Behind the Wall

Yesterday afternoon I came home and, despite the aches in my knee, I couldn't stop myself from heading back out to take a very slow stroll around the neighborhood with my sons. However, almost immediately my walk was cut short, not because of knee pain but because I was absolutely shocked by what was going on across the street.

For as long as I've lived in my neighborhood, one of the houses diagonally across from me has been completely obscured. The house being set far back from the sidewalk and being built into a down slope, strategically placed trees and an extremely high cinder block wall have all ensured that for the nine years I've lived here I've never actually seen the entire property. I've only seen part of one corner.

The cinder block wall was painted a gentle shade of light green and was, almost year-round, covered with a flowering vine. It blended in beautifully with the rest of the neighborhood's scenery, so much so that it was easy to forget that a wall was even there and that something might exist beyond it.

Sometimes though I've wondered what was behind the wall. The secluded nature has caused me to imagine the property as the neighborhood version of "The Secret Garden". I've pictured two worn and weary lovers escaping the cares of the day, quaintly holding hands while sitting on a shaded bench. There's a peaceful silence in their secret garden, the noise of the city magically unable to cross the green-painted concrete barrier and the aroma of honeysuckle wafting through the breeze.

But when I stepped outside yesterday and looked across the street, I saw that this magical wall was completely gone. The entire thing had been knocked down, a yawning space left in its wake. Four workers with sledgehammers were quickly breaking up the few remaining pieces of green rubble and loading it onto a junkyard truck.

My eyes immediately moved past the workers to the house behind them. Revealed at last was the mythical place that has been obscured all these years, a rather quaint one-story craftsman cottage. And the romantic yard of my imagination? It has a neglected air to it with some ill-kept grass. The honeysuckle bush and shaded bench from my imagination were both absent.

But my jaw dropped when I saw a small sliver of blue rippling in the sunlight. Unbelievably, a small, oval shaped sunken swimming pool is in the front yard.

It was too much for me to process all at once, so I stood and gaped at the spectacle in front of me. My sons began to excitedly chatter with each other about how they were going to go and swim in the pool.

I immediately thought that somebody better have plans to put up a new wall or fence so that the neighborhood kids don't drown themselves. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of my neighbors who lives down the street walking my way. She's lived in this neighborhood for at least 25 years and has seen more changes then I have.

"Someone must've bought it," she said as she approached, her face wrinkled with disdain. "It must be house flippers. Who else would tear down that wall?"

I nodded my head in agreement, disappointed that indeed, some thoughtless newbies would tear down such a neighborhood fixture. Then I figured that perhaps the new owners don't want as much privacy. So many of the newer residents of my neighborhood seem to voyeuristically forgo curtains over their front windows, as if they enjoy being seen and admired from the street.

And then a wave of guilt washed over me. I hadn't even noticed the property was for sale, and moreso I'd never even seen the previous owners. "Who used to live there?" I asked. "I never saw anybody coming in or out."

"No, you wouldn't have," she replied. "It was a much older gay couple and both of them were very ill for the past few years. AIDS, you know. One of them died a few years ago. The other must've either finally died or had to move."

I wasn't expecting her to share such an unhappy and tragic story. Sometimes it seems like we never hear anymore about people in the States dying from AIDS related complications. It's like we're all lulled into believing folks can live a normal life with the right medication. We no longer really talk as a society about the pain and suffering of AIDS. And so I could only murmur inadequately about how horrible it was.

My seven year-old son chimed in with an innocent, "What's AIDS, mommy?"

Our neighbor leaned down to pinch his cheek. "It's a disease that you'll never get if you take care of yourself."

"But do you get it from swimming pools?" he asked. I told him no and gave him the "eye" to shush his curiosity.

My neighbor continued. "They used to throw wonderful parties when I first moved here..." Her voice trailed off and I could see she was being taken back in time, perhaps remembering sitting around that pool, chatting with them. "But then one of them cheated, got HIV, gave it to the other. You know how it goes."

