People in Trouble

by Sarah Schulman

  ‘I have to go to a meeting tonight. It’s in the same building as your studio. It has to do with AIDS. Do you know an older black man who lives there named James Carroll?’

  ‘You know my hours are so weird that I don’t get to see many of the other tenants, but I may have met him at some point.’

  ‘He’s got a younger boyfriend, looks like a meditator.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Why don’t you come with me? Why don’t you sneak into this ticket booth for one moment and feel my ass while the boss is busy freebasing?’

  Kate reappeared at quitting time and witnessed the final three drop-offs with great interest. She flipped through the papers as they walked along.

  ‘These are all eviction notices,’ she said.

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘They’re all from my new landlord.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘New York Realty. It’s a Horne subsidiary, I think. See, it says right here that his company is the plaintiff … on every one of these cases. I just got the announcement two weeks ago that he had purchased my building, but I didn’t get any eviction notice. Look, these three slips are all from my address.’

  ‘Do you know them?’ Molly asked looking over Kate’s arm. ‘There might even be more than these. I think there are three or four other people collecting today.’

  ‘Who are these tenants?’ Kate asked, still thumbing through the yellow slips. ‘Pablo Guzman. That must be the Latin guy in apartment twelve with a diamond stud in his ear. And number five?’

  ‘Isn’t that the young guy with the punk haircut who wears sunglasses at night?’

  ‘Maybe. And number three, O’Rourke. I’ve often wondered about him actually. He used to go out every evening quite late and come back three hours later. I could hear him locking and unlocking his door. Not recently though.’

  ‘I hope not. Cruising is no longer cool, I think. Who knows, actually. Anyway, it looks like all the gay men in your building are being evicted. Does it list the charges?’

  ‘Pets. They’re all being thrown out for having pets.’

  ‘Like dogs and cats?’

  ‘Yes, it looks like every other gay man in the neighborhood is being evicted. How do they know who’s who?’

  ‘Well, we’ll find out tonight,’ Molly said, moving in under Kate’s arm. They kissed.

  ‘Spare change?’

  They stopped and both reached into their pockets.

  ‘Hi, how are you?’

  ‘Miserable. It’s too cold. This is hard, very hard.’

  ‘Save the winos,’ said a wino.

  They stopped and Molly gave him fifteen cents. Kate gave him twenty.

  They waited at the corner for the light and kissed deeply. They passed a man going through a garbage can by tearing the plastic bags at the bottom and eating rancid food with his fingers. They passed a woman with a baby in a stroller. She was asking for change. Kate and Molly each gave her a dollar.

  ‘Hey, Molly.’

  A black man in a woolen cap came across the street. He nodded quickly at Kate and then turned his body and spoke in such low tones that he brought Molly into a private conversation by making her stand closer.

  ‘I’m sorry I missed you that time.’

  ‘I didn’t wait too long. Are you all right?’

  He looked awful. He looked fifteen years older.

  ‘Give me ten bucks. I’ll pay you back.’

  He smelled rotten. Molly felt sick being so close to him. He stank.

  ‘Just ten.’

  She looked right into his bloodshot eyes the way all New Yorkers do when they’re going to say no.

  ‘Charlie, everyone needs ten bucks and you always need ten bucks and even I need ten bucks and I’m not going to give you money to go smoke coke. Do you want food?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What do you want, pizza?’ She was in a hurry.

  ‘No, it hurts my stomach. How about some of that big bread French toast and eggs and some sausages?’

  She reached into her pocket and felt around.

  ‘I can’t give you that much. How about eggs and potatoes and coffee?’

  ‘Okay, over there though,’ he said pointing with his head to the sit-down coffee shop across the street. ‘That other one,’ he said, referring to the countertop place, ‘is terrible.’ His hands were too cold to take out of his pockets. ‘Food’s just hot grease.’

  ‘Okay, wait a minute.’

  Molly ran across the street and leaned around the people defrosting over long bowls of thick soup.

