WARNING: Explicit Imagery and Colloquial LanguageThe Boys : Show Me Your Life where are our... where are our outraged religious leaders and our esteemed colleagues, where are our mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts, where are our mentors and guides speaking out together as strangers, throughout the depth and breadth of our communities with a shared desire to dispel that most despicable of appellations “male-child sexual abuse and rape.”
Real Stories Gallery wishes to thank Tim Barrus for so generously sharing his profoundly significant stories, in part inspired by – The Boy And The Dog Are Sleeping written in 2003 under a nom de guerra to protect identities and published by The Ballantine Publishing Group. In keeping with the visual poetry gifted by international voices for this artists' workshop, often employing the format of mash-up to raise urgent awareness of HIV/AIDS, Real Stories Gallery has woven Tim's experiences into a new, compelling time and place, whilst remaining faithful to the compassionate and knowledgeable voice. The name, Boötes, is shared by the community of boys whose lives are made visible in this visual rendering of eyewitness - Children Who Will Dance In Rain. Boötes borrows his/their name from the kite shaped constellation of stars in the northern sky, located between 0° and +60° declination, 13 and 16 hours of right ascension on the celestial sphere; and contains the third brightest star in the night sky, Arcturus.
Today Tim is sometimes known by a further name, still. "The Boy Whisperer." A name that reflects another shift in one man's identity, as he moves forward through the experiences of his life leaving a trail of witness for us to share, and one that compels each visitor, someone somewhere out there, to respond... with rage and compassion and emotions betwixt and between. Tim Founded Cinemateque Films: a safe-shelter and rigorous visual arts program for sexually abused and battered boys with HIV/AIDS. The boys are provided with nutrition and medications and emerge as highly accomplished visual artists and poets. There is much to learn from this unusual man and gifted visual poet, who has won, through his sheer ingenuity and patient courage, the hearts and trust and friendship of The Boys. This is not an easy feat, given their foundation of significant HURT within the homes and shadows of our communities around the world.
We look forward to welcoming our visitors as they return to follow the creation of this workshop mashup... Responsibility It is the imperative of the author to inform you. If you believe this, you are hip-deep in the wrong story. Anecdotes of witness, experiences, identities. The truth or not the truth. What will you do if it is based on fact, what will you do with the questions you would like to ask, what will you do with your witness. As Wilfred Owen the English war poet wrote: "all a poet can do today is to warn."
"Maelstrom" by Tim Barrus Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)
Sometimes I think I am insane. Why would anyone sane choose a child with AIDS? It terrifies me to tell this story. I am afraid. I am afraid of dragons. I am afraid of losing my mind. I want something no one is allowed to have. I want the mad ones. The children mad enough to struggle and survive. I want the children who have seen war. The children mad enough to question everything. The children who have had everything taken away from them. The children who are broken and mad enough to attempt to repair themselves. The children mad enough to spit and fight. Mad enough to laugh outrageously. Mad enough to make a music of their own. Mad enough to see themselves as individuals. I want children who will dance in rain. I want the mad crazy ones. I want the ones insane enough to love hard, and brave enough to be vulnerable.
Pascal is a sixteen year old patient suffering from HIV and schizophrenia at the Maison Blanche Hospital in Paris where he has assembled for Show Me Your Life — à risque: lumière et movement. A collage of sound, motion, dance, and metaphor that explores the perceptions he has of the world around him.
I do not know where this story begins. Or ends. I was out of my mind to do it. The child was sick. I did try to say no. I am haunted by deep, electric flashes of music, memory, dragons and madness.
Boötes: The Memories Of Boys And Dogs Are Forever Worth The Keeping The autumn woods was always the waif in him. Our seas were usually angry ones. We raced along the beach. He loved stingrays, too. I could never even count the number of beaches we hit on that bike. I Changed His Name. I Changed Who he Was. In fact, I did Change Him, too. I Would do it Again. And do here and now. I name him Boötes. Do you see him now.
