The Day This Gay Meth Addict Tested HIV+

Slammed: a Memoir — Chapter 9 Part 1

Ethan was a PNP hookup jackpot!

Well over six foot, he was 230, maybe 250 pounds of rugby muscle. He had a full head of thick dark hair, a fierce and handsome face sporting a sexy goatee, lightly tanned skin, and thin rug of fur covering his swollen chest and firm stomach. His thick arms were only outmatched by his trunk legs.

The best part? He was happy to share his Tina and didn’t mind that I slammed.

My body was still acting a little weird. The dry spots on my hands and junk hadn’t gone away, though the white canker sores in my mouth were all gone, and I thought perhaps I was getting a little color back in my overly pale complexion. As Ethan and I enjoyed each other through the night, his dimly lit rooms became flooded with the morning sun. In the bright light of day I heard no complaints, so I assumed I looked absolutely fine.

Ethan gave me a bit more of his Tina which I put in my little jar to mix into a slam, the same jar I had found covered in Tina residue that brought my brief dance with sobriety to an end four months prior.

As I closed the lid and gave it a little shake to help dissolve the Tina in the water, Ethan caught sight of my hands.

“What’s going on here?” he said playfully.

He took my hands in his. His hands were meaty and strong. I enjoyed their warmth as they enveloped mine.

Then something shifted. His hands became less sensual. He wasn’t holding my hands any more. He was examining them. Turning them over, his face grew tense, alarmed.

Holding my hands, palms up, he looked at me. “Do you know what this is?”

“Oh, the dry spots? Yeah, they’ve been bugging me for a few weeks. I’m not sure what that’s about.” I shrugged, unworried.

“This looks like syphilis.”

I just looked at him, like he had just spoken in a foreign tongue.

“I think you have syphilis.”

“What?! No I don’t.” I was incredulous. Syphilis? That’s ridiculous. I mean, what even is syphilis? Sounds like something that should have been eradicated like polio.

“This,” referencing my hands, “is syphilis.” He wasn’t kidding. He was insistent. He let go and sat down at his computer. I sat awkwardly, not able to process what was happening.

“Look,” he said, pointing to his computer. On the screen was an image search for symptoms of syphilis. Among other things, there were several pictures of hands with the same rash of dry spots just like mine.

I looked from the screen to my hands to the screen again. They did look similar, very similar, but I didn’t process what that meant. I was silent, confused.

The next thing I knew, Ethan put a print out in my hand. “This is the address of the Chelsea Health Clinic. They do STD testing. You should get there first thing tomorrow morning.”

He added matter-of-factly, “You should also get an HIV test.”

I found myself standing, the address of the clinic in one hand, the little jar with the mixed slam in the other.

Nothing was sinking in. Not the talk of syphilis, definitely not the mention of HIV. I stood there for what might have been a minute, might have been ten, when I finally came back to the room. Ethan was sitting at his computer with his back to me. He was scrolling through Manhunt.

It was clear, even as high as I was, that Ethan wanted me to leave. Little bells of guilt began to ring. I didn’t know what to do with the jar. I mean, it was his Tina but the party was obviously over. Also, if I did have syphilis, well, we had been fucking quite a bit, so I’d probably given it to him, right?

“Um…ok,” I said, sheepishly puting the little jar in my pocket. “I’ll…so, I’m gonna head out…um. Thank you…I guess…and…I’m…I’m sorry?”

He didn’t respond, like he was pretending I was already gone. In a daze, I gathered my things and made my way out. He didn’t follow me as I left, but as I walked toward the elevator I heard his deadbolt lock with an aggressively hard click!

Ethan lived in Jersey City, by far the furthest I had traveled for a hookup. Between the PATH Train back to New York and the 1 train to the other end of Manhattan, I finally made it home a couple hours later.

I found Richard, who had let himself in, sitting at my desk. His continuing psychosis and paranoia had him suspecting me of being “in on it” and spying for whoever the fuck he believed was watching him. He had a self-righteous look in his eye, like he had caught me red handed.

“Well well well, where have you…”

Absolutely not.

“I have syphilis!” I proclaimed at him, which shut him right the fuck up.

I made it down to the Chelsea Health Clinic bright and early. A line of somber people had already begun to form. I tagged on the end and waited.

The doors opened and the line slowly made its way inside.

When I finally made it to the front, a pretty receptionist with a clipboard asked, “Can I help you?”

“Yes. I, um, I need to get tested for syphilis. And HIV, if that’s ok.”

“Anonymous?”

“Sure,” I said quickly, suddenly feeling awkward. Don’t know why. Everyone in line behind me was there for similar reasons.

