by Michael Nava
“Thanks,” I said.
It was still early when I got to the office, and Emma hadn’t yet arrived. I put on the coffee, checked the mail and went into my office. Josh was sitting on the couch, looking out the window. He looked worn out. There was an ashtray with three butts in it beside him. He hadn’t smoked in a couple of years. I sat down. “Hello,” I said.
He looked at me unsmilingly and said, “Hi.”
“I’m really sorry about what I said this morning.”
“I’m sorry about what you said this morning, too,” he replied. “And I’m…,” he hesitated. “Well, I’m sorry I ran out on you. I should’ve stayed.” He lit a cigarette.
“When did you start that again?”
He exhaled. “Ten minutes after I left the house.”
It was really bad if he was smoking again. “Are you leaving me, Josh?”
“Don’t I get to give my speech?” he asked, smiling briefly. “I’ve been sitting here practicing.”
“I’m listening.”
He stubbed out the cigarette. His long fingers trembled and I hurt for him. “We’ve had a lot of fights, lately, Henry, but you’ve never said anything as vicious as what you said about Steve. Maybe I drove you to it. I mean, I have been lying to you, whether you knew it or not.”
“I knew.”
He touched my hand. “Please let me finish without a fight.”
“OK, sorry.”
“The other thing I realized is that you’re right, half-right, anyway. I’m not in love with Steve’s diagnosis, but I am in love with his courage, the same way I was in love with your courage when I first met you. Do you remember how I was? I was a closet case who knew that being HIV-positive was the judgment of God for letting myself get fucked in the ass.” He grimaced. “You taught me I could be gay and still live with dignity. You taught me to be brave.”
“It works both ways, Joshua.”
“I’d like to think so, Henry,” he said, the sentence drifting off. “I need something else now.”
“Josh, I can change.”
His eyes filled with tears. “This isn’t easy for me.”
“Give me a chance,” I said. “Look, if the problem is me, let me try to do something about it. I’ll see a therapist.”
“The problem isn’t you,” he said. “The problem is that I’m dying.”
“You’re not dying, Josh.”
He wiped his face on his sleeve. “Just because I’m not sick right now doesn’t mean I’m all right.”
“You are all right.”
He sighed. “Go see your therapist, Henry. It can’t hurt, but I need some time to myself. I’m going to be staying with my parents for awhile.”
“All right,” I said, “as long as it doesn’t mean you’re going for good. It doesn’t, does it?”
He shook his head. “We’ll talk. I want to go home, now, and get some things.” He stood up, and lay his hand on my face. “I wish this wasn’t happening.”
“Nothing’s happened, yet,” I said.
After he left, I sat at my desk and everything that I’d kept at bay while we were talking washed over me, wave after wave of memory, grief, regret, while I told myself it wasn’t over yet. When I trusted myself to talk, I called Raymond Reynolds.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE HOUSE WAS DARK when I got home that night. Out of habit, I switched on lights and opened windows as I made my way through the warm, stuffy rooms and at first glance nothing was different. It was only when I let myself notice that I saw a few small things were missing: the bottles of vitamins that lined the kitchen counter, a striped bathrobe, the paperback copy of Borrowed Time. In the bedroom, I got out of my suit and tie and tossed them on the bed instead of hanging them in the closet, and pulled on the sweatpants that had been left lying on the floor. I went back into the kitchen and glanced at the counters looking for a note without really expecting to find one, and didn’t. I took leftover pasta out of the refrigerator, poured myself a glass of mineral water, and went into the dining room to eat.
In my worst fantasies I had imagined coming home from Josh’s funeral to a house still filled with his belongings and having to dispose of them. It had never occurred to me that I would one day come home to find those things already gone. This was not the grief for which I had prepared. I finished eating and left the plates on the table, picked up the paper and looked for the nearest movie. I sat through it twice and when I came home fell asleep in the guest room just before dawn.
The phone rang. I hopped out of bed and grabbed the nearest extension.
