This is for 3WW
New York 1987
She was tired. Her whole body hurt. Really she should leave the mosh pit to younger girls but she had been caught up in the moment at the Iggy Pop concert. It had almost felt like flying, being thrown from guy to guy.
OK it had felt great. As if she were weightless and highly desirable though she had no idea what being thrown from person to person had to do with being desirable.
But this morning she felt as if her whole body had been trampled on. She had stayed too late at the VIP room and the after hours club downtown where everybody but the bartender and her were sniffing coke. She stuck to plain soda and pot. At least she didn’t have a hangover. Though it sure felt like one.
After the half hour shower she drank Bustello that she had filled to the brim. It gave her a jolt but not the jolt she needed. She decided she needed a brain and body transfusion as she tried to remember what she had to do at work today. Some meetings she could talk her way through in her sleep. Nothing important.
Shit. She had been staring at the red ribbon without remembering its significance. Tonight there was another memorial service–the fourth she had gone to in the past seven weeks. After the memorial service there was going to be a rally, and tomorrow she was committed to bringing meals all day to boys apartments. Young boys, beautiful boys, successful boys. Boys cut down in their prime. Boys who maybe wouldn’t have had to die if the government hadn’t considered this a “Gay/Haitian” disease until too late.
She called in sick to work. Something that was really anathema to her but….She needed to prepare her eulogy. She really should have stayed home last night writing it but Will would have wanted her to be carried over a mosh pit.
The coffee kicked in as she thought she really did have the zeal of a convert when it came to AIDS though she had never needed to be converted.
••••••••••
There was a time when AIDS was thought to only hit Gays and Haitians. I wasn’t consciously thinking about Haiti when I wrote this but…
The Red Cross makes it real easy to donate to Haiti. They accept Amazon one click. For most of the day today I thought about running away from my life and going to Haiti. For some reason of all the fast moving tragedies of the last decade, this–well it’s one too many.
I heard it’s really hard to get through to the Red Cross and the other orgs collecting money. You can donate directly through Amazon.
Powerful words on an important subject. It’s amazing the myths that used to abound about it.
As sad as this was to read, it is a standing tribute to those early days and I could see and hear the scene as everyone tried to make sense of it. My one observation – repeating jolt. “It was a jolt, but not what was needed?” The jolt, jolt tossed me astray for a moment.
Thanks Anthony, Thom–thanks for pointing out the double jolt. I like it but will think about it
I must agree with Thom about the repeated ‘jolt’ but otherwise I liked your piece. I remember well the hysteria when I was much younger. Truly sad, but you told your tale well.
Thanks Mark. Really have to think about the repeated jolt!
I like the way you set the scene before you get down to the serious bit. Atmospherically told!
Anyone who can incorporate Iggy Pop into their stories gets my vote!! Nicely done…
Andy, Paul–thanks. I actually didn’t know where I was going with it. Just knew there had to be a ribbon and zeal. Paul the Iggy Pop part might or might not be true. He does (or did) have great vegetarian after concert spreads. Not that I know
Hi Pia,
Your story really took me back to the old days especially Iggy Pop!
-Tim
http://timremp.blogspot.com/2010/01/wiccan-rivalry.html
Something about the name “Iggy Pop.” No he’s great in concert especially when there’s a mosh pit though these days….
Nicely written–AIDS had such an impact on folks of our generation–I’ve never written about it, but maybe I should.
Sage I would love to know how you reacted to it. With your usual compassion I would think
Incredible depth. So many of our beliefs have been sugar coated, whitewashed and plastic wrapped that this strong piece is a welcome looky at life!
It’s a cliche but coming from you, I’m very honored
This never seemed like I was reading fiction. It felt completely real. Also, I like the word anathema. So I guess you could say anathema is not anathema to me
I can’t watch the news about Haiti for too long because it gets too sad.
I remember being terrified of AIDS in the mid-to-late-eighties. There was so much unknown then and probably a lot of misinformation, too.
I can just imagine Little Bone being incredibly scared and much more. Sometimes fiction is more real than reality and sometimes just a fact or two changed from reality makes it sound more real
Thank you so much for this. Someone I love passionately is HIV positive and it is amazing to me that it is no longer a death sentence. Every single day that he is healthy and alive I thank Gods for the stigma being shed and the ignorance in it’s stream.
