Sean Strub in his sweeping memoir
does something no one before him has done and that is to talk candidly and
freely about what AIDS has been for the past thirty years. There is an honesty and frankness to Strub’s
voice, but one of the small issues is that you have to sift through a
“documentary feel” that the majority of the book is written in. When one does
find one of these moments of insight to Strub’s “soul” that is when we as the
reader are further drawn into him and his identity as survivor. Randy Shilts and his monumental book “And the Band Plays On” is the only other
book that previously comes close to what Strub has done in narrating this awful
disease. The same disease that killed Shilts
and that has inhabited my body as well as Strub’s. “Body
Counts” is in part similar to “And
the Band Plays On” as both have many moments were it comes off as
documentary in style loaded with dates, places, times, people, politics and the
movement that took place that finally brought AIDS to the forefront of
everyone’s lips. However, what Strub
manages to do that “And the Band Plays On”
may not have done is make this disease a singular man’s narrative versus that
of the community. It is these moments of
vulnerability that Strub soars. The
first example comes during an ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power)
demonstration in New York’s Saint Patrick’s Cathedral that Strub once and for
all faces the church of his childhood in an act of defiance.
“This is the moment—my moment to confront
the church—when instead of repeating ‘the body of Christ’ as expected, I am to
make my political statement. But I have
not prepared one. When I rehearsed this
moment in my mind, I imagined I might break into tears or erupt in rage because
no slogan—in fact, no words at all—seemed adequate” (page 3).
The
church was the cause of so much grief and turmoil in Strub’s life as well as
countless other gay men. In many regards some facets of religion still are tumultuous
despite changes that even the Pope has made.
Strub, however, turns this moment of defiance, homophobia and lack of
action--- from the church--- into something much more personal and much more
resonating, the loss of his lover.
Beyond the inaction and bigotry of the walls and institution of the
church is the outcome of those actions---- the countless deaths of people
living with AIDS. The inaction of the
church has become a calamitous action.
Yet, while this has happened for the church, Strub in once brief second
doesn’t know what to do or so in his “political statement” as there is nothing
prepared. So many of us in those
singular seconds before and even while taking action had no plans of what we
were to say. For many of us, like Strub,
we didn’t need to say anything at all, because there are no words for grief
that overwhelming and that all encompassing. This could be the very reason
Strub strips away all of the extraneous details of the narrative, strips away even
his language to the barest of choices to showcase that pain. It isn’t about all of the details; the only
detail that matters is the pain of his loss.
Like Strub I am one of those gay men
whose life has been torn asunder by the church before my coming out and even
after. My partner Ron and I were deeply involved in a Greek Orthodox church,
with a priest who loved and accepted us as part of his family, but in our hour
of need, when Ron died in 2002 denied to acknowledge our love for each other within
the walls of the congregation. Strub
uses his moment to acknowledge his loss not only in front of the church, but
also in front of the Cardinal who has wrecked so much havoc for the LGBT
community of New York:
“May the Lord bless the man I love, who
died a year ago this week,’ I hear myself say.
My voice begins as a tremble but finishes strong. Police standing a few feet away are ready to
intervene… but he looks me in the eye and gives me the wafer” (page 3).
In this instance of his wavering and
unsure voice he acknowledges the “crimes” the church has committed and by
speaking his personal truth requires the Cardinal to acknowledge those crimes
as well. The writing here, much like
Strub’s own voice---within that moment--- are trembling but finishes strong. You can hear his uncertainty and maybe even
fear even though he never textually addresses either of those issues. He doesn’t have to address these issues as
metaphorically those moments are within the written text. This could be the attitude I take when I go
to write about my moment of confronting our church when I requested to be the
last person to walk past Ron’s open casket during the service, bending over,
and kissing him on the lips one final time.
I took my seat and the priest forever closed the lid, as I loudly wept. My words when I go to describe this need to
be stripped away much in the same manner of Strub’s and that the emotion is
what needs to resonate. The emotion
becomes the “description” of the scene.
Strub has also moments where he paints a
vivid picture of his surroundings that one can see them, taste them, touch and
smell them. This is a skill that plays
out beautifully throughout the four hundred pages. The earliest example can be seen when
speaking about his foray into gay bars in Washington D. C.
“The club was in a nameless warehouse
district amid a small strip of sex-oriented businesses—including a gay strip
club and an adult bookstore—several blocks southwest of the Capitol. The streets were poorly lit, and when clouds
obscured the moon, they were dead dark.
Prostitutes trolled the loading docks… clustering under corner
streetlights” (page33).
