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Selasa, 28 Desember 2010
Rabu, 01 Desember 2010
Membership
ABOVE: At the 1985 Xmas party described below: Me, Michael, and Barney. I also wrote about Barney here.Originally posted May 2004. Reposted for World AIDS Day.
Membership
Michael didn't look good.
We were at his annual Christmas Luau party. Tons and tons of people in the house and the backyard. Standing in his kitchen, wearing a grass skirt and a ridiculous Santa hat covered in sequins, he was acting like always...all flamboyant and silly and adorable.
But he didn't look...right.
It was 1985.
My boyfriend Ken and I stayed until the end of the party to help clean up. I busied myself in the kitchen, washing glasses and cleaning ashtrays. Through the kitchen window I watched Ken and Michael in the backyard where they were stacking up the chairs and dousing the dozens of tiki torches, the trademark of Michael's party. When we were finished, Ken and I stood for a few minutes on Michael's front porch to review the party: who came, who didn't, who shouldn't have come.
Finally I yawned and stretched and nudged Ken. "C'mon babe, let's roll. Michael, lots of fun as always. Try and get some sleep, you look like you need it."
Ken shot me a scowl.
I tried to recover. "I mean, you must be exhausted from getting the party ready."
Michael laughed and lit a cigarette. "Oh, you know me. I'll bounce back. Nothing that can't be cured by cigarettes, coffee and cocaine!"
We giggled and waved and headed down the driveway. When we reached our car, I looked back at the house. Michael was struggling with the garbage cans, then broke into a hacking cough.
For the first few minutes of our ride home, Ken and I didn't say anything. Then at a traffic light, I looked over at him. "Didn't you think Michael..."
"He's FINE!" Ken cut me off.
"You didn't think he looked kinda thin? And that coughing..."
'Well, you know he smokes too much. And you'd look worn out too if YOU threw a Christmas party for 100 people.'
"Yeah, I guess."
Ken knew what I was talking about, even if we didn't actually talk about it. For two years, maybe three, we'd been following the developing story about AIDS. At first, the press was calling it 'gay cancer'. Then GRID. Gay Related Immune Disorder. Then AIDS.
We lived in Orlando. Almost all the cases were in New York or San Francisco and that made us feel safe in a strange way. Neither of us had been in either place, except as children. And we didn't have any friends from either city. Then Miami began to report cases.
Michael was from Miami.
A week after his Christmas party, on New Year's Eve out at the club, Michael uncharacteristically left early. Before midnight. He said his hip was bothering him. Our friend Jack teased him as he was leaving. "Oh, is Grandpa having some problems with his rheumatiz?"
Michael just smiled and blew us kisses from across the room and limped out.
A few weeks later Ken called me from his office. He was going to take Michael to the hospital. His hip was terribly infected, and he couldn't walk. I didn't ask him what was wrong, by now we knew. And Michael knew that we did.
Waiting for Ken to come home, I watched a TV report on AIDS. Specifically, it dealt with how funeral parlors were sometimes refusing to handle the bodies of AIDS patients. Fear of infection. Fear of loss of reputation. The narrator made a comment about the families and friends of those killed by AIDS. He called them "this new and modern group" of grievers. When Ken got home, I told him about the story with indignation.
Over the next few months, Michael was in the hospital quite a bit. Ken got into the habit of visiting him on his way home from work, something I could rarely do since I worked nights. When I did see Michael, he looked progressively worse. Skinnier, more pale, his skin patchy and scaley.
But he always had that bitchy sense of humor and that chicken cackle. I'd hear that laugh from down the hallway as I approached his room, which always seemed to be full of friends.
Florida started its state lottery that summer. On the first night of the big drawing, I tried to stay awake for the results but I fell asleep with the tickets in my hands. I was awakened by Ken sitting on the bed.
"Hey." I rolled over and looked at the clock. Three in the morning?
Ken still had his tie on. My throat clenched. I don't know why, but I pushed the lottery tickets over towards him.
"So, um...are we millionaires?"
Ken didn't answer me.
"Where have you been? At the hospital? How's Michael?"
