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HIV Negative

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This morning Robby picked me up from the house and drove me to Van Nuys.

Court day.

The handsome deputy in the court room gives me a cheery wave, the clerk courteously holds open the door and even the wicked witch looks softer… more agreeable.  She’s only doing her job. I can’t be too hard on her.

After our short stint in the court we had coffee with my lawyer who is, it turns out, covered in tattoos.

Robby then drove me into Hollywood to the Gay and Lesbian Center where I waited in line for my annual HIV test.  Since 1984 I have been regularly tested for HIV. Since I was Robby’s age.  It has always been a fearful time for me. I’m sure it is for everyone.

I was given the wrong diagnosis in my mid thirties. A confused New York nurse told me I was HIV positive. For three weeks I thought I had it. Until I fled to London and the doctor told me I was perfectly ok.  In those days an HIV positive result meant certain death. The kind of death that included cancerous lesions inside and out. Opportunistic diseases caught from potted plants, cats and canaries. Dramatic weight loss and the most painful end.

Now, of course, HIV just means being wedded to big pharma for the rest of your life, a huge liver and for most people… a new closet to live in.  It occurred to me, as I sat waiting for my result, how I would tell you all if I had contracted HIV.  I live a public life. I am sure that the shame I have heard others talk and write about would envelop me too.

But, as I sat there I decided to tweet the fact that I was there and what I was waiting for. I gave myself no option but to come out and tell you… if I was HIV positive. I knew it wouldn’t be like telling you I had cancer.  I asked the counsellor what would happen if I was HIV Positive? He gave me the medical facts. It didn’t seem that bad. But we all know: it’s not the medical implications… it’s the social implication that packs the negative punch.  In the gay community there is huge prejudice around HIV and AIDS. The frank discussion we need to have about HIV is not being had.

After he read the result I looked obviously shocked. I really did not expect to be negative. In fact, I rather thought I might be seriously ill.

“Why?” He asked.

Because, and it grieves me to tell you this but after JB and I saw each other that last time… I had no way of drowning my fury so I trawled the internet and transformed from the ‘curious top’ to the ‘pig bottom’.  The pig bottom who wants to be fed. I think you know what I mean.

“Just cum in me.” I said. They were very eager to please.

“It was a suicide bid. The only one I knew would work. I hated him so much…”

“Did you hate him? Or you?” The counsellor asked kindly.

I smiled wryly. “I’m still HIV negative.”

“You dodged the bullet.”

You see, I have never been like most gay men… craving sex many times a day. I have never visited a bath house or a cruising park. I rarely meet the men I speak with on-line. I am not like you. I tried it once… not so long ago and it made me feel sick.

This week Paris Hilton was caught squealing at her friend’s Grindr. She’s right to be appalled. AIDS has taught us nothing.  Pre bug chasing… I didn’t want to have sex with someone I didn’t know. It kept me negative. I wasn’t about to be shamed into having sex with anyone.

When I was a kid, men would invite me into their homes. The mere acceptance of a cup of tea somehow meant agreeing to full on butt sex.  They try to shame you. Get angry with you… but I fought back. Fuck off. I’m leaving. It saved my life.  Now the youngsters who get HIV are similarly shamed. My friend told me (he’s 24) that a guy he really wanted told him they had to fuck ‘raw’ (unprotected)… when my friend protested his amour said, “What? Don’t you believe me? I’m HIV negative.”

He wasn’t. Now… nor is my friend.  Are we kidding ourselves when we say that we are having protected sex?  There’s outrage because Paris Hilton is disgusted by Grindr. She’s right. We should all be disgusted. My women friends say, “There should be a Grindr for straight people.”

I tell them that a usual Grindr introduction consists of one word: Hung? Then: Clean? Then: Dick Pic?  Women are usually appalled when I tell them the way gay men cut to the chase.

I’m happy that I am HIV negative. I’m happier that my death wish has been thwarted. I’m happier still that all that hate and self hate came to nothing.

Writing my film has had a wonderfully cathartic effect on me. He is just a distant memory.  Even though I see him daily on the page he now exists as I want him to. Suffer and thrive the way I want him to… without ever having to suffer myself.

Today… today was a good day to be HIV negative.

Categories
Gay Malibu

Death Threat

Doctor’s office yesterday.  He wasn’t there.

The  receptionist told me with ersatz compassion that they had tried calling me.  They had tried cancelling.

She showed me the number they had for me.  She let me see the evidence.  The right digits, the wrong order.

I remembered telling the young woman who initially took my details.  I remembered her thick accent.  I knew that she didn’t understand what I was saying whilst I was saying it.

She’s not the only one.  I get things so muddled.  I can’t spell.

I mean, some words elude me…like the word ersatz.  It baffles me.

Hot coffee, very hot microwaved coffee.  It’s raining.  The dogs are staying in bed.

The boys stayed out last night.   I had a friend over.  Lit a fire.

Yesterday this mad kid (Turkish origin)  from Bel Air in Maryland left violent, racist messages on this blog.  He used to call and text.  He stopped texting and calling months ago after I threatened the police…so he sets up false Facebook accounts and tells me how he is going to kill me etc.

In his head he is best friends with Peres Hilton.

In his head he thinks he can leave anonymous notes…telling me that I am a disgusting negro lover…and not get caught.

Again, what this idiot, these morons don’t get?  They leave their IP addresses , they leave crucial evidence.  This is his:  68.55.180.249  It is linked to every email he ever sent, every message he ever wrote.

The kid is a tragic mess who needs help…but I ain’t the one to give it to him.

Robby said yesterday, after I texted some sweet note…’till death do us part’.  So I reminded him that death was probably not so far off, (more deaths of contemporaries reported in London) that he would one day organize my funeral.

“Did you get a death threat?”  he asked…

No.  Not today.

Rain forecast for the next three days.

The kid who shot all those Afghans in their own homes last week…well, he is getting a media makeover.

They say he ‘snapped’,  he was ‘drinking’,  it was his ‘third tour’.  Meanwhile whole families are dead.

Can you imagine the same excuses being made if an Afghan slaughtered an American family.  Well, he snapped, he was drinking…he couldn’t take it any more.

Could you imagine those excuses being made?

More details are ’emerging’, more details are being manufactured so we can let this guy off the hook.

Meanwhile the tenant I had downstairs, Matty O’Neil…he has gone…leaving a disgusting mess behind him.  The boys took a whole day cleaning up after him.

You know, this kid Matty spent time in jail because of his Arab origins?  He was held in a jail after 9/11, probably held illegally by the US government…with his father when he was a young boy…yet when I suggested that his story and mine had similarities he told me imperiously, “I am an American!  There are no similarities.”

He moved out, brought a motley crew with him.  His sister, her girlfriend….his boyfriend.

The girlfriend was Chinese, the only one there with ancient Mayflower/American credentials was Matty’s boyfriend the acutely fay boy who works in the veterinary office in Malibu who Matty met on Grindr.

Deluded, the week before he left he asked me for a membership to the private club I belong to.

It made me smile.  How the American children of immigrants quickly forget the struggles of their fathers.

“I pity you.”  He said, as he was leaving.

Along with his pity he left two huge stains on the carpet, refused to pay his rent or accept responsibility for the mess…I pity his next landlord.