Fun at the HIV Clinic

 

Give me an H (H) Give me an I (I) Give me a V (V)! What does that give you? EITCH-AY-VEE! And what does that give you? AIDS! Well, now, that’s debatable!

 

I suffer from an acute case of political incorrectness. In a court of law, with my hand on the first Harry Potter book, I solemnly swear, ‘I am a good person, but I do like to laugh. In or out of a propriate. Amen. Oh and Voldemort is a demon in the bedroom.’

 

It was a happy day. The birds had shut up from their incessant wrist-slitting chirping and I hadn’t gotten up to pee all night. Not even once. Oh yes, it was a day of miracles!

 

I had just fallen in love; you could even still see the bruises on my knees. I jumped out of bed after 17 snoozes, ate breakfast while standing on the scale and threw on my very sexy gym clothes, black baggies and an old t-shirt donated by the winner of The Biggest loser. Let’s go let’s go let’s go! I’m a gym girl, yes I am, woo! Go team! SHUTUP INNER VOICE!

 

Jogging at a walking pace, fantasizing about my new man, my brain started sawing its way out and hitchhiked to a very very dark place. I wonder if he’s been tested. Have I been tested? When was the last time I was tested? Have I been with anyone since then? Should I be worried? Why did Bambi’s mom have to die? Bambi is probably dead by now or the oldest deer in the world! I should get tested again. I can go next week. But what if I’m positive, I should go sooner, I… And with that last thought, DOOF, missed a step, head first onto the handlebars. I gotta go!

 

Every time I’ve taken a friend to get tested, I’d volunteer to go as well because I’d had unprotected sex with 593 people, men, women and hermaphrodites (slight exaggeration).

 

Nerves had kicked in and built a nest in my wind pipe as I walked into the clinic. YAY! Free condoms! Grab grab grab. And they aren’t even the ones that the Government accidentally stapled. After trying to transfer my rubber acquisitions from one hand to the other so that I could put my name down, the receptionist gave me a box. I said my name was Jeremy. A girl named Jeremy, too obviously a lie?

 

I waited for half an hour before I went even though there wasn’t anyone else there. I think they wanted to give me the allusion of busy-ness. I’m fooled ya’all, you got me, you’re busy!

 

I was called in, it felt like the principal calling me personally over the intercom announcing that my dad had come to fetch for my colon cleanse.

 

The young consultant started with quick questions, ‘Have you been tested before bla bla bla, how often do you have sex bla bla bla, what’s your favourite position bla bla bla’, the usual makes-you-really-think oral examination. Then there was a quick prick and all the formalities were out the way. 15 minutes until the results are out. Just enough time for 2 cigarettes. But I don’t smoke. Enough time to go through every possible outcome and scenario, have an anxiety attack and conceive 15 children.

 

I got up to leave the little room and wait outside. The chipper chap stopped me, asking me what I did for a living. I told him. OH! His eyes glowing at the prospect of me snatching him from out of his pre-HIV-test-consultancy per-hour job and saving him! ‘I’d like you to read something’ he said. WHAT?! I just had a fucking needle in me testing me for a life-threatening disease, you are stealing my 15 minutes of WHAT-IF time and you want me to reeeead something?!! Do you know where we are?!! Do you know what your job is?!! Do you know how many calories are in a kilogram and you want me to reeead something??

 

I managed to get out, ‘Er, W-w-w-hat is it?’

He smirked, ‘It’s a play I’ve written. I’m looking for a producer. Can you read it and see if you like it?’

‘What’s it about?’ I asked.

‘It’s a Zimbabwean musical!!’

‘Oh. Um. Could I perhaps read it when I come back, after I’ve got my results?’

Despondently he said, ‘Ok lady! Come back in 10 minutes’

 

I’d lost 5 minutes of my feel-sorry-for-myself time. I walked slowly to the bathroom. I tried really hard to look into the mirror and find something deeper, more meaningful. Nah, what the hell! I wonder what they have in the vending machine. A minute had passed in what seemed like a millennium-long, scream-filled space/time vacuum. I was twitching and cold, I thought I had rigor mortis.

