Ryan White - My Own Story (29 page)

“Sure,” I said. I listed a few landmarks.

“Good for you!” Michael said. “But now let me drive!” When we caught up with Mom and the girls, it was getting late. We had homemade pizza for supper, and then it was time for us to drive back to L.A. I told Michael that I really, really wanted a photo of us together. So he sent someone out for a Polaroid camera, and drove down with us to the ranch’s entrance. Mom got some good shots, and then we said good-bye.

As the limo headed for the highway, Heather covered her face with her hands, shook her hair back and forth, and started laughing and laughing and laughing. She’d gotten excited when we went to see
Cats
in New York and the actors dressed as cats came down into the audience. But not like this.

“I just can’t believe it! I just can’t believe it!” she cried. “We spent the day with Michael Jackson.
I can’t believe we were with Michael Jackson
.”

B
ACK HOME
Andrea was making a giant comeback in roller skating. Five years ago she’d been one of the top five skaters in her age group. Then I was diagnosed. But in June Andrea won first prize in her age division for the state. In July she finished first at the regionals in Detroit. That meant she was eligible for the nationals, which were going to be held in August in Fort Worth.

Matt Frewer sent Andrea her plane tickets. He wanted a video of her performance. He called afterward and asked, “How’d she do? How’d she do?”

Andrea did great. She finished third. She was pleased, she said, because the girls who took first and second were better than she was. Finally, there was another White in the newspapers and magazines.

Right around then, a car salesman in Noblesville called me. “I have a red Mustang here for you,” he said. “It’s from Michael Jackson.”

Mom wasn’t overcome with shock. She had some idea what was coming. Michael’s office had called and asked her, “Now what was the car Ryan told Michael he liked?” Michael and I kept up with each other on the phone. Sometimes we talked twice a week, a lot of the time about cars. And when I thought back, I remembered that Michael had seen me by the pool at the ranch, leafing through
Mustang Monthly.

Mom, Andrea, and I rode over together to pick up my new car. I started grinning like a Halloween pumpkin when I saw it. It was exactly what I wanted: red with a black and gray plaid interior and a sunroof. It even had oversized tires and deluxe wheels—really fancy for a Mustang. I put on my Oakleys and took off. I wanted to show it to everyone I knew. I had an appointment with Dr. Kleiman at the hospital in Indianapolis, so I whizzed down.

In the hospital parking lot, I had to back up in a hurry. I forgot to check my rear view. All of a sudden I felt a thud and heard a loud crunch. Uh-oh. I looked in the mirror—a little bit late. I could see a man with a beard pounding his fists on his steering wheel.

I got out and walked back to his car. “I’m
real
sorry, Dr. Kleiman,” I said. This wasn’t exactly how I’d planned to show off my car. Thank goodness there was no damage! Whew.

“I think Dr. Kleiman’s mad at me,” I told Mom that night. “You won’t believe what I did . . .”

Time to write to Michael. “Thanks a million for the Mustang,” I started out. “Gee, IT’S GREAT. It really brightened up my summer. It came just in time too. The local Mustang club is having a show with hundreds of old and new Mustangs.” Steve Ford and I had been looking forward to it. I told Michael, “Now I can enter mine and join the club.”

I added, “I
hope
to get the windows tinted really dark so no one can see in. Maybe if you come here we can go for a ride.”

I even made the ultimate sacrifice and took the car up to Kokomo to show my relatives. Grandpa and I were out cruising when I realized there was one person I really wanted to see my red Mustang.

“Grandpa,” I said, “can we drive past Dad’s house?”

We did, but there was no one home. I went back again. This time, there was a “For Sale” sign out front. As far as I could tell, Dad had moved, and I didn’t know where. He had never seen Andrea skate. He didn’t realize I had friends who cared so much for me. I wanted to tell him he was missing a lot.

I
STARTED
my junior year, but that didn’t keep me off the road. I was in my car every spare minute. Everyone in town knew my car and how I’d gotten it.
It
was famous! Kids asked, “What’s Michael Jackson really like? How about Kareem?” Adults asked too. I said, “Oh, he’s nice.” Or I mumbled something I hoped wouldn’t attract much attention—I knew some kids were jealous, thinking I had such a great life knowing celebrities. I guess they forgot I was also sick.

One day Mom was in the school office borrowing a copy of
USA Today.
She wanted to see a photo they’d run of me. Someone had scrawled in the margin, “I hope you DIE!”

“I’d like to ask that kid if he’d swap places with you,” she said. “I bet the answer would be the longest silence.”

E
VERY SUMMER
I feel like I’m over AIDS, and in the fall, when it turns cold, I always feel chilled and I’m sick again. This fall I had a hernia, which meant that it hurt to sit, stand, or walk. My liver was acting up, and sometimes my stomach was so bloated I couldn’t see my feet. I looked like I was having a baby. I was having fevers again, and I felt like I’d been coughing my whole life. For a third of it, I had. I sounded like a weak car battery, turning over and over and over again.

By October I was too worn-out to go to school for more than a couple of days in a row. Just carrying my books from my locker to class was enough to drag me out. It didn’t help to think that I should have graduated by now.

To top off my troubles, Heather and I decided to go our separate ways. I missed her. I hoped we’d end up being best friends again. I knew she’d put up with some bad stuff on my account. She had had nasty notes left in her locker too. One time I called her at her baby-sitting job, and some other sitter answered. I tracked Heather down at home.

“How come you’re not working?” I asked.

“I lost the job,” she said.

“What’d you do?” I asked, just to be pesky.

