A Look at the AIDS Quilt Brings Tragedy Into Focus

Sometimes you can make a point by being amused at the absurdity of it all. Sometimes you can satirize. Sometimes you can try to be clever or literary or passionate. And sometimes you just get mad.

Last Sunday, I just got mad.

On that day, I went to the UC Irvine Student Center to see the AIDS Memorial Quilt. It was being exhibited there in connection with the Orange County gay-pride festival. Last year, Lou Sheldon and his self-righteous storm troopers managed to turn this event from a celebration into an arena of hate. This year, he mercifully turned his attention elsewhere.

Maybe, in some subliminal way, the presence of the Memorial Quilt intimidated him. Hatred and bigotry don’t play very well under any circumstances. But against the backdrop of the quilt, the mockery and hypocrisy of using Christian principles as a rationale for vilifying other human beings are vividly exposed.

The quilt is a 14-acre cry for help and dignity. It was conceived in 1986 by a young San Franciscan named Cleve Jones when his friend, Marvin Feldman, died of AIDS. Jones spray-painted Feldman’s name on a piece of cloth the size of his grave as an agonized gesture to keep his memory alive and to plead for more public effort in fighting the AIDS epidemic.

Quickly, thousands of others hoping to send the same message picked up the idea, and the Memorial Quilt began to take shape and grow. Today, it has 11,000 panels, and last weekend more than 600 of them were displayed at UCI--the first time that a portion of the quilt has appeared in Orange County.

I spent three hours interviewing the quilt last Sunday. You don’t look at it; you commune with it. Each block speaks to you from a very special place. And the places--like the people--are quite different. Some of the quilt pieces were designed by the victims before they died; the rest were created later by friends or lovers or family. And the messages they send run the gamut--from love to resignation to wistfulness to mysticism to whimsy to anger to bitterness. But whatever the tone, the underlying thought is the same: please help those who are now whole but may be attacked by finding how to treat this scourge.

There are other common threads in this fabric. The most remarkable is the relative youth of the victims; most are in their 20s and 30s. Also remarkable is the breadth of interests and occupations of these people. There are an uncommon number of artists and musicians, but there are also plumbers and gas station attendants and stockbrokers and athletes, portrayed on their quilt panels by the work clothes they wore, the medals they won, the interests they pursued.

I found wistfulness the most poignant. Larry Zimmerman designed an expanse of sand under a setting sun and wrote above it: “In search of the perfect beach. . . .” Michael Karpel replaced the sun with the moon and wrote: “See you on the dark side of the moon. . . .” Jon Sims’ panel said simply: “Somewhere. . . .” And Ezra Ball, age 35, wrote for his patch: “You know that only the good die young. . . .”

Many of the panels tell stories. One that bears no name said: “I have decorated this banner to honor my brother. Our parents did not want his name used publicly. The omission of his name represents the fear of oppression that AIDS victims and their families feel. . . .”

Another told the story of Michael McCracken who married and had a daughter, who was taken from him when he chose a different lifestyle. There were tributes from his friends and a warm and sensitive letter from his mother and father that began: “There’s an emptiness in our hearts. . . .” But nothing from the 16-year-old daughter he was never allowed to see.

Celebrity has no meaning in this display. Panels that say, simply, “Liberace” and “Rock Hudson” become integral parts of the fabric. Reaching out more vividly are the panels that express anger, like the one that says, in rhyme:

The thought of him will forever linger;

I don’t know where to point the finger.

Another panel knows exactly where to point. It shows the California bear labeled “Homophobia.” And the message beneath reads: “We, the forgotten, who have died by the thousands ask you to remember us and the punishing neglect we suffered because of hatred from officials in our home. Carry away with you our loving spirit of peace.”

But carry away, also, a deep sense of anger at those public officials who have refused to provide adequate funds or vigorous leadership in seeking a cure for AIDS. And at the individuals and organizations--especially those alleging to be Christian--that have supported them.

The people who should have seen the quilt, of course, didn’t. It is ever thus. It’s so much easier to sit in judgment of others if we don’t clutter up our biases with love and compassion and objective perceptions. But I hope that many of those who did go came away--as I did--angry. And maybe a little more impatient than we were before with the public foot-dragging in mounting a massive counteroffensive against AIDS.

AIDS is a murderer in our midst. If we choose to allow our efforts in dealing with it to be influenced--even subliminally--by people who believe it is some sort of deific punishment for those whose lifestyle is different from theirs, then we should be filled with shame. And if we watch this happening without protest, then we become part of the problem that the Memorial Quilt is trying, with such enormous eloquence, to bring into focus.

There were boxes of facial tissue sitting all over the Memorial Quilt exposition area. I thought that was maudlin and excessive when I went in. I didn’t think so when I came out.