Read Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone Online
Authors: David B. Feinberg
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Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone (11 page)
BOOK: Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone
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Tales From the Front
Another dateless Saturday night and I sit, dejected, on the couch. Sigh. It’s only nine o‘clock. The Sunday New York Times lies in disarray on the carpet. I have already thumbed my way through the Arts and Leisure section, hoping for a large facsimile of Cher suitable for framing. Nothing this week. Why don’t they give us fags a ten-cent discount? We never bother with the Sports. It’s straight into the trash on the corner, before we’ve even come home.
Well, I
could
be adventurous and take a nap and wake up to the dissonant alarm at midnight and cab down to the Spike and spend a few hours looking bored drinking overpriced club sodas and then return home at four with a bloated bladder and a distended prostate. Or I could simply lift the receiver and dial 550-TOOL. Last month’s phone bill was only eighty dollars.
could
be adventurous and take a nap and wake up to the dissonant alarm at midnight and cab down to the Spike and spend a few hours looking bored drinking overpriced club sodas and then return home at four with a bloated bladder and a distended prostate. Or I could simply lift the receiver and dial 550-TOOL. Last month’s phone bill was only eighty dollars.
It takes only a moment to decide.
Thanks to the miracle of phone sex, the man of my dreams (5’9”, 155 lbs., salt-and-pepper hair, thirty-eight, hard muscular build) is on his way to my apartment. He should arrive in less than half an hour. I decide to wait to tell him my seropositive status until after my latex-wrapped pulsating manhood is twelve inches deep into his tight-gripping love canal. Okay, so maybe I’m lying. Who cares, so long as we have antiseptic safe sex.
Originally appeared in
Diseased Pariah News,
Issue
2,
Spring
1991.
Fuck. I haven’t shaved in several days. My face feels like sandpaper. Maybe my Dream Lover isn’t into dermabrasion. I go into the bathroom and lather up.
Quick. He should be here in fifteen minutes. I take a few cautious strokes, then glide my way through the cream like a hot knife through butter. A red maraschino-cherry blot appears at the whipped cream of my chin. I cut my chin. I begin bleeding profusely. What am I, related to some Russain czarina? “Clot, dam mit!” I swear to myself. HIV-infected blood pools into the basin. More gushing than blushing beauty, I stick on a Band-Aid, apply pressure.
A little shaving cream on my ear. Gently, I take my washcloth to wipe it off, knocking my earring into the sink. Of course it teeters to the trap of the drain. Where are my tweezers? I have none. Unfortunately, I am no drag queen manqué. The time I painted my nails red for Halloween, I had not had the necessary foresight to obtain nail-polish remover beforehand. The following morning, sheepish, hands in pockets, I went to the A&P for this compulsory cosmetic. And of course, the gentleman behind me asked that most insulting question: “Are you an actor?”
This is the second stud I lose. I had gotten my ear pierced a scant month ago at the imbecilic age of thirty-three, slow learner that I am. A Bart Simpson earring that I found at a Hallmark card-shop inspired me. Bart Simpson seems inappropriate for sex. I try to insert another earring, a tiny hoop. My sinistral ear starts bleeding.
I take off the Band-Aid on the chin. How can anyone possibly have sex with a Band-Aid on the chin? Once again begins the flow. Two Band-Aids later I find myself still a fount of blood.
What am I to do? Awash in a sea of infection and disaffection, mired in anxiety and despair, dropping T-cells by the minute, I sit and stare at my ghastly reflection in the mirror, pray for coagulation. Studmeister is on his way in a cab, ready for action. I’m locked in the bathroom, crying over my dowry of diseased precious bodily fluids.
Of course, he never shows. I don’t have his number. He doesn’t call with explanations.
Evidently, Some Higher Power is teaching me a lesson.
Why do I even bother with the phone-sex line? I’m bound to be disappointed. Even if Mister Wrong showed up and was as appealing as he indicated, what would be the likelihood of sustaining a relationship that would last five minutes past orgasm? Surely I have experienced enough personal growth that I don’t need to rely on cheap anonymous sex for kicks. How many more nights am I destined to wait fruitlessly in my humble abode for the Falcon video equivalent of Elijah? He’ll never come. I’ll never come. What’s the point?
Two hours later, when the bleeding has finally subsided, I dial that elusive number again. This time, I go to
his
place.
his
place.
I love
Diseased Pariah News, a
‘zine by and for the HIV-infected that comes out of San Francisco whose motto is “No Teddy bears.” I was delighted to make it into the second issue with this piece. Black humor reigns at
DPN.
Whenone ofthe first editors died, Beowulf Thorne
(not the
name he was born with), the surviving founding editor, mixed some of his ashes into the ink. Beowulf is the creator of the comic strip “Captain Condom. In a recent issue of
DPN,
Captain Condom gets thrown into jail for beating up Louise Hay. Need I say more?
Diseased Pariah News, a
‘zine by and for the HIV-infected that comes out of San Francisco whose motto is “No Teddy bears.” I was delighted to make it into the second issue with this piece. Black humor reigns at
DPN.
