All the Young Men

by Ruth Coker Burks

  We watched Dark Victory together, Billy murmuring some of Bette Davis’s lines with her. It was real medicine, watching her as Judith, who was lied to that her brain surgery was a success, and everyone but her knew she was going to die. When she realizes, there is comfort there, and Billy said the words with passion: “What we have now can’t be destroyed. That’s our victory—our victory over the dark. It’s a victory because we’re not afraid.”

  Then that coherence began to slip away too. In mid-May, Paul told me Billy’s mother called. “Is he still alive?” she asked him, her voice that of a Southern belle.

  “Well, yeah, I would call you.”

  “You know that when he dies that you need to put pennies on his eyes. Because if you don’t close his eyes and put pennies on them, they won’t be able to close his eyes for the funeral.”

  Paul said nothing. She continued. “And make sure you straighten all his limbs out. Because they’ll have to break his bones if you don’t.”

  Paul, sweet, graceful Paul, thanked her for the advice.

  On May 19, a Wednesday, I went over in the morning. Billy was in bed, moving to a fetal position. I knew what this meant but refused to fully understand it at the same time. He had been in and out of consciousness and was cold despite the blankets on him. I got into the bed to spoon him and keep him warm.

  “Billy, I love you with all my heart,” I said. “You have always known that you are special, I know. And you are. I am so thankful that you took me into your life. Sometimes I feel like Dorothy in Oz—my whole world went Technicolor the moment I saw you.”

  “I love you, Ruthie,” he said softly.

  He slept, and I continued holding him. We breathed in unison, a slow rhythm that I committed to memory, like a song I could remember for the rest of my life.

  Billy took his last breath the next day at four o’clock in the afternoon. Paul was with him, holding his hand.

  Paul called me. “Billy just died,” he said. It seemed so bizarre that something so important, so monumental had happened and I didn’t know. “It just happened,” said Paul. “I didn’t expect it. He was just gone.”

  I went over, leaning forward at the wheel and driving as fast as I could. It’s strange now, realizing that I thought that maybe Paul was mistaken. That this was just something like a sleep. That I could revive Billy. How many times had I been in this exact scenario, knowing a soul had left a body? And now I couldn’t fathom it happening to Billy.

  But he was gone. I straightened him in the bed and closed his eyes.

  “He knew who he was today,” said Paul. “He knew who I was. He hasn’t, but today he did. He knew he was loved.” He started to cry, and this time he let the tears fall. “He even ate this morning. A little cereal, he hadn’t eaten . . . uh, hadn’t eaten regular food in a long time. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I said. “I love you so much, Paul. And I know how much you loved each other. Don’t ever be sorry for loving someone so much.”

  I worried about Allison losing Billy, and later I tried to talk to her. She was quiet, letting me go on. Then she said, simply and with sureness: “I’m relieved for him. He suffered so much.” She was on the edge of eleven, and she already knew that it would be selfish to want people to live past the point that they were ready. I nodded, trying to take that in.

  I called Mitch to tell him. He came over. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know how much Billy meant to you.”

  “I’m just so shocked,” I said.

  He made a face. “Well, this can’t be a surprise. We’d known he was dying for months. Longer.”

  I shook my head because I didn’t want him to see how much that hurt me. “I’m just gonna take a bath,” I said.

  I closed the door and turned on the water full blast. I got in right away, and the water began to envelop me. It was so hot it was almost scalding, but I didn’t care. The room filled with mist, and the thunder of the water would hide the sound of my sobbing. I curled my knees up, and my whole body heaved with grief. It took me over, a physical pain so pent up and overwhelming I thought it would kill me.

  I slowed my breathing to the rhythm Billy and I shared the night before, hoping that would help. It did not.

  “We’ll bury him up here,” she said. This was Billy’s mother. I had called to tell her he was gone. I winced when she said that. I had hoped to bury him in Files. She lived an hour away up north, the very place he had fled. I had only the slightest catch in my voice. “You know he loved it here . . .”

  “Nope, our son died of cancer, and he’ll be buried up here.”

  “I would like to come,” I said.

  She paused a long time. “You can come,” she said.

  “Well, I appreciate that.”

  “But I don’t want any of those faggots at the funeral.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said.

  I clicked the receiver with a long nail to hang up on her. “Fuck you,” I said.

  When I got the details, I proceeded to call everybody I knew to tell them the plan. “If you can get a day off from work . . .” I said. Most of them worked nights or were too sick to work anyway. I had never really asked them for anything before, and even if I hadn’t called in favors, this wasn’t for me. They would have done anything for Billy.

  The day of the funeral, I led a twenty-two-car caravan of the fiercest queens I knew up to Dover, just northwest of Russellville. I rode in the front of the line with Paul, Allison, and Bonnie, and it felt like I was leading a small army on Highway 7. It’s a beautiful drive, going through the forests of the Ouachita mountains, mile after mile of pine tree plantations. They left the trees looking normal along the perimeter so people don’t complain, but behind them they were chopping them all down. It was all about keeping up appearances.

