“They don’t know I have AIDS.”
Martin blew air from his lungs. “What do they think you’ve got?”
“They, like, don’t know I’m sick.” Peter shrugged. “Don’t see them much. Haven’t been up to Baltimore since last year. They’ve only seen this place once. Two years ago. See, my father . . .” Peter scratched his crotch. “My father and I don’t get along. He sort of wanted me to become a lawyer like him. He thinks being a dancer is sissy stuff. Actually, he’s kind of a macho pig. Big on he-man swagger. Great out-of-doors man. Sour Teddy Roosevelt type. Very bully. Except when he’s in his Grand Inquisitor mode. Most rigid Catholic I ever met. And Mom, she wants things to be nice. My father and I fight. We’ve had some real knock-down-drag-outs. So I mostly don’t go home, and that makes Mom happier.” He put his hand to his forehead again. His eyes misted. “I’m not usually like this. I’m much better than I was a week ago. Only I don’t have any energy.” He blew his nose. “You talk a while. Tell me about your love life.”
Martin held up the underwear. “Where should I put these?”
“Clothes hamper in the closet.”
Martin found it buried under a heap of sour-smelling, discolored pajamas and socks. “Don’t have much of a love life. How about you?”
“Haven’t had an erotic feeling in weeks. Makes me feel sort of useless.” Peter tilted his head. “I can’t feature you having a love life at all. You’re a cross between Sigmund Freud and George Bernard Shaw. No, you’re fatter than they were. Johannes Brahms. Lecturing, yes. Making love, no.”
“Wasn’t always the professor type. Won’t say I had looks to rival yours, but I did all right in my day.”
“In your day? This isn’t your day anymore? Is that why you volunteered to take care of fags dying of AIDS? And don’t twit me about my looks.”
“You’re a handsome man.”
“No,” Peter said, “I’m not. Gorgeous, yes. Handsome, no. I’m not masculine enough to be handsome.”
“Why do you say that?”
Peter extended his arm and inspected his fingernails. “Narcissism and self-pity, probably. Would you get more coffee?”
Martin filled their cups and turned his attention to the desk. “Should you be smoking?”
“Cohen—my doctor—recommended against it. He didn’t forbid it. Like alcohol and sex. They all lead to shortened life expectancy.” Peter giggled and coughed.
“You practice safe sex?”
Peter slid his body down into the bed and pulled the covers over his chest. “I think I’ve enjoyed about as much male bonding as I can stand. I don’t want to offend you, Martin, but I really don’t think this is going to work. In fact, if you wouldn’t mind terribly, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell the clinic I don’t need a buddy.” He turned his head and looked at Martin. “I’m sure you understand.”
Martin was too surprised to answer at once. “Sure,” he said finally.
“I’m sorry, Martin.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. Certainly no one’s fault.” He put on his jacket with unnecessary care. “They told us in class we shouldn’t try to prolong a helping relationship where we weren’t compatible with a patient.” He was blithering. He hoped Peter hadn’t noticed. “I’ll call the clinic—”
“Martin, I really am sorry.”
Martin shrugged and pursed his lips but couldn’t think of anything to say. “Guess I’ll be on my way. Thanks for the coffee. Sorry it didn’t work out.” He forced a smile and headed for the door.
The next day was one of Peter’s bad days, one of his really bad days. He lay staring at the colorless evening sky through the window and breathed carefully. He didn’t want the day to be gone, not without something happening. That’s what he hated most. Time, precious time, slipped from him and left no trace. No memories. No tracks. Nothing. Just gray. He used to be able to wait for tomorrow, when things would be better. Now he knew things wouldn’t be better tomorrow.
His grip was loosening again. If he let go, he’d drift into the leaden twilight. His ass was sticky from seeping diarrhea. He needed to scrub the stink of rancid sweat from his skin. Hunger had gnawed at him for hours.
He sat up. Nausea flushed through him and urged him to lie down. Instead, he got to his feet. His legs trembled, but he didn’t fall. He took a small step. Then another.
The sight of the kitchen stopped him. Filthy. He opened the refrigerator door. Most of the shelves were bare.
The room tilted. He clung to the refrigerator door and slid to his knees. A chunk of cheddar cheese was on the bottom shelf. He unwrapped it and took a bite. Another bite. His stomach reared. He vomited.
He sank back on his heels, closed his eyes, leaned forward, and rested his head on the cold chrome of the refrigerator’s rack. He was floating into the dream again. No pain. Only a widening abyss between himself and his body. The spindrift rising, gray foam and gray waves, shifting and flowing, turning, staying. He knew somewhere deep inside that he had to seize his consciousness and drag himself out of the swash.
But the waves embraced him, tugged at him, pulled back from him, rolled over him again. He opened his eyes and made himself focus. The cold was fear, not of death, but of feeling himself die. His body was sobbing and retching. He tried to lift himself with his arms. He couldn’t.
He wouldn’t live long if he stopped eating. Was he willing to lie in his own diarrhea and wait for death?
In the gloam, he saw Johnny’s little-boy grin, heard Johnny’s voice break as he laughed. Johnny’s young body, so supple, so sexy. Could Peter die without doing anything to make up for the bad things? Was that what they meant by damnation?
Mopping his face with his hands, he took a deep breath and clutched the refrigerator door. Inch by inch he walked his hands up the door handle until he was upright, then staggered to the living room. The clinic. They had a hot line for emergencies. The dog-vomit brochure from the clinic wasn’t on the desk. Martin must have put it away somewhere when he was cleaning. Next to the telephone, was Martin’s business card. Jesus. He couldn’t call Martin after yesterday. There was no one else to call.
He’ll come. He has to come.
Martin sat at the kitchen table and sweated in the motionless air. The failed day was yielding to night. Remnants of the sun’s sludge-colored light seeped through the grime on the window above the sink. The light touched the squat whiskey bottle on the counter, but it was too feeble to leave shadows.
He glanced at the green tile and once-white walls darkened by years of accumulated grease. He had tried hard not to find the house shabby, to see the little yard as casual rather than unkempt, and to judge his roommates as earthy rather than vulgar. He tried to keep busy. He read, listened to his stereo through headphones, worked on articles for musical journals, corrected his students’ exercises. When the house was empty, he slipped into the living room and played a little Mozart on the piano—the one item granted him by the divorce decree. In the summer, he taught classes. In the winter, he took on extra counseling. In his search for contentment, he’d learned to shield himself from feelings of failure. He knew how to conjure an opiate to silence his mind when it had blundered too far into pain, to blank out his perceptions and blunt his instincts by submerging his consciousness in an unfeeling, endless sea. He could make his life become a detached dream. He could float.
Now, he was trying hard, too hard, to blur his mind. He glimpsed the bottle, closed his eyes, folded his arms on the table, and rested his head. He must not think, remember, or feel. Drift. Nothing but drift.
He