I Can't Believe That I Believed

One night I was standing at my station on the assembly line, attaching cradles to generators, poorly as usual, and I started feeling a little dizzy.  I shook it off and kept working.  It continued to come and go throughout the night.  The next night, it happened again and a little worse than the night before.  This pattern continued, night after night and the dizziness worsened and began to cause nausea.  I didn’t say anything to anyone.  But inside I was starting to get worried.  This was something weird.  Something I’d never really experienced.  I’d had the flu numerous times, but it always passed.  And I’d never gotten dizzy just standing up, working.  Could this be something bigger?  I started to really get paranoid. 

What I’m about to confess will not only in some ways make me look ridiculous but will reveal the ignorance and naivety of my age at the time, but also of the culture I’d been living in.  I started to worry that by having sex with Kori.  I had contracted AIDS.  That was the first place my mind jumped to.  After all, Kori and I had unprotected sex.  And she was not a virgin.  Neither was I of course, but that wasn’t relevant.  Her last time had been more recent.  It was very possible during our 30 seconds of intercourse that the AIDS virus had crawled its way from her vagina up my miniscule shaft.  Now I was surely dying.  I know, I know, that sounds flat out retarded.

 But before you decide I’m a complete loon and throw this book out as the ravings of a buffoon, consider some things. 

At my Christian high school, we were never taught about health and were certainly never allowed to even discuss HIV and AIDS in any of our classes.  Except in Bible class where it was more or less presented as God’s punishment on homosexuals.  I remember being a high school junior and learning that Magic Johnson announced he was HIV-positive.  The first words to leave my mouth were “but Magic’s not gay.” 

It wasn’t an insult to the gay community, intended or otherwise.  I sincerely still lived in a world that believed only gays got those diseases.  That was 1992.  It was still a couple years before it was widely told that anyone could get it.  I’d say most of what I understand about AIDS, I learned from The Real World: San Francisco.  Seeing Pedro Zamora, the spokesman of my generation for AIDS awareness, go through his struggle with strength and dignity and educating the whole world via this reality show was inspiring.  Many people of my generation were truly shaken when our friend Pedro died.  I remember that day, and the news promos Mtv ran all day between episodes of the show Pedro was known for.  I know how cheesy it sounds, but I really did learn a lot from that show and Pedro’s experience.  That’s who educated me as a teenager about the realities of AIDS.  I suppose it is a sign of my generation that we got our social information from basic cable.  Just as parents learned about sex in the halls of their schools, and just as it will be the internet that teaches today’s teens.  And God only knows the next generation will learn about sex from Playstation 12.

There was another reason that my imagination took such an unreasonable leap.  Just a few weeks before these dizzy spells began, I had driven down to spend a weekend with Stacy and company in Illinois.  It was Saturday afternoon and he and I had been driving around, looking for a CD he wanted and just sort of chatting.  Then, as we were  literally just circling the parking lot of a nearly empty shopping mall while killing time until we were to meet Brandy and some others, Stacy decided to redirect the conversation. 

“Do you have any big regrets?” he asked me. 

“What do you mean?”  I asked him.  Moments before I’m sure we’d been discussing U2’s latest album verses Rattle & Hum or something just as important. 

“I mean, is there anything you’ve done in your life that you really regret now?” he asked me. 

It’s funny now at this point today in my life, I have no issue discussing all the wrong turns I’ve made in life.  Hell this book is a chronicle of my personal follies.  I’m completely comfortable with sharing them with world.  But at 19 years old, I was insecure and not really open to baring the more tender wounds of my soul.  So I kind of hemmed and hawed and didn’t give him a real answer.  I think I just said something to the effect of yes; there were a number of things.  I then just asked why he would bring up the question.  He gave me a few shallow answers about just making conversation.  Then after a few awkward silent moments he hit with the thing that was apparently just eating away at his mind.

“Did you have sex with Kori?”

