The Memory Killer. J. Kerley A.

games. He reached out to touch the man’s shoulder but something made him stop short of contact. “Listen, dearie, great to see you again and all, but I’ve got a par-tay I’ve got to get to.”

      The man nodded and smiled like he knew something Billy didn’t.

      “Yes … there’s a party waiting for you, Billy.”

      The man turned toward a urinal, unzipped as he walked. Billy started to wash his hands but suddenly realized he didn’t want to be in the bathroom any longer and stepped toward the door.

      Patrick watched Billy exit the restroom and walk quickly to the table, his pale face frowning he glanced backward toward the dark hall that led to the bathroom.

      “You look strange,” Patrick said. “You OK, Billy?”

      “It’s nothing. I just saw a guy who knew me. He kinda looked familiar, but …”

      Patrick looked toward the bathroom. The guy was either burrowing in for the long haul or had booked out the back door. “Probably someone you met at a party when you were drunk. How often does that happen, Billy?”

      Prestwick grabbed at his bag, missed the strap, got it on the second try and slid it over a boney shoulder poking from a purple tank-top with a sequined target centering the chest. “Don’t be a nag, Nurse White.”

      “Where you going?” Patrick asked.

      Rolled eyes. “My gawd, Patrick … between you and the thing in the pisser I’m playing Twenty Questions tonight.”

      “Someone’s gotta worry about you, Billy. Tell me where you’re headed.”

      A flash of guilt was quickly replaced by a lopsided grin.

      “I gotta date, sweetums. Kind of.”

      Patrick frowned. “Someone you know, right? Someone safe?”

      Billy shuffled through his bag, arranging phone and iPad, make-up and spare underwear. Patrick knew it as Billy’s avoidance move, and pressed forward.

      “Come on, Billy. It’s someone you know, right? Not a stranger?”

      “Oh, almost. He’s like a friend of a friend, just some old bear who likes to sit on his Miami Beach veranda and tell tales about the old days, Stonewall and the Castro and whatever. I’ve heard that he’s sweet and harmless and …”

      “And might give you a loan you don’t have to repay?”

      “I make sweet old men feel young for a few hours. I think of it as charity work. You flying back to Kansas?”

      Patrick nodded to the half-mug of ale. “Two sips and I’m outta here.”

      Prestwick affected a thousand-watt grin, teetering slightly in his burgundy loafers. “You’ll be running that place, one day. Head Nurse Patrick White, Queen of All the Bedpans.”

      Patrick sighed. “You’re taking a cab, right, Billy?”

      “My white knight.” Prestwick kissed Patrick’s temple. “Yes, girlfriend. I’m cabbing. Buh-byee!” He started for the door, but was stopped by an invisible force. Turning back to Patrick, without a word he wrapped him in a hug so tight Patrick imagined he felt the beating of Billy’s heart.

      “Thank you, dear,” Billy whispered. “Thank you for caring.”

      “Some of us do, Billy. We get worried about … about where you’re going. Where you’ll be five years from now.”

      Billy stood back with a quiet smile verging on sadness. He flicked a comma of hair from Patrick’s forehead.

      “Goodness, Patrick, so existential all of a sudden.”

      “You’re smart and talented, Billy. Stop wasting it and use it to do something, go somewhere.”

      Billy blew out a breath. His eyes went to the floor and when they rose to meet Patrick’s eyes, were clouded with guilt. But then, like a bright mask clasped to a penitent visage, Billy Prestwick’s face lit in mischief. He winked.

      “I am going somewhere, dear Patrick. I’m going to Miami Beach.”

      And like smoke in the wind, Billy Prestwick was gone. Patrick righted Prestwick’s glass, wiping spilled margarita with a napkin, putting the napkin in the glass and putting it aside. He walked to the window to see Billy gathered into a swooping flash of yellow taxi, heading to his next destination, never quite knowing whether it would hold danger or sanctuary.

      Patrick shook his head. Had he ever been so self-consumed and moment-driven?

      Once upon a time. And not all that long ago.

       15

      Debro sat in his car across the street from D’Artagnan’s and watched Patrick White through the window. He’d slipped out the back after his conversation with Billy Prestwick. An eight-year-old movie began playing in Debro’s head. The pictures still hurt. Sometimes they stung like hornets.

      The movie montage comes from a trendy gay hangout long closed by the cops for underage drinking. The bar, owned by two old queens nicknamed Harold and Maudlin, kitsch collectors, was the place to be that spring, festooned with comic excess on the walls and ceiling: a moose head wearing sunglasses, a bent trombone, a blow-up doll dressed in a tie-dye miniskirt, posters from fifties sci-fi movies, funky birdhouses, a sagging accordion, a stuffed raccoon wearing Mardi Gras beads. The setting evoked fun and laughter.

      Having spent days steeling his courage to step inside the bar, a younger Debro orders a gin-gin at the bar. The skinny, arrogant barkeep gives him a sneering once-over and brings the drink five minutes later, retreating to the far end of the bar to talk with a handsome boy in a Panama hat.