Blood Splattered & Politically Incorrect

by Del James

  I'd seen them before. Addicts marked for death. Homo cancer. The Worm. I don't know if what happened last night caused the lesion to appear but as Good Morning America helped millions of people ease into a new day, it slowly dawned on me that not only was I a goddamn lycanthrope, I was probably HIV positive. A lot for anyone to absorb, let alone an addict struggling with addiction who isn't much of a morning person to begin with.

  June 5,1981, is the day most commonly recognized as the beginning of the AIDS pandemic. On this date the Center for Disease Control reported "five cases of a rare form of pneumonia" in West Hollywood. The new illness, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, weakened the immune system and could develop into its most advanced state---Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

  HIV can be passed from one person to another through blood, semen, vaginal fluid, or breast milk. It can cross any of the mucus membranes in the body, including the anus or rectum, penis, vagina, and mouth, or through cuts, sores, and veins. Most commonly it gets passed through sexual intercourse, needle sharing by intravenous drug users, and from mother to baby during pregnancy or after birth.

  Twenty-five medications have been approved in the U.S. for HIV treatment and supposedly many more are in development. Each medication falls into a class, and each class fights HIV a little differently. The best results stem from what is known as a "drug cocktail" or a regimen of drugs from the various classes. The combined effects are better at slowing the advancement of HIV than a single drug, but unless you're a Hall of Fame basketball player and your name is "Magic" none of these drugs will cure you. They will however slow the progression of the deadly illness.

  HIV medication regimens are determined by a person's viral load and T-cell count. The viral load is a measurement of the amount of HIV present in one's body. T-cells fight infection. The T-cell count measures the strength of a person's immune system and its ability to fight the disease. Both give an overall picture of the level to which the HIV-infection has progressed. A normal T-cell count would be somewhere between 500 and 600. Drug cocktail treatment begins when the count nears 200. I am currently 170. Standing over six feet tall, my body weight is considerably less than my T-cell count. I'd laugh at the irony but it hurts when I do.

  For the first few months I remained in denial. Not in denial about my afflictions but in denial about what the final result would be. Death is for other people. Besides, I felt okay. A little rundown but that's nothing new. With nothing to lose and because I'm easily swayed, I partied some but managed not to get strung out, keeping my usage in check.

  And once a month I turned into a powerful force of nature.

  And after every transformation, more lesions.

  Everyone has a different threshold of pain. My addictive personality could only withstand a certain level of addiction before becoming a slave to narcotics. When I hit that level I became someone who would rob from my family in order to stave off the Jones. A dishonorable sort who lost no sleep over committing crimes in order to feed my arm. A weakling who contemplated overdosing rather than face the slow death of withdrawal. But dope sickness ain't shit compared to this Auto Immune Death Sentence.

  Waiting in the departure lounge, trapped in a perpetual state of fever and throbbing muscle aches, sometimes my swollen lymph nodes hurt so much that I contemplated digging my fingers in and tearing them out. I know that's not exactly rational but I get urges. My mouth foams up with thrush, an oral yeast infection that even the nastiest glory-hole hooker winces at. Rancid drool continually seeps out of my chapped lips. Gaunt, discolored, and always exhausted, I seemingly bruise if the air-conditioning is on too high.

  At least everybody is sexy in Heaven.

  Funny how when something, be it a health issue or a human rights issue, doesn't affect you, most people tend to remain indifferent and blissfully ignorant. But the moment it becomes more than a nightly news story impacting other people, we all rush out to become first-person experts. I speak from personal experience. Prior to becoming infected, I couldn't have told you jackshit about blood diseases. Now that I'm tainted, you bet your sweet ass I could write a dissertation on the subject. I am not an activist by any means, just no longer a blank page.

  I don't believe there was a second shooter in the grassy knoll or any of the other famous conspiracy theories but I am a firm believer that the Reagan administration actively and systematically targeted minorities, addicts, and homosexuals for population reduction. Think about it and be honest, who did good ole' boys like Ronald Reagan and George Bush despise the most? Who are the dregs of white America? And wasn't it oh so very convenient that this virus miraculously targeted spics, niggers, faggots, and junkies, or at least it was supposed to? Depending on what side of the morality line you're dancing on, one might even say that AIDS was similar to a biblical plague sent to wipe out heathens, sodomites, and sinners. A kinder, gentler Final Solution.

  Oh, I'm sorry. Have I offended you by dropping N-bombs and comparing former Presidents of the United States to Nazis or implying that all Americans are not equal, especially when it comes to medical treatment?

  Blow me...but just make sure you lick around my pus-filled lesions, bccause until you've smelled yourself rotting away from the inside, you'll never really know the true definition of repulsive. Until you've felt your pores spewing hazardous toxins, you have no idea what disgusting really feels like. Imagine losing your appetite for everything. Or continually absorbing damage in a sluggish battle in which there is no plausible means of surviving.

  Tick-tock. Tick-tock. The warranty on my game clock will soon expire. Lord do I wish that instead of feeling sorry for myself and just getting fucked up for the first few months after contracting the disease that I had been proactive in terms of what I want to do with the rest of my life.