The questions didn’t shock me.  I actually knew he wanted to know for a long time, and it was something I’d never have just offered up.  Not to Stacy anyway.  He was many things, often a good friend was at least towards the top of the list, but he was also very judgmental.  He’d been raised to believe that if he kept his nose clean, lead a pure and holy life following the Ten Commandments, more or less literally, he was qualified and sanctified to sit on a throne of judgment over others.  He lorded his moral code over my head on numerous occasions when I implied I believed the key to life was often ambiguity, in many things.  So I didn’t rush to his room when I returned to campus from that fateful trip north with Kori and confess my carnal transgressions.  But he had often suspected.  And one thing Stacy valued was knowledge. 

Another way of saying that is Stacy was a gossip queen.  The man was oft tight-lipped about his own life, but he loved to know shit about everyone else.  In fact, if you knew something juicy and didn’t share it with him, he’d actually get pissed off at you.  You could see it in his face.  He’d get red and frustrated and begin to speak down to you. 

This was it though, I gathered.  He’d finally grown a set and come right out with the question.  I felt obligated to be honest.  It had been months and there was nothing he could say.  She and I had broken up long ago; otherwise I wouldn’t have put it past him to demand I put a stop to the relationship immediately.  Well, he wouldn’t demand it, but he’d give me an unsolicited list of no less than fifteen reasons why I had better call it off. 

“Yes,” I answered him.  “I did.” 

Stacy got the widest, self-satisfied grin I’d ever seen the guy smile.  It was that “Aha, I knew it” look.  He was so please with himself for a moment.  But then of course he reined it in and put on that youth pastor / Dr. Drew on Celebrity Rehab face.  The one that essentially says “yeah, it’s good that you admitted your weakness but we know it was wrong and what are we going to do to keep you on the straight and narrow?” 

He let out a long sigh. 

“I knew you had,” he said.  “I just sensed it when you broke up with her.” 

I hadn’t ever gotten around to sharing the phony pregnancy scare with him.  Yet good old Sherlock had put it together anyway.  Damn he was good!  I started to get annoyed with him.  There was this tone of disappointment in his voice as he spoke.  Like your dad does when he wants you to know you’ve let him down.  Stacy often spoke to me like he was my superior.  Someone at school actually once referred to me as his sidekick.  Which was really fucking offensive, but I laughed it off.  I get sidekick?  Why, because Stacy’s taller and in better shape and smarter?  Ok, maybe.  But truth be told, I guarantee as much as he let on that he was sad that I’d compromised my soul by engaging in sexual congress with a woman not my wife, the motherfucker was as jealous as Cain of Abel!

Stacy was 20 years old and despite his relative good looks and wit, he’d never had so much as a spit soaked hand on his member, aside from perhaps his own.  And I’m not even sure about.  We never did discuss our individual positions on masturbation.

I know it drove him nuts to picture swarthy ol’ me in bed with an attractive art major with a great body, making the beast with two backs.  And it drove him nuts not for the reasons he would purport.  He was jealous that I had that life experience on him, plus he knew Kori wasn’t my first.  I’m sure the fact I’d actually gotten laid in high school had always bugged him.  And I sensed now that my answer pissed him off even more.  I did no act of contrition.  Offered no remorse or apologetics. 

“Do you regret that?” he asked me. 

“I don’t know,” I answered.  “I probably shouldn’t have done it.  It just sort of happened.  I don’t regret it though, because it happened.  Can’t take it back.  If anything, I guess I regret that we did and then broke up shortly after.” 

Apparently what I was supposed to say was “Oh man, I am riddled with guilt over it.  Every night I fall to my knees and flog myself with a cat-o-nine tails.  I sob and beg for God’s forgiveness.”  This may have seemed a better answer, although eh would have only truly accepted it had I finished with “but most of all, I need your forgiveness Stacy.  Please, tell me you can forgive my transgression and be my friend again.” 

