With or Without You (11 page)

“Shirt off,” Erik says, plugging his stethoscope into his ears.

Benton bats his eyes. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

“Careful,” I warn, covering my ears, “children are present.”

Erik starts his examination, listening to Benton’s concave chest and asking him to breathe in and out. Having accompanied Erik on similar trips, I prep the blood pressure cuff in the medical bag, knowing he’ll need it next. From inside the bag, I take out a small picture frame and hand it to Benton. On the glass, I’ve painted the Madison state capitol building at night, in the Cubist style of Picasso. Benton grins.

“You’ve really got a talent, Evan,” he says, holding the picture at arm’s length.

“It’s to celebrate,” I tell him. “Erik says your T-cell count is high.”

“Go T cells!” Benton yells, making a fist with his free hand.

I don’t really understand what that means. I know it has something to do with HIV and AIDS and low T cells means bad and high T cells means good. Sometimes,
Erik launches into deep discussions about his work and what he wants to do at the research facility in San Diego. I’ve never had the heart to tell him it’s all going over my head. I imagine it’s how Davis feels whenever I start talking about art.

“So, as I was saying,” Benton says with faux haughtiness, “before Nurse Ratched showed up and broke my concentration, I was doing a bit of writing.”

“Good for you,” Erik says, tightening the Velcro strap on the blood pressure cuff around Benton’s upper arm. “You gonna try to get it published?”

Benton cocks his head, his gray eyes dancing. “Actually, I’ve been thinking. If my health keeps up, I might just try resurrecting White Satyr.”

Erik’s raised eyebrows tell me he’s impressed. “Pretty ambitious. Not to rain on your parade, but I’d be more confident in your ability to stay healthy if you did things like, oh, kept your appointments with Dr. Friese.”

“Nag, nag, nag,” Benton mutters as Erik continues to poke and prod.

“What’s ‘White Satyr’?” I ask.

“My pride and joy.” Benton beams, pointing to a nearby bookcase. Every book on the shelves—easily more than two hundred—bears a bright white spine with thin red lettering. At the bottom of each spine is a horned black triangle and the words “White Satyr Press.”

“Mr. Benton founded the Midwest’s first gay literary press back in the Seventies,” Erik reports.

Benton steps away from Erik’s exam and plucks a small, tattered scrapbook from his desk. He hands it to me. I’ve seen this before, at Mr. Benton’s bedside the few times I’ve visited him in the hospital. He always has it with him. The first page has a black-and-white photo of eight smiling men with their arms around one another, sitting on the lawn at Bascom Hill on the UW campus. They’re wearing bell bottoms and big glasses and everyone’s got wild, long hair. I laugh when I spot Mr. Benton on the end, sporting a bushy mustache, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his hairy chest.

“These were my friends back then. Artists, poets, playwrights, actors. We called ourselves the White Satyr Collective. Things were changing for gays across the country and we wanted to be a part of that. We were all struggling to get our work recognized in venues that weren’t comfortable with gay themes. One day, I said if no one else will publish the work of these brilliant people, I’d do it myself. So the Collective became White Satyr Press. We published poetry chap books, literary novels, plays, and photography books. We made gay history.”

Gay history. It makes me think of Sable. But not in a creepy way. When Mr. Benton says it, it sounds noble.

Benton takes the scrapbook back as Erik continues the
examination. I take one of the White Satyr books off the shelf, a poetry collection called
Red, Crimson, Carmine
. The author is Joseph Benton.

“I didn’t know you were a poet.” I smile, paging through the brittle, yellowing pages.

“There’s a poet in all of us,” Benton waxes.

“Not me.” I sigh. “Can’t write to save my life.”

“Different vocabularies,” Benton argues. “I use words, you use color.”

Color as vocabulary. I like it. I’ve always tried to give my colors meaning within the context of a specific work. Now, through Mr. Benton, I see them as nouns, adverbs, adjectives. Awesome.

Benton glances at the cover of the book in my hands. He sighs. “That was the last thing I published before White Satyr folded.”

“Why’d you shut down?” I ask.

Benton looks wistful. “My heart really wasn’t in it after I lost Arthur in ’89. By then, most of the Collective was gone. By the late Eighties, with things as they were, I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be around.”

I’m not sure what he means but I’m afraid to ask. I’ve only heard Mr. Benton mention Arthur, his former partner, a few times before. I feel bad that I’ve dredged this up.

