Let's Hear It for the Boy (4 page)

The emergency room nurse took one look at him and put him in a cubicle and asked me if I could help fill out his paperwork. He had his student insurance card in his wallet, and I used it rather than trying to put any information about his parents. I was afraid they might get called and his dad already hated me apparently for being friends with his son, and I lied and said I was his brother. The doctor finally came in and asked me to step out, but Patrick coughed and begged him to let me stay. With a raised eyebrow, he assessed the situation and shrugged.

He had Patrick take deep breaths, which proved difficult, and I wondered how the hell the cough caught on so fast when not a few hours ago we’d been laughing and messing around. The doctor stepped out and I could hear him telling the nurse to prepare a private room, that he would be hospitalizing Patrick. I pushed the curtain aside and went to find the doctor, grabbing his arm and letting the glower roll off me.

“What’s the matter with him?”

The man stood there for a moment, his gaze boring into me and I thought,
he knows. He knows we are gay
and
oh fuck what are we going to do
and
is he a fag hater
and
oh please God let him take care of Patrick
. “Your young friend has pneumonia. I need to run some tests to determine what kind of infection it is, and then I can make some decision as to how to treat it. I’ve only seen a couple of cases of what I suspect it is, but is there something you can tell me that might help me out here?”

It was my turn to study him now. Did I tell him? What tests? If they ran his blood work, then Patrick and I couldn’t pretend it was just a series of colds, that all the symptoms we were cataloguing and hiding from each other actually meant that word we wouldn’t say. On the other hand, if I didn’t man-the-fuck up and tell him, Patrick could get worse. I knew there was a drug that was getting some results—I might be in denial, but when I woke up worrying about him, I would make lists of questions to research at the library at school.

I made a decision I would have to live with it. Patrick and I would.

“I think you know I’m not his brother.”

He slowly nodded.

I looked at a spot about six inches to the right of his head. “He’s been sick off and on for a few months. He’s lost a lot of weight, his appetite is for shit, he has night sweats and—” I had to stop and gather my courage. “If you check on his right thigh, right inside near his groin, there’s…” And my voice cracked. “There’s what I think is a lesion.”

He laid his hand on my arm, seeming to sense I was about to fly into a million little pieces, and spoke very quietly and very gently to me. “Thank you. This makes it easier in more ways than you know. Now, we need to draw some blood, get some antibiotics into him, and give him oxygen. It will take a while, so you go sit in the waiting room, and I will send a nurse in to get you when he’s ready to be moved into a room.”

“Please. Please let me stay with him. He needs me,” I begged.

He shook his head. “Son, I’m sorry, I can’t. I have rules I have to follow, but I promise you, I will have you in with him as soon as is humanly possible.” He looked around, then leaned in close. “If my boyfriend was in there, I would feel the same way. I understand, please trust me. I will take good care of your young man.”

My eyes were burning and I couldn’t see, but I nodded. He squeezed my arm and moved away to set things in motion.

And I stood there and gave myself two minutes. Two minutes to get it the fuck out of my system. Two minutes to fall apart and be the weak crying little boy I felt like. Then I sucked in a deep breath, straightened my spine and walked like a man out to the waiting room to sit until I could see Patrick again.

*

He ended up staying in the hospital, in isolation, for the next ten days. I stayed the whole time, only leaving to go home and shower, change clothes and, when I remembered, to eat. Patrick had a strain of pneumonia called pneumocystis—PCP for short. God, but I’d hear those three letters so many times over the coming years. That and the dreaded HIV. It never ceased to amaze me how much misery, pain, and grief could be contained in three short little letters.

The results of the blood work they were running hadn’t come back, but by the time he was released there was little doubt what was wrong. Patrick was infected with the AIDS virus. Dr. Stallings, the man who treated Patrick in the emergency room, stopped by every day to check in on him and I was able to find out all the things I would need to take care of Patrick. Because, goddammit, what else could I do?