 

Finally! Time to go back. Oh my whatever-is-the-right-religion’s God. Help me. Protect me. Let things be ok. If I’m positive, I’ll be a pioneer of the Virus, I’ll motivate school kids and college students, I’ll climb Everest and show how you can be positive being positive. And dear holiness guy, if I’m negative, I’ll never ever ever have sex again!

 

I walked in and the guy is sitting at his little desk talking with his back to me. And then I realised, HE WAS ON HIS PHONE! He was llaaauughinng and having a good time while the future of my bodily planet was in his hands!! EXCUUUSE ME?! He looked at me and gave me the hand! He gave me the hand! Wait, I’m busy it said. Wait, I’m talking to my fried on my phone and we’re having fun!! Oh yes, yes yes yes, I know your results but I’m not going to tell you because YOU didn’t read my Zimbabwean musical! So now you can wait! That’s what THE HAND was saying! I need to know my results!! Just tell me! Just tell me!! And get off your $%^P(*^ phone!!!

He told his friend to hold and then he looked at me and said, ‘You’re fine’ and carried on with his call!! ‘You’re fine’ THAT’S IT! That’s all I get? No hug, no congratulations, no use a condom, no nothing? I stood there unearthed as he reached into the draw with one hand and waved the tube in my face so I could see for myself.

 

Ok, thanks. Thanks nice man who has really made this a fantastical experience for me. Fun fun fun at the HIV clinic. Come on everybody, come and have fun with Bozo who’s on the phone and has written an international bestselling Zimbo singalong! Come on! Free tests, get your free tests today! Party tiiiiime!

 

I motioned to the door, forgetting the hard-arse in me who would have usually erupted at the incident, but considering the sensitivity of this particular issue, I was genuinely shaking with nervous laughter. Then, of all unacceptable things to say and do, Bozo, the clown consultant, tapped me on the shoulder waving some paper in my face, ‘So, are you going to read this?’ Am I going to read it? AM I GOING TO READ IT!? I nodded, thinking what a wonderful firestarter it would make when I burn down his devil-ridden soul! I snatched it and left the office snarling.

 

There was now quite an impressive sized queue at the front desk. I walked toward the exit, head held high, desperate to get to the car.  The receptionist after shouted at me, ‘Jeremy! You forgot this!’ I turned around and saw her grinning at me waving something in her hand. And that very moment, it felt like I had farted while making an announcement at school assembly. I stopped. I looked at her. I looked at everyone now glaring at me. And with one quick move, I stormed back toward her, grabbed my box of free condoms and left!

 

Ask a Stupid Question…Get a Seat in Hell

I was in heat that made my boobs slap together like wet, golden cymbals. I was part of a film crew ‘on location’ far from home. It had already been a horrendous waking nightmare of car accidents, injuries, hurricanes and the drunk gay stand-in humping the hot nanny in the pool of our very motelish hotel. Oh it had been an adventure alright.

 

My job? Well, I’d had a few. The first AD had a bit of a thing for me and so kept making sure that when one contract ended, I had a new one…nearer him. Oy Vey as the Joo-ish people say, Oy Vey indeed.

My job on this tit-drippingly hot day, Cast Coordination. Oh the joys! Oh the bountiful pleasures of coordinating 400 extras, NONE of which who had the decency to ever learn Great Britannia’s mother tongue. I mean, so what, so you can’t afford an education, I mean, I know you can barely pay for food or shelter in your should-be-illegal-to-live-in-these-conditions squatter camps, but for God’s sake, have a little decency, learn the way of the Brits goddamit. I mean, why on earth should I, privileged, educated, not-ever-disadvantaged, why should I learn your language? I mean, it doesn’t make any sense, you are so spoilt. I spit, spoilt. Oh, to be a flagrant vagrant…!

 

So, there I was, eloquent and well-dressed and there they were, all 400 of them, in torn old clothes (excellent job wardrobe department), thirsty, tired and very poor, working a 16-hour day to earn a pathetically small amount of money. Pathetic, really. The only reason the film crew had chosen this spot in the depths of Africa was because of the cheap labor and to have sex with monkeys. Um, the latter is not 100% true. So, my job was to get all of their details: height, shirt, trouser and shoe sizes.  Easy enough. I also wanted to keep them in high spirits through the tedious work, or rather, keep high spirits in them. So, I had a secret stash of cheaper-than-free vodka. Poison, I’m sure, but wondrously effective in causing acid-like hallucinations to make the time go by. On our breaks, we laughed as they taught me their African language and I forgot the horrid torrid weather for a while.

