by Shelby Smoak
We row to a spot upchannel, an artery of the Cape Fear that is even calmer than the river herself. Here the men practice shifting in their seats, rolling to the catch, and flipping their oars for a smooth and strong pull in the water. We are silent: I hear the splash of water, the grunt of the rowers, the click of wooden oars slapping against wooden boat, and then the quiet flow of the river as we slip through it.
November 1991. It is after Thanksgiving. I’ve just returned from the family holiday and have been busy with papers and prepping for final exams. Sean—a freshman who rooms down the hall—sits across from me underneath Krispy Kreme’s “Hot Now” sign as we both take a needed study break. His dark brown hair curls from the humidity and his amber eyes widen and dart around in a twitch. We eat doughnuts, sip coffee. Often this semester, we have come here: to sit, to eat, to talk. And though we have said much, I have not said enough. At least not until now.
“I’ve got something to tell you.” And I begin: tell of my hemophilia, my HIV. Sean stops eating his doughnut and brings both hands to his coffee cup’s lid, where they fidget abstractly. Save for the sound of our breathing, it is quiet. I hear the rasp-heavy voice of a smoker ordering at the counter, the mellifluous trickle of a cup of coffee being poured, the click of a metal car door outside, the strain of the glass door being opened, the quiet laughter of a couple entering. I sip my coffee.
“That’s heavy,” Sean says. “Really heavy.”
His finger traces the napkin’s Krispy Kreme symbol as a child just learning to write. He stares into his coffee, looks outside the window, runs his hand through his hair, and breathes out heavy. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you told me . . . I’m not sure that I can help any, but if my knowing helps then I’m glad.” He pauses, sips his coffee, sets it back on the tabletop. “But I’ve got a million questions, and I don’t even know where to start. But one in particular is just nagging at me, and if it’s too personal you can just tell me to go to hell.” He stammers. “Ana? Does she know?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Wow. Okay. That’s what I thought.” His eyes roll around in thought. “You two are . . .” He hesitates, tilts his head. “You know . . . ?”
“Yes.”
“And it’s safe, right?”
“It’s safe.”
“Wow. I mean damn. I don’t know what to say. What should I say? Is there anything to say? Hell, I don’t even know how to act. This is really fucked up, you know. It’s all fucked up.” He looks to me. His eyes grow large with excitement and are bright and earnest in the fluorescent light. “You got fucked,” he vociferates loudly. “You know that? I think I’d be in someone’s face or something. I’d have to react. This is way too fucked up to not do something. I mean damn.” Another coffee sip. “I always knew I’d learn about the world in college, but I didn’t think it’d be like this. This is just plain fucked up. Damn.” He sips again. “Sorry, man. This is just fucked up and I don’t know what else to say but that.” Slurp. “Fucked up.”
The following afternoon when I return from my classes, I find Sean watching TV and smoking Camels. A big blue haze puffs around him, and as he turns to me, I can tell that he has not rested well. The dark skin beneath his eyes sags, and his disheveled hair appears as if his hands have been running through it all night, all day. Clothed in beer-mug boxers and a Charlotte Hornets T-shirt, he leans back into a chair marked by cigarette burns and beer stains. He nods hello as he shakes a cigarette out of the pack and tosses this onto the table where a pyramid of empty beer cans remains on display.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” he says, lighting his cigarette. “I thought about you.”
I drop my backpack and sit across from him. “I guess that you weren’t expecting that kind of news about me last night.”
“That . . . That was not what I expected.” He pauses. “At all.”
“I know.”
He presses his cigarette butt into the ashtray and then flips another from his pack, taps it on the coffee table in front of him. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say about it.” He brings the cigarette to his lips, lights it, and, when he exhales, I watch as smoke plumes from his mouth, clouding the distance between us. The scent of tobacco wafts toward me. “I’ve been smoking a shitload of these,” Sean says, gesturing to his cigarette. “I don’t know what else to do, so I just smoke and smoke a fuckload while crazy shit runs through my mind. A of all, I think about you and your having to deal with this shit and how fucked up that is, and then B of all I think about me, and, well, I’ll be honest . . . I get a little scared.”
“It’s safe. I’m safe. And you’re not in any danger.”
“Well, I know that. At least on a logical level, but, man . . .” He exhales. “Still, it’s making me fucking crazy. I mean, what if you were to cut yourself and bleed all over the place or something like that. That’s some really crazy shit to think about. I really don’t know what I’d do. I don’t think that would happen, but just the thought that it could scares the piss out of me. . . . That’s what this crazy head of mine has been doing to me all night. It creates these horrific situations and plays them out in my head, and it freaks the shit out of me.” He puffs. Smoke fills the room. “I’m all fucked up. And I should be supporting you. I should be a better friend to you, and I feel like I’m supposed to do something. Like I should drop out of school with you and tour the world or some fucked up shit like that. Oh God, I feel like one of those fucking movies.” He leans his body forward and rests his head in his palms in a position of deep worry and concern.
“I hope you don’t hate me for telling you. That’s not what I meant.”
Sean rights himself, pulls smoke into his lungs. “No. Certainly not. I’ve just gotta learn to deal. That’s all. I’ve gotta deal.”