  ‘You see that guy over there in the red hat?’ she said to a Polish waitress with no green card. ‘Let him order five dollars’ worth of food and here’s a dollar for you.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Kate asked.

  ‘He used to be my friend but now he’s on the street. I can’t let him in my house or he’ll steal everything and never leave.’

  They kissed again and were stopped again. They each gave over the last of their change.

  ‘Here we are trying to have a run-of-the-mill illicit lesbian love affair,’ Molly said. ‘And all around us people are dying and asking for money.’

  ‘It is absurd to see people suffering every day.’

  ‘And to be so untouched personally,’ Molly said. ‘That’s the really scary part.’

  ‘What do you mean untouched? We see this constantly.’

  ‘Okay, Kate, but our city is so stratified that people can occupy the same physical space and never confront one another. New York is a death camp for thousands of people, but they don’t have to be contained for us to avoid them. The same streets I have fun on are someone else’s hell.’

  ‘Well, more and more artists are doing work about AIDS. There were shows at the Whitney, the New Museum, MOMA, DIA … more than I can list.’

  ‘So what does that do?’

  ‘Molly, artwork is very political. It teaches people to see things in a new way. My artwork is my political work. Form is content. New forms are revolutionary.’

  ‘I don’t think you would be satisfied with that explanation if it was happening to you.’

  ‘It could happen to me,’ Kate said. ‘It could happen to you.’

  ‘I’m not going to get AIDS,’ Molly said.

  ‘Yeah, but you could be homeless. What if your building burned down or went co-op?’

  ‘I would have to leave New York, I guess. But I am white and know how to read so I can always get a job, even a boring one. There will always be McDonald’s.’

  ‘What if you get sick?’ Kate said. ‘I’m sure you don’t have any health insurance.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Molly said. ‘I have a lot of friends.’

  ‘What about when you’re old?’

  ‘Okay, you win. That’s when I’m really going to be in trouble. I forgot your point.’

  ‘That it could be you or me, and if it was, my response would be the same. I’m an artist. That’s political. Form is content.’

  ‘Okay.’ Molly was quiet.

  Then Kate reached over and touched her, being conciliatory, now that Molly had given up.

  ‘Molly?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I don’t want to fight with you. I just want to kiss you.’

  When Kate put her arms around Molly on the street they became very obvious. They didn’t disappear like she and Pearl did. They stood out. Anyone watching would have seen a peacock in a man’s overcoat holding a significantly younger, more bewildered woman to her with some sense of passion.

  ‘Let’s check out the meeting,’ Molly said.

  As they walked along the crowded sidewalk Molly could see that there were tiny jewels and particular human treasures in different spots along the way, but each one was surrounded by something very difficult and fearful. At the same time that Molly so clearly saw this decorating her path she also felt privately satisfied, having just been kissed and on her way to a destination. Her inside was safe, her outside was e
ndangered. Why was she so protected?

  ‘Why are we so protected?’

  ‘I’m not protected,’ Kate said. ‘I’m a poor artist. I am not a powerful person in this society. Don’t be so self-deprecating, it’s unbearably righteous.’

  ‘You’re not poor. Neither am I.’

  ‘Listen, Molly, when I was your age I was a lot more radical than you are, so don’t lay that on me. That’s your trip.’

  ‘Let’s go to the meeting,’ Molly said. ‘Let’s go there now.’

  26

  KATE

  James and Scott lived in two adjacent apartments on the ground floor of Kate’s building. They had broken into the basement and built a large comfortable room that was a cross between a meeting hall for the Kiwanis Club and an underground bunker.

  When Kate and Molly walked up, two men were standing guard duty outside the cellar door entrance, posing nonchalantly, watching for trouble. No one knew how to stand around nonchalantly better than gay men. Almost three hundred people were packed into the windowless space. They lined the walls crammed together on every available inch. Seats were reserved only for the most seriously ill and Kate saw a few young men in various stages of the disease. She also saw many faces she had noticed daily in her neighborhood for years but had never interacted with socially. The majority of the crowd, however, did seem robust and energetic. Fresh juice and extra blankets were available and passed along in a calm manner. In fact, permeating everything was an atmosphere of concern and personal caring combining a variety of styles. Even with that huge crowd everyone got to speak his name.

