But where I got to truly know Billy was watching him create his looks for the shows. He’d invite me over days before, and we’d go into his and Paul’s bedroom, where he had a sizable walk-in closet. They kept their home immaculate; it was an older house, but it had a freshness to it. I’d sit on a chair in his room, and he would come in and out of the closet wearing different dresses and wigs. He’d raid Paul’s record collection but only selected the newer songs to test out. There was always a vision he had in mind, so he didn’t ask what I thought of the looks. It was enough for him to do a quick reading of my expression at the reveal. He could see what had a wow factor.
There were sheer curtains on the back windows over the bed, and the sunlight would stream in on the maybes he laid out on the bed. Eventually one of those dresses would graduate to the living room, along with the perfect heel and wig. The only times he outright asked for my opinion was about earrings, and even that felt like politeness. I usually had the same answer, which was the truth: “I like the chandelier ones.”
“Me too,” he’d say, with a quick nod. I imagined it was what it must have been like to have a sister growing up, and then I realized Billy and I had become best friends.
At Allison’s ninth birthday, the Memorial Day weekend of 1991, I invited a bunch of people to come to the house to celebrate her. Tim and Jim, Billy and Paul, and some more people from the bar. By then I’d opened up to Billy about how hard things were for Allison, and he understood what that felt like, to be lonely. They started to form a friendship that was almost independent of me, and he led everyone in making a big deal of her birthday.
Allison turned nine surrounded by the love of these men singing “Happy Birthday” to her. I stepped back to see her in the light of those nine candles and pretended to fuss with the camera so nobody would see my eyes welling.
With their help, she blew out the candles. I looked at them all smiling and made my own wish.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Glenwood was one county over from Hot Springs and about forty years behind. It had a beautiful little view of the Caddo River and a sawmill where everybody worked for generations. And not much else. If you came from Glenwood, people guessed you were just another idiot from Glenwood.
Chip was anything but.
He got out, made it all the way to Washington, DC, and now here he was on my doorstep. “Thank you,” he said, when I opened the door to welcome him. But his face betrayed him. There was such a sadness to it, to be stuck counting only on me. It was a beautiful face, though: Roman, with a long nose, full mustache, strong jaw and chin. All beneath a full head of sandy hair with a sharp part up the side. Aside from his sorrowful expression, he looked like he was here to ask for my vote.
He was down to one lonely box of his earthly possessions, having sold what he could as he got sicker. He kept the books that mattered to him and left behind the suits he wore as a rising star in the Democratic Party in DC. That’s where he wanted to be, with his friends. Not standing in my house, awkwardly, trying to make this seem normal.
He’d gone to his mother’s house first, but she’d rejected him: “See what you get? I told you so. Look what you’ve done to me.” His dad was already gone, dead by the time Chip was eleven. When he called me for guidance, and I offered him a place to stay until we got him an apartment, he sounded so reluctant that I asked if there wasn’t a friend he could stay with.
“No,” he said, quiet and matter-of-fact. “They’re all dead.”
So, now, here he was. My house seemed so small, and I could feel that he would give up if we stayed here too long. “Would you like me to give you a tour of Hot Springs?” I asked.
He said yes, always polite, though I quickly realized he’d already been here. We went for a walk along Central, up through the promenade along the brick path. Right at the start of the path, I stopped at the bush of wild honeysuckle. I took one of the long, tubular flowers and pulled the end off to reveal the nectar inside.
“Here,” I said, handing it to him, “taste it.”
He did. He had to have grown up doing this. We all did in Arkansas. I wanted to remind him of what was beautiful about this place too. Maybe I thought I could see his smile.
We walked along the path, and in the distance, a girl was having her graduation photo taken with her family. They stood at the crest of a little hill, with the art deco buildings of Central Avenue behind them. Just ahead of us, an older man sat on a bench, the sleeves of his white button-down rolled up his arms. His eyes were closed, taking in the sun. I knew what he would do when we got close. He rolled one sleeve down to his wrist until we passed.
“There’s a Jewish arthritis hospital nearby,” I said quietly to Chip. “We have a lot of Holocaust survivors who come here to take the baths. Mostly men. They never want you to see their tattoos.”
“The spas here were modeled after the ones in Europe from the 1900s,” he said. “Maybe it reminds them of home.”
I looked at him for a second, because I was so used to being the tour guide. I turned my head to see the man on the bench, his sleeve again up and his eyes closed. I wondered what country he imagined himself back in, the sun there falling on his skin once again.
“So, what’s your history, then?” I asked. “I can tell you went to school.”
“Henderson State,” he said. “I was in the Young Democrats and stayed political.”
“I bet you were great at it.”
“I was,” he said. We kept walking.
“You look the part,” I said. “Do you think Governor Clinton’s going to run?”
“I hope so,” he said, showing a little more life. “The Democratic Party needs a Southern leader again. It’s him.” I thought about all the letters I’d sent to Clinton. I knew he could never play dumb about AIDS like Reagan and Bush. Chip went through scenarios of potential nominees and then suddenly stopped. November 1992 seemed a lifetime away from May 1991.
