Michael Thomas Ford - Full Circle

by Michael Thomas Ford

  The passengers ahead of me are in no hurry to leave. They take what seems an inordinate amount of time putting on coats and taking down carry-ons from the overhead compartments. They chat easily with one another, and I am growing increasingly impatient. I want them to be quiet and move. I am anxious to be off the aircraft, both because I want to get the reunion with Jack over with and because I badly need to get to the men's room. I have never liked using the bathrooms on airplanes, and my bladder has been demanding release for the past hour. Now that I'm standing, the need to go is urgent, and I shift back and forth like a nervous child.

  Finally, we begin to file off. As I clear the doorway and enter the gangway, I step around the woman in front of me, cursing the inventor of roller bags, and walk quickly to the end. I look for Jack, and then remember that in the new age of increased security, he is not allowed to meet me at the gate. Instead, I head for the nearest bathroom. Emerging a few minutes later, I begin the long walk through Terminal 3, passing the Great American Pretzel Company, Cinnabon, and no fewer than three Starbucks before arriving, finally, at the exit. There I join the stream of travelers going out to meet loved ones and limo drivers.

  I recognize Jack at once. He is standing apart from the crowd, his hands folded across his chest. When he sees me, he waves and calls my name. For a moment I hesitate, until the force of the people behind me urges me forward and I go to him. When I get there, Jack embraces me and kisses my cheek, as if only a day or two has passed since we last saw one another.

  "You look great," he says. "So do you," I tell him. And he does. His hair is still golden, his face still handsome. He resembles his father now, but with the added grace of his mother's beauty. As we walk to the parking garage, Jack fills me in on Andy's condition. "The heart attack has really weakened him," he tells me. "Normally, a guy his age would be able to recover from it. But his heart is so damaged from all the cocaine that they can't operate. They've loaded him up with medication, but that's all they can do."

  "When did it happen?" I ask him.

  "Three days ago," says Jack. "A friend found him on the floor of his apartment." "Friend?" I say.

  "Just a friend," says Jack, understanding my meaning. "He hasn't had a lover in seven or eight years. Not since the last one died." "How did he end up in Chicago?"

  "Reuben, his last partner, lived here," Jack informs me. "He was an architect. Really nice guy." "Nicer than Jeffrey?" I say.

  Jack laughs. "I think Mussolini was nicer than Jeffrey," he replies. "I have to say, I didn't miss him when he died." We haven't discussed our own lives, and I wonder if Jack is avoiding it on purpose. I told him nothing about my life during our phone call, and asked him nothing about his. We have many years to catch up on, but we seem to be in no hurry to do it. There are many possible reasons why, and I wonder which is closest to the truth.

  In the garage, Jack stops at a Ford Explorer and opens the back with the electronic fob. As I place my bag inside, he apologizes for the size of the vehicle. "I never get to drive in New York," he explains as we get in. "I thought I'd see what it's like to be a soccer mom."

  The drive from the airport into the city proper is surprisingly long, and finally Jack begins to poke tenderly at the edges of our severed friendship. "Do you have a partner?" he asks me. I tell him about Thayer, speaking more about his art than the man himself. I'm still not comfortable with the situation, and want to be able to retreat with my secrets intact if need be. Jack listens politely, asking questions and congratulating me on my domestic arrangement. When I've said all I can about the subject, I return the favor and inquire about his relationship.

  "I'm still with Todd," he says. "Can you believe it? Twenty years. We're like the poster boys for long-term gay relationships in our circle." "What about work?" I ask.

  "Hope House closed in ninety-two," he tells me. "It turns out the executive director was skimming money to pay for his condo. I worked for a couple of different agencies for a year, then Todd convinced me to open my own practice again. I've been doing that ever since."

  "Do you still like New York?" I say. "You know how it is," he answers. "The longer you stay there, the harder it is to get out. Sometimes we talk about moving somewhere else, though. Todd thinks we should go to Toronto so we can get married. We flew to San Francisco and did it when Gavin Newsom made it legal for all of ten minutes, but it would be nice to do it for real."

