Like People in History

by Felice Picano

  Here was Foothill Drive. That fourth house, the pale-yellow ranch with white trim and a pale slate-gray roof surrounded by birch trees, the front entry amid rhododendron in bud, was number 172. I stood a minute, suddenly reminded of a movie I'd seen—had it been a Hitchcock movie?—set in a small town somewhere in New England, where a stranger suddenly arrived one bright day, a professor who turned out to be a Gestapo spy or informer or fifth columnist, preparing the area for a future Nazi takeover. That's exactly how I felt carrying my terrible news, bringing the horrors of last night in Matt's hospital room to this quiet, sunny town, the knowledge itself a virus, once contracted never to be gotten rid of again, and I the bearer, the infecting agent.

  Before I could change my mind, I ascended the thick slab of field-stone set in concrete and rang.

  The tall, dark-haired, heavyset man who opened the front door wore a heavy gray vest over a striped shirt. It only took a second to recognize the thick movement and slow eyes and round face and distinctive mouth of a person with Down's syndrome.

  "Hi! I'm looking for Loguidice?"

  "You Roger?" the thick-tongued voice asked.

  "That's right. Are Mr. and Mrs. Log—"

  The screen door was flung open, and I was half lifted in a bear hug over the lintel into the hallway.

  A brother, cousin, friend of the family Matt hadn't mentioned?

  "Mama!" the voice called out, still not letting go of me. "Mama. It's Roger. Matt's friend." Then more quietly: "You look just like in the pictures." Louder and off to one side: "Mama!"

  No brother: Matt was an only child.

  Seeing my expression, the man let me go. "I'm bein' a bad host. C'mon in. Sit down. Did you have a good trip on the train?"

  He guided me into a bright living room. Everywhere around us, on every table, desk, pyramid of tiny shelves built into wall corners, were photos of Matt. In his Navy uniform. On board a destroyer in his Navy work togs. In a tuxedo, with and without a pretty girl (high school prom?). In a graduation gown. On the lawn of the big Rye house, standing hugely next to his small grandmother. Playing on the lawn outside this house with a big sheepdog. On a bicycle with two other youths on their bikes. With me at Fire Island Pines, wearing nothing but tiny scarlet Speedos and carmine-tinted translucent visors, at the Red Party. With this very man and a similar-looking woman, standing next to a shining-Ford Escort, a ribbon across its hood, evidently Matt's first car. With the same two again, outside an ivied building, Colgate, where Matt had gone to school before he joined the Navy. With them again somewhere out in the country.

  "You see?" The man pushed another framed photo toward me. It was of me and Matt hugging, outside my apartment in the Haight. "That's when you first met. That's how I recognized you." Then louder, "Mama!"

  She stepped into the room, recognizable from the photos, her hair Europeanly braided in an oval flat behind her head, lustrously blond. Her pale-gray eyes were Matt's eyes, even though most of her facial features were more similar to those of her husband, the unmistakable features of a woman with Down's syndrome. Shyly she smiled at me, then allowed her delighted big puppy of a husband to pull her into the room, where I stood up to shake her hand and was surprised to have her place a breath of a kiss on one cheek.

  "Are you thirsty?" she asked. "There's coffee."

  "It's good coffee," her husband assured me. "Matt got us that professional machine that measures it out and everything."

  "It's easy to use," she agreed.

  "Sure, fine," I said. In the few years Matt and I had lived together, I'd never met and seldom spoken to Matt's parents. A phone call: "Hello, I'll get Matt." Or a word about the weather. It had always been Grandpa Loguidice, the still-active-at-eighty-eight-years-old patriarch of the family, who'd visited, who'd taken Matt and me for dinner at some crony's place on Mott Street or to a Yankee game when he was in town. I was still absorbing what Matt had and had not told me about his parents.... What had he always said? They were special.... Theirs was a love match no one had expected to succeed.... They'd flown in the face of all convention.... Yes, but the one thing Matt had never said was what that convention was.

