With COVID restrictions loosening by January of last year and feeling a little more secure after getting double vaxxed, I decided to expand my Reentry into Civilization. I would return to one or two daily writing sessions in various Vancouver cafes, as was my custom pre-2020, but I would also commit to being a regular volunteer for a nonprofit.
It just so happened that the place I was most interested in was less than two blocks away. I’d popped into AIDS Vancouver before the Christmas holidays and filled out a volunteer application. It made me feel like fifteen again, when I had to fill out a form to be a busboy at Papacita’s, a Mexican restaurant in Longview, Texas. There were more things I could fill in this time, but there was still an air of humbling uncertainty. Am I worthy? Being passed over for a chance to clear taco dregs, plus all the tortilla chip bits and salsa drippings on the tables and seats, would have felt humiliating, but being told by an agency, “We don’t want your free help” made the stakes seem higher.
It took almost a month before I heard back, the executive director apologizing about holiday shutdowns and his own January illness. We chatted on the phone for a little bit and it seemed like a collaborative decision that I’d serve as the agency’s receptionist Monday mornings after first coming in for eight hours of training and going through my paper copy of the receptionist manual which included detailed instructions about photocopying, transferring emails, answering calls, retrieving messages, reserving rooms and so forth. There were also opening and closing procedures as well as plenty of codes and passwords.
There was a distinct sense of nervousness as I began my training day and I seemed to perspire every time I had to take a call under the scrutiny of my trainer. COVID had made my people skills go to rust. Moreover, the only phone calls I’d handled in the last five years were to my mother and customer service representatives who walked me through my recurring internet challenges or threw up barriers to refunds related to my Epic European Vacation which got dashed when we went into Worldwide Lockdown. Basically, all phone calls within memory involved me being testy. I suspected I’d need a different approach when answering calls at AIDS Vancouver. Getting fired as a volunteer would be even worse than getting passed over.
One thing I’d forgotten is how I have a tendency not to hear the first second or two of what a person says on the phone. Is it a legitimate hearing problem? Do my ears just require time to adjust? It suddenly seemed like a significant handicap when answering phones was a fundamental part of my volunteer position. My struggle was further magnified by the fact many callers sounded groggy, their voices muffled by illness, the effects of medication or a morning coffee not yet doing what it needed to. I typically needed the caller to repeat who they were and who they wanted to speak with—basically, the entire essence of the call.
I sensed that, if I wasn’t fired, I’d have to quit. I didn’t have what it took to be a receptionist.
Still, I stuck it out. I became less embarrassed asking people to repeat themselves. I may have even gotten a tad better at getting my ears to tune into the call quicker. It seemed to help when I slowed my greeting—“Gooood morrrning, AAAAIDS Vancouuuuver”—allowing my left ear to settle beside the receiver before the caller launched into their spiel.
My overall goal in volunteering was to get back in the loop regarding the current state of All Things AIDS and HIV. I’d spent the year prior reading daily posts on The AIDS Memorial’s Instagram, where loved ones pay tribute to people who have died of AIDS. Many of people being remembered had died when the ravages of AIDS were at their worst, unchecked by protease inhibitors which didn’t begin to save and extend lives until the mid-’90s. Still, there were some people being honored who’d died within the last five years: “longtime survivors” and people who’d more recently gotten AIDS, the stigma, their geographical location in this world or other issues keeping them from a regular medication routine.
No. As I reflect, gaining an understanding of AIDS today, while important, did not surpass my need to remember what had been. The AIDS Memorial posts took me back to the bleakest years of the AIDS crisis. The photos and the written accounts confirmed that, yes, all of it happened. How quickly, it seems, the world and most of the gay community moved on. I wanted to do something more to honor magnificent loves lost—talented people who’d had much more to offer, regular folks with ordinary lives like mine and dear friends and acquaintances who didn’t live long enough for us to one day reestablish contact as Facebook friends, receiving that annual nudge to reach out and wish one another happy birthday.
AIDS shaped my years of coming out. When I first told my parents I was gay, my mother’s immediate response, through tears, was, “Can’t you abstain?” To her, my identity meant death. I can’t blame her. I had acquaintances who ignored safe sex practices, resigned to the fact early death was unavoidable. More than once, I heard someone utter, “Only the good die young” as a twisted defense to not being more responsible. Conservative, vile outsiders cast AIDS as God’s wrath while a few gay men viewed AIDS as a badge of honor. I’m living my life to the fullest. No fear.
