A More Perfect Union

by J. Scott Coatsworth

  “I don’t have any clothes.” The realization underscored his sudden homelessness, and emotion threatened to overwhelm him again.

  Oscar put his hands on Alex’s shoulders. “Hey, don’t worry. I got you covered.” He picked up a bag off one of the green plastic chairs and handed it to Alex. “Here’s a change of clothes.” He must have seen the look on Alex’s face. “Don’t worry. They’re not mine. I know you’d be swimming in mine, and the pants would only reach your ankles. These were Peter’s.”

  Alex nodded. Peter had been Oscar’s partner, who’d died the year before in an accident. “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

  Oscar smiled. His own eyes were just a little moist at the corners. “I also picked up some toiletries. Not sure what you use, so I had to guess. I hope you like Axe.”

  “It’s perfect.” He felt overwhelmed. “Thank you, guys. I’m not sure how I can repay you.”

  “You can start by getting your stinky hide clean,” Mario said, smirking.

  Alex laughed involuntarily. “Asshole.” He’d needed that.

  “And here are the house keys. Just lock up when you’re done. Come on. I’ll walk you out.”

  Alex hugged his friends once more, kissed Gio on the cheek, then followed Oscar out to the parking lot.

  GIO WALKED through the empty white space. Unlike before, he no longer had the sense that he was in a confined area, nor was the mist closing in on him.

  Instead he felt as though he were in the midst of an infinite space, a wide-open, featureless white plain that extended all around him.

  He’d started off in one direction, if it could be called that. There were no markers here to tell him what was left or right, north or south. Only up and down had any existence for him. He’d been walking for hours, or so it seemed, with no way beyond the beating of his own heart to judge the passage of time.

  As he walked, little bits of memory—fragments, really—filtered into his head. He remembered a person named Alex. Someone important to him, though he couldn’t say exactly why.

  There was a house. A place he had lived, maybe? A little gray bungalow with a slightly peaked roof and a white picket fence.

  And there were flames.

  When he thought about the flames, he felt a searing pain all over his body and quickly pushed the memory out of his head.

  Something bad had happened to him.

  He kept on walking.

  ALEX RETURNED to the hospital an hour and a half later, feeling a little more human. Fortunately, Oscar’s house wasn’t too far away.

  Peter’s clothes fit him well enough. They were not what he would have chosen for himself—a plaid long-sleeved shirt and a well-worn pair of jeans with holes in the knees. But they were clean and they had been given to him with love.

  Dax and Mario were waiting for him in Gio’s room. Mario was texting, and Dax was sitting next to Gio’s bed.

  “It’s weird, right?” Dax asked, looking down at Gio’s sleeping form.

  Alex nodded. “I keep expecting him to open his eyes and say… I don’t know… ‘Where’s breakfast?’ Thanks again for staying with him.”

  “Of course,” Dax said. “No changes. Just a nurse a little while ago.” He glanced over at Mario. “We have to get to work, but Oscar’s got one of his friends checking in around lunchtime, and I’ll stop by this evening. Can I bring you anything?”

  “Something to eat would be great. The food here… well, it’s hospital food.”

  Dax nodded. “Enough said. Okay, we’re off. Come on, love.” He pulled Mario up by his sleeve. “Take care, Alex.” Dax kissed him on the cheek.

  “You too.”

  Then they were gone, and Alex was alone again with Gio.

  He stayed there for the rest of the morning, sending texts and making calls to rearrange his schedule for the next few weeks. He checked their bank balance—they could manage for a bit. Thank God for Gio’s health insurance through the university.

  A little while later, some of Gio’s friends from the astronomy program stopped in to see him. They didn’t stay long, but they did leave Alex a basket of halfway decent snacks.

  After they left, he settled in to wait for the arrival of la mamma.

  IT WAS just after four when he felt the air change. It was like the ionic charge that preceded a monsoon—a sense of tension in the air, accompanied by a strange calm that came before the thunder and lightning and heavy rain.