Erik zips shut his medical bag and claps me on the back. “I’ll make you a deal, Mr. Benton. You stay on your
meds, keep up with the yoga, and stop missing appointments and I know two local artists who’ll let you photograph their work so you can publish it.”

Benton shakes both of our hands. “You got a deal, boys. Wait and see.”

“Remember,” Erik tells Benton as we step out of the apartment, “this doesn’t take the place of an exam with Dr. Friese. I only did this ’cause I worry about you. Make a new appointment and get your blood work done by the end of the week or you’re in big, big trouble, mister.”

Benton crosses his heart and raises his hand, palm out. “Promise.”

Erik and I speed away in the Jeep. Now that it’s just the two of us, I can ask.

“What did Mr. Benton mean when he said ‘Things like they were back in the late Eighties’?”

Erik places his hand on my knee and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “The epidemic was going strong back then and there still weren’t a lot of advances in HIV treatment. Mr. Benton watched his friends die, then Arthur. Mr. Benton found out he was positive the day after Arthur’s funeral. I’m sure the future looked pretty bleak for him back then.”

Epidemic. Treatment. I’ve been dating a nurse for a year and I’m only just now starting to figure out what he does. And what Mr. Benton went through. Learning some
gay history might not be so bad. Even if it is from Sable.

“We all set for dinner on Tuesday with Shan?”

Erik’s trying hard to make it sound like a casual question. Why do I feel like it’s a test?

If it is, I pass. “Yeppers. She can’t wait to meet you.”

His shoulders relax. He was expecting an excuse. For once, I’m glad to disappoint him. But one test wasn’t enough.

“Aren’t you moving Davis to the RYC on Tuesday?”

I’d forgotten I mentioned that. “Uh … yeah.”

“Need an extra pair of hands?”

“Thanks,” I say, waving my hand like it’s nothing. “But Davis doesn’t own much. It won’t take long.”

I stay cool. I sound breezy. He nods. Mission accomplished. A Davis and Erik meeting has been averted. For now.

The King of Evasions changes the subject with finesse. “So you think Mr. Benton might really publish a book with our work in it?”

Erik’s face is noncommittal, distant. “Resurrecting White Satyr would be good for him. He needs something to focus on, to be happy about. But I wouldn’t hold your breath. He doesn’t take care of himself like he should. I worry about him.”

I reach over and squeeze his knee. That’s another reason I love Erik: He’s figured out exactly what he’s
supposed to be doing and it’s not just a life-sucking nine-to-five. I really don’t know if I can make a career in art. I haven’t thought much about how I can apply what I do to some sort of job that will earn a living. But Erik has and he’ll take on anything, no matter how tough.

He gives a shit.

I’m alone when I ring the bell to Davis’s house at nine sharp. It’s a big three-story house here on Mansion Hill, overlooking Lake Mendota. You’d think the Graysons have money but the truth is that Mr. Grayson just likes to appear successful. Davis told me once that his dad barely breaks even every month and that a lot of his money goes to the huge mortgage and taxes. All in the name of
looking
wealthy. No wonder Mr. Grayson wants Davis to move out. Now he gets all the frozen dinners to himself.

Mr. Grayson answers the door. He’s a small, nearly invisible slice of milquetoast.

“Good morning, Evan,” he says in a listless voice. “Davis is upstairs. Thank you for helping him.”

I was hoping Mr. Grayson would be at his office. He must be working from home today so he can make sure Davis is out on time. What a guy.

I nod, step past him, bound up the stairs and down the hall to the second room on the right. I knock on the closed door.

When there’s no response, I open it slowly. His room looks like Tetris threw up inside. There are boxes—cubes, rhomboids—piled everywhere. Half of his stuff isn’t even packed. A mound of dirty laundry stinks up the middle of the room. Davis is sprawled on his twin bed, facedown, wearing only a pair of tighty-whiteys.

“Up and at ’em, soldier!” I bark, tossing a shirt at him. He moans and stirs, then shoots me a look of hot, flaming death. “Did Sable call?”

“Mmpgh,” Davis gargles, crawling to the pile of clothes on the floor. He throws on some pants and resumes packing while I begin lugging boxes downstairs to the truck. Mr. Grayson makes a show of glancing up at us and then over at the grandfather clock each time we pass by his study. We’re very aware of our deadline: Davis must be out by noon.

