I recently got my first job at a small law firm, and my boyfriend has surprised me with three new suits and a leather briefcase. He is so proud of me; he knew, as I did on some level, that although I love doing it and am quite good at it, I am not destined to spend my life tending bar. This is where my new life begins.
We live together in a two-bedroom flat, for which we bought second-hand furniture that I love dearly because it is ours. Our living room sports an oversized and only slightly used sectional sofa. For the kitchen, I found a retro-looking dinette set and discount dishes. The pièce de résistance, however, is in the dining room: an old oak claw foot table on which I serve my boyfriend the dinners I make every night when I get home from work.
In the beginning, when we first moved in here and started plotting our future together, I couldn’t have been happier. I was with a man who made me feel safe and loved and working in a field that I found challenging and exciting. I’d succeeded in prying myself from the bluesy bar that had become my second home, from people who were my second family, in an effort to secure the stable, sane future for which I yearned.
As the months have worn on, though, something has changed. The more time I spend in the office, with people who are not drunk half the time and who share similar interests and goals, the more frustrated I am when I get home. I don’t like cooking dinner every night. I loved the idea of domesticity, but it’s not me, not now. Once again, I’m posing. I’m trying on a new reality, a new start, and finding, once again, that it doesn’t quite fit.
It breaks my heart because I do believe I love him. Flawed though it’s been, this is my first serious relationship, reciprocal and somewhat equal. But every day, I’m becoming less tolerant of his drunken friends coming and going, less tolerant even of his own drunken comings and goings. There may be a day that I’m not going to want to drink anymore—maybe I’ll want to have a baby—and I don’t think I can be here and be sober. As I look around at the apartment I love, the furniture I’ve made my own, my upright piano that he proudly listens to me play, I’m beginning to see, ever so slowly and painfully, that my new life will have to begin somewhere else. There will be no happy ending here; rationally, I had known there was never going to be.
LIFE WENT ON AT THE TRUCK STOP.
A couple of the drivers started treating me like a daughter, looking out for me a little bit, and were none too happy when my boss belittled or ridiculed me in their presence. I had learned to accept it as part of the territory until the glorious day that I realized I deserved better. That day I grabbed my purse and fled. I’d tried to hold out until I had my paycheck in hand, but couldn’t.
Jobless and paycheck-less, I went to the only bar I knew well enough to feel safe, where the man from the bank had brought me. It was the middle of the afternoon and no one was around except the owner of the place, whom I’d met on previous occasions. He was a giant of a man, six foot seven or more, and a genuinely nice, authentic guy. He was sitting on a stool at the end, and we began talking. Crying, I shared my tale of woe, and this man, my new hero, drove to the truck stop to collect my last check. Then he hired me. Thus began the second chapter of my bartending experience. It was May, and I was twenty-three. It was the springtime of my life.
Around that time, my favorite uncle, my mother’s brother, told us he had AIDS. Andy was wise, funny, and talented; he was my role model, my idol, my mentor. A one-time monk, he dropped out of the order to get married, and then got divorced. He was gay, but no one in the family knew it, or, if they did, they kept it to themselves. He was a writer and an editor who lived in a fabulous apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and he lived the life I wanted to live—except, of course, for the priest, marriage, divorce, and gay parts.
He always came home for Thanksgivings, and that previous year had been no exception. Something was clearly going on, however; the difference was in his tone, his appearance, and his usual “Uncle Al, the kiddies’ pal” persona, which was now somewhat subdued. It wasn’t until after the holidays that he broke the news to us. We were all devastated, both by the diagnosis and its implication; at the time, it was broadly assumed that AIDS was spread two ways only: gay sex or intravenous drug use. We were pretty sure he didn’t do drugs; he was too high on life to need any boosting.
