It was another obscenely hot night in Dallas, Texas and I was bored silly. I felt like Cybill Shepherd in “The Last Picture Show” —oozing sexuality in a two-horse town. I longed to be back in my comfortable urban San Francisco setting. Having moved to Dallas from the City two years prior in order to escape my crystal addiction, I was living a pious life. My mornings were spent at the gym and my evenings in horrid 12 step meetings and late-nite coffee klatches at strip-mall Denny’s. I missed the brisk air of San Francisco, the crazy people and the electric charge it vibed out. None of that was to be on this particular night in Dallas.
I was hot and itchy and anxious to get the hell out of that humid hell made famous by Southfork Ranch. I would have to find my own entertainment. I rose from bed, threw on a pair of camouflage shorts and drove my little Toyota Corolla to a construction clearing a few miles away. This thicket was actually smack in the middle of a suburban Oaklawn street, the Dallas gay ghetto. The open space was infamously rumored to host a smattering of horny gay men in its surrounding bushes. Parking my car near the curb, I glanced out the passenger window and noticed an eerie white flash go chasing by.
“Some tweaked-out queen doing laps? Why didn’t anyone tell her to wear something discreet?” I thought as I slammed my car door announcing my arrival. I made my way into the foreboding darkness, certain the invisible men could hear my beating heart. I had just leaned against the life-size studded tire of a yellow Caterpillar when I heard a twig snap and spun around. There in the finite darkness, stood a boy. I couldn’t see his face for the baseball cap he wore. As he got closer, I stage whispered a “Hi”.
“Hi,” he answered back. Although he was inches away from me at this point, I couldn’t make out his features. Still, I could smell the liquor on his breath and inhaled it with sweet sips. “What do you like?” he asked. I told him I wanted to fuck.
Assuming the position after dropping my camouflage, I just let the moment guide him into place. With nary a thought to alerting the neighbors and no lube, I tried to hold in my gasp and take it like a man. I grabbed a nearby crape myrtle branch for support and fully rode the deal. A fleeting thought of consequence passed through my mind, but I let it go. The stars were out, sweat was trickling down my chest and the air smelled of sex and jasmine. In these moments we were just two strangers in a thicket alone under a Dallas moon. Two boys not yet 30, tasting the pleasures of the flesh.
I didn’t give a good goddamn about future repercussions then. Besides, I had screwed other boys while high as fuck on crystal and never caught the disease. Why should this time be any different? After all, I wasn’t using drugs.
After he came, I clumsily dressed, mumbled a “thank you” and gave him a quick peck on the lips.
“Be careful out there,” he replied.
With reckless abandon, I spent most of those summer nights between one of the two Dallas bathhouses. I didn’t want to miss out on experiencing a historic and culturally significant part of gay culture because of some AIDS scare campaign. The only part missing from the brouhaha was Bette Midler belting Broadway hits.
Me and scores of men fucked in the privacy of clouded steamrooms, never thinking of the risk because everyone knew it was too hot in there for HIV to survive. I didn’t want to think about what I was really doing because I couldn’t handle the bare truth.
One year later, I was sitting in a van on 18th and Castro in sheer denial.
“Let me see that code again,” I said to the counselor who had told me I was positive only moments before.
It couldn’t be but it was true. I had HIV. How?? Why?? Who?? I couldn’t wrap my brain around it and spent days in solitude crying my eyes out and scratching my wrists up with razor blades. No drama queen could get one over on me. I wanted to use so much crystal that HIV would seem like a bad dream or a figment of my imagination. After three and a half years of “clean time”, I finally shot meth into my veins again. The rush wasn’t as orgasmic as I had remembered, but it would improve, I was sure. I holed myself up in my room, turned on my Judy Garland compilations and cried for three months. Spreading my works out in front of me, I stared at my now-gaunt frame in the vanity mirror and whispered, “You are HIV positive,” Then I screamed high holy bloody hell. Why did this happen to me?? Later, sick with weakness and feeling very Courtney Love in “The People vs. Larry Flynt”, I made my way to the bed, shot once more into my veins and puked all over the rug. I felt nothing more than a mild twitch. The rush was over and I knew I would expire in that room unless I did something about my use and that crippling depression. I was through with 12 step groups and their cult-like conditional acceptance and knew I had to count on me. Mustering the last vestiges of self-preservation I knew to be within, I found my way to the hospital, cried some more and vowed to get on the ball. What’s done had been done. I was now HIV positive and had to learn to live with it or lie in my own vomit and hum “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. I chose the former. I joined an HIV support group and learned to manage my immune functions. With HIV, I need every ounce of strength I got. The Tina I had grown to love in earlier, more glamorous years had reared her bitchy side and ripped the soul and guts from me once again.
Today, I’m living a more balanced life. Sometimes I want to fuck my veins with a 28-gauge point. Maybe I will tonight. Maybe I’ll wait. I want to fulfill some goals in this life and fear a soaring viral load so I refrain.
I don’t know for sure that the boy in that clearing infected me, but he’s the one I remember when I lie awake on hot nights. I often wonder if he’s positive or if he knew his status back then. Then I wonder if I would have done things differently. I know it really doesn’t matter anymore. I’m HIV+ and that’s okay. Will it stop with me?
Time will tell.
Michael Thomas Angelo