by Kim Fielding
William jogged back to the apartment, retrieved the keys, and ran back. He unlocked the gate so Gonzalez could drive his Volvo through. They met up again near the main building.
Gonzalez waved vaguely. “I really like this light, so I’m gonna do a bunch of outside pics first. Then is it okay if I come on in?”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll leave the door unlocked. My apartment’s not far from the lobby, so shout if you need me. I’ll hear you.” William couldn’t imagine Gonzalez would be up to trouble on his own. What was he going to do—steal a few pieces of busted old hospital furniture?
“Will I be able to access the rooms inside?”
“Some of them are locked. Just call if you want them opened. I’m William.”
“Thanks, man.” Gonzalez shook William’s hand. “Really appreciate it.”
William started a pot of coffee, then went to shower. He made it a quick one in case Gonzalez needed him. After drying and dressing, he had some eggs and toast. He sat down with his book and tried to read. But having another person on the grounds made him a little distracted. He’d had the place entirely to himself except for the crew that arrived every few weeks to subdue the weeds and mow the grass. And Colby, of course. But Colby hadn’t visited since that day back in May.
Over an hour had passed when he heard his name echo down the hallway. He loped to the entry hall, where Gonzalez already had his camera to his face, the lens focused on the big dusty chandelier. “Wow,” he said, glancing at William. “This place is amazing. Must be scary as hell at night.”
“Not really. It’s quiet.”
Gonzalez chuckled and focused on the inside of the door. “No ghosts?”
“I doubt it. And if there were, I think they’d be sad, not… vengeful. It’s a sad place.”
“Yeah. That’s my point with this project. I’m making the analogy between the abandoned people and the abandoned buildings.”
William watched curiously while Gonzalez photographed the entry space. Then they moved on to the dorms and cells—although not Bill’s. By the time they reached the kitchens, they were on a first-name basis. Chet had described some of the hospitals he’d visited as well as his inspiration for the project, which was learning that his grandmother’s twin sister had spent her entire adult life in an institution. William, meanwhile, spoke a little about some of the patients whose files he’d read. Again, not Bill’s. He couldn’t talk about Bill without becoming emotional.
Chet took a lot of pictures in the medical wing and in the morgue. William’s skin crawled in this area. He couldn’t help but think of the terrible things Bill had suffered in these rooms. And he’d suffered them alone, without even a friend to hold his hand and comfort him. After he died, he must have lain in the morgue for a while, unwanted and already forgotten.
“Hey, William?”
William shook himself to attention. “Yeah?”
“I need to break for lunch. What’s good around here?”
“Dos Hermanos is your only choice, but they’re great. Have the tamales.”
“Cool. Join me?”
It wasn’t a come-on. Chet was married and, as far as William could tell, straight. Lunch together would be fun. But William was avoiding Dos Hermanos. “I need to stick around here,” he said, fairly dishonestly. “But I’ve got some leftover grilled chicken if you want to eat here.”
“Really? Thanks, man.”
They sat in William’s apartment to eat chicken-and-avocado sandwiches. Afterwards, Chet asked permission to snap a few photos of the shelves, the smaller chandelier, the heavy desk. Then his eye fell on the tin box. “What’s that?”
“It’s… it’s an old lunchbox.”
“What’s it doing in here?”
William felt protective of the object, as if Bill had entrusted him personally with keeping it safe. But he was also a crappy liar. “I found it in a cell. It has letters in it, written by a patient.”
Chet’s eyes went round. “Wow, really? I’d love to take a few pics.”
Well, this was a conundrum. Those letters were private. And while Bill may have given up on Johnny ever reading them and instead intended them as his cry in the darkness, he certainly wouldn’t have imagined them in a photography exhibit, stared at by hundreds of strangers. But… those hundreds of people would learn about him. Would remember him. Maybe he’d touch their hearts the way he’d touched William’s.
“All right,” he said quietly.
Chet staged the box and letters, arranging them against an overturned chair in an otherwise empty cell. Even though William was glad to see him handling the objects carefully, respectfully, he was still relieved to have them back in his hands. Chet snapped several close-ups of the box in William’s palms, with the bars from a window forming shadows against the little tableau.
The records room was last. “Sorry,” William said. “I cleaned it up. It used to look a lot more… distressed.”
“That’s fine. I’ll do some close-ups of the files. I want to capture the sheer numbers of them.” Chet pulled out a few of the drawers and shook his head. “Is this where you got all the stories you’ve been telling me?”
“Yeah. I’ve been reading a few of them.”
Chet scratched his head thoughtfully. “You know, I have an idea. This project I’m doing, I got a grant that’s paying for it. When I’m done I’ll have an exhibit in LA. But now I’m thinking… what about you and me collaborating on a book?”
“A book?”
“Yeah. Just on this place. I’d contribute the photos and you’d do the text. You could do something like that, right? Not some kind of dry history or architecture thing. You could tell about the people, just like you’ve been telling me.”
“I….” William found himself at a loss for words. “Do you think someone would publish it? And would people buy it?”
