Gay Meth Addict Tormented by New HIV Status

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 9 Part 2

Warning: Graphic descriptions of drug use.

It was three in the afternoon when I woke up. I pushed myself up and sat on the edge of my bed. It was quiet. No sound or sign of my roommate Ethan who was probably at work. I heard only the occasional clunk and hiss from my radiators, the muffled din of the traffic down on Nagle Avenue, and a cold November wind gusting against the windows.

I got up and plopped right back down onto my desk chair, grabbing a cigarette from the pack on my desk. I sat there for another minute just listening to the quiet, letting consciousness slowly seep into my brain.

As I lit my cigarette, I realized I was still fully dressed in yesterday’s clothes.

Yesterday?

I nudged my computer mouse and my monitor flickered to life with its electric gray light.

I looked at the date in the corner of the screen.

Yup, just yesterday. Afternoon, in fact.

I had come back from a weekend slamming and fucking in the East Village, a three night affair — without Richard. I made it home and crashed before I had the chance to take off my clothes. I slept nearly 24 hours.

I’d spent the last three months partying as much as possible with whomever was willing to share their drugs with this brokeass Tina whore. Three months spent trying to hide from reality in the euphoric rush of a slam.

Three months since I tested HIV positive.

It wasn’t long before I was unable to keep this fact to myself. I needed others to know. I thought, maybe, if I told everyone I would feel better, like when I told everyone about my drug use during my brief dance with sobriety the previous spring.

I awkwardly and haphazardly called Jason and just kind of spit it out, taking him completely off guard. He was on the road with Cats playing Old Deuteronomy. Old Deuteronomy doesn’t leave the stage during intermission and instead sits on the junkyard tire in “contemplation” until the second act begins. He told me later it was the longest intermission of his life because all he could think was “My best friend is dying. My best friend is dying.”

I was only a little less blunt with Reid. I asked him to come over and just came out with it. “Ok, quick like a Band-Aid, I’ve tested HIV positive.” After a moment, his knees buckled and he sat hard on the living room couch. He didn’t completely break down like I kind of expected. Instead he went back to his apartment and brought back his camera. He wanted to document the moment. He wanted to document me. The syphilis had only just cleared up. I was still very pale and my hair was still thin and patchy. Part of me didn’t want to be photographed in that state.

However, I had just started writing about all my experiences over the last couple years, so, deep down, another part of me did.

But it was my parents that did me in.

“Mom, Dad…I’ve tested HIV positive.”

My mother’s “Oh dear” broke my heart.

My father’s silence smashed it to pieces.

He didn’t say a word for the rest of the conversation, short as it was.

I thought by telling them — my friends, my parents — that I would find some strength, some encouraging support that I could wrap around me like a warm blanket.

But this wasn’t coming out as gay.

This wasn’t telling people I was getting clean and turning around my life.

To anyone who had lived through the previous 20 years, regardless of how medical advances and medication made this much less true in 2004, telling them I was HIV positive was telling them I was going to die.

That’s not just hard news.

That’s trauma.

While I never for a moment felt rejection from anyone I told, it hurt them.

It hurt them

I hurt them

I hurt them

I stopped thinking.

I put out my cigarette and set the ashtray off to the side, clearing space on my desk.

After a couple minutes in the kitchen, I returned with a steaming glass of water I’d just nuked in the microwave. I grabbed a checkbook box, opened it, and retrieved a small, clear baggy of Tina. There wasn’t a lot left, but it would do.

Out of the same box I grabbed a fresh syringe. I removed the plunger and, with a straw cut on the diagonal, scooped the Tina into the syringe. I replaced the plunger and crushed down the fragile, oily crystal.

The compacted Tina reached the 10 mark on the syringe. About an eighth of a gram. If I had my druthers, I’d see it reach all the way to the 40 mark and slam a glorious half gram. An eighth was like a strong cup of coffee at this point.

I took off the hunter orange cap, submerged the needle into the heated water, and pulled back on the plunger. As water filled the tube, the dissolving Tina looked like heat waves coming off a hot summer sidewalk except flowing down. Completely dissolved, I flicked and carefully pressed out the excess air.

I wrapped my belt around my left arm and held it taut with my teeth. I made a fist with my left hand and inserted the needle into my swollen vein with my right. Gently pulling back on the plunger, I saw the flash of red pop like a tiny mushroom cloud in yellow tinted liquid. I slowly depressed the plunger until there was nothing left in the syringe.

Cold air on the back of my throat. Rolling waves of heat charging through my limbs. Beautiful euphoria. I stretched like a cat waking up from a glorious nap. My eyes became vicious. I became predatory. I wanted sexual contact, to be a black-leather clad demon hunting for nameless souls with rolling eyes in hidden clubs or parks or darkened apartments.

I wanted…

I…

But it subsided.

It wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t nearly enough.

The ritual brought no comfort.

My escape dissolved.

My fantasy fled.

My pleasure gone, my heart rate high, my brain now very awake and alive.

I hurt them.

I…hurt them

I didn’t have enough Tina to help me burn this thought away.

The bell of my father’s silence could not be unrung.

I had plunged head first into an underworld of drugs and needles and sex and nameless, faceless encounters.

HIV wasn’t just a possibility.

It was inevitable.

It was the bill.

It was my receipt.

I had thrown down my friend’s love, my family’s love, and spat on it, smiling with wild eyes.

All these thoughts played on a loop in my head.

Growing louder and louder.

Faster and faster.

I stood up from my desk.

I paced my room.

I sat on my bed.

I laid down.

I sat back up again.

I lit another cigarette.

I looked around the room as if some stray piece of clothing or empty water bottle or piece of paper might have some answer, some clue, some sign leading toward redemption.