Ken leaned over and started untying his shoes. He pulled them off and finally turned to face me. He looked so very tired. He laid down next to me and hugged me, then spoke softly into my ear.
"We've just joined that 'new and modern' group."
Minggu, 15 Agustus 2010
Ricky Loved Madonna
As longtime readers know, there are a handful of short stories from my archives that I repost annually. Today is Madonna's 52nd birthday and this story makes its fifth appearance in memory of a departed friend.
Ricky Loved Madonna
Today is August 16th. It's Madonna's 48th birthday. That's not something of which I'd ordinarily make note.........
Twenty years ago today, August 16th 1986, I was a few months into a new job with AMC Theatres, a job that I would hold for seven years after having spent a few years after college drifting around bartending, waitering, and DJ-ing. After burning through three terrible DJ gigs in about a year, I took the management position with AMC almost in desperation, happy to finally have a regular paycheck. I bought my first brand new car. I had several dozen underlings. I had a business card. I felt like a grown-up, almost.
Twenty years ago today, it was a Saturday. As the assistant manager, I had to be at the theatre at 10am, even though I had closed the midnight shows the night before, not getting home until almost 4am. I stumbled through the still-unfamiliar opening procedures. My mind was on Ricky. I took the cash drawers out to the concession stand and the box office and turned on the air conditioners and lights in all the auditoriums. The first movie, a Disney cartoon, started at 11:30am and we had hundreds of people in front of the box office before I even rolled up the mall gates.
Twenty years ago today, the night before was a Friday. It was the opening night of the remake of The Fly, starring Jeff Goldblum. My six-plex was jamming. The Fly sold out at every show, driving the overflow audiences into Top Gun and Aliens, which were still doing decent business on their own. All six auditoriums sold out by 8pm and I rushed to get that show's money counted before the first of the auditoriums began to let out and we had to start the process all over again. I pushed into the counting room inside the manager's office and dumped several thousand in $20's onto the countertop. The intercom buzzed.
"Mr. J., there's a man here to see you."
In the lobby was my friend Todd. "Joe, I'm on my way to see Ricky. Can you come? He's worse."
I looked out into the mall where hundreds of teenagers milled around in front of closed storefronts. The Interstate Mall was on its last legs. All that was left was the theatre, a pinball arcade, an adult novelty shop, and the driver's license bureau, which was closed at that hour. The teenagers roamed the broad unswept avenue of the mall in swirling, shrieking packs, anxious for the late show to begin.
I shook my head. "Todd, I'm the only one here. I have the late show and then the midnights. The last movie doesn't let out until almost 3am. I have to lock up." Todd nodded and made a movement like he was going to hug me, then realized that a dozen of my employees were watching. Awkwardly, he stuck out his hand, as if that's what he'd intended all along. I shook it and he left. I had never shaken Todd's hand before.
Twenty years ago today, one week earlier, Ricky went into the hospital. He'd had a seizure on the bathroom floor of his sister's condo. Todd and I went to the hospital the next day and found him lying unconscious in his bed, unattended, in a pool of feces. Todd staggered into the hallway and tried to control his retching while I looked for a nurse. At the nurses' station, the stout Jamaican woman behind the counter nodded curtly but didn't get out of her chair when I asked that Ricky receive some attention. I went back to find Todd sitting out in the lounge, smoking.
"Joe, I can't be here. I'm freaking out. Do you know we walked right in there without a mask on?"
"I think the mask is more for him than us....so if..."
"I have to go."
We stopped at the Burger King a few blocks away and washed our hands. Even though we hadn't touched Ricky or anything but the door of his hospital room, we scrubbed the front and backs of our hands like we'd seen surgeons do on television.
Twenty years ago today, two weeks earlier, Todd and I had dropped in at Ricky's sister's condo. Ricky had been forced to move in with her. He'd lost his job at the giant hotel near Disney where he'd been training to be a pastry chef. For a long time he'd managed to keep his illness a secret, wearing long shirts even in the hot kitchen so that nobody saw the lesions that were growing inexorably from his wrists to his elbows. A lesion appeared on the back of his hand and that one he covered with make-up, but when a lesion appeared right on the tip of his nose, the head chef and head of human resources had called him in on his day off to fire him. Surely he understood, they told him, that they couldn't have him handling food.
