The Dream Ender

by Dorien Grey

  *

  As always, a great afternoon. A lot of catching up and laughing and stories and good food. Tim had made one of his Bavarian tortes that, as usual, disappeared in a matter of minutes. Everyone was in good spirits, and I noticed again with some relief that Jake appeared totally recovered from his bout with pneumonia.

  While we’d been visiting him in the hospital, he had mentioned that he and his brother Stan were setting up a hunting trip. Jared, it seemed, had reluctantly agreed to go along, so they could all stay at his cabin.

  “Why don’t we make it a group outing?” Jake suggested. “Any of the rest of you hunt?”

  “I used to,” Bob said, “but I haven’t in years. I don’t even have a rifle anymore.”

  “That’s okay,” Jake said. “Stan and I just bought two new Winchester 94s, so we’ve still got the old ones any of you would be welcome to use.”

  “Well, thanks, but I don’t know…” Bob said.

  “Hey, you wouldn’t even have to hunt. It would just be great for all of us to get out of the city for a weekend. Think about it.”

  “It sounds like fun,” Jonathan agreed, “but I’d feel funny about leaving Joshua with someone for a whole weekend.”

  “Ah, the joys of parenthood,” Jake teased, then said, “You can bring him along. It would do him good to get out into nature for a couple days.”

  I didn’t know if he had any real idea of what he was suggesting. The guys were all used to being around Joshua for relatively short periods of time, but for an entire weekend? And the prospect of eight guys being cooped up with a hell-on-wheels five-year-old…

  “We’ll think about it,” I said.

  The conversation segued into Mario and Bob telling bar stories, and Mario—I’m sure without thinking—brought up the subject of the rumors.

  “What do you think of the latest about the Male Call?” he asked.

  “What’s that?” Jared asked. “We haven’t been out in a while, both of us have been so damned busy.”

  “About Cal Hysong getting eighty-sixed.”

  I was glad he caught himself before adding “for spreading AIDS.”

  I shot a quick glance at Jake and saw just the flicker of something I definitely did not like.

  I decided I’d better jump in before we started down the slippery slope.

  “I suspect this particular rumor is Carl Brewer’s attempt at damage control. Rumors have been killing him and to eighty-six someone for being behind them, whether it’s true or not, is a good way of saying ‘Okay, guys, you can all come back now. The bogeyman’s gone away.’”

  “But why Hysong?” Phil asked.

  Having set off on a little journey of evasions and half-truths, I thought I’d better just keep on going.

  “Probably because the guy is an arrogant prick and has always been something of a recruiting poster for the Male Call. I’d imagine he’s probably the first person anyone thinks of when they think of the place.”

  “What’s an ‘arrogant prick’?” Joshua, who I hadn’t seen come up behind me for a refill of lemonade, asked.

  “That’s a not-nice man,” Jonathan said as he shot me a dirty look. “And you should never call anyone that, okay?”

  “Uncle Dick did,” Joshua pointed out logically.

  “Well,” Jonathan said, reaching for the pitcher of lemonade, “grown-ups sometimes say things they shouldn’t.”

  “Okay.” Joshua held out his glass.

  *

  To counterbalance the great weather of the weekend, we had three solid days of unrelenting drizzle with a downright chill wind. Wednesday night, just as we were getting ready for bed, the phone rang. I do not like telephone calls at that hour of the night. Nine times out of ten, they portend bad news.

  The minute I heard Jared’s voice, my heart sank.

  “Jake’s in the hospital again,” he said. “And if Stan hadn’t called me, I never would have known. I’m so fucking mad at Jake I could kill him! He never fucking learns! He went to work every single day this week, in all this rain. He knew damned well what was going to happen and then acts surprised that it did.”

  “Jeez, Jared, I’m sorry,” I said. “I can understand your being worried, but…”

  Jonathan had come over to stand beside me, and I tipped the phone so we could both hear what was being said.

  “That’s not the worst part,” Jared said.

  “What do you mean?”