I volunteered for a year, adding on an extra month to make up for many missed shifts as I continued to travel to places near and far. Sometimes it’s hard to ascertain what I learned and whether I made any difference at all.
At times, I felt like I represented a slight relief to the organization’s operating budget. Working reception is a paid position in the afternoons; thus, each of us who volunteered in the mornings provided a savings. It wouldn’t be my phone skills that made a difference, but some other program or paid position continued to be funded on account of volunteers. If that’s all that came of my time, I’m okay with it. I don’t need pats on the back and gushy thank yous. I’m an under the radar kind of guy.
Many of the clients I encountered seemed to struggle financially. The agency offered a supplemental food bank—not a primary source for meals—and it was well-subscribed. On many occasions, I also headed to the back in search of clothes, shoes, backpacks and other items that might make a client’s means of living a tiny bit easier. Across from my desk was a resource room where some clients (and non-clients) dropped in to use a computer, to grab a coffee and a donated snack or to just plop down in a chair, out of the rain, the cold or the heat, away from more chaotic situations on the street and in shared housing spaces. Some clients with no fixed address or who didn’t want sensitive mail arriving at a shared residence picked up mail delivered to the agency.
I learned more about comorbidity and harm reduction. Whereas I recall free condoms and lube passed out back in the day (they’re still available), there were clients who stopped in to pick up free bubble pipes, sheets of tin foil and fentanyl testing strips to ensure that drug use was cleaner and safer. No judgment.
I also learned more about how the LGBTQ spectrum is getting broader. I’ve known this from reading articles online, checking out books, scrolling Twitter and watching the occasional news segment or documentary. But there’s nothing better than direct contact with people who identify as trans or nonbinary, knowing they’re here, they’re queer and, yes, I’m getting used to it. Often, it felt as though I was getting more out of my volunteer stint than the agency and the clients were getting from me. That’s typical, isn’t it?
Still, there were many moments when I wondered what the point was of my being there. Technical skills have never been a strength and I would cringe each time I’d accidentally hang up on a caller. I’d pressed the wrong button to put them on hold. I’d tried to transfer them and messed up. I couldn’t scan or print something. There were so many questions I couldn’t answer. I’d never felt so incompetent at a job. What if the desk were unmanned (unpersonned?) and messages when to voicemail until the paid receptionist arrived after lunch? There would have been a spike in anxiety while clients waited—clients were often anxious about whatever issue had become so pressing as to push them to seek guidance and support—but it was rare that I could offer a direct answer that would alleviate the problem. All I could do was transfer the call to a social worker or, more often, that worker’s voicemail or monitor offices back in the locked hallways to see if and when a social worker stepped out of a meeting or finished up with another client. Basically, I was a traffic guard, trying to keep matters flowing while not having the ability to change a client’s situation firsthand.
I had some clients call repeatedly over the course of a morning. “Is she available now?” “How about now?” “Did you tell her this is urgent?” There would be heavy sighs and subtle or not so subtle references to how the delays were making a dire situation even more problematic. They were helpless and, in those moments, I felt as much so—granted, without the personally dire predicament. Being a volunteer is a privileged experience.
When they dropped in, they were doing relatively well. Most didn’t risk coming to the agency when their health was at all compromised. Presumably, they didn’t want to take chances seeing how COVID might mix with being HIV+, even when undetectable.
There were many one-off tasks never contemplated in the training manual. One man, waiting for an appointment, used the restroom room, then approached my desk and said in a hushed voice, “I think the toilet seat needs to be cleaned. Someone made a mess.” Yes, of course. I’d worked in homes of people with AIDS in the early ‘90s. I knew about diarrhea; I’d had to empty urine bottles. I took out the key for the janitor’s closet, donned plastic gloves and ventured in. The toilet was fine. Not spotless, but better than most public toilets. I scrubbed anyway. Maybe I was helping ease someone’s OCD.