  "Listen to us," I say. "We sound like old married people."

  "We are old married people," says Jack. "And there's nothing wrong with that." He looks over at me. "I was sorry to hear about your mom," he says.

  I nod. "She went fast," I say. "How are your parents?" "Dad died two years ago," he tells me. "Mom is still there. A couple of gay guys bought your old house a few years back, and she spends a lot of time helping them with their garden. They're like her best friends. All she talks about is how Sean and Christopher throw the best dinner parties, and how they take her to the ballet and go shopping with her. She loves Todd, but I think she still wishes you and I were a couple and living next door to her."

  I laugh at the image of Patricia Grace as a fag hag. It's easy to picture, and I'm glad she has people in her life now that my mother and her husband are gone. But she's also the last of our parents alive, which reminds me that Jack and I are the last of our generation as well. We have no siblings, no children to continue our lines. I have never much cared about the extension of my family name, but faced with the fact of its eventual demise, I can't help but be a little wistful.

  "We're staying at Andy's apartment," Jack says as we exit the freeway and head downtown. It's been a long time since I've been in such a large city, and although Chicago's streets are wider than most, for a moment I feel claustrophobic. The buildings rising up on either side of us create high walls, like the sides of a maze. As Jack turns the Explorer right, then left, then right again, I feel like we're searching for a way out, trying to find our way to the lump of cheese at the end. I close my eyes and focus on my breathing, a trick Thayer claims works for him in times of stress. I count to a hundred, slowly, and when I open my eyes, I am indeed more relaxed. Either Thayer's exercise has worked, or I've simply tapped into the remnants of the urbanite in me, the one who learned to live penned up like a barnyard animal whose grassy field had been replaced by acres of concrete. Although the busy-ness around me is distracting—the lights and horns and people crossing the street in front of us—I can feel myself adapting. Living in Maine, it seems, hasn't quite killed the city dweller in me.

  Jack pulls into the garage of a modern, glass-fronted building, navigating the Explorer into a spot marked RESERVED . We get out and walk to an elevator, which at the turn of a key inserted by Jack takes us to the penthouse and opens directly into a living room whose windows provide a panoramic view of Chicago.

  "Here we are," Jack says.

  "Leave it to Andy," I remark as I look around at the beautiful room.

  "That's just what Reuben did," says Jack, tossing his jacket onto a leather couch that looks as if it cost more than the entire contents of my house. "Do you want a drink?"

  "Just water," I tell him, not adding that it's been more than eight years since I last tasted alcohol. I'd held on to drinking for a while after giving up coke, but eventually I'd realized that I needed to abandon it as well. Luckily, I'd also found that I didn't miss it, and the transition to tea, water, and fruit juice had been fairly painless.

  Jack goes somewhere, presumably into the kitchen, and returns with two bottles of water. He hands me one and sits on the couch. I sit in a chair across from him, the two of us separated by a glass-top coffee table on which an orchid sits in a beautiful glazed pot.

  "We can see Andy in the morning," Jack says. "Visiting hours are over for tonight." "Okay," I say, drinking some water and relishing its cool touch on my dry throat.

  "Are you hungry?" Jack asks. He looks at his watch. "I think we can find someplace open late. There's not much here. I've mostly been ea
ting at the hospital." "No," I tell him. "I'm fine."

  "I'm glad you're here," he says.

  I'm not sure if I'm glad to be here or not, so I say nothing.

  "The place has three guest bedrooms," Jack tells me. "I'm in the first one on the right down the hall. You can use either of the other ones."

  "I'm pretty tired," I say. "I think I'll turn in." I stand up, and so does Jack. We walk down the hall and he shows me the two rooms. I choose the one farthest from his, on the opposite side of the hall. "I'll see you in the morning," I tell him, and go inside. I shut the door behind me and lock it.

