People in Trouble

by Sarah Schulman

  ‘My boyfriend died four years ago,’ Don said. ‘I’ve had a hard time getting another one because no one wants to get emotionally involved with someone who might die. But I don’t want to take that stupid test, so every time I’m on a date I have to decide whether to tell them or not.’

  They put their tokens into the slots and gave coins to a musician, even though they couldn’t hear a thing over the subway roar. Sam was there too but she didn’t say much.

  ‘Look at all the people on this train,’ Don said. ‘Think any of them will hear about what we’ve done?’

  ‘Some. A few. A couple probably.’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘The ones who read page ten of the Daily News.’

  He was drinking juice out of a carton and offered her some. She took it.

  ‘So, do you think I should get the test? What do you think, Molly?’

  ‘How will you feel if you’re positive?’

  ‘Depressed.’

  ‘How will you feel if you don’t know?’

  ‘I feel fine, really.’

  ‘It’s up to you. I mean, if you find someone who really cares about you, it probably won’t matter if you take it or not.’

  ‘I think I’ll wait. I don’t feel like being hysterical for the next three years.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  When Don got off the train Molly sat back quietly with her hand in Sam’s lap.

  ‘Why did you drink out of his carton when he might have AIDS?’

  ‘It’s a rite of passage. People who may be HIV positive inevitably offer you a drink out of their glass. It’s a test of loyalty to see if you’re prejudiced or not, to see if you are informed enough to know that you can’t get it that way.’

  ‘That roommate I told you about?’ Sam said. ‘The one who died?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He shit all over himself and I had to clean it up. He was too sick to move so he had to lie in it until I got home.’

  Molly put her arm around Sam and buried her face in her neck.

  ‘Sam, are you afraid?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I feel.’

  43

  PETER

  That night Shelley sat next to Peter in an audience. She looked beautiful. She was charming with the people they met and she held her hand discreetly on his thigh throughout the entire third act. Afterward he took her backstage and showed her what a gel frame looks like, and a color wheel. He took her up into the booth and showed her how a dimmer board works. He explained how to cross-fade, how to sneak one in. He briefly mentioned plugging and showed a trick way to wrap a cable. She wasn’t afraid to go up on the catwalk. In fact, she loved it.

  ‘Maybe I can get you a job on a new production. That would be more fun than working at a Xerox store, don’t you think? You can be an electrician.’

  ‘Pete, how could I do that? I don’t know anything about electricity.’

  ‘It’s easy. I’ll teach you. I’ll teach you in a week.’

  I could make her life so much more exciting, he thought. I could teach her so many things. Maybe she’ll get really good and we can work together until she becomes a designer on her own.

  It felt great having Shelley in his bed. She absolutely belonged there. Her hair looked beautiful so long and full against the sheets.

  ‘Look at those books on your night table,’ she said. ‘Derrida, yuch. I tried to read that for semiotics, sophomore year.’

  ‘You took semiotics?’

  ‘I dropped it. Then I took women’s studies instead. Bataille? Yuch. I tried to read that, the one about the eye. All he kept talking about was cramming, ramming and stuffing his cock inside some woman. Is this what you read before you go to bed? Well, it’s a good way to fall asleep.’

  ‘Somebody’s got to keep the university presses in business,’ he chuckled. ‘And somebody’s got to keep intellectuals off the streets. Besides, it gives me deconstructed dreams.’ He laughed aloud.

  ‘Are you teasing me?’

  Her breasts were mostly nipple, long thin pink ones.

  ‘It’s not that difficult, really. Do you want me to explain it to you?’

  He reached for his glasses.

  ‘No, I mean, not now. Can you turn on the radio please?’ She sang along with a couple of songs, beating the drum machine parts out on his chest with her long red fingernails. ‘Pete, do you like Sinhead?’

  ‘Skinhead?’

  ‘No, no. Oh, I love this song. Turn it up.’

