I was in the middle of Previews for “Son Of Fire”. “Son Of Fire” was a musical in Chicago that I did in the early 1900’s, about a young gay opportunist in love with a 50sih Japanese painter dying of cancer. It was a happy little jaunt. Just for clarification, *I* played the 50ish Japanese painter dying of cancer. I not only died through the entire first act, I came back in the second act as a ghost. A Japanese ghost. I had a lot of ballads in this show. It was a very strange time for me. I met some incredible people, one of them being Mary Beidler who wound up becoming part of my family and eventually directing and helping me put together “Before I Disappear”, a one woman show that keeps creeping back in my life like a scathing case of herpes. And I mean that in a good way. I wore lots of kimonos, spoke with a bad accent, and wore my hair in a very large, black bun. I was serious about the whole Japanese thing. I even learned how to take little, teeny, tiny steps and walk behind my husband. I wasn’t fooling around here.

During the run of this show, I began to get very, very sick. I had a flu that I couldn’t shake, and a cough that started somewhere at the bottom of my feet. During one performance, as I was dying, I felt something physically happen in my body. I can’t quite explain and it confused me at the time, but I knew something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Chrisanne and I had been living together for about a year, and as I went home from the show that night, I climbed into bed next to her, and started to cry. She woke up immediately, and asked me what was wrong.

“I don’t know. But I can feel something. Something’s wrong.” I said half awake.

The next day I remember getting up, going into the bathroom and staring at the medicine chest. There were so many prescriptions on the top shelf; I could have opened my own Walgreens. Pills, pills, pills. All those muted orange labels with too small writing scrawled in chicken scratch staring back at me like a row of sardines.

Something was wrong.

I went to the show that night, and I still wasn’t feeling well. I managed to get through the show, say goodnight to everyone, get in my car, and practically collapse at the wheel. I couldn’t really drive very well, but my pride prevented me from flagging down some help. Stupid pride.

I got home eventually, and made it upstairs to our apartment. When I got into the kitchen I fainted.. I never fainted before in my life and I remember thinking:

“Wow. I’m fainting.”

I know it sounds ridiculous but the fact that I was actually going down and there was nothing I could do about it just struck me as ironic. I fell in slow motion and I actually spoke to myself as I hit the hard linoleum with the side of my head. I vaguely remember Chrisanne’s voice, a frantic whisper, and then I was off in an ambulance. I went in and out of reality and I remember having some strange dream about water, a boat, me and Ann Margaret. Don’t ask.

I woke up in a hospital bed. And I woke up wet. I was wet like I had been dipped feet first into a tub of ice cold water. My body was so achy; I couldn’t move my legs or my feet without excruciating pain. I was sweating so hard that I had to keep blinking in order to see. I felt like I was wrapped up in 2 or 3 electric blankets and they had all been set on high. I was hotter than I ever could have imagined anyone being, and yet, I was freezing cold and wanted nothing more than to be shoved in the oven on a spit and turned over very slowly. The only thing I knew, and the only thing I really understood, was that I was in a hospital and Chrisanne was sitting next to me. I could see her face. Her green, green eyes staring at me. Every once in a while she dabbed my forehead and kissed it and whispered something to me. I couldn’t quite make out what it was, but I recognized her voice. Every once in a while when the sheets would get soaked and sticky, a Nurse would come in, wake me up from my hot, hot haze and change them. Then he (or she) would give me two pills, pat my head, ask Chrisanne a question and then tip toe out.

I was dying.

I knew I was dying because I remember hearing Chrisanne over the phone talking to her parents and calling my mother telling them the doctor didn’t think I would make it through the week. I was dying and this was it. This was how it was going to end up. Me, hot, sweaty, curled up, losing, slipping away, and helpless to hold Chrisanne’s hand or say thank you to anyone within ear shot. I was losing. I was dying. This was what it felt like to die.

It was awful

Then, one night I was woken up by a scream down the hall. There was a loud, long, male voice pleading and screaming like I’d never heard before. It was ominous and terrifying. It yearned and echoed down the hall, and it reached me and rung in my head like a bell.

“No! No! Stop it! I don’t WANT it! Let me DIE Goddammit! I want to DIE!”

Over and over and over and over, I could actually hear him struggling in his bed. I couldn’t really figure out if I was dreaming or if I was stuck in a Robert Deniro film. It was hazy but tangible. As I drifted back to that safe dead place, I felt Chrisanne touch my face.

“You still have a lot of stuff to do, you know.” She whispered.

I looked up at the white ceiling, I felt more sweat drop away from me, I played a little with my paper nightgown under the sheets, and I curled my two big toes back. I didn’t like this dying thing. I didn’t like it, and I wanted out of the deal.

The next day, I woke up.

I was fine.

I was fine and more importantly, I was cool. My head was cool, my bed was dry, my hands weren’t chapped and I could see. Things were in color again, and I leaned over and saw Chrisanne who had been sleeping on a long brown couch the doctor’s had set up in the corner of my room,. This was when AIDS was so terrifying to people that when we got sick they put us in special rooms. On the contagious disease floor with everyone else who was dying.

“Hi.” I said softly. I hadn’t spoken in a while, and my throat felt like I had swallowed a roll of sandpaper.

Chrisanne literally popped off of the couch. I’ve never seen her move that fast. She raced over to me, and leaned into me holding my hand.

“Are you okay sweetie?” she said, “Are you okay?”

She kept asking me.

“I’m hungry.”

No one had any idea why this happened or what it was or why it went away. I got no answers. The only thing my Doctor told me was:

“You have AIDS, Alex. That’s all we know.”

Great. Fantastic. 90 years of medical school and all you can do is give me information I could’ve gotten by reading a pamphlet. Thanks bunches.

I don’t know why I survived. I don’t know why I did and my friends didn’t. I do know that the sound of that guy down the hall and the sound of Chrisanne’s voice rung something true in me. I also know that I had help. I had something else rooting for me and something else helping me. I know that had I not believed in anything at all, I would have had no hope. There would have been nothing to guide me through anything and more importantly, nothing to thank afterward. I guess that was one of the best things about almost dying, I found something greater than me that I could actually thank later. That, and the fact that they feed you the really good food at the hospital after you’re snatched back from the jaws of death.

Besides, my understudy had been going on in my Japanese role for almost a week. I’d be damned if I was going to let Eve walk away with MY reviews.