positive / negative

Stefanie (staying with me) called me about 2 hours after I left my house to tell me that my roommate just found out that he's positive and that his boyfriend (or whatever he is, i can never tell if they're broken up or together) had just beat in him up really bad when he told him about it. She had called the cops because my roommate was "covered in blood" as she said. When I spoke with her, the friend had run away so that the cops could not find him (he might not be legal in the U.S.? not sure). When I spoke to Stefanie, she was upstairs with the other, unrelated roommate, trying to stay out of the way. Her son was locked in the bedroom (it's a locking door) and didn't wake up the whole time.

This brings up so many things in my head. So much that is so fucked up. Like how gay men are at such ridiculously high risk for HIV and lesbians can only get it with blood to blood (or breast milk) contact. Like how there's so much silence around it that it can spread for months and miles unnoticed until one day somebody gets tested. I've been trying to make my friend Jay get tested for like 4 years and he won't do it because he "doesn't want to know" and he's "pretty sure" he's negative.

My first reaction was to go and give him a big hug, but I don't know how appropriate that would be with such a new roommate (and I've hardly even been there very much. maybe about 2 weeks out of the whole 2 months i've lived there.) So maybe tomorrow or Saturday I will take some time to go check on him. I feel like there's not much I can do to make him feel better...

Talk about it, people. And get tested. No excuses.