Michael Thomas Ford - Full Circle

by Michael Thomas Ford

  There will be a last time for everything. For eating your favorite cookie, for hearing your favorite song, for making love to your lover. There will come a moment when you will have done those things for the final time in your life. But even when you know that time is coming, even if you can identify the event before it happens, how can you ever be prepared for that last taste of chocolate, that last swallow of bourbon, that last rush of pleasure before it's gone forever? You can linger, and savor, but eventually you will have used up every last particle and there will be no more. I had three weeks with Alan after that first visit to the hospital. During the first, I had to go to school each day and try to forget about him while I administered final exams and graded last-minute papers. For the final two, I'd spent every day with him, reluctantly going home only when the nurses threw me out for my own good, telling me to get some food, a shower, some sleep. Even then I slept badly, afraid that Alan would leave while I was dreaming. In the morning, I was at the hospital before the sun rose. From the moment of his diagnosis, I'd tried to see every moment we had together as the last one. I'd memorized Alan's face, his words, my feelings about him and us and his sickness. I exhausted myself with documenting what I saw as our tragedy. Then one day, as I imagined repeating his last words at some distant juncture in my life, I realized that I was attempting to construct a scrapbook of our last moments together, something I could leaf through later when I was grieving. But the effort was too great, and eventually I'd given up and just accepted every hour he remained alive as a blessing. I had, however, made love to him one final time. That I allowed myself and him. One rainy Thursday afternoon, after trying to recall our last time together and coming up with a hazy memory of a hurried morning fuck before I ran off to school and he to a dentist appointment, I'd shut the door to his room, pulled the curtain around his bed, and removed first my clothes and then his. Alan had laughed like a nervous teenager afraid of being caught, warning me that the nurses would be shocked if they came in to take his temperature or administer medication. I'd ignored him, slipping into the bed beside him and sliding my hand into his pajamas while I kissed his neck.

  I'd stroked him slowly, trying to prolong the moment. Holding his cock in my hand, I'd brought him to the edge and stopped, waiting for his breathing to slow before repeating the process over and over, each time taking him a little farther. Finally I'd let him come, catching him in my hand and using his warm jism to jerk myself off. Afterward, he'd cried, telling me repeatedly how much he loved me. I knew that he loved me. I knew that he'd loved me even when he'd allowed someone else to fuck him while watching a porn movie at the Adonis Theatre, where he'd stopped on an impulse one night in November while walking to the subway following a show. Just one time. One other man. One encounter that had been fueled purely by lust and meant nothing. But it had taken everything from us. I wasn't able to be angry at him while he was alive. All of my energy went into caring for him. Now that he was dead, though, I felt the anger rising inside of me. I heard it humming in my head like approaching bees, growing louder and louder until I wanted to rip the sheet from Alan's body and hit him with my clenched fists. I knew then that it was time to leave him forever. I called his mother first. A lovely woman, she had accepted her son's gayness long ago, as had her husband. They'd even been willing to come to New York to see Alan, but he had asked them to wait until he felt better, knowing full well that he never would. He'd thought it a kindness on his part, sparing them from having to see him as he was, but I wasn't sure. As I relayed the news of his death, I was certain that it had been a well-intentioned but cruel deception. His mother, reduced to incoherent sobs, had to hand the phone over to Alan's father. More stoic than his wife, but with a trembling voice, Mr. Corduner had given me the address to which Alan's body should be sent and thanked me for calling. I next dialed Jack, who picked up right away.

  "I thought you were Todd," he said when he recognized my voice. "I'm supposed to meet him for a movie tonight."

  "What are you seeing?" I asked out of habit.

  "We're arguing about that," said Jack. "I want to see Hannah and Her Sisters and he wants to see Poltergeist II . Do you want to come? You can be the deciding vote." "I can't," I said. "Alan died."

  "Oh, shit," said Jack. "Fuck, Ned. I'm sorry. And here I am talking about going to the movies."

  "It's okay," I told him. "Actually, it's nice to hear someone talk about having a normal life. It makes me think things might be okay."

  "Do you want me to meet you somewhere?" Jack asked.

