by Kim Fielding
Eventually, William settled on a romance novel about a commercial fisherman and a male model. Apparently they met during a nautically themed photo shoot. He also grabbed a John Irving book, mostly because it was really thick.
When William walked back into the store’s main room, Colby was back to arranging the shelves. This time he was stacking boxes of pain relievers. “Find something good?” he asked.
“I hope so. I took a couple.”
“Well, enjoy them.”
Feeling summarily dismissed, William mumbled goodbye and then left.
He returned to the store three times over the following week to buy groceries. Each time, Colby was polite but nothing more. It was as if they’d never been friends, let alone lovers. William would have thought that Colby was through with him—maybe regretting their night together. But every time William entered the store, for the briefest moment when Colby first saw him, he looked happy and relieved. Then the shutters came down over his eyes and he was only a friendly shopkeeper.
When William wasn’t writing his dissertation, he brooded over Colby. He knew there were plenty of people in the world who wanted nothing but one-night stands, but Colby had said many times that he was yearning for more, and William believed him. It occurred to him more than once that maybe the sex had been terrible for Colby—it definitely hadn’t been for William. And Colby had certainly seemed to enjoy it at the time. Maybe he’d just decided that William wasn’t his type, that he could find someone younger, cuter, hipper, and less awkward. But even if that were true, wouldn’t Colby still want him as a friend? They were having fun together before the sex.
William just couldn’t make sense of the situation. Had he accidentally offended Colby somehow? Disgusted him? Had Colby’s goal all along been to pop William’s gay cherry and then move on? That didn’t feel right. Colby wasn’t the sort to want to rack up conquests.
Nearly three weeks after William and Colby had gone to Fresno, William was no closer to answers. On Sunday evening, cramped after a day of typing and editing, he went for a jog outside. It had been an unusually cool May day, perhaps making up for the unusually hot ones earlier in the spring, and the night air was downright chilly. He didn’t mind. It encouraged him to run faster. The cows were especially vocal tonight, either enjoying or complaining about the weather.
It felt good to exercise. He liked the rush of air through his lungs and the stretch of his leg muscles. But then he stumbled over a rock he hadn’t seen in the dark, and he decided it would be best to return indoors before he hurt himself.
He walked through the grungy hallway. The place was beginning to feel like home. When he entered his apartment, his gaze immediately went to the tin box, which he’d returned to the highest shelf. He’d been trying to ignore the box since he read the last letter. But he’d find himself wondering what had happened to Bill’s pen, or whether anyone else had discovered the box in the past fifty years and then returned it to the wall, or if Johnny had ended up fighting in the war. And of course William couldn’t help thinking about Bill—abandoned, mutilated, crying out across half a century.
William turned around and went to the records room. He didn’t realize that was where he was headed until he got there. But once he arrived he knew what he intended to do: Dig through the records. Find Bill’s paperwork. Learn what had happened to him.
Only a few minutes of opening file drawers and rifling through the contents convinced him of the magnitude of the task. There were many thousands of files, and their order seemed haphazard at best. Yes, patients’ names were written on the folder tabs, but much of the writing was nearly illegible through bad penmanship or fading. William didn’t even know Bill’s last name. He sank to the dusty floor, holding his head in defeat. He was failing Bill, just as he’d failed his family and his wife. He’d somehow failed with Colby too—and he found that failure the most painful of all.
God damn it! He’d promised himself! He’d vowed he wouldn’t get close to anyone again, and look what he’d done. He’d fallen for the first man who looked at him twice. And he’d become emotionally invested in a man who’d probably died decades ago.
The floor in the records room was truly filthy. He was going to have to shower and wash his clothes. But he didn’t make any effort to get up, because an idea was slowly sparking in his brain. He could almost feel the neurons blinking on, one by one, until the mental light bulb was fully lit. Yes. Maybe he could solve both his problems at once.
Eighteen
COLBY looked up from mopping the floor, beamed, and then visibly dampened his enthusiasm. “Hey, Will.”
William stood near the door, not wanting to track dust onto the newly cleaned floor. “How are you doing, Colby?”
“I’m okay. Hey, have you called that hunk from the Stockyard yet?”
“No.” William shook his head. “And I’m not going to.”
“Is he not your type?”
“No. He’s not.”
Colby leaned on the mop handle and grinned. “Sounds like you finally figured out what your type is. Did the romance novels help? Or the porn?”
“In a manner of speaking.” His type, of course, was Colby Anderson. But William didn’t say so. “Do you have tomorrow off?”
Colby blinked slightly at the conversation’s change in direction. “Yeah. But I have a lot of stuff—”
“I need your help.”
That brought Colby’s objections up short, just as William had hoped. Colby frowned with concern. “Is something wrong?”
“Kind of. I have… a project. It’s too big to do by myself.”