  Alex looked outside and saw that a monsoon was gathering. Towering, gravid purple storm clouds marched across the sky, presaging rain.

  That wasn’t the only thing that had caught his attention, raising him out of his semislumber.

  “Dov’è mio figlio?” a feminine voice demanded, sharp and forceful.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” one of the nurses said. “I don’t understand you. Let me find someone who speaks Italian.”

  “Where does you have my son?” Her English was heavily accented.

  Alex swallowed hard, then stepped out of the relative safety of the room to greet her. “Mamma Montanari,” he said, holding out his arms to her. “Benvenuti agli Stati Uniti.” His Italian was elementary-grade level, but he could at least manage that much.

  She turned and saw him, all five foot three of her, her blonde hair twisted into curls on top of her head, her face still beautiful despite the addition of years and a few more pounds on her hips. She glared at him, then pushed past him into Gio’s room. He followed her inside reluctantly.

  She took in Gio’s condition with a single glance, then pulled him up in her arms.

  “He’s tender,” Alex protested. “Stai attenta!”

  She laid Gio back down and kissed him on the cheek gently. Then she turned on Alex. “Dove eri? Where you go? Why you let this happen?”

  “I am so sorry. I was away from home…. Ero fuori.”

  I didn’t know this would happen.

  A young woman poked her head in. “They called for an Italian translator? I’m Stefani.”

  “Parla italiano?” Gio’s mother asked.

  She nodded. “Sì, più o meno. Mi chiamo Stefani.”

  “Piacere. Sono Cinzia,” Gio’s mother replied, then let out a torrent of words, gesturing first to Alex and then at her son. He caught a few of them here and there: angry, my son, rights. The rest eluded him.

  Finally she finished and Stefani turned to him. From the look on her face, he could see it wasn’t going to be good. “She says she’s this man’s mother.”

  He nodded.

  “And she says you will claim to be related, but that you are not, in fact, a family member.”

  “She what? Listen, Gio and I are a couple. We’ve been together for ten years.”

  Stefani looked sympathetic, but she asked, “Are you guys married?”

  He shook his head.

  She frowned. “Do you have his power of attorney?”

  Again he shook his head. “We talked about it, but we never quite got around to it.”

  “Then I’m sorry…?”

  “Alex.”

  “Alex. I have to ask you to leave. As his mother, Ms. Montanari here has asked that only family members be allowed to remain.”

  Alex shook with anger. She couldn’t do this to him. He turned to her. “Mamma Montanari, wait. Don’t do this. I need to be here with him!”

  Stefani shrugged. “I’m so sorry, Alex. I wish I could change it, but I don’t make the rules. Maybe she’ll change her mind.” She called someone on the intercom. Then she turned away to speak to Gio’s mother again.

  One of the orderlies, a bear of a man, appeared at the door to escort him out. “You can’t do this to us,” Alex said, starting to get frantic. “I love him! Gio!”

  The man pulled him out of the room. “This is not the time or place,” the orderly said. “Get a lawyer. Fight this thing out in court if you have to. But right now, you have to leave.”

  A crowd had gathered outside the room to witness the spectacle. Alex looked back a
nd forth, but he saw no way to turn this around. Not here, not now.

  “Okay.” He shook off the man’s hand. “I’ll go.” He slipped through the crowd and started to run down the hall toward the elevators.

  “Alex, wait,” someone called.

  It was the nurse from the day before. Rosie? Rosalind? Alex turned around reluctantly.

  “I just heard what happened,” she said, giving him a quick hug. “Here, take this.” She handed him a scrap of paper. “It’s my number. Call me later tonight, and I’ll try to help you.” Then she turned away and disappeared down the hall.

  He stuffed the paper into his pocket and fled the hospital.

  GIO LOOKED up from where he was sitting. He’d finally given up walking after untold seconds or minutes or hours—who could say in this strange place? Every now and then, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he glimpsed something other than the formless white plain, but whatever it was melted away into dust and nothingness as soon as he looked at it.