"They stayed together?" I asked. Such an incredulous thought seems against human nature. I couldn't imagine doing such a thing. I'd be too angry, too bitter to wake up and be civilized around someone who is the cause of my mortality, all the while knowing that sooner or later the medication wouldn't be enough for either of us.

She nodded sadly. "Yeah, but they pretty much cut themselves off from everybody after that."

We watched the workers for a few more minutes, chatted a bit more and then parted. I didn't feel like going for a walk anymore after that. I had too many visions in my head of two 40 or 50 something year-old men dying in that house. I pictured them sitting inside, holding onto the last precious moments of life, looking out on that swimming pool and remembering the days of their youth, the days of their innocence.

By dusk, a hideous wooden fence was in place, hurriedly erected by the four workers. It's not as tall as the wall it replaced so more of the house is visible. These new owners, however long they stay, will certainly make the house their own, erasing the memories, erasing the pain those walls have surely seen.

I can only hope they don't meet the same tragic fate.

AIDS, No Longer Your Friendly Neighborhood Appetite Suppressant

There used to be an appetite suppressant called Ayds.

If you are over a certain age, you remember those commercials. They were happy, upbeat commercials and they were all over radio and TV, promising to painlessly slim your body.

I'd hear the commercials for Ayds while riding in my father's silver Mercury Monarch, my legs sweating against the red leather seats as I absorbed the sounds of WGN radio. I wondered if I'd need to take Ayds when I grew up because it seemed like the secret to staying slim.

And then one day as we were pulling into our driveway, one of the WGN reporters began a story about a different kind of AIDS. They made sure to spell it so we wouldn't get it confused with the appetite suppressant, Ayds.

The difference in spelling didn't help the company that made Ayds. They went under, a victim of a coincidental name.

Then an Indiana hemophiliac named Ryan White contracted AIDS. National debates ensued when he was barred from going to school. Ryan's case meant that AIDS was no longer just a "gay disease". Suddenly, anyone who'd ever been to a hospital was afraid they might have been exposed.

People were really scared and believed all kinds of things. I heard my mom and my aunts talking about how maybe you could get AIDS from mosquitos, hot tubs or a dirty door handle. There was so much fear and lack of information about AIDS that folks in Kokomo, Indiana, Ryan White's hometown, refused to touch newspapers that paperboy Ryan delivered.

Although that sort of extreme ignorance and fear is mostly gone now in this country, sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't hurt us to get a little bit of it back.

No, maybe I don't mean that. We don't need that crazy mob mentality fear. I just mean that there sometimes seems to be such a lasseiz faire attitude about contracting AIDS. No one thinks it's going to happen to them. Everyone's encouraged to get tested, but how many people actually do so? How many people stop sleeping around? How many people actually use a condom every single time they have sex?

Everyone's bed hopping on TV and in movies, but have you heard any character say, "You know, I shouldn't sleep with you because I don't want to get HIV."

Or, "You know, I'm not sleeping with you unless you use a condom."

What about, "Since we're talking about having sex, here's the status of my HIV test."

Nope. I don't think I've ever seen any of those on TV or in a movie. Instead, everyone just falls into bed with wild abandon, caught up in the passion of the moment.

Come to think of it, we haven't had a celebrity reveal their HIV positive status in a while. I'm sure they're out there though. I'm always puzzled about how we watch celebrities father children left and right and we don't publicly rake them over the coals for not practicing safer sex.

There's a whole generation that doesn't remember Rock Hudson or Eazy E. There's a whole generation that thinks that HIV isn't so bad because after all, look how healthy Magic Johnson looks. There's a whole lot of folks who lie to themselves and say, "Such and such didn't look like he had HIV."

That first time I heard about AIDS, I never in a million years would have thought it would spread beyond being a small news story on WGN to being the killer of millions worldwide. I wouldn't have thought we'd be having a World AIDS Day on December 1st. I never thought it would impact black people around the world in the way it has.

The face of AIDS is no longer Tom Hanks playing a gay lawyer who contracts HIV in "Philadelphia". No, sadly enough, black woman are today's face of HIV.

Days like today, I wish AIDS, was still just an appetite suppressant.