  CHAPTER 58

  Even dying, Andy commands attention. The nurses who attend to him, both male and female, treat him like a child. They smooth the blanket covering his body and push his hair away from his eyes. They speak gently to him and smile when he answers. His face and hands are puffy, a common result of congestive heart failure, and Jack has warned me, so I'm not shocked when I see him for the first time. Still, seeing him so weak is disturbing.

  "Hey, soldier," I say, pulling a chair next to his bed and sitting down.

  "How's it going?"

  Andy looks at me and flashes a pale imitation of his cocky grin. "Hi," he says, his voice hoarse. I can tell he's tired, so I don't ask any more questions. I know everything anyway. I've come to see him, not to interrogate. Jack takes a chair on Andy's other side and we sit watching as he fades in and out of sleep. Sometimes he recognizes us and tries to smile, as if entire days have passed and he's seeing us for the first time since our last visit. Other times, he looks around the room in confusion, and draws his hands away from our touch.

  He's 56 years old, and yet when I look at him, I see a 19-year-old boy. I look over at Jack. "Remember when we met him for the first time?" I ask.

  "He wanted to know if we were brothers," Jack says.

  "Those stupid matching towels," I say, and we both laugh.

  Hearing us, Andy wakes up, and for a moment his expression is lucid. "Ned," he says. "Jack. I knew you guys would be here. I knew you wouldn't let me go without saying good-bye." It's as if he's been possessed. His voice is clear, and he looks from me to Jack with eyes unclouded by pain. "No," Jack says. "We wouldn't let you go without saying good-bye."

  Andy looks at me. "What happened?" he asks. "You got old."

  "I'm sorry," I tell him. "I didn't mean to."

  He coughs and closes his eyes. His chest rattles as he tries to breathe. I wonder if we should call a nurse, and start to stand up, when Andy opens his eyes again.

  "Fuck," he says. "This really sucks." I can't help laughing, although the sound that comes out of me is mixed with muffled crying. I know he's dying, but it's such an Andy thing to say, an expression of resentment for the way his body is failing him. Even at the end, he won't take responsibility. I love him for that. Those are his last words. Jack and I have both seen enough death to know when it's come, and we let the heart monitor's high-pitched wail alert the nurses. A doctor is called, and soon enough the verdict is in. Andy is gone.

  Jack and I stay only long enough to sign over the body. In a last (and possibly his only) gesture of magnanimity, Andy has agreed to let himself be used by science. I try to imagine medical students cutting him open, peering inside at his organs, poking around in the viscera as they search for answers to the body's riddles. What would they think, I wonder, if they knew they were handling the spleen and liver of Brad Majors? Would they even recognize the name? Perhaps the gay ones would. Vintage porn is, after all, making a comeback now that audiences have tired of paying money to see cocks sealed in latex. Like a populace weary of a war that has dragged on too long without resolution, our enthusiasm for protected sex has waned as the plague remains undefeated.

  Jack suggests lunch, which I agree to readily. With the exception of coffee and a bagel, I've eaten nothing since the night before. It's early afternoon, and we find a restaurant uncrowded with lunch hour diners. When we're seated, I flip through the menu.

  "This feels weird," I tell Jack. "Shouldn't we be more upset?"

  "That's one of the things about getting older," he says. "You've been through this before, and you know how it goes."

  "It still feels like someone's crossing off names and there aren't that many more ahead of ours on the list," I say. "We've lived longer than a lot of people we know," Jack reminds me. This is true, I think, but only because we've been very lucky. "I guess I've seen too many movies," I say. "I sort of thought there'd be some big final deathbed scene."

  "Do you remember the scene in Terms of Endearment when Debra Winger dies?" Jack asks. He doesn't wait for an answer before continuing, because of course I remember the scene. "Her boys have come to see her," says Jack. "She tells them she's sorry she's sick, and to not be afraid of girls, and to keep their bangs trimmed."

  "But it's okay to leave the back long," I say, remembering how the scene had made me both laugh and cry.

