People in Trouble (30 page)

Scott Yarrow 1958-1988 died of pneumonia resulting from pneumocystis, an AIDS-related opportunistic infection.
 
Only a few of his friends found out early enough to be able to make it to the hospital before he died.
 
Molly was one of them.
 
Fabian was the other, because he brought Scott to Bellevue emergency room.
 
When the nurse took Scott in on a stretcher behind the swinging doors, Fabian madly made telephone calls until he could find someone to come sit with him in that hellhole.

During the four hours that Molly and Fabian sat, many events occurred.

There were a number of street people sleeping, crying, with gangrene, with large infections, with snot covering their faces, with blood everywhere, unable to speak, unable to move, all unattended and with no place to go.
 
There were a few gunshots brought in by the police.
 
A man had been beaten up.
 
His friend had one arm around him and another arm holding the stack of records that they had been on their way to spin.
 
Mothers worried they had waited too long.
 
A man urinated in his pants.
 
Many were drinking.
 
Some were talking very loudly about very little.

The police brought in a few cases from Riker's Island-pale men in bright orange jumpsuits with manacles, leg and ankle chains.

There were many, many drug overdoses.
 
A man sat behind Molly masturbating for the entire four hours.
 
He never got off.
 
There were terrible smells.

One of the prisoners was unusually large.
 
He had a scar clear across his throat.
 
From where he was sitting he could stare directly at Molly.
 
He kept motioning to her, waving.
 
At first she smiled back, feeling sorry for him, then she realized that he was going to be waving at her all afternoon and she had other things to think about.

She and Fabian knew Scott was dying but they didn't talk -about it much.

"My lover died of pneumocystis," Fabian said.
 
"His name was Jay.
 
He went like that."
 
Fabian snapped his fingers and looked down at the filthy floor.
 
"At the end he wouldn't eat.
 
I got so frustrated with him I would say `Goddamnit Jay, eat."
 
But he wouldn't."

During the day a few other people came in with AIDS.
 
You could tell it was AIDS because they were too thin and weak for their age or else their faces were covered with those lesions.

Finally James came.
 
It took him a while to convince the staff that he was immediate family, but a friendly nurse let him in.

"I got tested a few months ago, you know," Fabian said.

"No, I didn't know."

"I waited a while because those tests are so crazy.
 
You never know what they're going to do with the results and you never know if the results are even right."' "So, what happened?"

"I tested positive."

"Now what?"
 
Molly slipped her arm around his shoulder and leaned her head there.

"Well, I read in The New England Journal of Medicine that there are a couple of experimental protocols for drugs you can start taking when you're only at the positive stage.
 
But there aren't many available spots in the program.
 
So, I'm trying to switch to a more influential doctor who can get me into one of them.
 
But -I might have to move to another city and being lonely could get mo sick faster, don't you think?"

Molly didn't say anything.
 
So the two of them just sat there with their heads together for a while.

Then Fabian went off to get a Coke and one of the homeless guys came up to Molly with a note from the prisoner with the healed slit throat.

It was written in pencil with that kind of handwriting people have when they don't really know how to write.
 
It said Hi There!

My name is Frank Castillo No #241-86-1885.
 
I have about four to five months to do in here.
 
If you write me I will write you.
 
I have been in jail for twenty-eight months and haven't had no woman since.
 
You are very pretty.
 
I would also like to call you.
 
I will pay for the call.
 
Please think about it.
 
I am really not a bad person.

Molly stared at this note for a long time, except for every once in a while when she forgot and raised her eyes accidentally.

Whenever that happened, Frank would be there with his handcuffed hands put together in prayer and him saying "Please, please, please" silently with his fat lips.

I can't take care of everybody, Molly said to herself.
 
I just can't.

I can't do it.
 
This is one of those times that I have to say no.

So she looked up at Frank and mouthed "No" because even when the answer is no, people deserve a response.
 
But he just sent her another note.

It said I'm sorry if I embarrassed you.
 
I just want to talk to you.

If you give me your phone number I can call you and we might become good friends.
 
The officer said it would be all right for you to talk to me.

Frank She looked up again accidentally and he was right there mouthing "Please, please, please" again.
 
So finally Molly took out another piece of paper and wrote the following note.

Dear Frank, You seem to be a very open person.
 
I just can't pursue this relationship with you because I am a lesbian and I have learned from past experiences that whenever I make friends with a straight man they always want more.
 
I hope you meet the woman who is right for you.

I hope I do too.

She didn't sign it.
 
She just sent it back to him by messenger and then changed her seat so she didn't have to watch him read --it with his handcuffs on.

Then Fabian came back with his Coke and drank it and they were still waiting.
 
Then James came out and Scott was dead.
 
The three of them held one another very close and then looked at each other and there was already something missing.
 
From then on, Scott would not be there.

