Skyscraping (12 page)

W
AXING
G
IBBOUS
M
OON

day

0

wake up

hardly slept, my palms scattered with crescent

marks from my nails dug in, he’s

awake, alive, i grin and

kiss him on his

cheek on the way

to school       april

Come straight home after school,

Dad’s showered and dressed.

I ask him, sun bright,

if he’d like to take a walk with me.

A new coffee shop just opened,

Starbucks, does he want to try it.

We walk, slowly, hand in hand,

to 87th and Broadway.

We get things called Venti Frappuccinos,

which sound ridiculous but taste delicious—

and I don’t think about

who sees or doesn’t see

his AIDS face.

I just sip sweet sips.

Dad talks about all the big businesses

taking over Manhattan:

Tower Records,

Banana Republic.

How we’re living

in a changing city.

Then he says, smiling,

sun blasting through the windows,

and I’m alive to see it.

April heads downtown

with James

to stuff envelopes for a GMHC mailing.

This time, I don’t ask to join,

just tell her I’m coming, bring Dylan.

On a crowded 9 train,

we hang on to silver poles,

where so many fingerprints

have already left their mark.

Think about how many places

these people are going,

wonder how many to the

same street,

same building,

how many lives

are constantly overlapping.

Wonder if flutters of hope

(like mine)

can pass

from person to person

without so much

as a touch or

glance.

I.

The Gay Men’s Health Crisis sign

waves proudly in the breeze.

The mailing’s in full swing.

Keith Haring posters everywhere,

men and women

talking over each other,

snacks and drinks.

Reminds me of a Yearbook meeting

except April, Dylan and I

are the only teenagers.

I wonder if any of these people

have children of their own.

I’m in charge of sticking address labels

on postcards.

I lay them out alphabetically,

pull them off delicately,

careful not to rip.

April licks the stamps.

Dylan stacks the postcards in messy piles,

shoos me away

when I start straightening them,

laughs, says
don’t even think

of micromanaging me.

April smiles.

II.

James knows everyone here.

Like he’s in charge,

keeping things organized,

pouring Coke,

sneaking April extra Doritos.

Dylan talks about his cousin,

now suffering with pneumonia.

James shows us proofs

for new safe sex ads

for the buses and subways, asks

for our “youthful opinion.”

As if James is so old?

April tells me James is here

almost all the time

when he’s not teaching,

playing music,

caring for Dad.

I think about how our lives don’t just overlap

with other people’s, but how

inside each person

we are

so many selves

all at once.

In Peer Mentorship,

we discuss safe sex.

Condoms, pamphlets.

Mr. R introduces the topic,

then steps into the hall.

Two Freshmen blow condom balloons,

toss them back and forth.

Girls laugh.

Heat swells inside me.

I erupt:

My dad’s dying from AIDS.

It’s not just happening in Africa.

Condoms aren’t a joke.

You need to be safe.

Their mouths hang open.

I’m sure they’ve heard the rumors

but it is different

to hear the truth spoken directly.

The condom balloons whiz to the ground.

And even though the windows are closed,

and the fans are turned off,

the air feels like it’s moving.

S
OLAR
E
CLIPSE
, M
AY
10, 1994

Mr. Lamb leads us out

to watch the sky,

clutching our pinpricked cardboard

for the solar eclipse.

We herd across the street.

As the sky grows dark,

Dylan asks me—in a whisper—

if I want to go to prom with him.

I smile as

the always-lit New York City

goes dark for a bit

of day.

Moon and sun,

the same for the moment.

Together, light and dark, they make something

more beautiful than when alone:

A moon with sun’s rays.

A sun the color of moon.

And then I tell Dylan

I’ll go to prom with him

if he’ll do something in return:

march alongside

me and my family

in the AIDS Walk.

For Dad, for his cousin.

I thought you’d never ask,

Dylan says, smiling,

hugging me,

just as the sun reemerges

from behind

the blanket of the moon.

April and I walk

from school

to street corner

to store,

passing out

flyers

for the AIDS Walk.

We curve through the crowded blocks,

shoulder to shoulder,

stream through the streets.

Carol at the Starlight Diner

lets us put a stack

on the windowsill.

Chloe puts some up

in her own neighborhood.

The movie theater won’t take the flyers.

Celestial Treasures does, of course.

Others fly away

in the early May winds.

The last place we hit

is Adam’s lobby.

Put some in an envelope,

label it 11C.

I might never hear from Adam again,

so he might never know:

when he pushed me out

I floated

into the black

and found there

the light of my family and true friends.

And like a real North Star

it guided me home.

AIDS W
ALK
, M
AY
22, 1994

I.

On the way there

April chatters about the history

of the Walk:

it started in 1984,

San Francisco,

there are Walks everywhere now,

even in Kansas,

she says.

I listen,

wonder what it will feel like,

marching with so many people

affected,

infected,

by this disease,

wonder if anyone’s story

is just like our own.

April and I meet up with Dylan,

join James, register walkers.

