What Binds Us (16 page)

“Oh, no? Then how do you explain Leonardo?”

“You don’t have to explain him. Do you love him?”

“It’s not that—”

“What is it then?”

Dondi, who had always stood alone, untethered by love’s binding cords, astounded me by confessing, “My whole life I’ve loved in the company of strangers. I don’t want to die with them. I’ve wasted my life. Now that I’m nearing the end of it, I can see that mine has been a silly and frivolous one. If I couldn’t bed it or buy it, I wasn’t interested in it. I’ve done nothing with this life.” Looking at him as he confessed this, he seemed to be made of something less than flesh and bone, something altogether different, more fragile, on the point of breaking. I’d never seen Dondi cry, doubted even now that I ever would, but for the first time he seemed human and as lost as the rest of us.

“You know, your father once told me life was a gift from our Creator. A gift, he said, to do with as we pleased. He said we didn’t have to do anything with our lives but live it and enjoy it. You did that.”

“My father,” he said, “is insane.”

“Yes,” Matthew said from the doorway. “He is. But he was never cruel. He couldn’t help being insane.”

“Well, I can’t help being fucked up. I went to see him, you know. I went to see him right after I got sick—I had lost a ton of weight. Anyway, I must have looked pretty bad. He thought I was a ghost. He started screaming. He kept calling me Reggie. They had to sedate him. They made me leave. I never went back there.”

“He doesn’t remember me,” Matthew said quietly. “He always asks if I’m his new nurse. He tells me I’m handsome.”

“I miss him, Matty.”

Matthew went to Dondi and, gently prying the glass from his fingers, hugged him. Their embrace excluded me. Because they were brothers, because I had loved them both, there was something between them I couldn’t share. I turned to look out the window.

Across the bay, Aurora glittered whitely like Xanadu.

A blank page stood in my typewriter, tormenting me, mocking my calling myself a writer. I snatched the sheet from the typewriter and crushed it. In the sound of crumbling paper, I could hear the dying echoes of its laughter.

“What’s wrong?” Matthew asked, leaning down and softly kissing my neck.

“It’s Dondi,” I said. “I haven’t heard from him in two days. I tried calling and there’s no answer.”

“Maybe he’s out with what’s-his-name. Maybe they’re buying a new house—one with walls and doors that are attached to something.”

“Matthew, please. This is serious.”

“I suppose you think we should drive up there?”

“Matthew, I talk to him at least twice a day.”

“All right, let’s go.”

Traffic was heavy, the going slow. “Why the fuck did he let that idiot talk him into moving to West Claw?” Matthew asked.

I remained silent. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with Dondi living so far away, especially now. Still, he had a life with Leonardo, and while Leonardo wouldn’t have been my choice for him, it hadn’t been my choice to make.

When we got there, the house was still. It shone in the brilliant day like a rhinestone, steel beams and worthless dazzle. Dondi’s car was in the driveway. Leonardo’s BMW wasn’t.

No one answered the doorbell. Fortunately we had a key. I saw it tremble slightly in Matthew’s hand as he inserted it into the brass lock. Inside the house was cool.

I called Dondi’s name and heard it echo through that million-dollar cavern. Beneath the echo, something else: a silence.

Matthew swung himself up the stairs. I was close on his heels. He pushed open the doors to the master suite and gasped, whether from the sight or the stench, I could not be sure. The smell brought me up short. Shock raced through me as I placed the smell: shit.

“Dondi,” Matthew said, stepping into the room. “God, Dondi.”

I shot past him and knelt down beside Dondi. He lay tangled in silvery linen sheets, his face sweaty. He smelled of shit. Matthew skirted the scene and went to the massive windows, struggling to open them.

“There’s a remote control,” Dondi creaked. “Somewhere.”

Matthew apparently found it, for an engine whirred and the room was filled with light and the salt-scent of the sea.

“Jesus. Dondi, what happened?”

He smiled ruefully. “I shit. Sorry. I was too weak to get up even after I did it. I would have called somebody but the phone is slightly out of reach.”