Also at this point in time, the mid-eighties, people were just beginning to grasp the finality of an HIV diagnosis. There were no AIDS “cocktails,” no pills, no vaccines in the works. People who tested positive could only focus on diet, nutrition, and exercise to get the most out of the time they had left. Since homosexuality is not high on the list of good Catholic traits, my mom and dad surprised everybody—including themselves, I think—by asking Uncle Andy to come and live with them and let them take care of him. I remember asking my dad about this, and he said, “Well, what are we going to do? It’s Andy.” Yet another surprise.
THE BAR WAS THE PERFECT SETUP FOR ME.
I was getting paid to drink with my friends. We’d do shots behind the bar, and, come closing time, if we weren’t already loaded, we’d stay until we were, goddamn it. I’d usually drive home blasted in the wee hours of the morning, sleep it off until mid-afternoon, and be back to work at five o’clock in the afternoon for the next round.
The other bartenders and I had a unique relationship; I was the only woman there when I started, so I was to be protected while behind the bar. The bouncer, the owner, and the other bartenders treated me like a little sister and became my family. We even spent holidays together at the bar, like orphans on Christmas Eve, toasting our good fortune to have each other. This lifestyle afforded me the luxury of completely shelving many of my symptoms. I now rotated among four states of being: energized and manic behind the bar, drunk, sleeping, or hung over. There was no extra brain capacity to allow the obsessive thoughts to creep in and take hold; if they did, they would soon enough be anesthetized.
The alcohol masked both my manic highs and my suicidal lows because I simply could no longer see them; in my head, all the craziness ran together and lines of emotional distinction often blurred. It did no such masking to the outside world, however. My mood swings and anxiety were such that one of my bouncer bodyguards nicknamed me “Sybil,” after the novel about a woman with multiple personalities, and never tired of asking, “And who are we today?” when I came to work. His other favorite thing to do was to point out the broom in the corner, turn to me and say, “Nice park job.” Evidently my bad moods were . . . bad.
One night at closing time, I was invited to breakfast by a man whom I’d been watching for several months. He was a player; everyone knew him, everyone loved him, and he always seemed to have a ton of cash and a ton of friends around him. He was a good ten years older than I was, which, of course, made him even more attractive. Also, he had just moved upstairs from the apartment I shared with two girlfriends, and so I figured I had geography in my favor. I accepted his invitation.
We hung out most of that night and again the next. There was no denying the attraction, but there was a lot of denying pretty much anything else; we had nothing in common. He was blue-collar all the way, representing the life I wanted, eventually, to transcend: He worked the three-to-eleven shift at an automobile manufacturing plant, had no college degree, and had no aspirations beyond clocking out after his shift and getting high. I was a princess to him; oh, sure, I was a bartender at the time, but he could see I was destined for great things. I was, after all, going to be a real writer someday.
Despite the lack of common interests, our relationship flourished. He made me feel safe and loved for reasons that were never quite clear. Nothing mattered to him except where his next beer or joint was coming from—and being with me. We took trips to beaches and sat in hot tubs drinking wine. Every girl wanted to be with him, and he was with me. We moved in together after a year.
It was my first time living with a man, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like I belonged. True, he was a staggering drunk most of the time, but he was such a lovable drunk that I didn’t even care. On our first Christmas together, he gave me a black-and-white pearl ring; six months later, half in the bag while shopping one day, he bought me the tiniest diamond ring ever made from the jewelry counter at T.J. Maxx. I was thrilled. I was engaged.
He was an hourly worker at the auto plant and always volunteered for layoffs or out-of-state training sessions, any excuse to party more than he already did. The drama in our relationship often mirrored the drama of my childhood, and I often thought I was simply destined for that kind of life. But I was always able to look past the frustration and anger; after all, the worst he did was drink and smoke pot—none of the really bad stuff—and, again, he was so darn lovable when he was loaded that he was just irresistible.
