by Darren Greer
Jeanette was incensed, my mother resigned. She said it was only for a few weeks and they could use the break to take care of David. Jeanette wanted Mr. Byrd to give her the names of those who complained, so she could confront them. My mother said it was best they didn’t know. She told Jeanette and my grandmother not to tell me about their lost jobs. But my grandmother couldn’t help it. She spilled her guts to Hazel McLeod on the phone and I overheard every word.
I asked my mother at bedtime why Mr. Byrd thought she could make people sick.
“Because they’re ignorant,” she said, “No one is getting sick around here except your Uncle David. You do understand that, don’t you Jacob?”
“I do,” I said.
And so, that Tuesday morning when she and Jeanette went into town, I agreed to stay home. “Don’t go in David’s room,” my mother said. “And don’t bother him unless he asks you for something. If he does, ask him if it can wait until we get home. I don’t want you in his room unless it’s an emergency. Okay, Jacob?”
“Okay,” I said.
This routine had not changed since my uncle had first been confined.
I was not allowed in, period.
Whatever my uncle had even my mother was still fearful I would get, despite her bluster about ignorant people.
It shames me now I was so uneducated.
I could have listened more closely to the taunts and jibes of my peers. Perhaps even they, with all their venom, could have taught me something.
Once, when Deanny’s father was drunk, she asked him about it. He told her it was a disease that kills queers. “Good riddance too,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned.”
This was unhelpful, and when Deanny asked how they got it, he mumbled something under his breath and told her to go away.
My mother later told me people get it from being intimate with each other, but she did not explain why she thought I could get it from being in my uncle’s room. He was unlikely to get intimate with me.
“That’s the thing, Jacob. We know very little about it.”
And that was about as much information as we got. No wonder Deanny wanted more. It wasn’t just because she was intellectually curious — she was, more than she ever let on — but here we were living amidst a situation we knew nothing about. That day at the theatre had shown her this was on everyone’s mind. And if this was the case, Deanny thought it better to be armed with knowledge than with stones. “We find out the truth of this thing,” she said, “and we throw it back in their faces.” Forewarned is forearmed. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A lot of knowledge is a nuclear weapon. Whatever her reasons, she was determined to go to Dr. Fred to get some answers.
I still wasn’t sure I wanted to know more than I did at present. I would rather look forward than backward — to our plans, for instance, of walking in the Lemon Day parade. Deanny was planning on making a sign that said “Suck a lemon.” My grandmother would have a fit.
The Lemon and Orange Day parades should have already taken place on a weekend in July, but the weekend it was scheduled, a water main broke on Orange Street across the river. It took the town maintenance crew almost the whole weekend to stop it. Meanwhile the street was flooded, along with many basements. Deanny and I went over, took off our shoes and rolled up our pants, and played in it, till my grandmother found out and sent my mother over after us.
The Protestants, of course, could have no parade that weekend, and it was suggested that it be rescheduled to a weekend in August to give time for merchants to lure visitors back to the town. Some of the Catholics hadn’t wanted to. They, my grandmother chief among them, were delighted that the Lemon parade could carry on while the Orange was sidelined in the streets. There was an emergency town hall meeting because of it, where those old divisions on either side of the river materialized again. My grandmother was there, arguing on the side of tradition. The Lemon parade should go on, she said. It was unfortunate that the Protestant side was flooded, but God sometimes works in mysterious ways.
Everyone was relieved when the Catholics finally relented and both parades rescheduled.
Deanny showed up at my door at ten-thirty. “We’re gonna miss the goddamned appointment,” she said.
“What can I do?” I asked her. “I had to say yes.”
I agreed to stay home with my uncle in part because if my grandmother was not back in time, it might mean I’d have to cancel on Deanny. She certainly couldn’t fault me for staying at home to take care of the man we were going to see the doctor about.
“Well,” said Deanny. “She better show up, is all I can say.”
Or what? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. Deanny asked if my uncle wanted anything.
