October, 1996
Mallory Hotel
When I first met Charlene I was falling in love
with Heidi and had just come off two full days
of incredible sex with Kathleen. Every ounce of
my body and mind were alive. I was flying on
adrenaline, lust and amore.
There was nothing I could not do.
I will remember Charlene, more than at any
other moment I knew her, on that first night
watching me eat my Ginger laden spinach
bemused and with envy. Every taste bud in my
mouth was transmitting with peak efficiency.
The ginger was in spears, each about an inch
and a half long, perfectly cooked in the black
bean sauce and complementing the spinach. I
was in heaven and I didn't care who knew it.
I sat opposite Trevor and next to Trevor's
mother. I gave them all part of my food, which,
while they agreed it was very good did not share
my orgasmic responses to it. The first bite I
took turned heads throughout the restaurant as I
moaned with delight. Quite different than my
usual reserved demeanor.
And when I think of Charlene, that is the night I
see her on. I see her watching me spoon the
food into my mouth as I was watching her watch
me spoon the food into my mouth and knowing
that she knew I was watching her watch me
spoon the food into my mouth. I see her with
Trevor and I bid the three of them goodnight on
the corner of 23rd and Hoyt as I left them to go
to Heidi's house to watch the Olympics.
That was February, I believe. 1994.
It is currently October 1996.
Heidi no longer wishes contact with me for
unexplained reasons. Kathleen has severed all
contact. I have lived with Caitlin for two years
and that is on the wane. I have started exploring
new relationships. I live in Seattle now.
Charlene is dead.
Charlene, in fact, didn't even live beyond 1994
or even into the next summer. She moved to
San Francisco where she increased her drug
habit, overdosed and died. This would have
been tragic on its own if it weren't part of a
trend. So now it seems meta-tragic. Charlene,
Roger and Brent, all running around San
Francisco strung out, buying from untrustworthy
people, losing their dignity.
I first met Brent in Seattle, very briefly. He said
I should come visit him in San Francisco. I did.
I visited him three times. Brent is someone you
will fall in love with. I don't know why, you
just will. Everyone does. He is not stunningly
gorgeous. He just has some characteristic -
maybe its pheromones, I don't know. Everyone
falls in love with Brent. This explains how he
could be a highly paid programmer for Charles
Schwabb with a pierced lip, tongue and assorted
other parts of his body.
The first time I went to San Francisco Brent
showed me around his neighborhood. The
second time we had sex into the wee hours of
the morning. The third time he announced he
was going to start doing drugs. He has since
disappeared and no one has a clue if he is still
alive.
I met Trevor for lunch one day in Portland. "I
got a call last night." He said, "Charlene
apparently did too much heroine and overdosed.
So she's dead now." The news seemed
simultaneously unreal and totally appropriate. I
could see it coming so clearly that it was as if it
were on Television. Charlene instantly became
one of the unknown Star Trek characters on an
away mission. If you didn't know them at the
start of the show they're sure to be fried by the
aliens by the end. The only obvious difference
being that I had eaten many meals with
Charlene. The discrepancy left me off balance,
which left me with my usual inadequate
response - to laugh at my own inability to
appropriately respond to the situation.
So I chuckled in an awkward way. I like to
think that Trevor knew what I was going
through and that he didn't think I saw any actual
humor in the situation.
Roger was my co-chair for the NAMES Project
in Seattle from 1991 to 1993. I only agreed to
be the co-chair in the first place because Roger
agreed to do it with me. He was the manager for
a group home for developmentally disabled
adults and had served with me on other non-
profit steering committees. He and I traveled to
Washington DC twice, San Francisco three
times, and Atlanta once. I think we went to
Vancouver once as well.
In 1995 he found out he was HIV positive -
shortly after he moved to San Franc isco. Then
he disappeared. No trace to be found. I can
only assume the same abusive gremlins grabbed
him.
After he found out about Charlene, Trevor sent a
letter to her mother saying that while Charlene
was alive she knew some bad people and did
some bad things, but that she also knew some
good people who loved her very much. I have
always been very moved by this. The impact of
receiving such a letter for me would be
indescribable.
A few weeks later, Trevor ended up in the same
part of the country as Charlene's mother and he
gave her a call. She wasn't home, so he left
voice mail saying that he was in town and if she
wanted to call she could and if she didn't that
he'd understand. One the last day he was there
she called. She said that she couldn't deal with
seeing him, but that didn't stop them from
having a long personal conversation about
Charlene which left them both laughing and in
tears - which is exactly what a conversation like
that should do.
At the end, Charlene's mother asked Trevor if
he'd like some of her ashes. He said he'd think
about it.
I don't know what role San Francisco plays in
this constant stream of death and disappearance,
but it certainly does seem significant. I feel that
in many ways Brent epitomizes the city. San
Francisco seems to be a city where you can
either work or play yourself to death. It is a
flury of activity, posturing and money.