“We have to get you cleaned up,” I said.

“Where the hell is Leonardo?” Matthew demanded.

“He left,” Dondi said with uncharacteristic sadness. “I finally had to tell him the truth, that I had the virus. He did not take the news well. The things he said…” Dondi turned his face aside as if from the sight of memory. “Anyway, he packed his stuff and he left.”

“He left?” Matthew repeated incredulously. “How could he just leave you like this?”

“Could we discuss this later? We have to get him cleaned up.” I couldn’t believe that Dondi was lying there practically paralyzed, reeking of shit, and they were going to get into an argument over Leonardo. Again. “Can you get up?”

“Probably,” Dondi answered dubiously. “With some help.”

I moved around the side of the bed.

“Actually,” he said, “I’d prefer it if Matthew could help me.”

I was completely nonplused. I didn’t understand why he refused my help, but I stood aside as Matthew lifted Dondi, still wrapped in the filthy sheet, and took him to the bathroom. I felt shut out.

“Maybe you can fix him something to eat,” Matthew called over his shoulder, pulling me into their circle once again.

“Please,” Dondi added. “I’m starved.”

Matthew kicked the door shut and shortly I heard the sound of running water.

After Dondi had bathed and dressed and eaten, he and I went for a walk on the beach. Because his house was on a hill, we had to take a flight of silvery wooden steps down to the shore. Scrubby brush and black rock pockmarked the hillside. On both sides, glittery houses hung from the cliffside like glamorous ornaments.

I was quiet, letting Dondi speak in his own time.

He kicked idly at the sand. “I can’t believe he just left me like that.”

“He was probably frightened and more than a little angry,” I said.

“Angry? What did he have to be angry about? I gave him everything. Including that horrid house.”

“You didn’t give him your honesty!” I accused savagely.

“What are you talking about?”

“Dondi, you knew you were sick and you slept with him anyway. And didn’t tell him.”

“I made sure he was protected.”

“That isn’t the point. By not telling him, you made a decision for him that should have been his alone to make.”

“You think I was wrong for not telling him?”

“Of course you were wrong.”

“Do you think he loved me?”

“Do you?”

“No. If he did, my being sick wouldn’t have made a difference to him.”

“That’s romantic claptrap.”

“If Matthew had this, would you leave him?”

“No. Of course not. But Matthew wouldn’t have played hide-and-seek with the truth.”

“You think he was only with me because of my money, don’t you?”

“No, Dondi, I don’t. You have so much more to offer. Besides, if it was money, he wouldn’t have left you like he did.”

“Maybe he found somebody with more money.”

I laughed despite myself. “Who has more money than you?”

“Calvin, for one.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Nothing,” he said dismissively. “Leonardo’s gone. I don’t know if I can do this alone.”

“Of course you can. But you won’t have to. Matthew and I will be with you every step of the way. Here, I have something for you.”

He opened his hand and I laid a stone in his palm. It was a small stone—gray-white, smooth and pockmarked.

He looked at me curiously.

“It’s yours,” I reminded him. “You gave it to me our freshman year. You said you found it on a beach on the worst night of your life.”

“I remember. You kept it all these years?” He held the ambiguous stone tightly in his hand.

I nodded. “It’s yours now. This is, again, the worst night of your life. You can get through this one too.”

“I remember giving it to you,” he said. “It was the last one I had.” He’d been staring across the bay. “Did I ever tell you about that night?” he asked, turning to face me.

I shook my head.

“His name was David. He was the first person I ever loved. He was sixteen. The last time I saw him was two months before my eighteenth birthday.” He seemed to have started in the middle of the story but I didn’t interrupt him, letting memory plot its own course. “I told him to just hold on. A couple more months and we’d be free. I’d
buy
us our freedom.” He cut himself off abruptly. “He lived right over there.” He pointed across the bay at an imposing white house, surrounded on four sides by staunch white columns that looked as if they’d been standing there a millennium and would still be standing there a thousand years hence.