“He’s in his room,” I said. “The door’s shut and he hasn’t used the walkie-talkie.”
My aunt had bought a set of walkie-talkies so my uncle could call downstairs if he needed anything. My mother and Aunt Jeanette also brought down my grandmother’s walker — several years prior, she had broken her pelvis during a fall while cleaning the kitchen cupboards — and gave it to my uncle. He was now so weak and tired, he had difficulty getting about on his own. He rarely bothered to change out of his pyjamas and housecoat and only used the walker to go to the bathroom and sometimes into my mother’s or Jeanette’s room.
One of the walkie-talkies sat bluntly silent on the kitchen counter. Deanny sat at the kitchen table, twiddling her thumbs, literally, and stared at the mute walkie-talkie with resentment. It seemed she forgot we were going to the doctor out of concern for my uncle, if that was ever the case. Right now he was a hindrance. If we missed our appointment, she would be in a foul mood all day. I told her she could go without me and fill me in later.
“No,” Deanny said. “You’re his nephew. Dr. Fred won’t say anything to me alone.”
When my grandmother showed up at ten to eleven, Deanny immediately jumped out of her chair.
“Goodness,” my grandmother said. “What are you two doing here?”
I told my grandmother I was charged by my mother to look after my uncle.
“You didn’t go into his room, did you?”
“No,” I said. “He didn’t ask for anything.”
“Run along now,” my grandmother said, “and don’t forget to come back for lunch.”
We wouldn’t be home for it. Our appointment didn’t end until quarter to twelve. In those days, doctors scheduled their appointment for more than ten minutes at a time.
Since we didn’t have our bikes anymore, Deanny said we had to run. It was a ten-minute walk to Fred’s office but we ran the entire way and got there in five. His receptionist said he was running late and told us to take a seat.
“Great,” Deanny said.
We sat alone in the waiting room. I asked Deanny what we were doing there.
“Aren’t you curious?” she said. “Don’t you hate when people keep things from you?”
I didn’t. I was used to it happening, and I wondered in this case if they, rather than keeping things from us, just didn’t know. But I didn’t say this. Instead I sat there and waited for our appointment. I hadn’t been to the doctor’s office in two years. I’d had the chickenpox and Fred had given me some liquid medicine that tasted like molasses and brine. The memory of the taste of it was still strong.
We waited twenty minutes, and two other people came into the waiting room after us. I didn’t know them. They were older, perhaps summer people from the lake. They stared curiously at us, two kids just barely in our teens and waiting without an adult. This annoyed Deanny.
“Child leukemia,” she said. “With both barrels.”
Nonplussed, the couple settled their eyes on magazines rather than risk Deanny’s sarcasm again.
Finally Dr. Fred came out of the white-painted door next to the reception desk and said, I’m certain facetiously, “Master McNeil. Miss McLeod.”
I could see Deanny was surprised he knew her name. She forgot, perhaps, that she had given it to th
e receptionist to make the appointment. She hopped up and brushed past Dr. Fred, who held the door open. She was able to slip underneath his arm without him lifting it. I did the same.
“Nice to see you, Jacob,” said Dr. Fred, after he closed to the door behind him. “The room to your right please.”
There were only two rooms. The other contained a photocopier and medical supplies. Fred’s office contained a pine desk, a black leather swivel chair in front of it, another wooden chair with a cushion beside the desk. A steel examining table was jammed firmly against one wall.
“Not enough chairs for both of you,” said Dr. Fred. “One of you will have to stand or hop up on the table.”
“Not me,” said Deanny. “I’ll stand.”
“Don’t worry,” said Dr. Fred. “I’m not going to examine you Deanny. Unless of course that tendonitis is acting up.”
Deanny looked nervous. She stood cradling her arms and chewing her lower lip, which she always did when she was unsure of herself. Dr. Fred took his seat and motioned for me to take the other. I liked Fred and, unlike Deanny, I was not suspicious of him. He was a handsome man, with the solid build of a football player. My grandmother first visited him shortly after he bought the practice from Dr. Bell — who had bought it from my grandmother when my grandfather died — and said she could not possibly go see a doctor who was so young and good-looking.
