I don’t get serious here very often, mostly because I don’t get serious ANYWHERE very often. Since I was little, I have always used humor to deflect from what I am really feeling. It is only in the last few years that I have really started dealing with the things that are happening to me instead of making some stupid joke and living in a pretty, pink cloud-filled world of denial.
This entry will likely contain no humor, and I was hesitant to write about John here because of the nature of our friendship, and his history. But, this is my diary, and I’ll talk about whatever the fuck I want.
John was the first person I met when I started at my new middle school in the sixth grade. As I said before, I didn’t fit in at this new school, so his friendship was invaluable to me from day one.
Because I was 11, and didn’t really even understand homosexuality that much at the time, I didn’t recognize all the flashing red lights that were indicating to me that John was gay. He had a high-pitched, hissy voice, wore pink before there was such a thing as a metrosexual, was obsessed with musicals and Madonna, and was a superfan of Tom Cruise. I was so dumb and naïve, I didn’t even see it.
Naturally, because we were best friends, and everyone else was doing it, we decided we should be boyfriend/girlfriend, mostly for the prestige of saying we had one. I was always a tomboy, and not really interested in boys at that stage, and god knows, he was not interested in girls, but we started “going around” anyway. We kissed one time, our first kiss for each of us, and it was gross. It was like kissing my brother. It was at that point that we decided that we were better as friends.
The summer before our seventh grade year, he told me he thought he might be gay, because he got an erection when he saw his older brother’s friend swimming in their pool one day. There were no other gay kids at our school (at the time we didn’t know any… of course later on there were quite a few), so John felt like a total outcast. He didn’t tell anyone except me. His family was extremely conservative and religious. His brother was a chauvinistic frat-boy, and his sister was apathetic towards everyone in their family since John’s Dad committed suicide when John was ten. He sometimes went weeks without talking to her, in spite of the fact they lived in the same house. She simply didn’t care about anyone.
After he lost his virginity at 14, he became very promiscuous. He had a fake ID, and went to clubs in West Hollywood every weekend, and most weeknights (if you’ve read my 100 things, it was at this time that we spotted the Who’s The Boss kid and his gorgeous piece of man meat boyfriend at a club). He never used any kind of protection. This was the mid-80’s, when AIDS education was not happening in school, and it was not discussed that much in the media.
Our sophomore year of high school, he started to feel tired all the time, and was experiencing fevers and flu-like symptoms regularly (I should interject that while he was out at school and everywhere else, his family still did not know he was gay. His mother had re-married some rich ultra-conservative guy, and he knew it would not sit well with them). His mother took him to the doctor, and they did a bunch of different tests, but nothing pin-pointed exactly what was wrong. He was officially diagnosed with Hepatitis.
He took the Hepatitis meds for a while, but he wasn’t feeling any better. He went to some specialist at UCLA, and after about three weeks, he and his family were told that he was HIV positive.
When he told his mother that he contracted the virus through unsafe sex with another man, she wigged out, and told him he needed to start going to church, and that religion was going to save his soul AND his life from the gay cancer he had been stricken with. When he told her that he was not going to change, that his homosexuality was not a choice, but who he was, she threw him out of the house. And, effectively, out of her life.
John moved in with a friend in Hollywood and dropped out of school. His family stopped talking to him, and his medical insurance was discontinued by his heartless cunt of a mother. They packed up and moved to Orange County, where no one would know that he existed, and they would not have to deal with the “humiliation” of having a gay positive son.
Occasionally, I would run into his mother somewhere, and she would casually ask me, “So, how is he?” She wouldn’t even say his fucking name. Her own child, who she fucking gave birth to, was dying, and she wouldn’t even say his name.
He started to get medical care through the county when he found out that his status had changed, and that he now had full-blown AIDS. This was around the same time Magic Johnson announced that he was positive, so finally some attention was being brought to the forefront about HIV and AIDS, and someone who was “normal” (i.e. not gay) could get it too.
One of the nurses at the clinic he went to was a beautiful, handsome (ok, HOT) man named Sean. Sean was a great support to John, and they became friends, and eventually, a couple. I don’t know how Sean could do it… he willingly let himself fall in love with someone he knew was not going to live a long life with him, and who had a disease that required careful attention in every aspect of their lives, not just their romantic life.
Once he was on a steady cocktail of meds and he was stable, Sean and John (it’s disgustingly cute) moved to San Francisco, where Sean was from originally. I was not ready for him to move that far away from me, since he has been in my life since I was 11.
Fuck. I am starting to cry now.