  "Right," says Jack. "They leave, and you think you've got a while before she actually dies. Then, just like that, she gives Shirley MacLaine this last little look and that's it, she's gone." "What is it Shirley says?" I ask him, trying to remember, and coming up with the line. "‘Somehow I thought that when she finally went, it would be a relief.'"

  "That's it," says Jack. "She doesn't scream and fall apart. But you can tell it's hit her hard, and that it's going to take her a long time to get over it." "Sally Field screamed in Steel Magnolias ," I say.

  "Sally Field screams in everything," says Jack.

  "Do you think it will hit us later?" I ask him.

  Jack sighs. "I don't know," he says. "Sometimes I think the more someone meant to you, the longer it takes. Then, one day, you realize how much you miss them."

  "We're back where we started," I say. "It's just you and me."

  Jack takes a long drink from his water glass. "Ned, there's something I have to tell you," he says. "I'm positive."

  I wait for him to say that he's joking, attempting some deathbed humor that's fallen flat. He doesn't. "I thought you were okay," I say.

  "I am okay," Jack replies. "I've got it in check, and I'll probably live as long as I would have without the virus."

  "But how?" I say. "Was it Brian?"

  "Maybe," he tells me. "I doubt it. I think I would have known way before I did if that was it. But it could have been anyone. I wasn't always safe."

  "What about Todd?"

  "He's positive, too," Jack says. "That's why we don't know who had it first. We both thought we were okay, so we weren't using rubbers."

  "How long have you known?" I ask him.

  "Since right after you left New York," says Jack. He straightens the silverware beside his plate. "I got tested after that day at the planetarium."

  "Because of what I said?" I ask. He nods. "It really freaked me out," he says. "That stuff about needing to save me and dying from love and all of that. I thought you were nuts, but I went and got tested because of it. That's when I found out. If I'd waited, I'd probably be dead. Todd would probably be dead. I had to make him get tested. He'd refused to do it because of privacy issues and confidentiality of patient records and all of that. But when I got my results, I told him he had to find out."

  "You're sure you're okay?" I ask him. "Yeah," he says. "We've got a great doctor. Plus, Todd has us doing yoga and acupuncture, and we're on this diet he insists will help us live forever. He made me give up red meat. At least when he's around. I'm ordering a steak, and if you tell him, I'll deny it."

  "Scout's honor," I say, holding up my hand.

  The waiter comes to take our order. As threatened, Jack requests a steak, and I get the chicken piccata. When he leaves, I pick up my water and drink, giving myself time to think about Jack's news. I can see him through the glass, his image distorted by the ice cubes so that he looks like a ghost, faceless and blurred. The revelation of his status isn't as unsettling to me as the irony that I, who actively sought out infection because of the same incident that
has resulted in what Jack calls his salvation, am not positive. To my initial disappointment and eventual relief, my prayers that my Mephistophelian trick had poisoned me the night of my bust-up with Jack had gone unanswered. Six different tests taken obsessively over the course of a year confirmed my failure to become one of the damned, and subsequent annual tests consistently came back negative, until finally I had accepted that I was not going to die that way. Being positive is no longer the death sentence it once was, as evidenced by the casualness with which we speak about Jack's HIV status. I know that he is more likely to expire from any of the myriad "normal" causes of death than he is from something associated with the virus inside of him. But I also can't help feeling guilty. I know that this is a reaction common to men who have emerged unscathed from the firestorm that has claimed so many of our brothers. I know, too, that it is foolish to feel this way. We all took the same chances. Those of us without the virus are not blessed or special. We are simply lucky. I know that Jack would never want me to feel guilty either. But I still do, if only a little. He says that I saved him. I think that I saved myself. Maybe, I tell myself as I drain the last drops from my glass and set it down, it doesn't matter.

  "If anyone had told me when we were twelve that when I was fifty-six I'd be living with a man and have an incurable disease, I would have laughed," Jack says. "Then again, if anyone had told me when I was thirty-nine that I'd be HIV-positive and alive, I would have laughed, too."