After I gave her some basic information she said, “Have a seat in the waiting area and wait for your name to be called.”

Over three hours later, the waiting room, which was to the brim at the start of the morning, was nearly empty and my name still hadn’t been called. Rather than watch another episode of awful courtroom television on the waiting room TV, I finally went up to the receptionist and asked how far down I was on the list of names still yet to be called.

She looked at her list, flipped some papers, consulted a coworker, and then gave me a brilliant answer.

“I’m so sorry, you were accidently skipped.”

Because, of course I was.

So, apparently I could be anonymous for the HIV test but not for the syphilis test — or something like that — which is how my name got lost in the shuffle.

After sitting and waiting for the entire morning, I was now a human pinball bouncing around the clinic.

First stop was the office of a very sharply dressed older Black woman in an outfit of earthen tones and thin braids gathered up into a bun.

“So,” looking at her notes, “you’re here for an HIV test.”

“And syphilis.”

She looked at me. “You think you have syphilis?”

“I have no idea. I’ve just been told I might.” I showed her my hands. After looking at them for a second, she picked up her phone and made a call.

Next thing I knew, I was at my second stop, an examination room, where I immediately met one of the doctors, a tall white guy who spoke very gently and cautiously. He asked me about my symptoms and examined my hands and genitals.

“We’ll still run a test, but in my opinion, you definitely have syphilis. So I’m going to go ahead and give you a shot of penicillin. It’s gonna go in your butt cheek, which will ache for a couple days, but massaging it will help.

“Before I do that,” he added, “we have some medical students working here in the clinic, I’d like them to see the lesions on your genitals. May I have your permission to bring them in?”

I laughed. “Sure, why the hell not.” After all, it’s for science.

So, after standing there, junk hanging out while medical students not much younger than me ask the doctor questions, I presented my ass check to receive a very uncomfortable blob of penicillin.

Next stop, the clinic lab. The young male lab tech told me to sit down. He seemed to be a little annoyed. “You know,” he offered, “you’re lucky. I was almost out the door for the day. I hate eating lunch this late.”

I thought about telling him the kind of day I was having, the blob of penicillin making it uncomfortable to sit, but thought better of it. After donning some gloves, he pricked my finger, took a sample of my blood, and shooed me away.

A little over half an hour after I had asked where I was on the list, I was back in the waiting room.

15 minutes later, Roberto, one of the clinic councilors who fancied brightly colored Hawaiian shirts, called my name. Nervous, but glad my visit was nearly over, I jumped up and followed him into his office, taking a seat in the client chair next to his desk.

He shut the door, sat down, and looked at me.

“Your HIV test came back positive.”

I sat there.

I just sat there.

I wanted to react, make a joke, or something.

It felt like the moment for a reaction.

To break down.

To cry.

Get angry.

But I didn’t.

I just…sat there.

Quiet.

Still.

I looked past Roberto to his small, cluttered office. There were folders filled with loose paper, three or so pictures of happy people pinned to a cork board, a calendar with days crossed out and a couple special days circled, one circled a few times.

He sat waiting.

I sat waiting.

Both in silence.

After a couple of minutes he asked, “Do you use drugs?”

“Yes.”

“What do you use?”

“Tina…meth mainly.” As if meth was the proper term.

“How do you use meth?”

“I slam,” I answered, making a quick mechanical pencil motion to the crook of my arm.

“Injection. Ok. So, when you leave here, that is going to be the last thing you want to do.”

I looked back at him for the first time.

“See, when you inject a ton of stuff into your system, your body responds by producing a bunch of white blood cells which give the virus more to attack.”

I made the appropriate active listening sounds but in my head I was like Fuck you, that’s exactly what I’m going to go do.

“So, because you’re HIV positive, you’ll need to come back in for two more penicillin shots for the syphilis. I’m going to send you over to Denise and she’s going to help you set up those appointments. She’s also going to need the names and addresses of all your sexual partners.”

My head shot up. “What?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be anonymous.”

“What if I don’t know?”

“Then just their names.”

I kept staring at him.

“Do you know the names of your sexual partners.”

“Not their last names. Most, I…I only know their screen handles, but that’s about it.”

He sat quite again. After a moment I realized he was allowing time for my own words to sink in. After failing to give him the reaction he was expecting, he ended our meeting with “Do you know your hair is falling out?”

After I scheduled my next two shots, I made my way back outside and started walking down 9th Avenue.

I called our dealer, Kevin. “Hey, I’m in the neighborhood. Can I stop by?”

“Sure,” Kevin said.

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