Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone (9 page)

Read Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone Online

Authors: David B. Feinberg

Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #Memoirs, #Gay & Lesbian, #Nonfiction, #Literature & Fiction, #Essays & Correspondence, #Essays, #Politics & Social Sciences, #Social Sciences, #Specific Demographics, #Lesbian; Gay; Bisexual & Transgender eBooks, #LGBT Studies, #Gay Studies

BOOK: Queer and Loathing: Rants and Raves of a Raging AIDS Clone
9.6Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Freshly empowered from the day’s valiant action, I stride manfully back and ask them, “Can you keep it down because some of us are thirty and we have already had these conversations?”
The woman in the group retorts, “But I’m thirty.”
I apologize. “I was only trying to be rude.”
Startled, they gradually lower the decibel range. I return to my seat triumphant, and fall into a deep sleep. I dream of the post-action post-bus-ride meeting, to be held at the locked Community Center at three in the morning. Another endless meeting ...
I wrote this in a frenzy of eight weeks, while I was waiting for
Eighty-Sixed to be published.
At Viking, it took about a year between acceptance of the manuscript and publication. I was going crazy from waiting. I decided to plunge head-deep into a project dear to my heart. As I was writing it, I sent queries to several magazines.
Rolling Stone
had already done a piece about AIDS that year.
The Village Voice
had already published a news account of the demonstration. Heedlessly, I wrote on furiously. When I finally finished it, I showed a copy to my friend David Groff of Crown. A year later, long after I had given up on this piece ever seeing the light of day, he helped me get it into the inaugural issue of
Tribe,
a gay literary quarterly published by Bernard Rabb of Baltimore. Tribe is now defunct.
I was trying to convey a sense of ACT UP in 1988 by using the hyperbolic style of Hunter S. Thompson crossed with a queer Norman Mailer. To capture this energy, I tried to be as outrageous and politically incorrect as possible. Even as I was in the process of writing
Queer and Loathing,
Ifoundmyself disagreeing at times with the narrator. In the intervening years, ACT UP/N.Y. has evolved considerably. Consider this piece a fond snapshot of ACT UP/N.Y. during the heady early days.
Part Two
 
Life in Hell
 
Etiquette For the HIV-Antibody-Positive
 
As a well-known expert in manners, I was asked by the editors of this esteemed publication to compose a brief treatise on etiquette for the HIV-antibody-positive. I assumed this would be a relatively easy commission: I would consult various manuals and research materials and then I would rewrite selected rules and precepts in my inimitable style. To my dismay, neither the eminent Miss Manners nor the deceased Emily Post has written a definitive guide; moreover, Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren have yet to provide even the most elemental suggestions. What follows, therefore, is a set of highly subjective rules, for which I bear full responsibility. In these uncharted territories of etiquette, I relied upon two signposts to guide me: consideration for your fellow (wo)man and common sense.
1. Avoid bleeding in public. Carry tissues with you at all time. Eschew handkerchiefs. In emergencies, a Kotex can come in handy. Hemophiliacs should consider carrying clotting agents.
2. Be sure to inform each and every sexual partner of your an tibody status. If shy and not given to easy verbalizing, consider the compassionate suggestion of William F. Buckley, Jr.: a tasteful tattoo on the hindquarters.
Originally appeared in
Body Positive,
Vol.1, No.9,September 1988.
 