Thunder: Lightening. Pouring rain. They sky had gone black again. I do not know if all gods actually speak to people. I think not. My gods speak directly to me. My gods look at you right in the eye, and they are not always good or benevolent. Some gods are ones I ever want to know. Begochiddy the mythical Navajo sun god is one. He cast his sons out, sending them to earth with enormous, almost impossible tasks to complete. Armed with lightening, intelligence, and the ability to adapt to an always changing world, the war twins defeat the ravaging monsters. Their father was always testing them.
It was the year of the hyena. I was always stepping over the hyenas. Hyenas in the kitchen. Hyenas in the trees. Hyenas at the beach. Hyenas in the liquor store. Hyenas every fucking where. Warning: Reality is an endangered species. None of this can be real. Hyenas prowling the streets. It isn’t possible. Or. Is it. Possible. The mind reels.
He always wanted to read the palm of my hand. And then he’d laugh. It was more giggle than laugh. I did not laugh. I don’t do much of that. He said he was a palm-reader. It was bullshit. He made the future up. It was sheer imagination. His own hand would grow hair on it. He was a werewolf. A shapeshifter. He was the shaman. I was just the guy who loved him. “Read my palm,” he’d say. I would sigh. “I don’t read palms.” “Why not.” “I don’t believe in the future. It does not exist. All we have is now.” Besides that, he had no lifeline to speak of. He had purchased Tears for Fears’ CD, Woman in Chains. He had no idea what any of it meant. He was way too young. To know half the things he knew. It’s a world gone crazy. “Couldn’t you have found something more age appropriate to listen to — like the Sesame Street theme song or something.” He’d throw his head back with that mane of dark hair he had. Laughing. He was always laughing. It drove me insane. Our only real escape that summer was the bike. Weather permitting (and often enough when it didn’t), we would take the Harley out for rides. California State Road 255. Samoa Dunes. The water was freeze your nuts off cold that day. On just such a day, I took him to Auschwitz, too. It was a day we did not speak above a whisper.
Fuck you. I won’t tell you how old he was. I am not compelled to. My gig. My way. Don’t read my shit if it disturbs you. The New York Times calls my work disturbing. Fuck them, too. The boy was twelve. The boy was two. The boy was ten. The boy was eighty-six. I don’t give a flying fuck how old he was. That’s your stuff. Not mine. He belonged to me. Not to you. The autumn woods was always the waif in him. Well, I feel lying and waiting is a poor man’s deal. A poor man’s deal. And I feel hopelessly weighed down by your eyes of steel. Well, it’s a world gone crazy keeps a woman in chains. A boy is always dying. Does it really matter from what. Death is death. In the end, it fucks everyone. You. Me. Him. Them. Well, I feel deep in your heart there are wounds time can’t heal. The time can’t heal. And I feel somebody somewhere is trying to breathe. Well, you know what I mean. It’s a world gone crazy keeps a woman in chains.
“I want to drive the Hog,” he said. I had to think about it. About allowing him to do all these amazing (mostly adult) things he wanted to do before he kicked the bucket. Deep breath, Tim. The kid wasn’t big enough to so much as hold the Hog upright. He might have the courage to stare death down any number of times, but holding the Harley upright was another thing entirely. “You get to ride on the back,” I said. “That’s the deal.” I was being conservative and responsible. It’s what I do. I am a very conservative and responsible kind of guy. Yeah, well, fuck that, too. You weren’t there. You are in no way germane to the discussion or the narrative. In time, I did write about it. The kid was dead by then. Writing about it was safe. The boy wasn’t around to read it. I am a safe kind of guy. I like it slow and safe.