  ‘John, Jack, Raphael – hi!, Mary, Mary, Bill, Bill, Bill, Sam, Joey – and I’m glad to be here, Dave, Bill, Jean-Yves, Mike, Roberto, El Topo from the BMT, Spin, Wolfman, Bill, Bill, Frank, Pat, Kate, Molly, Bob, Elvis, Cardinal Spellman … ’

  Scott began the meeting with a list of announcements. As he read from the notes he played unconsciously with his ponytail, twisting the hair around the forefinger of his right hand. He had a combined air of enthusiasm and serious determination: like a middle-class boy who one day discovered injustice and then proceeded to do something about it with both sincere conviction and class arrogance about getting things done his way.

  ‘Okay, first, the book Surviving and Thriving with AIDS is now available from the People with AIDS Coalition, 263A West 19th Street, room 125, New York, New York 10011. Now, we’re trying to convince the supermarkets and Woolworth’s to carry it so you just march up to your nearest five-and-dime and tell them you’re not buying any more enemas or nail polish until they carry the book.’

  Whenever he finished an impassioned statement, Scott would look up shyly and flash a big smile. Reassured, he then returned to his list. He also swung his hips a lot because he, like everyone else in the room, was really excited and had a powerful sense of hope.

  ‘Next, AL721 fans. This drug is still not available over the counter, thanks to the boobs at the FDA. But we have batches of lecithin which you can get from us or a number of health food stores. Once you have lecithin you can whip up your own homemade AL721 using this handy recipe that we are passing around the room. Share it with your friends. It goes on your toast in the morning and helps fight those nasty retroviruses.’

  He smiled again.

  ‘What’s next? Oh yes, for those of you who are illegal and don’t have green cards, we have a fresh collection of fake birth certificates and passports so you can get Medicaid to pay for your anti-AIDS drugs, as they should, and you can get welfare if you’re too sick to work. Remember, the only industrialized nations that do not have socialized medicine are the US of A and South Africa. For more information on fake documents, please see Fabian after the meeting. Fabian, raise your lovely fist so the brothers and sisters know who you are.’

  Fabian was a longtime leather queen who looked a bit uncomfortable in his khakis, but he kept on a leather cap and slave necklace for old times’ sake.

  ‘Remember,’ Fabian said grinning through his mustache, ‘S and M is safe sex.’

  That provoked a round of applause from the impassioned brotherhood.

  ‘That’s it for me,’ Scott said. ‘Any more announcements?’

  Molly’s friend Bob jumped up and brushed back his long gray hair. Kate recognized him immediately from the old food co-op.

  ‘Yes, Silver Fox? What do you have for us tonight?’

  Bob took his time getting to the front of the room and fluttered like a red leaf or old newspaper caught up in a slowly twirling wind.

  ‘I have an announcement from the Get Real Committee,’ he said. ‘For those of you who are new, the Get Real Committee was formed to face reality when everyone else chooses not to. We have made contact with the custodial staff at Riker’s Island and we are setting up daily drop-offs of free condoms and clean needles for the fellas and gals inside. Remember this is all unofficial activity, so if you have friends on the inside, either inmates or staff, please pass their names on to me and we can plug them in. Thank you and you’re beautiful.’

  ‘Thank you, brother Bob. Now, brother James will say a few words about Justice, which will be followed by the business at hand.’

  James stood up very slowly and walked to the middle of the room wearing a full-length wool sweater dress and a white fur hat.

  ‘That’s what happens when queens collide,’ Bob whispered. ‘We witness new heights in advanced wardrobe planning.’

  ‘You should give him your old femme clothes,’ Molly murmured in Kate’s ear.

