The Great Believers

by Rebecca Makkai

  They headed down to the Loop on the El, and Yale tried not to let Fiona see how terrified he was. He’d gone to the candlelight vigil outside Cook County Hospital on Saturday night, staying till two in the morning, eating soup and sharing a blanket with Asher and Fiona and Asher’s friend from New York, but that had felt far safer. Candles reminded him of a religious service, and after a while everyone was sitting. Only a few hundred people, some guitars. A silly fashion show at one point. An actual march was different, and the overzealous guy who’d called him late last night from the ACT UP phone tree had reminded him to let friends and family know where he’d be. He’d suggested wearing a second, padded backpack in the front. “Sometimes they get baton-happy,” he said. “So just, sweaters in there, whatever.” But Yale only owned one backpack. He put a sweatshirt in, a spare bandanna, and a bottle of water. He put his inhaler into one pants pocket and a plastic baggie with three days of pills into the other, in case he was detained. Eighty-five pills, seventy-some dollars’ worth, thank God for insurance.

  The train was full of Monday-morning commuters, men in suits, women in blazers, a few kids in private-school uniforms. Everything had started at 8 at the Prudential Building, but it was already 8:45, and they’d likely have to meet the crowd on its way up Michigan to the Blue Cross offices. Yale had the Xeroxed route map folded in his pocket. A huge loop that looked like way too much walking. The American Medical Association was the next big stop, followed by another insurance place, and finally back to Daley Plaza, where they’d plant themselves in front of the County Building to protest the closure of half the AIDS beds at Cook County and the fact that the ward wouldn’t take women.

  Fiona managed to find a seat and insisted Yale take it. He felt fine, really, except that his stomach had been a mess for a few days. A different kind of mess than the drugs made it—this was sharp cramping, sloshing. It might have been the start of everything, or it might have been nerves. Once he was sitting below her, she said, “So I have a problem. I’m in love with my sociology professor.”

  Yale laughed. “Feef! Like unrequited love, or like you’re getting some extra credit?”

  “I mean, he calls me. At home. But we haven’t—it’s not against the law or anything!”

  “Tell me he’s not sixty,” Yale said. “Oh God, is he married?”

  “No, and no. He’s your age, maybe.”

  “But you’re in his class.”

  “Right. Well, I was. Exams are this week.”

  “You should be studying.”

  “Shut up. So, I take the exam, and then what?”

  Fiona was flushed. If she was trying to keep her face neutral, it wasn’t working. It was a beautiful thing to see: a happy Fiona, Fiona in love.

  He said, “Maybe you wait till grades are filed. For propriety. And then. You know.”

  “Really? I thought you’d be the one to talk sense into me. You’re supposed to be my most sensible friend.”

  “Feef, you’re asking advice from someone who’s increasingly aware that life is very short. Wait till you have your grade, then go to his office and unzip his pants.”

  He’d been talking quietly, but Fiona shrieked. “That is such a gay move, Yale!” No one looked; if anything, they thought she was insulting him generically.

  “I’m pretty sure it works on straight guys too. Seriously. How many lives do you have? How many times are you gonna be twenty-five?”

  Fiona raised an eyebrow. Her eyebrows were darker than her hair, and Yale loved that it gave her a perpetually sardonic look. She said, “Are you following your own advice?”

  “I’m about to take part in some mob action, aren’t I? Does that really seem like a thing I’d do?”

  “Not at all. But I know why you’re doing it. It’s not because life is short. It’s because you’re in love with Asher.”

  He was going to protest, but the blood had come to his cheeks and ears so fast he could hear it, and it would be even more embarrassing now to attempt a denial. She’d seen him at the vigil after all, mooning around, worrying whether Asher was sleeping with his friend from New York, watching the way the candle lit Asher’s face from below. Yale said, “Well, he had some good points.” He was no more or less in love with Asher than he’d always been, which is to say, he’d always been fairly deeply in love with Asher if he admitted it to himself, which, lately, he was willing to do. It wasn’t that he’d been spending more time with him than he always had, but he had more opportunity to sit back and watch him—as Asher spoke at benefits, headed up community meetings, got himself on TV when the Quilt came to Navy Pier, got himself on TV when he was arrested—and Yale was finally letting himself, from that distance, look at something he’d always known would burn his eyes.

