by Jim Grimsley
The ache swelled inside Ford. As suddenly as he had seated himself in the chair he hurled himself out of it and out of the room. Without intending any particular direction, he headed outdoors. Into the trees in the backyard he walked, beneath the mottled shadows of leaves illuminated by lamplight. He listened. Wondering whether he had come here to test Dan, to determine whether Dan might follow him. He heard no sound and proceeded deeper into the yard.
Even that late in the year, the singing of crickets surrounded him. Under the oak tree he cloaked himself in gloom. Balmy night air calmed him gradually. He watched Dan emerge from the house, wander to the parked car, step to the edge of the house, look down the driveway. Ford, breathless now, stood hidden among the deep trees and plantings.
The terror returned to him in waves. He pictured himself storming back into the house and throwing Dan's boxes, Dan's cats, Dan's clothes, into the yard. Words tangled in his head from an argument that had flown by so fast, Ford had hardly understood it. I need to pay my share. Or I won't know how to act. My share.
Then his mother's voice on the phone, I didn't know you were thinking about having a roommate. "I don't," he whispered, as if he were answering a question spoken only moments ago. "I don't want a roommate."
What do you want?the sound so real he nearly turned to find its source, be it Shaun Gould or Dan or Eva or his own conscience. What do you want?
Dan rounded the corner, heading for the back door. Standing in the doorway, nearly obscured by shadow, Dan called, once, softly, "Ford?"
He found Dan in the bedroom lying facedown on the bed. When he lay his hand on Dan's shoulder Dan murmured but kept his face turned away; Ford explained, "I went for a walk. To calm down."
More murmuring toward the wall. Ford touched the back of the neck, the tender softness. "I'm sorry we had a fight."
"So am I." Ford knew from the voice that Dan had been crying, that he was ashamed for Ford to see. Ford pulled Dan against him slowly. Dan said, "I don't know how to explain to you why this is important to me. I don't want you to resent me for living here, I don't want you to think I'm here because of money—"
"Hush. We'll talk about that stuff later. We'll do a budget and you can pay your share and that's that." Dan's grip on him tightened till it seemed he wanted to squeeze Ford inside his own body. After a while, Ford said, "I just want to make sure you're not my roommate. I want you to be something else." Which was as much as he could manage without faltering.
Maybe the evening would have ended on that note, with their deep feelings once again exposed, with the link between them resonant and full. But touch and closeness led to more, and soon they were trying to make love on the bed, undressing one another carefully, with tenderness. Desire wakened in Ford slowly, and he felt a strange resistance in himself that he ignored, touching Dan as he had done many times, by now. Wanting and not wanting became tangled as their limbs. Ford reached for the condom, the constant companion of their sex. Tearing open the antiseptic pouch, he opened the slim plastic sheath. He looked at the flimsy latex with sudden weariness.
The feeling might have been as much alcohol and the length of the day as reluctance to clothe himself in rubber. But he held the slim plastic with loathing. Dan saw his expression and moved away from him. His face crumpled and he slid to the mattress, curled in a ball.
Ford hovered over him, numb and taken aback. The condom slid from his fingertips. Dan was hardly breathing. Slowly, tenderly, he eased himself behind Dan and engulfed the man with his body; and when Dan allowed the touch, Ford was flooded with gratitude. They said nothing. The limp condom lay among the sheets till Ford nudged it over the edge of the mattress.
The next day, in conversation with his mother, Ford held fast to his earlier assertion that Dan was simply someone he wanted in the house. But no further confession would come. The words Dan is my lover refused to emerge. Conversation turned to holidays and Ford explained he wanted to stay in Atlanta for Thanksgiving to catch up on his sleep. But he would be home for Christmas.
Over this treacherous ground he and Dan marched through Thanksgiving into the Christmas holidays. The flu season hit Atlanta at about this time, and Ford's nights were spent tending the sick children of poor people, who had no choice but to come to the public emergency room at night or in the wee hours of the morning. When he managed even a few hours at home, he slept or grumbled about his need to sleep. How Dan felt during those days, Ford could hardly tell. His silence was fearful at times. At other times, it seemed Dan hated the season itself, and every Christmas carol, every Christmas tree in every window.
