Jimmy is still screaming at the NIH suit when a police officer approaches. The moment the policeman gets close to him, Jimmy goes limp, allowing himself to be cuffed and pulled away.
“Jimmy!” Mrs. Bowman screams.
“Art, take my picture,” Jimmy yells. “Stephen wants to see everything.”
I take his picture as he’s pulled away, and it’s horrible and beautiful all at the same time. I photograph it all, each frame so full of action. I snap Reza, his beautiful face surrounded by red, yellow, and green smoke bombs. I snap Judy, holding her sign that now reads DEAD FROM HOMOPHOBIA, the PHOBIA written in her mom’s handwriting. Judy holds the sign high up in the air, and Mrs. Bowman’s arm is draped proudly and protectively around her daughter. I snap it all, until I have no film left, until the protest is over.
We are not arrested, and Jimmy isn’t held long. Mrs. Bowman says there’s room for us in the car she rented, and so we all cram in. Mrs. Bowman says the car has a CD player and asks if any of us have some CDs with us. Reza pulls Like a Prayer from his Discman and hands it to her. On the way back to New York, we all sing along together, reliving the concert. When Like a Prayer ends, Reza pulls out True Blue, and we listen to that, singing extra loud during “Jimmy, Jimmy,” and staring ahead in silence during “Live to Tell.” By the time we reach the rental car place, Mrs. Bowman knows all the lyrics.
It’s not time to say goodbye yet, though. First, we must go visit Stephen. “Should we take a cab downtown?” Mrs. Bowman asks.
“He’s in the hospital,” Jimmy says.
“I thought you said he was back home,” Mrs. Bowman says.
“He made me say it, Bonnie. He knew you wouldn’t go if you realized he was still in there.” Jimmy’s eyes are full of remorse. He hated lying. “It was important to him that we all took this trip. I promised him we would. And he wanted you there, Bonnie. He wanted you to experience it all.”
Mrs. Bowman nods. “Let’s go,” she says urgently.
We head to the hospital together, and when I see Stephen, it’s like my body splits into a million pieces. He looks like he has aged a decade in the last few days. He’s thinner, paler, the life almost drained from his eyes. The machines and tubes around him and inside him seem to be working overtime to keep him breathing, and those breaths, every single one of them sounds like it’s moving a mountain. He croaks out a “Hey” when he sees us. No one says anything. He looks over at Judy, me, and Reza and smiles. “You’re friends . . . again,” he says, his voice so weak that I wish one of those medical machines had a volume dial to bring his voice back up to its normal tone.
“Stephen,” Mrs. Bowman says, taking his hand in hers, “how could you tell Jimmy to lie to us?”
“Look at me,” Stephen says. “Are you really going to . . . pick this moment to give me . . . one of your lectures?” He struggles to finish the sentence.
Mrs. Bowman shakes her head. “No, of course not. I just want to be with you.”
“I want you . . . with me, too,” he says. “You and Judy . . . stay with me . . . until I go.”
“Oh, Uncle Stephen,” Judy says, rushing to his side. “I’ll sleep right here on the floor. I won’t leave the hospital if you want me here.”
“Not here,” Stephen says. “I want to go . . . home.” Everyone looks at each other, worried. “I don’t want to go . . . here.”
Mrs. Bowman looks at him and you can see her making a decision. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. I’ll go speak to the doctor. Jimmy, you’re his health care proxy. Will you come with me?”
“Are you sure?” Jimmy asks, and Stephen nods. There’s so much understanding between Stephen and Jimmy. I guess that’s why Jimmy’s the health care proxy, not Mrs. Bowman. Jimmy understands. He doesn’t need a dictionary or a translator when he hears words like cytomegalovirus or cryptococcal meningitis or mycobacterium avium-intracellulare or toxoplasmosis.
Mrs. Bowman and Jimmy walk into the hallway to find the doctor. Stephen looks from Judy to me to Reza and back again. “How was the . . . concert?” he asks.
“It was amazing,” Judy says. “She’s God, basically.”
“I am so grateful,” Reza says. “It was the most thoughtful gift I have ever received. I think it, I don’t know, changed my life. Is that silly?”
“It’s not,” Stephen says. And then, looking right at me, he says, “It’s the power of . . . art.”
“You were there,” I say. I inch closer to Stephen. “You were at the concert with us. And at the protest. I felt you. You were right by our sides.”
“I know,” Stephen says. “And you were . . . here with me, all three of you.”
Reza’s lips quiver in sadness. He doesn’t know Stephen the way we do, once even feared him, and yet he has been welcomed into his family.
“I took pictures of everything for you,” I say. “I even used color film for the first time to make sure you would see the color of those grenades.”
“Were they . . . beautiful?” Stephen asks.
“They were,” Judy says. “Like something out of a Technicolor musical. Vincente Minnelli couldn’t have dreamed up something more gorgeous.”
“No, but you will,” Stephen says. “All of you. Keep . . . creating . . . beauty.”
We all nod and catch each other’s gazes. I feel these words etching themselves into my body, like a soul tattoo. Keep creating beauty.
Mrs. Bowman and Jimmy return. “You’re going home, girl,” Jimmy says.
“And I’ve spoken to Ryan,” Mrs. Bowman says. “He’s shopping for microwave dinners as we speak. Judy and I are staying with you.”
Stephen just smiles, but then whispers, “Thank you.”
“I’ll go stock the fridge at his place,” Jimmy says. “Any requests?”
“Diarrhea diet,” Stephen says. “Rice . . . bananas . . . Gatorade.”
“I know it well.” Jimmy takes a deep breath. “This trip, it was special,” he says. “I feel so close to each of you. We did something, didn’t we?” Jimmy hugs us all and leaves.
“Why don’t we go pack our bags, Judy?” Mrs. Bowman suggests.
“Okay,” Judy says. “We’ll see you soon, Uncle Stephen.”
They give us hugs, and then they too are gone.
It’s just me and Reza and Stephen now. We sit on either side of him. His gaze goes from me to him, him to me. Finally, he speaks. “I’m so happy . . . I lived long enough . . . to see Art . . . in love.”
I can’t help it. Tears roll down my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I hate crying in front of you. I just want to bring you joy.”
“You, Art . . . have always brought me . . . . much more than joy.” Stephen’s eyes pierce mine.
I bury my face in his chest. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” I keep repeating those words, thinking they might heal him.
Isn’t love supposed to conquer all?
Then let it conquer AIDS.
Reza massages the knots in my shoulders as Stephen strokes my hair. And I keep saying the words.
I want love to be enough. I’ll keep saying it until it is.
When Reza and I leave the hospital, he clutches my hand, which means so much. Usually, it’s me clutching his hand, especially in public. “When Stephen dies . . .”
“Art, don’t talk like that,” he says. “He might be okay.”
“It would be a miracle,” I say, forcing myself to accept it.
“Miracles happen all the time,” he says, looking to the sky, as if someone up there might be listening.
“When he dies,” I say again, saying each word deliberately, “I don’t think I can stay in this city. It’s just going to feel like a ghost town to me.”
“He’s not dead, Art,” Reza says. “He’s not a ghost.”
“If I go, will you come with me?” I ask desperately. “To San Francisco like we talked about? We could start a whole new life. Our life. No ghosts.”
“Art, we weren’t talking about leaving now.” Reza looks away from me
, like he’s trying to escape this conversation.
“Not right now,” I say, annoyed. “After he dies.”
“You can’t just escape your past, Art,” he says.
“You did,” I say, pushing him. “You escaped your dad. Wouldn’t it be harder if you were in Iran, in the place where all your memories of him reside?”
“It probably would,” he says. “But I didn’t choose to escape. My mom moved our family.”
“All the more reason to choose your own fate,” I say. “Don’t you want to create your own life?”
And then he says something that stops me cold. “Would I be creating my own life by following you somewhere you want to go? I didn’t even apply to any schools on the West Coast.”
Shit. He’s so right. Here I am asking him if he’d follow me, without even considering what he wants, or what he’s planned.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice laced with regret. “I guess all I want to know is that whatever happens, we’ll be together.”
He looks at me with certainty and says, “I’m not going anywhere if you’re not.”
Judy
We move in with him. We are “his” girls. He uses the possessive to claim ownership of us, and for a few days, he truly does possess us. He possesses our time, our energy, our tears, and our thoughts. We do everything we can to make him eat. We sit on either side of him and watch old movies until he falls asleep. Morbidly, he chooses movies about illness. He says it makes him feel less alone to see glamorous women dying onscreen. We watch Dark Victory three times. Suffering is so beautiful in that film, each moment of disease romantic, deserving of a sweeping score and those epic Bette Davis close-ups, her eyes misty and searching. But nothing about Stephen’s suffering is beautiful. He smells. He sweats. The diarrhea is so bad that he can’t control it anymore. My mom cleans everything: the clothes, the soiled sheets, the toilet. She tends to him like he’s her child, and not her big brother. And I get the strange experience of seeing how doting my mom must have been when I was a baby, to see how great of a mother she is. Sometimes he doesn’t make sense. He calls me José, or Art, or Bonnie. And sometimes he makes so much sense. He looks me in the eyes, his eyes being the only part of his body that still has any remnant of glow, and he says something so simple and so true. “Judy, when I’m gone, I want you to love yourself as much as I love you.”
Often, he’s angry. This is a side of him I have rarely seen. He screams at my mom, at me, but mostly at himself. He hates what’s happening to him. He’s not ready. He wants to die. He doesn’t want to die. He hates Ronald Reagan. He hates the FDA. He hates that Marilyn died before she could prove herself. He’s furious that his mother won’t come see him. He wants to hurt every bully from his high school. He wants to forgive the bullies, too. He works on a playlist of songs that he wants played at his memorial. “After You’ve Gone,” by Judy Garland. “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” by the Communards. “Friends,” by Bette Midler. “Once upon a Time,” by Donna Summer. Songs that are at once sad and celebratory. He explains to us that the best dance songs are full of longing. They’re about the desire to celebrate desire, because a dance floor is a place to morph your sorrow into grace. We listen to his song choices. Sometimes, for a few seconds, he has the strength to dance, so we dance. We belt out “The Way We Were,” by Barbra Streisand, like we’re auditioning for a girl group. The three of us. I barely sleep. My mom lets me skip school, and she doesn’t go to work. We will be there when he goes. We’ve promised that to him, to each other, to ourselves. But being there requires vigilance, little sleep. Existence is hazy. Jimmy, Art, and Reza are with us often. Activists come and go. A lawyer from the immigration firm stops in to check Stephen’s will. Drag queens sit by his bedside and sing. Only one person is missing. His own mother. My grandmother. My mom calls her twice a day, begs her to come, tells her she will forever regret not making peace with her son before he goes. But she never comes. I only talk to her once. I think maybe there will be a different result if the message comes from her granddaughter. So I take the receiver, and I say the word “Grandma,” and then I break down in tears and can’t say another word. I don’t even know if it’s exhaustion or anger or disinterest, but I realize I can’t speak to her. I don’t have the energy for her, for anyone but Stephen. I thank the heavens that he has my mom, and me, and that he created a family for himself, his queer family.
“Hey, where’s that bottle of wine?” he asks, his voice clearer and stronger than it’s been in days. In the hospital, with those tubes pulled in and out of his throat, he could barely speak. Now, his body is weak, but he can get a sentence out without gasping or clearing his throat.
My mom is roasting a chicken, hoping she can get him to eat some simple food. And I’m her sous chef, learning so much from her. How to give, how to care, how to be patient.
“Stephen,” she says, “I’ll pour you some more Gatorade.”
“Give me the wine,” he demands. “I’m done with fluorescent liquids.”
My mom stops cold. She turns to me, her eyes welling, and asks, “Judy, can you get the wine?”