  Asher had spent a full hour at the vigil talking Yale into marching today. “You embarrass someone on the six o’clock news,” he’d said, “how much more effective is that than writing a letter? Nothing else you do will make this much difference. And this is the big one. This is it.” His full New York accent had come out. He’d jabbed a finger at Yale’s chest way too hard, and then apologized.

  DAGMAR had rolled into the Chicago branch of ACT UP, and Asher was providing a lot of its legal counsel, plus facing the pepper spray himself. Most protests brought out twenty or thirty stalwarts, but this one was national—people flying in from all over to target AMA headquarters and the AMA’s opposition to national insurance. And the county hospital system, too, and the insurance companies, and lord knew what else. The whole thing felt confusing to Yale, but bigger was better, according to Asher. “If we’re not fighting for poor black women who need beds at County,” Asher said, “we’re as bad as the fucking Republicans. You don’t just go into this looking out for yourself. And Yale,” he’d said, and Yale was slightly surprised that Asher had remembered his presence, remembered he wasn’t just giving a speech to the ether, “I think you’d be great at this, long term. Maybe behind the scenes, but we need you. We’re gonna need new leaders all the time. The problem with this movement is the leaders keep dying. We gotta have subs.”

  There’d been a drop of wax rolling down Asher’s candle, getting dangerously close to his hand. Yale had reached out and stopped it with his thumbnail. Which is probably when Fiona had realized, if she hadn’t already.

  * * *

  —

  The crowd was indeed on the move by the time Yale and Fiona joined it, streaming north over the Michigan Avenue Bridge. Some of the protestors wore doctors’ coats, a nice touch, and most carried signs—“Death by Loophole,” “Bloody Money,” an elaborate one about George Bush having a drug czar but no AIDS czar—and Yale felt like a bland supernumerary. No one wore double backpacks, not a single person; he was glad he hadn’t showed up looking like an overprepared kid.

  But Fiona eagerly joined the chanting, and once Yale did, too, he found that the rhythm of his feet on the pavement matched the rhythm of what he was shouting and soon his heart fell into sync, as it used to when he’d go out dancing.

  “People with AIDS,” a woman with a megaphone would yell, “under attack! What do we do?”

  And together they yelled, “ACT UP! Fight back!”

  Yale watched for people he knew, but he’d have to be patient; there were thousands of protestors, and in fact it was nice that these faces didn’t all have the look of someone he’d seen around Boystown for years but just couldn’t place. It was good to be part of a horde, a wave of humans.

  A chant would die out and then stop, as if it had been cut off by an invisible conductor, and then a new one would travel toward them up the street, fuzzy at first, and then he’d hear it clearly once through before joining in. As they passed the Tribune Tower, with dazed tourists looking on: Health! Care! Is a right! Health care is a right! Outside the Blue Cross building, right on the Magnificent Mile: We’re here! We’re queer! We’re not going shopping! Walking down State, t
he crowd tighter now, louder: Hey, Hey, AMA! How many people died today?

  Three laughing teenagers ran right near Yale and Fiona for a while, doing a limp-wristed mocking dance that no one paid attention to. Someone threw an empty cigarette packet out a car window, and it bounced off Fiona’s shoulder.

  Yale spotted Rafael from Out Loud, walking with a cane, but he was too far away to talk to. There were police all around, blowing whistles, shouting things Yale couldn’t understand, but no one seemed to be under arrest yet. No one was getting headlocked.

  But before they reached the AMA, Yale felt his stomach liquefy. He told Fiona he needed a bathroom, and she told him he looked pale.