  He tried to listen but he couldn’t make out the words. When the song was over he switched to a tape and put in a cassette of Sonny Rollins.

  ‘Does Kate read these books too?’

  ‘Yes. She reads everything I read. That’s why we always have something to talk about.’ He twisted her brown curls between his fingers. ‘We had to be like Jean-Paul and Simone or Frida and Diego.’

  ‘Who are Frida and Diego?’

  ‘A famous art couple. The temptation of being geniuses together becomes an excuse to stay together years after the relationship is over.’

  He looked into Shelley’s deep brown eyes. How long had it been since he’d looked into brown eyes that way? He had her full attention.

  ‘I love her,’ he said. ‘Because of all the time spent together, but I’m very angry. I’m not going to think about that right now though because I’d rather enjoy being with you.’

  ‘Peter,’ Shelley said. ‘It’s okay to get upset, you know. It’s just as normal to have feelings as it is to have ideas.’

  ‘I’m so upset,’ he said. ‘I’m really very upset.’ Then he folded into her and shook. Then he turned his back. Shelley wrapped around him. When he felt her heat on his back he relaxed. He knew she wanted to take care of him.

  This is a way of being close that is different from the way that Kate and I are close, he thought. This is not rooted in nostalgia or habit or familiarity or fear of being alone, or logistics, or shared business or obligation. It’s just comfort. When you are intimate with another person you find another way of loving and it becomes part of you.

  ‘You’re wonderful, Shelley. You’re being so great about this.’

  ‘Well the way I see it,’ she said, ‘is that this is a kind of unusual situation that I have gotten myself into and I’m going to have a lot of different unusual experiences in my life, because, I mean, we’re not going to get married or anything and I don’t plan on being normal or boring. Do you understand what I mean? I’m not saying it right.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Hey, Peter?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘There’s a strange guy standing at the foot of the bed.’

  Peter jumped out, not knowing quite why. His half-erect penis was flopping, which confused him even more and he went straight into the bathroom without looking either woman in the eye. They saw each other though, and not with much malice.

  ‘I’m very tired,’ Kate said. ‘I hope you will excuse me.’

  With that she took off her suit jacket and unsnapped her suspenders. She unbuttoned her shirt and trousers and dropped them on the floor. Then, kicking off her big black shoes, she walked over to the bed in her T-shirt and cotton boxer shorts and climbed in.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Peter said, hustling Shelley out of bed.

  ‘What do you want?’ Shelley asked Kate as one woman got out and the other slid in.

  ‘When I wake up,’ Kate said, pulling up the rumpled covers, ‘I want you both to be gone.’

  44

  PETER

  Justice had gotten too large for the bathhouse, so they crashed the Saint, a three-story nightclub, former gay bar extraordinaire that used to be the Filmore East that used to be a Loew’s and was about to become a Cineplex triplex complex where anyone could see three bad movies for the price of four. Three generations of underground people had had extreme experiences in that building.

  When Justice stormed in, they disrupted a power networking party
organized by the Business Association of Single Traders and Retail Distributors of Saccharine. The sight of over one thousand passionate pederasts and sodomites in black T-shirts and the word Justice spray-painted over pink triangles encouraged most of the BASTARDS to leave by the fire exits. The management didn’t care who was in the place as long as they bought drinks. Justice poured into the third-story dance floor, filled the gray-carpeted balconies which were the site of a quarter of a million precrisis blow jobs, until they were filled. The overflow crowd watched the meeting on video screens from the tastefully lit silver and gray bar area.

  Molly didn’t see Kate anywhere. She didn’t want to see her but she did want to. She knew for sure, though, that Kate wasn’t there because Molly could always see Kate coming, no matter how large the crowd and certainly miles before Kate could see her. It was her hair that burned like a fiery halo, a glowing ember. She walked in burning amidst a sea of light brown blah.

  Daisy called the meeting to order.