We kept it all from Patrick’s family, which was easy since they pretty much ignored him anyway. They weren’t close with him, and he’d been doing what he wanted since he was twelve or thirteen. Mine were sympathetic and didn’t mind when I brought him home from the hospital. I only told them he had pneumonia, not all the rest. It might have made me a bad son, but they would have worried about me, and for the love of God, he needed me, and I would have done anything for him. Even lying to my folks. My mom fussed over him, going into full-on mama tiger mode when she saw how skinny and weak he was. She cooked, baked, and chided him until he ate just to make her back off, I think. Once he was settled in, I brought up the topic we’d avoided.

“So…school.”

He pushed the blankets down, giving me a hard glare when I tried to tuck him in and make sure he was warm enough. “Stop! Damn, between you and your mother I feel like I’m being smothered.” That stung. I only wanted to help, and he must have seen the hurt on my face. “Just, back off a little,” he said softly. “I’m a grown man and I can take care of myself. I’ve had enough practice doing it over the years. You know that.”

I nodded and moved to sit on the edge of the bed, clearing my throat. “Anyway, we do need to talk about next week. I just don’t think there’s any way you can go back to school, Patrick. You’re too weak.” I raised a hand to stop the storm clouds I saw forming on his brow. “We should stay here and get you better. Mom and Dad won’t mind, and I can get a job to tide us over ‘til you feel like going back. It won’t be long, maybe we can go back for spring quarter.”

He sat and stared at me for a moment, and I couldn’t read him. The first time since we’d become lovers, I honestly didn’t know what he was thinking. Then he shook his head. “No. And it’s my turn to talk. I listened to you, now you listen to me. If we drop out now, we won’t go back. You know it and I know it.” I did, but kept my mouth shut. “Here’s what we are going to do. I’m going to lay here and rest and eat all the chicken and dumplings your mom can make. Then on Sunday, you and I will pack up and drive back up to Athens and get ready to go back to class on Monday. I have a light schedule this quarter, and if I need to, I’ll drop a class.”

He reached for my hand, and I took it. His grip was strong, but I felt every bone and tendon, and ached for what was happening to his beautiful body. Patrick was still stunning, but there was something different about his face now. It reminded me of when my mother took a pottery class. Part of the process was to throw the clay on a wheel, then glaze it and bake it in a kiln until the surface shone. He was…burnished. Something essential was bone-deep in him now, and I couldn’t tell if he was nineteen or nineteen-hundred years old.

I remember sitting there, with him, and thinking, he’s not mine. There was a thousand-mile stare quality to his gaze. It scared, amazed, hurt me. But I agreed.

The week flew, and when Sunday arrived, we packed our duffels, hugged Mom and Dad goodbye, and made our way back to school. I helped him carry his things up to his room and since his roommate wasn’t back, closed the door and leaned against it. “Come here,” I motioned with crooked finger, smiling.

Patrick grinned back at me, and moved close, until he was about two inches away. Every nerve in my body was tingling, and I wanted so damned badly to throw him on the bed and fuck his brains out. But…no. Not that I wouldn’t have, if he’d been physically up to it. That’s what condoms were for, dammit. I wanted him. But I would take what I could. And what I could take was his mouth.

I leaned forward and closed that small space and gently kissed him. His lips were dry, chapped, but still so soft they stole my heart and my breath. I closed my eyes and rested my mouth against his, trying to tell him with that one point of contact how much I loved him. Finally, he pulled away and I opened my eyes to that sly smile.

“Time for you to go unpack your stuff. And I think I will put my shit up and then settle in. My first class is at eight, and I’m actually a little tired.”

I didn’t want to leave. “You sure? I can help you—“

“No. Matthew, I can take care of things. I need to make a couple of calls, then I’ll take my meds and go to bed. You have enough to do back in your room.” He leaned back in and gave me a quick peck on the lips, then reached around me to open the door. I reluctantly turned to go, but his hand on my arm stopped me. “I love you.” His voice was so quiet, so solid, and I knew if I turned around I would either never leave, or I would break. I couldn’t chance either, so I nodded, not turning to look, and left.

