THE AGE OF AIDS
So this is the last post in The Age of AIDS series — not because the age has come to an end, far from it, but because thinking and writing about it over the past week has spent me emotionally. Too many memories and not enough of them good ones.
But before I finish this let me leave you with a few more of those memories and a few thoughts as well.
I remember the time in 1986 or so when I was looking for an apartment for me and the BF at the time. I found this fantastic studio loft on Morton Street in Greenwich Village for just $700 a month and as the landlord was showing it to us he informed us sotto voce that the previous tenant had died of “you know what” but we shouldn’t worry because he had had the entire place fumigated after they took the body away. And that wasn’t the first, nor the last time, that I heard those words uttered during an apartment search during the Age of AIDS.
Or the time, I’m not sure when it happened but it sort of seemed to happen all at once, that Greenwich Village went from being the center of the gay universe to nothing more than an incredibly nice, incredibly expensive place for hetero yuppies to raise their 2.5 Aprica stroller bound, ill behaved issue.
So many men had died so quickly and so many gorgeous apartments had come on the market and all of them were snapped up so that it seemed as if just overnight the entire flavor of the Village changed. And not for the good.
Parasites People were actually using the New York Times obituaries as a source for finding cheap, rent stabilized apartments in the Village.
Or the time that a friend had an AIDS related episode that landed him in Cabrini Hospital’s emergency room. Where he lay on a gurney in a hallway for TWENTY SEVEN HOURS because they claimed they didn’t have a room and nobody really wanted to deal with him and almost all of the orderlies refused to touch him. So he lay in his own shit until a kind Jamaican nurse cleaned him up. And then he died.
In a public hallway at Cabrini fucking Hospital.
Or the times, more times than I can count actually, that a friend would die and the nearest and dearest of his pack of gay friends would have to go into his apartment post mortem in order to de-fag it prior to the arrival of his less than worthless relatives from whatever less than worthless fly-over state they lived in.
It was bad enough that their darling son had just died the most gruesome fucking death imaginable — usually without them being there for it of course — but God forbid Mom and Dad from Utah or wherever should happen to come face to face with the closest full of porn and sex toys!
And the memorials — dear God the memorials.
In 1987 I must have gone to two a month for a while. Seriously, can you imagine being 27 years old and having two people you know die every month? It got so bad that I eventually gave up going — as did most of my friends. It was just too fucking much because every memorial you went to you were reminded that fairly soon it was going to be you getting memorialized, probably by many of the same people at that very memorial service.
Plus, memorials for friends who die at the age of twenty or thirty tend to rend one’s soul just a little bit. Much more so than when someone dies at the age of 80 and who’s enjoyed a nice full life. And when you lose a piece of your soul you never get it back. That’s my theory at least.
The only good thing about the memorials was that they were a terrific place to meet cute boys. And you could usually assume that the recently departed would wholeheartedly approve of his memorial being put to such profitable use.
Anyway, as I said, I eventually just stopped going to memorials altogether and mourned in private. And whenever one of my friends died I always ended up playing this song by Philip Glass because it made me feel — I mean REALLY feel — the way I wanted and needed to feel about losing a friend forever.
Because, and I’m almost ashamed to admit this, but after so much death I sometimes found it hard to feel much of anything without outside help.
Does that make any sense?
Maybe not to you, but it does to me — sadly enough.
And so, as we’ve come to the end of this series and as Linda Ronstadt sings us out, I’d like to introduce you to a few of my friends who have died of AIDS over the years. I’ve posted a shorter version of this list here before but for some reason it just seems to keep getting longer as the years go by.
All these men are my ghosts — and they are always with me.
