Tag Archives: work

Eight Million to One

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Yesterday, I told the story of the chalk portrait of Spencer Cox, drawn with such skill and love by Jose Luis Silva.  I’d tell you where to find it so you can see for yourself, but it’s already gone.

Why sweat over art that will be washed away before you lie down to sleep that night?  Why write stories and fling them into the digital winds?  What remains of the work we do?

I am a storyteller (genetically, historically, unabashedly) so I tend to attach roles to the people in my life.  (You’ve met Fartbuster, right?)  Spencer was “the AIDS activist.”  I know other people who are HIV positive or who have AIDS, but Spencer was “my friend who lives with AIDS.”  I remember where I was sitting back in the early 1990’s when I heard the news that he had the virus.  I was sitting in a dainty mahogany armchair with Queen Anne legs, mother of pearl accents and a pink taffeta seat that my mother had covered with scraps for my graduate school apartment.  That was the same year that Arthur Ashe revealed he had AIDS.  So Spencer was dying, then.   I filed that away.  I hadn’t seen him since college.  I didn’t see him again for years.

Then came the 20th year since we all met at the Governor’s Honors Program in 1985.  We had email by now and a reason to get back together.  I had a freshly broken heart from the death of my husband from leukemia.  Spencer knew a lot about watching people die, so we began to talk about grief and surviving and getting back to living.  I remember a time when he compared grief to the silt at the bottom of a lake–sit still and it will clear, let it sift down and you will see the glints of gold.  Grief will rest after a while.  Mud distills into gold.  He didn’t make it back to Georgia for the 20th reunion, but we were connected again and I was grateful for his wisdom about dying.  And I was grateful that he was still alive.  I had no concept of how much he had done to make life available to people living with HIV.  Really, no idea.  I thought he was a fundraiser or something in New York and wore an ACT UP t-shirt on weekends.

Then came Facebook.  The years collapsed into nothing and we were all back together again.  My Vivi stories convinced Spencer that they were soul mates and he looked forward to serving as her Auntie Mame.  We got together a few times and I joked that he was the only friend of mine who doesn’t get a lecture about quitting smoking.  He barked out a sooty laugh and said, “The cigarettes will NEVER have time to catch me!”  Oh, how we laughed.  Twenty years and he was still here.  I told him that he was the most interesting person I knew and he snarled, “Jesus, I’m a 40 yr old man who lives with my mother.”  He was 43, by the way.  What a luxury, to outrun AIDS long enough to lie about your age!

Spencer cox ACT UP marchWe did get to praise Spencer’s work before he died–there was the movie, the Oscar-nominated documentary “How to Survive a Plague.”  We who had loved him at 16 began to learn what a giant contribution he had made to the fight against the plague of AIDS.  Spencer had always been larger than life and now he was getting to tell his story on the big screen.  He changed his Facebook name to “Spencer Squeaky Cox” after meeting Sarah Jessica Parker at a showing of the film and deciding that he needed a catchier triple moniker.  He was so alive in those heady days of interviews and panels and premieres.

I knew it was bad when I didn’t hear back from him for a week.  Then I got two phone calls at work within minutes–Bryn and Debra.  I answered the second one because I knew.  He was gone.  I didn’t have a “friend with AIDS” anymore.

At the memorial in New York, the eulogists spoke in chronological order:  his brother, his GHP friends, a college buddy, early NYC friend, ACT UP comrades, his ex, his broken-hearted and furious apologist.  Spencer’s magnificent work unfolded before us.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.  The video tributes from Anthony Fauci, Anderson Cooper, Larry Kramer–talking about that boy I met in Valdosta.  Tony-winning composer Tom Kitt played the piano as his sister, Katherine, sang “I Miss the Mountains” and I sobbed.

It began to sink in that even as Spencer was gone, there were people in that theater who were alive today because of him.  The face of AIDS that I had attached to one person in my life was all around me.  Many men who sat there in the light from the stage and nodded with an understanding that glowed from their sharp cheekbones and careful eyes.  Spencer’s drive.  His passion.  His pig-headed genius.  He did it.  He got protease inhibitors pushed through.  He found a way to fight the plague.

I heard the eulogists say “eight million people are alive because of Spencer,” several times but that number is so large that it is impossible to envision.  Then the man sitting beside us turned and said, “I’m one of them.”  Eight million people living.  One man, living.  I could touch this man.  I did.  Not a handshake or even a hug.  With some reflex that came from deep in my heart and overrode all my polite training, I reached out and stroked his fine cheekbone.  I cupped his aging face like I was his mother.  I wanted him to know I was happy he was here.  Eight million….to one.