Neither man mentioned the incident with the condom. The subject remained too dangerous for conversation. Furthermore, for the weeks that followed, nearly everything managed to conspire to separate them physically, and a kind of grayness settled over the house. When Ford was at home, he found no evidence that Dan wanted him at all.
Two weeks before Christmas, Dan walked into an open drawer of his desk at work, bashing his kneecap, spouting an effusion of blood that guaranteed him several days in bed. Ford tended Dan as best he could, given the little time he had. Dan simmered, full of some anger Ford could hardly understand. Outwardly he professed guilt at the burden he had become to Ford, and inwardly he seemed angry at Ford's nurselike goodness.
Matters came to a head when, with Dan nearly able to stand, the knee bleed started again, with the joint still weak and painful. Dan tried to walk too early, lost his balance and fell. Knowing nothing of this, Ford returned to the house after midnight and found Dan surrounded by the paraphernalia of his medication: a tourniquet, syringes, jars of sterile water, and butterfly needles. Dan, pale as a ghost and near tears, refused even to look at him when he entered.
"What's going on?"
"I fell."
Fear and anger boiled in Ford, but he held his tongue. He counted five needles on the newspaper spread on the low table, each oozing blood. The tourniquet loosely encircled Dan's upper arm. But the syringes were still full of medication, and Dan's arm was a map of needle punctures.
"You couldn't find a vein, could you?"
"No." Weariness. "I'll try again in a minute."
"Don't be stupid. I'm here now, I'll do it."
Dan closed his eyes and tears drained along his cheeks. "I can do it. I just need to rest for a minute." A sound of desperation in his voice.
"Let me help you. Please."
Dan shook his head. "You shouldn't take the chance. You know how filthy my blood is."
Said in that frozen tone, the statement cut far deeper than any accusation. The wounded arm oozed beads of blood. Scalded, Ford felt the fury inside him mount to the point that he could no longer control it; he rose up from the couch and stumbled into the kitchen. He hardly knew what he was doing or which room he was in, but a sound rose out of him, an anger that made no words. Slamming his fists against cabinet doors, sweeping dishes off the counter with arcs of his arms, smashing glass and shouting, loud and uncivilized as he had never dreamed he could be, a shaking rage that left him crumpled against the sink.
Silence. He leaned against the wooden surface, the handle of the Cabinet door pressing his cheek.
Then a sound, a stifled breath. Ford opened his eyes. Dan, trembling, clutched the doorway for support. Standing with effort but helpless to advance across the field of shattered glass. They watched each other.
"Go back to the couch."
"No."
"Get off your leg," feeling his voice rise, a note of hysteria.
"Help me," Dan said. "Then I'll go."
"I can't."
"If you don't come over here, I'll come over there to you."
As if to prove his seriousness, Dan took a small step forward. The effort seemed unimaginable. Bare feet landed near shards of china. Ford jumped up at once. Dan waited, holding the edge of the counter to steady himself. The swollen knee, bent so the joint could accommodate its wealth of free blood, shook, and each quiver registered as pain on Dan's face. Fo
rd crossed the room, glass crunching beneath his shoes. He stood in front of Dan.
He could not recall so much tension between their bodies, not since the first day when he visited Dan in his office, after writing the note. He drew Dan toward him to support him; Dan looped an arm around his neck and across his shoulders. Together they returned to the couch in the den. Ford lowered Dan gently into the cushions, catching sight of the wounded knee again, and the arm marked with needle wounds, purpling and swollen. Dan winced when the knee moved wrongly, and pain brought sweat rolling from his brow.
Ford shook his head. "I knew I should have tried to get home today." The sight of the now-worthless needles with their oozing plastic tubes filled him with nausea. "Your poor arm. How many times did you try?"
"Count," Dan said, eyes still closed. "One more and I think I would have put a gun to my head."
Waiting a moment. "Can I try?"
"Yes," almost as a sigh.