  I hit my turn signal to make a right into the parking lot of a Quick Stop. I knew they had a bathroom. All the drivers behind me followed suit, and I saw an attendant’s face go through four stages of shock as all the queens that had crammed into the cars piled out at one time.

  Marshall came up and put his hand on Paul’s shoulder. “Girrl, this is country right here,” he said. “I’m scurrred.” This got a laugh out of Paul, and Marshall doubled down once he saw Paul smile. “I bet they get their mail from a covered wagon. I feel like the only chocolate chip in the cookie. I don’t know what they’re gonna do to us up here. I know they have them meetings up here.”

  When we finally made it to the funeral home, I could see our entrance terrified everyone. We sat in the back and still took up half the seats. The funeral directors kept talking loudly, huffing that their reputation was ruined. It was bad enough they knew Billy had actually died of AIDS, not cancer. Now this.

  Everyone was staring at Billy’s mother, who refused to acknowledge us. She was dressed like this was a funeral on Dynasty. The amount of time she must have spent on her hair and makeup.

  As each of us went up to see Billy in his casket, it began to pour outside. You could hear it on the roof. I knew that it wouldn’t occur to Billy’s family to let Paul have a moment alone with Billy before moving him to the cemetery. It was way out, probably an hour’s drive, and most everyone we came with was going to go back to Hot Springs after the funeral home.

  “Paul,” I said quietly, “just sit in your chair until everyone’s gone.”

  I went to the main funeral director, who was by the door, probably watching the queens to make sure they didn’t walk out with anything. “I have a man here who was very close to Billy,” I said. “He’d like some time alone with him after the viewing.”

  “We can’t do that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s for family only.”

  I dropped politeness.

  “He’s more family to that young man than his family ever was.”

  “We would have to ask the famil
y.”

  I almost grabbed the lapel of that funeral director’s jacket. “Come on,” I said. “We will do that then.” I dragged him through the funeral home, to the back door, and I looked right at Billy’s mother. “Tell him that it’s okay for Paul to spend time with Billy.”

  She looked at me, and I wasn’t sure if it was shock or just fear on her face. “Oh, well,” she stammered. “I guess.”

  “See?” I said to him.

  People started to leave, and Bonnie and Allison took a ride back with the queens, so Allison could go back to school. After the last visitor left, I went over to Paul. “I’ve talked to everyone,” I said. “This is your time. Take as long as you want. I’ll be outside when you’re ready.”

  I stood outside the parlor with the funeral director as Paul had a private moment with Billy.

  “How long is this gonna take?” the funeral director asked me.

  I looked away. He wanted me to know he thought I was getting away with something wrong. I thought about the time Billy was sick and said he wanted strawberries. How Paul asked him, “Do you want them cold or room temperature? Cooked down or raw? Narrow it down, because whatever you want, I’ll get it for you.” Anything Billy wanted, Paul got, whatever it took. And this pathetic excuse of a man had no idea what that kind of devotion meant, and he didn’t deserve an answer. The denial of real love—that was the perversion.

  When it came time for us to go out to the cemetery, it was just the immediate family and Paul and me. It was pouring down rain from the thunderstorm, and we could barely see where we were driving. Still, the cemetery was in the mountains, and even in the rain I could tell it was the perfect place to leave Billy. If I’d had my pick, this would be it. He could be up here looking down on everyone.

  There was a tent set up at Billy’s grave, and his family was already in it.

  Paul and I had one umbrella between us, and we rushed through the rain to get to the tent.

  “This is for family only,” Billy’s mother said.

  We stood there in the rain for a minute, away from them, huddling under Paul’s umbrella. And I gritted my teeth.

  “Paul,” I said slowly. “Throw that umbrella away. We’re gonna stand in the pouring rain, and we’re gonna get as wet as God wants us to get.”

  I paused.

  “And then we’re gonna hug every member of that family, so they know what they did to us. So they can feel what they did to us. All of us. Because they are assholes.”

  Paul put the umbrella down.

  “Ruthie, I love you.”

  “I love you, Paul.”

  We relaxed into the rain and let it fall on us. Anything for Billy.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Billy’s breathing therapist sent Paul a letter. It arrived the day after the funeral, and he read it to me.

  I just wanted to send you a note to say I’m sorry about Billy’s passing. I wanted to thank you because I’ve learned so much from taking care of Billy. I realize you’re people just like everybody else. You get up, you have your coffee, your breakfast. You just want someone to love. You have a house just like mine. Everything is just the same. Billy was just a person like anyone else. Hopefully this will make me a better nurse and a better person and be able to take care of the next person.

  Paul said he was going to save the letter. “Because I could have went off on her, and been mean, and said ‘I don’t want you here’ and ‘I’m gonna sue you.’ Instead, all it took was a few weeks of, ‘Would you like some coffee?’ ‘Would you like some coffee?’”

  I smiled and thought how wrong she was about Billy being a person like anyone else. He was a comet that burned bright, appearing once in a lifetime to briefly astonish and live on only in memory. But I was glad she was there for Billy and that she had written to Paul.

