Full Circle

by Kaje Harper

  The first time I left him alone, I worried. It was the fourth day, his temp was 101, and he was pretty lucid but still unable to get up. I would have stayed, but we were out of pretty much anything edible beyond a can of sliced olives. We were also out of tea and coffee, and getting low on whiskey, all of which were disastrous. So I made a quick run for necessities, worrying my ass off straight through. But he was fine.

  He asked me twice if I had to go to work, and once if I was okay for money. I told him I'd won the lottery and to just shut up. I really wasn't sure how much of Henri's life insurance was left. I usually went to the bank, drew out some cash, and didn't check the balance. Someday I would have the slip handed back to me, and the teller would tactfully whisper "insufficient funds." And then who knew what the fuck I would do. But so far they just handed me the money and tried not to breathe too deeply around me.

  For all his restlessness, Toller was good company. He had a wicked sense of humor, but also a streak of compassion a mile wide. He hated watching the news when the stories were bad, always sympathized with the victims being hounded by reporters and cameras. And he liked my stories.

  At first I told the medical ones. Inspired by the god-awful inaccuracies of General Hospital, I found myself telling him about real life cases. No names or details, but all the medical stuff. And he was genuinely fascinated. The first time I heard my own voice explaining how we debrided the necrotic flesh of a burn patient, I pulled myself up short. "You sure you want to hear this, kid? It's pretty gross stuff."

  "No grosser than the crap I'm still coughing up." He hacked into a tissue, as if to prove his point. "I'm interested."

  By the end of that first week, he had heard about pretty much all of my top one hundred cases. To celebrate his temperature hitting the 98 mark, I went out and bought barbecued ribs. He got up shakily, pulled on his jeans which I'd run downstairs to the laundry machines and washed, and made it to the table. We sat kitty-corner to each other and dug in. I had more appetite than I remembered in months, and with the end of his fever his teenaged bottomless pit had come back with a vengeance. We sucked those ribs down to dry bones and licked our fingers clean. Toller held his sauce-covered hand to his mouth and addressed it like a cat, small, slow glides of the tip of his pink tongue around his fingers.

  Suddenly it was too warm in my place. I got up and took the dishes to the sink, then cranked the window open a bit. Halloween was over, Thanksgiving had passed while he coughed his lungs out. He'd been in my bed for seven days. I was sleeping on the couch. And until that moment I hadn't thought about anything except how uncomfortable the old cushions were, with that sag in the middle. But that wasn't what I was thinking about now.

  "So, kid," I said to the open window. "You're getting better. What comes next? Do you have family or friends who might be looking for you?"

  His "No" was sharp and bitten off. A clear no trespassing sign. But I never let that stop me.

  "Where are you from? And as a matter of fact, how the hell old are you?"

  "Why do you care?"

  "Don't care, much. If you're under eighteen, though, I could get in trouble. Harboring a runaway, shit like that."

  "I'm eighteen."

  "Graduated from high school?"

  "Not yet." He looked down, painful color washing across his cheeks. "I was a senior, back home."

  "But you are legal now?"

  "Yes." He dug in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a card. "Here, check it out if you don't believe me."

  "Not a matter of belief." I took it from him without touching his elegant fingers. Fuck, I'd missed the card when I'd washed the jeans. Good thing it was laminated. And being offered a look was better than snooping. Toller Grange. Eighteen on the twenty-eighth of September, with a home address in Connecticut. I passed it back. "You're a long way from home."

  His face closed down. "Not far enough."

  "Ah." I could have stopped there, but like Henri always said, I couldn't stand not knowing stuff. And the alcohol embalming I'd given my curiosity over the past couple of years was thinning a bit as my blood level dropped. "You got family elsewhere? Anyone who might care if you drop dead?"

  "Got a twin sister. She's married and somewhere overseas. Don't know where."

  "Married young."

  He glanced at me, an acid glare from under slitted eyelids. I guessed that whatever he had run from, his sister had found her own escape.

