Steven Reigns - A Quilt for David

PRAISE FOR A Quilt for David A stunning homage to people with AIDS, A Quilt for David is a wrenching investigation into the experience of the innocent victim: white straight women and closeted white men who had to retain an inhumane level of capitulation to patriarchy in order to be eligible for compassion. By unearthing the Kimberly Bergalis case from its tomb of ash, Reigns reminds us how easy the path of false accusation remains, in this case at the expense of gay men with AIDS subjected to diabolical cruelties and exploitation. He reveals again how hypocrisy coheres communities by relying on cliches of femininity, bias, and repressive loyalties. Sarah Schulman, author of Let the Record Show:A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 One of the most important roles a poet can assume is that of emotional historian. Reigns certainly understands that notion in this necessary and genre-bending book which powerfully blends poetry, non-fiction, and reportage to reexamine the maligned story of David Acer and arrive at a truer truth with compelling honesty and the utmost compassion for all. Richard Blanco, 2013 Presidential Inaugural Poet, author of How to Love a Country This writing is energetic, alive, and uncensored.

Reigns has studied poetry and deeply researched a moment in history. A Quilt for David breaks traditional structure and cracks open what we thought we knew of the past. Through poetry and prose we glean a deep understanding of a life misunderstood and mischaracterized. Reigns goes to the mat to find out what really happened, and with his expert pacing were right there with him. Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones:Freeing the Writer Within Reigns lifts David Acer thirty years after his death to show the naked cost of violent, unexamined public opinion around the catastrophe of AIDS. This poetry masterfully documents the tangle of hatred and lies haunting a generation of survivors.

I am often grateful for what poems give to me, most especially the ones in this book. CAConrad, author of AMANDA PARADISE:Resurrect Extinct Vibration Told in short, occasionally haiku-like entries, Reigns has done what literature should: put the reader into the mind, the suffering, of another human being. Stripped down to its essentials, this retelling of one mans terrible suffering is also a portrait of those who used him as a scapegoat because, given the times, they could. Andrew Holleran, author of Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited:AIDS and Its Aftermath Like so many of us born into the age of AIDS, who saw the epidemic from childhood and grew up in a world forever changed by loss, Reigns is searching for the stories of our ancestors. This work is a glorious attempt to regain one of those stories; to ask what we do in the name of fear, and who is deemed worthy of our compassion. A brave and harrowing recalculation of humanity in an inhuman time.

Justin Elizabeth Sayre, author of From Gay to Z:A Queer Compendium Much too long, suffering has been part of our collective queer legacy. We weather the storm of insult to character and seemingly irreconcilable injustice in tandem with the hope that the arc of time will bend towards justice; our time is now. A Quilt for David is a posthumous journal of vindication. Brontez Purnell, author of 100 Boyfriends Copyright 2021 by Steven Reigns All Rights Reserved Front cover photograph of David Acer from Odontos, 1974, Ohio State University College of Dentistry Yearbook, courtesy of The Ohio State University Libraries Archives. Frontispiece image is a rubbing of David Acers grave marker in Sarasota, Florida, and is part of Steven Reignss The Gay Rub, an exhibition of rubbings from LGBTQIA+ landmarks around the world. | Scholder, Amy, editor. | Scholder, Amy, editor.

Title: A quilt for David / by Steven Reigns ; Amy Scholder, editor. Description: San Francisco : City Lights Books, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2021012917 | ISBN 9780872868816 (paperback) Subjects: LCSH: Acer, David, 1949-1990Poetry. | LCGFT: Poetry. Classification: LCC PS3618.E557 Q55 2021 | DDC 811/.6dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021012917 City Lights Books are published at the City Lights Bookstore 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133 www.citylights.com DEDICATED TOMy parents, Barb & Chuck,who instilled values that helped melook beyond a headlineandTom & Wayne,who believed in me and told tales of how gay mengot silenced and sidelinedIn 1990 a young HIV-positive woman in Florida claimed she was a virgin and that her infection came from her gay, dying dentist.

The media believed her, seven others came forward, and a monster was born.PREFACE F ROM 2000 TO 2013 I provided HIV testing, education, and counseling to people living in Florida and California. I personally tested over 9,000 people. One day, an anxious young woman came in after a dental procedure, fearful that she could have contracted HIV. I gave her my standard educational talk, using colloquial language, explaining that HIV is transmitted through five fluids: cum, pre-cum, vaginal fluid, blood, and breast milk. I told her how HIV needed a window into the body like a cut or sore. It turned out that her results were negative, which didnt surprise me.

But her fear reminded me of a story I saw when I was in the eighth grade. A young woman appeared on A Current Affair and Inside Edition. She said she was a virgin and that she got HIV from her dentist. Another woman, much older, made the same accusation. I was certified by health departments in Florida and California; I gave presentations at national conferences and was trained by some of the best educators in the country. I couldnt imagine how HIV would be transmitted from a dentist to a patient.

Even if the dentist didnt wear gloves, passing on the virus seemed virtually impossible. HIV is a very weak virus outside of the body and dies quickly. Being exposed to HIV doesnt always mean infection. So I wondered, how did those two women get it? Did a psychopathic dentist purposefully infect his patients? I thought of the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors, victimizing his patients, blood splattering everywhere. I also wondered if those two women told the truth. I cant count how many clients I counseled who got infected while cheating on their spouses, infected them, and then feigned ignorance about what happened.

I comforted many of those spouses, bound to secrecy by HIPAA confidentiality. There was also a young man, just eighteen years old, who infected his pregnant girlfriend. His own transmission came from a rape at a detention center, which he disclosed only to me, fearing ridicule if he told anyone else. There are lots of reasons to hold onto a secret; sometimes, in keeping that secret, someone gets blamed for something they didnt do, and a history gets written. In 2008, I started searching for the name of the dentist, Dr. David Johnson Acer, and the women who accused him of giving them HIV: Kimberly Ann Bergalis, who claimed to be a virgin, and a grandmother, Barbara Webb.

I was amazed to find such a trove of tributes, articles, artwork, photos, a play, and references to books dedicated to Kimberly Bergalis. There were statues of her, a beach bearing her name, and a cover story in