He continued. “His father played golf at Pine Valley and his mother bred beagles and raised horses. There was no room in their Town and Country life for a faggot son. There were—let’s say—
issues
. Her name was Sarah. She lived in North Isle. She worked in the village. She and David…” He stopped speaking; his lip trembled. “Anyway, she got pregnant—on purpose, I’ve no doubt. Everyone—her family and especially his—was pressuring him to do the right thing and marry her. ‘Marry her,’ his father told him, ‘and we’ll forget all this faggot nonsense. We’ll just put it behind us.’ David wasn’t sure he could live the kind of life I could offer him, but he
knew
he couldn’t live the kind of life marrying her would have meant.

“This was in June. I turned eighteen that September and then I would get my trust fund. I told him to hang on until then and then we’d take my money and leave. No one would ever find us. He refused to marry her. She drank Clorox. All hell broke loose. He called me. I could hear screaming in the background. Someone was banging on his door. He told me he’d locked himself in his room. He told me he loved me. He’d never said that before. I told him to sit tight, that I was coming to get him. When I got there, he was dead.

“He…he jumped through his closed window. It wasn’t very high up, but the glass cut his throat, severed his jugular. He bled to death before they could get help. At his funeral I asked her if she was happy. We had both lost. She looked me dead in my face, over his dead body, and said, ‘
You
have nothing.
I
am carrying his child.’ I have never hated anyone like I hated her.”

“What did you do?”

“I became her friend.” He laughed. “Like I said, she was from North Isle. She lived in one of those terrible little tract houses. I’ll never forget: it was painted pink. I sat in that house with her day after day, watching her stomach grow. I hated her more with each passing day, with each added pound. She told me one day that I could have had David. She hadn’t loved him, had only wanted to get across the Boulevard of broken dreams. ‘Can you see me living in East Claw?’ she asked me.”

I found out who her doctor was. I paid him a visit. He was young and in debt. We worked out a deal. Sixteen hours after her last check-up she went into spontaneous labor. The child didn’t live. I was the first person she saw when she opened her eyes. ‘You should have looked both ways before you crossed that boulevard,’ I told her. ‘You’re road kill.’” He looked at me, his eyes full of tears. “I have never told anyone that story.”

***

Matthew was watching TV when I walked into the kitchen: MTV’s Top 100 Video Countdown. Madonna’s “Like A Virgin,” followed Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” “How is he?” he asked.

“He’s fine. I think that walk tired him out. He’s upstairs taking a nap.”

“Come here,” he said, walking to the narrow ribbon of window that ran behind the counters. The window faced the adjoining property. Calvin’s house. Or rather, Calvin’s garage. The garage doors were open. Inside was an emerald Cadillac. On the far side, almost hidden in shadow, was a convertible BMW. “Does that look like Leonardo’s car to you?”

“Yeah. But what would Leonardo be doing over there?”

He shrugged. “What are we going to do about Dondi?”

“We have to take him home with us,” I said.

***

We bought the apartment next door to ours. We hired an architect. Scores of contractors and workmen descended on us like a plague of locusts. Walls came down. Furniture was bought. Two apartments became one; the one became a home for three. We were a family, bound by love, bound by blood, bound by disease.

Matthew became knowledgeable about AIDS and its treatment. In 1986 not much was known about AIDS, but that didn’t stop Matthew from trying to learn everything he could. He read every book, attended every conference. He charted the decline of Dondi’s T-cells. He noted every infection and its treatment. He knew which drugs were contraindicated, and those to which Dondi was allergic.

Dondi became angry. He and Matthew fought constantly. One day I came home to find Matthew shouting. Judy Garland was playing on the stereo: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

“It’s not my bloody fault you’re sick,” Matthew shouted.

“I know it’s not. It’s mine.”

“Then why are you angry at me?”

“I’m not angry. I’m envious.”

“Of what?”

“Of you. And T. You have your health. You have each other. Don’t you see? You’ve
found
your somewhere over the rainbow!”

