Читать книгу No-Accounts: Dare Mighty Things - Tom Glenn - Страница 10

Chapter 1

Male Bonding

Dying wouldn’t be so awful if he could find Johnny’s mother. He could almost see her through the gray twilight. She’d be tall and elegant and wise. He’d tell her the truth—that he’d known the risks and Johnny hadn’t. He’d take full responsibility. She’d cry a little, thank him for his candor. She’d take him in her arms. Then the gnawing inside of him, like vermin chewing his entrails, would stop. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he’d be at ease. He’d face his father. Nice goin’, son. You done good. Peter had done good? No, that wasn’t right. Goodness is beyond reward.

And he’d be up front with Joey and Ron and Kirk and the whole crowd. Maybe even with Billy. Peter could see him through the fog, that fat-ass phony, fake from his ten-gallon hat and studded belt to the hand-tooled boots on heels that gave him an extra inch making him all of five-ten. Myopic eyes blinking behind contact lenses, paunch distending his flannel shirt, buck teeth shining red in the light of the neon over the bar. Now Billy was peering over the iron railing on the north side of the Calvert Street Bridge, staring down at Rock Creek Park. “If I was ever diagnosed, I’d boost myself over the edge and let go.”

Peter opened his eyes. He was on the bathroom floor. Blood. He’d cut himself. If people came to help, they’d wear latex gloves. His vision blurred again. He was weeping, drifting back into the colorless surf. Raising his head, he fought for consciousness and forced himself to sit up, but the more he lifted himself out of the haze, the more he hurt. The coughs and sobs were suffocating him. No one to call. Why couldn’t it just be over? He pulled himself to his feet and clung to the towel rack, clutched the door frame, then the wall.

The bed was only a few feet away. He lurched across the floor and caught hold of the desk chair. His eyes rested on the desk. Where was that dog-vomit yellow brochure? That stuff about a helping hand. He eased himself into the chair and pawed through the stacks until he found it. “Charbonne Clinic of Washington, D.C.” in broad letters across the top. Beneath was “A helping hand.” He’d telephone the clinic. They’d send a buddy.



Martin looked at the brass number on the door and tried to control his breathing. Apartment 736, on the seventh floor of the Quebec Towers. His palms were sweating, and it wasn’t the August heat.

He knocked. Nothing. He knocked again. Finally, a man called, “Yes?”

“My name is Martin James.”

Silence.

“Peter, Mort Gray from the Charbonne Clinic sent me.”

“Come on in.”

Martin opened the door, stepped inside, and almost gagged on the raw smell of body odor, smoked cigarettes, and—he was sure—human waste. He was in the hall of an efficiency apartment. Ahead of him, the main room ended twenty-five feet away at a large, murky window, the only one in the room. Books, magazines, phonograph records, tape cassettes, socks, underwear, dishes, and papers covered the desk, the floor, the bureau, the top of the television, the yellow wing chair, and the small table in the dining alcove. Angry cigarette smoke hung in the air.

In a bed below the window lay a man in wrinkled pajamas and a stained bathrobe of the same royal blue as the bedspread and rug. The man turned on his side and glared at Martin. “I’m Peter Christopher.”

Peter was dirty and unshaven. His hair was cold black, uncombed, too long, and shining with sweat, his eyes an unsettling blue. His face was a ruined sculpture with a classic nose, prominent cheekbones, hollow cheeks overgrown with stubble, and a sensuous mouth. What showed of his chest was darkened by hair.

The face, something about the face . . . With a jolt of surprise, Martin placed it—Michelangelo’s David. The unformed shape of youth. But Peter’s face had the shadows of an older man who had seen too much of life.

“Like to sit down?” Peter said.

Martin took off his jacket and searched for a place to put it. On a straight chair by a desk lay a telephone book, magazines, an ash tray, and a white tee shirt.

“Put that stuff anywhere,” Peter said.

Martin moved the chair’s contents to the desk and hung his jacket on the back.

Peter said, “I thought the clinic would send someone my age.”

Martin tried to think of an appropriate response.

“You want coffee or anything?” Peter said. “You mind making it?”

