An Ace Vs. Aids -- Ailing Tennis Great Arthur Ashe Embarks On World Tour To Raise Money, Awareness

NEW YORK - The Blue Room. City Hall. The place is cluttered with portraits of mayors, antique desks, wing-back chairs and television minicams propped on a platform.

Arthur Ashe, the ailing tennis legend, rises and reaches for the podium. His voice is a rasp, and yes, he appears thin and frail, but even when he was winning Grand Slam tournaments, you'd find yourself wondering how this skinny man could hit all these ferocious serves.

He is to talk about a charity event, the first stop in a 15-month world tour to raise money to battle AIDS.

Everyone strains to hear him. He talks of Magic Johnson grabbing hold of the Olympics with a smile and Mary Fisher shaking the Republicans with her speech, of prejudices yet to be overcome. And he talks of his love for his wife, Jeanne Moutoussamy, and his 5-year-old daughter, Camera.

And he tells a New York story. He is sitting in his Volvo on the corner of 92nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue. He hears a tap on the window, and sees this frightened man waving his arms.

The man has AIDS. So does Ashe.

The man is upset. His family has turned against him. They won't let him in his house. Won't let him visit his daughter.

And as he consoles this stranger, Ashe begins comparing one man's life with his own.

"I haven't had my family do that," he said. "No one in my apartment building has done that. No one in my daughter's school has done that. Instead, people come up to me and ask, `What can I do to help you?' "

Now, five months after reluctantly telling the world he has AIDS, six weeks after celebrating his 49th birthday, Ashe is prepared to give an answer.

This is his message.

When you have AIDS, when the blood tests come twice a month, when DDI and AZT are drugs of necessity, when you turn on the television set and hear the former surgeon general of the United States, C. Everett Koop, say that for people infected with AIDS, the prospects are "they are going to die," well, you learn to choose your battles carefully, expend your time wisely.

"You learn to live with a terminal illness," he said. "I've come to my own accommodation with it. It governs your life."

Time is the constant enemy.

"There is a strong sense of finality to it," he said. "In all likelihood, time is short, barring some breakthrough vaccine. That makes it more difficult, what you are going to do with your waking hours. Will I feel like playing golf? Or maybe I should take Camera to the park."

Now, he wants money. Five million dollars to fund the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS.

And his friends in tennis will help him realize a dream. Yesterday, they staged an exhibition at the National Tennis Center, site of the U.S. Open.

There is more to come. The 356 players at this year's Open have been asked to wear a small emblem - a red ribbon over a tennis ball - as a sign of solidarity with AIDS patients everywhere. Booths will be set up at every stop on the pro tours to take donations and distribute literature on AIDS. Even the Grand Slam events have promised to participate.

Stereotypes and fears about the transmission of AIDS disappear when people like such as Ashe, Johnson and Fisher help quell public hysteria.

"If there is an MVP for the 1992 Summer Olympics, Magic would win hands down," Ashe said. "It offers a new paradigm of how one can live with the HIV virus. He has been a large positive for the AIDS issue. He has put a different face on it. He is not someone wasting away in a hospice; he is not an IV drug user, and not someone who is gay."

Fisher, the socialite daughter of the Bush campaign's honorary finance chairman, gave AIDS another face, another voice, telling the Republicans that illness and pain are things to be shared, not ridiculed. Her speech delighted Ashe, who said that before her appearance, "Republicans were Neanderthal on it (AIDS)."

And yet, Ashe says, the world of sports can make a difference in the fight against AIDS.

"The country looks to the sports business to see how it will handle it," he said. "Everything is public with us. We live in a fish bowl. How we treat the AIDS issue is no different."