“Josh?”
“Uh, Henry Rios?” The voice was female and unfamiliar.
“Yes, this is Henry Rios.”
“It’s Edith Rosen. We talked yesterday at SafeHouse.”
“Hello, Edith,” I said, switching to the voice I used with clients, friendly but brisk. “Is something wrong?”
“Chuck told Michael he has to leave SafeHouse,” she replied.
“Why, because of the threat he made about Gus Peña?”
“Yes,” she said.
I sat down at the kitchen table and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “I thought you had to sign off on that.”
“Well he did it without me,” she said sharply. “I assume he thinks he can get away with it.”
“This is really directed at you, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is,” she replied. “And unless he’s stopped it completely undermines my function here. No one’s going to want to talk to me if what they say can be used to expel them.”
“What’s the situation, exactly?”
“This morning he called Michael into his office, confronted him with what he had said about Gus, and told him he had until noon to clear out. Michael called me. I’m calling you. That’s the situation.”
I got up and quietly started taking things out for coffee. “Is threatening another resident legitimate grounds for expulsion?”
“He didn’t threaten another resident,” she replied heatedly.
“But is it?” I asked, lighting the flame beneath the coffee pot.
“Yes,” she said grudgingly. “The point is, Michael never threatened Gus directly and Chuck would never have known about it if he hadn’t gone through my files.”
“I understand that,” I told her. “I just wanted to know Chuck’s position.”
Edith said, “You offered to help me, Henry. Well, I need your help. We’ve got to get Chuck to back down.”
“What about going to the Board of Directors?”
“They don’t meet for another month, and by then this will be ancient history and no one will understand what the fuss is all about. Besides, if Michael’s expelled he’ll be in violation of his pro—,” she caught herself.
“Probation?”
“Well, I suppose it would have come out anyway.”
“What’s he on probation for?”
“He tried to rob a convenience store with a toy gun,” she said. “He was so high on drugs at the time that he didn’t even make it out the front door before the police arrived.”
“Hang on a second.” I put the phone down and found a pad of paper and a pencil. “OK, I’m back. Was this his first arrest or has he been stealing to support his habit?”
“He doesn’t need to steal,” she said. “His parents have money. He was trying to impress his friends in one of the gangs. He’s desperate to belong, but he’s too much of a crackhead even for them. He thought they’d let him in if he pulled off a robbery.”
“What’s his last name?”
“Ruiz,” she said. “Michael Ruiz. His parents worked their way out of the barrio, but were too busy to raise a kid so they dumped him with his grandmother, who still lives there. What they wouldn’t give him of their time, they tried to make up in money.”
“How old is he?”
“Eighteen. He was a juvenile when he was arrested.”
“That explains the armed robbery charge,” I said, jotting notes. “The DA a
lways overcharges juvies, to get their attention. Did he do any time?”
“A few months at a youth camp, and then they sent him to us with three years hanging over his head. You can see what’ll happen if Chuck throws him out.”
“How’s Michael’s record at SafeHouse otherwise?”
“He’s coming along,” she said evasively.
“Level with me, Edith.”
“He has a lot of resistance, but I was making some progress.”
“What I meant is, other than this incident, does Chuck have any other legitimate grounds to expel him.”
“No,” she said decisively.
“All right, you and Michael come to my office. Make it about an hour. I’ll try to figure something out between now and then.”
“Thank you, Henry.”
I hung up. The coffee was boiling. With a start, I realized I hadn’t thought about Josh once while I was talking to Edith Rosen.
Edith was waiting at the door to my office when I arrived. Nearby, a thin young man skulked against the wall. A cigarette burned between his fingers. His sallow face was topped with a crown of unruly black hair and a tiny blue tear was tattooed at the corner of his right eye. He glanced at me without expression. Edith introduced us.
“Come inside,” I said, unlocking the door. We went back to my office and I sat them down while I started my second pot of coffee that morning.
