THE OTHER SIDE OF TENDERNESS (My AIDS Diary) TWO: Life is a Death Defying Stunt

Life is a death defying stunt

Yesterday shot from a cannon
today shot full of drugs
and tomorrow the thrown knives
may miss

I am a spinning target
for God knows what
my life as meaningless
as an empty circus plot

That night Carlton sensed the presence of The Angel. He woke and saw him at the foot of his bed. He was standing very still; stately. Carlton whispered to him in the darkness, “Why are you here?” His voice came, not with the sound of trumpets but as an ordinary man’s voice, “I'm waiting.” “What for,” Carlton asked. “For you,” he replied.

Carlton has a memory that was created in his early childhood; a blurred, uncertain image, dream, vision of his parents and an angel. He had woken in the night with a fever but was too weak to cry out. His mother was in his bed, holding him in her arms. The Angel is standing at the base of the bed, beckoning him. Carlton’s father hovers above The Angel praying a prayer of intercession for Carlton. It’s like a lost photograph; a snapshot that he only has a vague and ghostly memory of.

A more concrete recollection was waking up when he was about six and The Angel was standing in the corner of his room. He couldn't see him clearly in the darkness but he was afraid and disturbed by his presence and, grabbing a glass from the nightstand, he threw it at him.

The shattering of the glass against the wall brought his mother to his room where he was sobbing. She was angry at being woken, “Stop crying, what’s wrong with you. Keep quiet and go to sleep, next time I’ll send your father.” She stalked out of the room and left him with his tears.

Carlton called Ross first thing the next morning and when he said he needed to see him in person he knew that his worst fear was about to be realized. Carlton knew by the way that Ross came out of his office personally to call him from the reception area; he knew when Ross closed his consulting room door once he’d entered; he realized that he’d known for some time that this would be his end. The thought had been there for months; clear, solid and unavoidable.

When the words were said, “Your Eliza test was positive,” Carlton felt like flotsam washed up on a deserted island; beached on a foreign shore with nowhere to go and nothing to go back for. He was absolutely alone and he couldn’t go back and undo what he’d done.

Carlton appeared calm when he asked, “What happens next?”

Ross was explaining that he’d run the Western Blot test but Carlton lost track of what he was saying about bands, blood cells and confirmation. What would he tell Cathy? How would his employer react? Would Ross still treat him? Carlton asked Ross the last question and he replied, “Yes, of course, no one in this practice will ever turn you away.”

Carlton has been oscillating between absolute panic and complete calm. Ross would have the results of the Western Blot test in the next few days. Carlton’s expecting them to be positive because if he hopes for a reprieve he may have to face another bitter disappointment.

‘We think we’re immortal, indestructible and invincible; that we’re gods. This is just a curtain raiser to the final event; I'm going to die,’ Carlton thinks to himself.

Carlton had two whiskies before Cathy got home and then a few beers while watching some rubbish on TV. Cathy was moving around the house, making dinner, tea, bathing, getting ready for bed. The TV was a way of avoiding small talk. A few times Cathy stopped in the doorway to watch something and Carlton looked at her face in the flickering brightness of the screen; he'd turned off the lights and was hiding in the dark. He wanted to scream and hold her and tell her that everything would be all right. Then he remembered that she didn't know.

He hadn't lied to her. God had just fooled him for a moment.

Ross told Carlton that three bands of the Western Blot had been positive, which confirmed the initial result that he’s HIV positive. Carlton feels completely outside himself, as though he’s watching this happen to someone else. He’s disorientated and writes lists of things to do and questions to ask; the kind of lists that one makes when in shock or panic and need to have some concrete instructions to follow.

Put on your gas mask.
Go into a sealed room.
Close the door.
Do not panic.
Place your head between your knees
and kiss your arse goodbye.

Ross had made an appointment for Carlton with Helen at the AIDS clinic to talk about the test results. While he was waiting to see Helen two army guys were discussing videos with one of the workers. “We just want something that will scare the shit out of them so that they won't fuck around.”

Carlton went through that first meeting with Helen in a complete daze, as though everything was unreal; wanting a list of instructions to follow. Twelve steps to follow when you've been given the death sentence. Since then he’s bought a book about AIDS survival but when he tries to read it he breaks out in a sweat.

The only things that he can read without panic are the lists, and there are lots of them. He reads them ritualistically as one would read a catechism. Lists like: ‘People who should not donate blood’, and ‘The symptoms of AIDS’. Carlton’s favourite is ‘Playing Safely’.

Caressing, hugging and cuddling.
Massage.
Body kissing.
Mutual or group masturbation.
Body rubbing.
Oral, anal or vaginal sex using a condom.
Thigh or buttock fucking.
Shared or self-fingering of the anus or vagina.
Sadomasochism without breaking the skin.

Surely he’s known this list for years and yet he put himself in danger. Carlton has never taken AIDS seriously.  Even when guys began to talk about it a decade ago. Even when he read Randy Shilt’s book And the Band Played On. Even when the media set forth a deluge of doom. Even when a condom was produced and he rejected it. Even when the sight of a purple stain on a perfect body or the feel of a swelling in the neck, while his hands caressed a stranger, spoilt sex for him. Even at the news of people dying. It wasn't going to happen to him.

Helen, in her quiet way, helped Carlton to reach his own short list of things to do.

See a specialist.
Take his advice.

Carlton went to Denis with his collection of real and imaginary symptoms; the sinus condition that wasn't healing; the bruise that had been made when blood was taken, over a week ago; the rash on his arm. Denis’s authoritative and sensitive manner made Carlton feel that something was being done although all he suggested was to redo the Eliza test through another laboratory. He told Carlton that his symptoms didn’t appear to be HIV related and a small stirring of hope was born.

While Carlton was waiting for Denis in his consulting room two men came in and sat in the chairs opposite him. The one looked healthy while the other was painfully thin and pale. They sat staring ahead without speaking. It was an awful image of pain but at least they had each other; he wondered if there was any comfort in that.

Because Carlton has no idea of who infected him he fantasizes about a lover who is a composite of all the nameless, faceless men with whom he’s had sex over the last decade. There are too many to count. It’s as though he needed to have someone to blame; some dying lover to comfort in his pain, some featureless creature who he can love and hate and whose death he can mourn. He gives him the name Michael and imagines how his body would wither and disintegrate before his eyes.

Carlton comes home after seeing Denis and makes another list.

Things I Want to Do Before I Die

Catalogue all my tapes, records and CD's by title, artist and category, in perfect alphabetical order.
See the Wonders of the World.
Write a novel longer and more passionate than 'Gone with the Wind'. Have it published. Write the screenplay and star in the movie. Cash every royalty check until they run out.
Read all the books that I've always wanted to read, starting with those that stand untouched and accusing on my book shelf.
Compose and conduct a symphony.
Discover a cure for AIDS.

Carlton does none of these things.

(From Part Three of Other Voices, a semi-autobiographical novel of triumph over adversity by Carlton Carr)
(Collage Detail: Life is a Death Defying Stunt by Carlton)
© Carlton Carr 2013
http://othervoices.blog.co.uk