  "This was outside the VA hospital." Matt's father was pointing out more photos. The room was lovely, beautifully furnished and upholstered. Light poured in through many windows. The coffee must have already been made, because Matt's mother was carrying out a lacquered black tray containing a celadon tea service and silver flatware, with a larger celadon plate holding various cookies—all of it probably a gift from Matt's tour in the Pacific. "And this"—another snapshot, of a smiling strawberry-blond retriever—"is Lucky, Matt's dog. Matt never got another dog after Lucky."

  The tray was set upon the coffee table, and they sat and drank coffee, and I was asked to try various cookies. "Those reddish ones are made with wine." Matt's father pointed to the biscuits. "Don't take one if you're on the wagon. They're from upstate..."

  "Syracuse," his wife said.

  "Syracuse! My cousin sends them. Can't get them around here anymore."

  "Still some Italian neighborhoods in Syracuse," she agreed.

  "Matt used to buy them in San Francisco. Ghirardelli Square. That how you say it?"

  As they sipped and chewed and talked, my despair deepened. How was I going to do this? How could I possibly tell these people what Matt wanted me to tell them? It was clear the two of them lived and breathed for their son—his accomplishments, his beauty, how smart he was, how talented he'd been in school, his successful military career, even with that terrible wound, how he'd become a poet ("Imagine! My boy!" Mr. Loguidice beamed with pride) and been published. They had the two stylish European magazines and a copy of the limited edition Alistair had arranged. ("Course, we're not good at understanding what he wrote. Are we, Mama?") How could I even hint at what Matt had sent me to do?

  For the briefest of seconds I thought, This is punishment. Matt is getting back at me. That's why he sent me here. Then I reconsidered. No, Matt sent me because it was so hard, too hard for anyone else to do, and because that's what you did for someone you loved.

  "No, thank you. I'm fine," I replied to another offer of coffee. Then feeling very awkward, "Do you think... I mean... will you?... Matt said... The next train's in fifteen minutes and if...?"

  I was rewarded with a complete lack of comprehension.

  I tried again. "Matt thought the four-twenty-four train to Manhattan..."

  "Mama?" Matt's father now looked nervous. "If I helped you clear up?"

  "Yes, of course," she said blandly, rising.

  It was agreed upon then. I almost sighed with relief. They'd discussed all this, and all I had to do was bring them and not—

  "But, Roger," she stood there, "why do we have to go to the city to see Matt? Why can't you bring him here?"

  They didn't know! Didn't understand.

  I looked to Mr. Loguidice, who also seemed to await an answer.

  "Didn't Matt... ?" I began, then I bit the bullet. "Matt's too sick to come. I was with him all day and all night. He was throwing up. He can't eat. He's lost a lot of weight. He runs high fevers. Very high fevers. The doctors said the next time he'll go into a coma and..."

  The two of them looked at me: not a glimmer.

  "Papa talked to Matt," she argued. "Didn't you, Papa?"

  "I talked to him. He said he was very sick and we had to come now."

  It seemed forever for that to sink in.

  "I don't like the city," she suddenly switched to another area of complaint. "It scares me."

  "I'll be with you every moment," I assured her.

  "I don't like hospitals," she went on. "Remember what they tried to do?" she asked her husband.

  "No one will hurt you at the hospital," I vowed.

  "Why can't we wait until Matt's better?" she asked. "Then you bring him here. That'll be nice. Papa?"

  She looked at her husband, who looked at me.

  I stared at the floor. Why must I say this? "He's... not... go
ing... to... get... better!"

  I couldn't face them. "He's... going... to... die. Your son has a fatal illness. AIDS! Have you heard of it?"

  They had. They murmured.

  "People with AIDS don't get better! They get sicker. They die."

  Having forced myself, I couldn't stop now. "Matt has been sick. Now he's going to die." I couldn't believe I was saying it.

  They were frozen in position, that same look on their faces!

  "Matt will never come back home alive! And if you don't see him today, you may never see him again." Couldn't they understand? "He's dying! Dying!"

  From out of nowhere a wail began. She lifted her apron to her mouth and lurched into her husband. He caught and held her, looking so hurt.

  I came out of whatever horrible place I'd been driven to, aware that I'd gotten my point across. "I'm... sorry," I mumbled.