  I started to say no, then changed my mind. "How about Uncle Charlie's?" I suggested. "I could use a drink."

  "I'll be there in half an hour," he said. It took me half that time to walk from St. Vincent's to the bar, and I was well into my first vodka tonic when Jack arrived. He came over to me and gave me a big hug, which I accepted reluctantly. I appreciated his kindness, but I didn't want pity. I just wanted someone to talk to.

  "How are you doing?" Jack asked after ordering his drink.

  "Why do people always ask that?" I said.

  "Probably because anything else sounds strange," Jack answered. "It's not like you can say, ‘Did you see the hot ass on that guy with the blue shirt over there?' or ‘So, what kind of flowers are you going to have at the memorial service?'"

  "I guess," I said. "And, yes, I did see the hot ass on that guy. But he has a butter face." Jack laughed at our old joke, used to describe a man with a nice body but who was otherwise unattractive. "You know what I mean," he said. "But it's a stupid question," I said. "No offense. It's just that how do people think you are? My lover just died. Am I okay? No. Am I managing not to drink myself into a stupor? Yes. But I'm not okay. How can you be okay?"

  "I remember when Brian died," Jack said. "Everyone kept telling me it would be all right, and I kept wondering how it could ever be all right when men were dying everywhere and nobody was doing anything to stop it. Now that seems so long ago."

  "It's only been five years," I said. "That's what I mean," said Jack. "You think it's going to hurt forever, then one day you wake up and realize it's not quite as bad as it was the week before. You know, sometimes I look at Todd and I think about what he was doing when I was living in San Francisco. I had no idea then that I would meet him, and he didn't know anything about me. But we did meet, and now we're together."

  "You're making me sick," I said. "Seriously, if you say another word I'm going to throw up on your shoes." "It's not like I'm telling you to start looking for someone new," he said cautiously, as if I might be serious. "I'm just saying that good things happen when you let them. Look at you, for example. What were the odds that you wouldn't be positive? But you aren't."

  "Not yet," I said grimly. "They don't know how long it takes for the virus to show up." "Still," said Jack. "You're probably not."

  "That's supposed to make me feel better?" I said. "Alan has sex once with someone else and he gets sick, but I have sex with him a hundred times since then and I don't? That just shows you how fucked up this disease is."

  "Are you sure it was just once?" Jack said.

  "He just died , Jack," I said a little too loudly. "And you want to know if I think he cheated on me more than once?"

  "I just meant that maybe it wasn't as random as you think it was," he said. "It just came out wrong."

  "Please," I said. "Try again. Tell me how you could possibly say it right? I'd love to hear that one."

  I stood looking at him, waiting for him to say something else. He hung his head. "Ned, I'm sorry," he said. "I'm just trying to help." "Like you helped Brian while I was gone?" I said.

  His head snapped up. "That's not fair," he said.

  "Life isn't fair," I shot back.

  "We both lost him," said Jack.

  "But you stole him," I said. "That's the difference."

  Jack put his unfinished drink on the bar. "Maybe I should go," he said. "I think you need to be alone." I reached out and grabbed his arm. "Stay," I said. "I'm just
talking."

  He didn't move. "You're right, though," he said. "I did."

  "It wasn't like he wasn't willing," I told him. "Besides, it probably would have ended anyway. He wanted to see other people, and I wasn't into that." "I think that's what probably killed him," Jack said.

  "I doubt it," I said. "There were a lot of guys before us. It could have been anyone." "Then why aren't you or I sick?" he asked.

  "Hey, I'm bulletproof, remember?" I said. "I've dodged it twice, apparently. For all I know, I'm immune to the goddamned thing. I don't know about you." "Maybe I haven't," he said. "Maybe it's inside, waiting, like one of those things from Alien ." "You need another drink," I said, signaling for the bartender. We had several more drinks, until we were so stoned we had to get a cab to drive the four blocks to my apartment, where Jack was dropping me off before heading uptown. Before I got out, he leaned over and kissed me on the mouth.

  "I love you," he said drunkenly. "I don't think I've ever told you that before."

