Death On Every Page

Diagnosed in 1992, mere months after Freddie Mercury’s death, Bennett figured his own was right around the corner. For nine months afterward he wore only black and existed solely by candlelight. Italian operas provided the soundtrack to his solitude. His neighbors complained, but only to each other. They whispered that it would only be a matter of time before Puccini and Bizet would take their final bow.

He checked daily in the mirror for the trademark signs of death. Monitoring the circles under his eyes, composing a mental chart to compare the darkness to the day before. At first he turned his friends away, and after a few months, most gave up and stopped coming- there were others to tend to.

Dayton, his partner, shared his love of good wine and campy movies and unknowingly shared the virus. Dayton’s diagnosis came first and had shaken them both. They buried more friends than they liked to acknowledge, and the day of each funeral also brought a new batch of tests “just to be sure,” a sad little ceremony done to honor their departed friends and to reassure themselves of their health. 

And then, after three years, Dayton’s results came back positive. How was not important, and Dayton didn’t stay long enough to elaborate. Within a week he had purchased a plane ticket to Belize and left everything previously important to him behind. Bennett received a single post card six months later, a classic beach sunset on the front, and a shaky “Wish you were here” scrawled on the back. Not exactly famous last words.

So when Bennett received his own diagnosis shortly after Dayton’s departure, he already felt abandoned. He kept the curtains drawn and stopped answering the phone and waited for a common cold to become all-consuming and kill him. But simply waiting to die became boring, and also, exhausting. If he forgot about the invader in his bloodstream, his health was better than most. He slowly resumed his life pre-diagnosis, and when antiretroviral drugs were released a few months later, he added the cocktail to the multitude of vitamins he already took each morning with a glass of orange juice.

The side effects were sometimes debilitating, but he considered it a small exchange for a decade of memories and experiences he thought he would never live through. He knew he was lucky, that the drugs only prolonged the inevitable. He still went to funerals, but as he got older that number was less. He also attended weddings and graduations. These days, the celebrations outnumber the tragedies, and for Bennett, that’s enough.