He’d asked me two questions, and both had been in very judgmental, accusatory tones.  I wasn’t really here for that.  And I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of saying I regretted having sex with her.  I didn’t.  It was fun.  Not my greatest performance, but it felt good.  There’s no such thing as a bad orgasm.  Only no orgasm.  All that other bullshit surrounding a relationship may be soured and really bringing you down, but those few seconds of rapture are never wrong and never bad. And as long as the act was consensual there should never be regret.  Yes, I realize what a male statement that was.  I have a penis, and for that I apologize. 

“I just feel bad that you crossed that line again,” he said.  “Like you said, you guys just ended up breaking up anyway.  And you know she’s been with other guys.  Did you even use protection?” 

I just responded again that it hadn’t been planned so he could probably guess the answer to that.  Again, he brought up that she had been with other guys.  It was like he was trying to scare me.  As if to imply she probably had something and I’d put my own health at risk.  At the time, I more or less just waived him off.  I said again that I knew it was a bad decision and in my next relationship I wasn’t going to let it happen again.  That pacified him enough to end the conversation. 

He really just wanted to get the juicy scoop as to whether Kori and I had slept together.  I’m sure he would tell someone later that night.  It had probably come up in conversation when I wasn’t around he vowed to get the answer.  But the way he asked was kind of sticking in my craw.  So I turned it around on him. 

“So what about you?” I asked.  “What do you regret in your life so far?” 

Stacy just stared out ahead as he drove.  Finally after struggling to come up with answer he through out some bullshit.  He told me he regretted that he hadn’t always been as nice to his sister as he should have.  I honestly just stared out the window rolling my eyes and trying not to laugh incredulously.  I mean, honestly?  You’re big regret is you were mean to your little sister?  What was this, Leave it to fucking Beaver?!?!  The sickest thing is, he wasn’t really bullshitting me.  That probably was his biggest regret in life.  After all, he hadn’t done shit in his life yet.  He’d been to New Orleans once, and they played poker for M&M’s.  That was living fast and loose for this guy.  That basically ended the conversation.  I think he realized he’d taken the weekend to a strange place.  Eventually we forgot about it and went back to having fun. 

But for some reason, standing on my platform in that ungodly hot factory, feeling like I was about to fall over like a felled tree, I suddenly began to hear that conversation again.  Kori had been with a couple other guys before me.  And we did have unprotected sex.  And she was an artist.  This was the train of thought that lead me to the conclusion that I had AIDS.  Or at least was in fact HIV positive.  I really got scared.  What would I do?  How could I tell people?  What would my family say?  Oh yeah, how long did I have until I was dead?!  As ridiculous as the notion really was, when you are sick from something, and the suggestion imbeds itself in your brain, you suddenly find yourself getting religion. 

I began to pray.  More honestly, I began to try striking a bargain with God.  What did I need to do for Him in order for me to be healthy?  What would persuade God to run his hand over my head and cleanse me of any lethal virus that might be stripping me of my T cells? 

Ask and ye shall receive.  While no angel descended and no bush burned, the answer did indeed come to me like a divine revelation.  God would indeed take this sickness away, whatever it might be if turned my life around and pursued a life and career in Youth Ministry.  That right, if I changed my major and became a youth pastor, the AIDS would miraculously go away before I ever had to tell anyone I had it.  I committed myself that night while bolting cradles to generators.  Surely there’s some correlation to the savior, as he had no cradle at his birth.  A bit too much of a stretch?  Yeah, probably.  At any rate, while let me not bury the lead here and say I make no correlation now, but the dizziness stopped almost immediately. 

Of course, I finally saw a doctor a few weeks later who said I had fluid in my inner ear.  He explained that very likely caused bouts of dizziness, especially when standing for prolonged periods of time.  My ears were flushed and I was sturdy as a statue again.  Still, as religion and science have often been at odds, I remained committed to by end of the deal.  I didn’t have a life threatening disease, so I had to go into the ministry.  That was the agreement, and you couldn’t really tell God you’d had your fingers crossed when you said it.  Lest ye be smote!