by Val Ellicott
Staff Writer
Willie is a changed man since doctors told him six
months ago that he was carrying the virus that causes acquired immune
deficiency syndrome.
He has stopped drinking and smoking crack cocaine.
When he has sex, which isn't nearly as often as he used to, he uses a
"raincoat," street slang for a condom. He's even been
attending church.
Compared with some other infected residents of
Belle Glade's poorest streets, Willie, 35, is a model of informed self-restraint.
"There's a lot of people just don't care about
using protection," he said. "I hear people say, `If I got
it, I'm going to take as many people with me as I can.' That's wrong."
The potential victims of that attitude are other
poor blacks, many of them drug addicts, crowding Belle Glade's
ghetto, 10 blocks of stark poverty where sex and "rocks"--
crack cocaine-- are common diversions.
"There's a lot of sex out there, and the women
on the rocks-- they be out there all night and all day," Willie
said. "Just name it, they do it. Anything to get a rock."
The local crack market operates on the south side
of Southwest Avenue B Place between 4th and 5th streets. The sidewalk
there belongs almost exclusively to young men whose gold chains and
fancy clothes flash against a backdrop of grime and flaking paint.
A year ago, Willie was a frequent visitor. To earn
money for drugs, he worked odd jobs and panhandled, but he says he
never had "that stealing attitude." He also says he was
never addicted, but admits that crack ruled his life.
"I didn't care about myself," he said.
"I was dirty, stinking."
The women with whom he had sex-- as many as two a
day-- didn't mind what Willie smelled like, as long as he shared his drugs.
He doesn't know whether he was exposed to HIV-- the
human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS-- through sex or a
blood transfusion he received in 1984 after he was shot during an
argument. Before the shooting, which left him disabled, he picked
vegetables outside Belle Glade.
Willie says he now has sex only about once a month.
He keeps his condition a secret from the women he sleeps with, but he
always uses a condom. He even carries a supply with him.
This is a new experience for Willie. Men in Belle
Glade's ghetto aren' t raised to approach sex cautiously. Fathering a
large number of illegitimate children or being treated often for
venereal disease are considered marks of virility, health officials say.
Since moving to Belle Glade in 1973, Willie has
fathered seven children by three women. He stays in touch with them
but lives alone, in a one-room apartment he rents for $170 a month in
a decaying building on Avenue E.
The room, where Willie has lived off and on for
about 10 years, is tiny, barely large enough for Willie's single bed
and aged couch. The paint is peeling. There are separate bathrooms
for men and women on each floor, an improvement over buildings where
40 residents share two toilets and a sink.
This is very different from the easy life Willie
had heard about while growing up in Mississippi. The rumor there was
that, in Belle Glade, money grew on trees.
"I came here to pick some money," Willie
says, laughing.
Instead, Willie spends much of his time at church.
"I'd be a dead man today if I didn't have
faith," he says. "I pray to the Lord day and night. I know
He'll make me well."
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