  "You tried once," I said, remembering the time I'd called when Brian was sick. "But I wouldn't let you."

  "Well, I do," he said. "You're my best friend." For a brief moment, looking at his sleepy-eyed smile, I almost asked him to come in and spend the night with me. Then I noticed the driver's impatient stare in the rearview mirror, and I gave Jack's leg a pat.

  "Thanks for staying with me," I said.

  "I'll call you tomorrow," Jack said as I got out.

  I managed to find my key in my pocket and let myself into my building. Navigating the three flights of stairs was another matter. It took me a while, and even then I had to think hard about which door led to my apartment. Fortunately, I picked the right one and eventually got the lock to open. Sometimes your body knows what it needs better than you do, and that night my body wisely demanded the numbing effects of alcohol. I think had I walked into the apartment sober, Alan's absence would have struck me like a hurricane. As it was, I had only to stumble to the bedroom, remove my shoes, and collapse on the bed. Before I had time to register that I was alone for the first time in more than five years, I was asleep.

  I dreamt that I was riding a bicycle, the kind every 10-year-old boy has, with a bell on the handlebar, and playing cards tucked into the spokes. Alan was seated behind me, his hands wrapped around my waist. I was pedaling furiously, and at first I thought we were trying to gather enough speed to fly. Then I realized that something was chasing us, something big and bad that wanted to tear us to pieces.

  "Faster, Ned!" Alan screamed in my ear. "It's almost on us!"

  "I c-can't go any f-f-f-aster!" I shouted back, the words choking me as I tried to get them out. "You have to," Alan said, his voice filled with terror. "I can feel it coming."

  I tried to pump my legs harder, but they wouldn't move. It was like we were riding through tar. No matter how much I pushed, the bike went slower and slower.

  "It's got me!" Alan screamed.

  I felt Alan's grip begin to slip as something dragged him backward. I heard a ripping sound, and Alan clawed frantically at my shirt. "L-l-let him g-g-go!" I shouted at the invisible monster.

  "Ned!" Alan yelled. "Ned! Help me!"

  Whatever was behind us gave a terrific pull, and Alan was yanked from the seat. Without his weight, the bicycle lurched forward, and I found myself speeding away. I turned, trying to see over my shoulder. All I saw was darkness, and in it, something huge and shapeless. Alan's voice emerged from the center of the darkness, high and strained as he called my name, and then it was cut off.

  "Alan!" I shouted. I woke up confused, not knowing where I was or what was happening. It took me several minutes to remember that I was in my bed and that Alan was not with me. There was no bike, no Silver to take us away from danger. But there was a monster. Oh, there was a monster. It was very real, and very hungry. And I had been unable to save Alan from its ravenous maw.

  CHAPTER 53

  Ronald Reagan was laughing at us. His enormous head was rocking back and forth, his mouth open in a mocking grin and his shiny, perfectly-combed hair making him look like a Satanic version of the Bob's Big Boy mascot. As we booed him, he pointed his finger at us, shaking it from side to side, as if we were naughty children in need of a reprimand.

  Behind him a phalanx of guards wearing gas masks marched, carrying machine guns in their yellow-latex-glove-covered hands. They surrounded a group of prisoners, men and women who had been cowed into a pen formed from barbed wire. Some of the captured wore black-and-white striped uniforms with pink triangles sewn to the fronts. Others looked as if they'd just been picked from the crowd and forced to join the others.

  "Silence equals death!" the prisoners shouted. "Silence equals death!" As the float passed by us, I couldn't stop staring at it. The sight of the people trapped behind the wire, their frightened, angry faces looking out at us as they called for help, made me want to jump on the truck and tear down the fence that held them in. I felt myself shaking as I beheld the grim tableau. When a man wearing a white T-shirt emblazoned with SILENCE =DEATH appeared before me, offering me a button with the same logo on it, for a moment I thought that he had come to drag me into that horrible prison.

