Tim, trailing three more bags of chips from his platinum fingers, strutted toward the suicide seat. It was time to move on, leaving Boulder behind us.
The road climbed, we climbing with it at a steep angle. As we ascended, the pines were taller, the road rougher. Cabins peeked out from the brush lands besides rushing waters. I wanted to jump out, grab a fishing pole and do my best Huckleberry Finn. Shame I don’t fish or eat fish, or have a deep Missouri accent. Soon the cabins gave way to homes, some chalets and others, ski lodges. We approached Estes Park, a resort that, during the summer hiatus, doubled as the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. The place tumbled out around us, and soon we were in a bustling community of shopkeepers and tourists. The town green hailed charming, sporting restaurants, souvenir shops, clubs and more than one mural painted on white washed walls in an attempt to summon an Alpine atmosphere. Who needed paintings for that? The mountains did that mighty fine.
“Glad we don’t have Moorehouse with us,” Padgett snapped. “He’d be comparing these unfavorably to his latest Bavarian jaunt.”
That was true enough. I was glad Todd was not with us, because I couldn’t put up with both of them today. Although they would kiss and make-up back in New Jersey, the separation of the milk from the cream suited me fine now, although we were stuck with the milk, and that milk was sour.
The day was pristine, sunny, a cloudless, royal blue sky. A chill kissed the air and the place felt . . . Christmasy. I wanted to shop for ornaments and I knew that there must be a year ‘round Christmas shop tucked along one of these quaint lanes.
“We’ll eat first,” Russ said.
No arguments here. It might take us an hour to decide what to eat, but that was part of the landscape, as sure as the mountains came before the faux chalets. So Russ parked and we popped out of the Honda like birds from the cage, only . . . when I took my first step, the faint feeling returned. I thought I would fall.
“Holy cow,” Matt said.
I saw that he was having problems too. I grabbed his shoulder. I don’t mind wobbling about if I earned it with a pitcher of Cosmos and a beer chaser. But this was a non-alcoholic drunk and it worried me.
“What’s going on? I feel like I’m at a funhouse.”
The street spun. I noticed that Padgett had spun too, landing on the curb, his head bobbing like a pullet. Tim giggled, and then did his best impression of Frankenstein’s monster. He was enjoying the sensation, no doubt.
“It’s the altitude,” Russ said. “It was mentioned in the guidebook.”
He looked no worse for wear, as pale under the malady as he was when he stopped for gas. Matt pulled me toward a shop front. I thought I was going to heave.
“Just settle down,” Russ commanded. “If you stand still, close your eyes and take deep breaths, your inner ear will resolve itself.”
“When were you going to tell us about this?” Padgett complained.
“Didn’t you read the stuff that Desmond handed out about traveling in the Rockies?”
“Obviously not.”
I closed my eyes, and then controlled my breathing — deep breaths.
“Blow into your cupped hands, Pumpkin.”
I did so and that seemed to work. Imagine what mountain climbers on Everest must go through if I had to hold on for dear life just a bit over a mile high.
“We’re getting there,” I said.
“It’ll pass,” Matt said. “We’ll be okay to ride to the summit.”
I felt like telling him that I was as high as I wanted to go, but if I could manipulate him into a hall of weepy people, I could at least return the favor by letting him murder me on this mountain.
“Once I get my head together,” I said, thinking that it would never happen. “Once I’m steady, we’ll take a stab at it.”
“Well, up then,” he said, giving me a hand up.
It was a tenuous boost, but I made it up. I opened my eyes. The world was steadier and I laughed. It was a giddy feeling, this mountain high. I had heard the expression — even heard of mountain sickness, but I always thought it was a joke told to greenhorns.
The others were coming around, but fast we weren’t. Ice skaters new on the pond came to mind.
“I could kill a hamburger,” Tim said. He had recovered, if he even realized anything was wrong.
“I could puke one up,” I said.
“Something fizzy to drink,” Padgett added. “That’s it. A tall seltzer water.”
