Changing Tyler-Chapter Eleven

I hadn’t forgotten about Billy. I was still angry, still hurt, although being with Dylan had helped a lot. At least, no matter what happened, for the time being I wasn’t alone.

When Dylan had dropped me off at my house, he’d kissed me afresh. It was quick that time – I’d pulled away fast, worried that my mom or Doug might be watching through the window blinds. He’d promised to meet me in advance of school the next day to talk greater quantity about Billy.

Doug was snoring in the living room when I let myself into the house. Either mama had kicked him out of the bedroom or he’d been likewise drunk to discover his way there in the first place. I snagged a soda from the fridge and tiptoed past him, locking myself in my room. Usually, I’d tap on my mom’s bedroom door when I got in late at night, but I didn’t want see her. She’d ask me about Billy, and I wasn’t sure what to say to her. Besides, I was still feeling warm and woozy after my time with Dylan, and didn’t wish everything to ruin it.

In my room, I flicked on the light and booted up my computer. I wasn’t entirely sure where to start, staring for a while at the blank search bar on the Google screen. Finally, I typed in “purposely infected with HIV” and hit go into.

The first item at the top of the list that the search brought up read, “Bug-chasers.” The next five results were the same. Are they kidding? I thought. naive Google. Here I am, trying to research a serious topic like HIV, and I acquire an ad for exterminators? I grunted, re-typed the search and hit go into another time.

I got the same results. I sighed, clicking on the first result, expecting to get a page about roaches, ants, and mosquitoes.

I didn’t.

It was an article that had appeared in The Advocate, a GLBT news magazine. I started reading and didn’t stop for nearly two hours, finishing with that article and moving on to the next on the Google list.

What I learned scared the crap out of me.

Bug-chasers were lads like Billy, who purposely wanted to receive infected with the virus, or “bug.” According to what I read, some chaps were misinformed, thinking that ‘coz of the advances in drugs to treat HIV, it was curable, and could be kept from progressing into full-blown AIDS.

I clicked on one more web resource and kept reading. I think in the back of my mind I was hoping to discover something, anything, that would aid me understand Billy’s decision, smth I’d missed or didn’t know. something that would make me feel more excellent about it at least, but I didn’t. All I discovered was web site after website that said the same thing. There was no vaccine. No drugs to keep the virus from progressing into full-blown AIDS. The drugs they did have were truly expensive, and the side effects could kill u. The virus could mutate, like in a freakin’ sci-fi movie, into a strain that the drugs couldn’t help.  The more I read, the more worried I got about Billy, and the greater amount I didn’t understand him at all.

Some guys, anew like Billy, think that becoming infected is unavoidable for homosexual fellows.

Wrong again, I thought. Condoms do prevent infection, even I knew that.  I mean, there’s a reason they call it “safe” sex. All these ads and commercials are not just blowing smoke out of their booties. They speak the truth.

Some people think that if their partner is infected, they should be too, or that getting the virus would make ’em closer to the one who had tested positive.

No, no, no! I thought, reading on. That didn’t make any sense to me at all. two sick people wouldn’t make dying any easier on either of them! It would only make things worse. Plus, if a guy indeed loved you, this guy wouldn’t crave to make u sick, right? The more I read, the greater amount constrained I felt, and the angrier I got at Billy.

I got up, went to the fridge and swiped some other Coke, careful not to wake Doug. Then again, no thing I did would have woke him – this guy was passed out cold. I probably could’ve screamed in his ear and that guy wouldn’t have blinked an eye.

The cold soda cooled my throat but not my temper. I was really pissed, mostly cuz I just couldn’t understand how Billy could be so silly. this chab was a smart kid. His grades were good, more excellent than mine. I couldn’t wrap my head around his reasoning, and it was driving me nuts.

Slamming the Coke down on my desk, I clicked the mouse on yet one more site, then some other. I read until my eyes burned.

The one thing that all the articles acquiesced upon was that almost any bug-chasers had low self-esteem, and were sometimes depressed and self-destructive. That didn’t sound like Billy to me. Billy always seemed so confident, so sure of himself. that guy not at any time cared about what anyone thought.