  Paul got another letter right after Billy died, one from the people that owned the house he rented. It said this was his thirty days’ notice, that they’d sold the property, and he needed to move out. Mother Superior too.

  “They had said I could live here forever,” Paul told me. “I’ve had no reason to believe I wouldn’t.” He had a few weeks to move out a houseful of memories of Billy and find a place to start over in. His sister had a house on Hobson Avenue, and she had converted her garage into a sort of apartment. I helped him move in, and he gave me the red Victor Costa dress Billy loved so much.

  “He wanted you to have this,” Paul said. He seemed so sad, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he was cramming his whole life into such a little space, or if it even mattered, because nothing mattered without Billy.

  I was in a stupor for a long time, distracting myself with the needs of others. There was endless need to bury myself in. I gathered donations to pay for a trip to San Francisco to attend an AIDS conference on social work. It was easier than it used to be but not by much. One bank would ask me what the other had given me. “Well, they gave me three hundred and twenty-five dollars.”

  “Well, I’ll give you three hundred and twenty-five dollars,” said a rival banker. And then Turf Catering, Johnson’s Cleaners . . . I marked each donation in my ledger and wrote my donors’ thank-you notes, promising them all they were helping to save lives. Because I believed they were. Even if they just gave me the money to get me to go away.

  I arrived at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco on June 23, so excited because there were going to be people there who I could talk to. The theme of the 1993 conference was “Building Bridges—Caring for the Caregiver.” I had the packet with me as I walked in. “Dear Colleague,” it read, “Welcome to San Francisco.” I was a colleague.

  I spent the day talking with people, just listening in the hotel’s opulent, gilded rooms. Under the bejeweled chandeliers, there was a lot of talk about the international AIDS conference that had just happened in Berlin. People shared bad news about the preliminary results of a study on AZT, showing it didn’t prolong the life of symptomless people. I still had hopes for a vaccine and cure, and that was scoffed at. They said it clearly: there was no reason to hope for a vaccine before the end of the twentieth century. We should understand that the best thing we could do was to learn how to cope with never-ending loss. Get used to it and focus on prevention.

  I had planned to return to Hot Springs with news of hope.

  A man came up to me. He was in a position of authority at the conference, so I was flattered. He said he was intrigued by my work in Arkansas. “I’m having some people up after this,” he said. “A small group discussion in my suite. I have a conference room attached. I’d love to hear more about how we can all work together.”

  “Oh, thank you,” I said. “That would be great. It’s been really hard. I am just really desperate for help.”

  He told me the room number, and I went up there at the appointed time. The latch was turned out to keep the door open, so I thought it must have already started. I knocked and let myself in.

  “Hello?” I said, Miss Professional.

  He was lying on the couch in his robe. It was open, and he was touching himself.

  I looked down. What little hope I had saved from that awful day of news left me.

  I had dealt with weenie wavers since I was a kid. I’d learned to humiliate them so I wouldn’t show how humiliated I was. I’d say, “I’d be too ashamed to have that out in public.” Or, “Jesus Christ, is that all you got?” They’d get pissed and run off.

  But that night I was just broken. “You’re doing this to me at an AIDS conference?” I said as he covered himself. “I just lost my best friend. And before him, everyone that I cared for, and I know I will keep losing them. I am doing everything I can to survive this, so I can help people. And I keep losing them. I just keep losing them. And this is what you do.”

  I turned before he saw me cry, walking backwards down the hall in case he followed me. I hit the elevator butt
on twice, then again, willing it to come faster.

  I didn’t tell anyone. I was too humiliated. I wanted to be a colleague.

  Paul and I sat in lawn chairs in my yard, and usually we could cheer each other up by talking about Billy. It was September 1993, and he had been gone four months. We had started the thing you do, where you collect the stories you’ll tell over and over again. You begin to polish the edges of a memory—something funny he said or a specific performance—until the edges are smoothed and the story is comforting.

  But that day there was no breaking through Paul’s depression. “I’m just miserable,” he said. “I’m miserable where I live. I’m sad Billy’s gone. I’m just sad about everything.”

  “Well, let’s see what we can do about this,” I said. “Let’s take the first thing. You don’t like where you live. Let me work on it, and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  I knew an elderly woman who was moving out of her place on Morrison Avenue, closer to where he had lived on Oak Cliff. I brought Paul there. It was the cutest brick house, built in the 1930s, with a gorgeous fireplace. You walked in the door, and it had a big living room, just waiting for you.

  “Do you like the house?” she asked Paul.

  “I love it, but I don’t think I can afford it,” he said.

  “Well, God told me he wanted you to have this house.” God was a better realtor than me. She asked him what he was paying now.

  His rent was practically nothing, because it was his sister. He told her the number, and she said, “Well, that’s what your rent will be here.”

  I looked at Paul and asked, “When are you moving in?”

  When we got in the car, I laughed. “Now, what else are you sad about?”