Ford applied the tourniquet to Dan's right arm. He took no chance on the smaller veins of Dan's hand but inserted the needle deftly into the antecubital veins that crossed the inner elbow. Dan lay with his eyes closed, heartbeat subsiding. Ford mopped his brow with a cloth. The medicine eased into Dan's veins. Near the end of the transfusion, Dan asked, "What's happened to us?"
The question echoed. "I don't know," Ford answered. "I'm scared of you."
Dan laughed. "Tell me some news."
"At least we're talking about it now." Ford touched the tender flesh where the needle entered the vein. "What are we going to do?"
"Give up. Quit. I'll find an apartment."
The words had a finality that sank into Ford. "Is that what you want?"
The laughter pulsed out again, deep and dark. "No. It's not what I want."
Silence. The syringe had nearly emptied into Dan's veins. Last shreds of fluid eased down the plastic tubing, vanishing. Ford removed the needle and applied pressure to the vein. Tension coursed through Dan's arm, the whole body wracked with it. Ford found painkillers and gave him a dose calculated to break the cycle. Too exhausted to speak, they watched each other.
Finally the Demerol took effect and Dan drowsed. Ford covered the injection needles, one by one, and wiped the blood from the glass tabletop, carefully shielding his fingers. He capped the plastic tubes from which seeped blood and reconstituted protein, making the room less morbid. He swept the kitchen free of glass. Careful to make as little noise as possible, he mopped as well, afterward throwing away the mop head. The work took a long time. When it was done and he had gotten up as much glass as he could, he stood over Dan, who finally slept. No question, tonight, of moving Dan to a bed. Nor could Ford face the bedroom alone. He brought a mattress from the roll-away cot and made himself comfortable at the foot of the couch. They slept side by side through the night.
Dan's leg healed in time for him to limp home for Christmas, and Ford drove him to the airport. He himself had duty at Grady through Christmas Day but planned to fly to Savannah after that. Dan, still favoring the leg, packed clothing and gifts into a suitcase too large for him to manage with the weak knee, and Ford carried the luggage to the car. Only when he walked out of the house, suitcase heavy at the end of his arm, did the realization came to him that Dan would be leaving within minutes. He stowed the suitcase in the trunk of his car as Dan stepped carefully out of the house.
A pale wash of winter sky hovered over lanes of asphalt. They rode in silence across sweeps of freeway bridge as jets mounted upward into clouds.
"Are you okay?" Ford asked awkwardly.
"I'm all right." But the distance between them persisted, or so Ford thought. He steered into Short-Term Parking, found nothing, and decided to improvise; he left the slim car in an illegal space near a crosswalk. Dan would be able to walk that far.
When he switched off the engine, the sounds of the airport permeated the car. Dan was looking out the other window, jaw working. "Is something wrong?" Ford asked.
Dan looked him in the eye and lay his hand along the back of Ford's neck, into Ford's hair. The sudden tenderness was more terrifying than any amount of anger could have been. "I don't want to go. It's Christmas and I want to stay here."
Christmas. Music drifted through the car, played from the radio of someone passing by outside the car. They sat until the sound faded. "I don't want you to go either. Why didn't we think about this?"
"I don't know. Sometimes I think we like to pretend we're not really together and stuff like holidays doesn't matter."
Cars passed in a steady stream. Dan's hand soothed his neck, tucked beneath the collar of his shirt. "I guess it's too late to do anything about it now."
"I guess so."
But they lingered anyway, until Dan said, "We better get inside. I've got a ways to go."
Even in that tenderness, Ford hesitated to kiss. They joined the crowds heading into the glass doors. Ford handled the luggage, led Dan to the gate.
"I'll call you on Christmas."
"After midnight? I won't be home till then."
Dan shrugged. "It's not like I'll have anything else to do."
"Things will be slow at the hospital. I may be able to get to a phone during the day. Did you write down your mom's number?"
"On the bulletin board in the kitchen," Dan said.
Ford sighed. Again afraid, in that public space, to do more than embrace Dan in a brotherly way. Dan vanished into the jetway.
