Open Wounds

I've had something on my mind a lot recently. Not that it isn't always on my mind. Every waking moment the thought is there. But in the last couple of weeks, it's been prevalent.


Ricardo Antonio Varela Peralta ("Riky") is hard for me to talk about. And not because he died while he was with me. Not ONLY because he died while he was with me, I should say.

That's him in the corner.

It's coming up on the 9 year anniversary of his death. He was a beautiful dancer, a beautiful human being, a beautiful man. Dancer first; it was his art and his passion. And he made a good go of it - he received several awards and amazing reviews for not only his dance, but also his one man show that he toured the world with, called "My Blue Angel."

That's when I met him. He was travelling to Kenya with his show and had to stop over in Hawaii and had to lay over due to some Visa issues (he was a Mexican resident leaving from LAX travelling east to Kenya: of course he had Visa issues!). He came into my shop where I was working and we immediately clicked. Or, he clicked on me, and I followed suit. (Riky was 5'5" tall and about 185 pounds of solid muscle, bald with sideburns and tattoos peeking through his black tank top and the cuff of his tight black jeans. He did not - NOT - fit the image of someone who was exactly approachable.)

It's really cute how shy he was, but he did finally ask me to see a movie that night, and I said yes, and I said I would call his hotel later. And I did, but apparently the hotel staff had unplugged the phone, so I thought he wasn't in, or that he decided to ignore the call, and he thought I stood him up.

I love that he got anxious about the whole thing, and in his mission to will me to call, he discovered that his phone was unplugged. I fortunately left my number with the hotel operator, so he was able to call back.

We had missed the movie at this point, so I said, "Listen, just come over, I'll cook dinner, and we'll eat on the lanai."

He moved in that night for the rest of the week until he went off to Kenya.

And we were together for three years. "Together" in the loosest form of the word.

Riky was Mexican, and, being such, lived in Mexico. So it wasn't like he could just move to the US and we could live together (which is why I have rallied and protested immigration bans on same-sex partners. Riky didn't want to be American, and I couldn't have moved anyway at that time, but that doesn't mean we didn't want the ability to do so.). So he would work and travel with his show for 3 or 4 months, come stay with me for 6 weeks, and go back and start over again.

On his third visit, I picked him up at the airport and he seemed very troubled. There was something bothering him on the trip home - home - that he couldn't tell me and I didn't want to hear.

We had always talked quite a bit on the phone, and I had told him about my partner Eric that died in '91 from AIDS, and how it would be impossible for me to ever be with anyone that had the disease again. The process of his dying was so awful and soul-retching that I couldn't do it twice. So of course he didn't want to tell me that he was HIV positive. (And yes, he should have told me. From the start I should have known, but I always am safe, and the would'ves/should'ves are in the past. I forgave him for that.) But it was too late, emotionally. I was vested, and he was healthy with no signs of the virus as of his last checkups. He was that anomaly that remained HIV+ without dipping into AIDS and the need for medications. He was a case study.

We continued this way for a couple of years. Long times apart, not long enough times together, phone calls twice a week when he crossed the border, and contentment. He even found a dance company in Hawaii that took him in and he performed with them frequently. And energetically. (Age-wise, at 37, he was an old dancer. Never knew it from his moves. For as short and stocky as he was, he could still take that leg that was built like a tree trunk, and kick it straight up and kiss his shin. He was a dancer, to understate it.) No sign of virus or sickness.

Cut to Sunday, September 30, 2001. He was with me in Hawaii and rehearsing for a October 5 performance. I met him after rehearsal - probably around 7:30p or so - and he said he was feeling short of breath.

"Well, you did just finish a 5 hour dance rehearsal, and it's not like you're 23 anymore." And we left it.

The next day was more serious. He said he felt like he couldn't get enough air and it was like he was holding his breath. We decided to go to the clinic just to see what was happening.

They did a blood test and found that indeed their wasn't enough hemoglobin to carry the oxygen through his body. The doctor said it was also safe to assume that he had probably dipped into full blown AIDS at this point, but they still needed to get the test results. Stay home, no activity, and the results should come in by Friday.

The drive home was relatively silent, neither of us knowing what to say. Except for when he turned to me and said, "I'm scared."

That's the last thing I can remember him saying. Wednesday evening I had to call the ambulance as he wasn't coherent, he had vomited a bit, and obviously his brain wasn't functioning.

He was dead Thursday morning.

I'm not even going to go into how dispassionate and horrible people in the death business can be. That I had to pry off a Hawaiian wedding ring from his finger because it would not be released to me after the coroner took his body, as I wasn't a blood relative, is something I will never forget or forgive. There was so much more involved, but I can't and won't ever talk about it, other than to say that people can be intentionally and unintentionally vicious. I don't think I ever saw horror before this event.

As I said, it's hard for me to talk about. Mostly because people don't get it. He was what made me whole, and I understand it seemed not that way because we spent more time apart than together, but we were.... Just that. We were.

I remember I got an email a month or so after from a friend asking where I'd been.

I sent the stock answer, "Hi! Sorry I've been out of touch. Ricardo died October 5, and I've been a bit removed. Bear with me while I recoup."

He sent back, "Oh. I didn't realize you were that close."

So I didn't talk about it because I couldn't talk about it to make it plausible. I know I like being coupled up and I know I can read things larger than what they are. I'm not an idiot - I just finished a relationship with someone whose got the emotional maturity of a 14 yr old school girl, and yet I STILL wax nostalgia for him! But Riky was different; he longed for me the way I longed for him.

I don't believe time heals all wounds. I think we just get used to it. My brother has an enlarged pore on his neck that will occasionally weep pus for no apparent reason, but otherwise it just looks like a tiny pock mark. Riky is my open pore. Just a permanent pock mark that will occasionally weep, but then stops weeping after a bit.

It's weeping now, but it'll stop.