The boyfriend bought me a golden retriever puppy for Christmas one year. I was trying to paper-train him by gating him in the kitchen while we were out, and we came home one night to find the kitchen in complete disarray: shredded newspaper everywhere, with poop and pee mixed throughout. A novice dog-owner, and still harboring the paralyzing fear of what would happen if someone got mad at me—the boyfriend or the landlord—I told the boyfriend to take the dog outside as I got down on my hands and knees to clean up.
An hour later, the two of them had not returned. The car was still in the driveway, so I knew that they had walked wherever they had gone. Since two of the boyfriend’s favorite haunts were a few blocks down the street, I figured I knew where to start looking, and I didn’t have to look any further than the first dive.
I walked in and there he was, standing in a bar with my dog in his arms, using him to pick up a girl. I walked up to the three of them, took the dog, and went home. The boyfriend followed, about three hours later. I swore and cried all the way home but never said a word to him about it because, of course, he’d get mad, which I couldn’t bear.
Right around that time, I realized I needed to get out of the bartending scene. I was smart, college-educated, and ready for something new. I found a job as a legal secretary for a one-man downtown law office. The boyfriend bought me a briefcase and a dozen roses my first day. He was proud of me, and he showed it. He made me breakfast and made sure I had lunch money and the car had gas. Suddenly, I was Melanie Griffith in Working Girl and he was my Harrison Ford.
On disability from the plant—his doctor was always game to provide excuses for him, as long as he was paid in cash—the two of us would meet at happy hours after I finished work and then grab dinner somewhere. I was, in retrospect, amazingly successful at not getting drunk during the week because I didn’t want to show up at work with a hangover; unfortunately, when the weekends rolled around, I was more than ready to make up for lost time.
ON HALLOWEEN THAT YEAR, I LEARNED MY FRIEND’S FIANCÉ HAD TESTICULAR CANCER.
The two of them were former roommates of mine, and we had all lived together before I moved in with the boyfriend. My friend’s fiancé was a regular at my bar, and was one of the few guys down there who could verbally spar with me and have a chance at sometimes winning. He earned my grudging respect, and when I saw how much he loved my friend, he earned my friendship. He was like a brother to me while we were roommates, and his illness was devastating.
The boyfriend was not as affected, or, if he was, he showed his grief by disappearing for days at a time and showing up with a hangover and someone’s lipstick on his shirt. I couldn’t be bothered with it at the time, but it was the beginning of a long, drawn-out end for us. As we started pulling apart, he—in truth, we—became at times angry, repentant, hopeful, frustrated, defeated, and simply tired. I began to confide in my family about his philandering, alluding to his drug use, and for the most part I was met with sympathy and encouragement. They already all disapproved of him because of his drinking.
I had been corresponding with my uncle during this time, and shortly after Thanksgiving, my mother, younger brother, and I went to visit him in New York; despite my parents’ offer he’d decided to stay in his own home. He had started showing the telltale bruises and welts of full-blown AIDS, and had lost a lot of weight from his already thin frame. He was nervous about going out because gay-bashers were making sport of beating up AIDS-afflicted men walking the streets, and the few times we managed it, it took some convincing to get him out of the apartment for some fresh air.
During the visit, we were all trying to make conversation, small talk, whatever, trying to avoid the obvious discussion of: what does it feel like to know you’re dying? I started telling him a “my boyfriend did another mean thing” story, when suddenly my uncle just snapped.
“Why are you even with that asshole? If he treats you bad, leave him. Don’t complain about it for the rest of your life. Just leave and get it over with!” He got up and left the room, he was so frustrated.
I was mute with shock. My uncle had never spoken to me—or anyone, as far as I knew—this way in my life. I was offended, hurt, and embarrassed, and probably did not speak directly to him for the rest of the visit. It took months for the sting to wear off and understanding to set in, but by then it didn’t matter; I wouldn’t see him again before he died.