The tiny kitchen, adjoining the dining alcove, was littered with dirty dishes. The glass pot held half an inch of rancid coffee, and the plastic basket was full of moldy grounds. Martin washed the pot, the basket, and two cups, found a can of coffee, and started a fresh pot. He returned to the living room and sat by the bed. “It’s brewing.”

Peter rolled onto his back, scowled out the window, lit a cigarette. “Maybe we could start by getting to know each other.”

“My name’s Martin James. I teach music at Lincoln College. I published a book ten years ago—on Romantic Period use of the Neapolitan sixth. You like music?”

“Ever know a dancer who didn’t?”

Martin fished in his jacket pocket for the intake file on Peter. “Says here you’re a waiter and translator.”

“That’s what I told the aging queen who interviewed me. Mort. You know him?”

“Never actually met him.”

Peter narrowed his eyes. “We all know each other. The gay community isn’t that large.”

Martin tried a smile. “I’m not gay, Peter.”

Peter wrinkled his nose as though he had detected a bad smell. He put out his cigarette. “Didn’t think they’d send a breeder.”

“You want them to assign someone else?”

Peter shrugged. “Tant pis, tant mieux.”

Martin said, “Should I go on?”

Peter nodded.

Martin cleared his throat and tried to calm his trembling. “I live in a rented house in Wheaton with three other guys,” Martin said. “And let’s see . . . fifty years old, divorced, have a daughter eighteen named Catherine. Most important person in my life.”

“What’s she like?”

“Too smart for her own good. Very articulate for her age—graduated from high school in June and will be starting college. Even got offered a scholarship at MIT, but I think she’s going to turn it down.”

“She live with you?”

“With her mother.”

“If she’s that important to you, why isn’t she living with you? Why aren’t you spending time with her instead of screwing around with dying fairies?”

Martin hesitated. “Don’t get to see her very often.”

“When did you see her last?”

“June.”

“June? I thought she was important.”

“Peter, we’re not here to discuss my personal life.”

“Yes, we are. If you’re going to be my—” He signaled quotation marks with his fingers. “—buddy.”

Martin glanced at the door. Maybe he should leave.

“Sorry,” Peter said. “Guess I got a little nosey. Go on.”

Martin collected his thoughts. “While I think of it—” He rummaged through his wallet. “—here’s my address and phone number.” He leaned a business card against the telephone. “Your turn.”

“I told her highness Mort I’m a waiter because that’s what I do for a living. I don’t get enough translation work to count. I’m a dancer by profession. Before I got sick, I was really getting into Strauss and Mahler—even though you can’t dance to their stuff. The way they use language—I did a masters in German.” Peter took a drag and blew smoke through his nose. “Do you know Der Rosenkavalier? And Das Lied von der Erde? Das Lied is a German translation of Chinese poetry. After I listened to it, I found a wonderful book of Chinese writings. Ever hear of Hàn Hsīng? Then I lost interest and gave the book away.”

He held his hand out, palm down, and studied his fingernails.

“For the record, I’m thirty-one and gay, and I work at the Nouveau Riche in Georgetown. Been trying to make it as a dancer for twelve years. Spent three in New York, but starvation was ruining my looks. So I moved back.”

“You’re from Washington?”

“Baltimore originally. My folks live there.”

“You have a lover, Peter?”

Peter pulled his lips back from his teeth, but he wasn’t smiling. “None of your fucking business.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“If you’re going to be my buddy, you’re supposed to know me, right?”

Martin tightened his jaw. “When were you diagnosed?”

“Eleven months ago. September 22, 1984, to be exact. That means I have a 15 percent chance of making it until the fall of eighty-six if you believe in statistics.”

Martin had the feeling Peter was trying to shock him. “Do you believe in statistics?”

Peter raised his eyebrows, extended his hand, palm forward, and examined his fingernails. “Some days I do, some days I don’t.”

“I wouldn’t pay too much attention to statistics if I were you.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Peter spat.

Martin sat back as if slapped. “I had no intention . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend—”

Peter’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m having one of my bad days.”

Martin handed him a box of tissues.

