Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir (1998) - Plot & Excerpts
Borrowed Time is an AIDS Memoir, Newsday says:"BORROWED TIME brings the plague years home as no other book does. It is impossible to read this love story without weeping... Monette keeps us glued to the page. His narrative combines passion's fire and rage's ice. And the effect is so over-powering, so emotion-charged that at times we simply have to stop reading."On page 3, as he first reads the details of the disease in a gay paper in 1982:"I remember exactly what was going through my mind while I was reading... I was thinking: How is this not me? Trying to find a pattern I was exempt from.... It was them - by which I meant the fast-lane Fire Island crowd, the world of High Eros. Not us."On page 6:"Not that Roger and I were the life of the party. He's managed not to carry away from his adolescence the mark of too much repression, or indeed the yearning to make up for lost time. I was the one in the relationship who suffered from lost time. I was the one who would go after a sexual encounter as if it were an ice cream cone - casual, quick, good-bye."I really identified with this passage. What marks do I carry from repression? I remember the feeling of making up lost time, of never having a date or a first kiss. And I've never thought about it before, how much does that effect me, even today?But with this and the inability to be monogamous comes the guilt, the feeling you're the bad one. And to imagine that your casual sex killed the love of your life and is coming for you.... I think I would write a book called Borrowed Time too. Is it better to know? Do you prepare more when you know? Things I think as I read this book.He talks on page 46 of cleaning out the house after a friend with AIDS had visited and of feeling guilty for cleaning, and "it's why I have such an instant radar for the bone-zero terror of others. Those who a year later would not enter our house, would not take food or use the bathroom. Would not hold me."Page 60:"Suddenly Craig pulled back the sleeve of his flannel shirt and showed me his arm. "What about this?" he asked. I looked at a small red spot above his wrist, slightly raised, barely a quarter-inch across. "No way," I said. "They're never raised." I was wrong."Page 76:"When the doctors came in - a pair of them, the intern and the pulmonary man - they stayed as close to each other as they could, like puppies. They stood at his bedside, for the new enlightenment demands that a doctor not deliver doom from the foot of the bed, looming like God. The intern spoke: "Mr. Horwitz, we have the results of the bronchoscopy. It does show evidence of pneumocystis in the lungs." Was there a pause for the world to stop? There must have been, because I remember the crack of silence, Roger staring at the two men. Then he simply shut his eyes, and only I, who was the rest of him, could see how stricken was the stillness in his face. "We'll begin treatment immediately with Bactrim. You'll need to be here in the hospital for fourteen to twenty-one days. Do you have any questions?" Roger shook his head on the pillow. I wanted to kill these two ridiculous young men with the nerdy plastic pen shields in their white-coat pockets. "Could you please leave us alone," I said. And they tweedled out, relieved to have it over with. I ran around the bed and clutched Roger's hand. "We'll fight it, darling, we'll beat it, I promise. I won't let you die." The sentiments merged as they tumbled out. This is the liturgy of bonding. Mostly we clung together, as if time still had the decency to stop when we were entwined. After all, the whole world was right here in this room. I don't think Roger said anything then. Neither of us cried. It begins in a country beyond tears. Once you have your arms around your friend with his terrible news, your eyes are too shut to cry. The intern had never once said the word."Page 104:"Yes, we'd decided to fight. No, the despair wasn't gone. The two emotions jockeyed in our hearts. You had to be there all the time to know which was dominant in a given hour, a given minute - the clock doesn't parse fine enough to tell how vast and swift the mood swings were. But if you have ever freed someone from pain, you know why it is that a mother can lift a car off her trapped and whimpering child. Give us then the bravado of days when we swore we would bear it, for underneath we were scared as ever, and always pleading silently, Don't let it come again."Page 219: "I remember one of the founders of Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York telling Craig how he’d hate to need any of the services he’d created, not because it was demeaning to ask for help but because the issues raised were so awful - lost insurance, lost jobs, evictions, the full gamut of miseries. Roger and I had spent years blithely writing checks to such organizations, and surely there is magic in that as well. One does it in part to cover one’s ass, knocking on wood: Please, not me."Finally, page 258: "Suddenly Roger tilted his head and said, "It’s awfully dark in here. Do you think it’s dark?" "No," replied John in an ashen voice, feeling, as he told me later, a terrible sense of dread. I woke up shortly thereafter, and Roger told me - without a lot of panic, almost puzzled - that his vision seemed to be losing light and detail. I called Dell Steadman and made an emergency appointment, and I remember driving down the freeway, grilling Rog about what he could see. It seemed to be less and less by the minute. He could barely see the cars going by in the adjacent lanes. Twenty minutes later we were in Dell’s office, and with all the urgent haste to get there we didn’t really stop to reconnoitre till we were sitting in the examining room. I asked the same question - what could he see? - and now Roger was getting more upset the more his vision darkened. I picked up the phone to call Jaime, and by the time she answered the phone in Chicago he was blind. Total blackness, in just two hours. He didn’t cry out, not then. He was too staggered to howl like Lear, and all I remember is a whimpered "Oh," repeated over and over. Then Dell came in and examined the eye and said as calmly as he could that indeed the retina had detached. As the two of us chocked on nothingness, he put in a swift call to Krieger, and they talked about scheduling an immediate reattachment. Dell had nineteen other patients waiting, and there was nothing else he could do. He said he was sorry and left, looking helpless. We sat there stunned, clinging to each other’s hands. I think I tried to pull out of it and focus on the operation, but neither of us could think at all as we tottered forth from the suite, me leading my friend as he groped a hand in front of him. The nurses faces were tight with pain. I don’t know what we said to each other. I think we just numbly went forward - I had to hold him close and lead him down into the parking garage, then somehow get us home safe through the murderous Friday traffic. I made consoling noises, but they made no sense. When we got back to the house I settled him in the bedroom that two hours before he could still see. The nurse tried to make him comfortable, but still that frail and broken "Oh" was all he could say. I called people for him - his parents, mine, I don’t remember who - and at last he let the cry tear loose. "I’m blind," he wailed as he clutched the phone, again and again, to everyone we called. None of the meaningless, unsolicited consolation that people have murmured since then - about the logic of things and desirelessness and higher powers - will ever mute a decibel of that wail of loss."
