As an aspiring chemical engineer, he also wanted to attend a better school. An immigrant from Venezuela, Vergel told NBC News he left his home country because he was gay and seeking a more supportive environment. “I felt bombs were dropping ”Ī year before King's life-changing phone call, in 1984, Nelson Vergel was settling into Houston. Life was, as King described it, “a waiting game.” And so he waited for the day he would get the cough, or see a spot, and the countdown would begin. No one felt like celebrating anymore, he said.
Everyone he knew who had been diagnosed had gone to the hospital and died. ‘Maybe I’ll be someone who survives,’ I told myself.”īut King had no evidence to suggest he would. “Numb,” King said of what he felt when his friend told him he had tested positive. Instead, he found himself at an epicenter of the HIV outbreak that would shape the gay world in the United States for years to come.
He was 24 years old and eager to enjoy life. Kingĭeath was the last thing King thought he would have to confront when he moved to West Hollywood from Houston to pursue an acting career. King stands in front of the Hollywood sign shortly after moving to California in 1982.
“It was the bank teller at your bank who wasn’t there one day. “It was like a 'Twilight Zone' episode where everyone in town just starts disappearing,” King said of that time.