Whenone ofthe first editors died, Beowulf Thorne
(not the
name he was born with), the surviving founding editor, mixed some of his ashes into the ink. Beowulf is the creator of the comic strip “Captain Condom. In a recent issue of
DPN,
Captain Condom gets thrown into jail for beating up Louise Hay. Need I say more?
I eventually had to place a block on my phone. My compulsive phone sex combined with a sticky call-waiting button was bound to lead to an embarrassing conversation with a close blood relative. Of course, I immediately found a loophole involving credit cards. But now, in my new apartment, the phone is on the desk and the bed is miles away. Phone sex is no longer ... convenient. I know, I could always get a longer cord. It just doesn’t seem worth the effort.
Direct Mail From Hell
Back in the early sixties, there was an appalling show called “Queen for a Day.” Contrary to your expectations, it wasn’t the biography of Cobra Woman Maria Montez or an ongoing series on female impersonators. Four women would tell their pathetic tales of woe to the studio audience: how Hubby drank his way out of work and his mother lived upstairs in an iron lung and the house burned down when Junior tried to make a tuna-noodle casserole in the oven and neglected to light the pilot until it was too late and how it would be really nice if she could get a Maytag washer-dryer because it’s really quite arduous beating the sheets on the rock down by the stream and doing laundry for twelve. Then the audience got to vote on the patented Applause Meter who was the most pathetic. The winner was crowned with an ersatz tiara and loaned an ermine wrap and taken to her dream kitchen. The losers got cents-off coupons at Safeway.
Well, at the end of the month when I sit at the kitchen table, sorting out the fund-raising mail I received in the past four weeks, sometimes I feel like a member of the audience of “Queen for a Day.” With stern posture I pore over plaintive pleas for checks or charge-card authorizations (“Please Do Not Send Cash in the Mail”), the director at open auditions for the bus-and-truck-company version of
Death ofa Salesman.
Who shall live and who shall die? Another sip of Chablis and I continue.
Death ofa Salesman.
Who shall live and who shall die? Another sip of Chablis and I continue.
Originally appeared in
NYQ,
February 23,
1992.
Mother Hale sends me a paperback about Hale House written by her daughter, which goes straight into the recycling bin. Mothers Against Drunk Driving have printed up return-address labels for me with only one minor typo. AmFAR includes a personally licked stamp on the return envelope, which is too difficult to steam. GMHC is like an overly attentive boyfriend, with weekly reminders and progress reports on the AIDS Walk and Dance-A-Thon; sometimes I wonder whether eighty percent of the money I may raise will be spent on our “relationship.” I got at least seven copies of last year’s ACT UP acquisitional fund-raiser: Luckily for me, they had weeded out duplicates; if not, I’m sure I would have received twenty-seven. I wonder whether by not checking the box to ensure that my name won’t be traded I’m inadvertently killing rain forests. Several of my gay male friends, all in their early thirties, regularly receive postcards from Trinity Memorial, advertising cemetery monuments and funeral plots. Did they steal Wonder Bar’s mailing list? “Your first-class stamp will help us save money,” claims the envelope, with “No postage necessary if mailed in the United States” printed where a stamp would be affixed. Conflicting signals. The year-end fund-raising letter I receive on December 30 is almost immediately followed by the plea to renew my annual support on January 2.
I used to get so excited knowing that Elizabeth Taylor, Harvey Fierstein, and Mary Tyler Moore were writing to me personally. Alas! There is no tooth fairy! And everybody knows that professional fund-raisers write the letters, not the signatories. I found this out when a candidate for public office who coincidentally ran a direct-mail operation sent out fund-raising letters that were almost identical to ACT UP fund-raisers using the signature of an activist who hadn’t even read the letter.
So what I do is ignore the letters, stuff the perforated forms into the return envelopes, and periodically go through them, maybe once a month. My cousin has MS, so I’ll send them something. Everybody supports cancer research: Why should I? Conversely, I try to support every AIDS organization I find, because I really don’t think they’re that “popular” in terms of charities. I can justify not working in an AIDS-related field by donating money to AIDS organizations. I’d probably completely burn out if I worked for one. Let’s face it, some days I’m sick of AIDS. Can’t we go to the movies instead?
But occasionally the letters will be so appalling that I have to respond.
I recently received two letters so atrocious that I was compelled to write to the senders. I’m still not sure which was the more odious. The Los Angeles Shanti Project sent me a mailing with the note “... AIDS has improved the quality of my life ...” in 30-point lavender on the envelope. The temptation to California-bash was irresistible: Anything would improve the quality of life in that cultural wasteland, wouldn’t it? The enclosed letter was thoughtfully printed in large type for the visually impaired. It was the usual shit about achieving some fuller understanding of life and love. For some reason, as an HIV-positive person, I didn’t get it. I’m just dense, I guess. I know, there’s a silver lining in every cloud and a Louise Hay ready to make an economic killing finding it, and I thank God every day that She chose me to be sacrificed for the sins of the heteros, and as I’m rotting on the cross of CMV retinitis and pneumocystis and toxoplasmosis and a host of other viral and bacterial infections and dementia strikes, I’ll still consider myself lucky. Not! I really find such asinine shock tactics as using the pathetically misguided quote “... AIDS has improved the quality of my life ...” extremely offensive. But, then again, I’m a cynical New Yorker with virtually no inner life. It could be my problem.
