It was the early 1980s or maybe the late 1970s. Could have been in India at the ashram. Or Oregon, on the ranch. Or maybe in LA after an evening at the skate rink, dancing and leaving it all on the floor. Who knows? I settled into a woman with many names.
Her passport said Linda Christina Brosio, though few people called her that. The Rajneeshis called her Yogini, Ma Shanti Yogini if you’re nasty. Folks from the advertising world called her Brosio—seems like you got further along if your first name wasn’t so… femme. Her childhood best friend called her Adnil. Her sorority sisters called her Christina, since there were so damn many Lindas. Her biological mother named her Catherine before handing her off to be raised by someone else, as someone else. I knew she could carry me far.
Those were the days. No one worrying about my comings and goings. No formal name, let alone task force or governmental recognition. I was sweeping into communities under the cover of night and they were none the wiser. Eventually, I too was lent many names: GRID, AIDS, HIV.
By 1992, I was found out. Linda had been sick, she went from doctor to doctor describing her symptoms. None of them thought to test her for me. Brilliant, right? Appear just different enough from person to person, count on the delightful human tendencies to lean ever so heavily on bias and stigma. Add in a dash of apathy and I had free reign. I fought for my survival just like everyone else. Her babies had failure to thrive, the doctors blamed the breastfeeding that she had fought so diligently for. She wanted the best immune system possible for them. She gave them that. That, and me.
On March 17th, 1992, Linda’s 43rd birthday, the letters arrived from the rural California health department. Her gift was the confirmation that her babies had AIDS. Their father had escaped my reach but I made my mark. Alora, age 6, and Morgan, age 4, had a collection of now classic symptoms. Pneumonia, wild fevers, opportunistic infections, yeast galore. This was still the dark ages though. No one thought I could be the culprit.
When the children were told, they named me, like a pet. I was known as Hivvy, a monster more akin to Sesame Street than Elm Street. They dequilled me, one by one removing my spikes of fear, stigma, animosity, and danger. I was rebranded, as something to coexist with, instead of wage war against. I was marked as a fuzzy little virus looking for a home, who sometimes got a little too carried away. Much like Morgan with scissors attempting his own haircut. It was emasculating, thus allowing the children to spend their energy envisioning healing for both themselves and me. Some serious hippy shit.
To make it worse, Linda decided to take their little cautionary tale on the road. That woman never met an audience she didn’t like and this was her time to shine. She was determined to spread the twin words of prevention and testing. She gabbed at every reporter, she made art, she found grants. She self-published a newsletter titled, “A Mother’s Diary in the Time of the Plague.” She disclosed not only her status but that of her children, reminding the world that I was not a monolith of experience. That is the funny thing about being told you are dying, it really shakes you into living.
In 1995 Linda died at home, slowly, from the havoc I had wrecked. Always bittersweet to lose a host. I was still on top of the world, no idea that effective meds were right around the corner. They had tried to throw some AZT my way but it was no match for me. It made the kids sicker than they were without it. The family grew desperate, having watched one of their own fade and rage into death. They were trying some weird shit, grasping for a chance, but I slowly advanced, nipping away tcell by tcell until few remained.
The kids were dying, at the end of the Millenia. At 10 and 12 years old their CD4 counts were counted on their fingers. Immune systems stripped. They debated starting HIV medications. I grew nervous. The meds outshone me in flashiness. While I played a long game, they struck hard and fast. Within a few months the new meds had a collection of side effects that included pancreatitis, peripheral neuropathy, terrible vertigo and while one kid had debilitating diarrhea, the other couldn't stop puking. They rarely left their respective toilets. I had never had such a profound effect on their day to day lives. Years later the side effects lessened, and they learned to deal with the ones that remained. I’ve had a standout year, or season, but nothing like those pills.
Eventually I was driven into hiding, my presence undetectable in their blood but still lurking, forming a latent reservoir. They hid their missed meds with shame and slight of hand, giving me even more social weight. Stigma reaches a new pinnacle when you cannot even utter the words, “I’m missing doses,” to your doctor, afraid of yet another lecture or reminder of the possibility of your untimely death. The kids that went missing from the clinic halls each year were reminder enough.
Today, we have all grown into our own. Grown old. No longer a baby virus or pediatric patients. Today there are new names, terms. Long term survivors, magnetic couples, U=U, undetectable. I have been demoted, I no longer receive first billings, they call themselves People Living with HIV. No longer “victims” or “afflicted.” Such bullshit to see my legacy washed out.
Alora has made more humans, but my jurisdiction was confined. Alora fought to keep the medication in her body with each wave of morning sickness. I was still suppressed, undetectable in her blood and pushed to the corners. Those babies took the medications of their ancestors, AZT, around the clock for their first 6 weeks. This time as preventative rather than treatment. Needles puncturing their little veins at regular intervals to check in on my grip. It was my gift welcoming them to the planet, the last whispers of power I held over that generation’s bodies. Not all is lost; those babies will still face the fear and stigma of having a mother and uncle who are openly HIV-positive. A mother who hopes she has bolstered her children enough to shoulder the look of shock, and varying degrees of blowback they will experience. The inevitable questions, whether they are asked with mouths or eyes. Those kids have stock answers at the ready, jokes loaded up to diffuse the tension. But really, how do you prepare your children for that? To bear three generations of internal and external stigma? I’m not one to brag, but… shit, I’m good.