If I had posted this piece in its original form, it would have meant that I was tone deaf. It would have meant that I was so wrapped up in happy memories that I couldn’t face facts. This piece had been a straightforward narrative expressing how much I loved the dance music of the 80’s: disco, Paradise garage style house, synth infused pop and how clubbing in New York City and Washington DC during that era shaped my coming of age. It revealed the wistful nostalgia I carry for the time when I was jaded about nothing. Every night at the clubs presented the possibility of something surprising and exciting happening before sunrise. Like the time Grace Jones hit on my best friend at Xenon. Jones sidled up to her purring “All the pretty girls are on this side of the bar.” Or when at 17, I found myself dancing next to Diana Ross at Tramps in Georgetown. So exciting! These little encounters brought Technicolor energy to my conflicted late teenage and young adult life. These were the kind of encounters that fueled the imagination of a young black girl, convincing her that life beyond the place where she was could be wonderful and glamorous.

And in this mix of friendship, music and adventure my gay friends were prominent protagonists. It was the early 80’s and I think I was a kind of a happy, cute, tag-a-long to my three dashing gay (white) neighbors, who lived upstairs in our rented brownstone just off Logan Circle in Washington, DC. The area was just starting to gentrify then and drugs, dirty needles and prostitution provided as much texture to the neighborhood as we did: refugees from Maryland Suburbia. When I would come home from college, ‘the boys’ would whisk me off to Tea Dance where we would laugh and dance for hours. I loved hanging out in gay clubs and found comfort in the warm social embrace extended to me. I loved that my friends loved to dance as much as I did. I craved dancing to music so loud it pushed out all thought. The bass rocked and pulled your body free of tension and worry; people of all colors moving in unison, in sweat. Girl, boy, black, brown, white, gay, lesbian, straight, transvestite or transgendered. We danced as an expression of community, joy and release.

Then, there were only rumors of the “gay cancer.”

But, just as the original post was finished, I read this:

The first statistics ever amassed on HIV in the District, released today in a sweeping report, reveal “a modern epidemic” remarkable for its size, complexity and reach into all parts of the city.

The numbers most starkly illustrate HIV’s impact on the African American community. More than 80 percent of the 3,269 HIV cases identified between 2001 and 2006 were among black men, women and adolescents. Among women who tested positive, a rising percentage of local cases, nine of 10 were African American.

The 120-page report, which includes the city’s first AIDS update since 2000, shows how a condition once considered a gay disease has moved into the general population. HIV was spread through heterosexual contact in more than 37 percent of the District’s cases detected in that time period, in contrast to the 25 percent of cases attributable to men having sex with men. Study Calls HIV in D.C. A ‘Modern Epidemic’, More Than 80 Percent Of Recent Cases Were Among Black Residents, 11/26/07, Washington Post

Right away, it made me worry that in a decade or two we will see waves of death decimating the District, our nation’s capital. And in turn my happy and free memories, shape shifted into more melancholy ones; more complete ones. I realized I was only remembering the time before HIV/AIDS took so many loved ones. And then I figured out that just talking about the music wasn’t going to be enough. So I have to tell you that my three neighbors, Mike, Michael and John are all dead now. All three died of AIDS. They live on in my mind and in my heart; young, vibrant, clever, bitchy and so funny. And in my prayers, I thank them for generously sharing their light with me.