Michael Thomas Ford - Full Circle (44 page)

There was a long silence. Then Jack said, "You got the articles."
"Is Brian really sick?" I asked him.
Jack started to cry softly.
"How bad is it?" I asked.

"Bad," Jack whispered, trying to control his shaking voice. "He's dying, Ned. They think he has a few days, maybe a week."

I swallowed hard as a lump formed in my throat. As angry as I was at Brian, the idea of him dying was too much. I couldn't imagine the vibrant man I'd loved being struck down by some invisible parasite eating away at his lungs or burrowing into his skin.

"What can I do?" I asked when I was able to speak again.

"Nothing," Jack answered. "There's nothing anyone can do. I just wanted you to know." He hesitated a moment before adding, "He loves you, Ned. Maybe not the way he should have, but he loves you. So do I."

"Not now, Jack," I said. "Don't do this now. I just wanted to see how he's doing." "I'm sorry," he said. "It's just that I miss you."

"Tell him I called," I said, hanging up before Jack could say anything more. I looked at the pieces of paper I still held in my hand. Was there really a sickness stalking gay men, or was it just a coincidence that so many of us were coming down with these things? And why only in San Francisco? Was there something poisonous in the air, the water, the fog? I knew that wasn't likely, but still I was afraid. Brian was sick. Would Andy, Jack, or I be next? Jack and I, in particular, had cause for worry. We'd both slept with Brian. For all I knew, so had Andy. If whatever was taking down gay men in California was indeed passed along through sex, it was likely we had all been exposed to it. I told myself to calm down. I felt fine. I hadn't been sick with anything more serious than a cold in years. I had nothing to worry about. Besides, I chided myself, the person I should be worried about was Brian. He was the one dying. Part of me wanted to get on a plane and fly to his side, but another still hated him for what he'd done.

And then there was Jack. Did I hate him? No. Despite everything, I couldn't. Our relationship went back too far, and the roots were too deep, for me to hate him. But I wasn't ready to forgive him. I heard the front door open. "I'm home," Alan called out. He appeared in the doorway a moment later.

"Hey there," he said. "What's going on?"

 

I hid the articles and Andy's letter beneath some junk mail and held up the acceptance from NYU. "Put on your dancing shoes, baby," I told Alan. "I've got some great news."
CHAPTER 43

The white-painted face that peered out at me from behind the door of apartment 4A looked like it belonged to a china doll. The eyes, rimmed in black, peered down demurely at the floor. The cherry-red lips, were pursed slightly. Jet black hair was done up in an elaborate chignon pierced by ivory chopsticks. Somewhere in the room, a woman's voice soared in a moment of operatic exuberance.

"I'm sorry," I said, looking again at the number written on the paper in my hand. "I think I have the wrong number. I'm looking for John Fink."

 

"That's right," the woman said in a decidedly male voice. "Come in."

The door opened wider and I stepped inside. The geisha like figure, clad in a red-embroidered kimono, shuffled to the stereo and turned down the volume before addressing me again. "I'm John Fink. You must be my buddy from GMHC."

I nodded. "Ned," I told him.

John clapped his hands together, and I saw that despite the delicate kimono and makeup, his body was very much that of a man. Hairy wrists extended from the sleeves of his outfit, and the hands were much too large to be those of a woman. It was one of the signs Alan had taught me to look for when trying to determine the gender of someone who might be in drag.

"I've got lunch," I said, holding up the bag I'd picked up at the Gay Men's Health Crisis office on West 22nd Street and brought to John's apartment four blocks away.

 

"I'm sure it's delicious," John said as he accepted the bag from me and walked into the apartment's tiny kitchen.