  There was a very long, almost palpable pause.

  “He had sex with Cal Hysong.”

  Chapter 11

  Jeezus!

  “When?”

  “A couple of months ago. You know our arrangement—we can screw around with anyone we want to and I knew he was hot for Cal, so I probably shouldn’t have been surprised.”

  “How do you know for sure?” I asked.

  “He told me. After Bob and Mario’s barbecue. He hadn’t heard about Cal being eighty-sixed, and he swore he had no idea Cal was a carrier.”

  “And Cal didn’t use a condom.”

  “No. The good thing—if it’s possible for there to be a ‘good thing’ in all this—is that Jake wouldn’t let Cal screw him without one. But he blew him.”

  I was mildly ill. Not by picturing what went on—jeez, no gay man would find that the least bit strange. On the contrary, it would be a turn-on for most. What disturbed me was knowing what Cal might have passed on to Jake in the course of it. Nobody knew for sure the exact details of transmission, but there was a lot of talk about what they euphemistically referred to as “exchanging bodily fluids.” Well, oral sex certainly exchanged bodily fluids.

  “I told Stan,” Jared continued. “He’s been doing his best to have Mercy Memorial be one of the hospitals on the viral test trials list and he thinks he can do it—he’s expecting to hear from the CDC any day now. Jesus, Dick! If he does have it, I… What the hell are we going to do?”

  “Look, Jared,” I said, as calmly as I could. “I know you’ve got every right to be upset, but we both also know jumping to conclusions is the quickest way to drive yourself crazy. It won’t do anybody any good. Nobody knows for sure if Cal even has it or not—it’s all just rumors at this point. And even if he does, that doesn’t automatically mean he gave it to Jake. Jake’ll be fine. I’m sure of it. Just take it easy.”

  “But what if he does have it?” Jared asked.

  A detached corner of my mind found it interesting, even in the middle of such a surreal conversation, to realize that the fear of AIDS was so great in the community that the name itself was almost never used. AIDS was simply “it,” and everyone knew what “it” was.

  “Then you’ll…we’ll all…just have to find a way to deal with it. But please, please, try not to let worrying about it get the best of you right now. Okay?”

  Another long pause, then, “Okay.”

  “Can we go see him?” I asked.

  “No, not just yet. And please don’t say a word to the guys. I’m doing enough worrying for all of us.”

  “Well, promise you’ll keep us posted. And if there’s anything at all…”

  “I know,” he said. “And I appreciate it. I’ll call you as soon as I find out anything.”

  I hung up the phone feeling oddly calm. Of course, Jake didn’t have AIDS. Jared was just overreacting. Understandably so, but overreacting nonetheless. Anybody could come down with pneumonia working in a cold rain for three days, especially if he’d just gotten over a bout a short time before. Even if it was pneumocystis again, that didn’t mean it was AIDS. Jake was an idiot to press his luck, but he’d be fine.

  He couldn’t not be fine.

  “He’s got it,” Jonathan said, his voice flat, his face expressionless. “And if Jake’s got it, Jared’s got it.”

  I took him by the shoulders and turned him to face me. “We don’t know that,” I said, looking him firmly in the eye, “and until and unless we do know…”

  He sighed and turned his head away. I felt him re
lax just a bit, and I released his shoulders. “You’re right, of course,” he said. “But…”

  “No buts,” I said. “We don’t go running off in all directions until and unless we know. Okay?”

  He nodded.

  *

  I’m afraid that, like most people, I’m much better at giving advice than taking it. I couldn’t stop thinking—and worrying—about Jake even as I went through the rituals of a series of phone calls and yet another trip to the Hall of Records to gather information for a lawyer client. I found I was reluctant to leave the office in case I might miss a call from Jared, but when I did get back there was no message from him. I assumed he had taken more time off from work and was here in the city with Jake, but he hadn’t specifically said so when we’d talked.

