Michael Thomas Ford - Full Circle (59 page)

"No," I tell him. "I'm fine."
"I'm glad you're here," he says.
I'm not sure if I'm glad to be here or not, so I say nothing.

"The place has three guest bedrooms," Jack tells me. "I'm in the first one on the right down the hall. You can use either of the other ones."

 

"I'm pretty tired," I say. "I think I'll turn in."

I stand up, and so does Jack. We walk down the hall and he shows me the two rooms. I choose the one farthest from his, on the opposite side of the hall. "I'll see you in the morning," I tell him, and go inside. I shut the door behind me and lock it.

CHAPTER 58

Even dying, Andy commands attention. The nurses who attend to him, both male and female, treat him like a child. They smooth the blanket covering his body and push his hair away from his eyes. They speak gently to him and smile when he answers. His face and hands are puffy, a common result of congestive heart failure, and Jack has warned me, so I'm not shocked when I see him for the first time. Still, seeing him so weak is disturbing.

"Hey, soldier," I say, pulling a chair next to his bed and sitting down.
"How's it going?"

Andy looks at me and flashes a pale imitation of his cocky grin. "Hi," he says, his voice hoarse. I can tell he's tired, so I don't ask any more questions. I know everything anyway. I've come to see him, not to interrogate. Jack takes a chair on Andy's other side and we sit watching as he fades in and out of sleep. Sometimes he recognizes us and tries to smile, as if entire days have passed and he's seeing us for the first time since our last visit. Other times, he looks around the room in confusion, and draws his hands away from our touch.

He's 56 years old, and yet when I look at him, I see a 19-year-old boy. I look over at Jack. "Remember when we met him for the first time?" I ask.
"He wanted to know if we were brothers," Jack says.
"Those stupid matching towels," I say, and we both laugh.

Hearing us, Andy wakes up, and for a moment his expression is lucid. "Ned," he says. "Jack. I knew you guys would be here. I knew you wouldn't let me go without saying good-bye." It's as if he's been possessed. His voice is clear, and he looks from me to Jack with eyes unclouded by pain.

"No," Jack says. "We wouldn't let you go without saying good-bye."
Andy looks at me. "What happened?" he asks. "You got old."
"I'm sorry," I tell him. "I didn't mean to."

He coughs and closes his eyes. His chest rattles as he tries to breathe. I wonder if we should call a nurse, and start to stand up, when Andy opens his eyes again.

 

"Fuck," he says. "This really sucks."

I can't help laughing, although the sound that comes out of me is mixed with muffled crying. I know he's dying, but it's such an Andy thing to say, an expression of resentment for the way his body is failing him. Even at the end, he won't take responsibility. I love him for that. Those are his last words. Jack and I have both seen enough death to know when it's come, and we let the heart monitor's high-pitched wail alert the nurses. A doctor is called, and soon enough the verdict is in. Andy is gone.

Jack and I stay only long enough to sign over the body. In a last (and possibly his only) gesture of magnanimity, Andy has agreed to let himself be used by science. I try to imagine medical students cutting him open, peering inside at his organs, poking around in the viscera as they search for answers to the body's riddles. What would they think, I wonder, if they knew they were handling the spleen and liver of Brad Majors? Would they even recognize the name? Perhaps the gay ones would. Vintage porn is, after all, making a comeback now that audiences have tired of paying money to see cocks sealed in latex. Like a populace weary of a war that has dragged on too long without resolution, our enthusiasm for protected sex has waned as the plague remains undefeated.

Jack suggests lunch, which I agree to readily. With the exception of coffee and a bagel, I've eaten nothing since the night before. It's early afternoon, and we find a restaurant uncrowded with lunch hour diners. When we're seated, I flip through the menu.

"This feels weird," I tell Jack. "Shouldn't we be more upset?"

 

"That's one of the things about getting older," he says. "You've been through this before, and you know how it goes."

 

"It still feels like someone's crossing off names and there aren't that many more ahead of ours on the list," I say.

"We've lived longer than a lot of people we know," Jack reminds me. This is true, I think, but only because we've been very lucky. "I guess I've seen too many movies," I say. "I sort of thought there'd be some big final deathbed scene."