  Maybe it was better to stay still for a while. He sat down on the flat surface that was strangely neither opaque nor transparent, neither shiny nor matte white. Nothing seemed to make sense.

  He noticed that the soft white glow around him was changing. Dimming. Like when he was in a restaurant and they turned down the lights for ambiance. The conscious mind wasn’t quite aware of it, but it impinged on the senses anyway.

  Restaurant. He rolled the idea around in his head. He used to go to restaurants with someone before this new thing had happened. With… with Alex. He smiled a little. That was something, wasn’t it? Some little piece of what was missing?

  But his happiness soon turned to concern, then worry, and then fear, as it continued to get darker and darker all around him. His heart beat faster as the light slipped away. He jumped to his feet, looking left and right, but there was nothing but the gathering gloom. He’d thought the empty white was awful, but this darkness was worse.

  And then the howls began.

  ALEX PEELED out of the parking lot, unsure of where to go. Oscar might be able to help, or at least be willing to listen, but right now Alex was too angry, too distraught to speak with anyone.

  He’d known Cinzia disliked him, but to throw him out of Gio’s room like that? He and Gio were… they were partners, for sure. Lovers, yes, but Alex had always resisted the idea of marriage. Marriage was for other people. Surely he and Gio didn’t need it to prove their love for each other?

  Only now his own reluctance had been used against him. And in the end, what was he afraid of? Was it really a principled stand against society’s expectations, or was he just scared shitless of the commitment?

  Either way, Cinzia was with Gio and Alex was out there alone.

  He found himself driving up the old road to the top of A Mountain, the lonely volcanic peak, more of an oversized hill really, that looked out over downtown and the Tucson valley. It was named for the whitewashed letter A, a tribute to the university that had been a city tradition for almost a hundred years. The clouds above looked threatening, ready to unleash their monsoon rains.

  He knew why he was there. This was the place where the two of them had met, ten years before. He pulled the car into the parking lot and climbed out. The wind buffeted him as the storm grew toward a fever pitch. He shouldn’t be up there right now—he was exposed to the wind and rain, and lightning often struck this peak when storms passed through.

  He didn’t care. He needed to be there.

  Alex climbed the short trail to the peak, stepping up to the edge to look down at the valley below. Tucson stretched out in front of him, from the majestic Catalina Mountains to the north to the Santa Rita Mountains to the south. In the distance, he could also make out the Rincon Mountains to the east.

  The clouds crammed the horizon.

  The creosote smell was strong in the air tonight, the scent that had, for as long as he had been alive here in the Sonoran Desert, signaled the coming of a monsoon rain.

  On the slope below him was the A the mountain was famous for. He closed his eyes as the rain began to fall in heavy sheets from the skies and remembered the day when he had first met Gio.

  The evening had been warm and clear as Alex made his way up the road to the top of A Mountain—the perfect night for stargazing. He had taken up the hobby with his ex, Jason, who had often used his own small telescope to spy on some of their neighbors.

  Alex had always had more than a passing interest in space and astronomy, and he’d turned the telescope to a higher purpose. Literally.

  Now he had a better model, one where you could enter the coordinates of what you wanted into the onboard computer and the telescope would find your target for you. He’d scraped together a couple of paychecks to buy it.

  He was excited to use it for the first time. It was the night of the full moon over the Tucson valley, and he’d been waiting for this night for weeks. It was a Saturday, so he could stay out late without totally screwing up his workday on Monday.

  As he neared the parking lot, he realized he wasn’t the only one who’d had the idea. It was jam-packed with cars.

  Alex finally found a place to cram in his VW Bug off the edge of the road and pulled out his telescope in its protective case. He slung it over his shoulder, grabbing his backpack with his other hand, and climbed up to the peak of the mountain.

  There were about thirty people already there, many with scopes, some cheaper than his and a few much nicer. He chose a spot to set his up his own telescope and pulled it out of its bag. He glanced at his watch. It was just about five forty-five, so he still had a three-quarter-hour margin.

