I’m not a fan of memoirs. I find a lot of them to be
self-serving justifications for past behavior, spinning a fictional tale that
presents the narrator as either a victim or hero. And while AIDS is an issue I’ve
been involved with since the 80s, Sean Strub’s Body Counts was not a book I was excited about reading.
Strub changed my mind on page 2, when he mentioned
that a mutual friend, Jamie Leo, dressed as a priest at ACT UP’s controversial 1989
St. Patricks’ Cathedral demonstration. My mind flashed back to a Halloween
party Jamie and I had attended in the mid-70s, and I now found myself connected
to Strub’s story in a way I hadn’t anticipated.
Body
Counts is the not the story of a victim or even a hero. It’s
the story of a man at a unique time and place, a man with personal demons and
challenges he used to fuel a quite remarkable life.
A native of Iowa City (where I went to college),
Strub’s interest in politics takes him to Washington in the late 70s, a good
time for liberals. His growing awareness of being gay – and the ways his early,
as yet unacknowledged, sexual abuse play out – occurs in a gay community still largely
closeted. That immersion in politics led him to a career in direct mail
fundraising for gay issues. His move to New York coincided with the discovery
of a new, strange, and frightening virus that targeted gay men.
Not all of us involved in fundraising for AIDS
organizations in the 80s wound up as activists, but Strub did, bringing those
talents and contacts to ACT UP. But it wasn’t until the death of his lover, Michael
that Strub’s life took an irrevocable turn. That morning at St. Patrick’s was –
at least for me – the moment the Catholic boy from Iowa became an activist.
From then on, his commitment to the community took on a much deeper meaning. He
was fighting for his friends, for Michael, and for himself.
He’s not shy about naming names (though it doesn’t
come off as name-dropping), and his anger is well placed: politicians like Bill
Clinton who conned the LGBT and AIDS communities, making promises on the campaign
trail that translated to indifference, at best, once elected; gay advertisers,
who abandoned Strub’s Poz magazine
because it was geared to anyone with HIV, not just privileged, white, gay men;
Anthony Fauci of the CDC, who time and again declined the opportunity to
support people with HIV/AIDS rather than the status quo of government
bureaucracy. Too many times – whether it was politicians, religious leaders,
even members of the LGBT community – access did not translate to support. And
facts did not always sway those in power.
And that’s the strong suit of his book, which should
be required reading for anyone who doesn’t remember the first 20 years of the
epidemic (and even those of us who do). By starting out in Washington, then moving
to New York, just in time for the outbreak of HIV, Strub’s life connects the
dots in a unique way I have not seen anywhere else. If at times it feels like
he’s a witness to history, he is.
But more importantly for all of us, he’s a
participant. He’s an integral part of the history of the AIDS epidemic,
especially in New York. And if he insists his reasons were selfish – to create
a legacy larger than himself – so be it. His new cause-within-a-cause (HIV
criminalization) puts him once again in the position of advocating for people
on the margins, even within the AIDS community.
He does not, thankfully, gloss over his own
failings. None of them – denial about his own health, assumptions about people
in power – are unique to Strub or gay men or anyone who is HIV positive. They’re
human failings. By his own admission, he’s luckier than a lot of people,
especially when it comes to health and finances. He lived long enough to
benefit from the “cocktail” of anti-retroviral drugs that created the “Lazarus
Effect”, bringing back thousands from the brink of death to now-health lives.
I was amazed at how many ways our lives brushed up against
each other, unknowingly: mutual friends, identical reactions to moments in
history, being in the same place at the same time. And once again, I was
touched by the acknowledgement of the role of friends in the history of the AIDS
epidemic. That always has been the real heart of every story: how friends
stepped up and became caregivers, activists and leaders in the fight against
bigotry and fear.
Over the years, I’ve read dozens of books about AIDS
(wrote one, too). All have left me sad, frustrated and angry. But no book has
left me with such a profound sense of gratitude and peace as Body Counts. And that’s a remarkable
thing.
Early in the book, Strub shares a letter from activist
Vito Russo that encourages him to do something we should all take to heart:
“This is not a dress rehearsal,”
he wrote to me in August 1981. “It’s your one and only life, and you have to
make it something right now, you do not have all the time in the world, it only
seems that way. End of wise comment.”