  He was actually a short man although he had a lot of presence. But he wasn’t a preacher and he wasn’t a rock star and he wasn’t a con man or Prince or our next president. He basically knew how to dress and had clarity.

  ‘The gay community,’ James said, ‘is a unique community because our family is bonded on love. Each one of us has defined our lives by love and sexuality – the two greatest human possibilities. We have all recognized these truths in the face of great denial. And now we must use that insight to fight the hypocrisy surrounding the AIDS crisis.’

  People were sitting very still. They weren’t mesmerized, but they were certainly interested.

  ‘When you are diagnosed with AIDS or ARC, or you find out that you are HIV-positive, the normal question is “How long will I live?” Remember, no one on earth knows the answer to that question, whether they have AIDS or not. The fact that you have AIDS, that my lover Scott has AIDS, cannot be changed.’

  Kate felt her eyes shifting toward Scott.

  Then a watch alarm went off.

  ‘Now,’ James continued. ‘Let us look at our goals.’ He wiped his forehead with a lace handkerchief.

  ‘We want prevention, care and cure. But America will never be healthy as long as it exists in a state of advanced hypocrisy. And fate has chosen us to correct this wrong,’

  Kate looked over at Scott again.

  ‘This week many of you received eviction notices from Ronald Horne’s development company. This is the man who has warehoused thousands of empty apartments while ninety thousand people live in the subways and stairwells and public bathrooms of this city. Now we have learned that he has purposely bought buildings with more than fifty percent gay tenants in the hope that we will drop dead and leave him with empty apartments. He files these eviction notices anticipating that some of us will be too ill to contest. Now let me ask you, what are we going to do to get justice?’

  There was a great steamy silence when he finished, almost like subito piano in music; the quiet after a crescendo, like falling off a cliff.

  Men’s voices filled the room. Some had constructive ideas. Some just wanted to talk. Some had bad suggestions or feeble ones like ‘Let’s call a lawyer.’ But almost everyone wanted a chance to speak.

  ‘I say an eye for an eye,’ called out Cardinal Spellman, a short, bald man with a tiny mustache. ‘Let’s take away his house.’

  ‘I have a better idea,’ called out Bob. ‘Let’s take away his Castle.’

>   That was the spark that united the anger and brought a relatively quiet room to life. No one can ever be as angry when it’s hopeless as they can be when there’s something to be done about it. People work for change when they think there’s a chance of getting it. Otherwise they say, ‘Why bother?’

  Ronald Horne’s Castle was the biggest, lushest, most ostentatious and expensive hotel from the Eastern Seaboard to Rodeo Drive. And it was located right in the middle of midtown redevelopment, so the guests could have a clear view of their power and riches at work. It was renowned, not only for its lavishness, but also for the transplanted tropical rain forest that had been re-created inside the lobby to serve as a symbolic moat with actual crocodiles. The guests could feel like authentic aristocracy instead of the robber barons that they really were. From the moment they checked in they were treated like royalty from the middle ages. The motif was Early Modern Colonialism and the staff was required to dress in loincloths with chains hanging from their wrists and ankles. The men’s room didn’t say Men on the door. It said Bwana. The bathrooms were designed to look like diamond mines with black attendants wearing lanterns and pulling paper towels out with pickaxes. Chicken salad on rye cost twelve dollars.

  ‘We should go now,’ James said. ‘We’re angry now, so we should go now.’

  ‘But how are we going to get cabs for three hundred?’ asked a clean-shaven young man in a black leather jacket, who looked like he had a lot of discretionary income.

  ‘I-R-T’ began as a steady chant from the back of the room. ‘I-R-T.’

  ‘I think I’m going with them,’ Kate said. ‘I haven’t done anything like this since the Vietnam War.’

  ‘I’m staying here,’ Molly said. ‘Fabian and I are going to be on phone duty in case of emergency. Good luck. I hope the trains aren’t too delayed.’

  Kate started to file out the door with this huge group of guys. It took until they got to the Astor Place station before she realized she was the only one in a suit.

  27