“Will, if you’re asking for help on a construction project, I gotta tell you, I’m hopeless. I suck at anything involving tools. But my cousin Robby—”
“It’s not construction.” William quirked his lips. “I suck at that too. Look, it’s kind of a long story. Meet me for lunch at Dos Hermanos tomorrow and I’ll explain. And if you agree to come back to the hospital and help, I have a bribe.” He waved the bag he was holding in his hand. “Your cousin’s cherry pie. She told me it’s the best in the county.”
“It is. She wins ribbons at the fair.”
“Well then. It’d be a shame if I had to eat an entire pie by myself. With the ice cream I bought in Mariposa yesterday.”
Colby licked his lips. “You got the premium stuff, didn’t you? Not the cheapy crap Grandpa stocks.”
“Yep. French vanilla bean, with a fat content so high your arteries will sob.”
For the first time in three weeks, Colby treated him to his full-fledged brilliant smile, the one that made deep divots of his dimples and caused his eyes to sparkle. “You got me. Noon at Dos Hermanos, pie à la mode for dessert.”
William bowed deeply and exited.
“HEY! Amigo! You’ve finally returned.”
William nodded politely at Luis, but his real attention was drawn to the table by the window, where Colby sat, waiting for him. Nearly ten minutes early. That was a good sign. William crossed the room and sat across from him.
“Nice shirt,” Colby commented. William was wearing the green tee Colby had given him.
“It is. I’ve been told it brings out the color of my eyes.”
That made Colby snort a laugh. Also a good sign, William hoped.
Luis came over for their order. William asked for water and, following Colby’s lead, ordered chiles rellenos. “It’s almost as good as the tamales,” Colby said.
Luis nodded. “And we’re out of tamales. Rafa’s been in a mood this week and doesn’t want to make them.”
“Artistic temperament,” added Colby.
A large family entered the restaurant, all of them talking at once, and Luis bustled away to rearrange tables and chairs.
“So what’s your super-duper secret important project, Will? I hope it involves sequins. I love sequins.” He winked.
“No sparkling, I’m afraid. It’s sort of a hunt, I guess. A manhunt.”
Colby’s smile fal
tered and then he restored it. “Oh. You want me to help find you a date?”
“No. This man—well, if he’s still alive, he’s probably close to a hundred years old.”
“Wow.” Colby sat back in his chair. “I’ve heard of having a thing for older men—been there myself—but wow.” He looked away and then back. “Okay, Will. Who’s the old guy and why are you looking for him? Long-lost great-grandparent?”
“Not long after I moved into the hospital I discovered this little metal box. An old lunchbox. It was hidden in a wall in one of the cells.”
That piqued Colby’s interest. He leaned forward, eyes wide. “And? And?”
“And it had letters in it. They were written by a patient back around the time of World War Two. He addressed them to his lover.”
“Ooh!” Colby waved a hand impatiently, nearly knocking over his plastic cup of Coke. “Tell me more.”
Before William could answer, Luis arrived with his water, and with chips and salsa. “Chiles coming right up, amigos.”
Colby barely glanced at Luis. William had the impression that if Luis didn’t move away soon and let William spit out the rest of the story, Colby was going to strangle one of them. William had a mental image of a very young Colby at Christmastime, wearing footed pajamas and bouncing off the walls in his impatience to open presents.
Luis walked away, and William sobered as he continued his tale. “His name was Bill. And he was committed because he was gay. His lover’s name was Johnny.”
“Oh God. Jesus, Will. I knew they used to do that, but…. Man. What happened to him?”
“A lot of really horrible stuff. He wrote about some of it. But I don’t know what happened to him in the end, and I really need to know. Will you help me find out?”
Colby nodded decisively. “Hell yes.”
William felt a small thrill of preliminary triumph.
“I’VE ridden by here, you know,” Colby said as they approached the gate.
William stopped the car but didn’t get out yet. “What do you mean?”
“On my bike. Sometimes I like to go for a ride after work, especially now that it stays light so long. And on my days off. I’ve ridden by here almost every day for the last few weeks. But I didn’t come in because it was locked.” Colby said all of this very matter-of-factly, as if he hadn’t been avoiding William for those same few weeks.
“You could have called me,” William replied mildly. “I would have let you in.”
“I know.”
Shaking his head at Colby’s continuing ability to confuse him, William got out of the car and unlocked the gate. By the time he got back in, Colby had switched the stereo from a Beethoven CD to a radio station with obnoxiously bouncy electronic music. He gave William a cherubic grin.
The first thing William did when they got to his apartment was hand Colby the tin box. Cradling it in his arms like something precious, Colby took it to the couch. “I’m going to work on my dissertation while you read,” William said. “It might take you a while. I’m too full for pie right now, so maybe we can have it a little later. Want something to drink?”
“Diet Coke,” Colby replied jokingly. He knew William didn’t drink the stuff.
But now it was William’s turn to grin. “Okay,” he said, and went to fetch the bottle he’d bought in hope of Colby’s visit.
When William brought the drink, Colby shook his head. “You’re an interesting man, Will.”
“Thank you.”