3. Be prepared for the abrupt cessation of all activity when you announce your antibody status during an orgy.
4. There is nothing wrong with dashing across Sixth Avenue midblock during rush hour when the person adjacent to you sneezes; there is nothing wrong with refusing to shake hands with a bleary-eyed hay-fever victim. Henceforth, consider yourself an extreme hypochondriac. If you desire, cultivate this eccentricity to a high degree of refinement. Surgical masks are fashionable these days: No one should be without one in public. Similarly, elbow-length rubber gloves are rapidly gaining acceptance at cocktail parties and charity events.
5. Be considerate. When visiting squeamish relatives, carry your own silverware, bedding materials, towels, and works. If at all possible, rent a Portosan toilet for the weekend. Try to avoid informing your immediate family of your HIV status during stressful events: funerals, marriages, communal meals, or conversations. When the time comes, the use of sign language may be helpful in communicating this rather delicate fact.
6. Avoid sharing intravenous needles, toothbrushes, condoms, sticks of gum, crotchless panties, joints, ice-cream cones, dildoes, blood transfusions, wombs, tampons, zucchinis, and other intimate apparel.
7. It is considered gauche to inform a sexual partner of the not-so-recent past of your antibody status over the phone. Invite him or her to brunch. Slur your secret over the seventh cocktail.
8. Refrain from excessive cruising at AIDS benefits. This is unseemly behavior. Stenciling your first name and your phone number on your tuxedo jacket shows an appalling lack of taste. Be aware that contrary to your past experience, the large gathering at the john during intermission does not necessarily constitute a “very active tearoom.”
9. Bodybuilders and other narcissists should abstain from sweating at public gymnasiums. Louise Hay’s self-improvement techniques may prove helpful at this juncture; otherwise, try Mitchum Five-Day deodorant pads. Carry your own towel; drink from your own bottle of Evian; should you have an urge to spit into the drinking fountain, swallow the phlegm instead. Avoid public showers, steam rooms, sauna baths, whirlpools, and other possibly arousing venues. At all times men and women should wear jock-straps, underwear, shorts, and sweat pants, in order to prevent possible escape of seminal and/or vaginal secretions.
10. Gloves are essential for supermarket visits. Produce may be inspected with a magnifying glass and calipers; avoid any direct physical contact. You may find yourself purchasing more disposable paper goods, perhaps against your better instincts of ecology and conservation. Money and/or food stamps should be kept in a sealed Ziploc storage-bag to minimize handling.
11. Floss frequently before your biannual dental checkup to minimize bleeding. Refrain from the reflexive reaction to bite your hygienist as (s)he inserts large objects into your mouth and instructs you to clamp down. A mild sedative before the visit may be helpful. Avoid gagging. Male homosexuals may find this instruction especially easy to follow. When instructed to spit into the bowl, take care to aim with precision.
12. Children in elementary school should refrain from scratching and biting during routine squabbles. A water pistol should prove adequate for most confrontations; in the event that this does not suffice, brass knuckles are usually sufficient. For extremely fractious situations, summon an aide, an instructor, a counselor, or a police officer.
13. When visiting the seashore, be sure to use an industrial-strength insect repellent to avoid transmission of the virus through mosquitoes. In certain localities and communities, concerned townsfolk may desire to drain local swimming pools after you immerse yourself in them. Do not draw undue attention to your antibody status, should you find this behavior embarrassing and overattentive. Both men and women should wear inconspicuous one-piece swimsuits with maximal coverage, or, failing that, wet suits or Aqua-Lungs.
14. Shooting galleries should be visited during off-peak hours to minimize contact. Although passing the spike was in former years a symbolic gesture of conviviality and communion, henceforth you must completely refrain from this practice. Clorox bleach or sets of sterilized disposable hypodermics may be offered to the dealer as a gratuity. As always, spitting at the methadone clinic is unseemly behavior.
15. Prostitutes should use discretion in informing johns of their antibody status. It is inconsiderate to wait until a masochistic client is bound and gagged before telling. All sexual acts should be performed with the use of latex prophylactics and/or dental dams, regardless of the client’s desires. Payment in full should be accepted prior to services rendered. If these simple rules cannot be adhered to wholeheartedly, the prostitute should consider a reputable trade school.
16. Hair should be neatly groomed before visiting a tonsorial establishment. You may choose to supply your own combs, scissors, and razors. An extremely considerate patron would also carry a water spritzer to obviate the necessity of a shampoo, a portable hair dryer, and a Dustbuster for fallen hair. Whenever possible, exotic styling and dyeing should be performed in the privacy of your home. This also goes for tattoos and the piercing of ears and other organs.
17. In general, be unobtrusive in public. For example, try to keep on hand at least one complete outfit when doing laundry: Don’t wait until you’ve run out of underwear, and you are down to one pair of jeans with holes in provocative places. Don’t fight over dryers: This may draw blood. Again, a sedative may be helpful before visiting the Laundromat.
18. Realize that, unfortunately, your health-care practitioner is probably quite busy these days. Try to refrain from scheduling tests for T-cell counts more than twice a week. Avoid calling him or her with minor, trivial complaints. Hangnails are rarely fatal; that malaise you find yourself experiencing with greater frequency may be simple existential anxiety. Consider: Perhaps you are merely worried about the Bomb and nuclear annihilation and the abyss and the lack of meaning in a godless world and the fact that the only station you receive clearly out of fifty-seven stations is the shopping channel.
Remember, next to your penis or vagina, a positive attitude is your best friend. Good manners and a positive attitude go hand in hand. Conduct yourself with grace and politeness. A few years down the line, when a cure is discovered, you can return to your debased state of ill-mannered crudity. Until that time, however, it is important to remain a paragon of decorum.
I wrote this for the Body Positive newsletter. I’ve always enjoyed making lists. Several years later, my friend Jim Lewis asked me to come up with a holiday gift guide for the HIV-antibody-positive. My list was suitably tasteless: It included a case of Sustecal; a vase from Pottery Barn that could later serve double duty as an urn; and a lifetime supply of anything. Jim liked it. Everyone else associated with the magazine hated it; they felt it was too grim and inappropriate, especially for someone who had just found out his or her status. Jim had just started editing the magazine. It was important for him to choose his battles wisely. He killed the piece.
Notes From the Front Lines: Writing about AIDS
 