“I dunno. But you drew me in right away and I have a few publishing connections. And Jesus, William, don’t you think people need to know about this?” Chet waved his arms. “All of this.”
William spoke slowly. “Yes. I think they do.”
“Good. Hey, look. I gotta head north. But you have my card. Let me get your number and we can chat as soon as I get home. That’ll be, um, two weeks from now. I know a couple of publishers—I have a couple of books out already—so I’ll feel this out with them.”
William walked to the gate and waited for Chet to drive his Volvo off the property. Chet paused the car as he passed. “I am really glad we met, William. Looking forward to talking with you about the book. Meantime, keep reading those files, okay?”
They shook hands before Chet rolled away. William locked the gate and hurried back to the main building.
AS THE evening fell, William felt more excited about the potential book project than he’d felt about… well, almost anything. Anything but Colby. Certainly more excited than he was about his dissertation. His research was sound. He’d get a few publications out of it, which would be helpful when he applied for academic jobs and when he went up for tenure. Other researchers would read his work, cite it. But it wouldn’t touch anyone.
God, he so wished he had someone he could talk to. He wished he could sit on the couch with a beer in his hand and a friend at his side, babbling at length about how he’d choose which patients to write about, and what he would say, and how he’d go about getting permission from families when necessary, and the impact he hoped the hypothetical book might have. He could share his vision for the book: a way to return some dignity to the patients and to pay tribute to the strength of men like Bill.
Of course, there was nobody to talk to. He’d felt Colby’s absence acutely every single day since May. He’d now been missing him for a much longer time than they’d been friendly. Tonight, though, it seemed worse than ever.
“Suck it up,” William said out loud, then decided he had a couple of calls to make if he wanted this book thing to work out.
A FEW days into September, William’s phone rang. He st
artled slightly and then swore. He was in the midst of packing a few things for tomorrow’s day-trip to the university. Tomorrow afternoon he’d be defending his dissertation. His nerves might have been just a bit on edge.
He didn’t even glance at the screen before answering and was a little snippy when he spoke. “What!”
“Hi, William.”
“Colby.” William’s heart raced. “Sorry. Didn’t realize it was you.”
“Oh. Well, hello.”
“Hey.”
Who knew silences could be so awkward, even over the phone?
Finally, Colby cleared his throat. “You have, um, mail. Lawyer stuff. I didn’t know if you needed it right away.”
And with those words, William’s hope crashed and burned. He tried to keep his voice steady. “Is it okay if I come now and get it? I’ll be gone tomorrow.”
Colby made a small noise, then cleared his throat again. “Um, yeah. Of course. That’s my job.”
“Right. Assistant postmaster.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there soon.”
It took him twenty minutes to get there. It would have been less, but he spent a ridiculous amount of time standing in front of the armoire, deciding what to wear. In the end he growled at himself and drove there as is: sandals, khaki shorts, plain white tee.
Colby, on the other hand—in a red-and-yellow-striped tank top and blue shorts—looked as bright as an exotic bird. The bleached streaks were back in his hair. He’d pierced his right ear, too, and was wearing a sparkly stud. He stood behind the postal counter, greeting William with a tentative smile.
“Hey, William.”
“Will.”
Colby’s smile grew. “Will. You look really good. I like your hair like that.”
William ran his fingers through it. “It’s too long. I haven’t found a local barber and—”
“It looks good. And you’ve been working out.”
“Um, yeah.” William shifted self-consciously. “A little. It fills the time.”
“I know.”
Colby turned to the mail cubbies. When he faced William again, he was holding an envelope. William took it and glanced at the return address. Lisa’s lawyers. He opened the envelope and removed the papers, then scanned them quickly.
“Everything okay?” Colby asked after a minute or so.
“Final divorce decree. I guess I’m officially single.”
“Oh. Well, congrats. It’s good timing to be moving back to civilization then.”
William looked up from the papers to Colby. “Huh?”
“Now you can date freely, no legal tangles to worry about. I can… I can give you the name of a couple of clubs in the city, if you want. Places you might like.” Colby sighed and he looked down at scarred counter. “Or not.”
“But I’m not… I’m not moving back.”
Colby’s head shot up. “You said you’re going tomorrow.”
“Just for the day. I’m defending my dissertation. I’ll be back here by nighttime.”
Was that relief on Colby’s face? “But I thought…. You told me you’d be done here by fall. Something about an assistantship.”
“I turned down the assistantship. I have… I have this really exciting project I’m working on here instead. A book! We already have a publishing contract and everything. Chet knows some people and we were able to find a publisher really quickly.” He couldn’t help gushing a little with excitement. “Jan—she’s with the trust that runs the hospital—she says I can stay as long as I want, which is great. She’s pretty psyched about the book too, actually. So I still have free rent and they’re paying me enough to live off of. In fact, they’re paying me extra because I’m helping them catalog the patient files for their archives. I figure hunting for a professorship can wait another year or so. Plus, Chet thinks maybe we can make a few dollars off the book. The publisher’s giving us an advance!”
Colby waited until the deluge of words was over. “Chet?”
“My partner. He’s a photographer. His work is amazing.”
“Ah. Well, congratulations. I’m glad you found each other.”