It was actually very hard to concentrate on his work while Colby read the letters. William had his back to him, but every so often Colby made a small noise or mumbled an expletive, and William wondered which atrocity he’d come to. At last, Colby emitted a long sigh. “Oh God, Will.” His voice was small, lost-sounding, and when William turned to look at him, Colby’s eyes were puffy. “That’s the most fucking horrible thing I’ve ever…. Poor Bill.”
“Yeah.”
“Is it…. These things he says happened, are they true?”
“I imagine so. They’re completely plausible. Every one of those treatments”—he spat the word venomously—“was really used on human beings. Some of them fairly recently.” He could have added that even sixteen years ago, some people were being tortured in the name of treatment. But he pushed that out of his mind, as always.
“But… they castrated him, didn’t they? Holy fuck, Will, how could they do that?”
“It was considered an effective treatment for sexual deviance. And I suppose it achieved its goals. Plus they sterilized a lot of people who were considered undesirable. Eugenics.”
Colby frowned heavily. “Do you know what this last thing is that he talks about? This….” He shuffled the papers in his lap, looking for the term.
“Freeman-Watts,” William offered.
“Yeah, that. What is it?”
Colby looked so vulnerable that William didn’t want to answer. The knowledge had been haunting William ever since he read the last letter. Maybe he shouldn’t have dragged Colby into this too. Well, now he had to tell him, didn’t he? “The Freeman-Watts Standard Procedure is another name for a prefrontal lobotomy.”
All the blood drained from Colby’s face. He looked as if he were going to vomit. Belatedly, William remembered Colby’s sensitivity over things related to blood. God, he should have done better in thinking this stupid idea through. “Colby, I don’t—”
“They did that? Just for being queer?”
“Yes.” William had learned about lobotomies in one of his psychology classes. They had been popular for years, and tens of thousands were performed in the United States alone. Many of the patients were schizophrenics, but some had the surgery forced on them for other reasons, such as having bad tempers. One of JFK’s sisters was lobotomized as a young woman, apparently because she had violent mood swings.
Colby’s head was bowed deeply and he sat very still. William wished he could comfort him with an embrace, but Colby was all the way across the room, and William wasn’t sure his touch would be welcomed. After a few moments, Colby looked up at him. “Did they do it to Bill?”
“I don’t know. All I have is those letters. I have no idea what happened to him after August 18.”
“Maybe they changed their minds about the procedure. Or maybe he did escape, this time for good. Maybe Johnny heard about how Bill escaped and was caught, and he came after him.”
“Maybe.”
“If… if he did have a lobotomy, would he be like Jack Nicholson in Cuckoo’s Nest?”
“The effects varied. Some people were able to go on with their lives. They weren’t… weren’t the same, but they could function. Others didn’t do as well.” Kennedy’s sister had spent the rest of her life institutionalized.
For several moments, Colby’s face remained blank. William didn’t interrupt his thoughts, but instead looked down at his own fingers, which were twisting together in his lap. William had been able to take in Bill’s story over many weeks, and he’d had additional time to digest the final letter’s contents. Plus he had already known of the barbaric things done to patients in mental hospitals, and he hoped he had at least a little scientific objectivity about the entire issue. Colby had been afforded none of those things. The least William could do was shut up for a few minutes while the other man thought.
Colby chewed on his lip so viciously William was afraid it would bleed. He wanted to kiss it, to soothe the pain away. But he sat and picked at his cuticles instead.
“He’s the man you’re hunting for.” Colby’s voice was as flat as his expression.
“I need to find out what happened to him.”
“Okay.” Colby sighed and nodded twice. “I’ll help.”
WILLIAM had spent most of the previous day cleaning the records room as much as possible. The stuffed file cabinets had to remain, of course, as did the many cardboard boxes full of papers. But he’d moved the extraneous furniture and assorted junk to the room next door. He’d scrubbed the room’s two win
dows, which had been nearly opaque with grime, and he’d dusted every surface he could. He’d mopped the floor too. The results weren’t exactly pristine, but at least now he didn’t feel an impulse to shower two seconds after entering the room. He stood just inside the doorway, waiting for Colby to come in.
“You don’t have a problem with spiders and silverfish, do you?” asked William.
Colby huffed. “I’m not a complete pansy, okay? I like bugs. I had a pet tarantula when I was a kid.”
“Ugh.”
“What pets did you have?”
“None. Mom’s allergic.”
Colby gestured at him as if to say, See? That explains everything. Which it didn’t, but William changed the subject. “I started looking for Bill’s file, but it’s a pretty big project.”
“We don’t know his last name.”
“Nope. And unfortunately, there are hundreds of Bills and Williams in here. It would have been a lot easier if his name had been Colby.”
“Yeah. Probably not a lot of Colbys back in the thirties. How do we find our Bill?”
“We have to look at the admission date. Should be early 1938, but let’s set aside any Williams or Bills who were admitted in ’37 or ’38. Then we can look at the doctors’ notes to find our man.”
“Makes sense. Where do we start?”
William shook his head. “Anywhere. They’re all out of order. I think we’re pretty safe in skipping the ones with the typed stickers on the tabs. Those all seem to be a lot more recent.”