to one million Americans live with HIV. Another half a million Americans are infected every year.
There are 40 million people globally living with HIV/AIDS. Another 4 million are infected every year.
Three million people will die of AIDS this year.
Over 25 Million people have died of AIDS since 1981. Two of them belonged to me.