  She was alternately wailing and muttering cries. It was pathetic, like a child wounded in a playground. I couldn't stand it. I backed out of the sight of her, and of her poor oversized husband uselessly trying to comfort her, backed away from the damage I'd wreaked, at last located a door, and lurched out of the house altogether, onto the flagstones. From here I could still hear her, but they must have moved into the kitchen, because now she sounded muffled.

  Would she never stop?

  I'm the cruelest bastard that ever walked the earth, I thought, dropping in exhaustion to sit on a concrete step. But if I am, then I curse the God that forced me to be so cruel to these two brave and loving people, whose impossible lives I've just now destroyed!

  Behind me, the house was silent.

  Before me, ants were carrying chips of leaf across the rock slab from one side of the garden to another. They walked on cement, avoiding the slate. I wondered if the stone were too smooth, too slippery for the ants, if the cement had tiny imperfections, enough for their legs to get better purchase. What were they doing with these leaves? Where were they going? Why bother? Why shouldn't I just crush them all? Now? Totally obliterate them? Keep them from more suffering?

  After a while, the door opened. Mr. Loguidice. I began to rise. He leaned on my shoulder to keep me down and sat heavily next to me. He took out a package of cigarettes and matches, shook out a few. When I looked surprised, he said, "In the photos..."

  I had stopped smoking, but took one. Matt's father deftly lighted two off the same match.

  Deep drag. No coughing. Instant high.

  "Mama's getting dressed. She'll be ready soon. Then we'll go with you," Mr. Loguidice said.

  We smoked.

  "She's a woman. They get emotional," he explained.

  I didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have..."

  "Matt told me on the phone.... I told Mama.... We thought... you know... maybe there was a chance he was wrong. Until we heard it from you... You wouldn't lie to us. Not Matt's friend Roger. That's why Mama's upset.... She'll be fine. She's getting ready."

  We smoked and watched the ants carrying leaf parts across the flagstones. At one point, Matt's father put an arm across my shoulder and it felt like a truce.

  "She'll thank you."

  I panicked. "Thank me?"

  "For going to the city with us. For staying with us at the hospital."

  "Matt said you don't like hospitals."

  "Did he tell you why?" Mr. Loguidice asked. A big kid, I thought. He's like a big kid. He doesn't really understand. How could he?

  "He didn't tell you," Mr. Loguidice said. Then slowly: "It's because it was at the hospital that they tried to take Matt away. When he was born. They saw he wasn't... you know, like us. They tried to take him away from us and give him to other people. But Mama held onto Matt's leg. She wouldn't let go of his leg. I held on too. We wouldn't let go. When my papa saw us holding onto Matt's leg and not letting them take Matt away, my papa said, 'Okay, you can keep Matt. But you've got to do right by him. You can't let him lack for anything!'"

  Matt's mother called from somewhere indoors for her husband.

  "It was the same leg that got shot," Mr. Loguidice said. "The leg he lost. You saw his bad leg?"

  "I saw it."

  "I read this story once...," Mr. Loguidice began. "It was Matt's book. The Golden Book of Greek Myths. He loved that book when he was a kid! I read a story in it he marked. That meant he especially liked it. I don't remember all the names, but it was about a war hero. When this hero's mother and father got married, someone was against it. She sent them a bad gift, an apple that caused a fight at the wedding. And she put a curse on the baby. So when the baby was born, his mother and father dipped him to take away the curse. I guess like baptizing. They had to hold him tight by one leg and not let go."

  "Papa?" Mrs. Loguidice called from a bit nearer.

  Matt's father stood up, groaning a little, revealing his age for the first time. (How old was he? Sixty? More? Did people like him live much longer?)

  "A minute, Mama. I'm talking now." Then to me, "This baby in the book? He grew up to be the smartest and handsomest and bravest hero ever. Do you know that story?"

  "I know the story."

  "And he had a friend he loved more than anyone."

  "Patroclus..."

  "This hero," Mr. Loguidice went on, "he was shot in the leg where he was held.... He died young too."

  I hadn't expected that. I couldn't know how far Matt's father had thought all this through; how far he could think it through, never mind come to this conclusion. I stood up.

  "Matt's not dying because you wouldn't let him go when he was a baby."

  Mr. Loguidice looked away.

  "He's not."

  A bird began calling out, twittering, chirping, a long roulade of sound. A secretary bird, Matt used to call them, at the Pines. A gray jay, I had called them. This one had a great deal to say. It went on and on.