I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do next. My training to be an AIDS buddy had been minimal, consisting mainly of an introduction to how they believed it could and could not be transmitted and some suggestions for handling the sometimes shocking appearance of people suffering from what until recently the medical community had called "gay cancer." In 1982, a year after the first cases had been diagnosed, there were still few definite answers about how or why so many gay men were becoming infected with this new ailment. But they were, and we were growing increasingly worried. A recent New York Times article—which still referred to the disease by the homo-specific acronym GRID, for gay-related immunodeficiency disease—had reported that since the first appearance of the disorder in San Francisco, at least 335 people had been diagnosed, out of which a terrifying 136 had died. Those of us in the gay community believed that the numbers were actually much higher. In New York, we had already seen a steep rise in the number of men developing debilitating pneumonia and the telltale purple lesions of Kaposi's sarcoma. Foreseeing a health issue of epic proportions, a small group of friends had founded Gay Men's Health Crisis to gather and disseminate information as it became available. Housed in a building owned by Mel Cheren, known to most of us as the "Godfather of Disco"

and partner in the famous Paradise Garage nightclub, GMHC was spearheading the movement to make gay men aware of what was happening.

In April, Alan and I had braved a freak spring snowstorm to attend the first benefit for the fledgling organization, a night of entertainment by the likes of Evelyn "Champagne" King and the New York City Gay Men's Chorus, as well as impassioned speeches asking for donations and volunteers. Moved by the occasion, and by the fact that already Alan and I knew half a dozen people from the theater community who were ill, I'd signed up to be a buddy to a person with AIDS. Now, a month later, I was making my first visit.

"Would you like me to leave you to your lunch?" I asked John as he took a plate from a cupboard and opened the containers of food I'd brought.
"I'd rather you stayed," he answered. "If you don't mind. I don't get a lot of visitors."

He sat down at the table tucked into one corner of the room. I sat across from him as he picked up a fork and began to pick at the macaroni and cheese that had been made that morning by other volunteers. I noticed that he swallowed gingerly, as if it hurt him to eat. He coughed, and the front of his kimono opened. I saw that his chest was covered with dark purple spots the size of quarters.

"The music is pretty," I said, trying not to stare.
John pulled his robe closed. "Madame Butterfly," he said. "Do you like opera?"

"I've never really listened to it," I told him. "I'm afraid I wouldn't really understand it if it's not in English."

 

"You don't need to understand the words," John said as he poked at a carrot. "The music tells you everything you need to know. Just listen."

 

He was quiet, closing his eyes as the music played. "Cio-Cio-San is a beautiful fifteen-year-old geisha,"

he said. "They call her ‘Butterfly.' She falls in love with Pinkerton, a handsome navy lieutenant. He marries her, but he knows he can never make a life with her. They have a child. Then he leaves, promising to come back for her. She waits three years for him to return, turning down an offer of marriage from a prince who finds her beauty irresistible. When Pinkerton does come back, he brings a new wife with him. They go to Butterfly to request that she let them take her child."

John stopped speaking, sitting silently and listening to the voice coming from the speakers. I couldn't understand the words, but I could feel in the singing an intense sadness.

"Butterfly agrees to let them have the boy," said John, his voice soft beneath the singing, as if he was translating for me. "She tells them to come back later for him. When they're gone, she blindfolds her son. Then she goes behind a screen and stabs herself. When Pinkerton comes for their child, he finds her and she dies in his arms."

He was quiet again, this time for a long period during which the music swelled and filled the room. When he opened his eyes, they were wet with tears. "She loved him even when he betrayed her," he said. "And he didn't see how much he loved her until she was dying."

"Are all operas that cheerful?" I asked him.
"No," he answered. "Some are actually sad."

I laughed at his joke. He reached up and pulled the wig from his head, revealing a scalp covered in thin tufts of hair. He set the wig on the table, where it rested like a shiny cat beside his plate. John scratched his head lightly, avoiding the purple blotches that stained the skin.

"Excuse my poor manners," he said. "I realize that subjecting you to my affliction is a poor way of repaying your kindness."

"It's okay," I told him.
"May I ask why you do it?" he said.
"Do what?" I asked.

"Come here," he answered. "Visiting the dying is hardly something most people would undertake voluntarily. Usually it's done out of a sense of guilt, and I don't see that you have anything to be guilty for, at least as far as I'm concerned. We never tricked, did we? You don't look familiar, but then the lighting at the baths is not particularly illuminating."

I chuckled. "I don't think so," I said. "I guess I do it because it makes me less afraid." "How so?" John said. "Doesn't seeing this"—he indicated his lesions—"make you fear what might happen?"

 

"Maybe it helps me get used to it," I suggested. "In case it does happen."