“You never wanted what Thomas and I have!”

“I was stupid.”

“You were worse than stupid, Dondi. You were careless!”

“You’re right,” Dondi admitted. “I
was
careless. But you know what? It was my life. I don’t really regret any of it. Not most of the time, anyway. Hell, I was going to have to die of something, right? And I probably wouldn’t have made a good old person. I’m not even a good sick person.” His voice cracked. His lips trembled. Dondi was breaking and that was breaking my heart. He drew a breath, seemed to steady himself. “Forgive me, Matthew.”

Matthew knelt and laid his head in Dondi’s lap. “I love you, but I am so mad at you. How could you have let this happen? What am I going to do without you?”

Dondi stroked his head. “I won’t go far. Just look for me over the nearest rainbow.”

After that Matthew was always very tender with him. I remember thinking he would make a good father.

Dondi was getting sicker by the day. Our lives spun out of control. Even cleaning our apartment became a monumental task. With the additional rooms the place seemed vast. It had been our habit to clean together on Saturdays. We would start at opposite ends of the house and meet in the middle in the double den, where I had my desk and Matthew, his piano. Often we would lose interest in cleanliness and instead make love, in the dust, under the piano or on the pile of dirty sheets by the laundry room door.

Now neither of us had the stamina for midday sex. Nursing Dondi exhausted us both. I cared for him during the day. I would move my notebooks and typewriter into the alcove by his room and write while he slept. We would play endless rounds of cards when he wakened. Matthew managed him during the night, both of us sleeping fitfully.

Dondi had a herpes outbreak and refused to leave the house until the lesions healed. Matthew administered his Acyclovir faithfully, every four hours around the clock for weeks, arising in the middle of the night to give him a needed dose.

“We can’t go on like this,” Matthew said finally.

I started to cry. “Is this going to be what it’s like when we have kids?” I demanded irrationally.

“No,” he said, taking me in his arms. “No, I promise you.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized with a sniffle. “I’m just so tired.”

“We can’t keep this up—either of us. We need some help.”

“I don’t want strangers taking care of him.”

“I’m not suggesting we send him away. Just that we get a housekeeper. Maybe a nurse.”

“Okay.”

We started interviewing the next day.

***

She was a small woman with a halo of blue hair above her dead white face. She had a tiny rose bud mouth, the pursed lips painted a violent red, vivid as a wound. She carried an enormous black patent leather purse over her wrist, which she refused to relinquish her grasp on even after she was seated.

Matthew introduced me and I sat beside him as he explained to her what we were looking for in a housekeeper, what her responsibilities would be.

She seemed not to have heard a word Matthew said. She stared at me intently with a rictus smile. “I’m sorry, but do you live here?” she asked me when Matthew paused.

“Yes, of course,” he answered impatiently. “We both live here.”

“I see,” she said primly. Her eyes, full of spite, narrowed. “And what is the nature of your relationship, if I may ask?”

“They’re lovers,” Dondi said from the doorway. He stepped into the room. “I’m Dondi. I have AIDS.”

She shrank against the sofa’s cushions, holding the enormous purse to her chest like a shield.

Dondi advanced on her, sweeping across the carpet like an avenging angel.

“Stop right there!” Her mouth bloomed into a rabid contusion in her despising face. She spit hateful words: “You people are an abomination! I’m not surprised you have AIDS. You should
all
have AIDS. It is God’s judgment—”

“Get out!” Dondi screeched. “Get out before I cut my throat and bleed on you.”

After she left the three of us stayed in that room, gasping for breath. It was as if her words had been a strangling rope; Dondi’s face was flushed, and a vein stood out at the side of Matthew’s neck. My head throbbed. There was a buzzing in my ears. It was moments before I realized it was the doorbell.

“I’ll get it,” I volunteered, glad to have an excuse to leave the room and the malevolence that hung in the air like foul perfume.

