Gay guys, hookers, AIDS and growing up in the Jersey ‘burbs

Every time I start to write this ‘personal essay’ about AIDS, I get stuck. What is it that stops me? Is it the touchy touchy way I’m expecting that I have to write this? Somewhat. Ya know, cause how dare I write about my own life experiences in my own voice, lest someone be offended. Or is the sheer WTF-ness the truth here might expose about my upbringing? Yeah, that too.

I was raised by hippie fucked-up kinda selfish many-layered parents. I’m not going to talk too much about them – but you should know that I did not have a conventional childhood. So, I’m nearly 33 years old – and as a kid in the 80’s, I heard all kinds of crazy myths about AIDS when it first hit the news. Everything from ‘it’s a disease that came from a man having sex with a monkey’ to ‘the government created it in a special lab to kill off gay people’. Yeah. I was like 7 years old. That was awesome for not confusing the shit out of me.

What’s more is my parents had two friends that both found out they were HIV positive during my childhood – and we knew them before and during their fight with AIDS. One was Ted, a friend of both of my parents but very close to my mother – he was always at our house. He was the first openly gay guy I knew; he talked to me about his life and his past – nothing was off limits with Ted. He was a big guy with a permed mess of frosted curls and a booming voice. The other was Wendy, a friend of my mom’s as well, who was very upfront about her past too – she’d been a prostitute in Baltimore for about a decade before moving to our town in New Jersey. Wendy referred to herself as a ‘reformed hooker’ (tongue firmly in cheek), which left me stunned as a kid. She and her young son moved in with a man who had been one of her regulars. Wendy was no bullshit, bitingly sarcastic and never minced words. By the time I was 10, I knew a lot more than my classmates. I look back now and realize that some people just don’t know how to talk to kids, or when to wait until a kid is out of earshot.

Wendy found out in the worst way – she’d had a miscarriage and was told in a horrible sneer by the attending physician while she was still in the hospital after undergoing curettage. She came over to talk to my mom a few weeks afterward, and I heard her tell the story. She was more angry than anything. I was impressed by that – by her indignation. Wendy said she was not going to live her life in fear of dying. She enrolled in community college with my mom that fall.

Ted had told me of his crazy younger days in the Florida Keys, how he’d had a lot of unprotected sex and done a lot of drugs. His stories about orgies and cruising and quaaludes gave me a very colorful picture of the gay male lifestyle – it took a few stupid assumptions and awkward comments to my mom’s brother, my Uncle Eliot, to realize that not all gay men are such partiers. I mean, first, I assumed that Ted and Uncle Eliot would be immediate friends because they were both gay. Then I thought they might even know some of the same people – and had Uncle Eliot ever been to the Keys? Oh man, talk about embarrassing – but since I was about 11 years old, luckily no one took offense.

By the time I was a teenager, Ted had been putting off getting tested for a couple years. He had good reason to be scared – and I heard my mom talk him through it many times. Ted got tested for the first time when I was about 13. It came back negative – although I remember for the 2 weeks that it took for him to get the results, he was sure it was positive. The second test was negative too. So I thought it was all clear – no more worries. Then Ted told me he had to get tested every 6 months, because it could take time to show up in the results. This sounded like nonsense to me. I liked that Ted seemed calm, that he was himself – making raunchy jokes about my guy friends and laughing at how much my parents hated my music. I figured things would never change.

A few years passed and one day I came home from school to find my mom and Ted sitting in the kitchen like they always did, but they were both crying. My mom looked up and told me to go to my room. My first thought wasn’t AIDS. It was ‘oh shit, something must have happened to my dad’. My little brother and sister got home shortly after I did, and my mom couldn’t make us all stay in our rooms – so Ted said he’d be back later. I caught him on the way out and hugged him – still not knowing. I was nauseous with anxiety. My mom got my younger siblings settled and once she was alone, I asked what was going on. She didn’t want to tell me, but she spat the words out as she surrendered to sobbing again. I was horrified. I asked her what would happen, how much time did Ted have, what could we do? She just kept saying ‘I don’t know’.

Later, I began to understand that low T-cells meant danger, that Wendy and Ted couldn’t come over if any of us were sick when their T-cells were low. Wendy’s seemed to always be too low. She often looked really sick – where Ted looked fine. Wendy actually started going to a tanning salon and I would joke with her that she was a sweet potato because of how orange she got from being a bit too zealous over her tanning visits. Ted never seemed sick – so after the first few months of sadness, it was like we all relaxed and it was no longer lingering over everything.

I moved away at 17, to Philadelphia. And for the first few years, my visits back home were few and far between – every few months, for a day or so. I never saw Wendy again after moving out. My mom told me over the phone that Wendy died after sustaining injuries in a car accident – she just couldn’t heal and fight off infection. She wasn’t even 40 and her son was barely a teenager. I think Wendy would hate to be remembered a tragic figure – she just wasn’t like that. She was just a woman trying to live the rest of her life on her own terms, not knowing it would be so short.

One Christmas at my mom’s house, when I was 19, Ted came over and I was just shocked. He was so much thinner – he looked so different, sickly. It really shook me. He took no notice of my surprise. He was just happy to see me, to ask me about my life, to chide me on my hair, piercings and tattoos – to laugh at my mom when she grumbled about it. Some things never change. I kept wanting to ask questions about his health but I didn’t. My mom filled me in a little before I headed home. It wasn’t good. He was having liver problems.

I didn’t see Ted again for a few years, until the night I drove down to tell my mom that I was pregnant. She always kept him up to date about me, and likewise. So it was like we’d been in touch, sort of. I had come unannounced, so we hung out a bit. I was nervous and in no hurry to share my news. Normally my mom drove Ted home, but I offered to take him this time. Once we got in the car, he asked if everything was ok – and I told him the truth. It was good to say it out loud, to someone other than the one friend I’d told. I was so overwhelmed, and he made me feel better. By the time I got back to my mom’s house, I was ready to talk. And my mom wasn’t upset – a little concerned about things like health insurance and money but not mad at all.

I only saw Ted once more after that. A year or so later, I walked in with my infant daughter in my arms – and there he was in the kitchen with my mom. He was even more gaunt than before. My mom had been keeping me posted – he was turned down for a liver transplant. Ted had been in pain and the liver failure was worsening. I didn’t know what to say – what can you say? He seemed so happy that we were there – and I lightened up a little once we got to talking. But it lingered. I felt so guilty for being happy and healthy. I felt bad talking about things in my life. Ted died that year, emaciated and in a hospital. He was only 36. My mom was so devastated. Losing him was hard for all of us – he was part of our family.

Ted was always around when I was growing up, he came on trips with us a few times, he helped keep my mom sane during her break up with my dad, he gave me terrible but funny relationship advice, he made me feel really beautiful and special when he’d embarrass me with compliments, he’d play Boggle with me during my bouts of insomnia, he loaned me great books and listened to me complain through my growing pains. He told me about his own relationship troubles, he’d rant about family and politics, he’d always make me laugh. Ted didn’t deserve to suffer. It’s been over 10 years since he died. I still think of him often and wish I had more time with him.