 

The sun was violent with its laser heat by midday, I thought my skin itself was going to clamber off my body and go and bathe in the marsh mirage with the elephantoms.  Hot hot hot. Blisters started emerging on my lips, a very effective Botox replacement! Half my nose scraped off, burnt and bleeding. Cheaper than plastic surgery! My tongue and throat were like sandpaper trying to make a fire in my mouth. HOT!! And my pale complexion reddened minute by minute, damaged and ageing from the cruel rule of the African sun! You’re a bully, sun! A pimple-faced bully! I was HOT! And my African counterparts? Laughing, dancing, stripping and unconsciously tipsy with a perfectly-even lineless tan! Why God! WHY ME!? Why do I get burnt with uneven bikini lines and blistery lips. WHY?! Oh. Wait. Um. Oh. Right. I remember. Nevermind. All’s fair. Forget it. Sorry to bother! Love to your wife!

 

I was about over half way in the queue, and pretty pooped. So pooped in fact, I was doing an impressive would-be-foxtrot trying to stand up straight. My frustration levels had gone higher than Willy Wonka’s elevator. I could only communicate in violent hand gestures and a very broken combination of their must-not-be-named language and mine. Directly translated, I was saying, ‘How long is your weight? How tall are your feet? How much is your shortness? How big is your bodytop?’ END IT! END IT ALL. 1, 6, 19, 54…how many people to go? Need a drink. Need a rub. Need a good shag. Oh wait, I just had one. Sorry, time juggled.

Typically, as a consumer of the dialect of Her Highness, when trying to speak another language, my tone may sound like,’ I’M TALKING YOUR $%^&* LANGUAGE! ARE YOU $%^&*%$ HAPPY NOW!!? ARE YOU! YOU DIRTY DEAD DILDO! DO YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND ME YOU IDIOT!!?’ Yes, it may come across as arrogance, perhaps, but the truth is, I’m just very ashamed that I can’t communicate in any other way, at all. AT ALL!

 

I was racing through the queue now, if I finished in time I could go and play pool with the sexy French cameramen who could speak English. Who’s next? A man was pushed forward in a wheelchair. I greeted him, trying very hard to focus on the task and not show any sympathy or acknowledgement, trying to treat him normally, making him feel normal. Oh the pitiful human race. What has television taught you. NOTHING!

 

I spoke my unforgiveable samples of his language asking the questions which I had almost perfected. I asked him, ‘How tall are you?’ He shook his head. Of course, he was in a wheelchair, it didn’t matter. Next question! Don’t show emotion. Think French man fondling. Just act normal. Treat him the same, ‘What size shoe are you?’ No reply. Deep breath. Asking again, now with hand gestures, ‘WHAT (gesturing with shoulders that I’m asking a question) SIZE (putting hands together as if measuring a fish) SHOE (lifting up my foot) are YOU? (pointing to him)? No reply. Feeling my blood boiling to vapor and my heart rate matching the Hulk doing a cardio workout, I looked to the guy who had been pushing him. ‘WHAT SIZE SHOE IS HE!!!!??? ASK HIM.’ The pusher stared at me blankly. ‘SHOEEE SIIIZE. WHAT? SHOE? HELLOO? DOES ANYONE UNDERSTAND ME?!’ Louder now, ‘HOW BIG ARE YOU FEET?!!”

 

Then. With a horrified sadness, as if Oprah had called me personally to tell me that she had put all the weight back on. The old man in the wheelchair shook his head, looking down. I followed his eye line. My heart atrophied. The heat had frozen around us. The tiny hairs on my lip bleached themselves. I felt a torrent of vomit surge upwards looking for an exit wound. As I looked down, I saw that this quiet, honest and simple man…was an amputee.

 

Ring Ring, Ring Ring

 

‘Yes, Hello’?

 

‘Hello ma’am, Front Desk here. Congratulations! Your place in hell has just been confirmed!’