  The afternoon was marked by a phone call from Estelle Bronson at Happy Day, reporting that Joshua had gotten into an altercation with another boy and called him an “arrogant prick,” which meant we’d have to have a little family meeting that night. I told Estelle I was sorry and said we’d see to it that Joshua issued a formal apology to the boy the next day.

  Though I was mildly angry at Joshua for his behavior and more so at myself for having used the term in his hearing, it was, in fact, a welcome distraction.

  I’ll spare you the drama of our talk with Joshua that evening before dinner. Suffice it to say it involved a relatively low level of histrionics, not a few tears, a little well-taken recrimination (“Uncle Dick said it first!”) and some major sulking. The punishment was banishment to his room from right after dinner until bedtime and his promise of a sincere apology to the other boy in front of Estelle Bronson. As a bargaining chip, we agreed that if he withstood his exile nobly we would not deprive him of Story Time.

  We’d just returned to the living room after Joshua’s reluctant surrender to sleep when Jared called.

  “Jake’s doing better,” he said, “and Stan got word today that the CDC has approved Mercy Medical for inclusion in the testing program. Stan says it isn’t foolproof yet, but it’s a step in the right direction. We should know about Jake before he leaves the hospital.”

  “Well, you know we’ve got our fingers crossed. How much longer do you think they’ll be keeping him?”

  “Probably another couple of days.”

  “Be sure to let us know as soon as we can see him,” I said. “How are you going to handle your teaching? I’d imagine they’ll only let you have so much time off, now that school has started.”

  “I’ll manage. And when Jake comes home, I’ll just commute for a while until I can trust him not to be such an idiot. I hope he’s learned his lesson on this one.”

  An hour each way between here and Carrington was quite a commute, but I knew a lot of people in the bigger cities did it as a matter of course. Still…

  “I’ve been hearing from several of the guys we know from the Male Call,” Jared continued. “They don’t know about Jake being in the hospital, but they’re all up in arms over this rumor about Cal. One of ’em suggested we all get together to talk about it and about what we can do.”

  I sighed. “Well, I don’t know if there is much anyone can do.”

  “We could kill him,” he said with a casualness I found chilling. “If he gave it to Jake, I’ll kill him myself.”

  I felt a shock not unlike sticking my finger into an electric outlet. I knew he was just letting his emotions run away with him, but…

  “Jared! Come on, get serious! Don’t even think about anything so stupid! We still don’t know for sure that Jake has it, and if he does, we can’t prove Hysong did it.”

  He sighed. “True. But if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck… That’s why a meeting might not be a bad idea. If we all got together and pooled everybody’s information, maybe we could make a list of everybody we know who’s had sex with Cal—I know at least two of the guys I talked to have. Maybe we could convince Stan to test them. Or at very least, we can warn anybody else we know and it might keep other guys from having sex with him. It’s just a thought, but…”

  Actually, it wasn’t a bad thought at all, especially now that Stan had access to the test. It took what I’d been trying to do ever since Brewer hired me a step further. If I were still on the case, which, I had to remind myself, I wasn’t…

  After we’d hung up and I’d filled Jonathan in on our conversation, the air slowly went out of the enthusiasm the news Stan had access to the test had pumped into me. All a test could do was show whether Jake had AIDS or not. If he did…

  Well, I couldn’t let myself think about that.

  *

  Sex should never be clinical, but as Jonathan and I found out shortly after Joshua entered our lives—and as most straight couples realize after their first trip to the delivery room—the opportunity for spontaneous sex more or less goes out the window. So, for someone as testosterone-driven as me, I frequently, in moments of circumstance-based frustration, found myself contemplating the different primary elements of sex (lust, fun, need—and if you’re lucky, love) and how their mix and proportions vary with each encounter.

  All this is to preface the fact that, after my talk with Jared, I became aware of another element—reassurance. We sometimes look to sex for comfort and the assurance that we are not alone. Usually, it was Jonathan who required it from time to time—just to hold and be comforted by and feel physically a part of another human being. So, while I initiated it as soon as we closed the bedroom door behind us, it was obviously a mutual need, and it was really very special.

