Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

by Studs Terkel

  I was at a point in my life where I couldn’t have been more happy or proud of who I was as a person. So we sat down. Initially she was like, “Well, oh my goodness! Was it because we got divorced?” She was trying to blame herself. I tried my best to expel all those fears. Finally, I bought her a book called Loving Someone Gay,* which was one of the first books written about coming out to your parents. I gave it to her and it helped her tremendously. After that, she was just totally fine with it. But my working on the HIV unit is still scary to her.

  Things have changed now because of the HIV cocktail. There are different medications that can keep the amount of virus in the body at an undetectable level. These medications are hard to tolerate, they have lots of side effects, but the majority of people taking these medications are able to live normal lives. Occasionally there are complications, but some of those complications are from the side effects of the medications because they cause renal problems, kidney problems, and liver problems. Sometimes that’s why people are hospitalized.

  We had twenty-three full beds on our unit for at least the first ten years, from 1986 to ’96. We had people waiting to come down to the unit because we didn’t have room for them. Last year in July, our census dropped down to between two and seven occupied beds. The unit actually closed for a few weeks. When it reopened, it was an HIV/Medical Unit, which is what it is now.

  Most of the people who have died or are living with HIV now are people in their twenties and thirties and maybe forties. “Hospice” isn’t a word that people in their twenties, thirties, and forties want to hear, but hospice work is having people die with dignity. And having their wishes met. When people get to the end stages of their disease, stop any unnecessary treatments and give them the pain medication that they need to carry them over to the next world or the next wherever.

  Just to give you an idea. Danny Sotomayor and Scott McPherson were partners in life, OK. They were frequently in the hospital together. We had some double rooms at the time with two beds. We wanted to be respectful of the fact that they were partners. So we would move their beds together and they would share a room together. Just little things like that. The staff was so in sync with this. People worked there only because they wanted to be there. There were a lot of female nurses, more than male. Everyone was in total agreement. In other places, if you had AIDS, if you had HIV, then you were shunned, you were locked off in a room somewhere. That was commonplace. I had so many people come from other hospitals and they told me how they were treated, and they were literally put in a room and people wouldn’t even bring their dinner trays in. They would put it outside the door. Like in prison.

  I first experienced grief with Bobby. I had worked until eleven o’clock the night before he died. He died about six in the morning. While he was in the hospital, I would go to his room after I finished my shift. He would usually have the TV on. I would rub his feet. People with AIDS have something called peripheral neuropathy, foot pain. I learned how to massage his feet, to bring him comfort without hurting him. I would do that for half an hour, just spend some time with him.

  This night, just before I was getting ready to leave, I noticed he was having breathing difficulty. He became alarmed, but he didn’t want me to do anything about it. I wanted to respect his wishes, so I left. I was tempted to go to the nurse’s station and turn the intercom system on so I could listen to his breathing, but I knew that that was an invasion of his privacy. So I told the nurse who was going to be taking care of him that night, I said, “He’s developed some difficulties but he wants to be left alone, and I want to respect that.” I didn’t know if this was serious or not. But I didn’t want to inform a doctor, because it was Bobby’s wish that I not do that.

  We’re talking end stage here. This wasn’t like we could do some heroic thing. He’d already had pneumonia five times, his lungs were ravaged. Anyway, I left, went home, I went to sleep. At six o’clock in the morning the phone rang. The nurse taking care of him said, “Bobby’s dying, why don’t you come to the hospital right now.” I threw on some clothes, I went to the hospital. The head nurse of our unit, a very compassionate person, and another nurse I graduated from nursing school with were working up there. They knew the scenario. They knew how close I was to Bobby. When I came off the elevator on the unit, they both put their arms around me and hugged me and opened the door to his room and let me go in. I remember him laying on the bed there. He was actually waiting for me to show up, so close to death. He couldn’t really speak anymore. I remember going over to him and sitting on the side of the bed and holding him and a big tear came up in the corner of his eye, the biggest tear I ever saw in my life. I remember I had a lot of difficulty with this because going back to that time, people weren’t even sure if you could contract HIV from tears—I didn’t really know. Part of me thought, Oh my God, I shouldn’t do this . . . But I saw he had a tear in his eye, and I thought, That’s my tear—and I kissed it away, even though I, you know . . . that’s what I did. I kissed it away. And he died right then. I remember not feeling sad, not feeling anything. If anything, in some ways, I was joyful. Because I knew that he was released from this worldly suffering. And I was able to quickly move on.