William T. Wheeler age 53
Paul Gannon 27
Stefano Tarrabullia 25
Wes Neal 31
Timothy Andersen 28
Jeremy Fawlkes 21
Rick Dominguez 19
Andy Meyers 33
Bill Jenkins 40
Thomas Cross 46
Jesse Ontkean 32
Terry Grimes 26
Danny Paisckec 26
Carlos Van Rijkiin 22
Steve Veshancy 31
Mike Gilbert 40
Hal Holden 48
Gil Conners 25
T.J. Armstrong 29
Philip Emerson 31
Lou Franzoni 20
Mathew Rawlins 24
Matty Kline 28
Richard Hudspeth 30
Anthony Pasquino 39
Derrick Jacobson 44
Patrick McCarthy 40
Jared Murphy 20
Alex Kazinski 22
Bobby Timothy King 35
Bob Watterman 29
Raoul Castañeda 30
David Frawley 42
Craig Sheffield 44
Elio Scibetta 39
Andre Scott 40
March 14th, 2010 at 6:47 am
Well Scott you just bought tears to my eyes first thing Sunday morning. You just described what life was like, way back when, for ANY gay man. Yes, it brings back memories, The only thing it cannot ever bring back are the dear friends and lovers who are so very very missed. Their absence is not diminished with time. Somehow it only becomes more pronounced. God bless.
March 14th, 2010 at 7:11 am
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
March 14th, 2010 at 7:33 am
What a wild ride you’ve taken us on. I swear, we all need good, solid reminders in our lives to bring back where we’ve come from and to, hopefully, clear up the future path. You’ve experienced so much in your life. Thanks so much for opening up and sharing it with us.
March 14th, 2010 at 7:40 am
Thank-you, Scott, for posting this series, for telling this story, though I admit that it has been very difficult to read. Like you, I lived my 20s in an epicenter of the crisis, in San Francisco, and your postings have clearly reminded me what happened and what carnage it really was. I lost my partner in ‘85, when there really was nothing for AIDS except to watch people die. I lost most of my friends. . . and I went to work every day at a hospital in “The Castro” and watched what seemed like the rest of the city do the same. I could not take any of the drugs until “cocktails” came along in the mid 90s, so I just assumed that I would die a horrible death like so many others. It tends to focus the mind, until you grow weary of so much focus and look for escape–any kind of escape. I did learn some important lessons about love, sacrifice and kindness among all the heartache and ignorance and fear. For every man I saw rejected by his family, I saw many more whose families came from afar and stand by their loved ones. I saw partners lovingly tend to each other in ways that I never saw traditionally married folks do. I saw an entire community rise up in anger and grief and do for itself what our fucking government should have been doing from day one. I worked with so many straight nurses who volunteered to work on AIDS wards and clinics. I saw and felt love and beauty along with the daily horror and fear, and all of this before I was even 30 years old. It is a cliche for older people to say that ‘kids today’ have it easy, but I would not wish what we went through back then on anyone. Still, thank-you again for this chronicle. I know it was painful to revisit this time in our lives. You should know that there are some of us out here who remember as well.
March 14th, 2010 at 8:57 am
Scott, you definitely should not feel ashamed – or even almost – that you got to the point of needing help to feel anything – most of us who lived through the 80s did. We not only had those we lost to death, we had all the others who simply couldn’t take the memorials – or anything else anymore – and disappeared, sometimes physically, sometimes ‘just’ emotionally.
For myself, as hard as the deaths I know about have been to handle, there is at least one person who I don’t know about and haven’t been able to find out about that haunts me even more. I just don’t know what happened to him, and all I can do is pray (in my own way) that if he died, he didn’t die alone… in a strange place… like some hospital hallway.
Even living through 9/11 was not like that. I worked in the south tower until that day and we lost almost 300 colleagues. But, even though it took weeks to establish who lived and died, we knew one way or another in the end. It’s much harder to realize that even though it was 15 years earlier, I still don’t know about one very special man from my days in L.A., Dan Tardiff. So, I do the only thing I can, I think about him often, but especially every year on July 6. His birthday.
March 14th, 2010 at 10:48 am
I too thought I felt nothing anymore. I stopped going to memorial services as well, being in Washington, DC a quick train to NYC or plane to Miami. It became numbing. I still cannot listen to the song “Wind Beneath my Wings” as it seemed to played too many times at the wrong times.
I realized I started feeling again when a (lesbian) cop friend of mine passed away and we went to her service. I was good throughout the whole service, that is, until the bagpipes started…..then it was like something broke inside of me. Since then, I have had to take care of my mother while she passed away in front of my eyes.
Thanks for the meaningful posts! Don’t forget to give us a couple every now and then.
At least you remember most of your friends names.
Many of mine are just ghosts for me now.
March 14th, 2010 at 11:03 am
thank you for this series. I have just been pointed to your site today. I have added a feed on my reading list.
thank you.
