All That Is Solid Melts Into Air

by Christopher Koehler

  “Like divorce.”

  Jonah nodded. “Like divorce, except maybe there are so many divorced people that advocating killing them would be socially unacceptable, and same with the nonvirgins, but gays and lesbians? You’re what, ten percent of society?”

  “At most. I think it’s actually less than that.” Why did I feel like I was confessing a secret to an enemy spy? Maybe because with Jonah, I felt like I was hearing the first honest talk about this, and besides, he knew I was poz and didn’t care. He’d gloved right up and went to work on my cut without flinching.

  “Really? That only proves my point. There aren’t enough of you to fight back.” Jonah shrugged. “Seems kind of cowardly when I say it out loud.”

  I thought about what he said. “Do you really think that’s it?”

  Jonah shrugged. “Unless you want to talk about the ick factor.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think you want to know what I get up to behind closed doors any more than I want to know what you do.” I smiled so he didn’t think I was being an asshole.

  “As it so happens, I’m saving myself for marriage.”

  While I’d never heard Jonah engage in any locker room talk, all that really meant was that he was a gentleman. I never kissed and told, either. He looked so serious and pious when he said it, I knew he had to be kidding. I stared at him for a while to make him squirm.

  “I don’t see any purity ring.”

  Jonah burst out laughing. “Damn you and your observational skills. Why do you think no one gets after the virginity thing?”

  I leaned over and rolled everything up in the spill pads before depositing the bundle in one of the red biohazard bags I found in the first aid kit. I held the bag open, and Jonah put his gloves in there.

  “What do we do with that?” he said, frowning.

  “I’ll take it to my doctor’s office. He’ll dispose of it.” I stood up. “I think I’d better get out there and see what’s going on with the spill on the dock.”

  Jonah nodded. “That’s not a bad idea. I’ve never seen anyone so dense. What’s so hard about ‘Dump bleach on the red spots’?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m about to find out.” I sighed. I did that a lot now along with yawning, but then, sleep was but a dream.

  “I want to see this,” Jonah said with an easy laugh.

  “At least HIV is fragile. Can you imagine if it were something like TB that lingered in the air for hours? I bet I still end up scrubbing at it.”

  “HIV theater?” Jonah suggested.

  “Or maybe virus theater?”

  Jonah countered with, “Theater of the absurd?”

  “What about Grand Guignol? That was sufficiently gruesome.”

  “No way, dude, that’s only if you start slicing people open and transfusing them on stage.”

  I looked at Jonah. “What?” he said. “I’m a theater minor.”

  “Are you sure you’re straight?”

  “Well, there was that one guy back in high school. He gave righteous head.”

  I elbowed him. “Stop it.”

  All too predictably I faced a backlash of both HIV-phobia and homophobia, but as this was California Pacific, no one said anything outright, if only to avoid a fast trip to the student judiciary council. No, whispers and hisses never seemed to see the light of day.

  Jonah took the bully by the horns one morning before practice. “Would whoever’s been sounding the HIV horn kindly shut up? It’s no secret Remy’s gay, so unless you want to ride him bareback, you’re not going to catch HIV. It’s also no secret he’s got a boyfriend, so even if you do, you’re shit out of luck. He’s loyal that way, unlike some of you. I hear what you say in the showers, you know.”

  I gigglesnorted before I could catch myself.

  “Something funny, Remy?” Steven said.

  I nodded. “Kind of, yeah. This nonsense is a distraction. My viral load is undetectable. You’re not going to catch HIV from me.”

  “We don’t want your disease.” I didn’t hear who muttered it. Maybe Pendergast had, because he was watching all of us.

  Jeez, the stupid was burning hot. “Great, let’s not shoot up together, then.”

  Keith, a rower I almost never spoke to, shook his head. “Do you think it’s that easy for us to accept?”

  “It should be,” Jonah said. “This far into the twenty-first century it should be. He’s poz. It’s not the cheese touch. If he bleeds, he takes precautions. You all saw that. Some of you had a hard time following directions, but you saw how careful he tried to be.”

