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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1987)
Climbing The Wall Or better yet , still more ways in which AIDS can make us miserable. that’s new but has a few interesting political positions. One interesting thing about the book is that it’s the first place I’ve seen in print that ver the witty clinking o f cocktails, we says natural skin condoms aren t safe. They’re gather. We talk of the world, finance, literature, theatre, gossip. Again, as always, ttx) porous. I've heard rumors before, bui have seen no medical test results or anything con the subject veers to AIDS. The latest rumor, the crete. I do think it’s a rumor worth repeating, current news, the newest anxiety. It never fails to cast a somber shadow each time it appears, nonetheless. Later on. in a quiet comer, a beautiful, like some unpassable brick wail. “ The AIDS organization in Houston took in muscular man mentions, in an offhand way, 90 new cases in July,’’ someone says. that he’s not always safe. A great sadness fills me and I cannot hide it from him. "You were so "D iagnosed?” I ask. worried a few months ago,” I tell him, "th a t’s ‘ ‘ Diagnosed. Forty-two-deaths.' ’ why you got tested. They told you that you were negative. You've been unsafe since then?” He nods. I am angry, regretful I want to yell at him for his stupidity, for putting himself and others at risk. Then I remember. It’s not my place to judge him. Besides, I ask myself, have I always been completely safe? I simply tell him. “ I love you anyway, you know — but for chrissake please be safe from now on. okay?” I know it’s not enough. No thing is enough. Brick wall. Smack. I overhear a conversation: "D id you see the article in Newsweek?” "Som ething about A lp s and the face of " In July? In July?” Am erica?” "Just July - "Y eah. All those faces.” Brick wall. baby. Smack. " I read all the captions. Did you see the one A book lies on my coffee table. The Politics where the guy wanted to know why God was o f AIDS by Nancy Krieger and Rose Appleman picking all his flowers at once?” and available at Laughing Horse Bookstore, A "Y eah. I s a w " W oman’s Place. Powell’s or Catbird Seat for Why, indeed? Small silence. S4 (X). Someone asks about it. I tell him it's I am beginning to feel bruised and battered by intelligent, although it doesn't provide much this fucking brick wall. It'senough to encounter BY M l_C H A E L S R EED O it at cocktail parties, but it’s also my vocation. My editor hands me news clippings. How about this one (it’s from the New York Native. July 25, 1987 issue): "SYPHILIS ALERT — If you have ARC or AIDS, insist that your doctor administer all available tests for syphilis, not just the VDRL. Insist on the MHA-TP. And educate yourself about what syphilis does to the immune system.” I called the Multnomah County Health De partment. Venereal Disease Center to see if they administered the MHA-TP. They only adminis ter the VDRL and another test called the FIA. Both are blood tests that check for antibodies for syphilis. The gentleman I spoke with had never heard o f the MHA-TP. The ad in the New York Native is sponsored by the New York Committee of Concerned Physicians. The chairman of the committee is Steven S. Caiazza, M.D. More information can be obtained by writing P.O. Box 4523, High land Park. New Jersey 08904. A couple of women at my house celebrating a birthday. They mention the recent walkathon. They mention a fellow named Dr. Tom who passed out condoms and a pamphlet about AIDS and safe sex. The discussion turns politi cal . I snarl churlishly, “ I don t have to fight this battle tonight, let’s change the subject.” They do. after exchanging worried glances. After telling the story to another friend the next day, he tells me it’s a 24-hour battle, in sinuating that to want to escape from the issue — even for a brief time — is something akin to treason. My response is that there must be time for just living, for celebrating birthdays and loving friends. It must not taint everything. It may always be there, out there must be time to look away from the damn brick wall. Yet I always come back, looking for a way over — a way to conquer it. In another quiet comer, someone tells me they have been fucking men without wearing condoms. “ It’s like they know but just don’t care,” he says. "They tell me it doesn’t matter.” I am beginning to realize how many of us are SURVIVE THE EPIDEMIC not practicing safe sex. I am caught by the thought that perhaps we have become so ac customed to loving in a way that is considered wrong by so many that being unsafe is yet another rule to break — like children playing iileefully and guiltily with matches while no one is looking. Or what about the man who says, "S o you've been dating this guy for a few weeks. One night, you’re in bed — maybe you've had a few drinks — aifci he starts to rim you. What then? Do you stop him? How? Jump out of the bed? Throw something across the room? Scream about a violation o f trust? Or maybe just lie there and say ‘please don't do that' although it’s too late and his tongue is where it oughtn’t be. O r do you think, ‘oh well, the damage is done, might as well enjoy it.’ Then what? Then what?” That brick wall. It’s there whenever you get a sore throat, whenever a friend says he thinks h e’s coming down with the flu and for some reason everything inside you stops and you wonder what to say. It’s there when an over night guest asks if he can use your razor and you say no, feeling cowardly and petty. It’s there when you think, “ If I have to do one more mutual jerk off session I'll die of boredom.” It’s there when you can't even watch a porno movie without thinking about each unsafe activity those men are doing and you feel resentful and lost because you still get turned on by it. It’s there whenever someone says, "D id you hear about Jim (or Bob or Ted or Jerry)?’ ’ and you steel yourself for news o f death. That brick wall. It demands our attention. It affects how we touch, how we dream (careful with the five-year goals, kids), what we think about, how we love. It is implacable and relent less in the way it tries to stop us, block us from the healthy, happy life every human ought to have. It forces us to ask tough questions of ourselves and will, in the end, teach us to find our answers so that we can live out our lives with a dignity, grace and beauty that has never been seen before. • HAL JONES AUTOMOTIVE^ Naturally! Seminars CITY: Portland Seattle DATE: Sept. 26 Sept. 27 TELEPHONE: ( 503)243-1346 (206) 526-0589 VIDEOS OF LONG- TERM SURVIVORS An EASILY understood program which the »verage person can applv to his or her own life. Laurence E. Budglev, M.D. A 1968 Yale medical graduate savs, "the only survivors I know use natural therapies." .Learn how strong YOUR Immune System is. We Enjoyed Walking With You! Congratulations to the women and men who participated in the From A ll Walks o f Life fundraiser for CAP and made it such a success. We hope that the same community spirit and pride is taken to the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, OCTOBER 11th 5111 NE Fremont Portland, OR 97213 WE MAKE IT EASIER! SANDRA K. PINCHES, Ph.D. 1809 N.W. Johnson, Stc. 7 Portland. OR 07200 (303)227*7338 0 j CV* Specializing in issu es of: Recovering Alcoholics Co-dependency Just Out vi.» • 10 • September, I987 \ n a '* • frfr • ' i 288-1130 • Lesbian & gay couples • Intimacy & commitment F E R G U & S O N AUTOBODY PAINT PRECISION COLLISION REPAIR UNIBODY SPECIALISTS I- FRAME STRAIGHTENING nUUNfD TOWING ARRANGED QUALITY WORK AT A FAIR PRICE wse 2454 E. 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