  ‘If there is anyone here from the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the New York City Police Department, drop dead.’ The audience howled. They were ready to cheer at anything. Molly knew that she and Kate had to talk, or better yet, Kate had to listen. Standing up to her was so difficult. Kate had a side that was well-bred and properly ladylike, which she used when she was too tired to interact. She’d smile prettily then, show her teeth for a moment and then cover them demurely with her lips, which she kept soft. She’d look you in the eye during all of this, so as not to appear evasive, and she’d speak clearly, offering nothing. If someone pressed her, the wall came down. There were times when being with Kate was like being on the wrong side of a Plexiglas sheet. There were times when you could dance with her and she would give you nothing. She wouldn’t move with you or against you. She moved apart from you. But it all seemed to be within her grasp, a matter of choice. She could hide behind her beauty and then, suddenly, fight you fiercely, cruelly, brutally with a complete determination to win.

  ‘Now with the credit card report, Cardinal Spellman.’

  The little guy struggled up onto the platform in his scarlet cape and red velvet cap.

  ‘That’s Miss Spellman to you,’ he said, raising his hand in a sign of Christian peace and then letting it flap at the wrist. ‘Hail Mary and Helen too.’ He threw some holy seltzer on the crowd and read his report.

  ‘Let’s see, well, there was this frantic food buyout at Pathmark, then a number of fur coats were purchased at Bergdorf’s and distributed to residents of the women’s shelter. Plumbing, electrical and construction supplies for the Lower East Side squatters were charged at Broadway Lumber until the raised letters on the Visa card got rubbed off from too many charge slips. James was stationed at Liberty Travel where many one-way tickets were issued for people wanting to go home or even better places. Most popular destinations were Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Miami Beach. I would also like to say personally, as someone with ARC, that charging the hell out of New York City with no intention to pay is a fabulous way to work out your anger. Now where are my altar boys?’

  A number of scantily clad teenagers appeared in loincloths, hoisted her excellency up on a huge Plexiglas cross and hauled her away in a sea of kisses.

  ‘Oh Father,’ cooed Miss Spellman. ‘Oh Son. Oh Holy Holy Ghost.’

  When the applause died down, Daisy came back to take the mike.

  ‘There are times when you have to dream,’ Daisy said. ‘And then speak those dreams. Here are mine.’

  Molly remembered where she was. She was with her people. She couldn’t let Kate take her out of herself ever again.

  ‘I dream,’ Daisy continued, ‘that by tomorrow at three in the afternoon, American Express, Visa and Mastercard’s stocks will have tumbled so low, they will fall off the charts. Then the entire board of directors of each company will be forced to resign with a large majority taking the easy way out via cyanide pills. The Dow Jones will close early so all the brokers can rush home and smoke crack while the banks repossess their BMWs and their health club memberships and foreclose on their condominiums which used to be your rent-controlled apartments. By Wednesday, noon, the military-industrial complex will be reduced to rubble. There will be homes for the homeless, food for the hungry, care for the ill, permission for the imagination and no weapons. Then I’ll go home, light a joint, open a beer and make love for the rest of my life. How does that sound to you?’

  There was an explosion then of shared joy. There were many expectations in that room that night in the occupied, air-conditioned disco.

  ‘Remember that feeling,’ Daisy said. ‘Hold on to that dream while James shares a few words.’

  James came to the front of the room. He was very tired. His clothes were dirty. He looked unkempt. His spirit was failing him, everyone could see that. They were very, very quiet then. You could hear a thousand people holding their collective breath.

  ‘Please listen to me critically,’ he said. He didn’t start by saying ‘brothers and sisters,’ which was what he usually said. He started by saying ‘Please.’ He seemed frightened. Molly had never seen this emotion in his face before. Like someone looking out over a sea of faces knowing that each one of them had an expectation he had to live up to. There was more trust than one person could bear.

