Brad and Poison Blood on the Dark Side of the Moon
Portrait of a man, transforming
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear You shout and no one seems to hear. And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon. ¹
I told Jim what I done in one of them private parks.
The kind that’s really part of a fancy bank, where the cops don’t bother you at night so long as you’re white and dressed OK. As we walked in off the avenue, taxi headlights faded out and the night started to feel like real night instead of City night.
I remember the moon was so huge and round I thought I could look right around and see the dark side of it… if I tilted my head just right.
We were gonna sit on a bench in the dark and make out for a while. At least that’s what Jim probably figured, because we used to do that walking home from Act Up.
Sometimes.
Only once we walked in, I made Jim stop beside a marble statue under a huge tree. I pushed him into the bark and whispered the thing into his ear. Like I was too ashamed to say it out loud.
Jim and the statue both stared at me, white as ghosts.
I dint mean to hurt Greg. I dint mean to hurt Jim.
Let’s get something straight right off. I did not have sex with Greg because I couldn’t stand Luke bein dead. I did NOT have sex with Greg to get even with the world or any bullshit like that.
I had sex with him because it was the only thing left for me to do that made any kind of sense.
I walked home with Greg that night after Queer Nation feelin all kinds of things. His shoulder brushin against mine. Sex. The wind messin up my hair. Fear. My shoes draggin on rough cement. Grief.
Mostly, I felt this huge love burnin me up from the inside out.
Love for Greg, Luke, my roomates, all the guys at Uncle Charlie’s. Jim and Lenny. My Act Up people. Everybody all just mixed up together.
I felt love burnin me up, but I felt fear too. Inside me, blue and icy. I was so scared the fire couldn’t survive all that cold.
I stared at the monkey bars as we passed and wondered why those street queens weren’t hustlin cars. I hadn’t seem em in a while. Were they sick too? I thought about how people disappear and nobody notices.
Like they never existed at all.
I broke out my keys when we got home. Wrestled open the steel door on the street. Walked up four flights like it was nuthin, watchin Greg the whole time to make sure he was OK which of course he was because he dint even look sick.
I heard him tell Herman on the bus to Long Island his T cells were over 800, which a year before I’d a been all, “What the hell does that mean.” But I dint even need Herman to whistle and smile to know 800 was good. That Herman wished he had Greg’s numbers. That Greg wasn’t gonna collapse climbin stairs.
But I worried anyway.
After I pushed open the inner door and let him in, he was all like, “Cool sound system!”
“Luke’s,” I went. “He loved it. We saved up forever for that amp.”
I asked Greg to sit on the couch and then I just started talkin really fast, runnin around gettin drinks and snacks, just kinda makin noise because I dint know what else to do.
I grabbed a bottle of wine from the back of the fridge hopin it was good, figurin the screw top was a bad sign.
“I’m kinda hopeless at music,” I said as Greg bent over and started pickin up Luke’s CDs all piled on the floor where I hadn’t touched em in months. “Back home in Castleton I was all into heavy metal and shit like you’re supposed to be.”
Greg waved a Madonna CD and threw me a question with his eyes.
I went, “This kid Keith? He used to listen to Mötley Crüe and Metallica and whatever, so when I hung out with him, I did too. Luke was more a Madonna girl. George Michael, Pet Shop Boys, like you know, whatever’s on MTV at Uncle Charlie’s?”
Greg looked at me. Funny.
I poured nuts and dried fruit into a bowl, thinkin they sounded too loud in the dead quiet space. “But now? I don’t know. David hardly ever turns the stereo on, and listenin to Luke’s music without Luke feels weird and sad and I don’t really know what to listen to for me so I mostly just don’t. You know?”
I ran over and slid glasses onto the coffee table. Ran back to the counter and grabbed the nuts and wine and hurried back and slid onto the couch beside Greg, just as he picked up another CD and started rippin plastic off the case.
“Whose is this?” he went.