Brent was in a position where he was making
over 100,000 dollars a year, putting in long
hours, living the dream. San Francisco provided
a base for him to achieve this success. But when
he wanted to start using, there was an equal and
active support structure there for him as well. I
was with him that first night when he went in
search of crystal meth. It took him less than 15
minutes to find it from a guy selling a Madonna
poster on the street.
"Madonna poster! Buy a Madonna poster" the
guy yelled. "Hey," he said to me and Brent,
"You wanna Madonna poster?" "No," Brent
said, "I was some Crystal." "Oh, okay," the guy
said. It was that simple.
It was two in the morning on Market Street. We
walked up into the Mission and Brent and his
new found friends that we'd picked up in the
Detour a few minutes before found an alley to
fix in. I said goodnight and left Brent for the
last time.
One night Karen and I went out with Trevor for
desert. After we finished Trevor asked if I'd
stop by so he could return some things of mine
he had borrowed. I agreed and we went up to
his apartment. In his room, under his disco ball,
was a Mason jar. "Is that was I think it is?" I
asked. "Yes," he replied." "A little jar of
Charlene." "That's pretty bizarre, Trevor." "I
have looked very closely and there are little bits
of bone in there. Little bits of Charlene."
When Roger told me he was HIV positive I
asked him if he knew when and how this
happened. I was annoyed that this had
happened and wanted to justify my annoyance.
Roger, like myself, was the co-chair of the
Seattle Chapter of the largest memorial in the
world, The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial
Quilt. We spoke at length to schoolchildren,
teamsters, college students, parishioners, white
collar workers, flaming homosexuals and the
gamut of other groups about safer sex, the Quilt,
loss and potential. At the time of Roger's call I
was housesitting for Tony, who was already
HIV positive. I had heard the news enough.
Roger told me that when he left the NAMES
Project and quit his job he became quite the
party boy - having sex almost non-stop, taking
drugs and drinking heavily. He said that he
knew exactly the night it had happened.
Someone talked him into something and that
was it - end of story. Roger asked me to stay in
touch, but immediately after the phone call he
disappeared. I now call the San Francisco
directory assistance once every two months or
so and ask for him. He never has a number. No
one knows where he is. He was last seen in
search of a program that gave free marijuana to
HIV positive people.
When Brent told me over an expensive dinner in
a chiq San Francisco restaurant that he was
going back on drugs he warned me off trying to
make him stop. I told him that there was no way
I could be successful at such a thing - especially
since I was living in Portland and he in San
Francisco. Especially since he never listened to
anyone at any time for any reason anyway. He
was self assured, head strong and egocentric.
All part of the reason that he was so attractive.
All part of his James Dean / Neal Cassaday self
destructive all American hero bent. We must
always pity our heroes.
When Charlene told Trevor that she was using
heroine she did it with the question, "It doesn't
bother you that I do heroine, does it?" I don't
recall what Trevor's exact reply was, but his
overriding response was to learn about it. He
read up on the medical effects of it, writings by
proponents, writings by foes. He did not want
to do it himself, but he did want to learn what it
was he was commenting on before passing
judgement. When he told me of Charlene's
pronouncement and his reaction, my reaction
was highly mixed. I admired Trevor's reaction
- but the personal knowledge that she was using
made me feel very small.
Even with HIV and AIDS, I feel like I have
some control over situations when people I
know end up with them. While the disease can
take several different courses, it has a large
support structure for those infected and I have a
large support structure as a loved one. In the
case of Charlene I felt utterly powerless.
Much of this powerlessness stemmed from the
face that Charlene was not a very close friend,
but merely someone I saw from time to time. I
therefore could not exercise any strong arm
tactics that one is allowed when one is a good
friend. I could merely watch the situation
devolve until it reached its predictable
conclusion.
When my friend Karrie met Brent for the first
time she was not looking forward to it. She was
certain that she would share nothing in common
with him. Here was this aggressive, macho
homosexual with piercing dotting his body
living the fast San Francisco lifestyle and a
young, straight, Christian budding family
therapist - what could they possibly share?
It did not take Karrie long to be won over by
Brent's charm, attentiveness and wit. She spent
the whole trip enjoying Brent's company and
being totally amazed that she was enjoying
Brent's company. She learned a lot from that
experience, as I too learned a lot from him.
So Ginsberg was not alone. We all watch the
best minds of our generation be destroyed by
madness. The madness varies from generation
to generation. We come up with new horrors
and add them to older ones. Our quest for the
novel ensures that each generation will have a
unique horror that they can hold over previous
generations.
However.
There is one reason above all else that the Quilt
is successful. It's not that it is a memorial, it is
not that it keeps us remembering names over
statistics, it is not that it is so god damn huge.
The Quilt is successful because it embraces the
totality of human existence. It does so by
providing an open forum for the expression of
personalities. In each Quilt section resides the
spirit of the memorialized and the person
making the memorial. Each panel represents
relationships. Personal, professional, spiritual
relationships.
Brent, Charlene and Roger are lost to me. Only
one of them is confirmed dead. They were
people of extreme potential. They were people
of love and wonder and questionable judgment.
In their legacy, however, I see people touched
and transformed. I see good work done. I see
the future of my generation.