“He can’t know anything about medicine,” she said. “He’s barely thirty and he looks like he belongs on some varsity team. I’ll have to get another doctor.”
My grandmother did not get another doctor. Though she was convinced, based on appearances, Dr. Fred would miss some vital diagnosis and let her die of cholera or bone cancer, he now owned the practice that had once belonged to her husband. To go anywhere else would feel like betrayal.
She fully changed her mind about him when he started dating Jeanette, who was wild about him from the first and actually manufactured symptoms in order to have an excuse to go see him. My grandmother got excited at the thought of one her daughters marrying a doctor, and she thought it prudent from then on to see Dr. Fred in his office whenever necessary and let him know, subtly, he had her full permission and support.
Jeanette did not marry Dr. Fred. She got tired of him, as she got tired of everyone. He remained a bachelor for many years, only marrying a woman from Halifax when he was almost forty.
I took the seat across from Fred. He eased back, crossed his legs at the ankles and said, “So what brings you two here today? I’m sure it’s not tendonitis, is it Deanny?”
Deanny didn’t answer. I was surprised. I couldn’t figure out what was bothering her. Was it that Fred was a doctor, and the surroundings unfamiliar? Had she chickened out, now it had come down to asking Dr. Fred questions? I could tell she was waiting for me to start.
Dr. Fred looked between the two of us with mild bemusement. I don’t think he had any idea what we were doing there. But it didn’t seem right to just ask him questions outright about my uncle’s illness — what it was, why it was troubling everyone so, why I wasn’t allowed in his room. I realized just then it was my mother I should have been asking these questions of, and demanding answers. Deanny complained they’d not told us anything, and this was true, but neither had we asked much. I suddenly felt foolish.
Dr. Fred uncrossed his legs and sat up straight in his chair. “Come on now,” he said. “Something must have brought you two here today. What is it?”
Deanny couldn’t wait any longer. “We want to know what aids is,” she blurted out. “We went to the library and there’s nothing about it. Those assholes in the theatre called Jacob and me ‘aids fuckers’ and we want to know why. We want to know why Jacob is not allowed in his uncle’s room, and if we can get it from just being near him, like everyone says. And if we can, how come we’re not sick yet? And …”
“Whoa!” said Dr. Fred. “That’s a lot of stuff. Does your mother know you’re here?” he said to me.
I shook my head.
“His mother doesn’t tell him anything. No one talks about it,” said Deanny.
“I see,” said Dr. Fred. “You said the kids in the theatre called you ‘aids fuckers’?”
It was strange, hearing a doctor say the word fuckers. Under other circumstances we might have laughed.
“Yes,” said Deanny. “Just before they grabbed us and threw us outside and Hilda locked the door on us. I’ve never been so mad in my life.”
“And Milo let them get away with this?”
Deanny nodded.
“I think,” said Dr. Fred, as if reading my mind, “you should be asking your mother these questions, Jacob. They seem more suited to her than me.”
“I told you,” Deanny said. “They don’t answer. They don’t tell us nothing.”
Dr. Fred twirled a pencil on his desk. Then he looked up and said, “What do you want to know?”
“What is it?” said Deanny.
Dr. Fred directed most of his answers at me, though Deanny was asking the questions. His voice was soft, and considerate. He had remarkable bedside manner, which is why he was such a popular physician. Soothing but not unctuous, precise, not condescending, his tone remained even and reassuring. He gave us all the information we needed, and more. aids, he told us, stood for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. It was a new disease. The first case in Canada had been discovered only a few years before, and my uncle was one of the first in the country to come down with it. We knew very little about it. It attacked and destroyed the immune system and opened up the person to a host of diseases that eventually killed him.
I asked Dr. Fred about the spots on my uncle’s face and neck and hands.
“A type of cancer,” he said. “Caused by the illness.”