  Now people are seeing that it’s not just gay men. Look at all the people in Africa, men, women, young people, old people, children. It’s changed dramatically. People don’t see this as a gay disease anymore. A year or two down the road, I see HIV as a manageable illness, like diabetes or certain heart conditions. Right now, medications that keep you alive are so potent they can kill you. But I know that on the horizon are medications with less side effects, so a few years down the road HIV will be a manageable illness as long as you can afford the medications. I think the important thing is getting these medications to Third World countries right now. That’s where we need to start working, helping people in Third World countries—because we’re so privileged here and we can have all these things and there are people who don’t.

  I think about all the people I’ve treated through the years, who, in the face of death, stood out in my mind. Especially in the early days: if you had AIDS, you died, period. I mean, there was really no medication. You had a death sentence. Especially if you came down with an opportunistic infection—a pneumonia, for instance, certain kinds of skin cancer, or Kaposi’s sarcoma. In spite of that, some of those condemned-to-death patients were able to go on with their lives. I was often amazed at their ability to do that. Because occasionally, there would be people who were so scared they would literally be frightened to death, and they would die shortly after this scare. But there were a couple of people who had what I call grace, who come to mind.

  One in particular I remember. His name was Matthew. When he would come into the hospital, he would bring a couple of suitcases with china. He would bring a silver service, cloth napkins. In fact, he even brought a candelabra. He would set this up on his bedside table in the hospital. He would bring flowers and set things up in his room just as if he was at home. He was quite a character—everyone was very fond of him. He was very flamboyant: he wouldn’t wear the hospital gowns, he would wear caftans. I’m trying to think of somebody well known he reminded me of . . .

  . . . A caftan? Like a sheik? Peter O’Toole—Lawrence of Arabia?

  No, not a sheik. Given Matthew’s personality, more flamboyant—[suddenly] Tallulah Bankhead!

  Matthew had developed Kaposi’s sarcoma. So there were these large, blotchy purple lesions all over his face. He found somebody who was good with makeup and covered those as best as he could. What was so outstanding to me was in the face of all this, knowing that he would eventually succumb, that at any time he could die—there were no medications that could turn this around—he was always in the best of spirits and always happy to see you. In fact, he invited me and one of the other nurses to his home. His home was just filled with treasures from his travels: beautiful antiques and tapestries and different things. In spite of all, he lived life to the fullest. He didn’
t succumb just like that. He’d go out in style. He was his own hospice. He didn’t live very long. I don’t even think it was a year, but he went in his own way. On the other hand, there were people who were so scared that, even though they weren’t as sick as Matthew had been at times, died within weeks. I would occasionally put myself in Matthew’s place, and I don’t know if I could do that. I would be so scared. I had never been ill in my life. So I’m amazed at people’s courage.

  There was another gentleman, Tommy. He was one of my first patients. Tommy was an entertainer—he had traveled all over the world. He sang and danced and he appeared with many famous people. He was just a really outgoing, effervescent human being. Tommy had gotten quite ill and had been in the hospital numerous times. No matter how sick he was, Tommy always had a smile for you. He would often sing at services at Unity while he was ill. Tommy was gay. His wife, Irene, knew that, but they fell in love. A lot of Tommy’s gay friends were very upset when he got married. But Tommy loved Irene very, very much. I remember when Tommy was dying, this one day he was taking a bath, and he was in a lot of pain. There are people when in pain who just kind of shrink and succumb to it. Tommy just wouldn’t let that happen. He was in the tub and got these stabbing bursts of pain—but he was singing in the tub. Occasionally he would get these stabbing bursts of pain, so he’d have to stop singing for a while. I remember the song that he was singing. He’d be going, “Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow—it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!” But then as soon as the pain subsided, he’d get back into singing the song.

