Death was a passerby, a streetlight acquaintance casting shadows in the dark. He drifted by me as fevers charred my lungs, clogging my pipes with thickening soot. He barged into my brain as headaches left my mind frayed, jabbing his curled nails into my sleep. His impending presence weighed heavily on me for years and left my skin crawling in disquiet; I felt like I had to meet him.
Yet our arrant dates were left untouched like overdue bills.He'd stay a random thought in a dirt-stained window that I peered through; there would, by no means, be a true encounter. In the end, I assumed that I'd be searching for him for decades like everybody else. This was until last week, when he begrudgingly stood in front of my mirror.
His eyes were a crisp grey, void of ignorance, brimming full of bemusement. He looked tousled, the hem of his striped blue shirt untucked from the clutches of his khaki pants, ash-brown hair floppy on his forehead. He held his hands in fists, clenching his fingers together and turning his knuckles a soft white. His face was flushed as he tried to contain his ragged breathing.
There he was, I thought, dragging his final perquisite in his hands. He was not the brawny man I had pictured. In fact, he was rather gaunt with a slight hunch. In fact, he looked just like me. Death, it appeared, was my doppelganger.
I am average-looking man. But there is more behind my appearance. I am not just Dave McKinnon of Hartford, Connecticut; I am also an engineer, reliable boyfriend, and benevolent son. I do well in my job and live a quiet, private life with my partner, Henry, who I met in the summer of 1976 at a Bicentennial celebration. We quickly became as inseparable as rapidly growing vines, corkscrewing around each other, seeping between bricks in walls as they swiveled down an alternate path. We were the undying weeds you couldn’t stamp out with pesticides, though my mother, who I still love despite everything, certainly tried.
She was a traditional woman, with traditional values that were as outdated as the so-called relaxant effects of cigarettes for pregnant women. We were always close. I shared everything with her: the time that I lied about throwing that baseball at Mrs. Evan’s car; when I kissed my first girl – Shelia Oakland – and even when I came out. Yet on that day, everything changed. I half-expected her to rejoice that I had discovered myself and entered into such a tender relationship with Henry. But apparently, this wasn’t who she was. It was like a switch had turned on and out flew a flock of insults.
“Get out, you sinner! How dare you corrupt my home! You will be damned for lying to God and lying to me!” she hollered at me, her face a beet red. Her normal, immaculately ratted hair was losing its puffy volume as she furiously shook her head to get me to leave. I could only tear up in anger with her, questioning her spiteful words.
“Mom, I’m gay, that doesn’t make me a criminal! I haven’t done anything wrong, please stop!” I tried to gather her into a hug, to calm us both, but she slapped me as soon as I started to move towards her. The initial hit shocked me, stilling the house with an empty quiet as we continued to argue in the dining room. I had planned to tell her over dinner, let the news digest right before dessert but I felt, in that moment, that a sweet relief would not follow.
“Don’t you dare touch me! This is your punishment from God! You have no right to even be at this dinner table!” She started digging one of her filed nails into my chest, piercing me with her disgust.
“Mom, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I love you so much, please don’t do this! You don’t mean it!” I tried to plea with her, even as I started to sob.
“I mean every word! You’re a disgrace! How would your father feel if he was still alive? His son, committing such an offense, and to his own Savior, having slept with a man? It’s so revolting! You’ll definitely pay!”With those parting hymns, I left, leaving this fight still in play as I fled out the door. That night I drove over to Henry’s place and never went back to my mother’s house or to the old customs it held. My mother hated who I became, and loathed my affiliation with Henry, who she believed supported the blasphemy that was in our actions. At times, I was close to being swayed by my mother’s close-minded views but with Henry’s support, I held onto my stance. Eventually, I moved on over the years and accepted that we believed both of our outlooks to be right.
I understood then that I could never deceive myself, or concede to other notions that pricked my ear. I lived in the silhouette of gay pride, breathed in the rich tapestry of Harvey Milk, and took up my own position for gay rights back in the Eighties. It was a baseball field, the Eighties, whose umpire bellowed for change, whose coaches called out the plays. There seemed to be so much to look forward to, plenty of room to catch opportunities racing to the next base.