At home, Ford wandered the rooms like a bachelor. It's Christmas Eve, he thought, poured himself a drink, and sat in the den by himself. He was glad when Dan called from the Charlotte airport to say he was lonely. Glad again when Dan called from home to say he had arrived. After that, properly narcotized, Ford went to bed, the bedroom feeling hollow, the bed suddenly enormous. Ford wakened often to the shadows of branches silhouetted by streetlight, swaying in bursts of winter wind against the frame of the window. The quiet house unnerved him and he was relieved when the alarm clock rang, before dawn.
On Christmas Day, from a telephone in the doctor's room on the ninth floor of Grady, Ford dialed the number for Dan's home in North Carolina.
A rich, languid voice answered. Ford said, "You must be Dan's mom. You sure sound like him."
Her laughter had the same warmth, and the same edge. "This is Ford, isn't it? Danny said you might call."
"Yes, ma'am. I finally got to a phone." Ford suddenly felt awkwardness, wondering what she knew. He proceeded uneasily. "Sounds like you folks are having a good Christmas."
"Oh, we're doing all right," she replied. "Danny's nephew is crawling all over him with a truck and a robot.
He got a new robot for Christmas." She spoke easily, as if she had been talking to Ford on Christmas afternoons for decades. With a slight change of tone. "Danny acts like you're really a good friend to him."
"I'm glad to hear that."
"I guess you wish I would go on and get him, don't you?" She laughed and called to someone at that end of the line.
Warmth shot through Ford as he waited. Dan asked, "Were you talking to my mother? I think she's curious about you."
"Is she?" Ford paused, adding weight to the question that followed. "You told her everything?"
"Yes."
Danny acts like you're a really good friend. They talked a while, about Christmas, about the hospital. Relief underlay the whole talk; whatever had happened, they were together, anyway. Finally a nurse came to the door looking for Ford and the hospital returned to his foreground. "I can't stay on the phone."
"I miss you," Dan said. Almost a whisper.
"I miss you too."
"You're the one who said you have to go. I'm not hanging up."
Ford laughed, eyeing the clock over the doorway. "All right. I'll see you in a couple of days." He rested the phone in the cradle. Suddenly exhausted, as if he had run for miles. And promptly forgot to call his family. He phoned from his car, headed home.
This evening, he dreaded the empty house. Rounding the oak
tree, he sat in the swing and let his heels drift above the grass. Tangled in the memory of his mother's voice, he let the familiar tones play in his head. We certainly have a right to an opinion about someone your sister wants to marry.
He waited in the living room for the phone to ring. Hoping Dan would call. But they had already talked. The phone was silent all night. Heading to bed, he curled into the bedclothes on Dan's side, as if he could find him there.
The visit to Savannah became a decathlon of wills from the moment Ford's father and mother met him at the airport. That they both found time to greet the plane set him on his guard. In the car, the parents exchanged pleasantries with the son. "You need a haircut." Mother ran manicured nails over the nape of Ford's neck. "I always have to remind you. You need somebody to take care of you, Ford."
"A man needs something like that," Father agreed, "otherwise who'd put up with being married?"
Mother hit at Father's shoulder playfully, and scolded, "You would. You'd put up with almost anything for me."
Sheepishly Father admitted that this was so. They still loved each other, after all this time. Ford let the thought sink in. He said, "I take care of myself pretty well." Heart thudding, he added, "Dan helps out too."
Father asked, "Dan? Your roommate?"
Mother said, "A roommate can't take care of you the way I'm talking about." Then, brightly and pleasantly, she changed the subject. "You need to visit your Uncle Paul while you're here, Ford. He's awfully sick, and your father says he could die at any time."
"Well, that's not exactly what I said, Jeanine." Glancing at Ford in the rearview mirror, Father spoke doctor to doctor. "He's got liver cancer. On top of everything else. You should see him if you can."
"Uncle Reuben is really upset about it," Mother added. "Uncle Paul couldn't get to the Christmas party last night, and Uncle Reuben didn't have anybody to fight with."