One day I threw out my back after getting pulled into a strange sort of threesome. There was a homeless gay couple who’d moved to Vancouver from another province. One man was in his forties and dressed casually, the other was in his twenties, always clad in groovy vintage clothing—platform shoes, floral print blouses, daring sherbet-colored pants. They were always polite, but I registered with them about as much as the cubbies stocked with harm reduction supplies. They’d approach me to pick up mail or to ask to speak to a social worker and then get back to their own world. The younger man showed up one morning, asking if I’d seen his partner. I hadn’t. He paced back and forth from the waiting area to the resource room, often sinking into a chair by the phone ten feet away from me that was available for clients. At one point, a mournful wail filled the room as he held the phone. I rose, thinking he was experiencing sudden physical pain. Then I heard him say into the phone, “I thought you were dead.” He cried and I found myself reaching for the box of tissues, dabbing my own eyes. When his partner stepped off the elevator an hour later, there was no emotional reunion. They were back to doing some sort of tasks in the resource room, only turning to me to ask about snacks. I heated up some breakfast wraps, made another pot of coffee and resumed desk duty until the man in his forties fell in the reception area. I helped him up. He fell again. His body was deadweight, but I got him up again. His partner appeared and, rather than sitting and resting, they asked for help getting onto the elevator as they left. I worried about them the rest of the day, my back pains not allowing me to forget.
Another time a trans woman on the phone sounded irked and distressed. Her social worker wasn’t returning her calls fast enough. She started unloading all her stressors on me. My god, life was tough. She kept cutting people and nonprofits from her circle. People were doing her wrong and she was filing complaints to hold them accountable. Due to my hearing challenges and her emotional state, I kept having to ask her repeat things. This was making her more agitated and I apologized, adding the explanation, “I mishear things.”
She became outraged. “Did you just call me ‘mister’?”
Suddenly, we were both taken aback. I blanked for a moment. Where did her accusation come from? When I managed to replay my own words, I figured out she’d taken “mishear” for “mister.” I clarified, she paused. Then a laugh. I was her bestie for the final five minutes of the call. She was still stressed and I still couldn’t offer any of the direct support she needed, but I’d been an ear, hearing-challenged and all.
The last call of my last shift seemed like an odd sort of closure for the entire volunteer experience. A caller didn’t even wait for me to get through my greeting spiel before saying, “What’s the number for Loan Express?” Naturally, I surmised I was mishearing again. She repeated the question, a tinge annoyed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We don’t offer loans. Do you need to speak to a social—?”
“I know, I know,” she said. “I just don’t have internet. You got a computer. Can you look it up?” I shrugged. I typed on the keyboard. I gave her a number. She called back five minutes later. I hadn’t done it right. “There’s another one,” she said. I found another number. She didn’t call back. At least, not on my shift. Presumably, she knew The Other Guy, the paid receptionist, was due to start in a few minutes. Her loans needs would have to wait.
Overall, I’m still not sure I learned anything new about HIV and AIDS. If anything, I have a clearer image of people living with HIV, a welcome counterpoint to visions I’ll never fully shake of people dying of AIDS. I knew this going in, but seeing people negotiate non-medical aspects of life offered a welcome update. Food, housing, transportation, mental health and connecting with others remained issues that required ongoing support.
My role wasn’t to solve or alleviate these things. I committed to being the polite, friendly dude, greeting drop-in clients with a smile covered up by the mask I was required to wear. (Shout-out to Tyra Banks for trying to teach me smizing, aka, smiling with one’s eyes.) I’d like to think my smile came across on the phone too…in between “Pardon” and “I’m sorry. Could you please repeat that?”
Snapshots stay with me. There was the scruffy man I fed one day and offered extra snacks against protocol, then scrounged up donated clothes roughly his size, a toothbrush, toothpaste and disposable razor. He asked for directions to the restroom and stayed in there so long that I started to panic about giving him the razor. Was that against protocol, too? I peeked in and the floor was covered in liquid—water, not blood. (I headed to the janitor’s closet to get a mop ready.) He emerged with a faint smile, clean shaven, perhaps the finest Before and After specimen I’d ever seen.
There was the older mom whose son had been admitted to hospital the night before. Since she wasn’t a client, I couldn’t refer her to a social worker, but I gave her information to offer her son if he wanted support and I offered plenty of information about how to advocate for him at the hospital I’d learned to navigate from my own admissions. She lingered, the worry lines on her face softening slightly as she hung out by my desk. Things evolved from me giving information to providing distraction.
There was the trans woman in the wheelchair who seemed to crave any kind of human interaction. She’d regularly share a corny joke of the day which I always laughed at. She beamed when she showed me the free professional photos she’d sat for on the weekend when a trans photographer wanted to uplift others. “I updated my dating profile with them,” she said. “Suddenly, I’m alive again.” She and so many others.
Small things are bigger than they may seem.
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