  They ducked into a hotel, where thankfully no one stopped them, and Yale made it to a fancy single-occupancy restroom down a hall behind the concierge desk, Fiona standing guard outside the door. He called to her that she could leave, and she told him that was silly. She ran out to find a Walgreens and came back with Imodium and Gatorade, although he was feeling better even before she returned. He took his time, sat there fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, worried there would be a crowd of bemused spectators when he emerged. He came out to see just Fiona sitting cross-legged against the wall, and he shut the door quickly behind him. “This’ll be my defense if they arrest me,” he said. “I can just shit my pants. I’ll be like a skunk, or an octopus.”

  Fiona said, “Remember Nico’s comic about Hot Todd getting the runs on a date?” Yale did. The strip ended with Todd rushing home, the dream date alone on the sidewalk, left wondering what he’d done wrong.

  Fiona sat with him on a couch in the lobby. He wanted to rejoin the protest, but not yet. He could use a few minutes to make sure.

  Fiona smiled like she was about to present him with a gift. She said, “You know he likes you too.”

  He said, “Who?” even though he knew, or hoped he knew. He’d felt cold and drained, but now all his blood and breath rushed back into him.

  “He told Nico. And Nico told me.”

  “Oh. So it was ages ago.”

  “Sure. But people don’t let go of that stuff. And I talked to him after you broke up with Charlie. I said he should go for it.” She kept talking too loud. She wasn’t following his cues to whisper—although the lobby was mostly empty, and the family at the desk seemed preoccupied.

  “And he didn’t go for it.”

  “The thing is, he’s not into monogamy, and he knew that was what you’d want.”

  “Jesus. I mean, I don’t believe in it anymore. It’s the entire reason I’m sick.”

  Fiona tilted her head. “That’s kind of the opposite of what happened.”

  “Not really.”

  He was angry and excited and confused. None of which helped his stomach. He wanted more than ever to head back out there, and he knew less than ever how he would hold it together.

  When he was finally ready, when they slowly stood, he was overwhelmed with what he thought at first was déjà vu—but no, it was a real memory: leaving the bathroom at Richard’s, walking downstairs to find no one there. What if it happened again? What if they walked back out to a normal day in a normal city, the protestors having marched into the void?

  Fiona said, “Let’s go straight to the County Building and wait for everyone by the Snoopy.”

  “By the what?”

  “The Snoopy in a blender. That statue.”

  It took him a second. “Oh my God, Fiona, that’s a Jean Dubuffet.” Abstract and white, with black lines. A sculpture that invited climbing.

  “I am not the only one who calls it that, and we can’t all be art experts.”

  He liked the idea of crawling inside it, watching the protests, watching Asher from inside a sculptural shell.

  * * *

  —

  They did beat everyone there, aside from some organizers milling around with clipboards, megaphones by their sides. They learned from one that there had been arrests at the AMA, some guys who’d blocked the building’s entrance. “They’ve got Mounties out now,” he said.

  They sat down, leaned against the Dubuffet.

  Yale said, “It’s called Monument with Standing Beast. Just for future reference.”

  “Nope, no way. Never. Hey, you’ll be my date to Nora’s opening, right?”

  “Maybe you’ll bring your sociology professor!”

  “Yale, my parents will be there.”

  “Good point,” he said. “Definitely better to show up with a diseased gay man. I know that’s your dad’s favorite.”

  In February—nearly ten months away—Nora’s collection was finally, finally going up at the Brigg. After infinite delays, endless nonsense. Bill had messed things up badly, promising the Foujitas on loan to the Ohara Museum in Japan before the Brigg even had a chance to display them itself. Yale was still on the mailing list for the gallery, and he’d been alarmed to notice that in the write-up of the show, every artist but Ranko Novak had been listed. Even Sergey Mukhankin was there. He’d called the gallery and pretended to be from Out Loud—why not?—and asked the woman who answered if there was an artist named Novak whose work would be featured. “I don’t see that,” she’d said. And Yale had leaned his head all the way back, left his chin and Adam’s apple pointed at the ceiling until his neck ached.