  Do you remember the tune?

  Yes. “God Bless the Child.”

  *Donald H. Clark, Loving Someone Gay (Millbrae, Calif.: Celestial Arts, 1977).

  The End and the Beginning

  Mamie Mobley

  . . . But there was something about the matter of the Dark Villain.

  He should have been older, perhaps.

  The hacking down of a villain was more fun to think about

  When his menace possessed undisputed breadth, undisputed height,

  And a harsh kind of vice.

  And best of all, when his history was cluttered

  With the bones of many eaten knights and princesses.

  The fun was disturbed, then all but nullified

  When the Dark Villain was a blackish child

  Of fourteen, with eyes still too young to be dirty,

  And a mouth too young to have lost every reminder

  Of its infant softness.

  —Gwendolyn Brooks*

  She is a retired Chicago public school teacher. In 1955, her fourteen-year-old son, Emmett Till, was killed while visiting relatives in Mississippi. He was her only child. Two white men, Roy Bryant and W.J. (“Big Jim”) Milam, were accused of the murder. Though the evidence against them was overwhelming, they were acquitted by an all-white jury.

  The case had international repercussions, and it is still considered a significant prelude to the civil rights movement that followed.

  This conversation took place in September of 2000, forty-five years later.

  EMMETT JUST BARELY got on that train to Mississippi. We could hear the whistle blowing. As he was running up the steps, I said, “Bo”—that’s what I called him—“you didn’t kiss me. How do I know I’ll ever see you again?” He turned around and said, “Oh, Mama,” gently scolding me. He ran down those steps and gave me a kiss. As he turned to go up the steps again, he pulled his watch off and said, “Take this, I won’t need it.” I said, “What about your ring?” He was wearing his father’s ring for the first time. He said, “I’m going to show this to my friends.” That’s how we were able to identify him, by that ring. I think it was a Mason’s ring.

  I got four letters from him in a week’s time. My aunt in Mississippi wrote me a long letter in praise of him—how he helped her in the kitchen, with the washing machine, preparing the meals. The way he did things at home. He’d say, “Mama, if you can go out and make the money, I can take care of the house.” He cleaned, he shopped for groceries, he washed. Do you remember when Tide came out? It was in 1953, two years before he went to Mississippi. He told me about the advertisement: “Tide’s in, dirt’s out.” All the neighbors knew him.

  I didn’t know what happened to him until the following Sunday.

  I’m a seventy-eight-year-old woman. I have lived all my life being brought up in the Church. I feel that I’m a very strong woman. When I lost my son, that’s when I found out that I really had two feet and I had to stand on my own feet. I had to stand and be a woman.

  There was nobody around who could really help me. Everybody was so in tears. I had to calm them down. They couldn’t help me if they were going to be hollering and screaming. So I found out, in 1955, that I was very capable of getting the job done, even though I couldn’t see for the tears.

  I was able to get it done.

  The spirit spoke to me and said, “Go to school and be a teacher. I have taken one but I shall give you thousands.” I have to identify that as a spirit being bigger than I am. I was the only one hearing that voice.

  I had ordered Emmett’s body brought back to Chicago. It was in three boxes. He was in a box that was in a box that was in a box. Each had the Mississippi seal and a padlock on it. It was the biggest box I’d ever seen in my life.

  I said to the undertaker, “Give me a hammer. I’m gonna break that seal. I’m gonna go into that box. I don’t know what I’m burying. It could be a box full of rocks. It could be cement. It could be dirt. I’ve got to verify it is my son in that box.”

