Comfort and Joy (24 page)

The ache swelled inside Ford. As suddenly as he had seated himself in the chair he hurled himself out of it and out of the room. Without intending any particular direction, he headed room. Without intending any particular direction, he headed outdoors. Into the trees in the backyard he walked, beneath the mottled shadows of leaves illuminated by lamplight. He listened. Wondering whether he had come here to test Dan, to determine whether Dan might follow him. He heard no sound and proceeded deeper into the yard.
Even that late in the year, the singing of crickets surrounded him. Under the oak tree he cloaked himself in gloom. Balmy night air calmed himgradually. He watched Danemerge fromthe house, wander to the parked car, step to the edge of the house, look down the driveway. Ford, breathless now, stood hidden amongthe deep trees and plantings.
The terror returned to him in waves. He pictured himself storming back into the house and throwing Dan's boxes, Dan's cats, Dan's clothes, into the yard. Words tangled in his head from an argument that had flown by so fast, Ford had hardly understood it.
I need to pay my share. Or I won't know how to act. My share.
Then his mother's voice on the phone,
I didn't know you were thinking about having a roommate.
"I don't," he whispered, as if he were answering a question spoken only moments ago. "I don't want a roommate."
What do you want?
the sound so real he nearly turned to find its source, be it Shaun Gould or Dan or Eva or his own conscience.
What do you want?
Dan rounded the corner, heading for the back door. Standing in the doorway, nearly obscured by shadow, Dan called, once, softly, "Ford?"
He found Dan in the bedroom lying facedown on the bed. When he lay his hand on Dan's shoulder Dan murmured but kept his face turned away; Ford explained, "I went for a walk. To calmdown."
More murmuring toward the wall. Ford touched the back of the neck, the tender softness. "I'msorrywe had a fight."
"So am I." Ford knew from the voice that Dan had been crying, that he was ashamed for Ford to see. Ford pulled Dan crying, that he was ashamed for Ford to see. Ford pulled Dan against him slowly. Dan said, "I don't know how to explain to you why this is important to me. I don't want you to resent me for living here, I don't want you to think I'm here because of money—"
"Hush. We'll talk about that stuff later. We'll do a budget and you can pay your share and that's that." Dan's grip on him tightened tillit seemed he wanted to squeeze Ford inside his own body. After a while, Ford said, "I just want to make sure you're not my roommate. I want you to be something else."Which was as muchas he could manage without faltering.
Maybe the evening would have ended on that note, with their deep feelings once again exposed, with the link between them resonant and full. But touch and closeness led to more, and soon they were trying to make love on the bed, undressing one another carefully, with tenderness. Desire wakened in Ford slowly, and he felt a strange resistance in himself that he ignored, touching Dan as he had done many times, by now. Wanting and not wanting became tangled as their limbs. Ford reached for the condom, the constant companion of their sex. Tearing open the antiseptic pouch, he opened the slimplastic sheath. He looked at the flimsylatexwithsuddenweariness.
The feeling might have been as much alcohol and the length of the day as reluctance to clothe himself in rubber. But he held the slim plastic with loathing. Dan saw his expression and moved away from him. His face crumpled and he slid to the mattress, curled ina ball.
Ford hovered over him, numb and taken aback. The condom slid from his fingertips. Dan was hardly breathing. Slowly, tenderly, he eased himselfbehind Dan and engulfed the man with his body; and when Dan allowed the touch, Ford was flooded with gratitude. They said nothing. The limp condom lay among the sheets tillFord nudged it over the edge ofthe mattress.
The next day, in conversation with his mother, Ford held fast to his earlier assertion that Dan was simply someone he wanted in the house. But no further confession would come. The words
Dan is my lover
refused to emerge. Conversation turned to holidays and Ford explained he wanted to stay in Atlanta for Thanksgivingto catchup on his sleep. But he would be home for Christmas.

Over this treacherous ground he and Dan marched through Thanksgiving into the Christmas holidays. The flu season hit Atlanta at about this time, and Ford's nights were spent tending the sick childrenofpoor people, who had no choice but to come to the public emergency roomat night or in the wee hours of the morning. When he managed even a few hours at home, he slept or grumbled about his need to sleep. How Dan felt during those days, Ford could hardly tell. His silence was fearful at times. At other times, it seemed Dan hated the season itself, and every Christmas carol, everyChristmas tree ineverywindow.

Neither man mentioned the incident with the condom. The subject remained too dangerous for conversation. Furthermore, for the weeks that followed, nearly everything managed to conspire to separate them physically, and a kind of grayness settled over the house. When Ford was at home, he found no evidence that Danwanted himat all.

Two weeks before Christmas, Dan walked into an open drawer of his desk at work, bashing his kneecap, spouting an effusion of blood that guaranteed him several days in bed. Ford tended Dan as best he could, given the little time he had. Dan simmered, full of some anger Ford could hardly understand. Outwardly he professed guilt at the burden he had become to Ford, and inwardly he seemed angry at Ford's nurselike goodness.

Matters came to a head when, with Dan nearly able to stand, the knee bleed started again, with the joint stillweak and painful. Dan tried to walk too early, lost his balance and fell. Knowing nothing of this, Ford returned to the house after midnight and found Dan surrounded by the paraphernalia of his medication: a tourniquet, syringes, jars of sterile water, and butterfly needles. Dan, pale as a ghost and near tears, refused even to look at him whenhe entered.

"What's goingon?"
"I fell."