“I’m your friend,” she reminded me. “The woman said she couldn’t take the chance.”

That was Heather’s second baby-sitting job gone for the same reason. I felt sad she’d had to pay for hanging out with me. And I felt almost eighteen and very lonely.

I had to go into the hospital so Dr. Kleiman could decide what to do about my hernia. I was lying around waiting for the next test when another doctor walked into my room.

“Well, Ryan,” she said in a super-cheerful way. “Any girlfriends?”

For a moment I looked at her blankly. I couldn’t figure out what she was driving at. Then something clicked in my head. I was going to get a lecture on safe sex.

I don’t get upset over IVs and all the stuff that happens to you in the hospital. But now I was fuming.

“Where’s Dr. Kleiman?” I yelled. I could hardly speak.
“He’s
my doctor!”

The woman doctor left in a hurry. When Dr. Kleiman showed up, I said, “I don’t ever want her coming near me again.”

“She won’t,” Dr. Kleiman promised.

After all the tests, Dr. Kleiman said the doctors couldn’t operate on my hernia because thanks to AIDS, my blood platelet count was too low. Even with Factor and transfusions of platelets, my blood wouldn’t clot enough. Surgery was too dangerous. There was nothing anyone could do. I just had to live with the pain. Well, I would. I had bad days, when just taking a shower and getting dressed was enough to exhaust me. But I always got dressed. I never was bedridden. I knew I had good days too, and I wanted to be ready. Plus I was still waiting to meet the right girl.

One halfway decent day I was up to going to Tipton and cruised by the Pizza Hut. John Huffman was there with his new girlfriend and her best friend, a pretty sophomore named Steffonie Garland. Steffonie had brown hair down to her waist. She had done a lot of gymnastics, and now she was a varsity cheerleader.

I asked John to tell his girlfriend to tell Steffonie that I liked her. She came to a surprise party we had at Pizza Hut for Andrea’s sixteenth birthday. And on Steffonie’s birthday, John and his girlfriend and Andrea and I took her to Chi Chi’s. I made Steffonie stand straight up on a chair while we all clapped and cheered.

Andrea 16th birthday party, 1989. John Huffman is in the top row, left. Steffonie Garland is in the top row, center. Ryan is at Steffonie's left. Andrea is in the bottom row, third from left.

When I turned eighteen in December, I was in poor shape, though I did manage to go out for Mexican food. My nose was always runny, and I had laryngitis again. One day I could hear; the next day I couldn’t. I had bloody noses and had to have Factor almost every day. And I was sick and tired of people asking me how I was, especially my relatives.

“I’m doing okay,” was all I’d say.

“I’m your uncle,” my uncle Tommy answered me back.
“I want to know.”

Well, he had to go get the list of my problems from Mom. Most of the time I was still well enough to bug my family to go to the movies. One night Uncle Tom, Aunt Deb, and all my cousins piled into our van with Mom, Andrea, and me. I was sitting up front and I turned the heater up full blast. The others all had down parkas and heavy winter coats on, but they didn’t say a word.

On bad days I had to rely on the phone for social life. Michael called to say he was busy working on an album. He was in the studio every day. In between he had to pose for pictures.

“Oh yeah!” I said. I knew what
that
was like. “You have to smile for so long! Then the photographer says something corny like, ‘Smile just like you smiled earlier!’ I always want to say, ‘Give me a mirror so I can check.’ ”

“We’ve got to get together and goof off again,” Michael said. He wanted to know if I could come back out to the ranch after Christmas.

Well, when Michael invites you, you don’t say maybe. Dr. Kleiman knew I wanted to keep going, and that trips to California kept me going. I could count on him to get me on that plane. So I told Michael, “You can bet on it.”

Carrie Jackson Van Dyke wasn’t a TV reporter anymore. She worked for the State Department of Health now. She asked me to make some public service announcements for TV and radio about AIDS, and to pose for a poster. I’d earn some money I could spend in California.

FOR TEENAGERS ONLY:
FROM RYAN WHITE

You hear a lot of strange stories about sex and drugs and AIDS.

That can get you in a lot of trouble.

Wise up.

Don't let someone feed you a line and don't be afraid to ask questions.

Find out for yourself.

FOR CONFIDENTIAL ANSWERS
TO YOUR QUESTIONS CALL:

The Indiana AIDS Hotline:
1-800-848-AIDS

The National AIDS Hotline:
1-800-342-AIDS

The Indiana State Board of Health poster featuring Ryan.

I was worried about looking sick on camera, so I got a little help from Carrie’s makeup. “I didn’t have a choice, but you do,” I told kids. “AIDS is spread by ignorance.”

Carrie brought my check for doing the announcements to Riley, where I was waiting for Dr. Kleiman to declare me fit to travel. I wasn’t sure what he’d say. I had a big stomach that day.

“Carrie!” I said, pulling up my shirt. “I look like you did when you were pregnant!”

Now, Carrie’s seen it all, but for a split-second, she looked shocked. That’s just what I’d been hoping for.

Dr. Kleiman saw no reason why I couldn’t visit Michael. I love Christmas, but this year I couldn’t wait for December 28, when I was taking off. Mom and I hung all our favorite ornaments and watched
Miracle on 34th Street
for the five hundredth time. I still loved seeing the little girl who didn’t believe in Santa and how she found out that he’s real. Andrea could care less about fussing over Christmas, the way Mom and I like to.

“Remember how long I believed in Santa, Mom?” I asked her.

“Yes, and I remember how Andrea used to laugh at you,” Mom said.