“I’m really sorry,” Peter said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”

He turned on his side, raised his body with his arms, and eased his legs to the floor. “I’m going to the bathroom.” Holding onto the bed with both hands, he shifted his weight forward onto his legs, stood upright, and let go of the bed. He was taller than Martin had realized—six-foot-two or three. He stood, as Michelangelo’s David stood, with his weight on one leg, but Peter was leaner than David. His soiled bathrobe hung straight from his shoulders.

After a deep breath and a cough, he took a step and reeled. Martin stood, but Peter waved him off. “Get the coffee. I take mine black.” He shuffled across the room. “Creamer and sugar in there somewhere.” The bathroom door closed.

When Martin returned with coffee, Peter was on the edge of the bed. “Would you please prop the pillows so I can sit up?”

Wishing he’d remembered to bring latex gloves, Martin leaned the two sweat-stained pillows against the headboard. Peter wrapped his arms around Martin’s neck. “Help me move.” Despite the butterflies in his belly, Martin slid Peter’s body to the head of the bed. At close range, Peter’s stench was overpowering.

“Sorry I mouthed off,” Peter said. “Let’s pretend I didn’t. Go on.”

“How about if I clean up a little?”

Peter’s eyes darted around the room. “I’ve been low on energy and sort of let things go. This place used to be beautiful. I decorated it myself. The carpet’s such a deep blue, you feel like you’re standing on the edge of a lagoon under a midnight sky. The dining room table and chairs are polished teak. And the wing chair—butter yellow. Matches the napkins and place mats.”

In the kitchen, Martin found plastic garbage bags under the sink. He made his way back to the living room, picking up trash as he went.

Peter watched with a frown. “Talk to me while you work.”

“Sure. You know who infected you?”

“I ever figure out who the bastard was, he’s dead meat.” Peter took a slug of coffee. “Why?”

“Maybe he’s asymptomatic and doesn’t even know he’s infected. If we could locate him—”

“I hope the son-of-a-bitch is suffering beyond endurance.”

Martin squatted to clean up an ashtray spill from under the wing chair. “What diseases have you had?”

“You already know. I told Mort all that stuff. It’s on that form.”

“Thought it would be a good idea for you to tell me about it.”

“You a psychiatrist? What’s with the pseudo-psycho lingo? I don’t like being manipulated. I’m not a thing. Don’t treat me like one.”

Martin felt his face flush. “Sorry. Guess I’m trying to do it the way I learned in class.”

“What class?”

“Thanatology. A class at the clinic to train us to help AIDS patients.”

“At least you didn’t say ‘AIDS victims.’ Or ‘PWAs.’ Christ, I hate it when people talk about me like that. I’m a person. I’m me. I’m Peter. I’m not a ‘victim’ or a ‘person with AIDS’ or . . .” he wrinkled his nose “ . . . or a ‘PWA.’” He took a fresh tissue and spat into it. “What does thanatology mean?”

Martin knelt by the bed and gathered used tissues. “Working with people with life-threatening diseases.”

“Another fucking euphemism. You mean ‘people who are dying’. Dying. Say it: ‘dying.’”

Martin looked up.

“Say it,” Peter said through his teeth.

“Dying.”

“Thanatology means the study of death, doesn’t it? Why don’t you tell me that? You think I’m afraid to hear the words ‘death’ and ‘dying’?”

“I’m sorry, Peter.”

Peter threw his head back and laughed. “You, sir, are a klutz.” He sipped his coffee. “In answer to your question, pneumocystis carinii pneumonia. The most recent attack was last Spring.”

“What?”

“You asked about opportunistic diseases. I’ve had pneumocystis twice, plus the usual diarrhea, night sweats, weight loss, and swollen lymph nodes. Some thrush. No Kaposi’s yet. Cross your fingers. No loss of mental acuity. No trouble remembering numbers and words. No coordination problems.”

“If you had pneumocystis, you must have been pretty sick.”

Peter nodded, his hand on his forehead, his little finger extended. “Very fucking sick.”

“How come you didn’t ask the clinic for help sooner?”

“I had someone staying with me.”

Martin stood and emptied the ashtray. “A lover?”

“Guess so.”

“Thought you didn’t have a lover.”