 

"Very practical," said John. "I commend you. And please, don't think I'm trying to scare you off. So far you are most welcome company."

"You haven't," I assured him as he resumed eating his lunch. He spilled some food on his chin, and when he wiped it away, the napkin took some of his makeup with it, revealing more lesions beneath the smooth white surface. His entire costume, I realized, was hiding the ravaged body beneath.

"What did you do?" I asked him. "Before you got…before." I didn't know how to phrase the question in a way that wouldn't be offensive.

"Before I became one of the damned?" he said for me. "I was a dresser. At the Metropolitan Opera. I helped people with beautiful voices get into beautiful clothes." He lifted his arm and wagged the sleeve of his kimono. "This, for instance, was worn by none other than Renata Scotto for a New Year's Eve performance in 1974. Barry Morell was Pinkerton to her Cio-Cio-San. It was divine."

"You must have seen some amazing things," I remarked.

 

"I have," he said. "I worked there for twenty years. It was a wonderful life. And now," he added, shrugging, "now I have the memories and the recordings."

"And the costumes," I said.
"Just a few," John said, smiling. "I don't think they'll be missed."

He finished his lunch and I cleared away the dishes for him. After that he was tired, and announced that he was going to take a nap. "But you will come back, won't you?" he asked. "Every Tuesday and Thursday," I said.

"I look forward to it," he told me as he stretched out on the sofa in the living room. I covered him with a blanket and left him alone with his music, returning to the sunny afternoon. As I walked home, I found myself wondering if Brian had ended up looking like John at the end. I hated the idea of his handsome face being stolen from him by the cancer. I hated this disease that was feeding on the beauty of men, consuming them for some unknown reason, as if a plague had been loosed upon us. I hoped it would run its course, and soon, before too many more were taken.

That night, Alan, Taffy, and I went to Michael's Pub to hear Margaret Whiting perform. She was a favorite of Alan's, and he was particularly excited because she was singing songs made famous by Ethel Merman, whose ill-fated disco album he and Taffy sometimes performed to. As we sat at our table, waiting for the show to start, I was looking around the room when a man sitting a few tables over caught my attention. Something about him was familiar, although I couldn't place his face. Before I could ask Alan and Taffy if they knew him, Margaret Whiting came out and began singing. Throughout the show I kept stealing glances at the man, trying to figure out where I'd seen him. It was making me crazy, because I was sure I knew him. Then, during a break between numbers, Margaret Whiting walked to his table and said, "I want to thank my husband, Jack, for encouraging me to do this show."

Instantly, I knew who he was. Jack Wrangler. I leaned over to Alan. "Did she just say her ‘husband'?" I asked him.

 

He nodded. "I'm not sure if they're really married, but they might as well be," he answered. "They've been together a long time now."

"Does she know he's a gay porn star?" I asked.
"He doesn't do that anymore," said Alan, as if this was old news. "He makes straight ones now."

The music began again, making further discussion impossible. But I couldn't stop looking from Wrangler to Whiting. She had to be at least twenty years older than he was. And although she sang beautifully, I had a hard time understanding what the horse-hung star of Raunch Ranch saw in the plump, matronly songbird. When the show ended, I watched as he stood to kiss her, trying to reconcile the image of the doting lover with that of the man I'd last seen sticking it to a beefy, hairy-chested stud wearing nothing but construction boots on the set of one of Brian's films.

As I was watching them, Jack turned and looked right at me. For a moment he seemed to be thinking, then his face lit up with recognition. I was surprised to see him walk toward me, and even more surprised when he reached out to shake my hand and said, "Ned, it's been a long time. How are you?"

"I'm doing well," I answered as Taffy and Alan looked on, their mouths hanging open. "How's Brian?" Jack asked. "I haven't talked to him in a while."
"He passed away," I told him, not sure how else to say it. "Last summer."
"Oh, God," said Jack. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."
"It was unexpected," I said. "He had AIDS."

Jack flinched visibly. I'd heard that men from the adult film industry were running scared since the discovery that sex was a primary means of transmission of the disease, and I wondered if that had played any part in his move from gay films to heterosexual life. "What are you doing in New York?" he asked, not pressing me for details of Brian's death.