Philadelphia

 

That’s Tracy, Jill and me on the front page of Temple News, lip-syncing to cheesy 70’s songs at Temple U’s Spring Fling 1992

In 1993, my junior year at Temple University in Philadelphia, Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington were spotted in my neighborhood corner grocery.

My roommate Carl had the scoop. “They’re filming a movie,” he said. “And I think James got in as an extra.”

James. The neighborhood homeless man who guarded our cars, shoveled snow for sandwiches, and asked if he could wash windows.

“Wow. Are they going to pay him?”

“Maybe,” Carl said. Then he added, “The movie is about AIDS.”

I nodded and changed the subject.

AIDS had been around long enough that I knew you couldn’t get it from toilet seats. But I didn’t know anyone with AIDS. I didn’t know any queer people, and all things queer were terrifying.

I wrote thoughts in my journal like: I am not interested in having sex with a woman. I’m just not. Then—panic—did I just write that? I kept the journal hidden. What was creeping out in feelings and words was still on the unconscious side of my brain.

I couldn’t be gay. It meant God would turn from me, my friends, family and community—all conservative and religious—would disown me, and that I would be alone, never loved, never touched, forever. On top of that, there was AIDS.

To keep from panic, I stayed busy. So, when Tracy and Jill invited me to join them working with people who were homeless, I jumped at it.

I knew Tracy and Jill from the Baptist Student Union, but they were different. They said it was ridiculous and offensive to call AIDS God’s curse on homosexuals. I wanted to believe them.

That me on the back of the couch. Carl is in the center, in a turquoise shirt. Tracy is beside him. Jill is in purple, laughing.

My first night out with the homeless, I was nervous. Tracy and Jill, told me how it worked: we picked up a big thermos with hot tea, sandwiches, and chips from the shelter—the food was to entice people. The real goal was to tell them how to get off the street. Our distribution route was downtown.

We parked near City Hall and headed for the subway. Hot, urine-scented air billowed out of the tunnel. As we descended, men and women greeted us. A mob wrapped in dirty blankets, ripped coats, gloves without fingers. Voices echoed and reverberated. I froze, watched Tracy and Jill greet people, even hug a few.

“Hey Miss Jill,” said a woman in a filthy coat with gray fur around the collar. “Hey Miss Tracy!” She smiled at us with rotting teeth. “Mmm, and who is this sweet thing?” She was referring to me, the new guy struggling under the weight of the thermos.

“Hi Louise,” Jill said, “This is Adam.”

Louise extended her hand, calloused fingers, nails thick with dirt. I avoided by using both of mine to lift the thermos onto a nearby wall. Jill and Tracy hugged her. I hugged no one, and felt guilty about it.

We handed out sandwiches, and told folks about the shelter. After, Louise wanted to chat, and Tracy and Jill had questions: Where was Mr. Jackson tonight? How was the burn on Arthur’s neck healing? Louise had things to tell them too.

“Got me a new luh-vah,” she said, grinning and dipping her shoulders as she drew out the word.

I glanced at Tracy and Jill; the word “lover” made me feel dirty.

“We got us a good spot down there near one-a them vents blows hot.” She waved back into the dark passage.

“She protects me,” Louise said, nodding.

She? I controlled my face. Noticed that Tracy and Jill didn’t flinch.

Tracy touched Louise and said, “I’m so glad. Stay safe, my friend.”

We gathered our things and climbed to the street. It was a relief to breath fresh air. Louise smiled and waved until we were out of sight.

“Louise has been getting sick,” Tracy said. “I worry about her.”

“We come on other nights just to visit her,” Jill added, “She’s a sweetheart.”

“She has AIDS,” Tracy said.

The word hit me. I flinched. I recalled her filthy fingers squeezing the button on the thermos. Jill and Tracy hugged her! I thought, followed by, Jesus would have hugged her.

All semester, I talked to homeless people. I learned names, but didn’t hug anyone.

Another Tuesday night.

“HEY MISS JILL! HEY MISS TRACY!” Louise yelled, staggering. She was drunk. “AND MR. YOUNG THING! HAHAHAHAHA!”

“Louise,” Tracy’s voice was soft, “Are you okay?”

I set the thermos on the ledge, my back to the group.

“I’m doing fine, Miss Tracy,” Louise said. I sensed that she was close. I smelled her. As I turned around, Louise was there. “What about you young thing? How you tonight?” And with that she body-slammed me against the wall.

Louise was taller than me. She was stronger than me. She had her partially gloved hands on the sides of my head. She was grinding her hips into mine and she was kissing me on the lips. Her tongue moved across and back. My lips were pursed tight. My hands pushed against Louise’s shoulders. She was a rock. I could see Tracy and Jill staring at us. It felt like hours before they gently convinced Louise to back away from me.

Don’t panic. I told myself.

But AIDS was on my lips, smeared across my face. I breathed through my nose, and imagined spores of AIDS being pulled in and nestling into my warm, moist nostrils.

We finished. At the top of the stairs, I dropped the thermos. Hunching over, squeezing the button, the hot tea wouldn’t pour into my hand fast enough. I splashed it on my face. I flicked my hands sending a spray of tea and AIDS onto the sidewalk. I spit. I spit again. I used tea and my fingers to clean out my nostrils.

Jill and Tracy were laughing.

“Why didn’t you stop her?” I was coughing, spitting, on the verge of tears.

“It happened so fast!” Tracy said, putting her hands on my shoulders.

I tried to regulate my breathing. It felt uncool to ask if kissing Louise could give me AIDS.