When I returned to the room, Michael was sitting in a self-consciously languid position, one jeaned leg thrown over the arm of the chair. He was smoking a fresh cigarette. There was a blankness in his face that made me want to snap at him to sit up straight and put out the cigarette. When I took a closer look, I saw the nervousness in his eyes as they shifted back and forth between Edith and me, like a child awaiting punishment.
“Can I assume you know what this is all about?” I asked him.
“Sure,” he drawled.
“Then tell me.”
He started to mumble, and I told him to speak up. He glared at me, then said, “That asshole gabacho wants to violate my probation because I said something to her about Peña.”
I looked at Edith. “Close enough. You understand that Ms. Rosen didn’t tell Mr. Sweeny anything that you said to her during your counseling session?”
“Yeah, that’s what she says,” he said skeptically. “So how did he find out?”
“That’s not important,” Edith said quickly. “The point is, he got that information without talking to me.”
I wondered to myself why she hadn’t told him that Chuck had gone through her files, and made a mental note to ask her about it when we were alone. In the meantime, I would have to trust her judgment on it.
“When you talk to a therapist,” I told Michael, “the law protects what you say to her. Generally speaking, the only person who can tell anyone what you’ve said during therapy is you.” I watched him during my explanation, and he seemed to be following me. “Do you understand that?”
“Yeah, I understand.”
“Sometimes, a patient will tell a therapist that he wants to hurt someone, and if the therapist believes that the threat is real, then she has a duty to warn that person. In this case, Edith…”
“I knew that, even though you don’t like Gus Peña, you didn’t really plan to hurt him,” she said quickly. “So I didn’t say anything to him.”
He sneered. “I’d jump that chump in a minute.”
I let it go. “What I plan to do is call Chuck Sweeny and tell him that unless he allows you to stay at SafeHouse, we’ll bring an action against him to force him to take you back.”
Edith looked alarmed. “If you put it that way, he’ll tell you to go ahead.”
“I know Chuck, too,” I told her. “I think I can make a deal with him.”
“A deal? What are you going to offer him?” she asked.
“That Michael’s attitude will improve dramatically if he’s allowed to stay.”
“Fuck that shit,” he mumbled.
I cast a cold look at him. “These are your choices, Michael. I make a deal with Chuck that allows you to return to SafeHouse today, or we try to do it through the courts and take the chance that your probation will be violated anyway. You’re eighteen now. The Youth Authority can hold you until you’re twenty-one or you could be certified as an adult and sent to state prison.”
“I don’t care,” he said, sinking into the chair.
Edith said, “Call Chuck.”
“I need for Michael to wait outside,” I said.
“Is that necessary?” she asked.
“Yes. You stay.”
Michael extricated himself from his chair and rolled out of the room with a gangbanger’s gait. I watched him, wondering what Edith saw in him worth going to all this trouble for.
After he’d slammed the door shut, I said, “Why didn’t you tell him Chuck had gone through your files?”
“Michael doesn’t need another reason to defy Chuck.”
“He thinks you told him. I could see it in his face.”
“It’ll be easier for him to re-establish trust with me than with Chuck.”
“That boy doesn’t look like he trusts anyone,” I said. “The other thing I wanted to ask you is why you cut me off when I was about to tell him that you didn’t take his threat against Gus Peña seriously.”
“It was the way you were saying it,” she said in exasperation. “It implied that he’s not to be taken seriously at all.”
“You really care about this kid, don’t you?” I asked, leaning back into my chair. “Why is that?”
“I care about all my clients,” she insisted. “Are you going to call Chuck?”
“What’s the number there?” I asked, and dialed as she gave it to me. I switched on the speaker. A moment later, I had Chuck on the line. While Edith leaned forward, I said, “Chuck, it’s Henry Rios. I have Edith Rosen here with me in my office, and one of your residents, Michael Ruiz.”
“Morning, Henry,” he replied gruffly. “What’s this all about?”