When Ricky's sister opened the door of her condo, she made a face. "He's not feeling well." She'd already made it clear to Todd on his previous visit that she did not like her brother's "friends". Todd said quickly, "Oh, well, we just wanted to drop off a present for him." I had Madonna's latest release, True Blue, on CD in a sparkly bag. We knew that he'd gotten the vinyl album earlier in the summer, but since he was such a big fan we knew he'd like to have the CD version too.
His sister led us into the bedroom where we found Ricky watching television. He was cranky and inattentive to us, but momentarily brightened when we gave him the CD. He examined the cover. "It's the same as the album, just smaller." He didn't have a player, hardly anyone did yet, so he laid the longbox reverently on his nightstand, propping it against the lamp. His sister hovered in the doorway smoking, anxious for our departure, and we soon obliged her.
Twenty years ago today, three months earlier, I met Ricky for the first time at a party thrown by Todd. I'd heard from Todd that Ricky was "sick", but he seemed fine to me. We stood outside on the patio and watched guys jumping into the pool.
Ricky said, "So what do you do, Joe?"
I said, "Well, I just started working for AMC Theatres."
Ricky screamed a little bit. "Which ONE?"
I stepped back. "Interstate Six, why?"
"Because I am in there ALL the time. I saw At Close Range about five times just to hear Madonna's song in it!"
"She wasn't in the movie, was she?"
"No, but I'm just a freak for her." He paused, then added dramatically, "We have the same birthday!"
"Oh....really." I began to look around for Todd.
Ricky began to get very animated and his words tumbled out. "Yes!. Same day, same year. I was born exactly at midnight and my mother always said I could have August 15th or August 16th for my birthday. It was my choice and for the longest time I had it on August 15th cuz that's Julia Child's birthday and she's a chef and I'm a chef and she was like, my idol when I was little. Such a fag, right? Anyway, when Madonna came out and I found out her birthday, I was all...that's IT. I'm August 16th from now on!"
Ricky continued professing his undying love for Madonna until I was finally able to make a graceful escape. Later, Todd told me that Ricky had dressed as Madonna for the previous Halloween and belonged to her mail-order fan club and we laughed a little bit at his adorably nutty fandom.
Twenty years ago today, August 16th 1986, was a Saturday. The theatre had brisk business for the morning show, selling out the Disney movie. After all the houses were rolling, I pulled the money from the box office and sat alone in the office to count it. I turned on the radio so I could hear Casey Kasem counting down the Top 40.
Todd called. "Well, the hospital just told me Ricky died around midnight last night."
"Oh, no. Did you get in to see him...before.....?"
"No, his sister and mother were there, so I just left without going in."
"Right." That's how it usually went back then.
Todd hung up and I sat there finishing up my money counting. I didn't know how to feel. I really couldn't call Ricky a friend. I had to count and recount the money several times. I kept losing my place. Then I heard Casey Kasem say, "Hitting number one today is Madonna's Papa Don't Preach."
I called Todd back. "So, did they give you a time of death for Ricky?"
"Yeah, midnight."
"Right, but is that today or yesterday?"
"What?"
"Well, today is his birthday and it's Madonna's birthday and I just heard that she's number one today...and.....it would be, you know, sorta nice if it was today."
"What the fuck is nice about dying on your BIRTHDAY?"
We never talked about it again. I never did find out what day was listed for Ricky's death. As the years went on and Madonna's fame increased, the press began to note her birthday. And ever since that started, I think of Ricky on August 16th. I never knew Ricky's last name. He wasn't a close friend. But he has stuck with me over these two decades.
I know that writing these stories about dead people is rather maudlin. Melodramatic. In a way, a story about a stranger's death is always going to feel melodramatic, I suppose. I've written stories like this a half dozen times over the two years of this blog's existence, and I've got many more, more sad stories still untold. I think I get feeling scared that if I don't get the story out there, I'll forget it. Forget how it happened. Forget the person.
Twenty years ago today, Ricky, aged 28, died on his birthday. I will always hope that it was his August 16th birthday. Ricky loved Madonna.