“Um, I guess mine? I got it because of the rainbow thing and then I dunno, never got around to it. I musta forgot I had it.”
I poured wine for both of us. “Why, you like Pink Floyd?”
“Maybe. But maybe the question should be … Do YOU like Pink Floyd.”
I laughed cuz that seemed like the right thing to do, then waited while he leaned over and slid the CD into the sound system.
My breath was already a little short and fast, like my body knew we were about to have sex and it couldn’t wait. Only I dint feel excited about havin sex, I felt excited about bein with Greg.
About what I knew was gonna happen.
The lunatic is on the grass. The lunatic is on the grass. Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs. Got to keep the loonies on the path. ¹
As the music started to play, I nodded. “Mom used to listen to this. I think I like it. The sadness of it. The way the music sounds like it’s cryin.”
Greg took my face in his hands and burned a hole through me with his eyes that looked as sad as the music felt. I knew what he was tellin me without even hearin his words, so I moved my lips toward his and let myself fall forward.
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon And if there is no room upon the hill And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon ¹
His lips sucked mine in as he wiped tears out of my eyes that I dint even know were there.
I pulled his shirt off and stared at his chest. So perfect. A little black hair like a shadow over his pecs. Light stubble on his jaw. Red lips puffed full of poison blood.
I ran my hands over his skin, so hot, such a healthy lie.
He smelled like clean sweat and soap.
I took his lower lip between my teeth and bit down, not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to make him moan, hard enough to feel that blood runnin just underneath the paper skin at the tip of my tongue.
The lunatic is in my head You raise the blade You make the change You rearrange me till I’m sane You lock the door And throw away the key And there’s someone in my head but it’s not me ¹
His hands were under my shirt, and we were rockin together, breathin together, whispers runnin from lips to ears, like we were drawing hot pain from a steampipe deep inside each of us and letting it mix all together.
“We gotta go to my room,” I went,” in case David comes home.”
When he stood up, I undid his belt, reached inside and grabbed him, that same blood swelling him up, a pulse under my fingers that beat to the music. “Hurry!” I said, takin off my shirt as I led him across the room.
He had condoms.
Tried to put one on. I pushed his hand away. “Why? You can’t make me more positive than I already am.”
He started to argue, but I sank onto him, my teeth grinding down against the pain. I went slow at first, not because it hurt which it did but because I wanted it to last.
Feelin Greg inside me, watchin blood glowing all under his skin, I felt right, connected, part of something so much bigger and more important than just me and him.
When he started buckin his hips and grindin his teeth, I sped up. I let his big hands cup and squeeze my cheeks just under my hips. I let him pound in and out while I rocked and moaned and cried … just like the music.
Even though I dint come that first time, I did later that night, lettin Greg be on top, poundin into me from behind, fast and crazy. I came again and again over the next few nights as he came inside me.
If Jim hadn’t ruined everything, Greg wouldn’t never a known I lied to him. Wouldn’t never a known he gave me HIV. Wouldn’t never a known his poison blood was sweeter to me than any wine, sadder and more beautiful than any music.
Darker and more tempting than the dark side of any moon.
What you just read actually happened.
I’m telling Brad’s story because I am probably the only person left in the universe who knows it. So many stories of people who didn’t survive AIDS are gone forever. I don’t want Brad’s to disappear.
I am the “Jim” in this chapter. Brad, Greg, and Herman were my friends. Greg and I survived.
Next chapter →
← Click below to read earlier chapters about Luke, Brad, how Brad got kicked out of the house when he was only 17, and how Luke died.
¹ Dark Side Of The Moon lyrics, © Universal Music Publishing Group. Songwriters: Clare Torry, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Richard Wright & Roger Waters
James Finn is a long-time HIV/LGBTQ activist, an alumnus of Act Up NYC, an essayist occasionally published in queer news outlets, and an “agented” novelist. Send questions, comments, and story ideas to [email protected].