And that sounded good to me. In fact, it became a personal and immediate goal.
There was a bistro two blocks away. By the time we reached it, I was walking less drunk than weary. My stomach rumbled, so I ordered a salad and kept the ranch dressing on the side just in case it provoked an embarrassing response.
Estes Park was idyllic. I anticipated a good shopping day and even rearranged my luggage in mind to accommodate the unbought booty. Best of all, trouble seemed far away now. Matt had hit it off with Tim (go figure) and Padgett had run out of things to say (go figure). Then, in one of those silences that inevitably happened during group meals, Russ raised his root beer and proposed a toast.
“To Summer,” he said.
“To Summer,” we all echoed, clicking our various drinks mid table.
“Remember it always . . . even after you’ve all forgotten me.”
Matt blanched, his eyes studying friend Russell, as if he saw him for the first time — a penetrating, analytical stare, most un-Matt-like and unnerving.
Put it behind you, Martin. Put it away. Don’t give it a second thought.
Suddenly, the sun went behind a cloud, the only one to show up on that cloudless day . . . or so I thought.
Chapter Five
Pinnacle
1
On unsteady legs and with a disquieted heart, I had reached the pinnacle — a mountain so high that I could imagined myself suspended like the angel atop the tree. When I recall that day in the Rockies, far from New Jersey and even Denver, I remember one thing. Clarity. A point of clarity in my life, because on that day the shadows faded, letting the darkness set in. I am a bright spirit, cheery and always decking the hall with boughs of holly. Still, I believe that I’m tough — a street fairy who raised himself under the scant guidance of a loose moral manicurist, who tagged in the margins with lethal advice. We always imagine that we are stronger than we really are and still, no matter what mountain looms before us, we still manage to climb toward the summit, whether we ever reach the other side or not. So I mushed on and mushed on, with unsteady legs and a disquieted heart. That’s the vigil I’ve kept and keep.
I was stunned. I stood on the platform overlooking the world, seven-thousand feet up. A brass map showed me the points of interest — the names of the peaks, the lakes, and the meadows, but that didn’t matter. My heart raced, in part from the altitude, but mostly with a morbid fear of heights and the question I had now posed to my inner fairy — Why was I up so high? Was I nuts? The snow capped peaks called to me — Jump. Jump. My stomach twitched and I decided to retreat to the Honda bumper.
Tim and Padgett were climbing to a higher point, a steep nanny goat path with a tenuous railing. That wasn’t for me. Matt had walked further up the road and around a curve. I think he was looking for patches of snow — summer remnants. Him and his love of snow. Ever since that first evening when he rolled around naked in the stuff, he looked forward to every flake that heaven belched. Now, when the park ranger said that there was still snow up ahead, he had to explore. I was fine on the bumper, sitting next to Russ.
“Where’s your cowboy?”
Talking, are we?
“In search of snow.”
“Snow cones?”
“Something like that.”
I thought of finding my own bumper. I recognized Russ’ approach to conflict and I was in no mood for it. I found it difficult to breathe and the dizziness came and went as if it were becoming a permanent condition.
“Listen,” I said. “I kn
ow you don’t like him and I know you might be a bit . . . jealous of our relationship, but you should shake it off and move on.”
Russ smiled. It wasn’t his pixie smile, but an incredulous spike.
“Your choice of man is not my problem. I don’t sleep with him, you know. In fact, I’m surprised that you think that anything you’ve done concerns me.”
“Fine.” I slid off the bumper. “Stew in your own shit.”
Russ waved his hand about, and then rolled his eyes.
“Wait, Lambkins.” He hadn’t called me that in over a year. “I’m sorry if you think that you’ve caused my current funk. It has nothing to do with you.”
“What’s wrong then? Is it Tim?”
“Him?” He shrugged. “Dumb as a post, but horny as a toad. He’s fine, in his way. He mostly ignores me and my . . . funk. Suits me fine.”
“Then what?”