Ricky Loved Madonna
Today is August 16th. It's Madonna's 48th birthday. That's not something of which I'd ordinarily make note.........
Twenty years ago today, August 16th 1986, I was a few months into a new job with AMC Theatres, a job that I would hold for seven years after having spent a few years after college drifting around bartending, waitering, and DJ-ing. After burning through three terrible DJ gigs in about a year, I took the management position with AMC almost in desperation, happy to finally have a regular paycheck. I bought my first brand new car. I had several dozen underlings. I had a business card. I felt like a grown-up, almost.
Twenty years ago today, it was a Saturday. As the assistant manager, I had to be at the theatre at 10am, even though I had closed the midnight shows the night before, not getting home until almost 4am. I stumbled through the still-unfamiliar opening procedures. My mind was on Ricky. I took the cash drawers out to the concession stand and the box office and turned on the air conditioners and lights in all the auditoriums. The first movie, a Disney cartoon, started at 11:30am and we had hundreds of people in front of the box office before I even rolled up the mall gates.
Twenty years ago today, the night before was a Friday. It was the opening night of the remake of The Fly, starring Jeff Goldblum. My six-plex was jamming. The Fly sold out at every show, driving the overflow audiences into Top Gun and Aliens, which were still doing decent business on their own. All six auditoriums sold out by 8pm and I rushed to get that show's money counted before the first of the auditoriums began to let out and we had to start the process all over again. I pushed into the counting room inside the manager's office and dumped several thousand in $20's onto the countertop. The intercom buzzed.
"Mr. J., there's a man here to see you."
In the lobby was my friend Todd. "Joe, I'm on my way to see Ricky. Can you come? He's worse."
I looked out into the mall where hundreds of teenagers milled around in front of closed storefronts. The Interstate Mall was on its last legs. All that was left was the theatre, a pinball arcade, an adult novelty shop, and the driver's license bureau, which was closed at that hour. The teenagers roamed the broad unswept avenue of the mall in swirling, shrieking packs, anxious for the late show to begin.
I shook my head. "Todd, I'm the only one here. I have the late show and then the midnights. The last movie doesn't let out until almost 3am. I have to lock up." Todd nodded and made a movement like he was going to hug me, then realized that a dozen of my employees were watching. Awkwardly, he stuck out his hand, as if that's what he'd intended all along. I shook it and he left. I had never shaken Todd's hand before.
Twenty years ago today, one week earlier, Ricky went into the hospital. He'd had a seizure on the bathroom floor of his sister's condo. Todd and I went to the hospital the next day and found him lying unconscious in his bed, unattended, in a pool of feces. Todd staggered into the hallway and tried to control his retching while I looked for a nurse. At the nurses' station, the stout Jamaican woman behind the counter nodded curtly but didn't get out of her chair when I asked that Ricky receive some attention. I went back to find Todd sitting out in the lounge, smoking.
"Joe, I can't be here. I'm freaking out. Do you know we walked right in there without a mask on?"
"I think the mask is more for him than us....so if..."
"I have to go."
We stopped at the Burger King a few blocks away and washed our hands. Even though we hadn't touched Ricky or anything but the door of his hospital room, we scrubbed the front and backs of our hands like we'd seen surgeons do on television.
Twenty years ago today, two weeks earlier, Todd and I had dropped in at Ricky's sister's condo. Ricky had been forced to move in with her. He'd lost his job at the giant hotel near Disney where he'd been training to be a pastry chef. For a long time he'd managed to keep his illness a secret, wearing long shirts even in the hot kitchen so that nobody saw the lesions that were growing inexorably from his wrists to his elbows. A lesion appeared on the back of his hand and that one he covered with make-up, but when a lesion appeared right on the tip of his nose, the head chef and head of human resources had called him in on his day off to fire him. Surely he understood, they told him, that they couldn't have him handling food.
When Ricky's sister opened the door of her condo, she made a face. "He's not feeling well." She'd already made it clear to Todd on his previous visit that she did not like her brother's "friends". Todd said quickly, "Oh, well, we just wanted to drop off a present for him." I had Madonna's latest release, True Blue, on CD in a sparkly bag. We knew that he'd gotten the vinyl album earlier in the summer, but since he was such a big fan we knew he'd like to have the CD version too.