  "So what now?" I went back to the sink and started the water, letting it muffle the undertones of our voices a little. Because I had just realized how much I didn't want to go back to living in my own filth and slowly drowning alone. But I didn't want him to hear it in my voice. "You're welcome to stay, if you'll take the couch and give me the bed back." His bones were a decade younger; he could take it. "Chip in some groceries, maybe. Do some chores. Unless you have someplace better to go."

  There was a long silence, while I scrubbed the same plate over and over, letting the water run. Finally he said quietly, "No place better. Yeah, I'd like to stay for a while."

  Toller was a much better houseguest once he could get around some. He did some of the cooking, simple stuff like spaghetti, but at least it wasn't take-out. When he could get down the stairs without a coughing fit, he started looking for work. He snagged a job bagging groceries in the late evening, but it was only a few hours a day. Still, he cashed out his first paycheck and put the money on the table with poorly-concealed pride.

  I took out thirty bucks and pushed the rest back to him. "That'll cover groceries. Go to the Sally Ann and get yourself a warmer jacket. It's gonna get colder before it gets warmer."

  He held the rest back toward me. "I eat more than that."

  "Hell you do." I didn't take it. "Anyway, you get sick again and I'll have to buy more antibiotic. Call it an investment."

  He hesitated and then stuffed it back in his pocket. "Okay. Sure." He glanced around the room and then picked up his jean jacket. "I'll do that now, maybe." He pulled open the door.

  "And get new jeans," I yelled after him. "With less holes."

  I didn't look when the door banged shut. I'd taken to being careful not to look when he was walking away. Because my eyes were drawn to the sweet line of his spine and the shape of his ass as he slowly put a little weight back on. And it was wrong and stupid and futile. He was young and straight and not for me. Except my dick just couldn't seem to get the message.

  He came back from the Salvation Army with clothes and books. Figured he would buy books. The kid was a voracious reader, now that the headaches were backing off, and smart. Smarter than Henri, even, and Henri had run circles around me in medical school. Toller devoured everything in print in the apartment, including my Merck manual. When I asked him if there wasn't something more entertaining to do than read the definitions of hypothyroidism and goiter, he said it was interesting. And colored a little, so I wondered.

  About two weeks before Christmas, we were sitting at the breakfast table. I'd started going down to the homeless shelter most mornings, to volunteer instead of eat. With non-stop drinking reduced to a slow simmer, I had all kinds of time. And I felt a little guilty about all the meals I'd eaten that I could have paid for, if I hadn't been too lazy to go elsewhere. I mostly worked the food line, serving breakfast and lunch. Did a few chores. I'd started handing out a little advice too. Most of the men and women who came in had some kind of illnesses, and I'd taken to bringing a few aspirin and tubes of Neosporin with me to pass out. Hadn't told anyone I was a lapsed medico though.

  "I've been thinking," I said slowly around a piece of toast. "You're not having any luck finding a real, full time job." Even with the Christmas rush, jobs for a young guy with no diploma and no references were scarce. "What about going back to school, get your diploma?"

  He didn't pause in scooping cereal from his bowl, which told me it wasn't a new thought to him. "Don't know how that would work. Do I just apply for a GED?"

&nbs
p; "A GED's good, but a real diploma's better. You're just eighteen and haven't graduated. I'd think you could just request a transfer to the nearest high school. The nearest good high school, if there's any choice." I made a note to check them out. No point in this kid getting stuck in dead-end classes with his brains. "Your credits should transfer, unless you don't want a trail leading here from Connecticut." He still hadn't told me why he left, but the pattern of his flinches was suspicious, and he carried a few questionable scars.

  "I'm eighteen. He can't touch me." The color swept over his narrow cheeks and he dropped his eyes.

  I calmly added a second layer of jam to my toast and didn't look at him. "Might make sense then. Get your degree at least. Your job won't conflict, and it might open the door to something better. Maybe even college someday."

  "Hah. Guys like me don't go to college."

  "Guys with IQs so high you need a ladder to see them?"

  That flush was a better one. "Guys so broke they have to choose between new socks and new underwear."

