After all, we all have our skeletons in the closet.
And Charlie paid millions to keep his locked away.
My perspective here is one of a more personal angle. I've lived with and loved someone who was HIV positive and who had full blown AIDS. This is a death sentence no matter how you shape it. And it is like being on a personal death row as you watch yourself fade.
Sometimes you can be like Magic Johnson and you can watch your health and maintain as close to a normal life as possible when infected. And thanks to the drugs and therapies available today, AIDS doesn't have to kill you in three or four years. You can maintain and survive. But you have to give a damn and live right.
Charlie's Ghosts are manifold. He faced a life of privilege and lived life on the edge for many years. Who knows if he went to the edge because he knew something was up and wanted to commit suicide by proxy. Maybe he lived a life that was filled with parties, drugs, and reckless sex because he was trying to hide his own feelings of insecurity. It is certain that he pushed so close to the edge that he risked his own life (and others) by his careless behavior.
Having HIV is not exactly a badge of honor - my other half earned his admission into this HIV Club because he was promiscuous and played fast and loose with his partners. As much as I continue to love him these 20 plus years since he has died, he didn't get HIV by accident - he got it by doing what one does to make it happen. There is no crime here and sure as hell there is no virtue in being HIV positive. My love for Richard intensified when he told me he was HIV positive. Yet, his humanity and concern for my health didn't manage to inform me before I took a load of his in my mouth. It was nearly a year later that he was so sick in the hospital that I found out the truth. Love managed to overwhelm my angst and anger. You see, even those you love who have HIV do stupid things and are embarrassed by it. Certainly Richard's situation is more filled with the cloud of the gay plague in its proximity to when he caught it in the late 1980's and that brought shame and even denial.
I understand Charlie's situation far too much. And I'm not writing this to bash him one iota. I feel for the guy - even with all of his reckless behavior and unexplained actions up to this point. I get it. People who have to confront their own mortality do stupid shit. Acting out, being a jerk, increasing drug and alcohol use are a form of self-punishment and actions of denial of the situation - it is a double edged sword where self hate seeks to take out the life in fear of the future; the other side wants as much life now to mask the feelings of the former.
I can only hope that Charlie is honest with himself and that he ceases his drug and alcohol use. Stop it all. There is no way to survive HIV if you live on the edge. Most assuredly, HIV will push you off the living edge into the dead reality.
I will pray for him. The photo that leads this commentary doesn't bode well for Charlie. He is a ghost of his former self and he may be too far gone to have much life left. Only he can face the reality of the life he pissed away and only he can come to grips with what he has left and to turn to the positive side of life and to do good with what's left.
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