At ten thirty, when I see that Sable isn’t going to show, I pick up the pace. Davis makes an excuse for him; Sable’s new to town and is probably having trouble finding the house. Every time I look at the clock, Davis has another excuse. He’ll be here soon, Davis promises, but he starts moving more quickly.

It’s eleven fifty-eight when we shove the last box in
the truck. Davis climbs in the passenger seat. I glance back at the house. “Aren’t you going to say good-bye?” I’m stupid to ask.

“Just drive.”

We park on the side street next to the RYC. Malaika is there to greet us. She hugs Davis and we go into her office to do paperwork. The rules of the house: It’s temporary housing; he can stay a maximum of ninety days. After two weeks, he needs to pay thirty bucks a week for rent. If he can’t afford that, he’ll be given odd jobs to do around the Center and must complete them in order to stay. No overnight guests; all non-residents must be out of the building by eleven p.m. As Davis begins signing his life away on a dozen forms, I snag the room keys so I can start hauling boxes.

I’m dropping off the first load to Davis’s stark room when the door across the hall opens. Sable, hand shielding his eyes, leans on the door frame and smiles.

“Hey, guy.”

He looks like he slept in his clothes. His big toe sticks out from a formerly white sock. His voice is light and airy and his head sways slightly. His other hand holds a clear plastic bag containing a dozen translucent-brown prescription bottles. He sees me glance at the bag and shakes it like a baby’s rattle. “I loves me some vitamins.”

A sweet, earthy odor—carried on a thin sheen of
smoke—filters from his room into the hall. He’s high.

I’m pissed but I make a joke. “Morning, sunshine. We been waiting on you. Party can’t start without you.”

Sable squints that way people do when they struggle to remember. Then he chuckles and nods. “Yeah, right. You and Little Dude.”

“Little Dude” appears at the top of the stairs, loaded down with boxes. Sable tosses the pill bag back into his room, then launches over and takes the boxes off Davis’s hands. “Let me get that for you, stud. Sorry I missed the excitement this morning. I totally spaced.”

Yeah. Getting stoned will do that.

“No biggie. You’re here now, right?” Davis says.

Sable winks at Davis and Davis melts.

With Sable’s help, it only takes us a little more than an hour to unload the truck. I’ll give him this; as he sobers up, Sable becomes a workhorse, often making two trips for every one Davis and I make. Of course, we’ve already done this once today so we’re tired.

It’s just after two when we finish and sprawl out on Davis’s floor, exhausted. Davis orders pizza to thank us for our help, and two larges with the works are devoured within ten minutes of their arrival. I’m cleaning up the pizza boxes when Davis produces the octagon window from a box and looks around for the right place to hang it. Sable takes it from him, having spotted a nail on the wall
over the bed. He hangs it, gives it a good look, and mutters, “Cool.” I almost forgive him for leaving us in the lurch.

I glance at my watch and realize I only have five minutes to get the truck home before Dad does his Chernobyl impression.

“Sorry, I’d stay and help you unpack but—”

“No worries,” Sable says, gripping Davis’s shoulder. “We got it covered.”

I look to Davis, who grins at Sable, then nods at me. I don’t have time to be annoyed; I take the stairs down two at a time, burst through the door, and race to get the truck home.

I’m only two minutes late. I walk through the store. Dad is planted in his wheelchair at the register, ringing someone up. Mom is in the back room, rifling through a pile of job applications, scowling at each one. Even though I promised to work until I leave in August, she has to start looking for my replacement now so I can train them.

“Thanks,” I say, dropping the truck keys on Mom’s desk. She doesn’t respond. “Hey, I know replacing me will be hard but, wow … I can actually see mercury rising in your eyes. Like a cartoon.”

She selects three applications that have somehow managed not to offend her. “Shan says the two of you have plans tonight.”

I freeze. What else has Shan said?

I suck all the air out of the room through a tiny gap between my lips. It figures that the one time I need a story, I don’t have one. “Yup. Some brother-sister bonding.”

But as usual, it doesn’t matter.

“Don’t stay out too late. You open tomorrow morning.” She’s not suspicious; it’s business as usual. She likes when I spend time with Shan. She wants Shan to rub off on me. The air slowly returns to the room.