Disclaimer: These are Jonathon Larson's characters, not mine.
"Quilt"
By Annie
Mark said it was the only smart idea I'd ever had. Even Joanne thought it was good, and she usually thinks my ideas suck. But what does she know, anyway? For an Ivy League-er, she sure doesn't get metaphor. I'm too smart, I tell you, really way too intelligent for my own good. They put me in charge, too, actually trusting me to tell them what to do. It's about time. I've grown up a lot, you know? Disease will do that to a person.
So here I am, digging through boxes of my friends' things and drawing ideas with Crayola markers on sheets of lined paper. Mark doesn't know I stole his notebook, so let's keep that to ourselves, kay? It's only the three of us left, and I'm the most artistic, plus it was my idea remember, so they left the designing to me. Ideally, Angel'd be the one coloring, but that's the way life is. If she were here, I wouldn't even have to worry about it.
Collins took me to a presentation of the AIDS Quilt uptown once. Why'd he take me? Good question; I had the same one myself. "Maureen, baby," he said to me, "you see art like Angel did. You see it everywhere." It was the most flattering thing anyone ever said to me, and I've heard some compliments in my time. The exhibit was beautiful and moving and everything, but I didn't really think much else of it at the time. After Roger went—he held on much longer than he should have, but Roger's stubborn to a fault, the stupid ass—anyway, after Rog, the Quilt suddenly came to mind again.
Jo and I were separating things into boxes—what to keep, what to ship to his mom, what to throw out, you know how it goes—and she begins folding up Rog's favorite pair of pants. So help me God, those ugly plaid things inspired me.
"Don't throw those out."
"Honey," Jo said in that tired voice she always uses when I tell her something, like me speaking gives her a migraine or something, "We don't have room to keep everything. We've already got boxes of everyone else's things taking up room."
"I know, that's the whole point!" I was really getting excited now, and I bolted over to the storage closet and my eyes ran over the permanent marker names: Angel, Collins, Mimi, April, Benny, and now Roger. "We've got all their stuff RIGHT HERE. We've got them."
Joanne looked confused. I tend to underestimate the intelligence of my friends sometimes. Obviously, my thoughts are so brilliant that rarely can anyone follow them. Or no one can. Ever. Maybe I should work on that.
"The Quilt, Jo, the Quilt!"
Still no reaction. I tell ya, what good's a degree if you can't even understand your own girlfriend?
"The AIDS Quilt!" I repeated and started randomly pulling things out of boxes. "Why don't we make them panels? We've got all their stuff. It could be great!"
A small smile crept across Joanne's face, spreading and spreading until she was grinning just as broadly as I was. Finally she got it. "I think you might be on to something here."
"I know! I'm fucking brilliant!"
Mark took even less time to convince, but then again Jo explained it to him. He needed an explanation, too, after he walked in to find us knee deep in drag queen wigs, electric blue pants, and down parkas.
Now I've got the panels almost all planned out, and Mark and Jo are so proud of me. I've been crying for almost a week straight, but it's therapeutic, you know? When everyone died, I think I tried to focus a lot on me, not them. "Oh, this is so hard for me," and "How am I gonna go on?" blah blah blah. Made it easier, you know, but didn't really help in the long run. But now I feel like I'm getting to say goodbye properly. I'm doing right by them, I think. You wanna see the drawings? They're pretty damned good, if you ask me.
April King was my best friend, so this one was really hard. Plus, most of her stuff's gone cause Roger made us throw it all out long ago. But see here, this is a poem she wrote to him that he didn't know I kept. Pretty, isn't it? She was really good. She had this gorgeous blonde hair and was such a girly-girl, so I did everything in yellow and pink. Gaudy as shit, I know, but she would love it.
Angel Dumott Schunard, baby. Right across the middle real big. And she was bigger than life, I tell you, but no one was ever so down to earth. And I found this quote in a book I lifted from the library: "Music is well said to be the speech of angels." Red was her favorite color and it suits her, right? Cause she was so passionate about everything. What? What's that right there? That's a pickle tub with wings. Don't you know anything?
Poor Mimi. She lived longer than we'd all guessed, but she never had it easy. You wouldn't know it, though, cause she never let it affect her mood. This one's my favorite, by the way. It's gonna be those blue pants and her name's gonna be cut out of her favorite pair of leather ones. Yeah, they do teach you that in Life Support. "No day but today." That was her motto, always shoving it down everyone's throats. Never met anyone in my life who lived like Mimi Marquez lived.
Benny. Shit, man, he was so unexpected. I guess, though, not really all that surprising when you think about it. See here's a drawing of those god awful Oakley's he always wore, even at night. And the whole thing's in money green. Yeah, he was a fucking prick, but I never really hated him. He could be pretty funny sometimes, right? But don't tell anyone I said that.
Collins was hard. I thought about putting him and Angel together, but I decided they deserved their own panels. I mean, it's because of Collins I was even able to come up with this whole idea, so I think he should get his own space. But, so help me God, if I have to sew it myself, they're gonna be next to each other. The o's in Tom Collins are made of those little knit cap things he used to always wear. Clever, huh? My genius amazes even me sometimes.
Roger's is the one I haven't done yet. Mark said for me to do it, but I'm gonna ask him to help me. He already gave me this quote. "After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Neat, huh? That's what Rog always wanted to do, Mark said, "express the inexpressible." Aldous Huxley said that. And of course the background's gonna be those ugly pants of his. At least I get to take the scissors to them.
Jo says the three of us can take a trip down to DC the next time they lay the whole Quilt out. It'll be sad, cause they're not just names now, but people we know and love, right? But it's okay. It's important to remember, you know? Forster said, "Unless we remember we cannot understand," and I think that's really, really true, because life just—What? Stop looking at me like that. I told you I was smart.
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Interested in the Quilt? www.aidsquilt.org Check it out.