Hordes of people swarm

Central Park

with their papers.

A teenage girl, just my height,

comes to the table, pushing

a man in a wheelchair,

face and neck spotted with lesions.

Says she and her dad are here to register.

Her father looks much worse off than mine.

I wonder if she knows about astragalus,

pineapple juice, protein shots.

Wonder if she has anyone else to help

with her dying father.

Hand her the papers,

thank her for coming,

tell her it should be a great day.

She smiles weakly—

says
we need one of those.

Next:

two men,

a couple,

arms locked.

One flirts with James,

says the volunteers are getting better and better looking.

James laughs, gives them their papers.

One rests his head on the other’s shoulder.

Says he’s already tired, the other says

they’ll walk and rest.

Rest and walk.

They move on.

Some members of ACT UP

approach us with their own flyers,

I recognize the slogan:

SILENCE = DEATH.

For the first time

I think I know what this means.

How silence

breeds secrecy, shame.

How I hurt myself

being silent.

How silence can ruin

lives.

April and James speak Spanish

with an older woman,

who says she’s here to march for

her son, who’s in the hospital.

Chloe arrives,

wearing layers of rainbow clothes.

Birds tweet in trees,

the sun sits high in the sky,

masses of people ready to march,

spilling out

into the streets,

red ribbons on display,

they begin to cheer,

wave rainbow flags.

I look around and wonder how

I ever could have

thought myself

alone.

II.

We meet Mom,

who’s pushing Dad

in a wheelchair of his own.

Waving a small flag.

We burst onto Central Park West,

turquoise sky sloping between

one building and the next,

walking north,

up, up,

we all take turns pushing Dad.

The sky splinters and darkens.

Volunteers pass out ponchos, Gatorade.

Mom puts Dad’s hat on.

James grabs him a drink.

As we walk,

I see that girl again

with her father,

and I notice

another man with them now,

and a woman.

Flanking them.

She looks at me,

and sort of waves.

I sort of wave back.

Two families

in reflection.

III.

On Riverside,

past our own apartment building,

rain threatens but then

the sky settles back

into baby blue.

James shouting,
Fight back! Fight AIDS!

We join in.

Dylan and Chloe compete

to see who can yell the loudest.

There’s no rainbow in the sky

but I wave my flag high.

April grins,

holding her crystal necklace

into the sun,

where it splashes

its own tiny rainbow

onto my arm.

Last quarter moon,

Dad still hanging on.

Forty-two days longer than they said he would.

Can he make it longer still?

To graduation?

Beyond?

Open my Astro textbook,

search for an answer,

stare at photo after photo of nebulas.

They may only be gas shells

produced by dying stars—

a star’s last wish—

but they look like

fireworks,

red, purple clouds

of hope—

a
yes

suspended

in a wide-open

sky.

Yearbook’s out.

Grab Chloe, to the stairwell,

flip through it together.

The front page quote, my idea, still reads:

When we look to the stars

we are looking back in time . . .

Cliques sit in star clusters,

faculty fly in rocket ships,

whole grades in constellations.

I’m not listed as editor,

or even on staff,

but my ideas

sparkle and light up

the pages.

I know, in a small way, I

helped make

something

lasting.

I carry a small rainbow flag in my pocket,

the one Dad held during the Walk.

Tell Chloe

I have to go

somewhere alone,

I’m okay.

When I get there,

use my old key.

Sit down at that long white counter.

Open the drawer.

Take a minute to

sort the paper clips

from the tacks

from the erasers.

Then, go to the yearbooks,

and next to the spine of the 1976 edition,

I stick in the tiny flag.

Watch the rainbow

throw its color all over

that white room.

Prom night.

Put up my hair.

Put my dangly earrings on.

Step into my blue dress.

Dad says I look like a mermaid.

Mom takes pictures.

The mirror, like a camera,

freezes time in a flash,

catching all of us

inside of it

for one brief

moment.

I.

Last year,

on the dance floor,

I twirled in,

Adam spun me out.

Tonight, I focus on Dylan.

Notice for the first time

a Saturn ring of yellow

surrounding the soft brown

of his eyes.

II.

At the after-prom party,

Adam and I

kept to ourselves.

We sipped Sprite,

toasted to summertime

while everyone else

cheered and clinked

glasses of champagne.

Tonight we take a limo

to a classmate’s beach house.

On the way—Dylan’s hand

on my leg, casually, like it’s always

been there. Chloe, in a pink slip dress,

with some new guy

who seems nicer than the others.

The air’s just warm enough

to roll down the windows,

stars blinking at us all the way

to the beach.

III.

My head spins

as Dylan and I lie

back in the grass

on the front lawn.

Dylan draws

small circles

on my inner

wrist.

My dad’s lived

six weeks more

than they said he would.

I say it twice.

The second time

a tear rolls down

my cheek.

He kisses

it

away.

Pointing up to the sky,

he traces Orion’s Belt

with his finger,

I grab it

when it comes back down.

He draws me in,

I don’t pull away.