Special Blood

Jude was mindlessly swiping through his many dating apps, hoping to get a match or two. The gold hoop in his upper ear ricocheted off the sun and up the stream. Whenever Jude was deep in thought, he’d bite the middle bone in his pinky and snag at the skin. He had no idea how intensely I was admiring him, and it wouldn’t be bizarre if he did - he’d reply with a flirtatious comeback that would only further solidify our romance.

“I don’t know if I’m graduating man,” Jude tucked his phone into his flannel pocket.

“You’re graduating.”

“Yo, dude - I really don’t know! This digital illustration class is kicking my ass.”

“You say this every semester about every class you take, and then you get an A-.”

Jude pulled out some rolling paper and a translucent medicine bottle. “This might be the year I drop out,” he handed me his phone. “Take a photo of me rolling a fat one so I can post it as my new profile pic.”

“Can the caption be, ‘trees amongst the trees?’”

Jude assumed his picture position, a modest crouch with eagle spread arms. I was able to get the flowing water in the background and it made him come across as well traveled, even if it was just New York. Jude’s charm was definitely his flip flops but never his toes; his toes were aesthetically abusive. The spliff bobbed on his bottom lip before skydiving towards the muddy ground.

“I’m dying, Jude.”

He croaked while lifting up the bud. “Chill out, man. It’s only been a few hours, you can go another two.”

“Jude, I have HIV.”

☁︎

I had a song on loop all morning. It was a sub genre of emo-trap and I was eating up all the consonants. This was my favorite class at the beginning of the semester because I knew the professor and I would get along. She was a hard ass with an illustrative tongue and dynamic technique. I was interested in learning something from her about broadcasting my passions seamlessly, and she gave me the impression I was the perfect student to embark on that expedition.

There was death in my eyes before I came to terms with it. My illness was now a discovery that I couldn’t belittle, it only soared with more rage. I spent hours in the room glaring at the lines in my hand, trying to stitch the loose lineage that was brought to me by my now beheaded life. I did this to myself - was the made up freestyle I contributed to the monotoned tune.

The classroom bled with somber amber and made everyone’s presentation bold with timestamped tints. I had forgotten something was due, and my mind was too busy revolting against my assumed death to care. The professor became aware that I was camouflaging excitement with my cries.

“Do you need to use the bathroom, Mr. Bennett?” My professor deliberately drew attention to me.

“No,” my collar was swollen with nerves, it clenched my jaw and gave me TMJ.

The last time I was referred to as Mr. Bennet my life had surrendered. My luck had just passed on me - I forgot who I was all in that breath.

“Mr. Bennet,” you tested positive. “Go get some water.”

☁︎

“What do you mean?”

And it all came out. The two weeks I’ve stocked within my shallow crevices seeped through like I was broken all along. My torso met my knees all in one convulsion, and I dry-heaved under the sound of swishing wavelets. It was painful to cry like this, especially in front of a friend who had never seen me cry.

“I found out two weeks ago. They called me after our donation, man. I’m dying.”

“But like, how do you know-know? You can’t go off of what one person says.”

It was difficult to project between my knees. “I went to a clinic and they confirmed.”

I waited for a voice, but I could only hear the crunchy footsteps coming from the people who were further up the path. There was some rustling coming from up a tree, and the two squirrels made their way to the ground and away from us - maybe they knew.

Jude positioned his hand on the middle of my back. I opened my eyes to find his big toe in front of sneaker. Some of my locks had dug into the ground and become roots for a tragedy a little more beautiful. I lifted my head up and discovered Jude’s almond brown eyes observing me. They weren’t damp at all, but they were more wholesome than ever.

“So Olly, how do we fix this?”

☁︎

I smoked a cigarette right after signing my name on the waitlist. There were two people in front of me, one with a broken arm and the other with bloodshot eyes. I had been at this exact clinic a couple days prior hitting on a cute Jamaican nurse. Before I submitted my blood test she told me that everything was going to be alright, and I believed her because things like this don’t happen to me. I believed her so much I waited for her to get off work, cause I’m not dying. I wasn’t dying.

Then I got the call.

“Mr. Bennett,” you tested positive. “I’m sure you’re aware of your status. The nurse told you?”

My doctor was a short balding redheaded man. He reminded me of the word, ravioli. “I received a phone call.”

“Yes, and I’m sure this is an extremely devastating time for you, but I want to let you know that you can live with HIV and be healthy.”

“Sure.”

“I have a lot of patients who are living well and even have families. The medications are reliable and are backed by science. Do you understand?”

Pamphlets and condoms were mounted around the small office, bordering me in with intruding reminders. I never thought I did anything bad, but on this very day I did. I was now fooled against listening to myself, and acquired knowledge through clinicians. I am only a syringe, a capsule and an acronym whose destiny is up for debate. I don’t think I’m doing very well, and I could only think of doing worse.

Then it happened, my next symptom. “Can you excuse me for a second?”