I came to gay life and AIDS late in the game in fly-over suburbia, so its impact on my life was slower and milder. I can only but imagine it on an increased level…
March 14th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Scott – thank you for sharing these memories. You should really consider writing a book about this period.
March 14th, 2010 at 11:37 am
Scott, thank you for posting these. I was in middle school in the 80’s as AIDS broke on the scene. And I live in rural Pennsylvania, so we didn’t even have a confirmed case of AIDS in the tri-state area here until like 1990, or 91. And I only know one person, personally who died of AIDS, my friend’s cousin’s boyfriend.
Nonetheless, these stories NEED to be told. not that the politicians, media, or anyone will listen to them, or care. But they need to be told so the gay boys in the 30’s, 20’s and teens can hear and know this part of their history.
As the saying goes, when one does not know history, one is doomed to repeat it.
And I’m so very glad that you survived it all, and are still surviving it, to share these stories.
HUGS…
March 14th, 2010 at 11:42 am
I can understand why you have decided to end this series here Scott yet I am kind of bummed because there are so many questions I am left with. Do you ever feel “survivors guilt” because you have survived when others didn’t it? What are your thoughts on mixed-status couples, is that a relationship that can survive the ordeals of one partner being poz? I know in past posts you have talked about a turning point when you started “living” versus worrying about dying, is that something you might be willing to talk a little bit about?
March 14th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Again, thank you for this, Scott, for all the reasons people have said and also for resurrecting the crucial and powerful SILENCE = DEATH. We must never forget this or let it go.
March 14th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Dear YCDenizen
I 411directoried the name in quebec, where it’s common as Smith in the USA
>http://www.fr.canada411.ca/search/si/1/Dan+Tardif/Quebec+QC<
D Tardiff
83 Des Pins Ch
L'Ange-Gardien, QC J8L 2W7
(819) 281-0323
Dearest Scott; Thank you for the memories, and also the mammaries.
G
March 14th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Thank you for the names; I thought of my own list and remembered each one of them again. Only by the luck of the draw I am here.
March 14th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Thank you from Toronto xo
March 14th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Thank you for these posts.
March 14th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
No matter what they believed, what you believe, what I believe or what anyone else believes….may God bless them. ALL of them.
Ever since I saw Longtime Companion, I’ve imagined Heaven to be like that last scene…such a glorious reunion; a dance party unlike any other.
Lourdes, I hope I’m not wrong. Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing this with me/us/the next generation.
xo
March 14th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
i would like to second john’s comments above.
i agree
that you might want to think
about writing a book–
perhaps not just about the AIDS crisis,
but perhaps about your unique take
on our world.
with your sense of humor,
and profound outrage at the inequities
we’ve had to endure,
with your worldly take
on our polarized culture,
and your extremely sensitive soul,
you would bring
something fresh to the table–
much like your blog.
thank you for the delving
you’ve endured,
to bring to light
so much of our pain.
i’m so appreciative.
it’s truly cathartic.
March 15th, 2010 at 7:11 am
i may be lagging a bit in contributing any thoughts, but, now that this series is ending, i want to add to it, though it makes me so sad.
After coming out to friends and family in Chicago and being very sexually active in the early ’80s, i remember when the “plague” started scaring the shit out of everyone. my circle of fuckbuddies was close, and there was a certain “circle the wagons” mentality when we met anyone from either coast or even a local who’d just visited NYC or SF. There was a paranoid wait-and-see attitude toward them. Life took a big turn for me when my boss sent me to the Far East, and i was isolated (and physically protected) from what was happening back in the States. i’m sure that the job transfer saved my life, but i still would hear from friends about who was dying or who’d died. It was torture to be so far away from those for whom i cared so much.
One boy went home to die, and his family cared for him all the way to his agonizing death. He went to his local church and minister and asked if they would bury him, and they said that they would not unless he stood before the congregation and confessed all his sins openly! The requirement wasn’t even a private confession but a public one. They had no desire to bury him, only to humiliate him as he was dying. He called their bluff and told them that he’d do what they demanded, if the church leadership and minister would do the same thing! Obviously, the cowards wouldn’t do that. My friend and his family found another church and minister who gave them the support and love they needed, and he was given a church service and burial when he died.
i can relate to what NYCDenizen wrote. Because i was out of the country for most of the 80’s and early 90’s, it was difficult for me to know what happened to dear friends. Some of them just disappeared in order to die in obscurity or to return to unknown hometowns. But they live in my memory and heart — Norrie from Minneapolis; Art from Seattle; Cory, Brett and Wayne from Chicago. i wish everyone could’ve have known them and what wonderful — and fun! — men they were. Damn, i miss them still.
i add my thanks to you, Scott, for this series. i know it was hard for you to write it, as it is hard for me and others to read it. But we must not forget. Our lost brothers deserve our continued love.