We stripped naked and ran into the waves. “My balls are like raisons,” he screamed. Mine, too. Prunes, anyway. In my book, I set the scene in Texas. I didn’t want to set it in California. Reality was far too close. I fictionalized it. I obfuscated time, place, race, names. My ass got flayed with a whip over that one. There is a long line of people who want a piece of my ass. He doesn’t tell the truth, they screamed. We want the truth. We want the truth. Sure you do. You can’t handle the truth. You weren’t there. I was there. It was about living. Because I say so. It was about beating back the pain. The human being is a pussy. His physical structure held together by a thin stretch of porous skin. You poke it, it bleeds. His mental structure held together by luck and air. You don’t need to poke it. The thing will bleed of its own volition. I am sick and tired of all your sanctimonious lectures on parenting. Some social work in Oklahoma thinks I’m the one who should be punished. She said so on the Internet while she was reading The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping, which had just been published. What pisses me off more than anything is the fact that you don’t give a flying fuck about a single one of them and I did. I still do. What you want is a piece of my ass and redemption (make up your fucking mind). That book won a best book of the year award from some gay rag in Washington, DC. Some obese, pompous faggot writer in Texas is still screaming murder over it. Bitch. But then, he wasn’t there. To hold anybody. The kid is dead. I was the one who had to watch him die. Not you. Not you in your smug sanctimony. I watched him die. We did not have sex. Why do you insist that we did? Maybe YOU find the idea of having sex with a kid who has AIDS and is dying to be erotic. Take responsibility for your own shit and leave mine alone. My rules. My way. My writing. My way. Fact or fiction: you decide. Take some responsibility for what you read and how you read it. Don’t expect some writer-type to hold your little hand. Publishing prides itself on projects outside the box. Which is patently absurd because they have never published one. Publication is sheer accident. I love that book even if I can’t read it. Reading it reminds me of too many of them. I can’t live with the thought of having lost so many of them. What I want is to forget. I’m going to write it the way I’m going to write it. Who’s kidding who. Don’t you understand these things write themselves.
The bike takes me places you have never been. Places you will never go. Places you will never see. It’s what waves are for. Diving in.
After Boötes died, I went back to those dunes. I sat there alone and watched the waves roll in. Where was my little social worker from Oklahoma then. I took my clothes off and dove into those frigid waves. I’m under water holding my breath. The waves thundering all around me. I’m thinking: when I jump up to breathe, he’ll be there laughing and screaming. But no. We were going south that day. I’m headed north. Wherever it is. He was always, always laughing. Even through the pounding of the Pacific Ocean’s surf on some cold winter’s day in Humboldt County at the dunes, if I listen closely, I can still hear him on the wind. It’s a world gone crazy. I dressed and got back on my bike. You twist the gas and the acceleration with the palm of your hand. It’s far more a rush than jacking off. I sat there on the Hog and I finally read my palm like he used to do. There is no future. There is only now. Live with it. I never want to see that beach again. You weren’t there, you sons of bitches. You are never there. He was my son. He did not belong to you. His name is irrelevant. The autumn woods was always the waif in him. Well, I feel deep in your heart there are wounds time can’t heal. The time can’t heal. And I feel somebody somewhere is trying to breathe. Well, you know what I mean. It’s a world gone crazy keeps woman in chains. Every boy should own a pair of Harley, black leather motorcycle boots before he croaks.
A boy stood behind a man about my age, sort of like a shadow. The boy appeared to be about ten. He kept staring at me with sharp, darting, black desert eyes. There was thunder in the distance. There was lightening. Thunder, rain, and lightening are not insignificant events. I did not know who the man and the boy were. And yet I knew exactly who the man and the boy were. I had to sit down. I was a little breathless, and more than a little bewildered. My heart was racing. This could not be happening. Yet it was. It was unfolding exactly the way it had unfolded at least a thousand times in dreams. Dreams of this rain. Dreams of this thunder. Dreams of this lightening. Dreams of this man and his son. This was madness. I was losing my mind. The man wanted to talk to me. The boy said nothing. He was painfully shy. I suggested we sit in my jeep. I knew exactly what was coming. I had seen it all a thousand times, and I would wake up, drenched in sweat.
Parents often seek me out. My work with disabled children is not a secret. What I know comes from having worked with children in real, hands-on ways. It comes from experience. Not a book. Usually the parents are looking for advice. Simple. Sometimes they want you to actually work with their kid. Not so simple. Sometimes you can. Sometimes you can't. The man sick. I could see that. His eyes were in that beyond exhausted place where everything goes numb. He moved his hair away from his neck. He wanted me to see. I did see, and then I looked away. Outside the window of the jeep, rain. I looked over at the man again. I am not a doctor: Purple lesions ran up and down his neck like a road map. Something had exploded inside a plethora of dark veins that spread themselves out not unlike a spider. Now I knew what this was about. Something inside of me grew very quiet. Very sober. The man had AIDS. I would learn had AIDS. The boy in the backseat with the dog had it, too.
