by Cecily of Uppercase Woman

When I first moved to Philadelphia in 1986, I lived with my mother. I’d been living here for over six months before I finally met someone close to my age, a co-worker at a local travel agency. She took pity on me and took me to a few clubs. Sadly, I felt hopelessly out of place at those clubs; I never felt more strongly like I was from Michigan than when I was trying to dance in my knee-length pink sweater. Seriously. My friend again took pity on me and took me to a bar she knew I’d like. She was right. It was McGlinchey’s bar on 15th and Spruce, beers were fifty cents a draft, and I immediately felt at home. I went to that bar every single night for the next, oh, seven or eight years.

In those early days, I hoped to meet men. But I wasn’t good at sleeping around (yet). Most guys were not interested in “dating” at all; people hooked up and then maybe saw each other again at the bar later. This was hard for me at first; the first guy I hooked up with spent hours talking me into sex and he only bothered because his buddy was having fun with my roommate (although I did go out with him a few times after that, he was one of those guys that never stayed the night; sigh). Whenever I did finally hook with a guy, I truly believed he would become my boyfriend, and would later be the love of my life.

I still suffered this delusion when I met Jimmy. Jimmy Jones, he told me his name was. Jimmy was short, at about 5’9″, and he called me “cec-a-LEE” and had a mustache (hey, it was the 80s). He was missing teeth on the rear left side of his mouth. He told me nothing about himself. I didn’t know where he lived, where he worked, or his phone number. I had hints — he claimed to do some work at what I later found out was a gay bar, and he had a gay “roommate”, he supposedly had an ex-wife and a daughter — but honestly, I knew nothing about him.

We had a six-month long affair that ended when I met another guy (conveniently ALSO named Jim) who was more interested in doing things like giving me a phone number and actually sticking around in the morning and going to breakfast. Sadly, Jim II turned out to be an abusive, possessive fuck that I had to dump after he hurt me and not long after that, I discovered I was pregnant. When I looked back in my calender to see when I got pregnant, it turned out I had no idea who the father was, Jim or Jimmy. It would be impossible to know without DNA.

I told Jim II that it wasn’t his baby because I was afraid of him. I tracked Jimmy Jones down by leaving messages all over the city for him at various bars I knew he frequented. When he called me, he was sad, but supported my decision to end the pregnancy (I was a 19 year old alcoholic who was unsure of the father — terminating that pregnancy was the best thing for everyone involved). Later, however, when we resumed our affair, Jimmy often told me that we would have had a beautiful baby, and would get a few tears in his eyes when he talked about it. And one morning, after I’d called in late to work because of a viscous hangover, Jimmy and I ended up at McGlinchey’s at 11am, sitting at the bar, and Jimmy asked me to marry him. In all sincerity. I laughed, and said thank you but NO, I was not going to marry a man that proposed to me at a bar at 11am — a man whose last name I was unsure of, whose phone number I didn’t have.

I saw Jimmy after that now and again as I dated other guys, and I was living with my last serious boyfriend (the guy right before Charlie, my husband) when I saw Jimmy for the last time. He came into McGlinchey’s looking for me. He had bad news to impart. He was dying. He had AIDS. He didn’t expect to live six months. I remember hugging him when he told me, and then excusing myself and running outside.

Standing outside the bar, I nearly hyperventilated. Although it’d been a year or two since Jimmy and I had slept together, I was still at risk. Seriously at risk. I got tested right away, and my test, by some miracle, was negative. It was negative again six months later, when I was just beginning my relationship with Charlie, and when I went to Jimmy’s funeral.

At his funeral I met his brother. His brother has no idea if Jimmy had a kid; I realized while talking with Jimmy’s brother that I knew less about him than I thought. Half the people at the funeral were gay men. Why? Did Jimmy sleep with men? Was he a drug addict? He told me he got AIDS from using drugs, but I don’t know the truth. Not at all.

When I think about this story, I find myself thinking about the 19 year old girl I was, how lonely and scared I was, and how little I thought of myself. I actually thought that dating a man I knew nothing about — not even his god damned fucking phone number — was not only okay but was actually somewhat cool and made me hip. I thought that I was an understanding woman with no demands on the men in my life. My self esteem was basically zero.

And then there’s alcohol. The alcohol led to my willingness to sleep with men without being safe. This was incredibly stupid. It was the late 1980s in Philadelphia. I worked for a veterinarian in the center of the “gayborhood;” each week we were trying to find more homes for pets whose owners had died of AIDS. People died so fast then — usually no more than six months from diagnosis to the funeral. I knew AIDS was out there, yet I cavalierly threw caution to the wind and engaged in crazy, drunken, risky behavior without a thought.

God. I was such a fool.

I was thinking about this when I read in Newsweek this week about DC’s HIV/AIDS epidemic; nearly 3% of the population is currently infected. I’d already been thinking more about my drinking days because so many people asked about my alcoholism, wanting to know more. So now you do know more; you know that for me, alcoholism meant that I felt like I deserved little, and accepted even less than that.

Years after he died I dreamed about Jimmy. Jimmy was sitting and smiling, happy as could be, with a little girl about five years old sitting in his lap. It had been five or six years since I terminated that pregnancy, and I had guilt and sadness about it. But in that dream, it was clear to me that they were okay, wherever they are. It is a small consolation; Jimmy’s life and death cost me much. But I suppose it taught me much too.

**reposted with permission**