Some were into drugs or alcohol.  Billy didn’t do drugs. that guy didn’t drink. that guy would have told me if this guy did, right? friends said allies stuff like that.

Others just didn’t watch the danger in what they were doing. In my opinion, they weren’t just playing with fire – they were playing with a nuclear bomb that soon or later was going to explode, destroying them. Billy was smarter than that…at least, that’s what I’d always thought. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

There were other reasons, too, from being so paranoid about getting HIV that the lad felt it better to just “get it over with,” to people who acquire a cheap thrill out of the danger of the possibility of being infected, to others who are so lonely that they try to become infected in order to be “accepted” by others who already are HIV positive. It’s sad, I thought. It’s sad, and it’s freaking scary. None of what I read appeared to be to apply to the Billy I knew.

Worse even than the bug-chasers, in my opinion, were chaps who were called the “gift-givers.” these were chaps who are HIV-positive, know it, and don’t act responsibly when they have sex. I immediately thought of Robbie. Was this guy one of those boyz? Didn’t this chab care at all about Billy? They call the virus “the gift,” and give it to whoever asks for it. Some freaking gift, I thought. Sometimes they do it out of telling their partner, which, as I discovered out in one article, is a criminal offense in the United States and other countries. That was one of the small in number things I read that made sense to me, since giving someone HIV on purpose was no different than putting a bullet in their head – it was just a slower bullet that killed over time instead of instantly.

There were other articles, ones that appeared to be to support the bug-chaser’s freedom to choose to have unsafe sex, or to become infected. I couldn’t make sense of them. I just couldn’t watch the difference between that and suicide.

Some gift-givers hooked up with bug-chasers online or in clubs. They actually held parties where a bunch of HIV-positive chaps would try to infect a bug-chaser! How F-ed up was that? I thought, wondering if that was what had happened to Billy. I remembered the hotel manager saying that this chab was there for the party.

I finally shut down my computer, unable to stand to read another word.

Sitting alone in my room, two empty Coke cans at my elbow, I glanced over at my guitar and remembered the hours Billy and I had spent rocking out to Guitar Hero. It suddenly appeared to be like a million years agone.

I thought about Billy. Fun-loving, out-and-proud Billy, who’d hadn’t cared what other people had thought of him and who did what that guy wanted, when this guy wanted.  I’d always thought that guy was so self-assured, so comfortable in his own skin. I’d wanted to be just like him. Maybe I’d been too close to him to see what this guy was actually doing all along. Maybe I hadn’t wanted to see it.

Now, I felt like I was on the outside looking in, and the picture I was seeing wasn’t the same one at all. Suddenly, Billy looked like a stranger to me, someone I didn’t know at all.  this guy was spoiled, and self-centered. It always had to be about him, because he was the merely one this chab actually cared about. The solely one who mattered. I felt like the solely reason that guy hung out with me was for the attention this guy could receive from me, and that made me mad, likewise.

There was no denying that Billy hadn’t been valuable for me. he had. He’d been there for me, listened to me, had accepted me out of blinking. But as I looked back on our friendship and all the times he’d made light of my feelings or steered the conversation back to himself, I realized that he’d always been an attention hog. I’d just chosen not to see it.

I guess I’d been a glamorous lonely guy, myself. Maybe if I hadn’t been so absorbed in my own life, Billy wouldn’t be in the situation that guy was in. Guilt settled over me like a heavy, suffocating blanket. It wasn’t fair. I was a piss-poor friend.

Now I had Dylan, and maybe a chance at the love Billy had wanted so badly.

If Billy had been successful in his hunt for the virus, this chab had no one except for a deadly little bug that would be with him for the rest of his life.

he was only seventeen years old.

I broke down again, and this time, Dylan wasn’t there to comfort me.

I’d tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep. Billy’s face haunted me; anew and once more I heard him yell at me to acquire out of his hospital room. I felt like I didn’t even know him anymore, like maybe I’d not at any time truly known him at all.

this guy was a stranger wearing a friend’s face.