My mind was a cacophony of dissonant instruments and images, of needles and baggies and Tina, of scorched pipes and orange caps and track marks and abscesses, of Manhunt and hookups and nameless guys and fucking, of Henry and Danny and Jerry and Randy and Jackson and Richard, of cops and courts and federal agents and threats, of lesions and losing my hair and mouth sores and syphilis, of running, of hiding, of fear.

Of HIV.

I held my hands to the side of my head as the internal noise reached its atonal peak.

Then it stopped.

There was silence.

In that silence.

A simple thought.

I want mommy. I want daddy.

My eyes welled, my throat tightened.

But I clenched my jaw and shook my head.

I refused to cry.

I didn’t get to cry.

I didn’t deserve to cry.

I needed a friend.

I needed a hug.

I needed someone to hold me.

I needed to be wrapped up in someone’s arms.

Warm and safe.

Their voice soft and full of comfort.

Telling me everything’s gonna be ok.

Even if it was a lie.

I called Richard.

He was the only one I could call.

He was the only one that knew I was still using.

My only friend.

Who shares his Tina.

Who hears people only he can hear.

Sees people only he can see.

In the trees outside his apartment.

Who believes everyone is spying on him.

Who, depending on the day, believes I am working “for them.”

“Richard, can I come over?” My voice betrayed my broken state.

“What’s wrong?” He sounded more curious than concerned.

“I…can I, can I just come over? I’m going a little crazy over here. And…I, I don’t want to be by myself.”

“Sure! Sure, come on over.” For a second I wondered why he sounded happy, but I just as quickly forgot about it as I ran out my front door.

The cold air assaulted my face as I walked to the subway. It gave me a brief, distracting respite from my churning mind. I knew I should have put on one more layer, but I wasn’t turning back.

It was even colder in New Jersey. I braced against the gusting, freezing wind, scrunching my head down to protect my scarf-less neck, my hands shoved as deep into my pockets. The sidewalks of the badly lit Fort Lee neighborhoods were covered in sheets of undulating ice. It made the usually 15 minute walk a much slower slog which gave the cold more time to penetrate deep into my core.

The entire trip over there the only thing I could think about was how much I wanted a hug from my mother. But every time I would see it about to happen in my mind’s eye, we were suddenly repelled from each other like two equally charged high powered magnets. We would try for the hug again, only to be repelled again, and again, over and over and over.

When Richard opened his door, he found me a complete wreck.

“Come in. Sit down,” he said. He didn’t sound concerned. He sounded more like a gracious host — a host with an agenda — as he picked the “staph” at his temple.

I sat at his kitchen table. The light over the table was the only one on, making it feel like an interrogation room.

“So, what’s wrong?”

My first word turned into a sob. I doubled over like someone had punched me in the gut. I choked out short spurts of words, broken by harsh gasps.

“I can’t….I….everything…I just…”

I was that five year old boy in a dark, cold place, looking around helplessly, face wet with tears, hands pulling at my shirt, crying, pleading “I want my Mommy. I want Mommy.”

All while the scary, emaciated drug addict with his mean, sunken, wild eyes was scaring me, yelling inches from my face with his gruff, dehydrated voice “You don’t deserve her you little shit! Oh, you want your mommy?” he mocked. “Huh? Your parents used to love you. But not any more. No they don’t. They went through hell for you. And what did you do, you little shit? You put them through hell all over again. You knew you were hurting them and just kept on doing it. You stupid, worthless piece of garbage. You’re pathetic!

Please, please someone find me. Please someone hold me. Please! Make it stop. I don’t want to be here. I want to go home. Please, Mommy, I’ll be good.

“What’s wrong? Tell me what you’ve done,” Richard said.

Something about his phrasing snapped me out of my grief. There was a strange insistence in his voice that seemed discordant.

I looked up at him. He was still, tense, eyes wide, like he was standing on a cliff ready to jump.

I realized what he was asking me.

He thought I was about to confess.

He thought this was the moment I was finally going to confess I had been working “for them.”

Anger added to the cauldron of emotions. Apparently it was just the thing I needed to find my words.

“I feel like I’ve killed my own family,” I said, you psychotic motherfucker being implied. “They raised me with so much love and attention and this,” I hit my chest, “is how I repay them? By hurting them? I’m a piece of shit. I’m a drug using piece of shit.”

Realizing my only confession was how I’d fucked up my own life, Richard walked away while I continued to cry. He returned with a mirror, not one you could hold in your hand, but one you would hang on the wall.

He stood it on the table and ordered, “Here, hold this up and look at yourself.”

I took hold of the mirror. It was not small and somewhat heavy and awkward, but I held it and looked at myself: My face was flushed and blotchy. My eyes were red and drenched with tears. I saw in the mirror my frightened child-self. “I can’t! I can’t even look at myself.”

I broke down again. The mirror tilted and swayed.

Richard caught the mirror before it fell. “No! Hold it just like this. Hold it still, dammit.”

I looked up at him, confused. Then I looked at the mirror. The way he adjusted it, it wasn’t squarely facing me. I looked back at Richard, noticed where he had positioned himself, and followed his line of sight into the mirror and out the living room window…at the trees.

He was trying to watch the “people in the trees.”

He was trying to fool “them” by looking like he was paying attention to me.

My only “friend” was using this rock bottom moment of mine to spy on his drug induced psychotic delusions.

Everything stopped.

The child in me stopped crying.

I was alone in a dark room.

Ignoring Richard’s protests, I laid the mirror down on the table, got up, walked over, and sat on the couch.

I stared at the floor.

The tears dried on my face.

My brain had finally shut off.

I laid down, curled up into a ball, and fell asleep.

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