  The sun would set over the Tucson Mountains behind him just minutes before moonrise, so it promised to be a spectacular show.

  “Nice scope,” the man next to him said with a smile, glancing over at his equipment. He was a good-looking guy in his midtwenties, about Alex’s age, with a slight accent.

  Alex laughed. “Yours is bigger.”

  “Have to wait and see about that one.” This time the guy’s grin was wider and infectious.

  Alex laughed. “I’m Alex Gutierrez,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “Gio Montanari.”

  “Ah. Italian?”

  “What gave it away?” Gio asked.

  “Um, the name, the accent, the classic Italian good looks….”

  “Capito. And I’m guessing you’re Mexican heritage?”

  Alex nodded. “What gave it away for me?”

  “Name, accent, classic good Mexican looks….”

  “Hey, I ain’t got no stinking accent,” Alex said, acting wounded.

  They were getting some looks from other people nearby, but Alex didn’t give a shit. He liked this guy. “So, what brings you up here tonight?”

  “Graduate student at the U of A,” Gio said. “Thought I’d score a little extra credit with the professors in the astronomy program. You?”

  Alex laughed ruefully. “Ex got me hooked on telescopes. This is my first full moon with the new one.” He patted it, and the tube shifted. “Oh crap.”

  It was already after six. Alex pulled his manual out to get the thing readjusted so he’d be ready when the moon rose.

  “Here, let me help you with that.”

  Gio put his hand on Alex’s, and a thrill went up his arm. His new friend took the manual and quickly entered the correct coordinates into the scope. It swiveled around to face the eastern horizon.

  “Won’t be long now,” Alex said.

  Together they waited to see the rise of the full moon. The sun set behind them, painting the Catalinas a vivid pink. Then the moon rose, glorious against the velvet blue sky.

  They stayed there together for hours, until almost everyone else had gone home. Until monsoon clouds blocked the view and the rain started pouring out of the heavens.

  Laughing, they gathered up their equipment and ran back to the parking lot.

  Once they stashed their gear in the trunks of their cars, Alex
followed Gio back to his apartment, and they shared a passionate night together that surprised both of them with its intensity.

  Two weeks later, they moved in together.

  The rain was coming down in torrents, soaking Alex to the bone, but it was still warm out, and he didn’t really care. The water washed away his fear and anger and worry, rinsing him clean again even as thunder boomed in the valley below.

  In that moment Alex’s life was reduced to its essence: the feel of the raindrops pelting his skin, his heartbeat, his breath, his love for Gio.

  Alex opened his eyes.

  The swirl of the storm around him lessened, and the valley below slowly came into view, gleaming under the clouds, the lights of Speedway and Broadway paralleling each other into the distance. Faraway lightning flared up along the Catalina Mountains, and a stiff breeze pushed the storm along to the east.

  At last Alex turned and made his way down the trail from the peak, walking among the desert broom, rabbitbrush, creosote bushes, and mesquite trees to the parking lot, and set out to find Oscar.

  “YOU NEED a lawyer.” Oscar pulled the fitted sheet up over the mattress on his guest bed. “You have to fight this.”

  Alex shook his head. “There’s got to be another way. I’m not suing Gio’s mother. He’d never forgive me. You know how Italian guys are.”

  “Mammoni!”

  “Yup, mother’s boys.” Alex laughed. It was a longstanding joke between the three of them. “Thanks for letting me stay here.”

  Oscar nodded. “Hey, it’s the least I can do.”

  Alex pulled his keys and wallet out of his pockets and found a folded-up piece of paper. Curious, he opened it up. It had Rosalind’s name and a phone number. “Damn, I forgot about this.” Fortunately it was still legible, even after the soaking he’d gotten.

  “What is it?”

  Alex set it down to help Oscar with the sheet and comforter. “It’s the number for a lesbian nurse I met at the hospital.”