This is one of many examples Strub has
throughout the book and some of those examples while not only being vivid
descriptions but also being painful. There
is a sense of pain in the “nameless warehouse district”, “street poorly lit”,
and “clouds obscured the moon”. You can
sense this “worthlessness’ in his descriptions.
Strub abandons, if you will, a sense of his stripped down language and
adds just the smallest sense to it to make it a bit more while still being pared
down in nature. Instead of the text
taking on the emotional it has taken on a worthlessness that could be argued
resonates within the earliest days of the AIDS movement. That for many, in the earliest days of the
HIV/AIDS crisis felt a worthless and Reagan and his inability to speak about
AIDS for so long did nothing but add fuel to our feelings of worthlessness. It
is in these moments that he leaves you not only speechless but also feeling his
pain and humiliation. This can be seen
when Strub has accepted an invitation to move in with “an older jock” (page 36)
for $256 a month in rent. This scene
becomes violent rather quickly when he says:
“With his other hand, he pulled down my
pants, then wet his finger with spit and started to wiggle it in my anus,
cooing about how tight it felt. I cried
out in pain, unable to escape… he pulled down his gym shorts and penetrated me…
‘Just relax your only going to make it worse… Oh fuck your bleeding,’ as if it
were my fault” (page 37).
It is hard not only to see the
injustice of this situation but to be reminded that yes, beloveds, men are
raped as well. Not only are men raped, but
also in many instances these same victims suffer shame beyond repair that they
were the victims of rape. Strub doesn’t go into theatrics here describing every
last detail, and in many ways we don’t need it.
But, Strub does slow the pace in which we read the text. It seems as if the punctuation gives you room
to breath or at the very least catch your breath. I found myself reading a bit slower. Strub
though in a stroke of genius even pushes the envelope even further when later
he discusses the very reason for this deep abiding shame that lasts for decades:
“Indeed, in the early years of the
epidemic, it was common to hear about men with AIDS who claimed they never
bottomed…AIDS forced a mass exodus from the closet. Acknowledging being
penetrated by another man was an even deeper level of closet to transcend”
(page 130).
Of course AIDS and rape usually are not
discussed in the same breath but this idea of deeper shame of being the
“bottom” partner in a gay male sexual encounter is the real issue. That there is some sense of being less
masculine or less manly because you are the passive partner in a sexual
encounter, and in my opinion, speaks volumes to the gay/bisexual/down-low/men---
which have sex with men population that who would never, and will never be able
to admit to being the passive partner.
It is more than society who holds this stereotype in place but we as
gay/bisexual/down-low/men who have sex with men---who may or may not
bottom. But Strub deals with this issue
in such honesty and, I feel, compassion that one can no longer deny our own
societal and self inflicted shame.
AIDS, of course, is a large portion of
this narrative and it would be a huge disservice not to speak to how Strub
deals with this issue of AIDS and how AIDS has changed in the thirty years from
its first appearance in those who contracted it. Strub first speaks of the impending “doom” by
saying:
“Just as unimaginable was that a virus,
then unknown, was already spreading secretly within my closest circle of
friends, from one gay man to another, and that it would soon obliterate entire
communities” (page 68).
Strub in this instance has brought
the insanity of those earliest years to a level that best describes exactly
what was going on for those of us who have been in the “trenches” since nearly
the beginning. The first person I knew
who died of the then “Gay Cancer” was 1986 and I was a mere nineteen-year old
boy. Those earliest years are some of
the hardest years because so little was known and so little had yet to be
started, while our internalized fear, guilt, shame and hatred did nothing more
than separate us and in many cases murder even more of us. For some of us, we were labeled “sex negative
and self hating” (page 138) because we promoted a healthier alternative to sex
by embracing safe sex. After all
HIV/AIDS diagnosed persons should and would no longer be having sex. How naïve. While for many of us our lives became:
“Wondering hospital hallways, I always
glanced at names on the doors on the way to whomever I was visiting. Several times, I went… without intending to
visit anyone in particular, knowing there would be someone I knew who was
there” (page 191).
There is a sense of remembrance for
me while having read Strub’s book, of where we have been, what we have lived
through and for some of us, myself included that we have survived to give voice
to a generation of people who have died and have been silenced forever. There is a large sense of grief while I read
Strub’s book and a sense of survival’s guilt as well, that I have simply stood
the test and have come out alive when most of my HIV/AIDS diagnosed friends
have not. I am a generation of HIV/AIDS
diagnosed persons who have very few friends who can speak to those times, and
to who we were as well, as to whom our friends were. This in and of itself could be the very
reason behind making this book so powerful.
