Harriet Browne was an elegant, attractive, 63-year-old black woman who I met for the first time in 1995. My brother Harry introduced her to me as someone he met at an AIDS service organization in New York City. "Quicksand" was the name she gave me. She later explained that she took the name from her style of tap dancing on sand that creates a sound like brushes on a snare drum. "That's the sound of jazz," she said. She discovered her HIV-positive status in 1991.

I learned…

By Dennis Levy

’Malik’ is the lookout for a South Bronx crackhouse. He looks up and down the street, past decaying buildings.  Malik  is 25 and looks 35; he's an HIV-positive crack addict. A black woman in a dirty coat, about 35, approaches. "They open?" she mutters. "Yeah! They slammin’ too!" The skinny black woman hurries into the building. "Bitch got some good head!" Malik says. "I hit that last week!" A car pulls over to the corner and…