“Telling the truth is not my strong suit.”

“How long were you in the hospital?”

“Three weeks.” All at once, Peter’s face turned serious. “I’m overdue to get sick again. I could die any time without warning. Die, Martin. It won’t be a pretty death. What would you do if I suffocated in front of you? Would you panic? Are you scared?”

Martin clenched. “You scare me.”

“Why are you doing this anyway?”

“Just want to count.”

“What?”

“I want to matter,” Martin said, “to do something important.”

“Taking care of a queer with AIDS is important?”

“Don’t you think so?”

Peter snorted. “One fucking guy who’s going to die anyway? One out of hundreds of thousands?”

“Better than cursing the darkness, Peter.”

“Better than teaching music?”

“Is dancing better than waiting on tables?”

Peter gave Martin a withering sneer and turned to the window. “My dream was to dance with American Ballet Theatre at the Kennedy Center.”

Martin headed to the kitchen with dirty cups and glasses. He wet a dish rag and wiped the coffee table. “I wanted to compose. Haven’t the talent.”

“Maybe nobody ever believed in you or cared about you or encouraged you.”

“Nope. Lack of talent. Anybody ever encourage you?”

“Had to make it on my own.”

“Not even your folks?”

Peter grunted. “My parents? Shit, no. My mom—she lives in a world all her own. And my father—he thinks I’m the pits.”

Martin gathered dirty underwear from the floor. “Because you’re gay?”

“I’ve never told them.”

“How do they think you got AIDS?”

“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 could hear Vivien’s voice cut through the air. Her earrings, large hoops, quivered as she spoke. “It’s all over the office, Martin. My secretary talked to me privately. She’d heard about our ‘problems’ and wanted to help.” Vivien flung her coat on the sofa and threw her briefcase and purse beside it. “Didn’t say where she heard it. Best scandal we’ve had in years.” She sat. “Tomorrow Arnie will ask me into his office. He’ll explain he’s heard rumors and wants to reassure me that he’s on my side.”

She was on her feet again. She paced. The earrings shuddered.

“What colossal stupidity! A student! And bringing her into this house? Didn’t you think the neighbors would notice?”

She raised her hands in trembling supplication to some lurking god, then dropped them to her sides. Her ears above the earrings were tomato red. “Take whatever you want. Get out. Now.”

“I thought we were going to talk it through—”

“Not after today. I want you as far away from me as possible. I want some tiny piece, some particle of self-respect.” She looked at him without moving. “You demean me.”

Martin snapped his eyes open, lifted his head from the table, and scanned the brown light through the window. He smeared the sweat on his face and the back of his neck. The bottle waited like a silent testament to his sins. Why did he allow himself to remember? It was four years ago.

Catherine had been only fourteen then, going through tiny rebellions to get her mother’s attention. She’d taken to wearing Martin’s old shirts. They billowed over her unwashed jeans, almost to her knees, like kaftans. Vivien threw a fit. She accused Catherine of dressing like a homeless harlot. What would the neighbors think? “Homeless harlot?” Catherine had said. “More like the hamlet hermit. You won’t let me go anywhere. And you’re home so little, they’re not sure you still live here. Let’s see . . . we’re playing Alliterations. How about deserted denizen? Hapless hooligan? Motherless mutt?” Martin was secretly amused.

When he went to Catherine’s room to break the news, she was on the floor, leaning against her bed, her knees pulled up to her chin, her body draped in one of Martin’s castoffs. She wouldn’t look at him as he talked.

“So Mom and I have decided we should live apart. I’ll find a place to live . . .”

“Something I did?”

“Nothing you did.”

She frowned. “Daddy, will you ever live here again?”

“Not anymore.”

“It won’t be the same. Not ever.” She shook her head. “Daddy, will you ever come back for me?”

“I’ll be back to see you every chance I get, as often as I can.”

“Take me with you.”

“Wait until I get settled, have some money . . .”

He hugged her before he left, but she sat passive, as if she were still trying to understand.

He should have taken her with him. She was lost to him the moment he said good-bye. He had abandoned her and deserved her punishment. By last winter, when Catherine stopped returning his calls, he had screwed up everything that mattered in his life. He himself no longer mattered to anyone. Then Johnny. In—what?—February?

