Martin withdrew his hand. “That’s not what I meant. Old navy term. Means your workmate, your buddy, the guy who bunks next to you.”
“I liked my version better.”
“Night, Peter.”
“Night, bunkie.”
When Martin got home, the house was dark. He went to the bathroom, poured peroxide over his hands, rinsed them with rubbing alcohol, and showered with germicidal soap. Exhausted, he set the clock for six and went to bed. As his mind drifted toward sleep, he saw Michelangelo’s David with a sling over one shoulder. Uninvited, the tang of Scotch roused him. No. He’d ruled that out. Consciousness dissolved—he saw Catherine walking away from him. He called to her, but she kept moving until she disappeared.
Martin’s team, made up of buddies for AIDS patients and a team leader, met each month at the Charbonne Clinic in a decaying row house in Adams-Morgan where there was never a place to park. The meetings cost Martin time he could have spent with Peter. The other dozen or so buddies on his team were gay; and although Martin was embarrassed to admit it, he felt uncomfortable in a whole room full of homosexuals. In fact, he hoped nobody he knew would see him going into a clinic known to serve gay men. Worst of all, the team leader invited buddies to vent. Martin didn’t want to vent. The venting of other buddies made him squirm. Never mind. He had to attend.
So, on the second Wednesday of September, he showed up in the stuffy second-floor conference room just before eight. He listened to a series of announcements about upcoming events and endured a talk on the absolute necessity of using latex gloves. “We don’t know for sure how the HIV virus is transmitted,” the clinician counseled. “Always use gloves.” Next came a lecture on T-4 helper cell count and an interminable graphic film on the diagnosis and treatment of the incurable and eventually fatal Kaposi’s sarcoma—or KS as the other team members called it—a cancer of the vascular tissue in the skin and internal organs. The team leader’s talk that week emphasized the need to expect the unexpected. “They’re at death’s door one day, ready to bar hop the next. That’s how this disease works. We call it the Roller Coaster Effect.” Martin paid dutiful attention as each buddy reported on his patient’s progress. Mercifully, only one vented. Martin gave a terse run-down on Peter and his own emotional state. By nine-thirty, the meeting was over.
As he was standing to leave, the man on his left smiled at him. “Hi.”
The man was an aging preppie, a small, lithe, blond guy with bright eyes, shining teeth, and—Martin checked to be sure—white shoes. All the man needed was a tennis racket. His face was familiar.
“I’m Mort,” the preppie said. He extended his hand. “I did the intake on Peter.”
Why didn’t anybody use last names? Mort shook his hand—exactly like a straight man would have.
“We’ve met,” Mort said. “At Johnny’s funeral.”
Of course.
“Feel like a cup of coffee or a beer or anything?” Mort asked.
Martin moved back. “Thanks, but I’ve got to get home.”
“This your first case?”
Martin laughed. “I’m pretty new at this.”
“It’s going to get a lot rougher, you know.”
“What?”
“Working with Peter. As they get worse, there’s sweat, diarrhea, and mucus. And the endless baths. Then they get so sick, you think they won’t make it through the night. The next day they rally. You never know what to expect. In the end, death wins.” Mort lowered his eyes. “We’re here to help each other. Give me a call if you want to talk. Here’s my card.”
“I’ll be fine,” Martin said.
“Keep the card in case.”
“Thank you.” He put the card in his breast pocket and left for Wheaton.
Driving to the Lincoln College campus the next day, Martin watched September descending in flecks and dabs on Rock Creek Park. The brisk air awoke an odd yearning in him, a longing without focus or target. He relaxed his mental grip and allowed the feeling to flow over him. Then he knew. The old ache. Like a festering ulcer. He was homesick. And he missed Catherine.
She lurked behind every thought. The smell of the air, the quizzical expression on the face of one of his students, the throaty laugh of the girl at the supermarket, a glimpse of his white dress shirts hanging in the closet—they all evoked Catherine’s face. She’d be in her dorm by now. She’d be experiencing college classes for the first time. He could see her as she hurried about the campus in the fall sunshine, bought books that smelled of fresh print and new paper, met new people—strange people, odd people, exciting people. Was she still seeing that boy she mentioned, Albert or Allen or something? Martin wished he could ask her. He wished he could listen to her talk about her first semester at college. He wished he could just see her.
Never mind. Autumn had brought him comfort. It had brought him Peter.
The comfort went beyond doing good. He’d become attached to Peter. Peter’s body—despite the ravages of AIDS—was so beautiful that looking at him was an aesthetic experience. And Peter was touching in his winsome feebleness. Martin’s feelings for Peter didn’t stop there, though. Peter moved him. Yes, Peter was a first class son-of-a-bitch, a spoiled brat, and a prima donna. He also had insight—though he rarely used it. He had a lost and pathetic quality, a waif-like aura, that Martin couldn’t fathom. Peter had something else, too—a sort of indefinable goodness. Martin sensed it, though Peter kept that part of himself carefully hidden.
Watching the trees and bushes on Porter Street from the window by his bed, Peter saw the season change. He longed for autumn’s cool touch and the rose and orange on the maple and oak leaves. The sky was the piercing blue that trumpeted autumn’s arrival. He remembered—smiling, his eyes closed—the wind whistling on 42nd Street in New York.
Most of all he waited for his young blood to be stirred with industry as it always was in the fall. He looked forward to the swirls of energy he knew would charge his muscles, exhilarate his mind, spark his soul, make him want to boogie. This year he needed the recharging, the awakening that autumn brought.
Bit by bit, his strength was returning. He wasn’t imagining things. Martin saw it, too. Soon he’d be able to tell Martin not to come every day. Maybe, with Martin’s help, he could even escape the apartment for a short outing. Maybe he could snooker Martin into taking him to Cunniption’s. Maybe Martin could help him find Johnny’s mother.
Maybe Peter would be the first to beat this disease.
His improvement was Martin’s doing. For reasons Peter couldn’t imagine, Martin actually enjoyed working in the apartment, shopping for groceries, and especially seeing to Peter’s physical needs. He took pride in shaving and bathing Peter, swathing him in pajamas still warm from the dryer. Maybe Martin was gay and didn’t know it.
Gay? Maybe not. Martin handled him with a strength, respect, and reverence he had never experienced from a man. Martin made him feel that his body had its own brand of sacredness. Martin believed that men always touched each other with respect—if they touched at all—as if all men were brothers. Peter shook his head. Martin was so naïve.
And yet, there was more to Martin. He had about him a sort of presence that attracted Peter. It was a kind of dull dignity, a boring nobility. Martin was slow-witted, bumbling, ridiculous, occasionally pathetic, certainly wimpy, sometimes genuinely sad. But before all else, Martin was a decent man. He treated Peter like a decent man. Martin thought all men were decent.
Peter surveyed the trees on Porter Street. The leaves would sport rose and orange soon. He smiled. Martin was a fool, but