Tourists were gathered at the Cascade, the only place where you can see hot water from the spring coming down the rock of the mountain. People seemed to make Chip nervous, so we moved on, all the way to Central and Whittington Avenues. I knew a place he might like: a set of stairs up to a little grotto next to St. Mary of the Springs. There’s a statue of the Virgin Mary there in a red-brick shrine, hidden from the street. She’s on a pedestal, so she looks down on you, but there’s kindness in the stone of her eyes. Beneath her, on the ground, was a large metal heart with a sword piercing it.
“Whatever their religion, or lack thereof, my guys often like to visit her,” I said.
Chip nodded, noncommittal, as we climbed the steps. “Do you smell the gardenias?” I asked, breathing in the scent. That’s what I really loved about the grotto. But the guys all came, even Tim and Jim, who told me, “We don’t believe in that shit. We’ll go up there anyway. Just in case.”
“Yeah, be nice to her, just in case,” I said. “You don’t know. She might be up there checking your ticket or something. She might be at the door.”
My guys would sit on the brick and talk to her. They’d cross themselves out of respect for the statue, and I’d slip away down the stairs to the middle level to give them space. Wait until they got antsy or turned back to be sure I was there.
Chip bowed his head, and I left him there like my other guys. As I watched the traffic go by, I could just hear the hum of him speaking softly.
Then, louder, “Ruth.”
I turned, shaking my shoulders, making like I’d just been preoccupied with the cars.
He was holding a religious flyer he’d picked up from the ground. He read aloud the words, “Our Lady of Fátima requested: Pray the Rosary.” He looked at me. “You ever hear of Fátima?”
“No,” I said.
“It’s this little parish in Portugal,” he said. “In 1917 or so, Mary supposedly appeared to three little shepherd kids, a girl na
med Lucia and her two cousins.” He looked away, like he was remembering something for a test. “Mary told them three secrets. Prophecies. The first one was something about hell, and the second one was about World War I ending and World War II starting.”
“And the third?”
“Nobody knows,” he said. “The cousins died soon after of flu, and Lucia wrote the third secret down in a sealed envelope and gave it to the Vatican. She said not to open it until 1960 or so. So the time comes, Pope John XXIII reads it, and he has it sealed up again. People say he cried. Whatever it was, he thought the world wasn’t ready.”
I had a little shiver. “What do you think it said?” I asked.
“Probably the end of the world,” he said.
“Sometimes that feels about right,” I said.
He finally smiled.
Chip stayed a few weeks with us, watching television at night with Allison. He was not someone who liked kids, but he liked her. FooFoo got used to him and would sometimes sit in his lap. By the time we got Chip his own apartment, he was already so weak. With each day, I could see his body getting weaker, though his mind remained sharp. The day he left, he took his extra pair of shoes from the box of his belongings.
“Maybe you can find a home for these,” he said.
“But they’re brand new,” I said. “They look like you’ve never even worn them.”
“These are too heavy for me to walk in.”
I picked them up, Rockports, that felt so light to me. “What do you mean, ‘too heavy’?”
“Too heavy.”
I nodded. His world was getting smaller and smaller. “Well,” I said. “I know I can bring them to the bar and let people play Cinderella.”
“Send my regards.”
“I’ll tell them Prince Charming sent me,” I said. “I can bring you to the bar, you know. It might be nice to see people.”
“We’ll see,” he said, and I knew he wouldn’t take me up on it. He was humiliated to be in this state.
Allison and I moved Chip into the apartment, and I promised to come back daily to help him bathe and bring him food. After two weeks, we had a routine going, where I would bring the newspaper and read to him until he fell asleep in a chair in the living room.
I noticed that he’d managed to shave himself over the past week and seemed to not need as much cleaning up. I wanted to tell him I was impressed, but I was afraid he would find it condescending.
I was reading something to him about Mikhail Gorbachev when I heard a key fitting into the front door. I tensed, worried it was the landlord and there was a mix-up. I stood up quick as the door flew open.
“Hello—” said the man who walked in, so happy, ready to see someone he cared for.
It was the Doctor.
He looked caught, and he looked at the door as if he could somehow undo this moment. The three of us said nothing at first. He had a key, I thought. Chip had been bathed, shaved. Cared for by someone. The Doctor.
“I am so glad you’re here,” I said. “I was just getting ready to go.”
Chip used his first name. There was love in his voice, an old love. The Doctor put down his bag but would not look at me.
I left. I was terrified of losing the Doctor as a resource, and also ashamed for him that he had to hide whatever it was he felt for Chip. Even if it was friendship. They’d known each other years back, I was sure of it. Before the Doctor was married and had a family.
Chip never mentioned the Doctor to me, but told me he had someone coming every day. “I’m glad,” I said. I continued to bring food, and as Chip got even weaker and skinnier, we switched to bone broth. I knew it was the Doctor carrying him to the bathtub.
When I next brought someone to the Doctor for testing, there was a difference. He was more formal with me, and at first his eyes darted about, not meeting mine. I was worried the door would close, and I would lose him. His advice, his prescriptions, just his presence as an ally in all this.
“This is completely anonymous,” I said to the man we were testing. “I would never betray your trust.” I said it too loud, too desperate.