The second, closer to home, was from Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. On the envelope, scrawled in messy cursive next to my address, was the phrase “Before he died, he asked me to mail this to you.” It was from Bob Bradley, brother of the teacher from Long Island who sued Blue Cross to pay for a bone-marrow transplant that he was ultimately unable to undergo because he developed CMV during the settling of the suit. I really appreciate the thought that on his deathbed, when most people are worrying about the afterlife, having religious conversions, cutting people out of their wills, reconciling with family members, or arguing with ex-lovers, Tom Bradley summoned his last bit of strength to dictate this letter and said to send it to me, DAVID FEINBERG, personally. He even thought to specify window envelopes. He even knew my ZIP+4! I thought
Death on the Installment Plan
was a French novel, not the latest fund-raising tactic. I thought that
Letter from a Dead Man
was some obscure Joan Crawford movie from the late forties. I thought that Lambda would have a little more style than to try to raise money from the corpses of dead PWAs. Why does it read as exploitation and tapping into “survivor’s guilt” to me? Have they no shame?
Death on the Installment Plan
was a French novel, not the latest fund-raising tactic. I thought that
Letter from a Dead Man
was some obscure Joan Crawford movie from the late forties. I thought that Lambda would have a little more style than to try to raise money from the corpses of dead PWAs. Why does it read as exploitation and tapping into “survivor’s guilt” to me? Have they no shame?
One day I’ll receive a letter that starts, “Hi, you don’t know me, but I’m dead. I died of AIDS, and indeed, this greatly improved the quality of my life. I now reside in Queens at a beautiful cemetery overlooking the East River, and could you please donate $100 to pay for my monument?” And at the bottom of the page there’ll be this note “over,” and I won’t turn the page.
Someone from Lambda called me to apologize. He blamed an outside consultant for this appeal. It turns out that the claim was literally correct. A year earlier, Tom had authorized a fund-raising appeal. It was so successful that Lambda decided to send it again. In the interim, Tom had died.
The Shanti Project chose to ignore my complaint. A week later I ran into a tall and slender beauty with only three visible flaws at my gym who admitted culpability. The direct-marketing company he worked for was responsible for Shanti’s letter. He said that he felt the letter accurately reflected the organization. Needless to say, I have been dropped from that particular mailing list.
Sex Tips For Boys
Or, What to Do When the Guy You Met
in the Steam Room Wants to Get to
Know You Better before He Lets You
Put His Penis in Your Mouth;
Or, Dates From Hell
in the Steam Room Wants to Get to
Know You Better before He Lets You
Put His Penis in Your Mouth;
Or, Dates From Hell
Recently, I’ve had an unrelenting stream of bad dates. Indeed, were it not for my shining knight in Montreal whom I met at a bathhouse so sleazy that the dryer was broken and consequently patrons were given wet towels, I believe I would have completely lost hope in all humanity, or at least that portion of humanity with which I might possibly get laid. For some reason, nobody wants to have sex with me these days, save that occasional bulimic Adult-Child-of-Alcoholics novelty dancer who keeps calling me at odd hours. There was a rather enjoyable hour of foreplay
interruptus
in the hotel room of an extremely attentive young man last week, but then again, he was from L.A., which more or less negates any possibility of consummating the deed in the future, near or distant. Before that was the cute but unfortunately overly introspective neuropsychiatric resident whose ex-lover was dying of leukemia who told me that he was initially drawn to me because of his subliminal death wish and perhaps given my serostatus I could be an agent of his death, whereas I in fact preferred to be known as an instrument. And before that was the gentleman (al- though perhaps it would be a stretch to refer to him using this descriptive, since douche-bag would be more appropriate) whom I picked up at the gym, had sloppy and not particularly memorable sex with, and then two weeks later to the day when I saw him at the gym as I was doing forty-pound curls had the following conversation with:
interruptus
in the hotel room of an extremely attentive young man last week, but then again, he was from L.A., which more or less negates any possibility of consummating the deed in the future, near or distant. Before that was the cute but unfortunately overly introspective neuropsychiatric resident whose ex-lover was dying of leukemia who told me that he was initially drawn to me because of his subliminal death wish and perhaps given my serostatus I could be an agent of his death, whereas I in fact preferred to be known as an instrument. And before that was the gentleman (al- though perhaps it would be a stretch to refer to him using this descriptive, since douche-bag would be more appropriate) whom I picked up at the gym, had sloppy and not particularly memorable sex with, and then two weeks later to the day when I saw him at the gym as I was doing forty-pound curls had the following conversation with:
“Hi, Mike.”Genially: “Hi.” Pause.(Figuring he’d forgotten my name) “It’s Dave.”“Oh.” Bigger pause. “I know I know you from somewhere. I’m sorry, but I just can’t place it.”Huge pause. “The gym.”Quick beat. “Oh, yeah. You came over that evening.”Brief pause. “It must be my new haircut.” The one that looks identical to my previous ‘do.
BOOK: Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone
7.68Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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