My little jeep shook. I could not do this. I was sorry. But I could not take some boy I did not know in my home. Into my life. The responsibility. Even if my house is empty not unlike the way some men are vacant shells. I am not a candidate to care for some child with pediatric AIDS.
Adults get rated. You are someone they can tolerate. Or you are someone to be avoided at all costs. Once you have made it to the, to be avoided at all costs list, there is no way in hell or shit that you will ever make it back to the tolerated list again. Children are intransigent.
Why would anyone sane take in a child with AIDS? Because one comes to you. Because you can. Because he needs you. Because he is asking you to take him in… Because he likes baseball.”
"Do you gotta cigarette?" The chances of my having a cigarette were not good. He was shivering. "You are freezing, Boötes." "Yes." “They’re gonna put me in a foster home if you won’t take me,” he said. “I will run away. I will. I know how to hitchhike. I hitchhiked here. I don’t need nobody. I can take care of myself. I am not no fucking baby.” “It’s really dangerous for a boy your age to be out there hitchhiking,” I lectured. I have worked with boys who hitchhike in the dark in New Mexico. It’s like asking to be raped. We find bodies of nude boys in ditches. No one knows who they are or where they came from. Strangled and dumped in the desert. "Please Tim..."
I believe in dragons. I believe in the power of mythology. Why? Mythology is oblivious to the blindness of race. When you grow up surrounded by language and stories, you become the stories and the languages you know. I feel sometimes after all I have done and seen and heard and smelt and touched, that I am a mongrel who howls at midnight moons surrounded by mountains shaped by the sleeping bodies of dragons, further evidence that the skeletons of mythology are real. People raised on stories understand how old mythology is and the power of the enigmatic, and of things that breathe fire and fly about the midnight sky. Often, now, a quietness descends on them/ Not quite a black cloud/ More an inward mood/ At times, they feel like cripples who are supposed to feel grateful they are alive/ Grateful to science/ Grateful to medicine/ Grateful to the gods/ But sometimes they can only crawl along the walls and if you think these are not the walls of pain and despair, you do not know despair/ A cripple walks amongst you all you tired human beings/ He’s got all the things a cripple has not working arms and legs/ And vital parts fall from his system and dissolve in Scottish rain/ Vitally he doesn’t miss them he’s too fucked up to care/ Well, is that you in front of me/ Coming back for even more of exactly the same/ You must be a masochist to love a modern leper/ On his last leg/ On his last leg/ Well, I crippled your heart a hundred times/ And still can’t work out why/ You see, I’ve got this disease I can’t shake and I’m just rattling through life/ Well, this is how we do things now/ Yeah, this is how the modern stay scared/ So I cut out all the good stuff/ Yeah, I cut off my foot to spite my leg/ Well, is that you in front of me/ Coming back for even more of exactly the same/ You must be a masochist to love a modern leper/ On his last leg/ Well, I am ill/ But I’m not dead/ And I don’t know which of those I prefer/ Because that limb which I have lost/ Well, it was the only thing holding me up/ Holding me up/
These are children fighting for their lives. I never saw Boötes as a boy with AIDS. Boöteswas mad with hope. I do not know why. I do not know if it was a hope that he could or would get better. It was a hope for connection. Now that he had finally found his way into something of a family, he wanted us to do things together. Often, the AIDS medications work for a time, and then they stop working. When they stop working, you find yourself back on the medical merry-go-round, and you try to find something that works. What works for one person does not always work for other people. Many people can take an AIDS drug like Zerit, and they’re fine, and the drug is effective. Other people take Zerit, and the resultant nerve damage cripples them. You have good periods. You have periods that are nightmares.