Lanky, blond, and shy—a sweet kid with a constant grin and large hands that always got in his way. Martin was Johnny’s faculty advisor, his mentor, his coach. Johnny was Martin’s favorite. Never mind that they struggled over Johnny’s wild harmonic writing and experiments in atonalism before he even knew how to write in the chorale style. Never mind that Johnny was now a graduate student and no longer in Martin’s classes. Johnny was Johnny, and there was no one like him.

He sat in Martin’s office, his eyes on the floor. The grin was gone.

Martin studied the black-and-blue on Johnny’s nose and one cheekbone. “What happened to your face? Were you in a brawl?”

“Doctor James, I need to change my course schedule. I need to speed things up. I have so little time.”

“Only the rest of your life.”

“I need to finish my studies within the year or stop now.”

“Take your time and do it right, Johnny. What’s the rush?”

“I have AIDS.”

Shock stretched the skin of Martin’s face. Fear shot through his intestines. His eyes darted to see where Johnny had touched his desk.

After that, Martin avoided Johnny. The papers said AIDS was probably spread through contact with body fluids, but no one knew for sure. In March, the campus newspaper printed his obituary—“Talented Young Composer Dead at 22.” “Death from AIDS Sudden,” the sub-head said. At the end of the article, Martin found the time and location of the funeral.

He stayed, ashamed and alone, in the back of the church, far from the mourners. He hadn’t even tried to help Johnny. He’d been too frightened. He waited until the casket was gone and the crowd had dispersed, then made his way to the church steps and squinted into the spring sunshine.

“Friend of Johnny’s?”

A small blond man in a tan overcoat stood next to him.

“He was my student,” Martin said.

“I never met him,” the blond man said. “I called and offered to help, but he wouldn’t see me. I’m a volunteer for the Charbonne Clinic and the Hospice of Saint Anthony. We act as buddies for AIDS patients.”

“Aren’t you afraid of infection?”

“Of course, but somebody has to help. Some of these guys are too sick to earn a living. They get evicted and die on the street because everyone’s afraid to get near them.”

Martin’s heart contracted. “At least you tried to help.”

The man put his hand on Martin’s shoulder. “You could help.” He handed Martin an ochre card, put his hands into his coat pockets, and walked down the steps.

Martin raised his eyes to the window. The daylight was all but gone. He wiped his wet hands on his pants and remembered Peter’s gorgeous face—not handsome, not masculine enough to be handsome—as Peter examined the ceiling and told Martin to leave. Peter was a real bastard. Martin was fortunate. He was free of Peter before becoming committed to him. Let some other volunteer suffer through Peter’s unflagging, shameless, self-centered, flagrant nastiness.

I’ve really made a mess of it. His mind churned. He’d get drunk—again. He poured Scotch into the tumbler and chugalugged it. The Scotch burned on the way down. In a few minutes his consciousness would blur. He dumped more Scotch into the glass, guzzled it.

The phone rang. He jumped. The tumbler capsized, rolled, hit the floor. The phone rang again. It rang a third time. He wished it would stop. It went on ringing, every few seconds. Goddammit! He walked to the living room and answered it.

“Martin, this is Peter Christopher.”

Martin couldn’t think.

“I’m very sick,” Peter said in a trembling voice. “Worse than before.”

“I’m sorry. I—”

“I need help. Martin, will you help me? Right away? Tonight?”

Martin tried to make his brain work. “Peter, has something happened? Are you okay?”

“Nothing ever happens.”

Martin sucked air. As it flowed from his lungs, he nodded. “I’ll come. Right away.”

After he hung up, Martin walked to the kitchen. The tumbler lay in a pool of Scotch on the discolored linoleum. His stomach knotted. For a long time, he stood before the bottle. Finally he put it in the cupboard beneath the sink. He mopped up the spilled liquor, washed the sink and counter, and went to his room. He gargled with mouthwash, took his car keys, his wallet, and his oldest briefcase—packed before his first visit to Peter with latex gloves, denatured, alcohol, dry shampoo, incontinent pads, disinfectant—and left the house.