  "What did you choose?" And it was my turn to look away. Totally inappropriate thoughts were going through my mind.

  It didn't help when he took it innocently and grinned. "Commando is better than bare feet in this weather."

  Shit. Since he'd recovered enough to make it to the bathroom on his own, I had never seen him naked. But there had been those first few days when I had my hands and my eyes all over him. I hadn't been thinking anything but medical at the time, but my mind was capable of pulling those memories out now and working up a pretty good picture. Damn.

  "So, what do you think?" I asked. "About school?"

  He nodded slowly. "I'd like that."

  We ended up with a school he could bus to in twenty minutes, and he went on his own to get signed up. Decided on his own to start now and take the exams before Christmas in the classes he'd been in back in September, or the nearest equivalents. I suggested waiting, starting fresh after New Year's, but he was confident he could do it. He lugged back a stack of books and spent a week studying non-stop. Twice I dragged his face up out of a book at the kitchen table and guided his sleep-walking steps to the couch. But two days before the holiday he came home and dumped an empty bag on the table. "Whoot. That's done, for better or worse. Books returned, signed up for next semester on the assumption that I passed."

  "You think you did?"

  "Hell, yeah. It's a lot faster to work from the texts than going to class. I think I did good in everything except maybe history. Too many freaking dates to memorize."

  "Great. Now maybe we'll get some home-cooked food around here again."

  He glanced up quickly. "I'm sorry. I've been busy..."

  I whapped him with the dishcloth. "Teasing, you fool."

  I'd ignored Christmas for two years now. Well, other than maybe choosing peppermint schnapps to get plastered on in honor of the fucking season. But it was different with the kid in the house. He went out and scrounged up decorations from somewhere. Strings of gold bells and blue-white icicles that he strung around the windows, and a strand of pine bough that he draped over the door. The third time it fell on my head I told him to find someplace else for it before I burned it for heat, but by then he knew I was joking. He nailed it to the wall over the table.

  Christmas Eve the grocery store was closed so he didn't work. I'd bought a chicken for Christmas day, but that evening we were just eating mac and cheese. Toller put something in it that made it taste less like kid food. I took a big mouthful and looked at him over the table. "So, little boy, what do you want for Christmas?"

  I meant it lightheartedly, but he gave me a long look. "Seriously?"

  I'd bought him a few things. Nothing expensive. He had his pride, and I was still in the habit of making Henri's money stretch. I wondered what he wanted that warranted that look. "Sure. I kind of like you. I'm willing to spring for something."

  He nodded, and swallowed once. "I want you to stop drinking."

  Jesus Christ. I clenched my teeth to hold back my first reaction, which was to scream and run. He had no idea what he was asking. "What's my drinking to you, kid?"

  "It's gonna kill you, sooner or later. I'd just prefer it to be later."

  I'd been so good, so fucking good since I'd taken him in. He thought I was drinking too much? He hadn't seen anything. At worst, I'd had a few evenings when I was passed out on the bed when he got home from his job. Maybe a few mornings puking it back up. I'd tried to just keep a steady buzz on, but sometimes when he was out and the place was silent I'd let it get away from me. But nothing like I used to. "I don't drink that much."

  "I think for you anything is too much."

  "So what now? You want me to join AA? Stand up in front of a bunch of strangers and say, 'My name is Jamison and I'm an alcoholic?' Take Jesus Christ as my personal savior?"

  "Fuck you." He got up, pacing restlessly. "I don't care how you do it. Although if you're going to get all God-struck I'm out of here. I just want you to stop killing yourself slowly."

  "You have no idea," I said intensely. "You have no clue what I'm drowning in whiskey on quiet nights."

  "Maybe not." He came over and knelt by my chair, looking up. It was so uncharacteristic a pose for him, I had to ball my hands into fists to keep from reaching out. "But whatever happened to you, dying is not the answer. I need you. I don't think I can do this by myself."

  I wanted to answer sharply, but my voice shook when I said, "It hurts."

  "Yeah. Well, you're not the only one who hurts." He took a deep breath. "My step-dad started tying me up and fucking me when I was nine."