“And the thinness?” asked Deanny. “He looks like a skeleton.”
“Body mass wasting,” he said. “Also caused by aids.”
“Is he going to live?” I asked.
“No,” said Dr. Fred, looking at me with great sympathy but a steady gaze. “I’m afraid he’s not. His days are numbered.”
“So why is everyone acting so retarded?” asked Deanny. “How do you get this thing anyway?”
“Through sex, for one,” he said. “Some people are afraid you can get it through touch, or the air, or mosquitoes. We’ve tried to explain to them we don’t think that’s how it is transmitted, but they won’t listen.”
I told him about not being allowed in my uncle’s room.
“They’re just being cautious,” he said. “They’re pretty sure you can’t get it that way, but they don’t want to take any chances. You understand, don’t you Jacob?”
“And what about the library? And Mom’s job at the diner?”
“Stupid,” spat Fred. “Silliest thing I’ve heard in all my years as a doctor. People are just being ignorant and mean.”
Deanny asked him about her father saying it killed queers.
Dr. Fred sighed. “The issue is complicated,” he said. “So far, it does just seem to affect gay men and drug addicts.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Deanny. “Why would a disease just affect one type of person?”
“We don’t know,” he said. “That’s why people are being so heartless and senseless about this. On one hand, they say it only affects gay men and so ‘good riddance,’ as your father says. On the other they’re worried about getting it themselves. I’ve never seen such confusion and hysteria surrounding a disease, and I hope never to again. Eventually people will settle down and see how stupid they’ve been, but until then we have to weather the storm.”
Although I didn’t know it, Dr. Fred was dealing with the fallout of my uncle as much as we were. Because he treated him, he had lost patients, and was also being ostracized. One man refused to get up on his examining table because my uncle had been on it. When Fred insisted aids could not be caught from tables or toilet seats or bug bites, he was pushed away even more.
Dr. Fred told us t
hat if we were his kids, he’d be going to Milo and giving him hell about what had happened in the theatre, and insisting the perpetrators be brought to justice. However, he also cautioned that we were unlikely to change any minds in town about the situation. It would have to run its course.
Deanny asked him if he thought we could get it from touching my uncle, or being in the same room. She asked him for an honest answer, and not one he would expect my mother to give. He seemed to think about this a while, and then said, “No. I don’t think you or Jacob is in any danger at all. It seems nearly impossible to convince people of that, but it is what I think. You are both fully safe from this disease.”
“Great,” Deanny said. “Then we’ll start helping him more.”
Deanny, it seemed to me, had not come to the office to become a champion for my uncle. She had come to see if there was any basis for the fear of the town, and to get back at those in the theatre who had thrown us out that day. She was to become a crusader, and she’d found my uncle as a cause. It was the first time I’d seen this in her, though the tendency must have been there all along.
Fred answered the rest of our questions, but when we left, I felt no more satisfied than I had before. I didn’t understand what we were supposed to do with our knowledge. We still faced the same taunts and prejudice. We were still barred from the theatre. But Deanny looked replete.
“We’re experts now,” she said.
“Experts on what?”
“On what your uncle has, dummy.”
“But how does that help us?” I said.
“You’ll see,” said Deanny. “Knowing things always helps, Jake.”
It was, I realize now, the first time Deanny had ever called me by my name.
SEVEN
■
the nominal leader of the Lemon Day parade, the one who walked in front of the lemon cart with the papier-mâché fruit, was named Byron McNeil. No relation. He was my grandmother’s age, worked at the post office, and had been involved in the town in various capacities all his life. A committed bachelor, it had been more than once suggested his bread was buttered on the wrong side, as my uncle’s was. But there was no evidence for this, other than he lived alone with three cats and had never looked at a woman in all his life. He appointed himself Marshal of the Parade years before, when he dressed up us a town crier and with shouts of “Hear Ye! Hear Ye!” assumed the traditionally unoccupied space in front of the lemon cart. Now, some fifteen years later, it had become a new tradition.