“I think you know, Chuck. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”
“Do about what? That boy broke a house rule. He’s got to go.”
Edith scowled and started to speak, but I put up a silencing hand.
“Listen, Chuck,” I said in my friendliest voice, “if you and I were at an AA meeting, and I said I wanted to kill some old bastard, wouldn’t you respect my anonymity? You wouldn’t go running off to tell the guy. Anonymity is all about keeping confidences.”
“It’s not the same thing,” he said flatly. “She’s not in the program. She’s not one of us.”
“Chuck, it says in the big book that we can seek help outside the program if it’s necessary to maintain our sobriety. All that happened here is that Michael sought Edith’s help to maintain his sobriety by expressing an honest feeling. How else is he going to get well?”
“The quality of that kid’s sobriety leaves a lot to be desired,” he growled.
“Everyone has to start somewhere, Chuck. Look, there’s obviously a turf war going on between you and Edith.” Across the desk, Edith flushed angrily. “That’s something the two of you are going to have to fight out. All I’m asking is that you not do it on this kid’s back. Whatever you think of Edith, Michael is one of us, Chuck. And I can guarantee that if you take him back, his attitude will improve.”
“What’s the stick, Henry?” he asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You showed me the carrot, what’s the stick?”
I could tell by his tone that it was time to level with him. “The law doesn’t share your disdain for psychotherapy,” I said. “In fact, the law protects the therapist and her patients. When you looked at Michael’s file, without his permission, you violated the law, Chuck, and that could be a real problem for you and the house.”
“I can’t believe you would turn on your own kind.”
“It’s like I said, Chuck, Michael is also my kind.�
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After a moment, he said, “We’ll take him back this time, but I better see some improvement.”
“I’m sure you will,” I said.
When I’d hung up, Edith said, “That was very duplicitous of you.”
“Which part?”
“The way you played on your AA connection to him.”
“Where’s the duplicity? I believed every word I said. And, anyway, the alternative would have been to confront him, which even you admitted doesn’t work with Chuck.”
She smiled. “And you were willing to put me on the same level as him.”
“You weren’t my client in this case,” I said. “Michael was. Speaking of whom, we’d better go tell him the good news.”
For the rest of the day, and into Sunday, I worked at my office, going home only to sleep and check for messages from Josh. I didn’t hear from him until late Sunday night.
“Cullen died,” he said without preliminaries.
“Cullen McArthur?” I asked. Cullen had sold us our house four years earlier. “I saw him two weeks ago. He looked fine.”
“He died this morning,” Josh replied, and I could hear the fatigue in his voice. “I’ve been in and out of hospital all weekend.”
“That’s why you didn’t call,” I said, as much to myself as him.
“I’m sorry, Henry, but now is the first chance I’ve had.”
“Now is fine,” I said. “I miss you, Josh.”
After a moment, he said, “I miss you, too.”
And after that, there didn’t seem to be much more to say, but we talked anyway, short bursts of trivia alternating with long pauses. After twenty minutes, Josh said, “I’m really tired.”
“All right. Can I see you soon?”
“Cullen’s memorial is on Tuesday at the church on Fountain and Fairfax, at two. Meet me there, OK?”
“I will. Good night, Josh.”
“Good night, Henry,” he said. “I love you.”
After he hung up, I found myself thinking about the tattoo at the corner of Michael Ruiz’s eye, an old gang tattoo that was supposed to remind its wearer of the sadness of life.
CHAPTER FIVE
ON MONDAY MORNING AT eight o’clock I presented myself at the office of Raymond Reynolds, on the second floor of a red brick building that featured a faux colonial facade, in the part of Beverly Hills that its natives refer to disdainfully as “the flats.” Reynolds’s office was done entirely in tones of gray, from floor to ceiling; it was like being in a brain cell. He himself was a plump man with a round, friendly face and a soft, thoughtful voice. We got through the preliminaries and he asked me the inevitable question, “So, why are you here?”