The Nearness of Others: Searching for Tact and Contact in the Age of HIV

The E.R. Episode

Others 77 TheE.R.Episode Disgust often gives a person a sense of impenetrable wholeness, hence its central role in the fear of HIV and AIDS. Years ago, something horrible happened to me at the emergency room of the University of Michigan hospital . Although what brought me there was no big deal, I realized that day that my skin wasn’t as thick as I thought it was. The barely perceptible curl of a doctor’s lip as she read my chart was all it took to break it. It was as if a bottomless abyss had suddenly opened, and everything—­ everything—­ had vanished into it in a never-­ ending fall. This episode became the recurring nightmare of my waking life: I know what it feels like to be judged less than a human being.Thankfully,other people live with that knowledge too,so we can get together and laugh about it. ...