Outside, the sky was gray and gloomy. Rain was in the forecast for that afternoon, but I wondered if it would hold off that long. It looked as though it was going to pour any minute.

At school, I hesitated to seek out Dylan. What we had together was so new and fragile that I was afraid to talk to him, scared to be seen with him in public. What would I do if he ignored me, or worse, got angry with me? I didn’t crave to give his friends the “wrong” idea about us. I felt like I was walking on eggshells.

I spotted him leaning against the wall of the school near the basketball court. that guy looked great in his jeans and gray, open-throated, button down shirt. I could see the tip of his undershirt peeking at the neckline, startlingly white against his tanned skin.

this guy was laughing at something one of his friends said, deep dimples showing in his cheeks. I remembered touching those cheeks when we’d kissed, his five o’clock shadow prickly against the palm of my hand. Dylan’s eyes flicked in my direction and a shadow passed over them. Great, I thought, turning away. this guy doesn’t want to talk to me in public. I could understand it, but I indeed needed him, especially after last night. I wanted to share the information I’d found online and talk about it with him, try to make sense of it. I turned away, walking toward the picnic tables outside of the cafeteria.

“Hey, Tyler! Hold up!”

I stopped, looking backward over my shoulder. Dylan was jogging toward me, his enormous backpack dangling by the thong in one hand. I felt a giant sense of relief as I waited for him to catch up to me.

“You look like crap,” this chab told. His turquoise eyes looked troubled, worried even. that guy was worried about me? Did that mean that guy cared? I felt an inexplicable bubble of happiness displace some of the misery I’d been wallowing in.

“I couldn’t sleep. Do u have time to talk before class?” I asked. My eyes darted toward the group of his friends so that this chab would know that the question actually was “Can u talk previous to class whilst your buddies are watching?”

His eyes followed mine. “You worry likewise much,” this chab said, shrugging his shoulders. “As far as they’re concerned, we’re talking about English IV. Hamlet, remember?” His elementary grin returned, and this chab winked. “Let’s sit down.”

I nodded. “Yeah, English. Okay.” I followed him, sitting across from him at one of the picnic tables. To complete the illusion, I pulled a notebook and the English IV textbook out of my backpack, opening it to a random page. “I surfed the web last night, Dylan. u won’t make no doubt of what I discovered out.” For the next five minutes, my gums flapped out of stopping, telling him everything I could remember about what I’d read.

By the time I was done, I was near tears again and this chab looked angry. I could watch his muscles bunched below the sleeves of his shirt, and his eyebrows nearly met in a fierce scowl.

“He did this to himself, Tyler. Don’t u dare make it your fault! you didn’t put the idea in his head, did u? you didn’t hook him up with Robbie, or drive him to that party.”

“I know, I know, but I should have seen that something was wrong, Dylan. I should have known!”

“Bullshit. u were supposed to be his most good friend, but this guy didn’t trust u enough to tell u about it. Why?”

“He told that I wouldn’t understand. this chab was right. I don’t,” I told miserably.

“No. this chab was afraid that you’d try to stop him, Tyler! That’s why this chab lied to you. That’s why that guy didn’t tell you. cuz he knew that you’d not at any time let him do it.”

“I’m not his father, Dylan. I couldn’t have stopped him.”

“Maybe not. But you would have tried. you would have done the research earlier, and when u discovered out what you know now, you’d have lectured him, nagged at him, argued with him. u would have at least made the attempt.  he didn’t crave that. this chab didn’t wish somebody slapping him in the face with the consequences of what he was doing, wrecking his little fantasy.”

“I guess.”

“Look, we don’t even know if he’s positive. Let’s go back to the hospital after practice today, okay? We can talk to him again.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Dylan.”

“Hey, that’s what boyfriends are for, right?”

Wow. That was final thing I’d expected him to say, and it floored me. It was weird hearing him say “boyfriend.” Nice, but weird…wonderful, but weird. I smiled a goofy kind of grin, feeling my cheeks heat up sexy sufficiently to grill burgers.

I officially had a boyfriend.

The day seemed a lot brighter after that.