I returned to my image, reflected in my bathroom floor-length mirror. Like always, I had a glint of a smile that tried to pry my mouth open, but today fear was strongly plastered on my face; something was up. I had caught the disease that wormed its way through the Eighties: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, better tossed around as AIDS. The heterosexuals loved to refer to it as GRID, or Gay-Related Immune Disorder, which I believe was the only time we were forced to the front like the shorter kid who’s placed in the first row for class pictures. The acronym held each drop of dread that breached my community. It came like a snake slithering past me, leaving its prints in the soil, as it headed back into uncut grass. I didn't even know it had resided in me for eight years like an appendage, an unknown third wheel to my relationship. It was a shock and an even greater one to find out its radix, my Henry. He contracted the virus, and I unknowingly became another host.
We'd always heard murmur of this infection; it spread like folk tales, by word of mouth. Contracted from contaminated needles – this was a pioneering discovery in 1981. But plenty more was discovered in the three years following. There was more research, more support, and even more people dying from it.
"The results came back, its positive Mr. McKinnon. I wish we could've detected it earlier on." Dr. Waller shuffled papers that lay next me on the table. I wriggled in my spot, trying to find a comfortable position. I had come to the hospital for another checkup, a couple of weeks after my last one. There was something the doctor needed to announce. He seemed to have found answers concerning my ongoing flu-like symptoms. We’d been in his office discussing this whole ordeal.
"Earlier on? How long have I had this?"
“Years, Mr. McKinnon."
"Are you sure? It could be an error, maybe it's something else."I tried to supply a sort of explanation, something more plausible than this.
"No, Mr. McKinnon, it's not an error."
"But it's only acquired by sullied needles, isn’t it? I don’t do drugs."My hands fiddle with each other, pulling my fingers like cords on a guitar.
"Mr. McKinnon, just last year we found it could be transferred sexually or by blood to blood relations. We tested your boyfriend and he tested positive. I'm sorry, Mr. McKinnon, but he's had it for over 10 years. He's been stuck in the asymptomatic stage of the virus. We wanted to get you tested after we found he's a hemophiliac and was infected with a faulty needle."
“Maybe it's cancer or PCP? I read all about it! It's possible!" I felt the tears brim in my eyes. This was all fictitious, pure imagination.
"Dave," Dr. Waller stopped his paper shuffling and stared at me for the first time since the twenty minutes I've been here. "It's not Kaposi's sarcoma and it's not pneumocystis. It's AIDS, and I'm sorry to say you’re dying of it.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I find that he has changed. He no longer resembles me. I glare at him. He taunts me, inciting a deep anger and hatred for what I am. I intently watch him, studying his every gesture. He smiles, slowly belting out a silent mocking laughter, while pointing a craggy finger at me. His body gradually turns feeble. He no longer looks normal as his ribs start poking against his stomach and skin turns paper thin. He continues to laugh, eyes holding a smirk, as reddish-purple spots color his arms and chest. I want to look away; it's grotesque in every form, though my heart is pounding in anticipation. What will happen as this disease persists?
The quiet laugh turns into a hacking cough, but I can't hear it, only watch from this one-way mirror. My image is quick to clutch his ailing stomach while coughs play on rewind like a cassette Walkman. He drops to the floor as he suddenly loses his balance. His hands wander on the ground and I watch his weak form that continues to struggle like a bug in amazement. He heaves a couple times, making his stomach inflate with every gag. Then vomit soon covers the floor, fanning around him like a veil. He just sits in it, while keeping a constant eye on my fearful gaze. He's on hands and knees fighting to live but soon he stops the protest and the unfaltering smile fades away like the oil colors of a painting.
This is how I was going to die. It’s all I could think about since I learned that I was doomed, that it was incurable even though hope continued to dimly shine somewhere in my head. No amount of vocational support or doctor checkups could guide me, or provide the right answers. Everything was now planned out like a list and I was checking off all the requirements. It was inevitable that my end would be in a tautly made hospital bed with the bitter stench of medicine as my lasting scent. I would leave like a petal on an orchid, so painfully quiet, and would flutter to the floor with little grace. I can imagine it now and it seemed effortless.
Henry would be there, shakily breathing out his last lyrical apologies to me. Tears would fill his jade eyes and both his hands would clasp my shoulders as he let his regrets gush out. I could even picture my mother there with her repugnance still penciled on her face. She’d tell me, “I told you so,” and I’d soak it in like a sponge, simply agreeing with her statements. And surprisingly, I wouldn’t be mad in this final moment. There’d be no hatred to my mother or Henry; we would only see the realization of our circumstances. It wasn't about who gave it to me or what was to become of my life. It was about my long-awaited acquaintanceship with Death, and about how I was about to break the glass to finally, truly meet Him – and my true self – in the mirror.