  "I don't know, Roger. Someone didn't want Mama and me to marry."

  "It's not your fault!" I insisted.

  "It was worse when Matt was born. A lot said we shouldn't have him."

  "It's not your fault, believe me! It's not anyone's fault."

  "Well... maybe not." Mr. Loguidice interrupted the birdsong reluctantly. Then, "But you know something, Roger? If it was my fault... if I knew Matt would die now, I still wouldn't have let go of his leg.... Do you know what I'm saying?"

  To save his marriage, to prove that he and his wife were capable, despite everything: to save their lives.

  "I know what you're saying."

  "I wouldn't have let go of his leg for anything! Not for anything!"

  He crushed his cigarette against the wall.

  "I'd better go see what Mama needs."

  I finished my cigarette, suddenly tasting all the tar and crap. I crushed mine against the wall too. I didn't think I'd ever forget Matt's father's big kid's face as it had looked admitting what he'd admitted just now: sick with knowledge, sick and enraged with understanding.

  A few minutes later Mr. and Mrs. Loguidice emerged, dressed for the city, smiling, calmly bland again as though nothing had happened. They locked the house and joined arms with me, and then the three of us walked, arm in arm, through the lovely spring afternoon, through the lovely neighborhood, to the picturesque train station.

  "Final dress rehearsals are supposed to be disasters!" Alistair assured me. "It's an old theater tradition. The worse the final dress rehearsal, the better opening night."

  "Then tomorrow will outdo My Fair Lady!" I moaned. I finished my margarita and spun around on the bar stool. "Bartender. Another of these confections. Who are all these people, anyway?"

  "They are Claire's Thursday evening nine o'clock crowd," Alistair explained. Then, checking his watch: "Correction! Nine-fifteen dinner crowd! Are you certain you should? That's three on an empty stomach."

  "It's curtains one way or the other!" I insisted. When the drink had been slid into place and the empty whisked away, I said, "To... Who have we toasted so far tonight? The muse of comedy, the muse
of tragedy...?"

  "The God Apollo, leader of the muses."

  "We'll add Dionysus, God of Final Dress Rehearsal Disasters!"

  "I don't think..."

  "No? Then we'll toast Matt Dillon, who just went past into the other room. Barkeep. Send a drink to Matt Dillon. On Mr. Dodge."

  "That wasn't Matt Dillon." Alistair followed with his eyes.

  "Sure it was, and he was cute!"

  "As cute as Stanley Kowalski in our production?" Alistair asked. "Sal Torelli to you. Now, Sal is the straight one you were talking about?"

  "The very one."

  "Mr. Torelli's not bad. And he is butch."

  "A butch Harry Hay in Two Act. And a butch drag at the Stonewall," I said, and moaned, thinking of all there was that could still go wrong tonight. The first act had been bad beyond belief. The most embarrassing moment had come early, in the Thoreau, Emerson, and Stranger scene. Big Janet had actually just stood there, stood there, looking stupidly at what there was in the way of an audience (little more than half a house, even though it was totally papered), having forgotten the fact that she had an exit line, perhaps having even forgotten she had a part in the play. Not one of the others had managed to save her. Not David M., who had the next line, or Sherman, or... until Cynthia dipped the stage lights twice, activating Henry, who had not been paying that much attention himself but who—always game—jumped onstage shouting, "Back to the raft again, Huck honey. I got a hungerin' for you," before tackling Big Janet and wrestling her offstage so the play could continue.

  Worse perhaps was the end of the act: Bernard Dixon in the Casement Trial with its split stage action: front stage action accompanying the words of the Irishman's notorious private diaries, being read to the jury in back. Bernard mimed the prosecutor's lubricious words by rubbing so hard against Sal's customs inspector uniform that Torelli had a job to keep his trousers from being ripped off. Bernard's own frailer costume came off completely, revealing not only his un-Brazilian-slave-like two-toned cranberry-and-mouse-hued Calvin Klein underwear, but also a substantial hard-on. At which, his boyfriend, who'd been sitting in the third row of the audience, stood up and shouted, "Bicho! Puta! I cut it off. You wait!"