  “Aren’t you all religious and shit?” This was from Austin, someone I really never got a reading on. He rowed at three. Three was where coaches buried lousy rowers.

  Great, it was already out of hand. “No, he believes in God. A little respect, please. We’re a crew, or supposed to be. We all have an HIV status, and mine happens to be positive. You can’t catch it from toilet seats, using the same drinking fountain, or being in the same boat with me. The virus doesn’t survive long in the open air, so pouring bleach on it was more along the lines of virus theater than a medical necessity. I take my medication as directed and take care of myself, so my viral load is zero. To spell that out for the nonreaders among you, that means I’m functionally uninfected, although there is as of yet no cure.”

  That whole time, Jonah had been shaking his head, and Pendergast looked like he’d been ready to murder someone. “Wonderful, boys. Five and six seats appear to be adults, but the rest of you? The jury’s still out. Do you mind if we row boats today? Be on that water in ten minutes or less.”

  Pendergast stalked off muttering to himself. Steven looked over at me and crossed his eyes. What the hell did that mean? Did Peevie Stevie have a sense of humor? No way.

  I STOPPED measuring time like normal people. I followed only Lodestone’s training plan and had gone so far as to map all of my school dates and deadlines onto that. It made everything easier to tolerate. I needed any advantage I could leverage.

  I had endured one of Lodestone’s weekly erg tests when I heard something I was fairly sure I wasn’t supposed to. For starters, the way I worked off the horror of a six-thousand-meter test on a rowing machine was by rowing it out, a nice long piece afterward, no pressures, no demands, only me and the ergometer and, usually, my iPod. But since I’d spent that test listening to something moderately appalling to help me test well despite the constant fatigue, I wasn’t listening to anything. I used the earbuds to block the sounds of the erg—it was noisy—but otherwise it was me and my thoughts.

  And then Lodestone pulled Michael into his office. They left the door open. Why shouldn’t they? As far as they knew, I was in my own little iPod-generated world, me and Kill the Wendybird.

  “So talk to me, Michael. What’s going on?” Lodestone said.

  I heard Michael sigh. “It’s all so stupid.”

  “I see. Can you narrow that down?” Lodestone said. “Maybe to Mrs. Zimmer’s class?”

  “I should’ve known she’d call you.” Michael sounded bitter.

  Lodestone sighed. “When you’ve been five minutes late every day for twenty days in a row on purpose, then yes, she calls me. She knows your parents are… difficult, so she’s doing you a favor. Please don’t roll your eyes, Michael.”

  Michael grunted. “Look, I’m already into Brown, so high school is borderline irrelevant at this point. So long as my As don’t turn into Fs, I’m golden.”

  “I don’t think it’s quite that—” I lost the thread of the conversation at that point, but if I slowed down to hear better, I’d give myself away. Damn.

  “—it didn’t even make sense. I mean, what, I’m not gay but my fag boyfriend is?” Michael was saying.

  “No, I agree, Davis isn’t nearly as liberal is it’s reputed to be, but I also know Davis High is being very careful about hate speech, particularly in the wake of a certain recent lawsuit. If you report that comment, they’ll be all over
it.”

  Michael exhaled noisily. “It’s… it’s everything, Coach. I’m done with Davis, and we all know it. I’m ready to blow this Popsicle stand and start the next phase of my life, and can I do it already?” His voice had risen steadily until he all but yelled. “I look at each page on the calendar, and it’s one goddam day after another with the same stupid routine that goes nowhere fast, and in the meantime there’s Remy, pulling on the erg or rowing in a boat eight hours a day, happier than a pig in shit, and I never ever see him. I can only sit here with a fixed smile on my face and pretend to be the supportive, loving boyfriend for so long, you know.”

  No one said anything for a while, at least that I could hear. This was a good thing, because my mind spun faster than the flywheel on an erg in a two-thousand-meter test. I knew Michael was restless and yeah, maybe not so happy with my training. I had some idea how unhappy he’d grown, but it sounded like more than that, too. Of course, Brown was news. Interesting. That wasn’t in Boston, the city where we’d planned to go to school, the city where I’d realized I couldn’t go and lacked the stones to tell him. Oh what a tangled web and weaving and deception or something. Stupid commonplaces.