  At least Nora had died believing she’d given Ranko his show, but whatever part of Yale believed in an afterlife (he was trying to believe, at least, lately) felt he’d let her down enormously. She’d trusted him, had left Ranko’s legacy in his hands alone, and he’d failed. And it had been her own work, too, even if she hadn’t seen it that way. Yale had wanted, more than anything, to see Nora’s portrait of Ranko on the gallery wall, next to Ranko’s portrait of her—a secret triumph only a couple of people would ever understand. And now it was all relegated to some storage closet. When he thought about it, his throat constricted. He hadn’t told Fiona the news yet; telling her would feel like telling Nora.

  Yale and Fiona sat by the Dubuffet another half hour, but then they could hear everyone coming down Clark, and then they were there with their wind-battered signs, sweaty and hoarse. George Bush, you can’t hide! We charge you with genocide! There were news crews now, running backward in front of the mass. He spotted Asher right near the front, and Teddy too. Teddy was doing a postdoc at UC Davis, but he was back for this, and he’d caught up with Yale at the vigil. He was tan and happy, and he’d gained a few pounds, in a good way.

  Yale and Fiona joined the chant: Health! Care! Is a right! Health care is a right! Whatever momentum he’d lost from their detour to the hotel, he easily picked back up again.

  When was the last time he’d yelled? He’d yelled at Cubs games. He’d yelled at Charlie when they were breaking up. But he hadn’t yelled about AIDS. He hadn’t yelled at the government. He hadn’t yelled at the forces that had denied Katsu Tatami health insurance, at the county hospital system that had made Katsu wait two weeks for a bed when he couldn’t breathe and then let him die on a ward that smelled like piss. He hadn’t yelled yet at this new mayor and his lip service. He hadn’t yelled at the universe.

  Fiona took his hand and led him into the fray, and they wove their way toward Asher. Asher was busy yelling into his megaphone, but he winked at them, and when he lowered it he said, “You okay?”

  Yale said, “You know what this feels like? It’s like coming out all over again. I’m in the middle of downtown, shouting about being gay. I’m shouting about AIDS. And it’s amazing.”

  “Stay with me, okay? You want these?” Asher reached into his pocket, pulled out a roll of Silence = Death stickers. “Put them everywhere. My friend stuck one right on a horse!”

  Teddy bounded up, told them that back at the corner—Yale couldn’t see that far, but he heard the roar from that direction, the whistles and shouting—women had thrown fifteen mattresses into the street to represent the
beds that lay vacant from understaffing. They were lying on them, making an impromptu women’s ward.

  But then Fiona pointed up, and then everyone started pointing up: Five guys were climbing out a window and onto a ledge of the County Building. They quickly affixed their banner below the state flag: “WE DEMAND EQUAL HEALTH CARE NOW!” Asher started jumping up and down, shouting their names. He said to Yale, “They were in straight drag! They had on button-downs!” Now they wore ACT UP shirts.

  It must have been a full minute before the police appeared behind the men and dragged two of them away. The three that remained pumped their fists to the chanting. The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching! And although Yale couldn’t imagine it was true—would this really earn more than a thirty-second spot on the news?—it felt good to shout it. When the cops came back, those last three clung to the very edge, the flagpole, the banner itself. They looked ready to scale the entire building like Spider-Man. Fiona buried her face in Yale’s shirt. Yale wanted to look away too, but he made himself watch as the police dragged them in by the legs. They got the last one in a twisted headlock.

  Down here the Mounties paced, pushing everyone back. It was time, apparently, to sit down in the street. Asher said, “You can get out of here. You want to go?” But he didn’t. Fiona didn’t want to either. Asher said, “You’ve got a support person?” Yale nodded, didn’t mention that Gloria was home in her apartment, not out here ready to follow him to jail.

  They say get back! the crowd was shouting. We say fight back!

  He only hoped his stomach would hold out. He took the Imodium out of his backpack and swigged. Way too much, but he could deal with the consequences later. They sat, part of a Red Rover line of twenty stretching across the street: Asher on one side of Yale, Fiona on the other, and Teddy on the other side of her. Behind them people stood and chanted and filmed and shouted at the cops.