LEPER by Ira Jay Rosen

LEPER

Andrew woke sweating, overwhelmed by the continuing horror of the dream. He couldn’t get used to the nightmare, even though it was basically the same one that he had been having periodically for almost two years:

He was walking down Christopher Street in the Village. Strangers were staring at him in horror and revulsion. Some hid their faces from him; others pointed at him and whispered to their companions. A young boy began to cry at the sight of him, then turned, clutching the leg of the young man who had been holding his hand. Andrew stopped in front Ty’s, the first gay bar he had ever been in, and crossed the street to his favorite leather shop to examine the display in the window. Slowly, it turned into a mirror, and he saw that his face and neck was covered with the kind of lurid Technicolor sores that Hollywood had used to depict lepers in old movies like Ben-Hur.

Suddenly, three extremely tall men in long black monk-like robes marched through the parting crowd and approached him in a solemn procession, each carrying an object. The hoods of their robes totally hid their faces from him in shadows. Andrew looked back at the mirror window and saw that he was now naked, and the sores covered all over his body, except for the area from his hip bone to halfway down his thighs. Here his skin was in perfect condition.

The first monk came forward and knelt in front of him. He tightly tied a wide red velvet ribbon around Andrew’s genitals, leaving the long ends to dangle from between Andrew’s legs, blowing in the breeze. Although he could see that part of his body which had in many ways defined his identity, Andrew could no longer feel it, reminding him of the innocent days of early childhood, before he had discovered the pleasure available to adult loins. He felt sexless; he felt unmanned.

The second monk approached Andrew, and silently dressed him in a coarse white robe that fell to his feet. The robe did not close across his chest; it was open in the front, leaving most of Andrew’s body exposed. The third monk strode forward, carrying a tall cane, like a shepherd’s crook. It had a large bell on the tip. The staff was placed in Andrew’s right hand, who was silently guided to follow the monks in a procession towards the river.

With each step that he took, the bell on the staff rang loudly, like the death knell that rang before a funeral from the Catholic church across the street from Andrew’s apartment. As they progressed down Christopher Street, identical groups joined them. The on-looking crowds drew back against the walls to avoid touching the growing procession of monks and their white robed men with staffs that pealed so loudly.

When they reached the corner of Hudson Street, Andrew was puzzled to see that the long closed adult bookstore was reopened. Memories flashed through him of the many hours spent on his knees on the brick floor in the backroom, worshipping the manhood of all who presented themselves to him. More monks escorted white robed men out of the store to join the procession; other groups shuffled in from the side streets. The line grew longer; they walked down the center of the street four across, but each group of three monks and their white robed victim covered with sores walked separate from each other. The clanging of their bells grew deafening as their numbers increased.

As they approached West Street and the Hudson River, the sun was setting over New Jersey. When they got to the corner, Andrew was amazed to see that the old abandoned pier buildings where he had spent so many hours engaged in anonymous sex with shadowed strangers had been resurrected. It had been many years since they had been torn down, but now they were back, decrepit and dark, just as Andrew fondly remembered them. The procession marched through the wide doors into the first pier. Although it was twilight, there was a glow that gently lit the vast derelict area. The massive room no longer looked neglected. It looked like a hallowed shrine. Candles glowed in colored glass bowls on shelves along the wall. There were bright colored banners hanging from the rafters, but there wasn’t enough light for Andrew to make out details. The immense doors at the far end of the hall were open to the river. A glowing bank of fog now obscured the view of the New Jersey sunset, lighting the space in front of the doors. The radiance illuminated a platform, with an ornate, altar like table on it. Above the dais hung an ornately lettered banner that read “There, but for the Grace of God, go I” in letters of fire.

The monks lead their charges to stand in front of the walls, facing the center, then stood behind them, melting into the shadows. Now Andrew could see the other men in the white robes more clearly. They were all between the age of 45 and 60, like Andrew, and all of them had the same unconvincing looking sores on their bodies; the same unmarked area around their genitalia.

They seemed to have nothing else in common. There were tall men and short; there were men so handsome they had to be models, and men so plain that the kindest description of them was “homely“; very muscular men and scrawny men and others who were extremely flabby; there were white men and black and brown and red and yellow men. A few still wore jewelry: wedding rings or ornate pectoral crosses. A small number had the distinctive ear locks of Chasidic Jews. Some of them were obviously effeminate by the way they were standing, most looked like “straight acting” men, while others stood in a pose of hostility and hyper-masculine defiance.

There WAS one thing they all had in common - a look of confusion and even terror on their faces. The room was totally quiet. Slowly a quiet music arose from around the men, until it filled the space. An exceedingly tall figure in a gray robe, hooded, followed a procession of muscular young men in gold loin cloths who were carrying tall candles. As they got to the front of the room, the candle bearers lined up along the front of the stage, leaving an opening in the center that grew to be a short flight of stairs for the tall figure to walk up. The figure stood behind the table and faced the gathering. In a very deep voice, he began to chant in a language Andrew had never heard. The monks in their black robes responded with a different chant, while the candle bearers sang in a higher voice then the others a third chant.

The voices of the chant flowed together in a complex pattern, so that it almost seemed like words he could understand. Andrew strained to understand the words. It sounded like “Unclean, Guilty, Unclean”.

Prodded from behind by one of the monks, Andrew tried to join the other men in the chant, but they all seemed as unsure as he was of the words. Those on the platform went through some elaborate and arcane ritual, which ended with the leader alone in the center.