Strub is among the blessed to have stood the test of time and simply
survived. But with that survival also
comes a cost, which is what I would like to discuss next.
“My throat tightened before I picked up
the receiver. As soon as I heard (Dr.)
Sonnabend’s gentle voice, I knew. The
hospital had just called to inform me that Michael had died. I couldn’t speak. My chest heaved as if to release sobs or an anguished
wail, but nothing came” (page 212).
Grief is certainly a part of Strub’s
book. Some would say a good part of the
book. But, mingled in with that grief are
hope, faith, courage, activism, sex, and life, which in all reality is much
like life. There is even in the darkest of hours the sense of life moving
forward, life going on whether we want it to or not. Grief for so many of us, myself included,
became overwhelming, all encompassing and the force that drove us forward
especially when that grief become so utterly personal. For me it was when my beloved Ron, who I
still am deeply in love with. Not a day
goes by I don’t long to hear his voice, kiss his lips and embrace me and it and
him have simply been stolen from me.
Strub speaks to this phenomenal loss as well when he speaks of his best
friend, mentor and business partner Stephen Gedin:
I have never met a man I admired more;
his death slams the very worst pain and Loss in my heart. I hate this fucking disease. No one deserves the agony we have endured for
two decades… He is, was and will always be my beloved hero. I so desperately to believe in a hereafter,
one without disease, where Stephen and so many other friends can play and
cuddle and love one another” (page 372)
This
singular moment is where Strub is his most vulnerable. We know it because of the text he has
written. It is in the event of Stephen
dying that he enormous loss has become too unbearable. But it is not in the event of Stephen’s death
alone, it is in the very language that Strub uses to illustrate his deepest
emotions, his frailty and his inability within the moment to cope. It is this sense that readers, especially me,
connect to him on a much deeper level.
That beyond this feeling of a documentary style text we have a man, his
life, his emotions and his skills or lack there of, to live a life with AIDS
for thirty years. That even beyond the
very realms of the disease of AIDS is a life—Strub’s life as well as my own. AIDS for many defined who and what we are, or
in some cases who and what we were. It
has taken a long time for some of us to come to the conclusion that we are more
than are disease. AIDS is what we have
and not who we are. Strub, like many of
us have come to accept that AIDS has shaped who we have become and that without
AIDS we would not be the people we are; that the biggest life lessons, for many
of us, have come about because of AIDS.
“I have to acknowledge that AIDS, as
horrific as it has been, has been, has shaped my character, centered my values,
and taught me important lessons. I’ve
learned that life has the most meaning when I advocate or care for others”
(page 392).
I know for myself that AIDS has been
the foundation to which most of my life has been built and that I have no
regrets. My AIDS activism, my writing on
AIDS, the written performance piece that became part of a play and even my
arrest for civil disobedience in Washington DC have all played apart into
making myself who I really am. Out of
AIDS I have become this compassionate, empathetic, caring, supportive, and loving
man. Who would I be without AIDS, I have
no idea who that man would even be; but what I do know is that AIDS has been and
will continue to be a very vital part of my life much like AIDS has been for
Strub.
Strub’s speaks about the present issue surrounding
AIDS which include barebacking, legal repercussions if HIV status is not
disclosed and the very prison system to which those living with AIDS who are
convicted end up living.
“The pieces are rapidly falling into
place for further criminalization of people with HIV. The (mandatory) name-reporting campaign (in
1998) has come to fruition, with some of the traditionally strongest allies of
people with HIV essentially giving up the fight” (page 392).
AIDS is not the “manageable chronic”
illness that much of media reports that it is that the consequences and
repercussions for an HIV or AIDS diagnosis are still very real and for those
diagnosed within the twenty-first century are very different to those of us
diagnosed during the onslaught of this disease.
That for those diagnosed today there is not the support system in place
that we once had for those diagnosed.
For example Stark County, Ohio, where I live, has one and a half cases
at the “AIDS Taskforce to help every single person living with HIV/AIDS and
that taskforce is not a stand alone facility but part of the MRDD facility as
well as the Deaf and Blind Association of Stark County housed in the Senior
Citizen’s building. In its heyday
Cleveland had eight ASO’s (AIDS Service Organizations) and now has only two, one
of which is open only part time. PWA’s
are no longer members of the board of director’s at ASO’s and volunteers have
become a thing of the past for the most part as AIDS has become an actual
career. There is urgency to the new face
of AIDS and what AIDS has become but, unfortunately, few are truly listening.
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