This woman’s powdery face was the color of nutmeg. Her hair, piled high, was twisted into braids thick as Medusa’s snakes. Half-moon glasses, black as ink in the daylight, rode low on her nose. Her laughing eyes danced above them. Her paramilitary jacket was cropped short and massively padded, exaggerating her broad shoulders. She was, in a word, magnificent.

“Hel-lo,” she said in a voice made baritone by years of cigarettes and Old Grand Dad straight up. “I am Por-tia.”

I stared at her dumbly.

“I’m from the agency,” she clarified. “You wanted a housekeeper?”

“Yes…yes…of course. I’m sorry. Come in. Please. I’m Thomas-Edward Lawrence.”

I took her into the living room and introduced her to Matthew. Dondi entered the room suddenly and stopped abruptly when he saw Portia. He looked her up and down with astonishment.

“This is my brother, Dondi,” Matthew said.

She stood fully six feet tall. “Don-di. Hel-lo. I am Por-tia.”

“And I am dying,” Dondi said.

“Darling, we’re
all
dying.”

“I have AIDS.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry. I used to work at Horses. I’ve lost sixty-five friends since this began. I have a phonebook that has more names crossed out in it than I can believe. Still, I can’t bring myself to throw it away. I know it’s stupid, but somehow I feel that as long as I can look at their names, they can’t really be gone.”

None of us knew what to say to that. It was Dondi who spoke first. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I was such an ass.”

“Apology accepted. Now honey, come and sit by me.”

When he sat, she patted his knee without looking at him and continued conversing with Matthew. She was a beautiful Medusa in paramilitary dress and sensible shoes. If anyone could put Death in its place, it was she.

“Um, excuse us,” I told them, touching Matthew’s arm, bidding him to follow me. In the kitchen we fell into each other’s arms. “Oh, she’s the one. Matthew, we have to hire her!”

“My God!” he exclaimed. “That voice!”

“Shhh! She’ll hear you,” I chuckled.

“Okay… Let’s pull ourselves together and hire a housekeeper.”

We walked back into the living room. She stood beside the mantel. She had inserted a slender cigarette into an ivory holder. Dondi was eyeing her, something close to admiration in his eyes.

“Gentlemen,” she rasped. “I believe you are about to offer me a job.”

***

Dondi came to the dining table, scratching his behind, his face sleep rumpled, his pajamas buttoned wrong. Matthew and I, used to the early morning wreckage that was Dondi, scarcely noticed. Portia came through the swinging kitchen door in sunglasses and a starched apron, a plate of muffins in her hand, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth.

Dondi pulled out a chair. Portia let the plate fall on the table. We looked up at the noise.

“Oh, no,” she said, removing the cigarette from her lips, jabbing it in the air. “You are
not
coming to the breakfast table looking like that.”

Dondi reached into his arsenal of weapons. “I don’t feel good.”

“No wonder, looking like that. Get up and go shower and comb your hair,” she continued in her no-nonsense take-no-prisoners voice. “Breakfast will be ready in fifteen minutes. And don’t you ever come to the table looking like that again.”

Dondi got up meekly. In a sudden act of defiance he thrust his tongue out at her receding back.

She paused, her hand flat against the swinging kitchen door. “I saw that,” she said without turning around. “Breakfast is in fifteen minutes. Do you really think you have time to be making faces behind my back?” She pushed through the door without waiting for an answer.

Dondi, shocked, ambled away. I’d seen a smile playing about his lips even as he grumbled.

***

“What do you suppose death is?” Dondi asked Portia one day, apropos of nothing.

“The absence of hope,” she answered without hesitating.

“I have no hope,” he replied.

“Then you’re already dead,” she stated.

“No.”

“Hope can be renewed, even after it’s been dead a long time. Some people call it faith.”

“Do you have faith?”

“In God, yes.”

“But He let His son die.”

“So that we may have eternal life. Jesus died for our sins—yours and mine. Jesus had faith and He was reunited with His father. Those who believe shall never die except in the physical sense.”

“How…how do I get faith?”