Boötes has always been the younger dancer among us/ Here overlooking the runways of our lives/ Some virus hangs between us like an icon/ And you wonder why i left/ Boötes came to me to apologize/ Crawling into my bed/ Everything is always Boötes' fault/ Boötes hates himself/ It was quite late/ I hate it when they do that/ Stay out of my bed/ They never listen/ I’m sorry he said the brainworms are bad tonight/ What do you mean brainworms/ I mean these worms inside my head/ Crawling around in my blood/ Boötes, there is no such thing as worms inside anyone's head that crawl around in blood/ By now i was pissed off/ And wide awake/ You guys never let me sleep/ And you wonder why i left/ But i can see them in my eyes Boötes said/ There are no brainworms in your eyes i told him/ But i am sorry the brainworms are killing me/ There are no brainworms in your head there is no such thing as a brainworm/ I see them he said/ Brainworms/ Whatthefuck/ Maybe if you hug me they will go away the brainworms/ I doubted it/ But i hugged him anyway/ What did i have to lose but another night of sleep/ The next day i took him to the clinic he has AIDS dementia they said/ On the way home he said i am sorry i have brainworms it is all my fault/ Boötes, what can we do to make the brainworms go away please tell me we can dance he said when we dance they go away/ And so we danced the dances of dementia/ Washing my body in the water of that war/ And you wonder why i want leave/ Stop wondering/
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The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989): The Protection of the Child from the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child and Child Pornography (optional protocol, 2000/2002) Article 1 States Parties shall prohibit the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography as provided for by the present Protocol. Article 2 For the purposes of the present Protocol: (a) Sale of children means any act or transaction whereby a child is transferred by any person or group of persons to another for remuneration or any other consideration; (b) Child prostitution means the use of a child in sexual activities for remuneration or any other form of consideration; (c) Child pornography means any representation, by whatever means, of a child engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities or any representation of the sexual parts of a child for primarily sexual purposes. Article 8 1. States Parties shall adopt appropriate measures to protect the rights and interests of child victims of the practices prohibited under the present Protocol at all stages of the criminal justice process, in particular by: (a) Recognizing the vulnerability of child victims and adapting procedures to recognize their special needs, including their special needs as witnesses; (b) Informing child victims of their rights, their role and the scope, timing and progress of the proceedings and of the disposition of their cases; (c) Allowing the views, needs and concerns of child victims to be presented and considered in proceedings where their personal interests are affected, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law; (d) Providing appropriate support services to child victims throughout the legal process; (e) Protecting, as appropriate, the privacy and identity of child victims and taking measures in accordance with national law to avoid the inappropriate dissemination of information that could lead to the identification of child victims; (f) Providing, in appropriate cases, for the safety of child victims, as well as that of their families and witnesses on their behalf, from intimidation and retaliation; (g) Avoiding unnecessary delay in the disposition of cases and the execution of orders or decrees granting compensation to child victims.
The General Assembly of the United Nations calls upon all 192 Member countries that ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948, to publicize the text and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories." To assist our esteemed colleagues working on the front line at the United Nations to protect our communities’ children, Real Stories Gallery is following their lead by publicizing their significant text relating to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), thereby causing it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories. Rachel Chapple, PhD (Social Anthropologist) No child should ever experience being bought or sold or prostituted. No one will ever be able to persuade me to understand or to believe that it is in any way, shape or form acceptable for a kid to be bought or sold or prostituted within our transnational world. No matter how articulate or intelligent their reasoning, no matter how much money they offer me or how much they threaten me in an attempt to change my thoughts and feelings, I will never accept that it is acceptable to subjugate children, the most vulnerable members of our United Nations Community. In today's transnational world and with today's technologies, we are able to reach out and touch the lives of those throughout the depth and breadth of our neighbourhoods around the world. The message adults are collectively sending to kids is not a kind one. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is an international document that was drawn up in 1989 and has today been signed up for (the official term used is "ratified") by 190 of our 192 United Nations Member Countries, who participated in signing the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Whenever each Member Country ratifies the CRC they send a clear message to humanities' children. Children understand clear messages. The United States of America and Somalia have chosen not to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). In 2000 an optional protocol was drawn up and attached to the CRC: The Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. An optional protocol means that each of the United Nations Member Countries who have ratified the CRC are invited to also sign up for an attachment of ideas that was not included in the original 1989 document. Of the 190 out of 192 United Nations Member Countries who have ratified the CRC, 55 Member Countries have chosen not to sign up for enforcing and prosecuting The Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.
