Brad, Love, and Buckets of Blood

Portrait of a man, dying in

We dint have a dead body with us. Not that day.

Everybody always asks what it’s like. To go to an Act Up thing where you know you might get hurt or go to jail. Like people see us on TV all chained together and the cops draggin us away and people screaming or playin dead or whatever else. And they wanna know …

What’s that like?

What do you think it’s like? Fuckin scary! You ask yourself, what the hell am I doin here? Is this even real? I’m shy and quiet, I’m not supposed to be here!

You ask yourself, is this cop crazy enough to hurt me bad? Is he as pissed off as he looks?

Then you swallow hard and close your eyes tight, and you just keep doin what you’re doing. And maybe when the cops all leave or they let you out of jail and you hope somebody’s there to pick you up, you take really deep breaths and you try to stop shakin.

That’s what it’s like.

I woke up from my dream about Luke and looked out the window as Jim slept. Little towns flashed by. Lots of woods and water like back in Castleton. Sheep in meadows. Peaceful.

I thought about how that was gonna change.

I thought about how we had had buckets of blood ready. Giant condoms to pull over tombstones, empty coffins. No real dead bodies this time, just our own living ones.

I whispered up to Herman and asked if the blood was real. He shook his head and went, “Just water and food color. Bill Dobbs wanted pig’s blood again, but somebody talked him out of it.”

Jim started moving around, his chin pokin my shoulder. I figured we were almost there, so I sat up to let him wake up the rest of the way, his head kinda fallin against the seat.

“Herman?” I went, louder this time. “Who’s this guy we’re protesting? I mean, I get what’s on the card, but I don’t really know …”

I don’t remember Herman’s answer. All the shit we did kinda fades together. Some memories are bright and sharp. Others are … like when you have binoculars and things are all fuzzy and you can’t make them focus.

He said something about how some politician out in Suffolk County had been an asshole. Or maybe some drug company boss. So we were gonna do our thing and get reporters to talk about it, whatever IT was.

We all shuffled off the bus kinda quiet and nervous. Jim was talkin too loud, his chest puffed out like he did when shit was about to happen. Greg was quiet and slouchin, his lips all tight. Herman looked relaxed and normal, the only person I saw who did.

We could already see a line of cops waitin for us up by the church. With shields and sticks.

Birds were chirping and the sun was really pretty, just a few little clouds in a sky that was crazy blue. The grass and flowers smelled soft, even nicer than Central Park.

I had to piss, and I was mad that I had to. That I wouldn’t be able to.

More buses started to unload and people started to chatter. Somebody handed Herman a megaphone, and he pushed up toward the front, him so tall I could still see where he was once he got there even though it was far.

I was pretty sure Herman would end up in jail like usual, always volunteerin to be in the front. I hoped I wouldn’t. Not again.

I looked at Jim and he looked at me and we both knew the other one was scared and neither one of us said anything and I still had to piss and I wished things would just get started.

And then they did.

Electric voices out of megaphones made birds fly like a brown cloud out of the trees around the church.

You are trespassing on private property! Disperse!

Act up! Fight back! Fight AIDS!

If you do not disperse, you will be arrested!

Act Up! Fight back! Fight AIDS!

The air vibrated with our shouts, like when a stereo speaker buzzes because it can’t handle the volume. It wasn’t just Herman and the other guys with our megaphones. It was all of us. Hundreds of us shouting, plenty of us screaming, all of us pushing forward like gettin into that churchyard was the BIG thing that really mattered.

Like if we could just get past those cops, the thing we really wanted might come true.

“Fight AIDS!” I shouted, voice hoarse and sore as I pushed up against the guy in front of me.

“Act Up!” I screamed as I thought about Luke, seein his dead face, wantin to kiss his lips again, just one more time.

“Fight back!” I sobbed as an elbow dug into my kidney and we started to run.

Greg grabbed my elbow and locked it around his. I grabbed Jim’s and locked in as somebody beside him joined us and made our chain even longer.

Somehow we ran around the crowd right in front of us and got pushed sideways and more sideways and more sideways and then we was lookin at this little stone fence and just hopped over it and we were inside the cemetery, lettin go of each other.

You, in the cemetery, you are trespassing!

Exit now or you will be arrested!

Me and Greg looked at each other and laughed. Jim shouted something that sounded like, “Fuck you! Come in here and get us,” but I’m pretty sure nobody could hear him, cuz that’s how loud things were.

By then a bunch of other guys had made it around the cops and over the fence. Tombstones started bloomin like flowers, all covered in the fake condoms we made from huge balloons.

Then we heard, “Die! Die! Die! Die!”

Me and Jim shrugged and Greg went something like, “What the fuck, might as well be us,” and we fell on our backs on top of old graves and pretended to be dead as somebody splashed buckets of blood over us.

I was sure glad it wasn’t pig’s blood.

More and more people piled on around us and by then the TV reporters had found their own way over the stone fence, so bright camera lights made me squint and sweat. I closed my eyes hard and worked hard on bein dead, except I still had to piss.

When the cops started peelin us off the ground one by one, we dint fight, cuz dead people don’t, right? We just went all stiff like boards and made sure it took two or three of em to get us into their vans to take us to jail.

And the whole time? I was thinkin about how much easier it was to be dead like that, not fightin, not gettin beat up, not needin to be scared, sad, lonely or whatever else.

Just lettin whatever happens, happen.

I opened my eyes and looked at Greg. That’s when my plan finally snapped into place.

“I got it from Luke,” I went, lyin my ass off. “I just don’t tell too many people is all.”

Me and Greg was sittin on a bench at the gay center waitin for a Queer Nation meeting to start. I still went to meetings sometimes because Mike might be there.

Which I still really liked him.

Jim couldn’t come. Something about him and Lenny bein busy, which was probably true, but not as many people came to Queer Nation meetings anymore. Dykes and Fags bash back was kinda … old.

You can’t bash AIDS, and I guess the Village was a lot safer than when I first showed up.

Outweek magazine was gone, not sure why, but that meant Mike dint have his weekly column anymore, and things were just … different.

Greg smiled at me and touched my hand. Then he held it for a while, like we had a connection, like the virus was something special that held us together. I tried hard to believe it was true.

“Wanna come over tonight?” I went, sorta ticklin his palm with one finger. “After the meeting?”

He was like, “That’s a big step. You really sure?”

“I’m really lonely,” I told him. “Ever since Luke died.”

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, and Brad, Greg, and Herman were my friends. Greg survived.

Next chapter →

← Click below to read earlier chapters about Luke, Brad, and how Brad got kicked out of the house when he was only 17.

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].