He drags deeply on his cigarette. A wisp of smoke trails from his mouth. He coughs. “This smoking shit is really killing me, and I know I’ve gotta quit, but I can’t today. It’s keeping me sane.”
December 1991. Inside my English professor’s office, I sit as our conference begins. Her hair is wild and uncombed, and she tucks a mat of it behind her ears to reveal eyes tired from reading my class’s essays. Papers are strewn across her desk, and rows upon rows of books line her walls and casket us in her office. She rustles her pile, retrieves a paper from it, and tosses it to me. I flip hastily through it, eventually arriving at the last page which has an A marked upon it.
“What’s your major?”
“Marine biology,” I answer with a certain lack of confidence. This was a thing I declared when I felt pressured into making myself a major of something. I reasoned that I loved fish, and so I would follow myself through a career with fish. Yet it isn’t as I envisioned it. I’m not achieving high marks in my field, am not learning anything about fish, nor am I particularly enjoying it. I haven’t even seen a fish since stepping on campus. I’ve studied mitochondria, DNA, RNA, the Golgi apparatus, and the convoluted insides of frogs, but no fish.
“Marine biology,” the professor repeats. “Really. I’d have never guessed that.” She aims her finger at my essay and I look down to again notice my A. “It’s a good essay,” she says. “A fine piece.” And then she points her finger toward me. “You’ve got more a mind for English, I’m afraid. You should think about that. You should think about doing that.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Well, I meant to make you think about it, not flatter you.”
“Okay. Then I’ll think about it.”
“Okay great. Think about it.”
THROWING HOPE AWAY
FEBRUARY 1992. ANOTHER COLD WINTER MORNING. AT 6:00 A.M. rowing practice began, and now, at 8:30, I eat breakfast in the school cafeteria, enjoying a Belgian waffle with syrup. And later when I pedal to my nine o’clock literature class, my nausea comes on suddenly, and, having little time to react, I lean my head over the bike frame and throw up in the landscaped median. It is over quickly and is, thankfully, only witnesse
d by one student. I smile to him, wave that I’m okay, and continue to class. But before going, I splash water on my face in the bathroom and momentarily consider returning to my room for rest. Yet we have a test, I argue, and I feel okay. I should attend. I hold a wet paper towel to my forehead, inhale and exhale, assuring myself that I am well.
In class, I answer the short responses, concentrate on the essay question, and then my foot contracts in a spasm. I run my shoe along the floor, trying to press my foot flat within it and work my knot away. My foot twists. I breathe deeply, slowly, and concertedly to ease my pain, but it continues. I slip my shoe off, massage my foot through my sock, and feel the pain gradually subside. I flex my toes, stretch them out, and then return to my test. In the last months, the frequency of these spasms has steadily increased. And so has the nausea. I sense that something is wrong.
In the evening, I join Sean in the cafeteria. Having read some articles, called a few hotlines, and being assured that I am in more danger from HIV than him—he apologizes for his extreme reaction and states that he is no longer afraid of me. I say that I understand, that it isn’t his fault, that the media has encouraged his response. We slap hands, high five, and then I load my plate with food, but upon sitting am immediately seized with spinning and nausea. I close my eyes and try to control myself.
“Are you okay?” Sean asks.
“Yeah. I’ll be fine. I’m just not that hungry tonight.”
I excuse myself and leave, bracing an arm against my stomach, another to my forehead. Outside, the wind throws the evergreen limbs around, and the sunlight that passes through them is as a strobe upon the sidewalk. My nausea increases. I fall into a nearby bench and feel the cold air chill the sweat beaded along my forehead. I shut my mouth to hold in my sickness. I breathe through my nose, listen at its sound rushing in and out of my nostrils, a noise like the wind swirling around me. Footsteps pass by. A girl asks another: You think he’s okay? And then the wind gusts their voices away as flickers of sunlight dance across my eyelids and as the trees rustle overhead, producing a great whirling sky. When I force myself to stand, the wind catches my back and propels me forward.
In my room, I draw my trash can near and lie back and close my eyes. The room spins, my stomach quivers, and my body lightens as sick air against a mattress. I force my head into the trash can and heave until my deep gagging only yanks up sound and green spittle. My thin stomach muscles tighten; my throat roughens. I rest back and again close my eyes, and with my pillowcase, I catch the warm tears spilling from them. This cannot go on. This must stop.
In the night, another spasm wakes me. My left foot cramps like the parabolic arch of a scared cat’s back—an arabesque of pain. To soothe it, I get out of bed and walk it off, hobbling round my room, stepping gingerly and occasionally flexing my toes to stretch my muscle. Outside, crickets sing their last song before the sun will soon rise, and the campus lights blaze in the dark courtyard—feeble orbs in a cloud of night. Eventually, my foot unlocks itself, and the pain fades. I lie down again.
Today it happens at lunch. My skin pales, my body warms, and my throat closes itself while my stomach churns. I push my food away and rush to my suite, where I give my insides to the toilet. Done, I lie down and sleep through another afternoon class, and later, I eat a slice of bread and wait to see that it stays down. Then, on what strength I have, I study. I’m behind in several classes now.