  I am cursed, and ironically, blessed by my affliction.

  Staring out the window, I'm currently in a hospital bed in Arkansas with an IV stuck in my arm. Nurses always ask the same questions but it takes too much out of me to answer. They don't push for a response. As far as they're concerned, I'm just another infected loser on his way to meet his maker but by law they have to provide for me and they do their best to try to ease my suffering. They think I won't be here much longer. They're right. I know the system so every month after my lunar cycle makeover, I clean off the blood and find a new hospital. Looking like a refugee wrapped in a horrid rash of multiplying lesions is my guaranteed admittance ticket.

  Since my first nocturnal transformation, each time I turn my physical condition gets worse. Considerably worse. It's gotten to the point that now I spend twenty-nine or thirty days bedridden in a different hospital, waiting for a reprise. Waiting to make my next move. I believe that it's that my yearning that keeps me from checking out permanently. I've got something to do. Something I doubt I can pull off and survive. Doesn't matter. At this stage in the game, a suicide mission is win-win for me.

  My plan is to try to make it into Texas. I'm not sure if I should stop in Louisiana and lay low for another month, or risk it all and shoot straight for the Lone Star State. Protocol of the wild dictates that during my time of the month I can't draw too much attention. Just gotta do my best to get to downtown Houston. Tanglewood is the exclusive neighborhood where the former President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, resides.

  Former CIA Director. Iran-Contra. The war on drugs. NAFTA. The Persian Gulf War. All kinds of seriously shady shit, right? Now I could be wrong but my guess is that if anybody knows how to treat the AIDS virus, it's George Herbert Walker Bush. He was Reagan's Vice President for two terms when the disease first made its way into the ghettos of North America. New World Order, anyone? And yes, I am fully aware that even though he is no longer the President he will still be under the protective eye of the US Secret Service. But unless the Secret Service started loading their firearms with silver bullets, getting to the former president might be within the realm of possibility.

  My condition is a threat to n
ational security.

  Last thing anyone would want is to get bitten by the likes of me, so unless George Sr. wants to start sprouting hair and howling at the moon he better have some answers. And if he wants to play hardball because lie's an old man and snarling threats won't work against him, I'll tell him my plan B right before sinking my sharp teeth into his flesh and ripping out his throat.

  I know where your sons live.

  I protected our country while you were sleeping.

  You voted every week on who should win American Idol, frantically trying to insure that your favorite candidate would go on to the next round---yet you couldn't be bothered to go to the polling booth every few years to cast a similar vote for who should represent you in the House and the Senate. You knew the name of your favorite reality show contestant. You knew how old they were and where they'd gone to school and what things they liked---and more importantly disliked. You followed them on Twitter and liked them on Facebook and were friends with them on every other social networking website, but you didn't know your current Congressman's first name and the only reason you knew his last name is because you saw it on a sign in someone's yard a week before the election. On Election Day, you didn't have time to vote in the morning because you were late for work, and you didn't have time in the evening because you had to get home in time to see the Biggest Loser results. You got mad when the local news channel ran a scroll bar at the bottom of the screen with the election results for your district, because, as you said, nobody cares about that.

  While you weren't voting, I voted for change, after a fashion.

  Your indifference and stupidity stems from your ignorance---and ignorance is bliss. You stay silent because they want you to be. They feed your contentment and keep you pacified with a steady diet of movies, television, pop music, and video games. In social gatherings, you like to think of yourself as well-informed and politically-aware, but you are not. You seem to think that if you watch the news or join in on the latest cause-of-the week online, that you are making a difference, but again, you are not. Sure, you watch the news, but what is it that you see? Instead of showing you footage from the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, or the deplorable state of our inner city neighborhoods or the rural areas of Appalachia, the media shows you pop starlets, sex scandals and celebrity marriages. You've never read the Constitution online, but your toolbar is full of links to funny animal videos on You Tube. When asked, you can't name the Bill of Rights but you can name all of the members of the latest boy band. You allow your children to idolize rappers who glamorize drug-dealing and murder and sexual promiscuity, and then act surprised when little Johnny gets busted for meth or little Janey ends up starring in a high school gymnasium gangbang, the grainy footage of which appears on all of her fellow students' cell phones. You watch the Grammy Awards, the Oscars and the Golden Globes. You watch police procedural dramas, hospital dramas and courtroom dramas. You watch sitcoms, documentaries and infomercials. You watch all these things, but you skip past C-SPAN.

  While you were channel-surfing, I was paying attention.