Thank you for the tip about Amazon. I am on my way.
Love to you beautiful Pia.
Love to you. <3
It amazes me also. Sometimes I feel cheated as so many people I know died but I’m so happy for those who lived.
Love to you
Very descriptive, great use of the words! Easy to relate to that “morning after” exhaustion you capture here. Good recount on the early warnings of AIDS, it captured the overall paranoia of that era accurately.
I was so tired yesterday morning it was very easy to capture without the help of drink or anything the night before. I will never forget the overall paranoia of the time and am on a mission to make people either remember or understand what it was like
It wasn’t an easy time
Thank you :0
I’m with bone on the reality of it…or the feeling of reality.
Nothing good in this blog now could have been achieved without you. I can never thank you enough. Know you have read similar stories to this and I thank you for staying around. I’m trying learn to write as concisely and as well as I can
I had to read through this twice to get it all. I remember reading “And The Band Played On” and being hit with the realization that it was bad timing pure and simple that caused it to become known as a disease of a particular group of people. Thanks for this.
I hope it wasn’t the quality of my writing that made you have to write it twice
It was timing. And I feel cheated out of growing old with wonderful people who were incredible productive members of society. Can never work past that
P -
Thank you so much for sharing this – the narrator reminded me of some of the fast paced young women I know who are often misunderstood. Young women who in the moments of great sadness and distress demonstrate phenomenal heart and thoughtfulness and are judged not by their presence and content but by immeasurable superfluous ability to enjoy their lives with compassion.
Thanks. I was trying to show a girl who could be called a “party” girl despite being very responsible and having a great job who–well you said it and I thank you
By the way, I’m really enjoying the new Courting. I look forward to clicking back over and see if Pia has responded to my comment(s).
The writing was excellent and to tie it in with a cause, brilliant. THANK YOU!
Julie thank you so much
It was purely off the cuff. I had no idea where it was going and give myself a time limit. Thanks!
Thanks Bone. I think we don’t communicate enough so….
Pia , I couldn’t help feeling like you were writing from a true experience. I too lost many friends in the 80′s to that awful disease. Maybe you just write so well that it was a relived real experience to me.. If it was real.. so sorry about Will. (you also seem like a fun mosh pit girl!!)
xox
Thanks Lucy and I’m sorry for you. Sorry for all of us. It was, as you know, a nasty time in that whole communities were dying and at first few cared
The mosh pit–I was in my 30′s and there were somethings you just didn’t do as 30 was much older then. Fortunately I guess I was too immature to really understand that
I remember those times and how scared people were, often to the point of irrationality. I’m also taken with Amarettogirl’s comment and your response. I was one of those girls myself, responsible and hard-working, but ready for a good time at the end of the day. Funny how as recently as the 80s, people passed judgment on women who simply wanted to enjoy being young, as if youth were the exclusive privilege of men. Of course, a girl was talked about just as much if she was a homebody, go figure!
I hope it’s different now. All of it.
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It has been hard to watch all the images and hear about the news. It is hard to not feel the pain – seeing the faces and hearing the cries!
Very well written and the myths were too many once upon a time.
Thanks for sharing…
It has been so hard. The only good thing was seeing how much facebook and twitter impacted. With Katrina it was only blogging and frankly that was one of my most proud moments as a blogger. But now Twitter can do it all
Never want people to begin believing the myths again. Thanks so much for understanding
I think a lot of people still have the attitude ‘I’m OK because I’m not…’
They do. They’re not. The most rapidly growing rates of AIDS in America is among people over 70
I always enjoy when you write about that part of your life. But Iggy Pop?
Uh this is fiction. But you know that story. Actually I got a girl a job with Iggy Pop who I had never met before that night or again, fictionally speaking. She wanted to meet him and I loved the Ritz which was big—and I should write about it
Thank you, White Knight Dawg who I have known for almost five years!
Lovely read. I reread for the essence to sink in! The myths of AIDS
Thanks Jeeves. That’s one of my missions. To let people know what it was like. Many of my Gay friends totally believed in Reagan, until….It could have been solved much quicker. We fight so many stupid battles in America and let sick people languish or get sick needlessly