The Chasm Between You and Them is Just Too Wide. I have never met a whore -- male or female -- who didn't regard their tricks with barely hidden contempt. The boys hate the men who fucked them. The boys hate the men who infected them
We had all been exiled. This was code. They were mainly runaways. I was the one who had been exiled. I wasn't sure I would ever want to see America again. We were living in the Pigalle which is the red light district of Paris. The Pigalle as red light districts go, is not all that bad. Amsterdam is rougher. But as a tourist, even a sex tourist, you won't see everything that goes on in the Pigalle. You won't see the real grit. You probably won't see organized crime. You probably won't see the drug dealing. You might see the prostitutes. Male and female. We call it play for pay. You play. You will pay. We are. We called it the Hotel du Nord. That is not its real name. It doesn't have a name. It is only an address. The building is nondescript. The Hotel du Nord is a movie filmed in Paris in 1938. Major whore drama. We had all seen that movie about ten times. The Hotel du Nord is a boy bordello. Sex work has moved quite comfortably to the Internet. Organized crime still owns it. One perk was that our drugs were free. That would be a lot of drugs. That would be a lot of sex to endure. I have never met a whore -- male or female -- who didn't regard their tricks with barely hidden contempt. The boys hated the men who fucked them. I first met the boys at a demonstration (Parisians taking to the streets is heady stuff) against homelessness sponsored by Les enfants de Don Quichotte. To show support for the homeless, demonstrators camped outside with them for the night. I am still not sure how we all crammed into that little tent but we did. Boötes was the spiritual leader of the group of whores. Boötes was the youngest member. He claimed to be twelve. He looked to be about ten. I can recognize a whore a mile away. I was one once. That and AIDS had almost done me in again. Literally everyone I knew back in San Francisco was dead. It appeared I would be joining them. I am still not very good at being proficient at separating the art of it from the art of it. Every whore I know is an artist. They paint, they draw, they write, they dance, they perform. I did. I still do. You can find boys like this in any urban center. Rome, London, Prague, Moscow, New York, Chicago, Mexico City -- anywhere there's money and men, there's sex work. They liked my camera. It had been a gift from a very close artist friend who had recently died. Would they allow me to hang out so I could photograph their lives. They thought it would be fun. Even glamorous. They don't think that anymore. I more or less moved in. I knew these boys, but had to sort of pretend that I was new at this. Click. So there we were. Sex. Drugs. Money. Pimps. Organized crime. Disease. And a lot of rock and roll. The Hotel du Nord was a real dive. And then, there was the Internet. Boötes made more money than anyone. The boys attempted to take care of one another as best they could. It was the life or the street. And this was a step up from the street. When they weren't doing tricks, we shared an apartment at the end of a hall where the other rooms were where the boys met their customers. The pimps mainly ignored me. I was not a cop. Their stories would slowly spill out. Failures at school. Being beaten up was a common theme. Condoms everywhere helped maintain the illusion that safe sex was all anyone ever had. This was not true. Tricks will pay extra if you forego the condom. It was not even a dirty little secret. The boys hated sex. This was work. In order for some of them to do that work, they had to be juiced to the gills all of the time.