The next day he was gone.

Chapter Six

I was furious. It was like he fell off the face of the planet. All his things were gone, his roommate hadn’t seen him at all, and even the RA only had a short note saying he wouldn’t be back. I finally broke down and called his mother. She assumed he was still at school, and pooh-poohed it away and said he would be back when he was ready to be seen. Fucking bitch.

I almost failed that quarter. Barely able to concentrate, I couldn’t sleep, found myself ghosting through classes and wondering what, why, how. Days became weeks, then months, and while the sting of his leaving lessened, the anger didn’t. The worst was one weekend, after a show, when I found myself in the bathroom of the Battalion, more than half lit, hand on my zipper and ready to let a guy with curly hair blow me.

I pushed him out of the stall and fell to my knees and puked up everything in my stomach. The fact I almost touched someone else, was willing to let this pale substitute of the man I loved take his place, even if it was only for a moment, almost did me in. When I walked out of the restroom, Phil was there waiting for me. He didn’t say a word, just turned and walked toward the office. Bastard was so sure I would follow him.

And of course I did. Spilled every little detail, cried, hit the wall with my fist. The usual drama I was so sure he saw every night. When I finally stalled out, drained, I was afraid to meet his eyes. There would be pity or worse, laughter. He was quiet for so long, and I finally had to look up. When I did, he left his chair and fell on his knees in front of me, pulling me into a bear hug. At first I tensed, but he held me until I relaxed, and the tears started again. Once that storm passed, he took my head between his hands and gently kissed my forehead, then moved back to his chair.

“So, what are you gonna do?”

And wasn’t that the sixty-four thousand dollar question?

I shrugged. “Go back to school. Hope I hear from him. Wait.”

He looked me up and down, then seemed to decide something. “I’d like to make you an offer.”

I gave a shaky laugh and shook my head. “Phil, you are a really nice guy and handsome, but—”

He laughed, a big belly laugh that pissed me off at first. That made him howl even louder, and he wiped his eyes. “Oh, honey, you are beyond sweet. But you are chicken, and I like prime rib. No, I want you to do something here at the club. We’re thinking about making the drag a regular thing. There’s a few guys who aren’t the pros, who want to do something…different.”

“Different?”

“Yeah. Make it a funny show, like you and your goatee with the wig and shit. Drag, but not glamor drag. And they want to give all the proceeds to this new charity that’s starting up. It’s for people who are getting sick with AIDS.”

I sat forward, feeling something almost electric in my gut. “You’ve checked them out? It’s legit?”

Phil nodded. “The founders are personal friends who have four or five friends who have already died.” His eyes clouded, and his gaze was so very, very sad. “A couple of them lost their jobs because they couldn’t work, and nobody would take them in because they were afraid to catch it themselves. It isn’t right, and…we have to do something.”

I nodded. “I’m in.”

That’s how Auntie Social was born.

Every Saturday, I drove back from Athens and met up with this small group of guys who were older than me, but who accepted me into their circle because Phil, God bless him, told them my story so I wouldn’t have to. It was rough and ugly for a while, but the crowds got behind us and soon enough, we had it all down to a science. We were the world’s craziest batch of queens, but damn if we didn’t take in hundreds of dollars every single time we performed.

*

It was near the end of my sophomore year and I’d rented an off-campus apartment so I could have more privacy. I was out, and most college boys didn’t want a queer roommate. Not that I was interested in anything. I’d had my own HIV-antibody test, and it came back negative. But sex? Didn’t interest me.

I had my psychology book open and was trying to get a paper done when I heard a tapping at my door. I wasn’t expecting anyone, but it wasn’t that unusual that one of my study group would pop over to hang out to get away from the non-stop noise and drama in the dorms. So I didn’t think anything of an unexpected visitor at—I checked the clock—ten-thirty in the evening.