  ‘There is a euphoria in taking control of your own life. There is something crippling that occurs when the response to that act distorts it. As long as the people fighting for change are smaller than the institutions that control information, their activities will be misrepresented, their impact minimized and their humanity questioned. The only way to overcome the machinery is to become bigger than it is. So that, one day, more people will be participating in the event than watching it on television. That is called a revolution. In the meantime we are placated with a condition of free speech in a nation of no ideas.’

  The room held an arched silence. Even people with drinks in their hands never lifted the glasses to their mouths.

  ‘Let me read to you now from the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper, smuggled to us by a lesbian working at the printing plant. The headline says “AIDS Victims Riot in City.” ’

  Molly wanted to be held. She wanted arms around her and they weren’t Kate’s because Molly wanted to be safe right then. That’s what she needed most in the world.

  ‘ “Marauding bands of AIDS victims roamed the city today looting. Real-estate magnate Ronald Horne, announcing his decision to run for mayor, told the press that he advocated barge internment camps for all those infected with the deadly AIDS virus. Horne said he would personally finance and administer this quarantine program to show his love for the people of New York. He added that any apartments in Horne-owned buildings that might be left vacant due to internment would immediately be converted to luxury co-ops for intact nuclear families, which statistics show are the least likely to spread AIDS. He will present more details at the Thursday afternoon inauguration of the Taj McHorne, a new office and condominium complex on the site of the old public library.” ’

  James looked out carefully at the crowd before he spoke again. He wanted to really see them, to look in their faces.

  ‘I know where I’m going to be Thursday afternoon. Do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ they said.

  They didn’t all say it the first time but when he asked again, they did.

  ‘Yes,’ they said.

  ‘In that case,’ he answered, ‘let’s dance.’

  45

  MOLLY

  Scott Yarrow 1958–1988 died of pneumonia resulting from pneumocystis, an AIDS-related opportunistic infection. Only a few of his friends found out early enough to be able to make it to the hospital before he died. Molly was one of them. Fabian was the other, because he brought Scott to Bellevue emergency room. When the nurse took Scott in on a stretcher behind the swinging doors, Fabian madly made telephone calls until he could find someone to come sit with him in that hellhole.

  During the four hours tha
t Molly and Fabian sat, many events occurred. There were a number of street people sleeping, crying, with gangrene, with large infections, with snot covering their faces, with blood everywhere, unable to speak, unable to move, all unattended and with no place to go. There were a few gunshots brought in by the police. A man had been beaten up. His friend had one arm around him and another arm holding the stack of records that they had been on their way to spin. Mothers worried they had waited too long. A man urinated in his pants. Many were drinking. Some were talking very loudly about very little. The police brought in a few cases from Riker’s Island – pale men in bright orange jumpsuits with manacles, leg and ankle chains. There were many, many drug overdoses. A man sat behind Molly masturbating for the entire four hours. He never got off. There were terrible smells.

  One of the prisoners was unusually large. He had a scar clear across his throat. From where he was sitting he could stare directly at Molly. He kept motioning to her, waving. At first she smiled back, feeling sorry for him, then she realized that he was going to be waving at her all afternoon and she had other things to think about.

  She and Fabian knew Scott was dying but they didn’t talk about it much.

  ‘My lover died of pneumocystis,’ Fabian said. ‘His name was Jay. He went like that.’ Fabian snapped his fingers and looked down at the filthy floor. ‘At the end he wouldn’t eat. I got so frustrated with him I would say “Goddammit Jay, eat.” But he wouldn’t.’

  During the day a few other people came in with AIDS. You could tell it was AIDS because they were too thin and weak for their age or else their faces were covered with those lesions. Finally James came. It took him a while to convince the staff that he was immediate family, but a friendly nurse let him in.

  ‘I got tested a few months ago, you know,’ Fabian said.

  ‘No, I didn’t know.’

  ‘I waited a while because those tests are so crazy. You never know what they’re going to do with the results and you never know if the results are even right.’