  You say that you are taking an active role. You say that you want your voice to be heard. You attend a tea party or a protest or a rally, and while you are there, you buy a T-shirt and bottled water, both of which have a slogan on them, and then you take a picture of yourself at the event and post it online so that others can see how involved you are. You root for your political party like you root for your favorite football team, but while the NFL has thirty-two teams to choose from, the American political process only has one. You cheer for the Republicans or the Democrats without understanding that they are the same tiling. You side with Fox News or with CNN and MSNBC, without ever understanding that all three are equally biased. The media doesn't report the news because there's no money in it. Instead, on the rare occasions when they interrupt coverage of that week's celebrity funeral, they simply parrot whatever their CEOs, shareholders and friends in the government tell them to report on. Our wars, our economy, our crime rate, our social mores --- all of these are reported on as a series of press releases, read to us by empty-headed, good-looking news readers. You loyally listen to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann as if they were Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and John Lennon, all come down from the mountaintop to impart some special wisdom on you, when all they are is empty, blathering, opinionated puppets. You debate on message boards and at cocktail parties, regurgitating what you've read and heard. You blindly echo their talking points without daring to think for yourself, swallowing whatever propaganda they are required to feed you this week. And when you do it, you smile and pat yourself on the back, secure in your cleverness and intelligence and participation in something you think matters.

  While you were feeling good about yourself, I got involved.

  You worry about getting cancer. You worry about terrorism. You worry about Islamic radicals and Christian cults and other religious fanatics out there on the fringe. You worry about pedophiles and serial killers and crazed gunmen and online stalkers. You worry about your job and your house and what your co-workers think of you. You worry about whether your wife knows about your affair with that old flame, and whether your husband knows about what you did with that guy you met when you and your girlfriends went to Vegas for a weekend. You are afraid of black people. You are afraid of white people. You are afraid of brown and yellow and red people. You are afraid of the gays and the trans-gendered. Of atheists and agnostics. Of Communists and Socialists and Fascists. You are afraid of growing old. You are afraid that your children don't love you any more. You are afraid that none of it mattered. You are afraid.

  While you were being fearful, I was being brave.

  You sat back and watched, doing nothing while our country was taken over by corporations and special interest groups, and our young men and women died in far-off lands for bullshit causes, and our jobs went overseas, and our courts became slow and ineffectual, and our children became illiterate, and our economy tanked, and our civil and human rights were trampled on and eradicated a little more each and every day. You couldn't be bothered to get out of your chair and run out into the street and protest. You lost that radical spirit, the revolutionary idealism that this country was founded on, a birthright that was reborn and renewed with every generation, until after the Sixties, when instead of asking what they could do for their country, people began asking what they could do for themselves. You swallow your anti-depressants and turn the television up louder and go back to sleep, because you believe that you can't make a difference by yourself.

  While you were sitting there, I got out of my chair and went to work at the lab. My employee badge has a red stripe, indicating the highest clearance and full access. While you were doing nothing, I walked into the cryogenic lab, took two vials of a deadly, highly-communicable experimental virus, and released them into the world. While you are part of the problem, I am the solution. I am a revolution of one.

  When this is over, perhaps there will be enough of us left to try again. Maybe the American Dream will live once more.

  While you were sleeping, I saved our country from the likes of you.

  Rowe Carlin was a divorced, balding, past-fifty, overweight black man, who also happened to be a big-time columnist for the biggest newspaper in Washington DC. When he wrote something, everybody paid attention, and he often got invited onto the weekend talking-head shows as a "pundit." On said programs and columns, he didn't just toe the party-line, he butt-kicked it all over anybody who disagreed with his predictable positions on abortion, school vouchers, affirmative action, and gun control.

  Affable and articulate, Rowe could expound on any hot-button subject with all the talking points memorized better than any of them. One of his favorites was how necessary it was to get handguns away from everybody. Of course, he never bothered to tell them he didn't include himself in that particular group of everybodies; and felt very comfortable living with that double standard.


  In fact, he felt downright vindicated when he was awakened at 3:00 a.m. by the sound of the lock on his patio doors being violated. At first, he couldn't believe it! Some goof actually had the balls to break into his three-story Georgetown townhouse...

  Well, that's just fine. Because Rowe Carlin had something good for his punk-ass....

  Reaching into the nightstand, Rowe produced his favorite piece---a 9mm Glock in polished stainless. Full clip, safety off.

  Let's dance.

  Still in his Armani pajamas, Rowe padded down the back stairs. He could hear the hinges of the patio doors creak as the intruder entered his tastefully decorated parlor. Footsteps on the Barcelona tiles. Rowe eased silently through the kitchen, looked around the corner of the door. He saw a figure shrouded in a hooded sweatshirt, rimed in moonlight, searching for anything of value.

  Without a moment of hesitation, Rowe dropped to one knee, raised his weapon in a two-handed grip and squeezed off three quick slugs into the guy, who dropped like the sack of shit he was. Turning on the lights, he wasn't surprised to see it was a young, black crack-head he'd killed. Rowe smiled at a job well done.

  Beyond the backyard garden wall, the siren of a police cruiser grew louder, closer.

  They can not catch me like this. The embarrassment of being exposed as a...a mountebank spurred him to act quickly.

  Rowe was a big guy, still strong. With one arm he hefted the punk's body over his shoulder fireman-style, then out of his house, across the patio and through the back gate. When he reached the alley, he bent over to heave the corpse near the entrance to P Street---just as the black-and-white entered from the opposite end, flashers strobing everything in harsh blues and reds.