testing

-- A camper in Pennsylvania

Tell me why a group of teenagers would sign up for an AIDS lecture on a summer Saturday morning? What brought you here?

Because AIDS seems like one of the most important topics now. Because we are teenagers and sex is a main factor in our lives. And 'cause AIDS is such a huge problem and causing people to get ill and die just because they are having sex.

I think you could never be educated enough about it. In my health class, we did a whole three days on AIDS. But all you heard were the statistics and I figured that this workshop would be a lot more educational.

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This is what I simply don't understand. In high school, you have pre-calc or chemistry or social studies every day. Why don't you have AIDS education every day? Or classes in self-esteem and self-confidence and learning refusal skills -- every day?

I've heard other speakers on AIDS and it seems like everybody's story is totally different about what happened to them. I think it's important to hear all the different stories because it didn't just happen to one life.

What would you like to know about my story?

What was it like to tell your parents?

All I will say is that I never truly knew the color of my mother's eyes, until I saw them the moment I told her.

What made you decide to get tested and what was it like?

I got tested because I knew that I was playing with fire. I knew I was fooling around without a condom. I also got an acute onset, the flu-like symptoms that sometimes come when your bloodstream is converting from negative to positive. Since my sex partner told me he was born with syphilis, I thought maybe it was that. I was praying it was. Can you imagine praying for syphilis? Think about it for a second. Because if it wasn't that, then maybe it was the onset of HIV infection.

What was your first reaction when you found out?

I was in a clinic in New York City and it was 10:00 in the morning. Someone called my number, 224, ironically my homeroom number from high school. I went to the next waiting room. I sat there and waited. I watched a tall man disappear into one office, get a folder which I believed to be mine, then disappear into another office. Back and forth, back and forth, from office to office, with this folder in his hand. After a while, I started to worry, until he finally called me in.

With the folder now open, he was leaning against the front of a grey metal desk. It was the kind my grade school teachers had, and I instantly remembered being back in fifth grade getting caught picking at the scotch tape stuck to the side of Mr. Campbell's desk. I knew it was a "wrong thing to do" but I couldn't help breaking the rules...just this once.

"My name is Larry," he said. His voice brought me back into the room. He looked down at the papers in the folder and back up at me and then down again. And I thought, "I'm so vulnerable in this moment. This moment is lasting forever. And there's nothing I can do about it. I feel short. I feel young. I feel afraid. He can change my life forever with one word: yes or no, positive or negative. This man whom I've never seen before may never leave my memory." And as I'm waiting for that moment to hit me, I noticed how he was just leaning there, his body weighted against the edge of the desk, with one arm behind him, this stranger holding my future in the folder in his hand.

"Okay," he said. Yet even during the pronunciation of that one small word I was still aware of the cruelty of time and how it seemed to keep stretching. "Well, here are the results. And... I'm... sorry... it's positive... but before you..."

And in the next moments between the words "it's positive" and "but before you...," I lived an entire lifetime.

The room went white. My life went white. Everything was stark and I thought, "OK, we're gonna just survive here. We're gonna just stay alive. We're gonna just do this one day at a time, one minute at a time, one millisecond at a time."

Then I saw a picture in my mind of my mother wiping a brown dresser with a white rag. It was my childhood bedroom at home on a Sunday morning, and I was just returning from Hebrew School. And everything on that dresser was gone. Wiped away. She was wiping everything away.

The second thing I saw was my mother in the room standing behind me but facing the other way. In the movie in my mind, with the same white rag, she was wiping the windowsill in the room in that clinic, looking out onto the drug-infested streets of 9th Avenue. And I realize now the connection: the end of innocence, the abolishment of my childhood.

The third thought was whether I would ever be able to have children of my own, and the dangers involved in impregnating a woman.

The fourth thought I had was of my father and the time when I was a little boy on Christmas break from grade school. My father took me to his school where he used to teach. We were going to spray paint some weights in the gym but I couldn't get the paint can to spray. So like any normal, curious and not careful nine year-old, I looked at the nozzle and pressed down on it and sure enough it was working. My father rushed me to the bathroom and washed all the yellow paint out of my eye. First, I was scared because he was scared. And then I relaxed because he relaxed. He took care of it as fathers are supposed to do, as we expect them to do. And in this moment, in the fourth millisecond after I heard, "I'm sorry...it's positive," I saw my father, back when I was nine years old, and I heard him say to me, "I'm sorry, Scotty. This time I can't get you out of this. I can't take this one away."

My mind came back to the room when I heard the counselor say to me, "...but before you leave here today, I want to give you some phone numbers to call. I don't ever want to see your face again. You'll be fine. You're young and strong and healthy. You should have no problems."

When you are in crisis, time slows down and moments move in slow motion. You become aware of every single thought behind every single thought. Sometimes I think that's actually what is meant by "living in the moment," being completely aware of where you are and what you are experiencing. My entire life was in front of me and behind me and all these pictures and images were playing on the screen in my mind, a millisecond at a time. You've heard the expression, "I saw my whole life pass before my eyes." Well, I saw my whole future pass before my eyes and I wanted it more than ever before.

Did you ever doubt God?

My brother, Norman, once said to me: "Scotty, everybody loses God. We find Him when we need Him." When I heard the words "I'm sorry, it's positive...," I needed God then. I knew that God probably had something to say to me. And I was ready to listen.

It seems to me that in order to doubt God you must first believe in God. Remember that while part of you is doubting, there's that other part that is believing. And if you can just witness that, in part, you are still believing...you're not totally doubting, are you? Think about it.

My goals and dreams and aspirations are the same as yours. I still want the same things you want, happiness, love, friendship, a long life and a lot of attention. But knowing that I'm HIV positive is important too because I can watch my bloodwork closely, measure the level of stress in my life, make the necessary changes, try different kinds of therapies and most of all, go after my dreams. There's work to be done. So I think it was a good thing that I got tested.

Now should you get tested? Well, that's your choice. But think about it before you do. If you get tested and the results are positive, what would you do? Where would you go? Would you be okay not knowing? All I can tell you is that I'm glad I know. Because if I didn't know that I was infected, I would never be the person I am today -- able to just be here in front of you.

So what did that experience teach me? It taught me that we all have a lifetime, we just don't know how long that lifetime will be. And it taught me that life is made up of moments that never leave us; that in this moment, everything exists. We don't know what the next moment is, so this one is the most important. And what is the most important thing about this moment? It has something to do with support, compassion, caring and love. I'm no different than any of you. I'm really not. It's just that I have a daily reminder that this day is the only day. And as a result, what matters most is what happens right here and right now. All of you in this room.

© 1997 by Scott Fried
Published by Scott Fried, PO Box 112 Old Chelsea Station, New York, NY 10113

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