Russ swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple dancing like a stuck fish bone yearning to be free. He shook his head.
“Fine, then,” I said. “You’ve always confided in me, always told me your little shitty secrets, even if they didn’t amount to anything. Now, you look like crap — a shadow of your former self and you hum and haw. I think I’ll join my cowboy is search of snow.”
I turned away, wavering in the first few steps. Russ muttered something I understood, but really couldn’t fathom.
“Ask your cowboy what’s up with me.”
I rounded on him.
“Are you telling me that Matt’s been . . .”
“No,” Russ snapped. “Nothing like that.”
“Then like what?”
“He can see through me. Always has, since the first day. His eyes penetrate my soul and he reads me like a book, something I thought you could do. Ask him.”
That did it. Cat and mouse games aside, Russ had pissed me off and I wouldn’t stay there for another round. I flipped him the finger and marched off, as best I could, to the curve in the road.
2
The road inclined steeply. I didn’t think I’d make it, but as I rounded the curve, a strange silence overtook me. The conversations of tourists and rangers suddenly muffled. It was as if a quilt was thrown over my head. I had never known such silence. A vacuum. My breath hastened, my fingers tingling. I was going to pass out. I just knew it. However, beyond me was the summit and there was nothing beyond the pinnacle except a mound of snow — frozen and gray, but snow nonetheless. Near the drop off stood a man in a cowboy hat.
“Matt,” I called.
I was afraid to approach the ridge. With wobbly feet and swimming head, I might not need to reflect on the angel harks to Jump. Jump. I might just get to the edge, swoon and tumble. However, Matt didn’t turn. Nor did he acknowledge me, so I had no choice but to trundle nearer the brink.
“Didn’t you hear me?” I asked.
I stood about ten feet from him. I supposed that this strange silence might have dampened my call. Matt raised his right hand, and then turned. In his left hand, he held a snowball.
“Don’t throw that thing at me.”
“No way, Pumpkin.” He sighed. “It’s a souvenir — summer snow from the mountain.”
“It won’t last,” I said.
“I’ll stick it in the fridge.”
“It’ll melt.”
“Everything melts, hon. Still, I can hold onto to it for as long as I can. Come stand with me.”
I stepped back.
“No way. I’m dizzy as it is. It’s just too high up for my nerves.”
He waved me on.
“Come on. I won’t let you fall.”
“That’s a comfort. What if you fall?”
“We’ll take the plunge together.”
I wasn’t up to this lover’s leap concept. Still, I needed to demonstrate some level of trust, so I moved forward, until he wrapped me in his arms, tickling my nose with the snowball. I trembled. There was nothing below us. The drop off was thousands of feet below. My stomach twisted and I tugged myself out of his arms.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I understand.”
I walked to a safe distance before finding a boulder. I sat and watched him juggle the ball until he finally returned to the road and, in my mind, his senses. Next, he’ll try to talk me into sky diving, I thought. He stood before me and shrugged, his eyes — those ice blue eyes, penetrating my soul.
“You’ve been fighting,” he said.
How perceptive, and then I recalled.
Ask your cowboy what’s up with me. He can see through me. Always has, since the first day. His eyes penetrate my soul.
“You’re right,” I said. “I’ve had some words with Russ.”
Matt sidled up to me.
“Russ. He shouldn’t upset you.”
“Why not? What’s up with him? He said, you’d know. Why?”
Suddenly, Matt’s mood shifted from serene to turbulent. He dropped the snowball.
“Shit.”
“We can make another.”
“Shit, shit, shit.”
He tipped the hat brim over his eyes, which told me that tears bubbled. I hunkered down, no mean feat.
“What is it? What’s up with Russ? What’s up with you?”
He sighed, choking on my questions.
“Russ is . . . sick.”
“Sick as in weird or sick as in . . . wait a minute. How can you tell?”
He stood, gazing toward the pinnacle.
“I can tell. I mean, I didn’t fully know until a few hours ago. Then he made that odd toast which made me think. Then I studied his face and I saw . . . I saw . . .”