  Why did my grandparents’ words keep coming back to haunt me, over and over and over? Sac up and grow up, Remy. That’s not what they’d said, but it’s what it had all amounted to. I’d let this go on so long it would blow up in my face when I dealt with it. There would be no other possibility.

  “—so no more of this passive-aggressive nonsense, Michael, d’ya hear me? If you have a problem with crew, you talk to me. If you have a problem with Remy and his training, you talk to him, or you ask him to come see me together with you.”

  “I guess. It’s… I know how much he wants this,” Michael said.

  “Not wants, he needs it.”

  Michael sighed. “I know he does, which is why I don’t want to say anything. Why does everything have to be so difficult?”

  “Welcome to the grown-up world you’re in such a hurry to join,” Lodestone said. I could tell he was trying not to laugh. “You have to consider your partner’s needs, maybe even more than your own. But then again, your own needs have to matter, too. Short-term sacrifice is one thing—so long as you both know the score—but obliviousness to your own suffering isn’t fair, either.”

  “Do I have to grow up?” Crap, Michael was whining. That never boded well for my immediate future.

  Lodestone cleared his throat. “There’s a lot I could say here, but I’ll stick to yes. Now go wait for that boyfriend of yours. He should be done sooner or later.”

  I pretended to be engrossed in my rowing as Michael emerged from Lodestone’s office. When he came over to me, I waited a couple of strokes before I looked up and smiled. “Oh, hey.” I stopped and yanked the earbuds out. “What’s up?”

  I could be an awful little liar.

  “Will you be done soon?” Michael seemed so quiet, but duh.

  “How about now?”

  “You’ve recovered from whatever it was you were doing?” However resentful he might’ve felt, Michael at least appeared genuinely concerned that I take care of myself.

  I nodded. “I need to stretch, but really, I’ve had enough of the ergometer for one day. Or a hundred.”

  As I stretched—more of a short yoga routine—I said, “Let’s go back to my parents’ place. I’m training like a fiend, but spring break starts Monday, and the dorms are closing.”

  “Again?” Michael made a face.

  I nodded. “Apparently the school saves a ton of money by shutting off the utilities. Since I’m speaking to my parents these days, I’m going home. Besides, Geoff’s here, and you haven’t seen him and Laurel for a while, have you?”

  Michael cocked his head to one side. “Am I allowed over there?”

  “Oh yes. I won that round.” I grinned viciously. Dumbest thing my parents ever did, that. Depending how cranky I felt come October, I might even throw a little commemorative fete right before I left for Boston.

  “I get the feeling—” A frown marred Michael’s handsome face. “—that you don’t lose many.”

  “It may look that way, but that’s because I’m careful with the ones I’m involved in.” I stood up and gathered my gear before taking a long, slow drag off my water bottle.

  “You didn’t used to be. You used to fly off the handle and not back down.” Michael smiled faintly, remembering. “Then you’d drop a cluster of R-bombs, and it’d be nuclear winter and the zombie apocalypse.”

  I snorted. “I got lucky, and my opponents were usually lazy or careless. Now? I’m trying to choose more wisely.”

  “Uh-oh.” Michael actually looked afraid. “Heaven help the rest of us. You being a loose cannon was our only advantage, you know.”

  I was almost positive he was joking.

  Chapter 23

  MOM AND Dad were out doing… I wasn’t sure what, but I took the opportunity for what it was and enticed Michael into the shower with me. We both needed to clean up and wash the stink of practice off us, right?

  “What are you two doing in there?” Geoff singsonged when he heard us.

  “Conserving water!” Michael sang back, since I couldn’t. It was rude to speak with your mouth full.

  After we dried off and made ourselves comfortable in sweats, I dragged us back up to my bedroom with a tray of food. Geoff and Laurel were in the living room, and this way we stood a chance at privacy, a slim one, but a chance nonetheless.