My friend’s fiancé went through surgery and several rounds of chemo over the next couple of months, but the cancer wasn’t going away. We had an event at the bar to raise money for him to travel to another state for some experimental treatment, but that didn’t help him either. When he started dying, we took turns being with him at the hospital. His family and girlfriend had pretty much been camping out in the waiting area; there were sleeping bags, pillows, blankets, and various toiletries strewn about like he was the only sick person in the ward. But that’s how we felt because he was so young.
The day he died, we were all standing around him, my friend and his mom holding his hands, the rest of us just touching whatever part of him we could reach. I was holding his left foot and all I remember is thinking, God, this foot is so swollen. Can’t they do anything about that? And then he was dead. He was twenty-six.
He died in February. My uncle died two months later.
IN JUNE OF THAT YEAR, THE BOYFRIEND CAME TO THE OFFICE WHERE I WAS WORKING.
I’d moved up a bit in the legal world, size-wise, taking a job at a larger firm and taking on more responsibility. I was starting to feel more comfortable in the suit world and was seriously thinking about moving out and getting a place of my own. I spent many hours commiserating with another woman in the office about the transgressions of our respective men, the conversations always ending with the same conclusion. We needed to leave them.
The day he came to the office changed everything. He wore a look I’d never seen before. He wasn’t smug, he wasn’t cocky, he wasn’t putting on his “I don’t give a damn” mask. He looked . . . crushed, somehow. He asked if we could take a walk, and, even though it was too early for lunch, I could tell it was important and said yes.
We went to a nearby park and sat on a bench, and he turned to me, his face ashen. “I’m HIV-positive,” he said.
It felt like a curtain fell on the part of my brain that had housed my life up until that moment. Nothing would ever be the same.
We were trapped together in an unspoken pact of silence because this was not something people could know. As I’d already known from the experience with my uncle, there was no treatment, nothing to prevent the inevitable. He made me promise not to tell anyone, and as sad and destroyed as he looked, I knew I could never leave him now. I couldn’t leave a dying man. I had to take care of him.
After a while he said, “You should probably get tested.”
Once again I was stunned; it hadn’t even occurred to me that he could have given it to me.
“You probably don’t have it, but they said I should bring you down for a blood test.” And what struck me was not what he said as much as how he said it. It was almost as if he didn’t care if I had it. It was all about him; I was an afterthought. But I let him lead me to the Red Cross building around the corner, allowed my blood to be drawn, digested the directive at the time that I would never be able to give blood again because I’d had sexual relations with an HIV-positive partner, and went home. I had to wait for two weeks before I would know anything.
And even then, even if the test was negative, I had to be retested in three months and then again in six because the virus can appear up to six months after exposure. So, I thought, What I really need to do is find a way to sleep for half a year because I will not be able to function with this hanging over my head; even without OCD, I’d be paralyzed. But there was no way to do that. I still had to go to work and talk to people and schedule hearings and closings and go on living. I compartmentalized this part of my life so that the others parts could go on, which, in retrospect, was one of the greater feats of managing a mental illness. And, of course, I could not tell a soul because that would be embarrassing to him—one more secret for me to carry, but, at least this time, it wasn’t mine.
I then accomplished another in a long list of quite remarkable reframings. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I took on a caregiver role. My mindset was simple: My boyfriend is going to die, it will be a long, slow, agonizing death, and I will be with him every step of the way. I will not abandon him, now or ever. I will learn to trust him again because he will have no choice but to be faithful this time. This disease will make him love only me, and we will be happy together till death do us part, in nine or ten years.
And I somehow convinced myself that I was okay with this.
My first blood test was negative. I sobbed with relief, and was reminded to return in three months. My second blood test was negative, and I sobbed with relief and promised to come again in three more months. My third blood test was negative, and they said I didn’t have to come back anymore. This was a little easier said than done; the thought was already at an obsessive level. I couldn’t just turn it off.
My fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth blood tests were negative.
Through all of this, the boyfriend rebounded in spirit and energy and, incredibly, wanted to have unprotected sex with me. His extreme lack of remorse and accountability started to sink in at this point. He still would not tell me how he thought he might have come by this particular virus; in fact, counting on my allegiance and, presumably, stupidity, he suggested he may have picked it up some five or six years ago and it had only now shown up.
