We Were Here Page #4

Within the community about...

"Well, maybe these

are all wrong decisions.

Maybe we shouldn't

be sexually free. "

Maybe... And all these

other debates are occurring.

But it's occurring...

The leadership, such as it is...

Is guys like me,

who are suddenly...

In this little group...

Were forced to deal with this

unbelievable circumstance.

Of a community that, in addition

to being hated and under attack...

Is now forced alone

to try to figure out.

How to deal with this

extraordinary medical disaster.

People would see

my picture in theb. A.R.

And come up to me and say,

"i was diagnosed. What do I do?

"Do you know a doctor?

What do I do?

"Is it true, you know,

this might occur?

What do I do?"

We held a series

of town hall meetings...

And a group called mobilization

against aids was created.

And I was their first e. D...

And that's sort of how

i formally enter into aids work.

Mobilization's purpose

was to demand a greater response.

To the hiv aids pandemic.

The first response was to try

to take care of the sick.

That's the first response.

The second response

was to try to stop people...

Um, from getting infected.

The third response was...

How do we advocate?

How do we now

get other people involved.

To be able

to generate resources?

We are here to try to spark

across the land.

General citizen support for

the actions that are being led.

So overwhelmingly

by people with aids...

To try to get

the nation to move.

Into an effective response

of this epidemic.

We lead a delegation of people

with aids to washington.

Here's guys, very sick...

They're in end sta...

By definition...

They're in end-Stage aids.

There is no treatments to...

To speak of.

Maybe there's some

experimental treatments.

They're starting to get.

And here they are,

flying on planes...

Going across the country

with no money...

Sleeping four to a room.

To be able to go do opping.

And my experience is...

My belief is, all those folks

thought they would die.

None of them thought

they would survive aids.

They were doing it

because they thought.

In so doing they would make it.

So other people

from the community and beyond.

Were able to live.

And that happened

many, many, many times...

Where people with aids would

just do extraordinary things.

That's who was, in fact,

leading the response.

- When he went to the hospital,

i followed him there.

So I went to 5-B...

Which was right here at

san francisco general hospital...

To... To visit him,

as a shanti volunteer.

And 5-B was a seven-Bed unit...

An old intensive care unit

that had been turned into.

The first aids-Dedicated

hospital unit in the world.

And everybody who worked there

was there on a volunteer basis.

1983, which they weren't sure

how it was transmitted.

So they didn't

want anybody working there.

Who was gonna have

contagion issues.

So they wanted to make sure here

at san francisco general.

That you were not gonna be

coming from that kind of fear.

You'd be volunteering

to work here.

This is where

i started encountering...

Like, lesbians, coming

and working on the aids unit.

With all these gay men

who were dying.

It was so moving,

because certainly gay men.

Were not making a whole lot

of room for lesbians.

Let's put it that way.

Back then.

Um...

...so I got this sense

of this group of people.

Who were really caring

for these men who were dying.

- Steve became

more and more obsessed.

With trying to find out

what the latest treatments were.

He wanted to save our lives.

He wanted to figure out,

you know...

You know, how we were

gonna beat this thing.

And he found out

about a study.

That was done in africa

with a drug called suramin.

And they were doing...

They were doing the study

here at san francisco general...

And he got us both

into the study.

Across the country, there was,

like, three study sites.

There were, like,

80 people in the study.

And the drug was hideous.

It was...

you'd go in...

And it was, like,

two hours of i. V...

And for the next two days...

You literally felt like

you'd been run over by a truck.

And I was a wuss.

And i... I just...

After a month of this...

I just said,

"i can't take this. "

It's just, you know...

...i was just...

It just made me so sick...

And I hated it.

But steve just kept on going...

And he had had

chronic hepatitis b.

From a needle stick

that he'd gotten in a lab.

When he was working

in a lab...

And it activated

his hepatitis.

And within...

We started, I think,

the study in july.

He quit the study

in october.

And he was...

...he was dead by january.

It was really quick.

Um...

...and everybody in that study

died except for me.

'Cause I was a wuss.

I couldn't take it.

And I'm so glad

i took care of myself that way.

But I talked to a doctor

in the study afterwards...

And they had a meeting

of all the doctors.

And people who had...

Researchers

across the country.

Who had been involved

in the study...

And he said he never...

...he'd never been in a room

of doctors sobbing before.

They had lost

all their patients.

Very quickly.

So that was one of the first

disasters in aids treatment...

I think,

that really made everybody.

Really careful after this.

Um...

Steve was 35.

Two weeks after steve died...

My best friend died.

Peter.

Two days before steve died...

Another good friend died.

I mean, it was just...

It was an avalanche.

- Within a mile of epicenter

of castro and market...

Large numbers

of people died.

And not just

your friends who died...

But, you know,

the people you didn't know.

The friend of the friend.

You know,

you'd go get a coffee...

And the person who used

to give you coffee's died.

You would, you know,

whatever it was...

Your banker, your mailman,

all that.

Mass, mass death.

To the point where you,

to some degree...

You would stop asking,

if people weren't around...

Where they were, unless you

wanted to get into a discussion.

Of them being dead

or them being sick.

So, for a number of years...

People are all assuming

we've got this disease...

And it's very likely

we'll be dead soon.

- Everybody was reading

the obituaries...

Because they went from

like this to like this.

You know, it was just,

like, "oh, my god. "

And everybody would get

theb. A.R.Every week.

Just to see who's gone.

Being the flower man...

I was thrown

into the middle of it...

Because a lot of people

would say...

"Guy, my friend died...

"And I don't have enough money

to buy flowers, and...

...i need some help.

Can you help us?"

They wanted

to bury their friends.

With a lot of dignity

and beauty, and...

...and "i came to you

to help me out. "

You know,

I'm emotional...

Because this is the first time

i thought about it.

I... I can't even count the

funerals that I did, you know?

And if it wasn't

no more than...

You know, some people

would bring me a vase...

And they said, "guy,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes