by Sword Stone Table- Old Legends, New Voices (retail) (epub)
“What are we supposed to do with these now?” Janice asked.
“I dunno,” Chuck replied.
“Should we go get someone?” Jay asked.
“No,” said Art, filled again with that mysterious confidence. “They’ll come.”
He reached into the first drum’s pouch and found a short drumstick. The other kids watched in wonder and worry. This was foreign to them all. They only knew of drums in random, vague stories. Many of the brainwashed adults in their community had told them those ways were evil.
Art gripped the hide tie that held the face of drum tight and tried to remember what Merle had taught him. He beat the drum four times, and the short, strong rhythm echoed across the field in the afternoon stillness. He started in with a steady beat, which quickly jogged his memory for the melody and words of the honor song Merle sang. They were words Art didn’t understand, but he did his best to sing them.
By the time he got to the second verse, he noticed a few figures coming along the road to the field. He didn’t recognize them at first. But even more followed. Some came from the other side of the field, seeming to emerge from the bush. Art soon realized they were the parents of the other kids; there were even some grandparents. As they approached, Art saw a few were in tears, while others beamed with joy.
Somehow, the rest of the kids were joining him in singing the song. Though centuries old, the words they sung hadn’t echoed aloud in public here for decades. The singers channeled the voices and spirits of the ones who’d been stifled and snuffed out by the authorities. There was immense power in the chorus that assembled on this late summer afternoon.
And then Art saw his parents and siblings coming down the road, too. Tears ran down Albert’s cheeks, which were elevated by his wide smile. Theresa gripped her husband’s arm tight as she wept and waved at her eldest son. They looked proud. His sisters and brother approached in wonder and excitement. The twins ran ahead, eager to join the singers.
The song reverberated through the trees. It carried across the water. Art sang the lead, with his new friends carrying the tune behind him. They lost count of how many times they repeated the same verses, but they had drawn a crowd. Dozens of their family and fellow community members stood before them, bobbing their heads and tapping their feet to the beat of the drum. And then the elders began to dance.
They were ready.
Jack and Brad and the Magician
Anthony Rapp
Jack slumped in his overstuffed, blue vinyl chair, a well-worn copy of the most recent issue of People magazine in his lap. He stared at the page in front of him: it showcased a shiny, carefully posed photograph of the effortlessly handsome, fresh-faced members of crossover R & B/pop group Boyz II Men. They grinned at the camera, celebrating the record-breaking, chart-topping success of their smash power ballad “End of the Road.” They seemed—understandably—gleefully happy, powerfully healthy, and unfathomably rich. They seemed, actually, as if they lived in an entirely different dimension from the one in which Jack currently found himself.
He blinked, dimly realizing that he had been staring at the photo for a very long time, maybe even half an hour at this point. It was becoming difficult, almost physically impossible, for Jack to keep track of the passage of time. The minutes and hours relentlessly tumbled into one another, as for weeks now, he’d found himself spending endless hours a day, day after day, slouched right here in this uncomfortable chair.
The chair was crammed into the corner of a cramped room, which also featured a small, grimy window, framing the spindly branches of a tree that had already given up most of its leaves to the chill of early autumn. But it was the remaining piece of furniture that dominated the space: a hospital bed, surrounded by mysteriously beeping and whirring machines, the machines flanked by multiple silent IV stands. All of this equipment extended tubes that impassively and inexorably snaked their way across the railings of the bed, where they then quietly and determinedly inserted themselves into the body of the young man who occupied it.
Jack finally managed to wrench his gaze away from the strangely mesmerizing photograph of the smiling members of Boyz II Men. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, then forced himself to take in the sight of the ravaged body in the hospital bed. The young man was pale and freckled, his already-thin face now almost skeletal, his once-bright red hair now dull and listless. His name was Brad, and he was Jack’s boyfriend.
Four weeks earlier, Brad had been quietly reading a C. J. Cherryh novel on the sofa when he suddenly and uncontrollably began coughing up blood. Jack had rushed him to the ER at St. Vincent’s Hospital in the West Village of Manhattan. Because of Brad’s HIV-positive status, this hospital was the only option. Brad was processed through triage and given a diagnosis of Pneumocystis pneumonia before staff quickly transferred him to a room in the city’s largest AIDS ward. He’d been there ever since.
In a way, Jack was lucky: since he worked as an accountant at a legal aid law firm, his bosses were more sympathetic than most and had been very generous with him, giving him extra time off to spend with Brad at the hospital. There were moments when he thought it might be better for him to go back to the office, to pour himself into his work, into the safety and surety of numbers and details and spreadsheets and tasks. But the idea of not being there with Brad was unconscionable. He would never be able to forgive himself if something were to happen while he was gone.
Jack drew himself up out of his hunched position, set aside the magazine, and slowly pulled himself out of the chair. He wobbled with light-headedness as he made his way to Brad’s bedside and looked down at the sleeping figure. Brad’s thin lips were parted. His head lolled to the side. He didn’t look particularly restful; he looked inert and tiny and far away.
Jack was finding it increasingly, and frighteningly, difficult to reconcile this version of Brad with the version he had met two and a half years earlier: that exuberant young man with the vibrantly red hair and crystalline blue eyes. Now all that color looked leached from Brad. Jack tenderly placed a hand on his boyfriend’s thin chest, rubbing gently. How much time was left? It seemed impossible to imagine that Brad would ever leave this place. And what would Jack do then?
“Is he still sleeping?”
Startled, Jack glanced up as Brad’s squat, energetic nurse Esmerelda strode through the door and made her way to Brad’s bedside.
“Uh, yes,” he said, steadying himself. “He’s pretty much been asleep the whole time I’ve been here today.”
Esmerelda shook her head. “Hm. Well, maybe we should wake him up a bit. The performers are here. You know he loves it when they come.”
Jack did indeed know that. Once or twice a week, an organization called Hearts and Voices brought entertainers into the ward, and their presence always seemed to energize Brad.
Esmerelda leaned over and gently squeezed Brad’s shoulder, shaking it. “Hello? Anyone home? Hello? Are you in there?” Jack watched as Brad gradually opened his eyes and then slowly blinked several times, looking bewildered. “There you are!” Esmerelda said. “I knew you were in there somewhere.”
Brad looked dazedly at Esmerelda, then turned to Jack.
“Hey,” Jack said, forcing himself to smile. Brad’s eyes seemed to struggle to focus on Jack. He licked his lips.
“Thirsty,” he croaked.
“Here you go,” Esmerelda said, deftly guiding a straw into his mouth. “Drink up.” Brad’s eyes bugged out a bit as he eagerly and rapidly emptied the cup. “You want more?” He nodded. “You sure? You’re going to have to pee a lot, you know.”
Brad nodded again, and Jack quickly grabbed the cup from the nurse’s hand, refilled it himself, and held it up to Brad as he drank. “You want my job?” Esmerelda said, smiling. “You’re good at it.”
Jack didn’t think he was particularly good at it, and he certainly didn’t want her job.
“My mother is a nurse.”
“Oh, really? What hospital? Mount Sinai? NYU? Presbyterian?”
“No, she doesn’t live here. I’m the only one from my family who’s here.”
“Oh? Where are you from?”
“Bangkok.”
“Oh, Bangkok? Really? That’s funny, I always thought you were Filipino.” Jack got that a lot, although he couldn’t see it. “But you’re Thai. That’s interesting. I don’t know too many Thai nurses. So many Filipino nurses. We are everywhere. But you never know, ha?” She laughed and shrugged.
Brad finished swallowing down the last of his second cup of water, patted Jack’s hand, and said to Esmerelda, “He’s my Thai guy.”
That phrase; Jack was “his.” There had been many long years when he couldn’t imagine that he would be anyone’s. Ever since he’d emigrated from Thailand to attend NYU in 1982, Jack had struggled against the creeping feeling that he would never easily belong in any sort of social circle. At his very first freshman orientation meeting, when the students were going around the room introducing themselves, he had decided, impulsively, to keep to himself his given name, Songwittana, and blurted out the name Jack instead. It was simple, easily pronounceable, and American. He didn’t want to burden his new classmates with not mangling the pronunciation of his name, nor did he want to withstand their attempts. It was the first definitive step he’d taken in dedicating himself to acclimating to his new life.
But even after spending the ensuing ten years increasing his mastery of the English language, which included his efforts to smooth out the rounded edges and clipped syllables of his Thai accent, he could never fully shake his fear of not being able to communicate as well as he’d like. His favorite coworker was a woman named Aaliyah, but when she spoke to him, her voice was dappled with the remnants of a Trinidadian accent that—much to his embarrassment—occasionally interfered with Jack’s ability to understand her. His fear of her finding out was undoubtedly one of the factors that had prevented them from developing a closer friendship.
But as more time passed, Jack began to realize that a key—perhaps the key—to his personal growth was increasing the breadth and depth of his interpersonal relationships. And, even more urgently, he’d begun to realize that he’d needed, frankly, to get laid.
So when Aaliyah invited him to a party at her and her girlfriend’s East Village apartment, he’d said yes, and at that party, he’d met Brad. Emboldened by a vodka and soda, Jack had shyly allowed Brad’s exuberance to charm him, and they agreed to go on a date. Now, looking back at that quiet, brief moment, as Brad handed Jack his number—all that vodka and soda causing Jack’s cheeks to flush (or was it Brad’s easy, disarming smile?)—Jack was newly amazed at how simply and completely the path of his life had been forever altered.
“My Thai guy,” Brad said again, startling Jack out of the memory. He weakly smiled at Jack. “Hey, look, I rhymed.”
“Yes, honey, yes, you rhymed. Good job, my love.” Jack held Brad’s hand with both of his own, vaguely afraid that if he squeezed too tightly, Brad’s fragile bones might snap. “So,” he said, trying to brighten his voice as much as he could, “are you feeling up for a little Hearts and Voices show?”
“Ooh, Hearts and Voices. Yes, please.”
Jack helped Esmerelda carefully shift Brad to an upright position. Brad’s shoulder blades protruded shockingly out of the back of his thin hospital gown as he hunched over, gathering his strength.
“You want to walk? Or you want the wheelchair?” Esmerelda asked in a clear, strong tone. “Up to you. But a little walking might be good, ha? Get the blood pumping, you know? Get the body moving, right?”
Jack stroked Brad’s back as Brad took several moments to respond. He seemed to be considering what to do. But more moments passed and he still didn’t respond. He just sat there, his head down, unmoving. These small episodes of Brad seeming to shut down, of him falling into a vacant silence, had been becoming more frequent, and they chilled Jack to the core each time. “Honey?” he said, trying to keep his rising panic out of his voice. There was no response. “Brad? Honey?”
Finally, Brad turned to look up at Jack and quietly said, “Hi, honey. You’re here.”
“Yes. I’m here.”
“You’re so handsome. Isn’t he so handsome, Esmerelda?”
“Yes, my dear,” Esmerelda said, glancing at Jack. “Very, very handsome. You’re a lucky guy, yeah?” She patted him on the knee. “Now come on, let’s go, we don’t want to miss the show.”
“Oh, there’s a show?”
Jack’s chest tightened with dread at this question. He willed himself to stay steady. “Yes, honey,” he said, hoping he sounded normal and reassuring, and feeling anything but. “Hearts and Voices is tonight.”
“Oh, good!”
Jack met Esmerelda’s eyes, looking for some kind of help. She nodded slightly and in a chipper, warm voice said, “Yes, it’s good, it’s very good, so come on, up we go, let’s go, you can do this, come on, we have you, come on,” and she and Jack managed to support Brad’s feeble frame as he delicately and gradually got to his feet. Jack helped to steady him as he wavered a bit, and Esmerelda maneuvered his tubes and machines into place.
“You ready, my dear? We have you.”
Brad held on to the railing of the bed and turned to Jack, grinning.
“We’re going to a show!”
* * *
—
The night’s performance began with a Broadway actor Jack had never heard of singing a couple of songs Jack didn’t recognize. He sat next to Brad in the small semicircle of chairs that had been gathered, rubbing Brad’s back. Jack struggled to quiet his mind as it darted around in the wake of what had just happened. He studied Brad’s face; based on his grin, he seemed enraptured by the performance. Brad had always been a musical theater fan and got extra excited every time his firm asked him to do PR work for a Broadway show.
Jack had mostly enjoyed attending the few Broadway opening nights he’d gone to with Brad, although he also felt somewhat invisible at the after-parties, like he was a vestigial appendage following his boyfriend around. Brad was so much more outgoing than Jack, and Jack would come home from these events feeling drained and needing intense periods of quiet to even himself out afterward.
They were different in all sorts of ways; Brad was a huge science fiction and fantasy nerd, and a voracious reader, with an ever-expanding pile of books he was always trying to get through, while the only reading Jack did was related to his job. Brad had a lightness about him, and Jack felt distinctly earthbound and serious. And yet they had managed to complement each other; Brad often expressed heartfelt appreciation to Jack for his grounded, organized, disciplined approach to making their daily lives work well, and Jack enjoyed Brad’s adventurous energy, his playfulness, and his easy warmth. After an entire adulthood of being single—dotted with very rare, random, desultory sexual encounters and a few unfulfilling dates—Jack had, from the moment they met, found himself surprisingly willing to be swept away by Brad’s eager courtship of him.
Eager but slow. While there had been a couple of pleasant, relatively chaste kisses at the end of their first two dates, it was highly unusual, in Jack’s admittedly limited experience, for gay men to wait so long to make more aggressive moves. It wasn’t until their third date that they wound up in Brad’s studio apartment in the West Village for after-dinner drinks. There, while sitting together on Brad’s couch, they had their first really intense makeout session.
Jack was thrilled that it was finally happening with this vibrant, joyful, surprisingly sexy young man. It had been so long since he had allowed himself the opportunity to feel another man’s body against his, and this one…he could tell this one was worth the wait.
But the moment he grabbed at Brad’s belt to begin unbuckling it, Brad had pulled away from him. He’d
sat frozen at the opposite end of the couch, his head in his hands.
“I…I have to tell you something…” Brad said at last, his voice barely above a murmur. Jack swallowed. He didn’t yet know Brad well enough to understand how best to respond; whether he should touch him, say anything. Long moments of silence passed. Finally, Jack reached a hand to Brad’s and held it.
“What is it?”
Brad looked down at their newly clasped fingers, then up at Jack, his eyes wide, his mouth crumpled. He took a deep breath. “I maybe should have told you before, but it’s one of those things, you know? I didn’t want to scare you away, because I really like you, I mean, I really, really like you, and you never know if something is going to turn into anything real, and I know it’s early and everything, but you’re wonderful, and I have to tell you…”
Jack’s heart started racing—this was not at all what he wanted to be hearing, and if it was what he feared, how could he possibly absorb it and not lose his shit? Still, he willed himself to stay there, in his body, and not burden Brad with his fears. He squeezed Brad’s hand. He found himself saying, with a steadiness he didn’t know he was capable of, “Whatever it is, it’s okay.”
Brad squeezed his hand back, gripping it tightly. “I hope so. I really hope so.” He searched Jack’s eyes for a moment, and Jack, his heart thudding for real now, let him. “Last year,” Brad began again, “I went through a…a really rough time. I kind of acted out a lot….I did some things that I really regret….”
“Okay…” Jack said, his mind now starting to race along with his heartbeat.
“I started, well…” Brad faltered, then began again. “I started having unprotected sex. Like a lot of it. Like…a lot. I think I…wanted to kill myself, really.” Brad buried his head in his hands once more. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”