Chip was down to eighty pounds when he told me he was moving to his mother’s house. She was taking him in after all, now that it was ending. I asked if he needed me to keep bringing him the broth.
“She wants to do that now,” I said.
“Okay,” I said. I wanted to ask if the Doctor would be visiting. I hoped so.
At the end of July, a man called me, some relation of Chip, who didn’t give me a name. Chip had died. The man told me Chip had asked that I be notified.
“Thank you,” I said. “Do you need help with the burial? I would be happy to—”
“It’s taken care of,” he said. “He had a plan.”
“May I . . . May I come and pay my respects?”
“Okay,” he said. The burial would be at Mount Tabor Cemetery near Glenwood, the place he tried as hard as hell to get out of. The irony of it being Mount Tabor would not have been lost on Chip—so smart, he would appreciate that. In the Bible, Mount Tabor was the site of the transfiguration of Jesus, where we hear God’s voice say, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” How many sons had longed to hear those words?
The graveyard was full of funeral plots that were sinking. That’s what happened to an old country cemetery with poor people returned to the ground without burial vaults. You have to be careful where you step in a place like that. I saw that the Doctor was there, quiet, standing apart from the family.
The hearse drove around, and Chip’s family stood back like a herd of cattle. If you’ve ever watched cattle when they’re watching something, like if somebody just had a baby, they’re all standing back in a semicircle. Even the preacher and funeral director stood back. Afraid.
I stepped forward, and then the Doctor came from behind the family. We nodded at each other and went to pick up Chip’s casket and carry it to his grave. The casket was nothing more than a cardboard box with light baby-blue cloth draped over it. The cheapest one they could do. For a second, I almost had Chip put back in the hearse so I could get something decent to bury him in. I knew he was probably down to sixty pounds, but even if he was two hundred, I would have found a way to carry him.
We set him on the boards and stepped back. The Doctor and I looked at each other, and I knew he knew that, where I was concerned, whatever he had with Chip would stay between them. The preacher said words, but nothing about Chip. “As long as people do not fear the truth, there is hope,” he said. I knew the preacher’s idea of truth—the damnation of sin—was not mine or Chip’s. It was the last-ditch hope that Chip’s soul would be welcomed in heaven. A sinner in the hands of an angry God, showing just enough fear to warrant some kind of mercy.
“The deceased asked that a song be played as we leave him,” said the preacher. There was an awkward fumbling as a male relative with Chip’s same sandy hair stepped forward with a boom box. He placed it to the side of the casket, pressed play, and moved away quickly.
As soon as I heard the opening, the aggressive beating of piano keys, I recognized it. Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young” filled the air at Mount Tabor Cemetery. The family looked shocked, as Chip sang to us all through Billy Joel, a last condemnation about choosing religion over love.
There are sad funerals, and sometimes there are funerals full of relief. This was a “Screw you” funeral. He drew back that bow and aimed that arrow straight into the heart of anyone who hadn’t loved him enough.
Part Three
Chapter Twenty-Three
It was easy to overlook Billy’s cough. He was a performer first, so it almost became an added affectation. He would laugh at something uproarious, because there was always something to laugh at, and the cough would take over at the tail end. Ladylike even out of drag, he would make a show of covering his mouth and then w
ave his other hand in front of his face, as if he were dismissing whatever craziness was before him. It was almost a badge of honor for people to have sent Billy into such fits.
There was no shortage of reasons. He smoked, and there was always some Hot Springs flower in bloom to cause allergies. And we all coughed at Our House, a boarded-up hotbox of cigarette smoke.
Billy developed a stiffness in his neck and shoulders. The tightening was in his chest too, but he didn’t tell me that. I sent him to Bill Reilly, a chiropractor who attended First United. Dr. Reilly was a kind man, whom I had gone to for care, but the doctors at church never let him into “the club,” because they didn’t think he practiced real medicine.
Once Billy was disrobed on the table, I heard later, Dr. Reilly immediately saw a stripe of painful blisters running from his side to his back. Shingles. Some chicken pox virus left over from Billy’s childhood, lying dormant for years around the spine, sprang into action once his immunity had been compromised, apparently. Dr. Reilly advised Billy to get tested for AIDS. Knowing Dr. Reilly’s kindness, I could hear him adding, “to rule it out.”
So, finally, Billy got an HIV test. But without telling me. I don’t know where he went, I just know they called him first at home. When Paul answered, they said, “Never mind,” and called Billy at the work number he gave them, Miller’s Outpost, at the mall. I only know that they told him, “You have AIDS,” and hung up on him.
He called Paul from the mall. “I’m coming home,” he said.
My answering machine had about seventeen messages from Billy when I got home. I drove right over, and Paul answered the door, ashen. Billy was devastated, his almond eyes red from crying. I sat with him and explained that while they said he had AIDS, they had only tested him for HIV. He needed to go to a doctor to get a sense of where his T cells were at. I made an appointment for the next day in Little Rock, at Doctors Hospital, and the best I could do on short notice was Dr. Rhein. He was always mildly nasty. But not nasty enough that you could call him out on it, because he kept his disgust on a slow simmer.
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