  “So what’s college like?” Michael said when we were settled on my bed, like old times, almost.

  I sighed, for once lately a sigh of relief. “You’ll love it.”

  “I thought so. I’ve been watching you all year.” Michael hooked my foot with his. “I can’t wait to get out of here and head east.”

  And there it was, probably the best opening I’d have. Time to take my lumps.

  “I heard your conversation with Lodestone. I’ve got something I need to say.” I closed my eyes to the sadness I felt. When I opened them, I saw Michael staring at me, utterly unsurprised.

  “I figured there was something going on.”

  “What? How?”

  Michael caressed my cheek. “Sweetheart, you are one of the most complicated people I know, but in some ways you’re also one of the simplest. Things haven’t been quite right for a while. Is it you, is it me—”

  “Is it history?” we finished together.

  “We’re both too young for Psychic TV.”

  Michael tapped me on the nose with his finger. “Remy? You’re stalling.”

  I exhaled noisily. “Give me a moment. This isn’t easy.” I thought for a bit. “Okay, we’ve always had the Plan, right? Where we both go to school in Boston?”

  “Yes….”

  “I can’t go to school there, and from the sounds of it, you’re not, either.”

  Michael frowned. “No, not exactly, but Brown’s not that far away. What do you mean you can’t go to school there? Did you not get into Boston University?”

  “I didn’t apply.”

  And the silence crashed down around us.

  “There’s no way I heard you right.”

  “Apparently you were never going to go to school in Boston, either.” Why did that feel like a betrayal? I had no right to feel that, but why?

  Michael shook his head. “I applied for schools in New England because you were going to go to Boston. I mean, look at a map, Providence isn’t that far from Bos—what the hell, Rem? You’re not even going to BU. That’s a pointless objection. It’s nothing but a smoke screen. Your parents even promised you that you could transfer to BU. So what gives?”

  “I toured it before the Head of the Charles last fall. There’s no way I can make it work. The crew’s top notch, of course, although now that I’m training for the U23 team, I don’t know about that, but academically I couldn’t see myself there. I still can’t.” I hunched my shoulders, like I could hide in bad posture or something.<
br />
  “When the hell were you planning on telling me this? When?” Michael looked furious, and I couldn’t blame him.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been meaning to for a while.” I tried not to sound as pathetic and stupid as I felt. “Why can’t you go to CalPac?”

  “I don’t want to go to CalPac.” Michael looked at me like I was a moron. “I’m sick of this area. You were the one who said he heard everything when Lodestone scragged me for skipping class. You’ve been so hung up on BU I thought I was safe looking east. Then I was recruited by Yale and Brown, and I’m very attracted by Brown’s acceptance and social activism.”

  I made a face. Great, just what the world needed, another social justice warrior. “What’s its crew like?”

  Michael groaned. “The men’s crew is fine, Rem.”

  “‘Fine’? That’s a ringing endorsement.” That one slipped out, and as soon as it did, I knew I’d fucked up.

  “Not everyone walks around with an oar up his ass, and as I recall, you didn’t want to go to CalPac, either. Your parents pulled a fast one, and the only reason we all weren’t treated to one of your famous hundred-megaton R-bomb clusterfucks is because you were still too sick for an explosion like that. They gave you a contract for BU, but you’re the one who’s breaking it.”

  “Sometimes plans change. I didn’t expect to like—no, love—California Pacific, and then—”

  “That’s right, Rem, sometimes plans change. I would like to have been informed when ours did, but apparently I didn’t get that courtesy,” Michael said, all but spitting in his rage.

  Everything Michael said was true. Okay, the R-bomb crack hurt, but Michael had a right to his feelings, and I had no right to blame him for being pissed at me. But when the one thing I thought I could cling to turned and savaged me—with or without justification—I knew why I’d put off telling him. This fucking killed me. He was—had been—my source of support, the one thing in my life I knew I could count on. Yes, I lived for crew. I had to in order to sacrifice everything else for a shot. Without Michael to share it with, it felt hollow.