"Do you remember the scene in Terms of Endearment when Debra Winger dies?" Jack asks. He doesn't wait for an answer before continuing, because of course I remember the scene. "Her boys have come to see her," says Jack. "She tells them she's sorry she's sick, and to not be afraid of girls, and to keep their bangs trimmed."
"But it's okay to leave the back long," I say, remembering how the scene had made me both laugh and cry.

"Right," says Jack. "They leave, and you think you've got a while before she actually dies. Then, just like that, she gives Shirley MacLaine this last little look and that's it, she's gone." "What is it Shirley says?" I ask him, trying to remember, and coming up with the line. "‘Somehow I thought that when she finally went, it would be a relief.'"

 

"That's it," says Jack. "She doesn't scream and fall apart. But you can tell it's hit her hard, and that it's going to take her a long time to get over it."

"Sally Field screamed in Steel Magnolias ," I say.
"Sally Field screams in everything," says Jack.
"Do you think it will hit us later?" I ask him.

Jack sighs. "I don't know," he says. "Sometimes I think the more someone meant to you, the longer it takes. Then, one day, you realize how much you miss them."

 

"We're back where we started," I say. "It's just you and me."

 

Jack takes a long drink from his water glass. "Ned, there's something I have to tell you," he says. "I'm positive."

 

I wait for him to say that he's joking, attempting some deathbed humor that's fallen flat. He doesn't. "I thought you were okay," I say.

 

"I am okay," Jack replies. "I've got it in check, and I'll probably live as long as I would have without the virus."

 

"But how?" I say. "Was it Brian?"

 

"Maybe," he tells me. "I doubt it. I think I would have known way before I did if that was it. But it could have been anyone. I wasn't always safe."

 

"What about Todd?"

 

"He's positive, too," Jack says. "That's why we don't know who had it first. We both thought we were okay, so we weren't using rubbers."

 

"How long have you known?" I ask him.

 

"Since right after you left New York," says Jack. He straightens the silverware beside his plate. "I got tested after that day at the planetarium."

 

"Because of what I said?" I ask.

He nods. "It really freaked me out," he says. "That stuff about needing to save me and dying from love and all of that. I thought you were nuts, but I went and got tested because of it. That's when I found out. If I'd waited, I'd probably be dead. Todd would probably be dead. I had to make him get tested. He'd refused to do it because of privacy issues and confidentiality of patient records and all of that. But when I got my results, I told him he had to find out."

"You're sure you're okay?" I ask him.

"Yeah," he says. "We've got a great doctor. Plus, Todd has us doing yoga and acupuncture, and we're on this diet he insists will help us live forever. He made me give up red meat. At least when he's around. I'm ordering a steak, and if you tell him, I'll deny it."
"Scout's honor," I say, holding up my hand.

The waiter comes to take our order. As threatened, Jack requests a steak, and I get the chicken piccata. When he leaves, I pick up my water and drink, giving myself time to think about Jack's news. I can see him through the glass, his image distorted by the ice cubes so that he looks like a ghost, faceless and blurred. The revelation of his status isn't as unsettling to me as the irony that I, who actively sought out infection because of the same incident that has resulted in what Jack calls his salvation, am not positive. To my initial disappointment and eventual relief, my prayers that my Mephistophelian trick had poisoned me the night of my bust-up with Jack had gone unanswered. Six different tests taken obsessively over the course of a year confirmed my failure to become one of the damned, and subsequent annual tests consistently came back negative, until finally I had accepted that I was not going to die that way. Being positive is no longer the death sentence it once was, as evidenced by the casualness with which we speak about Jack's HIV status. I know that he is more likely to expire from any of the myriad "normal" causes of death than he is from something associated with the virus inside of him. But I also can't help feeling guilty. I know that this is a reaction common to men who have emerged unscathed from the firestorm that has claimed so many of our brothers. I know, too, that it is foolish to feel this way. We all took the same chances. Those of us without the virus are not blessed or special. We are simply lucky. I know that Jack would never want me to feel guilty either. But I still do, if only a little. He says that I saved him. I think that I saved myself. Maybe, I tell myself as I drain the last drops from my glass and set it down, it doesn't matter.