It is early morning, and I feel sick for the seventh time this week. My forehead sweats and my stomach roils. I go to the bathroom, hover over the open toilet, and wait for the spell to pass. I gag lightly, quietly, but nothing comes up. I run cold water over a cloth and press this to my face. It is cool and raises chill bumps along my arms as I sit on the bathroom floor and wait, and when the nausea ends, I return to my bed for a few more minutes of sleep, but soon I wake, dress for class, and swallow my AZT before leaving.
March. It has gone on for far too long. I cannot eat without food later spilling out of me, and I cannot walk without a muscle contraction striking me down. Now at four in the morning, I am bent prostrate in the suite bathroom, throwing my stomach into the toilet again. While the rest of the hall sleeps and while the first cool dew clings to the trees and grass outside, I am sick underneath the fluorescent light and its electric hum. I have no doubts that AZT causes this; research confirms it and my intuition tells me it is so. I wet my face with a cool washcloth. I wash my hands. I rinse my mouth with Listerine. And I return to bed, tiptoeing past my sleeping roommate.
When I wake again in another few hours, I shower, dress, and I then cup a cold glass of orange juice in one hand and palm the obligatory white and blue pill in the other. I hold it to the light, scrutinize the tiny particles encased in its shell, and wonder at it all. Twice a day, every day since I found out about my HIV, I have swallowed this pill unquestioningly. Today I pause. Although I have trusted AZT with my life, I think I can trust it no more. This is no way to live.
I walk into my room, the pill in hand, and I fetch the rest of the bottle, still hidden in my dresser drawer. I shake it and hear the rattle of the tiny, life-saving medicine within. Then, from where I’m standing at my bedside, I make a long free-throw shot to the trash can. The bottle whacks against the concrete wall and banks in, making a tiny thump as it settles atop crumpled paper.
I don’t call to consult Dr. Trum, for I can guess his advice. He has his numbers to believe in. He has his charts and his faith in medicine. I don’t ask my mother or my father what they think, for, just as AZT is my only hope, so it is theirs, and I can’t ask them to give up a thing like that. So for now, I take this upon myself. I am sick of being sick.
I remove the trash bag from the can and ponder the AZT bottle one last time before hauling it to the dumpster. Outside, a cool breeze blows the stink of trash toward me, and I again feel nauseous as I hurl the bag over the container’s top. The bag flies up and hovers momentarily before descending and crashing against the metal inside. When I hear the heavy thud of it settling, the crackling of glass, the woofing exhale of foul air—I cross my fingers and wish for strength and health immeasurable. I need a miracle now. A Merlin to save me.
April. Friday night, Ana and I attend a keg party in a house off Walker Street in Greensboro, and our spirits are lifted with drink. We laugh heavily as we hold hands and totter our way back to Ana’s dorm where we have sex like two drunk lovers having sex. We slur I love you until intoxication sends us dreams. We sleep until, several hours later, daylight brightens her room and wakes us. Ana rises to close her blinds and returns with glasses of cold water. I drink. She drinks. Then we adjust her covers and sleep more.
We wake in the late afternoon, order burgers from a local grill, and watch a matinee at the nearby cinema, and when we return to her dorm, we are both still tired from the night before. Ana rests her arms across my chest as her room darkens with night. She is almost asleep.
“I’ve quit it, Ana,” I say to her sleeping face. She opens her eyes, lifts her head from her pillow.
“Quit what?”
“The AZT.”
She stills her hand over my heart.
“I’m so scared,” she says.
“I am, too.”
“What will you do? Isn’t there anything else? Isn’t there any way to take it? Is it really making you that sick?”
“It’s done. There is nothing else to do but wait.”
She lays her face against my cheek. “Oh, I hate this,” she says. “I hate this.”
I hear the patter of footsteps along the corridor outside, the giggle of girls, and then this fades. Ana turns back to me.
“It’s your decision,” she says softly. “I guess I have to trust you.”
She squeezes against me, trails her finger against my backbone. We fumble our hands together and press hope against our palms. We kiss in the dark.
When I return to Wilmington on Sunday, a lifting storm lets the sun poke through the clouds, warming the earth, and, not ready t
o return to school and its many demands, I head to the beach. I drive past the azaleas blooming along Airlie Road and crest the bridge over the Atlantic waterway to descend into a landscape of estuaries, sea grass, and vacation homes constructed where land allows. Parking near the Trolley Stop, I buy two of their mustard and cheese Surfer dogs and eat these outside where gulls wing around me in a white flutter.
Later I walk along the beach. The gulls escort me, cawing to and fro, and, rooted to nothing, they are borne aloft by the sea’s constant breeze. I follow the sands north to Mercer’s Pier and spend money on a rusty pinball machine. I feed the game quarters, trying to keep the ball alive, but I lose quickly. The fishermen and their long poles come and go, and a few drag vines of sea bass with them. A ball slips past my flipper, the lights stop flashing, the pinball’s siren quiets, and another game ends. I count my change and consider breaking a few more dollars, but instead I pocket those not yet spent.