PAGE 10 Q-Notes ■ May 1987
\
\
Men Playing
Safe
With Men
McdeAlen
Models 364-4967
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES AVAILABLE
A FAMILTS STORY
The First Day Back
From The Hospital
EDITOR'S NOTE: For three months, you have read the story of a Charlotte-area
mother and lather whose gay son, living in New york, has AIDS. Now, through
associate editor Mark Drum, meet Bobby, the 30-year-old PWA who has found a
new serenity amidst the indignities of AIDS.
By MASK DSUM
Associate Editoi
In Bobby's New York City apartment, the living room, high above harried streets,
is tasteful and filled with treasured art collected over the years. Medical supplies
and prescription medicines fill the kitchen and flow into the hall. Classical music lilts
in the background, counterpoint to constantly interrupting phone calls, nursing
support personnel, friends, and family. It is a typical first day
home from the hospital, where Bobby has spent five of the last six
weeks.
He sot across from me, at once a stranger and a friend I had
grown to know through his parents. He wore jeans and sweater.
His face streamed emotions. This was our first meeting.
One of the three nurses sent by agencies comes to take his
blood pressure, looking for adverse reaction to either of two
drugs administered intravenously through a Hickman implant in
his chest.
Bobby's mother later asked me how he looked, and I could
only say "fabulous." From pictures and video tapes I had seen, I
was prepared for the worst. I expected to see ravages I had come to expect from
someone suffering a terminal illness. 1 was wrong — the first of my misconceptions
about AIDS patients.
For an afternoon, I became part of his world; part of his hopes and fears. I found
in him a man driven with commitment to telling what he has learned and what the
rest of us need to know to survive. His story is laced ■with anger, hope, depression
and a ■will to live; a story not so much of dying, but of learning to live each day
more fully than many of us dream possible.
"It's all up to the individual," he told me time and again. "If people don't take
individual responsibility for their actions, it ■will catch up to them."
Bobby addresses the apathy in both the straight and gay communities concern
ing the reality of AIDS.
"What they ■will find is that the fear of the disease will start closing in on them," he
said. "It ■will get closer and closer. First, it ■will be a son of a friend, then a friend, then
a family member. 'Then, they ■will realize that they must reach out to those who hove
it and educate those who don't. We must teach children how to ovoid it, and
health-care professionals how to work ■with people who have it. These are being
done in the larger cities; they're way ahead of (much of) the South where people
are sitting around waiting for it to become a problem."
CONTINUED, NEXT PAGE
DSUM
After Work...
Seven Days A Week.
You're professional. You know
your company makes it possible
to enjoy the fine things in life.
But it's hard not to watch the
clock with Stevens waiting one
hard spit from uptown.
After all, nowhere else in
Charlotte can you enjoy the
friends you want to see —
outside ... on the porch, the
waning sun feeling good on your
face. A cool refresher In hand.
Free munchies an elbow away.
You know business. You know
Stevens just had to start opening
every day after work. With
dinner just down the stairs and
potential friends ambling in
moment by moment. And with
those little adult toys just Inside
on the upstairs bar.
Besides, you wanted today's
bar special. You appreciate the
variety. Sure, not all of them are
your fancy, but your favorite is a
bartender's seconds away.
Ah, yes, the weekend's sooni
But in the meantime, today's
speciall And perhaps a sandwich
just before leaving for home.
MONDAY: Draft.
TUESDAY; Bourbon.
4-1 Mon-Frl
11:30-1 Sat-Sun
Gcuj^ and/^cPi
WEDNESDAY: Domestic beer.
THURSDAY; Beck's and
Watney's.
And SUNDAY: Bloody Marys
and Champagnel
And you're marking Thursday,
May 14, on the calendar for an
especially early arrival. Pleasant
hours on the porch before
watching Charlotte's largest
fireworks display; the $25,000
World 600 Festival explosion
engineered from about an eighth
of a mile away.
Yes, that's during Drummer
Week when Stevens has special
drink prices for anyone dressed
in leather.
Think about it. Stevens after
work... seven days a week.
316 Rensselaer
377-1221