"What am I going to do without him?" I asked in a hollow voice, and Cope replied immediately, with great force and conviction. "Write about him, Paul," he said. "That's what you have to do."It's a book about LIFE and LOVE, not about death, emotional lines full of overwhelming sadness and grief and painful lost and regret and beautiful lyric and heartbreaking tenderness and touching memories...and LOVE, REAL LOVE. ...we never talked about dying because we were fighting so hard to stay alive.Paul Monette and Roger HorwitzNo Goodbyesby Paul Monettefor hours at the end I kissed your temple strokedyour hair and sniffed it it smelled so clean we'dwashed it Saturday night when the fever brokeas if there was always the perfect thing to doto be alive for years I'd breathe your hairwhen I came to bed late it was such pure youwhy I nuzzle your brush every morning becauseyou're in there just like the dog the nightwe unpacked the hospital bag and he skippedand whimpered when Dad put on the redsweater Cover my bald spot will youyou'd say and tilt your head like a parrotso I could fix you up always alwaystill this one night when I was reduced toI love you little friend here I am mysweetest pea over and over spending all ourendearments like stray coins at a borderbut wouldn't cry then no choked it becausethey all said hearing was the last to gothe ear is like a wolf's till the very endstraining to hear a whole forest and Iwanted you loping off whatever you couldstill dream to the sound of me at 3 P.M.you were stable still our favorite wordat 4 you took the turn WAIT WAIT I AMTHE SENTRY HERE nothing passes as long asI'm where I am we go on death isa lonely hole two can leap it or elseor else there is nothing this man is minehe's an ancient Greek like me I doall the negotiating while he does battlewe are war and peace in a single bedwe wear the same size shirt it can't it can'tbe yet not this just let me brush his hairit's only Tuesday there's chicken in the fridgefrom Sunday night he ate he slept oh whydon't all these kisses rouse you I won't won'tsay it all I will say is goodnight pattinga few last strands in place you're covered nowmy darling one last graze in the meadowof you and please let your final dream bea man not quite your size losing the wholeworld but still here combing combingsinging your secret names till the night's gone
What do You think about Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir (1998)?