I don’t understand her reaction, but I go ahead and search the kitchen for that special bottle of wine that Art’s parents gave my parents, a bottle that my mom once said probably cost more than all the wine she’s had in her life. It’s a red bottle from France, and it’s older than Stephen. I stare at the date on the bottle and I resent it. Why does this wine get to stick around longer than he does? I find a wine opener, and I realize I have no idea how to use it. I fumble with it for a few moments, frustrated. My mom approaches with a tender hand on my shoulder. She doesn’t take the bottle from me, though. Instead, she guides me. And then she pours three glasses, though mine is more like a quarter glass.
We sit by his side and raise our glasses. “To my girls,” Stephen says, and we all take a sip. The wine tastes rich and deep, almost like you can feel how old it is.
“To you, Stephen,” my mom says, with so much love in her voice, “who always lived with so much courage.”
“I had no choice,” Stephen says.
“Of course you did.” My mom runs a hand through his hair, matted and clumpy from the sweating. “You could have hidden in the shadows.”
“Maybe I’d still be alive if I hid,” he says.
I feel split open. I don’t even want to think that he could have been rewarded for living a lie. That’s not how the world is supposed to work. He’s the most honest, kind, and courageous man I know, and soon he’ll be dead because of those very qualities. Dead because he dreamed himself into existence. Because he lived in truth.
“Uncle Stephen,” I say, “don’t say that. You’re still alive. You’re still here.”
“I know,” he says. “I know, Judy, my love. But I can’t hold on any longer. And I don’t want to put you through any more of my deterioration.”
I put the wine down and hold on to his hand. “You’re not putting me through anything. I want to be here. Just hold on. Tomorrow is another day.”
“Are you quoting Gone with the Wind?” he asks, smiling weakly.
“Just trying to speak your language,” I say. I’ll quote old movies for the rest of my life if it will keep him alive.
“I always thought that movie was a little overrated,” he says. “Though I do have a soft spot for Vivien Leigh. Poor thing would’ve been so much happier with Prozac. Medicine failed us both.” Then, turning to my mom, he says, “Bonnie, can you pass me the pot of jelly beans?”
Suddenly it dawns on me. “No, Mom, don’t give those to him!” She looks over at me, confused. “They’re, like, some representation of everyone who’s gone, and when he eats them, it’s over.”
“I don’t understand,” my mom says. “These jelly beans are . . .”
Stephen pushes himself up and grabs the pot of jelly beans. “I have found my own ways to cope,” he explains to my mom. “A jelly bean for each soul I lost to AIDS. Maybe it’s crazy, but sanity is boring.” He
puts a pink jelly bean in his mouth and chews. Then washes it down with another sip of wine. Then another jelly bean. And another. “Judy, will you call Jimmy, and Art and Reza? Tell them to come if they can.”
“No!” I scream. “I won’t do it. I can’t do it, Uncle Stephen. You don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not time!” I’m sobbing now.
Stephen reaches over to the drawer of the end table by the couch. Inside are all his bottles of pills. Medication for the disease, and all the opportunistic infections, and then medication for all the side effects from the different medications. And morphine for the pain.
“You know I love you,” Stephen says forcefully. “You know that, right?”
“Of course we do,” my mom says.
“Bonnie, it’s time,” he says quietly. “Let me go.”
My mom looks inside the drawer, and she sucks in a breath. I rush to her side, and then I see. The morphine bottle is empty.
“Uncle Stephen! No!” I’m sobbing now.
He doesn’t say anything.
“Mom, we have to take him to the hospital!”
But my mom doesn’t move. It’s like she’s frozen. She just looks at him with, I don’t know, resolve. “Judy,” she says quietly, “call Art and Reza. And Jimmy. And your dad.”
“Please no,” I choke out. “Please!”
“Sweetie, do what he says,” my mom tells me gently. “The doctor said it’s a matter of days.”
“Judy,” Stephen says. “Darling, I want to go surrounded by the people I love. Let me choose this. It’s all I have left.”
How can this happen? I’m not prepared to make these calls. I don’t know how to tell a person that another person they love is dying. But I do it. Because he asks me to, and because if this is it, I want him to have as much love around him as possible. I get them each on the phone. And through tears, I somehow get the words out.
When I return to his side, he says, “Judy, you will have everything you dream of, and more. And I’ll be watching.”
Like a Love Story Page 27