I sped past the front desk and right into the public trash can at the corner of Delancey and Essex. Nothing but water regurgitated from my mouth because that was all I could digest over the last few days. A homeless person approached me, asking if I had some change to spare and it made me teary that I couldn’t acknowledge them. Here was someone else at the edge of their world watching me go to the outskirts of my own, and we’re both finding aid in this waste bin.

☁︎

Jude handed me a beige bandana from his pocket and I used it to swab up some of the moisture from my face. As I wiped, I noticed the peeling texture of my palms and wrist. My skin was paler than its ever been, and usually I could see the mix of cinnamon that gave me my natural bronze color. It was all gone.

“Feliz will be here in five minutes.”

Jude was known for doing this. Spontaneously inviting others to our solo hangouts without my input, and today my lucky guest was Feliz - who I haven’t spent time with since my diagnoses. My wounds began to tremble and it was just as I was figuring out how to conceal them all. My blood became rampant imaging Feliz beside all the greenery at the Cloisters, and this was the rush that had deserted me for exactly two weeks.

Jude couldn’t get out his next sentence because it was stunted by her knee length cream sweater and combat boots. She wore a trench coat that was a buttery orange and her hair was now in waist length braids. She was cold, and I could see that on her brittle lips but a blood-rushed pretty smile. She gave power to the name that was gifted to her, and she redistributed that vivacity to me whenever I saw her.

“Am I late?” She rocked her body into Jude’s and took the empty seat beside me, poking my cheekbone. “Hello to you.”

“What’s up?” I still had disappointment on my chin, probably holding me together.

“You two always pick the most inconvenient places to go. I would’ve been fine staking out in the library,” she stole the joint from Jude and inhaled deeply, letting the smoke twirl from her looped lips. “Did you hear back about the internship?”

“I didn’t get it,” my other latest dismay.

She gently rubbed my cheek with her thumb. “It’s okay, sugar-doodle. That means it wasn’t meant for you!”

Awkward moments between best friends are crippling. Jude was on one side of me trying to spare the frigid stillness with beat box noises, and Feliz was revamping her next sculpture out loud. I could tell each of them wanted something from me, and I was too disturbed to reach for it. Honestly, I wanted to no one there at all.

“The architecture here is so old, what does it make you think about?” Feliz loved a good round of questions.

When I first started coming to the Cloisters, it meant a free place that wasn’t too close to home but eventually became that. It was all between me and my camera, the things that would happen all throughout my personalized oasis and it made me vanish inside of a roll of film. I’m empty without something that convinced me that this was alright.

The position of the battered buildings brought me into a fallen cause. Today was going to be the day I would end my life, and I had decided that from the sleep that escaped me overnight. I had to revisit the Cloisters one final time because I knew it was the destination of my contraction. Afterwards, I was going to pass my school and sulk in my accomplishments; I was a black kid accepted into one of the most prestigious art schools in the country and my mom was always proud of that.

And then finally, I would head to the Manhattan Bridge.

“This might sound weird, but it makes me think of stardust,” Jude glitched.

“That’s the comic artist in you,” Feliz ridiculed him, but I understood what he meant.

“What does it make you think about?”

Feliz glanced at me. “That I want to continue this.”

I wish I took a picture of that look. As I was leaving my apartment in the morning, I assembled each photo I had taken at the Cloisters. The row of women became anonymous identities and I scribbled an adjective against each polaroid. Some of them made complete sense, like Kelly being effulgent and Tegan being swanky, and others were a bit more abstract. I wanted to see them all beside each other, to make their existence a bit more humane because it never was to me.

Feliz was missing from that collage, but seeing her in the flesh made it a bit more rewarding. I had hundreds of photos of Feliz in my phone alongside Jude. The nights the three of us would get lost in Washington Square Park and somehow end up at a protest. I had a gallon of photos of Feliz selling her pottery at the Brooklyn Flea Market, and photos of Jude bumping into her biggest vase - shattering it completely.

“It makes me think about ember,” how easily it goes out without the cool wash of an exhale.

“I like that, Oliver,” Feliz tied her hand to mine. I know she knows.

Amongst all the girls I’ve been with, one of them had very special blood and it ran into me. It married my cells and injected my plasma with kisses that were so sweet at the time, but now they hold grudges. They’ve disrupted my quality of life and I’m begging for it back in a space that holds my poise at gunpoint.

Not one of them are to blame.

“Where should we go after this?” Jude asked. “I’m kinda hungry. I could go for some fish sticks.”

Feliz winced. “Ew. Reminds me of when I was a kid and my mom would buy the frozen pack. They never tasted unthawed.”

“What other kind of fish sticks are there? No true G makes fish sticks from scratch.”

It had been two weeks. I had dreams of getting mad, of finding my revenge and pursuing my payback. All of those emotions succumbed to the regret I coddled like grief. Then it slipped with the boldness of winter’s brisk, and the memories beside my friends who made it that much harder. They were like stardust, descending down to wrap me in this belief of cosmic infinity and without that, I’d forget how human I always was.

“You down, Oliver?” They each stood up and brushed off their chills.

“Yeah, but before we go, can we take a group photo?”