OPEN ROADS

An unsettling return to

my old HIV support group

by Thom Sommers

LIFE

•

react when I saw how this virus has gripped and crippled the lives of so many of the people that helped teach me how to live.

AIDS LOVE

Recently, I spent nearly a week with one of my best friends and my mentor in Columbus, following the death of his roommate. We spent a great deal of time talking, shopping, and just having fun. How relaxing, under the circumstances. During this time, however, I again realized how prevalent AIDS discrimination really is, and that people are still getting sick and they are still dying. While looking for an apartment, a landlord, Keith, began telling us the story of a previous tenant. "I don't know, he came up HIV positive or something..." Looking at each other my friend and I just listened. As Keith continued to exploit his previous tenant, he told us the young man was

very angry at the world.

•

As I sat on the comfortable couch clutching the throw pillow, Tiger, one of the new dogs, jumped up on the couch, resting his head in my lap. I felt incredibly safe, a safety I have not felt since I moved to Cleveland. As the members of the group began entering the room and sitting on the floor, the couches, and even standing, I looked around. I became very sad. Everyone had looked so healthy the last time I was there.

園

OPEN ROADS

"I didn't tell him to go out and stick an infected dick up his ass," Keith said.

I could not believe that this man was so free to discuss his prejudices so openly. I wish I had the courage to say to that man that HIV/AIDS means a lot more than having intercourse with an infected partner. We believed this landlord to be gay, but who can be sure. It does not even matter, straight or gay, he is just ignorant.

Does this landlord know that discrimination is not only immoral but illegal as well? Doesn't this landlord realize that you cannot tell by just looking at a person if they are HIV infected? As the ongoing debate over funding continues, AIDS activists are calling for more education. How and where do we teach humanity and compassion, for all people both HIV negative and positive? My friend did not take the apartment.

I started attending the Monday night group at Affirmations in Columbus almost three years ago. While in town that week I decided to return to that group. Although apprehensive, I did attend. I was concerned how I would react to seeing people I had not seen for a long time, concerned about how I would

As the room crowded and couches filled with strangers, I realized the others I had known from three years ago were not going to be there. They probably have not been there for months; they are dead.

As we went around the room and introduced ourselves I was becoming very unsettled. Through every one of the next 90 minutes I became increasingly unsettled. One long-timer in the group talked about his lover who was very sick. He spoke of the love between them, his need for respite care, his need for a break, and he also talked about his lover's dementia (the inability to remember where you are or what is happening in and around you), and the struggle he was having changing his lover's diapers. His lover died only a week later.

Listening to the stories of the people in that room I suddenly realized that I have, in a way, become detached from HIV/AIDS since I moved to Cleveland. I think I had forgotten what was really going on "out there" where AIDS continues to claim the lives of hundreds of people a day. Where every 13 seconds someone becomes infected with HIV. As I listened to story after story I was filling with sadness and anger. Why, why, why is this still happening to us 15 years later? I do not understand. After our ceremonial close, I left group and sat in my car, crying. How do we make it stop?

226-5165

FEBRUARY 23, 1996 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

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