  They had laid him out on the cooling board. His body was still in the body bag. [She has difficulty, weeps. A long pause.] The undertaker unzipped the bag. And that’s when I saw all that lime. They hosed him down. And, oh, my God, I knew what that odor was by then. It was not the lime, that was my son I was smelling.

  I glanced at his head and it was such a mess up there, I just had to turn away. I started at his feet. I knew certain characteristics about him. I knew how his knees looked, I knew how his ankles and feet looked. I made my trip from his feet up to his midsection, identifying what I could.

  And then I saw this long tongue hanging out of his mouth. What on Earth! They were looking for me to fall out, and I told them, “Turn me loose—I’ve got a job to do.” I said, “I can’t faint now.” I began a real minute examination. I looked at his teeth and there were only about four of them left. He had such beautiful teeth. I moved on up to the nose. And it looked like somebody had taken a meat cleaver and had just chopped the bridge of his nose. Pieces had fallen out. When I went to look at his eyes, this one was lying on his cheek. But I saw the color of it. I said, “That’s my son’s eye.” I looked over at the other and it was as if somebody had taken a nut picker and just picked it out. There was no eye. I went to examine his ears. If you’ll notice, my ears are detached from my face and they kind of curl on the end. And his did, too. There was no ear. It was gone. I was looking up the side of his face and I could see daylight on the other side. I said, “Oh, my God.” The tears were falling, and I was brushing tears away because I had to see.

  Later, I was reading the Scriptures. And it told how Jesus had been led from judgment hall to judgment hall all night long, how he had been beaten—and so much that no man would ever sustain the horror of his beating. That his face was just in ribbons. And I thought about it, and I said, “Lord, do you mean to tell me that Emmett’s beating did not equal the one that was given to Jesus?” And I said, “My God, what must Jesus have suffered?”

  And then I thought about some of the pictures we see, where he has this neat little crown of thorns and you see a few rivulets of blood coming down, but his face is intact. And according to Scriptures, that is not true. His visage was scarred more than any other man’s had ever been or will be.

  And that’s when I really was able to assess what Jesus had given for us, the love he had for us.

  And I saw Emmett and his scars. Lord, I saw the stigmata of Jesus. The spirit sp
oke to me as plainly as I’m talking to you now. Jesus had come and died that we might have a right to eternal life or eternal Hell or damnation. Emmett had died that men might have freedom here on Earth. That we might have a right to life.

  That was my darkest moment, when I realized that that huge box had the remains of my son. I sent a very lovable boy on a vacation—Emmett, who knew everybody in the neighborhood. They’d call him whenever they wanted something done. “Mom, I gotta go help Mrs. Bailey.” He was the block’s messenger boy.

  What might have been? He’s never far from my mind. If Jesus Christ died for our sins, Emmett Till bore our prejudices, so . . .

  *From “A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon” by Gwendolyn Brooks, Blacks (Chicago: Third World Press, 1987).

  Dr. Marvin Jackson

  He is a neurosurgeon at the George Washington Hospital, Washington, D. C. He is thirty-five. In 1965, I had visited his grandmother, Lucille Dickerson.* She was, at the time, a hospital aide, who spent most of her off-hours reading paperbacks. Among her favorites were Charles Dickens, Theodore Dreiser, Richard Wright, and Nelson Algren. Toward the end of the evening, she motioned to her pregnant daughter, who was seated on the divan. “The only thrill left for me is to see my grandchild come to life and see what I can do about him. Won’t that be fun? I’ll be able to afford things that would give him incentive to paint, music, literature, all those things that would free his little soul. What counts is knowledge. And feeling. You see, there’s such a thing as a feeling tone. If you don’t have this, baby, you’ve had it—you’re dead.”

  YOU AND I WERE in the same room together, but I’m afraid I don’t remember it. [Laughs] I still had about a week or two to go before I was born. My grandmother spoke of it occasionally.

  We lived over in the projects off Roosevelt and Loomis. My grandmother was interested in one thing more than anything else: education for the kids. Because money for black kids was not coming into the schools.