Scenes from the AIDS War

PechaKucha is a visual storytelling event where participants share 20 images and speak about them for 20 seconds each. Here is my story from last month’s event in Burlington VT.

John Killacky: Scenes from the AIDS War

In 1979, friends began to get sick. In 1981, The New York Times warned of a “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals.” By the ‘90's, my entire generation of gay men was dying of AIDS. Here are stills and excerpts from my pandemic videos.

At first, people died alone abandoned by families. Medical staff would leave food outside the room afraid to come in. Community care circles, vigils through the night and writing libretti for lost lives for operatic memorial services.

In 1993, I was back in New York and went to see the AIDS film, Philadelphia. Afterwards, I walked from the theater on the Upper East Side to Greenwich Village, where I was staying. It was a Sunday morning; the streets were empty and haunted.

I passed 62nd and 2nd where I used to listen to Bill’s concerns about plummeting T-cell counts. Further down on Lexington Avenue, I passed the apartment where Gary lived. He moved to Florida after his partner died. I never got to say good-bye.

Crossing over to the West Side was Manhattan Plaza. Kevin moved there after Don died. On 24th and 9th, I passed Vito’s apartment. We often gossiped. How angry he’d be, if he were still alive, about how little has changed in the Hollywood closet.

A few blocks further downtown and I was in the Village. Here, on every block, I looked up and saw shadows of those taken far too soon. Images of my lost ones surrounded me. Numb with grief, I tried hard to hold on to some of my stolen shadows.

Charlie would call in the middle of the night, screaming through his dementia—begging us to get him out of the hospital, away from his real and imagined demons. I never did visit him. I was too ashamed. He never came home again.

I held Peter, trying to warm his shivering body, hoping that somehow, I could heal him, even for a short while, so he would sleep. Both of us were drenched in his night sweats. Months later, I dreamt of him and called. Peter died that morning.

I telephoned my running friend Lee. I had just returned from a trip and wanted to reestablish contact. His sister answered the phone, thanked me for calling and asked if I wanted to share something with those gathered at his memorial service.

When the news came ending Kevin’s deathwatch, I was relieved. I wouldn’t have to call the hospital anymore. In his last days, with morphine obliterating all feeling, I would be told his condition was “satisfactory, SATISFACTORY… .”

Margie crawled into Christopher’s deathbed. As his spirit began to leave, instead of releasing, his body contracted (as only a dancer could) and tightly embraced her. She held on, knowing his work was now done, hers only begun.

After his troupe’s performance, Reza was exhausted, shivering under blankets. Startled by his skeletal shell, I held him closely, knowing it was the last time I’d see him. I told him I loved him. He whispered, “I love you, too.”

Backstage, David was feverish. I let him know it was okay to cancel, but he replied, “I came here to witness.” Soon afterward, he was dead. I still imagine what his legacy might have been, along with Keith, Ron, Huck and Marlon.

From the Kirov stage in St. Petersburg, I learned Rudolf died that morning. They said from a heart attack, no mention of AIDS. His name was evoked again in a performance in Tel Aviv, alongside Gene, Arnie, Dominique, Jorge and Tom.

I hold on to my dead. They have become the elements in my reality. I hear Celie’s fluid-filled lungs gurgling as her family healed itself, gathered around her wasted transgendered body. Her quick, shallow breaths are wind in my universe.

Peter’s night sweats become water. Entwined in fevers, chills and sweat; I kissed his cracked lips and held him forever that night. He kept apologizing as he cried. I wept, too, but my tears were filled with rage.

My fire resides in Bill’s fever-ridden body on the ice mattress. It was too early on to name the disease, so he wasted away, an anomaly for the medical students to ponder. I’d nap with him on the frozen bed: “No, I’m not cold, I’m with my friend.”

David’s ashes are my earth. Defiled at death, his family cremated him before an autopsy could reveal how his lesion-filled organs functioned for so long. I smear his ashes, warrior-like on my body and scream into the night.

My dead: they are my mandala. Telling their unfinished stories affirms my life. Decades later, I still cry for the devastation among us. Heroes, all of them, needlessly lost. I am blessed to have been loved by angels.

I stopped counting after losing 119 friends. For all that have gone before and for those that remain, may there be passionate, unforgiven fire.