“He’s straight,” William blurted. When Colby’s eyebrows rose, William added, “We’re not lovers. Not that kind of partners. We’re just working together.”
Again, a quick flash of something flew across Colby’s face. “Well, the book sounds really cool.”
“It is. It will be. Um… maybe we could have lunch sometime and I can tell you about it.”
“Maybe.”
William wanted to say more. He wanted to tell Colby how much he’d missed him, how much he yearned for his company. He wanted to say that he hadn’t touched another man. He’d been to the Stockyard only that time in July, and then he’d fled. William wanted Colby to know that he’d realized nobody else could fill that place in his heart.
Hell, he wanted to fall onto his knees and beg Colby to have him, to keep him, to love him. He would have done it if he thought it would have done any good.
Instead, he nodded and slipped the divorce papers back into the envelope. “Well, thanks.”
“No problem.”
“I’ll, uh, see you later.”
“Good luck on the defense, Will.”
Twenty-Three
FALL was officially a week away, but William was still sweating, still cursing his car’s lack of air conditioning. He had his window down as he drove to Mariposa, which meant that hot, dusty air was blowing in his face, making his eyes feel gritty. He swore under his breath as yet another tourist blew past him going twenty miles over the speed limit, spewing exhaust and road debris in her wake. The highway patrol really ought to crack down. Of course, he thought that every time he drove to Mariposa.
This time, he didn’t have lunch at the Java Joint. The food was good, but he was a little tired of it. Instead, he tried the Chinese place a few blocks away; he hadn’t eaten Chinese in ages. The food was okay, he concluded; not up to Bay Area standards, but acceptable. Plus, it was air-conditioned.
Over time he’d come to view Frank’s Grab’em as a magic place, always seeming to have what he needed. There was never much selection—when he went looking for boxer briefs, the store carried exactly one style and color in his size. But then, who needed tons of selection, so long as you found what you needed? William was very satisfied with his blue underwear.
Today his goal was a window air conditioner. Yes, it was late in the season for a purchase like that. But the temperatures had been over one hundred the past two days, and he couldn’t stand one more day of swelter. Besides, he could use it again next summer.
As he’d expected, there was one model of air conditioner on the shelf at Frank’s. He wrestled it into his cart with a grunt. And then, because he was there anyway, he shopped a little more. He picked up some groceries, a three-pack of athletic socks, and a bottle of wine. Today was his birthday. The air conditioner was his present to himself and the wine would be his celebration.
He got carded when he paid. The girl at the cash register noticed his birthday on his driver’s license and sweetly wished him a good day. She probably thought thirty-three was ancient.
He shoved his purchases into his car, turned the radio to his favorite country station, and headed home.
Just before he reached beautiful downtown Jelley’s Valley, another vehicle came rushing up so close behind him that it was nearly in his back seat. He swore and moved slightly onto the shoulder, encouraging the asshole to pass. He especially hated it when people sped through town, because he knew kids crossed the highway on their way to and from school. The oversized pickup gunned past him in a blare of engine noise and pounding music.
“He probably has a teeny-tiny dick,” William muttered.
A couple hundred yards before the cutoff to the hospital, he saw a bicycle on the edge of the road. It was on its side, the front wheel still spinning. Among the brown vegetation nearby, he spied a splash of color he recognized as a human being.
“Fuck!” William immediately pulled onto the shoulder and turned off the engine. Slamming his door shut, he sprinted to the downed bicyclist. But even before he reached the motionless man, he saw the bright stripes of bleached hair.
“Colby! Colby!”
In his panic, everything became oddly dreamy and slowed down. William threw himself to his knees beside Colby, who lay facedown, and reached for his shoulder. At the touch, Colby moved his head slightly, blinking up at him. “Will?” he moaned.
“Don’t move! Don’t move! I’m calling 911.” He’d left his phone in the car.
“Don’t.” For an injured man, Colby moved surprisingly fast, grabbing William’s hand before he could stand. “I’m okay.”
“But you’re—”
Colby groaned and rolled onto his back. “I’m not hurt. I skinned my knees and saw the blood—” His face twisted. He scrambled quickly onto all fours before vomiting into the weeds. William knelt helplessly, rubbing Colby’s dirty, sweaty back. Colby was wearing his dance whore shirt.
After retching for several minutes, Colby tried to stand. William helped him up. “Colby, I don’t think you should—”
“I’m fine. I just fainted.” He sighed, started to glance down at his knees, and then quickly looked away. “Haven’t done that in a while. Makes me feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot. You got in a bike accident. Did that speeding fuckwad hit you?”
Colby blinked at the swearing and then grinned slightly. “Fuckwad, huh? No. He just zoomed so close I panicked and swerved. Lost control of the bike.”
“I told you to wear a helmet!”
Colby’s grin widened. “And that would have helped me how? It’s my knees that suffered.”
“But you could easily have hit your head! And then—” William took a calming breath. “You might need that head, occasionally.”
“Now and then.”
William was still supporting a good portion of Colby’s weight. Colby’s knees were a bloody, filthy mess and he still looked shaky. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call 911?”