I stood. Matt tried to retreat, but I wouldn’t let him. I snapped my hands on his shoulders and shook him.
“You saw? You saw?”
“I saw . . . Luis.”
“Luis!”
Matt escaped me, heading back down the road.
“What the fuck are you saying? Luis? Luis was murdered. You told me Luis was bashed.”
Matt twisted about, fury mangling his face.
“He was bashed. They beat him beyond recognition, those bastards. But Luis died of AIDS, Martin. He died of AIDS.”
I was stunned. What was he saying? This was nuts. If Luis was HIV positive and was carried off by this plague, that meant he was more than a ghost in my bed. He was . . . Clarity. Suddenly there was clarity — the reason for Matt’s insistence on protected sex. His reaction to John and Bobby. His proclamation shout at the Remembrance Concert. A whirlwind overcame me. Matt had lied to me and that was the first thing I voiced.
“Liar.”
Matt stopped. He didn’t turn to argue, but spoke to the gravel.
“I’m not lying.”
“You never mentioned this. Why?”
“I didn’t want to scare you away.”
“Why? Do you have it?” I reached him. I lifted his chin and rattled his head. “Do . . . you . . . have it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I didn’t, but it takes a long time to catch it . . . sometimes years. And I didn’t lie. I just wanted it behind me. Behind us. There was no reason to bother you with it.”
“No reason. I don’t know much about it, except we’ve been singing goddamn requiems over a whole community of corpses. Don’t you think I should be bothered with it? I don’t believe this.”
I shook. Then, I spied the others coming around the curve.
“How pretty is this?” Padgett called. “What are you guys up to, like I didn’t know?”
Tim galloped behind him, Russ in tow. I stiffened. I was not about to share this dirty linen with the crowd, although somehow I knew Russ had a hunch.
“Forgive me, Pumpkin.”
I wasn’t sure I could, but with the others approaching, I certainly wasn’t going to continue this conversation.
“I wish they’d go away,” I whispered. “Goddam it, Matt. You said you’re negative.”
“But what?”
“But I don’t know now. It’s been strange lately.”
Padgett neared. Tim was waving a camera.
“A perfect backdrop,” Padgett cawed. “Let’s get a picture of these love birds.”
Shut-up. Did the man ever shut-up?
“Strange? How strange?”
“I can’t explain it. It’s like I have a blackness in the soul.”
“It’s the altitude, you ninny. It’s . . .”
“Smile,” Padgett said, while Tim brought the camera into focus.
I squeezed Matt’s shoulder.
“Smile,” I muttered, plastering my best party grin across my face.
Click. Snap. Click.
I released my cowboy fully intending to continue this later out of earshot. It was then that I passed out. When I came to, my world had changed forever.
Chapter Six
Not So Divine Retribution
1
There are times in life when you surrender. Coming down that mountain was one such time. I must have turned several colors, because my buddies couldn’t help me. A ranger was summoned and he declared, or so I was told, that he had seen cases of mountain sickness before, but I took the prize. In fact, they considered getting me to an infirmary, but by the time we arrived in Estes Park, I was conscious and moaning and holding my tummy with every violent growl. I do remember the trip back to Denver, because we stopped two dozen times (who’s counting) at every size and brand of service station so I could make a deposit from my overly lubricated bowels. Matt was no help. In fact, in my semi-delirium, I remembered that if I survived this I might just return his ring. However, while the grinds were overtaking my every priority, all I could think of was surrender.
I didn’t much care about my impending solo as I writhed about in my bed. Sleep was more important. Still, after a full day under the covers (I hadn’t a clue where Matt was, because he wasn’t sleeping in my bed), I managed to sit up at the bed’s edge. I saw someone in the shadows, the blinds drawn making everything difficult to see. I felt better, but I vaguely remembered dashes to the toilet, an unaccountable case of diarrhea, because I hadn’t been eating. What had been coming out? My liver?
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