  "Act up!" he chanted as he pressed the button into my hand. "Fight AIDS!" It was June of 1987. Gay Pride weekend. Alan had been dead a year, and I was still mourning. I'd planned on skipping Pride altogether, but Jack, Todd, and Andy had insisted that I come. I knew they were tired of the brooding person I'd become. I was tired of myself. But nothing had been able to rid me of the rage and sadness that had planted itself deep within me following Alan's death. It had bloomed and thrived, nourished by a steady stream of alcohol and drugs, which I'd returned to following an absence of several years. Fed by the cocaine and, more recently, Ecstasy that I used to help me get through, my garden of pain had turned into a jungle, its vines and creepers twining themselves around my heart, slowly strangling it.

  I looked at the button in my hand. ACT UP. The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. I'd never heard of it. Then again, I had run as far away from AIDS as I possibly could. I'd stopped volunteering as a buddy. I no longer read the newspaper articles. I pretended that AIDS was over, that it had all been a hellish nightmare from which I'd now awakened. When Todd and Jack talked about their work, I tuned them out, nodding politely and never asking questions.

  Oddly, Andy had been my greatest comfort. Ironically, given how he was making his living, for him it was as if AIDS had never existed. He never spoke of it, despite the fact that it had made him a very wealthy man. He was now on his fourth paid lover, a New York politician whose deep personal homophobia kept him from ever acknowledging his desires for men. He had, in fact, been the driving force behind some of the most virulent anti-gay legislation ever passed in the city, including the decision that shut down the gay bathhouses in 1995 under the guise of protecting the health of the public. Now he was dying, and in an attempt to have the life he'd long resented others having, he was paying Andy handsomely to reprise his role as Brad Majors, whose movies he was obsessed with. Because KS

  had ravaged his face, he refused to leave his apartment, and so Andy's time with him consisted primarily of sitting in the man's living room while the two of them watched tapes of the films Andy had starred in and the politician tried to bring himself to orgasm. It was, as Andy said, a part with a limited run, as the man refused treatment for the disease he denied he had and was not expected to live much longer. Because he didn't like to talk about AIDS, Andy made a perfect companion for me. We spent a lot of time together, using the money Andy made to attend whatever events we wanted to. We also spent it on drugs, which we consumed with even greater relish than we did the food we ordered at the city's best restaurants. When Andy discovered Ecstasy, we'd begun to spend our nights at the clubs, dancing into the early morning hours while the tablets we placed under our tongues dissolved their sweet poison into our blood.

  I'd stopped having sex, except with myself, and even that was done more ou
t of routine than desire. Jacking off was about as exciting to me as brushing my teeth or spraying antiperspirant beneath my arms. When I did do it, I didn't fantasize about having sex with another man. I didn't really think about anything. I just kept applying friction, relying on my body's mechanics to do their job and eventually set the process of ejaculation in motion.

  Surprisingly, my work had not suffered. Teaching was an escape, eight or nine hours a day when I didn't have to be with myself. The facts and stories I shared with my students crowded out anything I didn't care to think about. I distracted myself with elaborate lesson plans and dreaming up novel ways to get the kids interested in history. And it worked. I had quickly become one of the most popular teachers at Stuyvesant. My reviews were exceptional, and having just completed my second full year in the classroom, I'd been assured that tenure was forthcoming.

  "There's Taffy!" Jack exclaimed, jarring me from my focus on the ACT UP button. I stuffed it into my pocket and looked at the float headed our way. It was sponsored by Wigstock, the annual drag extravaganza that had begun two years before as an impromptu performance in the East Village's Tompkins Square Park, and was now a Labor Day tradition for the city's fairest and freakiest faux femmes.

  The float looked like some kind of crazed birthday cake, with three tiers draped in yellow silk and flowers everywhere. Drag queens decorated it like candles, dancing and lip syncing to Ohio Express's

  "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy." Taffy was on the second tier, wearing high heels, a hot-pink beaded dress, and a wig so high it swayed as she shook her hips. Her impossibly long eyelashes fluttered madly as she pouted and threw handfuls of SweeTarts to the spectators.

  "Taffy!" I called out, getting her attention. She beamed and waved, then held her hand up with the thumb pointed toward her ear and the pinky touching her lips, the universal sign for "Call me."