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.