The gray robbed figure at the altar reached up a gloved hand to push back his hood. Just before the light could reveal his face, Andrew would always wake up, sometimes screaming, always terrified and dripping a cold sweat, convinced that the sight of that face would mean his death.

* * *

In recent months the dream has been changing; Andrew though of it as “devolving”. Waking well before the end of the dream, he realized that he had recognized some of the faces in the dream, but he couldn’t remember who they had been when he woke up.

One night, Andrew bolted awake with the realization that little boy who screamed was no longer a little boy. Andrew knew who it was - not a child, but a small man he had not thought of in a few years. He was a short, powerfully built man who had been a friend for a number of years; he was the first hemophiliac Andrew had ever met. He was the one who, in 1981, had shown Andrew clipping from the New York Times, which reported some cases of a rare and lethal skin disease among Gay men in San Francisco and New York, referring to it as “the Gay Cancer.” About a year later, he had called Andrew in hysteria. The Times had reported the same rare disease among hemophiliacs who took a clotting factor derived from human blood. The short muscle man had gotten a job in Washington, and after a few years, they lost contact. Andrew had always worried if his friend, a member of two “risk groups” was still healthy and alive, but had never taken any steps to find out. In his head, he heard the hooded man chant “Guilty”.

* * *

A few nights later, Andrew recognized the man who stood opposite him in the chapel-like Pier as his retired boss. A closeted man, he was married to the daughter of the owner of their firm. They had ignored each other when their paths crossed in this very chamber, this temple of anonymous, dangerous sex, but he had been the one who had called Andrew into his office to tell him about the anonymous testing program the city had started. They had gone together twice a year to be tested; gone together twice a year for their continued negative results, getting drunk after each visit, then going to the places where anonymous sex became available after the destruction of the Piers. Andrew was puzzled - he had seen his former boss at a company party a few days before.

As the weeks went by, more faces became clear. The faces in the crowd who stared in horror at him he slowly recognized as friends, coworkers and neighbors who had died of AIDS over the last 25 years. Those who cringed from him were living acquaintances infected with the virus. And the men in the white robes were former lovers and current friends who were, like him, free from infection.

And inevitably, nightly, the gloved hand of the gray hooded figure reached up, and Andrew woke, positive that under the hood was the face of Death.

* * *

When the dreams had begun, Andrew had been dating three men. Two of them, contemporaries of Andrew, grew tired of the screams and the terror, and after a period of trying to be patient, understanding and supportive, ended the relationship. Surprisingly, the third man, who was half of Andrew’s age, was unfazed by the experience. A very spiritual person, he unwearyingly weathered Andrew’s eruptions as they became more frequent, with care and concern and humor. As they became closer, and spent more nights together, he would hold and rock Andrew until the tears of terror ended and he slipped back into sleep. Without any discussion, the relationship became exclusive. To Andrew’s amazement, it was his young companion who proposed that he move in with Andrew as lovers. It had been fifteen years since he had allowed himself that intimacy, but Andrew could not refuse the only man who seemed to accept and understand his terror. Except for the almost nightly visitation, they were very happy.

On the eve of their first anniversary together, Andrew woke up screaming “Unclean, Guilty, Unclean!” His young lover, who had come out and grown up in the Age of the Plague, asked him for the first time the details of the nightmare. Andrew sobbed as he began to explain the end of the dream. “I can’t hear the words of the chant clearly, but I could swear it’s ‘Unclean, Doomed, Guilty, Cursed by God! Unclean!’” He then described the gloved hand of Death reaching for the hood.

After some thought, his lover proposed that Andrew might be interpreting the dream wrong. “You will not know the meaning of the dream until you let it come to an end, Andrew. And no one ever died from a dream.” As Andrew drifted back to sleep, his lover stroked him softly, quietly repeating to him over and over that he was with him, he was safe, and that seeing the end of the dream would end the terror.

* * *

Andrew entered his familiar nightly hell. It was unexpectedly different. He looked closely at the faces of loved ones who had died as they moved away from him. It no longer seemed as if they were revolted by him; but were looking at him in sorrow and remorse. A close examination of the friends who turned from him showed not disgust, but regret and jealousy. His bawling little friend was not screaming in fear, but in warning for Andrew‘s safety.

The Pier no longer had a romantic look - it was again a decaying ruin. The bright banners were actually dusty cobwebs, and for the first time he smelled the stench of decay, old urine, dried semen and sexual urgency that had always been part of the experience at the Piers. As he looked at the other white robed men, he noticed that they had a combination of feelings visible on their faces - guilt, relief, fear and self-loathing. In its place of the emasculation that he always experienced during the Dream, Andrew was aware of an erection stirring. He looked down, and the shameful red ribbon was gone. The hideous vivid sores were gone from his body, now restored to his healthy, vigorous condition, as were the bodies of all the other men in white robes.

The chant got louder and more complex than ever. The feared moment arrived. The gloved hand touched the hood, and Andrew held his breath. The heavy hood fell back. There was no Skull of Death. Instead, the serene face of Andrew’s lover, radiant with an inner light, was revealed in splendor and glory. All at once, the mystifying chanting turned into clear words: “Clean, Fortunate, Innocent, Blessed by God.” With tears of joy in his eyes, Andrew awoke to a new day, and the blessed face from his dream smiling at him.

This story may not be sold, nor made part of any collection, without prior consent from the author, who can be reached at

irajayrosen@Gmail.com.