When I was 15, the hardest thing that’s every happened to me was losing my favorite uncle to lung cancer. I knew that I was going to go through that same hopeless feeling again when I lost my friend, and I couldn’t accept that. I didn’t want to. I became very selfish at that point, and just decided that if I didn’t think about it or talk about it, it wouldn’t be there. Jesus, how ignorant. I felt particularly shitty because I couldn’t deal with the thought of losing John, and at that point I hadn’t really thought about what HE was feeling, and how he was dealing with his own mortality, and having to leave behind the love of his life.
My Mom sat me down and forced me to realize what was going to happen, and to stop being such a selfish fuck and put my own feelings aside to help my friend. I didn’t want to. I fought it and fought it and fought it as long as I could. Then one day it was like I hit a brick wall. All that denial I had induced disappeared, and I suddenly woke up and realized he would be gone.
It must make me sound incredibly stupid to have known his health status all this time, but to still not think about the fact that he was going to die. The human mind is a motherfucker. It does what it wants, and puts aside those things we don’t want to face whether we like it or not. And when it puts those things back in the forefront for you to see, it’s like having the wind knocked out of you and your guts ripped out all at the same time. It was hard, but I eventually accepted what was real.
After that, I started to feel guilty that I was healthy and he was not. That I would live and he would not. That I didn’t have to deal with the stigma of having AIDS, and deal with peoples’ ignorance and misperceptions on a daily basis. I spoke to Sean, and he was helpful in getting me to realize that I should not feel bad about the situations we were in. These were our lives, and there was nothing we could do but live them as they were, and do with them what we could. Have I mentioned what a beautiful and brilliant person this man is? I thank god for him, because he is the one thing that gives John one little bit of hope, and gives him something to live for each day.
I hadn’t seen John in quite a long time when he called me a few months ago and said he was coming down for a few days. I was so excited to see him because I hadn’t seen him in so long. It was the longest time we were apart since we became friends.
Sean called me the day before, and told me that John had lost some weight, and that he looked markedly different from the John I remembered, so to be ready, and not to express my surprise at my appearance in front of him.
I was not prepared for who I saw. My young, vital, beautiful friend was gone. He was underweight, his skin was sallow, and his breathing was labored. I was freaking out inside when I saw him. The reality of his death was right in front of me, and I didn’t know what to do. I hugged him, and felt his frail body in my arms, and a single tear ran down my cheek. In that moment, I realized this may be the last time I would see him. I couldn’t let go. I wouldn’t. Twenty years of friendship. Twenty years of memories, and boyfriends, and fights, and making up, and love, and trust, and secrets, and every other fucking thing you go through with someone you love was right there. I couldn’t handle my feelings. I didn’t know how to not act like I was falling apart in front of him. I didn’t want to make him feel worse than he already did, and I didn’t want him to feel badly that I was upset.
And, in typical John fashion, he broke the ice.
“Andria, fucking hell. I don’t know how many times I’ve told you. I am not going to fuck you. I like cocks. Now let me go of me, you dirty whore.” I laughed, and cried, and laughed some more. And then he quietly whispered to me, “You’re my oldest friend, and my family. I love you more than you’ll ever know.” We sat in my apartment for hours that night, laughing, and talking, and reminiscing.
John and Sean went home the next day. Sean called me later and told me that John’s doctors were not very encouraging about his health. For the most part, it is just a waiting game now. He is on enough meds to keep him comfortable, but eventually (soon), he will get sicker, which will lead to pneumonia that his body will not be able to fight off, and he will die.
I called his mother, and told her that, and she didn’t even express an interest in seeing him. This is heartbreaking and unimaginable to me.
In my private time, when I am at home alone, or at work, I have thought of little else. I call Sean about four or five times a day. Every morning I wake up afraid that he will have gone in the night, and I could not speak to him one more time. Every time I call he jokingly picks up the phone and says, “I am still alive. Now go get laid.” It amazes me that he is weeks away from dying, and he still has his sense of humor. He is an extraordinary person.
I was reading a diary the other day that resonated with me, and inspired me to talk about John here. As I said, I try to keep it light and funny around here, but he is a huge part of who I am, and what I stand for and believe in.
Plus he reads this crap, and he told me that if dying doesn’t at least get his name mentioned in here once, he’ll haunt me forever. And I am afraid of ghosts. Almost as much as clowns.
I should also point out that he wanted me to give him the fake name Buck Naked (we’re both Seinfeld dorks), but he gets to keep his real name. Plus I was saving that name for a man to be mentioned later.
If you’re still reading this, I applaud your attention span. I really rambled on this time.
So, the next time your best friend drives you crazy and you want to shoot him/her, remember the friendship that bonds you guys in the first place. It is precious, and not to be taken for granted.
Humor to come. I promise. Here’s a teaser: Why letting your five year-old watch Chappelle’s Show is only funny until he calls a group of black guys in basketball clothes “bitches.”
