I’m standing at the steps of the San Francisco City Hall. It’s evening. I look up and see spotlights illuminating the Grand Dome and two flags whipping in the wind. Someone on the speaker’s stand is speaking. And I am surrounded by thousands and thousands of people who are holding candles.
I, too, hold a candle. It’s so momentous, I can barely breathe. The electricity of connection to all these strangers. How from where I started did I reach this night?
It’s April 23, 1989, and I have just been given the news that I’m HIV-positive at the Nelson-Tebedo Clinic. It’s not a surprise since I lived in New York City in the early ’80s, and, to put it politely, I received my mail at the St. Mark’s Baths. Like a good alcoholic, I go on a final bender, wake up with a beautiful man that I have no memory of meeting, touching, kissing, or playing parcheesi with. I figure this is a good one to go out on, since I remember nothing anyway.
With sobriety, I go into action. I scour the gay publications — The Advocate, the New York Native, Christopher Street Magazine and the New England Journal of Medicine. One day in The Advocate, I see an article on the upcoming International AIDS Conference in San Francisco. They’re offering heavily discounted admission for PWAs to the Conference, half-price airfare and inexpensive hotel rates a few blocks from the Conference Center.
I get all the travel plans done and a month later, I’m flying to San Francisco on Sunday, the day before the conference begins, because there’s a candlelight march from the Castro to City Hall, and this I cannot miss. I call the Bay Area Reporter to find out where to meet for the march and am told there’s a group gathering at Mission Dolores Park.
So around 7 p.m., I’m at the park, and there’s a group of about 30 gathering and talking, all holding candles. I find myself talking with a tall, slender, elegant-looking man, and we exchange a little about our backgrounds. His name is Lars, and he is a doctor from Sweden. And I tell him that I’m an actor from Dallas and HIV-positive, and I’m here for information to save my life.
He gives me a candle then suddenly steps forward and tells the group it’s time to head for the march. I start walking with him, and we begin winding our way through side streets. People from the neighborhoods begin joining the group. Finally, I see we’re just a couple blocks from Market Street.
As I turn around I see the crowd has grown to around 300 people. When we reach Market, Lars tells me to look up the street: For as far as the eye can see, stretching up to the sky are thousands and thousands of people with candles moving slowly towards us.
I’ve seen this before. In The Times of Harvey Milk, after Harvey has been murdered, there was just such a march. I’m standing at the crossroads of history. And I start sobbing.
Lars puts his arm around my shoulders and says, “We have somewhere to be.” So when the crowd reaches us, we lead the march to City Hall. And that’s how I arrived here.
In the morning, as I enter the conference center, right in front of me is a man with T-shirts standing behind a table. The shirts feature three pastel triangles, in the middle of which is the phrase “I’m Still Here.” I ask him what it means, and, in a very halting, difficult manner, he stammers that he has dementia, but he can understand me; it’s just hard for him to speak. Before his illness, he was a graphics designer for a big PR firm, and he created shirts to raise money for the AIDS community. I visit him every morning, afternoon and evening during my time there.
I hear someone speaking inside the conference hall and excuse myself to go in and take a seat. A woman is finishing the opening greeting and then introduces the first plenary speaker: Dr. Lars Kallings.
My jaw drops; it’s the man I walked the march with. He’s an internationally renowned scientist working on this disease. And the rest of the conference lives up to the beginning.
I go to workshops led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Paul Volberding and Dr. Marcus Conant, heroes of the epidemic to me. After the workshop with Dr. Conant, I’m standing in line to greet him, and a very sickly-looking young man in front of him tells the doctor he’s having very bad headaches. Dr. Conant tells him to call his office in the morning and tell them he said to give the young man an appointment that very day.
And I have HOPE.
There are special luncheons where I meet dozens of people who’ve come from everywhere from San Francisco to Pakistan. But my favorites are the radical activists — tattooed, pierced, buzzcut men fighting for their lives and the lives of people worldwide. Oddly, amidst the tragedy of The Plague, I leave feeling joy. And I leave with two t-shirts from the man who proudly states he is still here.
Today, we face another plague, the Demon Seed of anti-LGBTQ+ fear, violence and hatred. Born of lies and mythology. We are the ones who are the experts on us. We reserve the right to define ourselves, not to be defined by anyone.
We are not going anywhere. We are a match for anything. Our Pride rises like the phoenix, dwarfing your prejudice.
Because despite your best efforts, we are still here.
Terry Vandivort has been a professional actor in Dallas for 50 years. He has received four DFW Theater Critics Awards, including one for Southern Baptist Sissies at Uptown Theater. His play, The Incident, received unanimous raves and was adapted into a true crime podcast.
Thank you Terry!