Hammerin’ Hank

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On summer nights when I was a kid, my Pop sat in his recliner on the back porch and listened to the Braves game.  In the early years of my life, he’d have the TV set to the game with the sound turned down and a radio playing Skip Caray’s commentary.  Once TBS came along, he didn’t have to bother with the radio.  The voice of Skip Caray will always equal baseball for me.  The “back porch” was actually more of a den–with walls, windows, doors, a gas heater, ceiling fan, recliners, a chest freezer, indoor/outdoor carpet, a wall filled with Grandmama Irene‘s oil paintings, school pictures of six grandchildren–but it had started life as a back porch and you know that’s how it is in the  South, we call something by what it was, not what it is.  Pop called everybody by a nickname, probably because he had been saddled with “Meredith Gaither Mathews” in 1902 when he was born the baby of six children.  His nickname quickly turned to Dick and as he grew older it was Mr. Dick or M. Gaither or Pop.  My mother was “Sweet Pea” and my Aunt Dixie was “Babe.”   Nicknames were everything and they STUCK.  In our town, you could pick your nose in kindergarten and they’d still be calling you Booger at the prom.

Pop’s recliner was the center of our summertime universe.  He kept a stack of Louis L’Amour paperbacks on the side table, along with his glasses, a pipe rack, a packet of Levi Garrett tobacco and in later years, a remote and the phone.  If he was working on a chaw, he didn’t talk, but he’d nod at you and wave so you knew you were loved.  If the game was on, he didn’t move from that chair except to get up every now and then and spit out the door.  I wouldn’t be surprised if that oak tree by the back porch steps sprouted tobacco shoots one of these days because that was the only place he was allowed to spit tobacco.  Oh, and we all know that tobacco products are bad for you.  Pop died at the tender age of 103.  For his funeral, my mom sent flowers with a Braves hat included in the spray.

Speaking of funerals, this side note will give you some hint of Pop’s devotion to the Braves.  When Grandmama Irene wrote out the instructions for her funeral on a yellow legal pad and dropped them off at the Wade H. Gilbert Funeral Home, she included this note:  “If I die during baseball season, please schedule my funeral around the Braves game.  I would like for Dick to be there.”  She has never been one to let things slip and I assume they are still of file with 20 years worth of addenda.

I enjoyed throwing the ball around and I probably have a dusty cracked glove somewhere in the house, but I’ve never become a fan of baseball.  I’ve only been to two professional baseball games in my life and my favorite part was the $7 beer and the roasted peanuts.  I just never know where to LOOK in baseball.  Too many people all spread out.  When it comes to watching sports, football makes me holler, basketball keeps my attention, soccer makes me tense, golf makes me feel lower middle class, and baseball mostly reminds me of Pop.  

But I woke up today thinking about baseball because I have been obsessing about “hits” of my own.  I’ve only been blogging for a couple of months and I’m thrilled with the progress I’ve made, but I keep looking for more hits (my word for the number of views this site gets).  I chase my tail wondering if I should write different topics, change the background, increase my marketing, tweak the tags or edit the slugs.  Some days, I hit one out of the park (like with that panties thing), or a solid double (like teaching my daughter the A word).  Some posts are bunts, some are walks and some are “a high fly ball to left field and it’s three and out for the Braves.”  

Who was the greatest Brave ever?  Hammerin’ Hank, since we use nicknames on Pop’s back porch.  Hank Aaron was in his heyday on those summer nights when I sat on the scratchy carpet and listened to the game with Pop.  Even I know that Hank Aaron hit 755 home runs (and I think those steroid freaks shouldn’t count in the record books so I don’t know where the current “record” stands).  But Hammerin’ Hank also struck out 1,383 times…almost twice as much.  You strike out when you’re TRYING for a home run and all that energy doesn’t go in the right direction at the right moment.  Hank Aaron had 3,771 hits over his career.  He just kept swinging.  He generated 2,297 runs for his teams.  When he came up for nomination into the Hall of Fame, he was a shoo in with almost 98% of the vote on the first ballot.  Yes, sir, hold the door open for him and walk right through.  

So the lesson I learned today from Hammerin’ Hank is that a career is about pursuing something you love, not just about the times you hit it out of the park.  I don’t have to be the best every day to get joy from what I do.

Hank_aaron_jerseyNow, this is the part that made me cry.  As much as I remember about Hank Aaron, I didn’t recall his number.  This is a picture of the jersey he was wearing when he broke Babe Ruth’s home run record.  Guess how old I am this year?  Forty four.  Yeah, it’s been a long time since those summer nights on the back porch.  Pop has been gone for seven years and his recliner is still there.  I miss him so much, but this is my place to write about him.  And that makes me feel solidly on base.