People seem to think the 'war' against AIDS is over, done and dusted.But it isn't.We are not yet free.All these years after Paul and Roger passed away the battle is still being fought in different places and in different ways. The war that Paul Monette and Roger Horwitz fought is far from over and their story is a reminder that we shouldn't give up because we still have a long way to go. One of the things that challenges me about this story is the way in which it has become in part my story, my life. A part of my life which is very painful for all kinds of reasons and yet also a part of my life in which there is hope. I was a young girl in the early days of the Aids pandemic when Roger and Paul were fighting the 'war'. I was stuck in a boarding school in the middle of nowhere in Africa. I went through University not hearing anything about Aids or HIV either. In fact it wasn't until the late 80's when I returned Europe that I began to hear about HIV and AIDS but it didn't loom large on my horizon even then because I had 'wars' of my own.I was caught up in a very difficult marriage, child birth and then divorce. It wasn't until the mid-nineties that HIV and Aids began to hit my radar and even then it was something distant, something that I didn't understand. I couldn't understand how the same disease was cutting down gay men in the global North and cutting down Africans in the global South especially African women, my beautiful, beautiful sisters who died in their millions, leaving millions of children behind. I couldn't yet join the dots and I had far too many difficulties in my own life to stop, to pause and to try to understand the bigger picture.But HIV and Aids was there, reaping havoc, destroying families, devastating lives.It wasn't until 2003 that I really began to understand and personally experience the devastation that is Aids. I did research into HIV services in London and I had the privilege of meeting many people living with HIV and the sterling organisations working for prevention, treatment and seeking to address HIV related stigma and discrimination.I was divorced, free and able to pause and finally able to listen to the lives of others and to hold my beautiful sisters and brothers and work alongside them. I was appalled to hear what people had gone through in the early days of the pandemic. I was appalled by the initial silence and condemnation of many churches. I was appalled by the complacency of certain Governments and the ignorance and myths that still abounded. I was appalled by the numbers of people who had died.I began to involve myself in the response and I opened my heart to my African sisters and gay brothers and I became a soldier just like Paul and Roger. Now years later responding to HIV and Aids is a major part of my life. I am grateful that I had a chance to put my own shoulder to the wheel and join the millions of people who are pushing against the injustice that lies at the heart of the HIV and Aids pandemic but there is a big part of me that regrets not being there at the beginning. There is a big part of me that still experiences pain when I read about the loss from the early years and the losses that still happen because it isn't over yet.This book is a testament to the early days of the Aids pandemic: the ignorance, the fear, the denial, the stigma and the suffering. It is easy to look back and lament over what should have been done but this book should serve as a reminder about what is still to be done. There is still ignorance in our world today about the HIV and AIDS pandemic. There is still fear, denial and now much more complacency.There is still injustice.Paul Monette and his beloved partner Roger Horwitz are gone along with 36 million others but 35 million are still alive and living with HIV, and the millions that are dead should spur us to keep alive the millions who are still with us.This book serves as a prophetic voice calling us to remember and not forget. Calling us to act in whatever way is possible for us and it has called me to keep acting and praying.Some of this story makes me angry. Paul and Roger were privileged and well-educated. They were able to access drug trials and push for treatment. They were able to spread the word and help others and in this way they contributed to the progress of the development of the treatment that keeps people alive today, but thirty years on we are still fighting the 'war' for access to treatment and so many people in countries with weak health systems are still dying.We still fight 'wars' about prevention strategies. We know how to prevent the transmission of HIV but utterly stupid debates about condoms and promiscuity have overshadowed the urgency of saving lives. Religious and political ideologies have become more important than saving lives and finding ways to help people who have limited choices and limited access to economic and health stability.We still fight 'wars' about stigma, discrimination and human rights as so many Governments criminalise HIV transmission and criminalise homosexuality. Imprisoning people and silencing them, eroding their human rights is simply waging war against the people not the virus. Blind and stupid leaders, rotten in their hatred and complacency they are paralysed by their ideologies and fail to hear the cries and struggles of the millions of people in need. Thirty something years on the 'war' that Paul and Roger fought continues along different perhaps more subtle and less visible battle lines.But along with sadness and pain and anger, as I read this story I am grateful. There is gratitude, gratitude that Roger and Paul were able to find love and create family with each other, gratitude that they had the love of their families and friends, gratitude that these two beautiful men were able to live their lives to the fullest despite the fact that Aids cut both of them down in such an untimely way. I am grateful that they did not die alone and that they were able to gain access to the limited treatments available at the time.I want to remember those many people who died and who were affected and the many still living with the virus. In this way I can enter into the frustration and the fear of the early days of the pandemic and I can use this to continue to work for a future hope.So this is my small response to this beautiful and yet challenging testimony. The author is no longer with us but his words remain and his story remains. It is a privilege to read his words.I am privileged to be able to hug and encourage the many positive people who are living and who are now my family and I am hugged and loved by them. They enrich my life today and the words of Paul Monette enrich my understanding of our journey and 'wars' together.His words awaken an ever deepening thirst in me for justice and a desire that everyone may have abundant life and not be excluded because they are positive, or gay or female or African. This is my dream and I hope the words from the battle front, the words from Paul Monette will continue to give me the energy and courage to dream and to write, to speak and to pray and to act.
—Ije the Devourer of Books
To say this was a good book almost seems inappropriate, because to judge it as a literary piece given the fact that it tells a true and devastating sorry just seems….tangential. Monette is an amazing write (this is his first work I’ve read) and he left me hungering for each page to find out what happened to his beloved Roger in his battle with AIDS. To travel their journey with them during the early days of AIDS where so much was unknown and so much was trial & error…it was horrifying. Monette made me care about the people he wrote of, long after I’d finished the book. His writing was lush and beautiful and eloquent. I will definitely be looking into his other titles. More than anything, I wish he hadn’t experienced something so awful and sad that made this book a possibility to write and for me to read.
—Angie
A tragedy, beautifully written. Two gay men who have a great love for each other, who succumb to aids in the 80s - he helps you empathize with what it felt like, to be a gay man and lose your great love to a disease that is only being discovered and understood. The heroic efforts they take, as we all would take, to save the person who means the most to them. Amazing piece that captures that space in time - puts a human face on it. Also shows their families - how they grow to adore the one who loves their son. I read this because it showed up on a banned book list.
—Leslie Nord