  And if talking about sex as being “special” isn’t being clinical, I don’t know what is.

  *

  Friday afternoon, just as I was getting ready to leave the office, Jared called.

  He said only two words: “He’s positive.”

  “Positive?” I asked, not sure how to react. “That’s good or bad?” I honestly, at that point, didn’t know.

  “He’s positive for the virus. They’re pretty sure he has it.” His voice was frighteningly calm.

  “Pretty sure? What does that mean?”

  “Well, the test they gave him is called ELISA. Stan said what that stood for, but I can’t remember. It has a pretty high rate of error. So, then they did something called a Western Blot, which is supposed to tell if the results were accurate. According to that one, they were. But there’s just so damned much they don’t know!”

  I didn’t know what to say, or how to say it. I can’t even describe what I felt, if I felt anything other than numb.

  “So what…what now? What did Stan say?”

  There was a slight pause and then, still calmly, “Well, Stan says all it means is that he has the virus in his body. From what they can figure out at the CDC, the virus itself isn’t what kills you. It just lowers your immune system and opens the door to allow anything that comes down the pike to take a foothold in your body and wreak hell. We’re lucky that Stan is an immunologist—he can keep minute-by-minute tabs on Jake and says there are all sorts of things Jake can do to protect himself. Diet, exercise, preventive medications, immune boosters—he says it won’t be easy, but he’s pretty sure it’s doable. He’s putting the best possible face on it, I know, but we’ll take it. I thank God he’s there for Jake.”

  It was probably my state of something akin to shock that made the whole thing surreal and therefore enabled me to be almost as objectively calm as Jared was.

  “And what about you? Is Stan going to test you, too?”

  “He did. Today. We’ll see by Monday.”

  There was a long pause while I tried to come up with something to say. But before I did, Jared spoke first.

  “Oh, and guess who I saw coming out of the hospital just as I was going in?”

  “Who?”

  “Cal Hysong,” he said casually—and it was the casualness that had the effect of a bucket of ice water poured on my head. Surreal was gone. Real was back.

  “And?” I finally managed to say.

&nbs
p; “And nothing. I just thought it was interesting.”

  Interesting? You’ve just found out your partner has AIDS—okay, has the virus—and you run into the guy you think gave it to him and you find that interesting?

  “Jared! Come on! This is me you’re talking to! I know you. You didn’t just find it ‘interesting.’ What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything. He didn’t see me, and we didn’t speak. I just walked right by him. Stan won’t—or can’t—tell me, but I think Cal’s one of his patients.”

  I remembered my conversation with Stan in which he’d practically confirmed my suspicions about Hysong’s having Karposi’s sarcoma.

  “So, what are you thinking about doing?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I just think we should have that meeting I told you some of the guys from the Male Call wanted. You know, keep it small—just the guys who lost friends from there.”

  “Jared,” I said as calmly as I possibly could, “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”

  “Yeah? When do you think it might be?”

  “Look, I… At least, if you do decide to have it, let me come.”

  A long pause before, “Well, I haven’t decided yet, for sure, but if I do…”

  “Let me come.”

  “I appreciate your interest, but you aren’t a Male Call regular.”

  “No, but I have a friend who has…the virus.”

  “True,” he said. “Well, we’ll see if I even decide to have it first.”

  “Okay, but let me know.”

  “I will. Look, I’m calling from the phone in the lobby. Jake asked me to pick him up some magazines, so I’d better be getting back.”

  “Okay. Any idea when he might feel up to visitors?”

  “Maybe Sunday. I’ll ask and let you know.”

  “Thanks. Give him our best. And you take care of yourself, too.”

  “I will. Thanks. See ya.” And he hung up.

  *

  To tell or not to tell—that was the question I pondered on the way home. I really didn’t want to tell Jonathan; I knew he’d be devastated. But not telling him would only put off the inevitable. He’d have to find out sooner or later, and he’d be rightly upset with me for keeping it from him.