Member-only story
The One Who Didn’t Die
I’ve got a feeling that I can’t let go…
Just to be clear: no, of course I’m not the only survivor to speak of, even in our small self-selected group. That’s not what this is about. And yes, of course I have survivor’s guilt. Who doesn’t? Again, not what this is about.
I’ve been heard to say (certainly more than once: I’m always happy to quote myself, and I’ve been flourishing this particular line for decades now) that everyone I slept with before the age of thirty is dead. Blessedly, that isn’t literally true, but it’s more than a metaphorical bludgeon. At the back end of the ’80s, a friend said that we were too young to be going to so many funerals. He was right, and a year later I was reading a eulogy at his. That’s how it went.
Truthfully, I don’t know how I came through. I was exactly the right age to be caught by HIV, moving in exactly the right circles, living exactly the lifestyle. I wasn’t even as careful as I knew how to be, once we’d caught on to the danger; I trusted friends, sometimes I even trusted strangers. I was luckier than I deserved, perhaps. Many of my cohort were not.
Look up “cohort” in the dictionary and it will talk to you about a Roman military unit, comprising six centuries; about a group of people banded together; and about supporters or companions. No, and yes, and yes. That…