"He waited for me," James said as they walked down along the East River.
 
There was some wealthy private school on the water, so wherever they walked there were packs of bilingual boys and girls in dark blue jackets and skirts.
 
There was an expensive restaurant, some luxury housing and a heliport for businessmen from powerful companies.
 
Fabian held James's hand as he talked.
 
The sun reflected off the water with great freshness and clarity.
 
There was light everywhere.
 
The promenade overflowed with human movement and warm pleasure.

"He should have been gone by the time I got there but he was still hanging on.
 
I saw death when I looked at him.
 
His eyes were yellow.

There was nothing left inside.
 
I took his hand and brought my face right up to his, like we were kissing.
 
Really close, like when we sleep and my nose is buried in his cheek.
 
I breathed on him.
 
My eyes were on his eyes.
 
I know he felt me.

I took his hand and squeezed it.
 
I said, `Scott, can you see me?

Can you see me?"
 
until I knew he saw and then I said, `I love you.
 
I love you, Scott.
 
I love you."
 
And I watched him die, knowing he was a loved person in this world.
 
That was the last thing he knew."

They left James at his front door and after Molly left a long - I composed letter in Kate's mailbox, she and Fabian walked on a little way together over to the West Side and down Christopher Street.
 
They were pretty quiet except when Fabian stopped to buy an ice cream cone.

It was another gay summer and they were in it.
 
There were all those sexy guys prancing around.
 
Some of them were sweet young things wearing practically nothing.
 
Some of them were big hunks wearing practically nothing.
 
The usual fag teenagers were hanging out by the water playing radios and -lots of guys in bicycle pants were cruising around, being cute.

A few straight women were walking around with their gay friends talking things over and one voyeuristic straight couple clung to -each other desperately.

"This is where I first saw Scott," Molly said.
 
"It was about a year ago.
 
He and James were handing out flyers for Justice.

Scott had long hair then and a big Pepsodent smile.
 
I remember I was mad at Kate for not being around.
 
A year has passed.
 
Not much has changed."

"This is where I first met Scott too," Fabian said.
 
"About six years ago at the Ramrod.
 
He blew me on the pier."

"It's been a long year," Molly said.
 
"A huge one.
 
But nothing -much has changed."

`16

Dear Kate, Scott died this morning.
 
Life is very short.
 
I can't waste mine waiting for you to love me enough.
 
There's something missing in you.
 
I don't think you know how to love.
 
You just know how to hold on to people.
 
It's not the same thing.

She heard the door to James's apartment start to open and she knew she didn't want to see him.
 
Still holding the letter Kate stepped back quietly under the staircase and waited until he was out the front door.

He was walking with a black woman Kate had never seen before and she only heard snippets of their conversation.
 
She heard two things: "Why me?"
 
and "I don't want to die."

She was sweating.
 
She walked outside and noticed everything.
 
The buses had been painted a new color.
 
There was a new song on the radio.

All the kids were singing it.
 
She passed two parks filled with street people drinking or sleeping or smoking Coke or cigarettes or crying or talking to themselves and to others or dying.
 
She sat with them for a while, once in each park, and smelled their urine and sweat.
 
Every garbage can on Second Avenue had been picked through.
 
She saw the headline on a newsstand: AIDS vICTIMs RIoT.

Three elderly women asked her for money.
 
She gave them everything she had.
 
Then she went to the bank machine and got out more.
 
Four times young men tried to sell her drugs.
 
In each case she bought what they offered without inspection and dropped three bags of marijuana and one crack vial on the sidewalk.
 
There was trash everywhere.
 
The streets were broken and -filled with holes.
 
There was a hooker on Twelfth Street who was clutching her vagina and crying.
 
Kate unlocked the front door to her studio.
 
Her skin was burning.
 
It was bubbling up and blistering.
 
It was dripping brown fat.
 
Her arms were dislocated and skin became plaster, then a greasy foreign substance.
 
Her clitoris was as big as her hand.
 
No, bigger.
 
It filled the universe between her ankles and her groin.
 
It had no temperature and moved of its own accord.
 
Then she felt nothing.

Kate walked into her studio and Peter was there.
 
He wore a clean cotton button-down shirt, freshly ironed.

"What are you doing, Katie?
 
I don't understand you.
 
You don't care about anything unless it's gay.
 
You don't think about anything unless it's gay.
 
I'm really surprised that you would become so narrow.

She took a step toward him.

"I understand you feel a need to be politically active but I think that is something we can do together.
 
Homosexuals don't have a monopoly on morality, you know.
 
We have always agreed that our artwork is our political work.
 
We have always agreed that challenging form is more revolutionary than any political organization ever can be.
 
But if you feel a need to be part of a group, we can do that together.
 
I mean, I care more -about Nicaragua than I do about a group of rich white gay men.
 
Wouldn't you like to work together on something less exclusive?"