When I got home I took the hottest shower I could stand. I scrubbed my face so hard it still looked red the next morning. I gargled with Listerine every time I passed the bathroom, hoping that the burning would kill any disease still in my mouth.

Settling down, I decided I needed to study. The house was cold; I wanted to be wrapped, comforted. I went to find the blanket my grandmother made for me. My favorite. It was not in the living room. Did I take it upstairs? I checked my bedroom, not there. I looked in Carl’s room. I checked the washer and dryer.

Back in the living room I asked Carl if he’d seen it. “You know, the heavy crocheted one, with the blue and red stripes.”

“Oh that one, yeah, you know James stopped by the other night, when it was below twenty degrees out, and I gave it to him.” Carl said this without looking up.

“What?”

“I gave that blanket to James.”

I didn’t know how to control the anger that was rising. It felt destructive. I fought back tears and an urge to start screaming.

“My grandmother made that blanket for me.” I kept my voice calm, but it squeaked at the end. “It was a gift. From my grandmother.”

He finally looked up.

“Oh my God,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

God has forsaken me. Losing the blanket was an omen. I tried so hard to not be gay but got AIDS without ever having sex. I considered smashing things, or driving fast along the icy river road. Instead, I went to my room and prayed.

That night I dreamed of walking along Fairmount Avenue barefooted, concentrating to avoid broken glass and hypodermic needles. James, wrapped in the blanket, was hiding in some bushes with Louise. He was handcuffed and I knew that he and Louise were being arrested. I felt vindicated.

I woke feeling feverish. Got up. Paced the house. Where do people get tested for AIDS? Terrified. Ashamed. I didn’t ask anyone; I waited for symptoms to appear. What are the symptoms? I wondered.

For days I was unable to look at Carl. He apologized over and over. “We can ask James for it back,” he said.

To avoid exploding, I walked away without saying: You think I’d want it BACK after James slept on some heat vent in a filthy subway station in MY GRANDMOTHERS BLANKET? I pictured it in a shopping cart, stuffed in with pieces of cardboard box, plastic bags of clanking junk. I didn’t want it back. I never wanted to think of it again.

A few nights later, Carl cooked me dinner—a peace offering. We ate in front of the TV. A special report interrupted—a reporter described a “riot” in the Broad Street subway station near City Hall. It was a fight between homeless people. Two women and a man were killed. I called Tracy; her machine picked up. A few hours later she called back, crying.

“Louise is dead. She was stabbed.”

I was sinking. I felt shame. Horror. Confusion.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“James told me.”

My blanket: I imagined it draped over Louise’s body. I pushed that thought out.

The next Tuesday, gathering the thermos, the sandwiches, Tracy couldn’t stop crying.

Traffic hurtled by as we hustled supplies to my car. It was parked on the sidewalk in front of the shelter, yellow flashers strobing against the brick façade.

Trying to open the trunk wearing thick wool gloves, I bobbled the keys. They dropped out of my hand.

All of us watched as my car keys, house keys, keys to the doors at work, to my parent’s house, to my bike lock—landed on a sewer drain. I bent to grab them just as they slid through the grating. Traffic noise, breathing, the steaming hiss of the subway all went silent, and after what felt like a long time—bloop—we heard the keys hit the water.

I fell to my hands and knees and peered into the dark drain.

Don’t panic, I thought.

Tracy started laughing. She dropped her box of foil-wrapped sandwiches. She snorted. “Louise got you again!” she said. “She got you again!”

Me and Tracy

Something broke in me. I choked on rage and fear. The sewer gas burned my eyes and they filled with tears. “Did Louise give me AIDS?”

I looked up.

Jill’s eyes searched mine. She said, “Oh Adam, no. It doesn’t work like that.”

Tracy wiped her eyes.

“No?” I asked. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Positive.”

Me and Jill

I looked at my gloves, dirty with sewer drain muck. I wished I could follow my keys and be lost forever.

“You’re sure?”

Tracy sputtered. Then snorted. She collapsed to the curb, beside me, laughing, crying. Soon we had our arms slung around each other. All three of us laughing. It felt real. Like something that could survive tragedy.

Months later, when the movie, Philadelphia debuted, Carl and I went to see it with Tracy and Jill. The theater was packed. Scenes of our neighborhood were all over the opening credits. The whole theater cheered—stood—we were jumping, thrilled to see our buildings, our streets, our subway stops—even our neighborhood homeless people.

My possible infection, the riot and my blanket felt like a long time ago. We had continued to make our rounds with the thermos and the sandwiches. Some of the people in the subway tunnel stayed the same, others were new. Louise had forced me to face scary things—my own sexuality, prejudice, death. After she died, I talked to more of the people in the tunnel. I hugged a few.

Tracy leaned toward Jill and me, “Did you see James? Louise?”

We had to yell to be heard.

“I’m not sure! Maybe!”

“That guy with the shopping cart—”

It was too loud to talk. Until the screen went dark, and a hush fell. Then the opening credits rolled again. They played it a second time just for us. The images of the neighborhood, and the song—everyone remained standing.

The movie began with Denzel Washington in the neighborhood corner market.

Tom Hank’s character—the homosexual fighting AIDs—wasn’t faithless or evil—he was a normal person with feelings—like love for a man.

The movie showed me things I hadn’t been able to imagine. For the first time I saw men flirt with men. For the first time I saw men interacting as lovers. It was heartbreak, even anger that burnt through me at the scene where the lover was barred from the hospital room.

For the first time I understood that men loving men was about love.

And for the first time it felt true, and real that it was ridiculous and offensive to call AIDS God’s curse on love.