To write this story with any accuracy I would have to attach drops of LSD to the corners of the pages and require the reader to lick at every page turn. I would like to say that is was a ‘dark stormy night’ upon hearing the news bleak news, but it was South Florida and it was sunny and bright. Annoyingly sunny. Always bright. Fucking sun, drying everyone’s brain.
There had always been something called a “trump card” since my 2001 visit to my proclaimed home of Austin, Texas. Jeb and his boyfriend at the time, Brian, sat me down and announced that Jeb had HIV. I was shocked, hurt, confused… not really confused… everyone in the room was a whore – not even going to try to cover that up. But I was confused since Jeb was always proclaiming safe sex when I first met him. How things could have changed to the point of his sitting me down and telling me he had HIV? That was roaring through my head as every other world out of his mouth faded into a sound similar to that of an adult in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Between the moments of forgetting to breathe my ears feeling like they were filled with fluid, I could hear how everything presented in a variety of upbeat phrases. Everyone around the coffee table knew that ‘James the Worrier’ would live up to his name.
As Brian and Jeb retired to bed, I stepped outside for a cigarette, and stayed out there for two hours in tears – sometimes sucking on a cigarette, sometimes sucking on the bottle of Jack Daniels. It wasn’t the HIV that pulsated through me, it was the fact that I knew Jeb… and Jeb would be Jeb and this is all going to end with a lot of pride and stubbornness. I was overrun with future projections that I couldn’t seem to grasp – vacant pictures of Jeb’s arrogant antics plastered across my vision to the point where I could not emotionally hold it together anymore. So upon the wood and steel park bench on the small front porch of 1416 Yorkshire, I wept.
I did the one thing a coward could always be trusted to do: I ran. My boyfriend had just moved to Melbourne Beach, Florida. A few days earlier we had gone our separate ways after a heated break up after he fucked the #1 person on our “if you’re going to mess around, don’t touch these people” list. Still, he went above and beyond to win me back. In a matter of days he was going to come pick me up and we were going to drive my car back to Florida. But not before he admitted he fucked a drug dealer there. I still went, although the drive back was pretty quiet. Ahh, the wonderful warmth of an unhealthy relationship you can’t get rid of!
To this day I’m not sure why I made that decision, but the folding out of that guilt will be shown in the coming chapters.
From Melbourne Beach Tim and I moved to Fort Lauderdale, but not after I took a small stay back in Austin to check on Jeb some 5 years after his announcement. His health was declining rapidly. He avoided me at all cost. My best friend in the whole world, my brother, my second half… was not avoiding me. When I did see him, his hands were shaking, his thoughts disoriented, and “aloof” is the only word I can come up with to describe his contribution to the conversation. Once again, I left back to the boyfriend… but for only one year. But this was going to be a very important year. I lost over a hundred pounds, stopped drinking (as much), and started to get my finances in order. I was not going to run away again. I was preparing myself for battle.
Then the phone call. The phone call from Brian, now Jeb’s ex who was with another partner. I took it in the bathroom for privacy, staring at the hideous ‘always dirty’ tile my boyfriend insisted on getting in his increasing delusional state. Concern about his rapidly failing mental health was only trumped by Jeb’s health. According to the phone call, my trump was coming into play. Brian speculated about a year.
Denial was on the forefront of my head. Brian can be dramatic, maybe he was drunk. Yes. That’s what it is. But inside I knew it to be a false judgment. Brian was clear, articulate, and pinpoint. Brian is NEVER clear, articulate or pinpoint! My doubts of the messenger was slapped with the reality of my own eyes my last stay in Austin. James, you saw for yourself. It’s been almost a year later. What do you think a constantly smoking alcoholic with HIV looks like a year later? In my heart, I knew Brian would not call me if he didn’t know what he was talking about.
I called Jeb. Jeb and I never talked on the phone. We would email every once in a while. Mostly I would write on the blog and he would read. He would read everything. He would make his friends read everything. He didn’t have to give any feedback; the process had provided me a refreshing link to my friend for years. For some reason, Jeb answered his phone. We talked for a few awkward ‘we never do this what do we talk about’ minutes. When the subject of his health came up, he simply stated, “I’m absolutely fine. Don’t worry about me. You just enjoy Florida.”
OH MY GOD, HE’S ON HIS DEATHBED.
It’s difficult in the dating world when you know your lover, the one you view as a soul mate, holds another non-sexual relationship on a higher cloud then the one on which you are placed. I think that was one of the initial reasons I stayed with Tim so long. He understood and fully accepted and supported my love for Jeb. Of course, Tim was also a habitual cheating bastard who could get me to do anything he wanted… but that’s not the point. I’m not here to say bad things about Tim.
Fucking cheating asshole. I’ve written volumes of poetry castrating his manipulative selfishness.
I walked out of the bathroom after what seemed like hours and looked at Tim on the couch and said, “I’m moving back to Austin.”
During this time I was writing more, I was losing the weight, I was buying clothes that didn’t contain elastic or the color black, and I was making more friends albeit via the internet. I took a trip to Amsterdam, New York twice, and started to read more. My blog became more news oriented and I tried my best to capture more wit and humor rather than depressive sarcasm and draining depression. At this point, the James of today was starting form from a scared overweight paranoid basket-case with no ego or self worth. The timing was impeccable.
Tim wasn’t going to let me go alone. We made arrangements to sell the house. This was way before the housing bust, but the working class area that he had moved to made it difficult to sell the home as the price jumped to the point where it almost exceeded anyone who was actually ‘working class’. Tim was collecting credit cards like Tic-Tac’s and I couldn’t figure out where so much money was coming from with him hardly doing his job. In Melbourne Beach, he was gone 3 days out of the week as he was a customer service rep for a mailing company. But in Fort Lauderdale he was home all the time. Still, he had cash, and we managed to go to concerts, Broadway touring shows and eat out constantly. The money for this move was not in question. Tim’s mind certainly was. I finally convinced him to come with me to Austin, but if I’m not comfortable, then he needed to go back home to his parents.
The day we sold the house was a great day for me, as it was for the Central American immigrant family who signed with an adjustable interest rate mortgage. Who knows how many foreclosures that house has been through since then. But, we finally had a moving schedule and I was able to get everything packed up in a matter of days. A month after selling, we packed up the U-Haul, my truck to the hitch, and drove to Austin, Texas.
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