March 15th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Thanks Scott – these stories need to be told over and over – if anything to remind people that things can go from ‘fine’ to ‘bad’ very quickly. To me the sadness wasnt just the dying and death, it was the reaction from people around us, the isolation, the rejection, the avoidance by religious and medical personnel, the hypocrisy, etc… The one thing I see overlooked in these histories is the role of lesbians – they stepped in as the caregivers when no one else would – its often not mentioned, but they were there for us when no one else was.
March 15th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
If you knew any lesbians Sac Man. New York City is highly segregated concerning the boys and the girls — much more so than many cities. And virtually none of my friends when they died knew any dykes, let alone had dykes to step in and care for them.
March 15th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Thank you so much for this series. I’m so sad you won’t be continuing. I have been very moved by these first-person testimonies. You could really right a book on this subject. I can really feel how important this is when you write about it. Again, thank you.
March 16th, 2010 at 3:09 am
I hate to be the last one to post on a thread especially one of these, again, but I just couldn’t read these over the weekend and had to take a break – There is so much I could go on about, every story is a bit different but also very much the same. Common to many who lived through it I guess it kinda feels like what those who go through a bombing or a huge accident and get to walk away when so very many did not. Yet unlike the bombing or accident it took place over a decade or two, bit by bit like a thousand knives instead of something you could try to quantify and then move on from.
Only the Ornery. And the lucky. Remain to enjoy this electronic venue to share. I remember those insecticide-laden chalk poker chips! Damn – the memory makes me gag. I survived, my HIV progressed slowly so that I got to get what I needed only after so many had gone before to research it and make it safe and effective. And so many of my friends from when I came out, are gone so long. Would we have still been friends? Probably, some of them. Though I tested in ‘89, I only took it to rid myself of the fear of the test, because I knew what it would say. It was a relief actually to get the result.
Your list reminds me of my friend Tom, so cute, so nice. He worked at my favorite aquarium store, in Wheaton Md., just outside DC. His smile and tight corduroy jeans made me come in for much more than fish and invertebrates. His eyes, his smile, his energy, his bigfathardcock it turned out he knew how to use. And the way he kissed. And that he loved nature. Dead six months or so after fucking me so good – in 1984. So I didn’t know him well – but in him I saw the potential of even more – and the everything that was not to have been. Gone.
A whole generation who could have been – What? – Gone. The Best of Us. Gone.
He was as old then as it’s been since then – I have lived the equivalent of his entire lifetime since as an adult. Life, as it progresses, is weird. If I got it from him then I would be glad because it would be a bit of him in me, living still as a part of me (as retrovirii literally are.) I know that sounds weird but it is what it is.
Thank you Scott [and Bill] so much for these posts and this wonderful blog.
March 16th, 2010 at 3:55 am
And PS – to NYCDenizen – I feel your pain. I was able to find out about my friend Tom in relative realtime, a month or so after the fact via the obituaries, a fat section, in the Washington Blade. The Blade and word-of-mouth told me then, Archives such as they are now, and the Quilt archive for those who cared to make a panel… It’s fucking hard, in the worst way. There are guys I still wonder about too. Guys in pictures, guys I only knew by first name, friends of friends, guys I know are gone but will never know how or when or where. A couple I’ve found alive on, of all Godforsaken places, Facebook. Go Figure. The first guy who I had sex with – a Naval Cadet – I know his name and state and company and class year – I have searched and found nothing of, though I think I probably could find him if only I expended great effort and got the good non-public access…. He was so nice. I have wondered ever since (1980) what he did and where he was. Like my dad used to say about his friends he hadn’t heard of for a while, (when he was old,) “Probably dead.” Those of us so much more young just shouldn’t the fuck have that be true.