Most were junkies. I have never shown anyone those photographs. I doubt that I will ever allow them to see the light of day. Photos of boys with syringes. Boys having sex with other boys. You are thinking porn. But no. Their faces can be the pale indifferent faces of agony. You can't make porn from that. There is one thing that permeates all those photographs. A real pornography. Loneliness. I never knew what would happen next. One boy was stabbed by a pimp. Most of them were clinically depressed. But no one could go back. Often, there was nothing to go back to. You avoided cops and social workers as best you could. You learned a lot about the Internet. It was where you made your money. It was Boötes who got sick first. I would not fuck him. "You can, you know." he'd pause. "Free. We're friends." "It's not my scene," I explained. Boötes never did believe it. He was not unlike other ten-year-olds. He liked game software and he liked football (soccer to Yanks). He had a bike and a skateboard. He had amazing scars. His father had inflicted them. We played football in the park. I know this: you have to get right down there with them to reach these boys. There was only one area of consensus. They felt responsible for Boötes. They would allow him to do anything that did not require a vein. They were wrestling with him in the leaves in the park when he started throwing up blood. This scared them. Doctors will turn you in. I knew one who wouldn't. The bleeding never did get completely resolved. The HIV test was not good news either. The aperture of his body was enormous pain. They went to get tested one by one. Then, when the boy returned, he'd get raving drunk. They would stand in front of mirrors and stare at their fathers. How to agitate the sharks. What they had thrown back in was all of what had been themselves. Every last one of them was infected. "We're giving HIV to tricks," Boötes claimed. He was very grave. They hated the men who came to them for sex. But unprotected play for pay was becoming more and more difficult to rationalize. It was obvious I would have to reach Boötes first. "There's something I haven't told you," I explained. He stiffened. "You're a cop." "No." We were in a cafe. He was hungry. And thin. Way too thin. Kate Moss thin and just as mean. But I have something you don't have and you will never have. Not if you are reading this. They're called street creds and they're important. It's about more than any number of knife fights. It's about putting your money where your mouth is. "I have money and a loft," I explained. There had to be an alternative. There was. Boötes and I walked over to the loft that night. I had no furniture. We were on our backs on the floor with our coats on. Looking up at the skylight. "And we could come and live here and you would start a school..." He did not believe it. "If you would let me." "I don't know if we can trust you." "Here's what you can trust," I said. "Haart antiviral therapy works most of the time with most people. But some of you guys are into full-blown AIDS and Boötes has some kind of internal bleeding going on. It's going to be a gamble that you will all live through it." "It's always a gamble, Tim." "Is it a gamble you want to play out alone." A long silence between us. I have no magic words of advice when it comes to dealing with Boötes, Boötes, Boötes, Boötes, Boötes... There would be others: Boötes, Boötes, Boötes, Boötes, Boötes... You have to meet them on their turf and it's about equality. You cannot even suggest that you are better than they are. Or you will lose. You are on equal terms even with a ten-year-old whore. There have been times when I have had to assert my authority. But I have had to obtain their agreement that that could happen in that specific instance. The word "school" is disingenuous. I complain they don't read enough (they would rather make videos) and that's school. Adults invested in authority will not get it. I have no hope for that ever happening. It took them a long time to be able to even begin to leave the landscape of play for pay and trade it in for relationships they could forge between themselves. We are constantly checking in with one another to see if everyone is taking the medications. I am not their advocate. I am their lifeline. Advocate just doesn't cut it. I don't know what works. I do know you have to try. Or the world will kill them and it will kill them quickly. It will not waste a moment of its time. There is no happily ever after. There is this day and this day and this day and this moment. Boötes died. We are still coming to terms with losing him. I see him right here right now. I see his skateboard. We left Paris. But I am back at the loft (now empty) writing this. There is no furniture. I am staring up at the skylight and staring through a multitude of autumn stars almost drowned in light. When I am done writing this, and have put the computer away, I will be walking down to the Seine with a box of photographs of who they used to be. Not who they are. And I am going to throw those images in the river. What they had thrown back in. Only images of themselves. The reality is that you cannot know them. The chasm between you and them is just too wide. The sex worker is condemned to the moral and economic armageddon. You do not want to know him let alone save her. But I have arrived to tell you that I have seen them at their worst and I have seen them at their best and they are different from us. They aren't whores. They aren't sex workers. They're boys. They have discovered something that takes some of us a lifetime to understand. They could reinvent themselves even if no one else believes they could pull it off. I have seen them shed skin after skin. I have seen them bond. It has taken death to make it happen but I have seen them bond. We have all been exiled at one time or another. What they had thrown back in. Just images of some strangers that they used to be floating down the River Seine.
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Children Who Will Dance In Rain
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| (William Cleveland, Founder & Director, Center for the Study of Art and Community) | ||
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