  It was like a punch in the gut. I started to say something and he reached up to press his palm hard against my mouth.

  "Don't, okay. Just don't say anything." He dropped to a cross-legged pose, his face hidden in his hands, but went on steadily. "He told me it was what I was made for, the only thing I was good for. I ran away three times. Each time the fucking social workers listened to him and not me, and brought me back. The fourth time he caught up with me himself and beat the shit out of me. Then he told me that my sister didn't appeal to him the same way, but an ass was an ass. If he couldn't have mine, he'd use hers. I was fourteen."

  He looked up at me and his eyes were bleak but dry. "She found a nice young guy. He was in the Army, and headed overseas. She would have married him a year ago, gotten up and out, but the Step wouldn't give his consent. The day she turned eighteen, they had the wedding. A small ceremony, and she didn't invite the Step, but I went after her to see her off. As I was walking out of our house he put a hand on the back of my neck and said, 'We'll be alone in the house tonight.' I stood in the back of the church and watched her tie the knot, and then I walked out with the clothes on my back and never went back."

  He stood abruptly and went to look out the window at the dark street, where a few pathetic strands of lights decorated the balconies across the way. He spoke to the quiet night outside the window. "So maybe you have your reasons for drinking, Jamison. But don't think you're the only one who knows about pain."

  I pushed my plate away from me. "Henri was three days older than me," I said to his back. "We were together as long as I can remember. Best friends, partners in crime, and then...more." I wasn't sure he even knew I was gay. And he'd been abused by a man... But he just stood there, head tilted a little so I knew he was listening.

  "Henri was the golden boy. Everything came easy to him. But he had a sweet nature and he loved to laugh. We decided on medical school. He helped me study, stuck with me. He got accepted to Yale Med, but went to UCLA with me instead. We interned here in Chicago in two different hospitals. Shared an apartment but saw each other maybe an hour here and there in passing. Residency wasn't much better, but we stuck it out. We weren't exclusive. We would both fuck other men, if we were interested and got the chance. Saving it for each other would have meant getting off about twice a month, after all. But we were the real thing,
the forever thing. Then he got AIDS.

  "When he first started getting sick, we chalked it up to stress and overwork. And being exposed to every damn bug that went through. He was finishing a Pediatrics residency. I was working the ER.

  "But it never went away. Even when we'd finished training and he started work in a small suburban clinic, he kept getting sick. One thing would get better, and another would come along. He got skin rashes, he got diarrhea, he got pneumonia. That one landed him in the hospital.

  "In the hospital they diagnosed pneumocystis. And by then we'd begun to realize that diagnosis went with a trashed immune system. And they tested him."

  "Shit." Toller's voice was soft. "What about you? Are you...?"

  "Don't worry, you're safe," I said harshly.

  "I didn't mean that."

  "I'm fine. No idea why. All those years together, and we were fucking long after he started getting sick, and I never caught it."

  I took a big drink of water.

  "You don't have to tell me," Toller said softly.

  "Shut up, kid. You told me your shit. Let me finish." I took another drink. "He got fired of course, right away. Couldn't have that around the kids, not the AIDS or the gay. I kept working for a while, still making some money. But he slowly kept getting sicker, and then he got Toxo. It causes cysts in the brain. He had memory loss, balance problems. He had seizures. He would forget who I was, who he was. I would come home and find the oven on and something dried up and blackened in it. I had to quit my job."

  "You could have hired someone."

  "Jesus, no. He barely knew who I was sometimes, but then he would remember and cling to me. No stranger was going to be there for him like I was. Our friends mostly stopped coming round. We'd been too busy to make many friends, and the ones who'd been fuck-buddies had their own worries. I did it all. I didn't think I could, sometimes. I would get him settled, calmed down and sleeping, and then I would break things. Anything that would smash. By the time he died, I don't think we had a plate left in the apartment that wasn't plastic. And I was drinking steadily, doing uppers to wake up, valium at night to sleep. I kept it together as long as he needed me to. And then..."