His sister led us into the bedroom where we found Ricky watching television. He was cranky and inattentive to us, but momentarily brightened when we gave him the CD. He examined the cover. "It's the same as the album, just smaller." He didn't have a player, hardly anyone did yet, so he laid the longbox reverently on his nightstand, propping it against the lamp. His sister hovered in the doorway smoking, anxious for our departure, and we soon obliged her.
Twenty years ago today, three months earlier, I met Ricky for the first time at a party thrown by Todd. I'd heard from Todd that Ricky was "sick", but he seemed fine to me. We stood outside on the patio and watched guys jumping into the pool.
Ricky said, "So what do you do, Joe?"
I said, "Well, I just started working for AMC Theatres."
Ricky screamed a little bit. "Which ONE?"
I stepped back. "Interstate Six, why?"
"Because I am in there ALL the time. I saw At Close Range about five times just to hear Madonna's song in it!"
"She wasn't in the movie, was she?"
"No, but I'm just a freak for her." He paused, then added dramatically, "We have the same birthday!"
"Oh....really." I began to look around for Todd.
Ricky began to get very animated and his words tumbled out. "Yes!. Same day, same year. I was born exactly at midnight and my mother always said I could have August 15th or August 16th for my birthday. It was my choice and for the longest time I had it on August 15th cuz that's Julia Child's birthday and she's a chef and I'm a chef and she was like, my idol when I was little. Such a fag, right? Anyway, when Madonna came out and I found out her birthday, I was all...that's IT. I'm August 16th from now on!"
Ricky continued professing his undying love for Madonna until I was finally able to make a graceful escape. Later, Todd told me that Ricky had dressed as Madonna for the previous Halloween and belonged to her mail-order fan club and we laughed a little bit at his adorably nutty fandom.
Twenty years ago today, August 16th 1986, was a Saturday. The theatre had brisk business for the morning show, selling out the Disney movie. After all the houses were rolling, I pulled the money from the box office and sat alone in the office to count it. I turned on the radio so I could hear Casey Kasem counting down the Top 40.
Todd called. "Well, the hospital just told me Ricky died around midnight last night."
"Oh, no. Did you get in to see him...before.....?"
"No, his sister and mother were there, so I just left without going in."
"Right." That's how it usually went back then.
Todd hung up and I sat there finishing up my money counting. I didn't know how to feel. I really couldn't call Ricky a friend. I had to count and recount the money several times. I kept losing my place. Then I heard Casey Kasem say, "Hitting number one today is Madonna's Papa Don't Preach."
I called Todd back. "So, did they give you a time of death for Ricky?"
"Yeah, midnight."
"Right, but is that today or yesterday?"
"What?"
"Well, today is his birthday and it's Madonna's birthday and I just heard that she's number one today...and.....it would be, you know, sorta nice if it was today."
"What the fuck is nice about dying on your BIRTHDAY?"
We never talked about it again. I never did find out what day was listed for Ricky's death. As the years went on and Madonna's fame increased, the press began to note her birthday. And ever since that started, I think of Ricky on August 16th. I never knew Ricky's last name. He wasn't a close friend. But he has stuck with me over these two decades.
I know that writing these stories about dead people is rather maudlin. Melodramatic. In a way, a story about a stranger's death is always going to feel melodramatic, I suppose. I've written stories like this a half dozen times over the two years of this blog's existence, and I've got many more, more sad stories still untold. I think I get feeling scared that if I don't get the story out there, I'll forget it. Forget how it happened. Forget the person.
Twenty years ago today, Ricky, aged 28, died on his birthday. I will always hope that it was his August 16th birthday. Ricky loved Madonna.
Rabu, 19 Mei 2010
Love Will Tear Us Apart
Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis committed suicide 30 years ago yesterday. Here's the band's iconic single, Love Will Tear Us Apart. This version is slightly different than the one most of us remember, but the audio is great. Some of you tender kittens won't know this track, but it's the one that diverted many of us from disco into a more rock-oriented dance sound.
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