Kenny told me it was difficult to find an HIV-positive person to be on this panel. I spoke to one writer who didn’t want to be on an AIDS panel because AIDS doesn’t define him as a writer; his writing does. Another writer told me he wasn’t given a choice; he was just dumped on an AIDS panel. So here I am, in the absurd position of being on a panel organized by someone who had written a less-than-flattering review of my first novel and has somehow neglected to mention this to me and has no idea what an unbelievably petty person I can be. I feel somewhat less legitimate than my other panelists because I’m as yet asymptomatic. I suppose the inability to maintain a relationship for more than fifteen minutes after orgasm may count as a disability. My disabilities are primarily psychological, and I had them long before HIV My symptoms so far have been mild side effects from prophylactic drugs and diagnostic tests, and a generalized dread. Sometimes I imagine that I had a false-positive test in ‘87 and it’s just a lab error or freak coincidence that my T-cells have been steadily declining and that the slight fatigue I feel at times is hypoglycemia or sugar letdown or side effects from poison pills or depression or age or laziness or psychological stress, and as a result the value of x is decreasing, where x is the number of stops on the subway before mine that I am willing to get off to pursue a cute boy, and that maybe I’m taking AZT and Zovirax and pentamidine and naltrexone and Z-BEC vitamins and lysine and vitamin A for nothing and maybe I won’t get sick and develop opportunistic infections and wither away watching cable TV once I finally get around to ordering it (I got a TV when I tested positive) and working on my posthumous Bruce Chatwinesque essays, and maybe I’m not HIV-positive after all, and I wonder if this is denial or one of those Twelve Steps to Hell that someone placed a banana peel for me to slip on, and then the voice of Bette Davis or Lynn Redgrave, if you prefer, booms, “Butcha are, Blanche, butcha are.”
Delivered as a talk at OutWrite, the National Lesbian and Gay Writers Conference, on March 2, 1991; published in
NYQ,
January 6, 1992.
 
For the past five years I’ve been writing almost exclusively about AIDS: I suppose I’ve pigeonholed myself into another subgenre: There’s the Latin-American school of magic realism, the post-Sadean body-mutilation work of Dennis Cooper, and my specialty, gay Jewish humor for HIV-positive men whose T-cell counts hover around 200. This is equivalent to the evolution from network broadcasting to cable narrowcasting. I’m sure this is progress. I think I’m indexed on some editor at The New York Times’s Rolodex under gay AIDS-related humor, having reviewed two books in that category to date.

Other books

Fire and Ice by Portia Da Costa
The Ice Cream Girls by Koomson, Dorothy
Second Chances by Evan Grace
The Cocktail Club by Pat Tucker
Street Soldier 2 by Silhouettes
A First Time for Everything by Ludwig, Kristina
Second Time Around by Colette Caddle
Briarpatch by Ross Thomas