Healthcare 4 All

I meet David Wojnarowicz at the Starbucks over by The Gap and LensCrafters, the one remodeled last year with all the large-scale, sepia-toned photographs of farm workers bent over in coffee fields, their faces always turned away from the camera. I have my usual chai with oat milk. That gets him going, the up-charge for adding something made from plants. I slide over a strawberry gummi edible—indica, of course. He ignores it. I had seen my doctor that morning, the quarterly appointments required to stay on PreP, regular reminders to test for kidney problems caused by the pills or STIs from what the pills allow. My phone dings as each test result is added to my chart: no gonorrhea, no syphilis, no HIV. The speed of the last one stupefies him, a fingersnap compared to the two-week standard we had to mark waiting back in the summer he died. “And people with HIV, they live with it for, like, years?" Longer, much longer, with access to healthcare. And if laws allow. Roe v. Wade, after all, isn't law anymore. From the table behind us, Sylvia Plath clicks a ball-point pen with increasing fervor.