That is how Dondi came to start attending church with her. He went religiously every Sunday; they went to bible study on Thursday evenings. Dondi joined the choir. Matthew went to church on the first and last Sunday of the month when Dondi’s choir sang. I probably would have gone too, but no one invited me.

***

Leonardo arrived unexpectedly one day for a visit. Portia answered the door. He wore an oversized trench coat of black plastic and a matching fedora, also of black plastic. Black wraparound sunglasses completed the blackout of his person.

“Excuse me,” Portia inquired huskily, after he’d introduced himself, “but is it raining toxic waste outside?”

He gave her as haughty a look as someone who was dressed in what looked like plastic trash bags could, then looked past her at me. “I’m here to see Thomas.”

“Thomas-Edward,” she bellowed without turning around, “you have a guest.”

“You don’t have to yell,” I said, standing at her elbow. “I’m right here.”

She jumped. Obviously she hadn’t realized I’d followed her into the foyer when the bell rang. “You have a guest,” she repeated, rolling her eyes and walking away.

I led him into the living room, where he sat on the sofa, still in his hat and coat.

“Leonardo. Why are you dressed like that? You look like a blind assassin.”

He squirmed against the sofa’s fabric; his black plastic creaked.

“Thomas, it’s so good to see you. It’s been a while.”

Matthew walked into the room, stopped when he saw Leonardo. “Who are you supposed to be? Mata Hari?”

Leonardo expelled a breath. His plastic groaned. He took off his glasses. “Calvin is in the car downstairs. He wanted to come up, but there’re photographers all over the place. They’ve been following us for weeks.” He lowered his voice confidentially. “We think his wife is having us followed.”

“Why?” Matthew demanded. “If she wants to know where he is or what he’s doing, all she has to do is turn on the television.”

Leonardo’s brazen congress with the married Calvin had erupted in scandal and the dissolution of Calvin’s marriage. What had been whispered and giggled about in private for years now appeared in gossip columns in the mainstream press. Bitsy, after months of resolute silence, agreed to an interview. In print, she called Leonardo a home-wrecker, a thief of hearts, a bimbo with a penis. She said he’d perverted her husband, her daughters’ father, then stolen him. She filed for divorce, asking for half of everything Calvin owned.

“Oh,” Leonardo squealed with delight. “Did you see me on TV? You know,” he added excitedly, “Cal got me a part in a music video. They liked the way I look and dance, so they gave me a record contract.”

“You got a contract based on the way you look?” Matthew asked, disbelieving.

“And dance,” I put in. “And why not? It worked for Paula Abdul.”

Leonardo looked at me sharply. “She got fat,” he said seriously. “I won’t!”

“What do you want, Leonardo?” Matt asked, his tone impatient.

“I’d like to see Dondi. Is he here?”

“Of course he’s here. Where else would he be? His room is there.” Matthew pointed to the hallway. “Down the hall. Second door on the left. Knock before you go in.”

When Leonardo came out of Dondi’s room, he looked disappointed. “He doesn’t look sick,” he said.

***

We acquired a chauffeur-driven Stutz Bearcat. Among other things, the ugly-beautiful sedan deflected the leering looks of parking valets; we were allowed to park at the curb.

Dondi and I were waiting in the car after a doctor’s visit while Matthew went to the pharmacy to fill Dondi’s multitude of prescriptions.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Dondi announced in the petulant tone of a spoiled child.

“We’ll be home soon,” I said, trying to placate him. “Can you wait ‘til then?”

He’d had a bladder infection, which resulted in a few bouts of incontinence. As a result Dondi had an almost pathological fear of wetting himself in public. “I have to pee,” he said again.

“Fine.” I climbed out of the car after him and we went back into the hospital building in search of the men’s room.

The bathroom, unseemingly large, was tiled in white, as if it had once hosted an entire battalion of soldiers. I left Dondi at the urinal and traveled far across an expanse of immaculate white tile to the toilets (the only man I can pee in front of is Matthew; otherwise, I need complete isolation).