Fear and anger boiled in Ford, but he held his tongue. He counted five needles on the newspaper spread on the low table, each oozing blood. The tourniquet loosely encircled Dan's upper arm. But the syringes were still full of medication, and Dan's arm was a map ofneedle punctures.

"Youcouldn't find a vein, could you?"
"No."Weariness. "I'lltryagainina minute."
"Don't be stupid. I'mhere now, I'lldo it."
Dan closed his eyes and tears drained along his cheeks. "I can

Dan shook his head. "You shouldn't take the chance. You know how filthymyblood is."
Said in that frozen tone, the statement cut far deeper than any accusation. The wounded arm oozed beads of blood. Scalded, Ford felt the fury inside him mount to the point that he could no longer control it; he rose up from the couch and stumbled into the kitchen. He hardly knew what he was doing or which room he was in, but a sound rose out of him, an anger that made no words. Slamming his fists against cabinet doors, sweeping dishes off the counter with arcs of his arms, smashing glass and shouting, loud and uncivilized as he had never dreamed he could be, a shakingrage that left himcrumpled against the sink.
Silence. He leaned against the wooden surface, the handle of the Cabinet door pressinghis cheek.
Then a sound, a stifled breath. Ford opened his eyes. Dan, trembling, clutched the doorwayfor support. Standingwitheffort trembling, clutched the doorwayfor support. Standingwitheffort but helpless to advance across the field of shattered glass. They watched eachother.
"Go back to the couch."
"No."
"Get offyour leg,"feelinghis voice rise, a note ofhysteria.
"Help me,"Dansaid. "ThenI'llgo."
"I can't."
"Ifyoudon't come over here, I'llcome over there to you."
As if to prove his seriousness, Dan took a smallstep forward. The effort seemed unimaginable. Bare feet landed near shards of china. Ford jumped up at once. Dan waited, holding the edge of the counter to steady himself. The swollen knee, bent so the joint could accommodate its wealth of free blood, shook, and each quiver registered as pain on Dan's face. Ford crossed the room, glass crunchingbeneathhis shoes. He stood infront ofDan.
He could not recall so much tension between their bodies, not since the first day when he visited Dan in his office, after writing the note. He drew Dan toward him to support him; Dan looped an armaround his neck and across his shoulders. Together they returned to the couch in the den. Ford lowered Dan gently into the cushions, catching sight of the wounded knee again, and the arm marked with needle wounds, purpling and swollen. Dan winced when the knee moved wrongly, and pain brought sweat rollingfromhis brow.
Ford shook his head. "I knew I should have tried to get home today." The sight of the now-worthless needles with their oozing plastic tubes filled himwith nausea. "Your poor arm. How many times did youtry?"
"Count," Dan said, eyes still closed. "One more and I think I would have put a gunto myhead."
Waitinga moment. "CanI try?"
"Yes,"almost as a sigh.
Ford applied the tourniquet to Dan's right arm. He took no
Ford applied the tourniquet to Dan's right arm. He took no chance onthe smaller veins ofDan's hand but inserted the needle deftlyinto the antecubitalveins that crossed the inner elbow. Dan lay with his eyes closed, heartbeat subsiding. Ford mopped his brow with a cloth. The medicine eased into Dan's veins. Near the end ofthe transfusion, Danasked, "What's happened to us?"
The question echoed. "I don't know," Ford answered. "I'm scared ofyou."
Danlaughed. "Tellme some news."
"At least we're talking about it now."Ford touched the tender flesh where the needle entered the vein. "What are we going to do?"
"Give up. Quit. I'llfind anapartment."
The words had a finality that sank into Ford. "Is that what you want?"
The laughter pulsed out again, deep and dark. "No. It's not what I want."
Silence. The syringe had nearly emptied into Dan's veins. Last shreds of fluid eased down the plastic tubing, vanishing. Ford removed the needle and applied pressure to the vein. Tension coursed through Dan's arm, the whole body wracked with it. Ford found painkillers and gave him a dose calculated to break the cycle. Too exhausted to speak, theywatched eachother.
Finally the Demerol took effect and Dan drowsed. Ford covered the injection needles, one by one, and wiped the blood fromthe glass tabletop, carefully shielding his fingers. He capped the plastic tubes from which seeped blood and reconstituted protein, making the roomless morbid. He swept the kitchen free of glass. Careful to make as little noise as possible, he mopped as well, afterward throwing away the mop head. The work took a long time. When it was done and he had gotten up as much glass as he could, he stood over Dan, who finally slept. No question, tonight, of moving Dan to a bed. Nor could Ford face the bedroom alone. He brought a mattress from the roll-away cot and made himself comfortable at the foot of the couch. They slept side byside throughthe night.
slept side byside throughthe night.

Dan's leg healed in time for him to limp home for Christmas, and Ford drove himto the airport. He himself had duty at Grady through Christmas Day but planned to fly to Savannah after that. Dan, still favoring the leg, packed clothing and gifts into a suitcase too large for him to manage with the weak knee, and Ford carried the luggage to the car. Only when he walked out of the house, suitcase heavyat the end ofhis arm, did the realization came to him that Dan would be leaving within minutes. He stowed the suitcase in the trunk of his car
as Dan
stepped carefullyout ofthe house.

A pale wash of winter sky hovered over lanes of asphalt. They rode in silence across sweeps of freeway bridge as jets mounted upward into clouds.

Ford thought. He steered into Short-Term Parking, found nothing, and decided to improvise; he left the slimcar in an illegal space near a crosswalk. Danwould be able to walk that far.

When he switched off the engine, the sounds of the airport permeated the car. Dan was looking out the other window, jaw working. "Is somethingwrong?"Ford asked.