I knew this could not be the case, however, for two reasons: HIV shows up in the blood within six months of exposure, and he gave blood through work every year. If I’d been with him at that point for almost three years, then it was pretty much a certainty that he was exposed during our relationship. And he did not do IV drugs; this much I knew. He did not like needles in any way, shape, or form, although for the first time, I almost wished he had.
Through all of this, I’d developed a habit of calling my two older brothers in the middle of the night after having way too much to drink. I depended on their support and would cry on their shoulders for hours, although never revealing the HIV angle. One night, in the midst of my sobs, I asked my oldest brother, “Why does God keep doing this to me?” He thought about it for a minute and said, “Because you’re not learning.” His wisdom annoyed me.
I’D ONCE AGAIN TRAPPED MYSELF IN A WELL-WORN CLOAK OF SHAME AND GUILT AND FEAR.
Playing Florence Nightingale was burying me, but, although strangely energized by this secret, I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, not even the boyfriend. He went about his life as if he’d only had a cold that was now gone. He was partying and living the same life he’d lived before, and I became even more confused. Here I was, wanting—needing—to take care of him, to give up my own life to make his final days better, and he was acting like nothing had happened. I was lonely and angry and no longer feeling any of the love or belonging or sense of being needed that I had once felt.
And then one day, I met a lawyer about fifteen years my senior who was friends with my boss at the law firm. He took an unusual interest in me, which I, at first, mistook for the usual romantic interest. But that was not the case. He just thought I was a nice kid who needed a little cleaning up, a little direction, a little guidance.
Without the boyfriend’s knowledge, which was easy to manage because he was back to working the second shift and partying with his buddies for hours afterward, my new friend began trying to polish me up a little. He suggested that the miniskirts and tight blouses might be inappropriate for a law office, and showed me where to shop for nice clothes: the kind that didn’t say “stretch” anywhere on the label. Over time he helped me develop a professional wardrobe, and he would often take me to lunch at nice restaurants and talk to me about life and the future and why there are two forks next to the plate.
To the outside world, it would seem we were having an affair, and he didn’t care. He knew we weren’t, and he proudly introduced me to people we ran into on the street or at restaurants. We played golf and had lunch and did things that people do who are really friends. I can’t imagine it didn’t initially cause some discord in his marriage, but, if it did, he never mentioned it. In fact, I envied his wife and how lovingly he spoke of her.
He cared about me, and that’s all there was to it, so it bothered him no end that I was living with the boyfriend. I jokingly told him to join the club, but he didn’t smile. The bad news is, after all his efforts, he would be one day soon bailing me out of the suicide ward at a local hospital. The good news is he was all smiles at my wedding almost a decade later.
As time went on, and the boyfriend showed no signs of wanting to survive his diagnosis, my anxiety blossomed. Suddenly, there was not enough hair on my body to pluck out, not enough acne to pick at. And a new obsession had begun to manifest: denying myself food. I was out of control emotionally, and so I starved myself physically. It gave me a sense of control. It started out innocuously; the boyfriend had agreed to start eating better to keep his immune system healthy, and so I started eating healthy, too. When I lost a few pounds, I thought, Hey—this is pretty neat. I’d forgotten what it felt like to lose weight.
I ate less and less because the thrill of getting on the scale and seeing the numbers go lower and lower was addictive. A little taller than average, I wasn’t heavy to begin with, maybe 140 pounds, but by the end of that year I’d lost thirty pounds. Also by the end of that year, I’d decided I did not want to watch the boyfriend kill himself more quickly by drinking and smoking pot, and I remembered that I’d thought of leaving him long before his blood test results. With the help of a friend who had been waiting impatiently for me to get my proverbial shit together, I found my own place, took off the ring, and left the boyfriend, presumably to die alone.