Player One

“Player One” details a six-month period that encompasses the beginning of my senior year of high school and my first sexual experiences with men—including the manager of a local arcade near the movie theater where I worked. It was 1990 and HIV/AIDS were specters that hung over the bodies of so many people, especially teenagers trying to navigate their sexuality and society at large. When I got sick that fall, I panicked. Unsure of what to do or who to talk to, I forged a path of my own.

Book details

41 pages (4.5″ x 6″), limited to 250 copies, signed.

Artwork

Each volume of The Little Deaths features original artwork done exclusively for the book.

Music

A playlist for each book is curated by the author and the artist and reflects the music from the time in which the story is set, the experiences we had putting this together, and all the other little nuances you can try to guess at. The playlist for Player One is available on Tidal: https://tidal.com/playlist/ed80d074-536d-450d-9206-23d202e662cc.

Excerpt from the book

There’s a question on the sheet they make you fill out when you donate blood that asks you about your sexual history. It pops right off the page: Are You a Man Who Has Had Sex With Another Man Since 1977?

I lingered over it for a moment, wondering who came up this time frame. Was it a focus group of gay men that some officials had gathered that acted as oral historians? Could they pinpoint the exact moment at which HIV had started to appear in bathhouses and men’s bodies and destroyed both?

I was four years old in 1977, I calculated in my head. There was no way I could have ever known what it must be like to have sex with another man and simply not worry. Gonorrhea, herpes, syphilis—they seemed like things with which you simply dealt; there was no death threat, just a bummed out feeling that might make you a little more careful in the future.

I looked around the high-school gymnasium, catching glimpses of my friends laying in chairs with their arms tapped, some sipping orange juice, people I didn’t know wearing “I Gave Blood Today” stickers on their shirts and hats.

I looked back down at the box: Are You a Man Who Has Had Sex With Another Man Since 1977?

I marked “No,” stood up, and handed the sheet to the nurse who was helping coordinate the high school blood drive. The idea was that seniors could help out the Red Cross. We’d also get a little printout mailed to you that included information about your blood type, and whether or not you had iron deficiencies. No one said whether you’d find out if you had HIV, but I knew they had to test all the blood. I knew I’d be told if I had it.

The nurse smiled at me. “All right,” she said, “I bet you want to get this over with. You don’t look like you’re the type who likes needles.”