"If anyone had told me when we were twelve that when I was fifty-six I'd be living with a man and have an incurable disease, I would have laughed," Jack says. "Then again, if anyone had told me when I was thirty-nine that I'd be HIV-positive and alive, I would have laughed, too."

"It's all about perspective," I tell him.
"Do you ever think about what it might be like if we'd stayed together?" Jack asks me. "No," I lie.

"Yes, you do," says Jack. "You answered too fast. That's how I always knew you were lying when we were kids. You were never good at it."

"Of course I've thought about it," I tell him. "Not in a long time, though."
"Same here," says Jack. "I think we would have driven each other crazy."
"We did," I remind him. "Several times."
"I used to think that's why you left New York," says Jack. "Because of me."
"You always give yourself too much credit," I say. "It's not always about you." "Says who?" Jack teases.

"You were only part of it," I say. "I just had to get out of there. I felt like a dog chasing its own tail."

"Have you caught it yet?" Jack asks.
"I stopped trying," I tell him.

"Do you remember the fight we had over the comic books?" he says. "About Superman and Batman?"

 

"I'm surprised you remember," I say. "I didn't think you really noticed."

Jack picks at a roll. "I noticed," he says. "It was the first time you ever stood up to me. I just pretended not to care because I was afraid you might figure out you could take me." He puts the roll on his plate. "I needed you, Ned, and I was so afraid you would leave because I wasn't as smart as you were."

"Says the man with the Dr. in front of his name," I say.

 

"I'm serious," Jack says. "I never understood why you put up with me."

 

"It was because I loved you," I say. "That's all."

 

"When I was in seminary, I used to beg God to make me straight," Jack says. "At least until James suggested we sleep together. Even then, I hoped it was something I'd grow out of." "Why?"

"You and Andy were off in Vietnam being heroes," says Jack. "I was the one hiding behind God. I was sure you'd end up together somehow, and I'd be stuck in some church, preaching sermons and thinking dirty thoughts about my male parishioners."

"I never did think you'd be a very good minister," I say.
"I wished I was more like you," Jack says.
"Funny," I tell him, "I always wanted to be more like you."
"Do you still?" he asks me.
I wait before answering, so he knows I'm not lying. "No," I tell him.
"I like who I am."
"Same here," he says. "It took us long enough to figure it out."

Our food arrives, and we eat. Outside, the October afternoon is gray and cold. Jack and I talk some more, filling in the gaps of the past fifteen years. When Andy's name comes up, we toast him with our water glasses and take turns remembering stories about him. I forget that it's been only a few hours since his death. Already he seems a happy memory. Maybe Jack is right, and one day I'll feel his death more acutely. For now, I'm happy to put him to rest.

After lunch, we walk beside the Chicago River, not quite ready to return to Andy's apartment. It occurs to me that my grandmother may have walked here sixty years before me, contemplating the death of her husband and trying to make sense of her life. She's gone now, having passed peacefully in her sleep at 87, and I am the last of her blood. Perhaps, with Andy's death and my return to the city where Violet Renard O'Reilly believed a curse fell upon her, we have come full circle. Maybe Jack is right and I have, in my clumsy way, saved him from the tragedy shown to me by the angel all those years ago. We walk without talking, two men who were boys together. Soon we will return to our separate lives. But we will never be far from one another, linked forever by the bond formed before our births. Our stories are inextricably bound together, and although the endings have yet to be written, the pages contain tales enough to fill a lifetime.

EPILOGUE

They say that when the last mystery is solved, the world will end. I don't suspect that will happen, or, if it does, it will be long after my own death and I won't be around to care. Unless Thayer is right and we all keep coming back until we've figured out what we did to deserve being human. Given what I know of humans, though, I have faith that we never will figure it out, and that the death of the world will be due instead to the burning out of the sun or the stupidity of George W. Bush's great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchild. Until that happens, there will always be friendship and love, and between the two of them, there are mysteries enough to last lifetimes. I've spent mine trying to figure them out, and have only begun to scratch the surface. If I'm lucky, in the end I'll be the tiniest bit closer to understanding why I've loved the people I've loved and where doing so has taken me.