“They’re simple. I’m available at my own schedule, although I’m flexible. I shall receive no payment. Every effort should be made to insulate me from any contagion, but don’t worry. I’ve been through many hours of training and can pretty well take care of myself. I will assist you with government agency contact, if needed.”
“What does that mean?” Matt asked.
“Welfare. The township. Food banks.”
“We’re good there,” Matt snapped.
“Let the man speak,” I said.
“You never know when you need some assistance. Hyacinth can get you a break on some of your meds, for instance.”
“AZT?”
“Yes.”
This was sounding good already.
“I’m not to be expected to contribute financial aid to your household. However, I’m permitted to make you gifts . . . books, flowers, a movie. I excel at household chores.”
“Hours of training,” Matt snapped. “My pumpkin can teach you a few things about household chores.”
Louise scowled. Matt shut up. On some level I understood his frustration, but one more word and I would ask this new buddy to strangle him . . . free of charge.
“And that’s it.”
“No money. No germs. Your schedule and you act as a liaison between Matt and some helping hands.”
“Exactly.”
“Do I need to sign anything?” I asked looking for the signature block at the end.
“No,” Hank said. “But each time I come you must sign my hourly sheets. Also, if I’m unacceptable, you can request a different buddy.”
“How could anybody do that to a volunteer?” Louise said.
“I’m a Black volunteer,” Hank said. “It happens more than you would care to know. But I can see there’s no problem here. Right, Matt?”
Matt raised his hands in surrender.
“I just love you darkies.”
With his Texan accent, I thought that Hank would tear up the contract. However, he just gave us the biggest, brightest, toothiest smile I’d ever seen. There was a real comfort in that grin.
“Well as long as you don’t want me to play the banjo, we’ll do fine.”
“Can you sing Dixie?”
The grin turned to laughter and then to song as Hank drawled a good rendition of Dixie.
“I wish I were in the land of cottin’
Ol’ times there are soon forgottin’
Look away,
Look away . . .”
Matt and Louise joined in, while I mumbled a basso continuo beneath them. The pact was sealed and Matt finally came around. When Louise returned to the kitchen and Matt to his Asbury Park Press, I squirreled Hank aside. He told me that his own partner had been HIV positive and that he joined Hyacinth while his partner was still alive. It was a heart-rending tale of love and devotion, but I somehow kept together, and also ignored the obvious Déjà vu elements as they played past my ear. I then asked him a dozen questions that had mounted in my head about the meds and the best way to administer them without blasting Matt apart over the toilet bowl. Hank admitted that AZT was lethal. He actual described it as a complication of the disease. He recommended mixing them with plain yogurt, followed by some cream cheese. Then a twelve ounce glass a water after that, which somehow kept everything down. As for the bowel explosion, there was little to help that except perfect timing. It’s a plus that he still gets around on his own, a statement that left me on the brink of despair.
“Don’t worry,” Hank said. “You’ll get through it.”
“You say that like there’s hope.”
“There’s always hope.”
I didn’t believe him, but I thought he was talking about Matt. He was actually talking about me.
“You should come to the support meetings.”
“With Matt?”
“No. There are support groups for Matt, but as a caregiver, you need to speak with other caregivers. You’ll learn a lot.”
That’s just what I needed — living mirrors into my soul. Hank hugged me.
“What’s that for?”
“You needed it. Come to the support group next Wednesday. If Matt has a bad day, I’ll come here.”
“Baby sit?”
“I don’t think he’d like to hear that.”
“I know he wouldn’t. If he’s poorly on Wednesday, I can ask his mom or his sister . . .”
“You’ll come then?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Hank stood, and then walked to the kitchen.
“Mr. Matt,” he said. “I’s be goin’ back to darkietown, now. I’s see you soon.”
Matt laughed.
“Stop that now.”
Hank turned to me.
“We’ll all be fine now. You’ll see. The path is steep, but as long as you know where to step, none of you will fall off the mountain.”
And that’s how we met our perfect stranger.
2
I wasn’t sure how the Buddy Service deal was going to work out, but it added to the situation's depth . . . initially. Hank would stop by with the mail, dive into the dishes if I had left them in the sink, dust the furniture and Lysol the tub. He was never idle when he arrived. He was pleasant and informative. However, I soon learned the power of this service.
Matt had a bad day at work and I received the inevitable rescue call. He had his diaper on and the spare, but he was so woozy that he couldn’t make it through the afternoon. This was a problem, because if I left the tie counter early once more, I would be shit-canned. The blue-pencil warned me. She kept me in her scopes. Then, I called Hank. Luck had it, he was available. So he drove over to Axum Labs, picked Matt up and took him home. By the time I arrived at the apartment, they were playing gin rummy and laughing up a storm. I could have kissed them both. I decided that I owed Hank the courtesy of going to the support group in New Brunswick, so I left Matt on a particularly good evening where he was engrossed on the computer. I drove to Bayard Street, parked in Ferran Deck and sought the old brownstone headquarters for the Hyacinth Foundation.
As I mounted the short flight to the old wood and glass doors, the light from the foyer braced me. I was fearful of this place on some level. It represented a repository of all the things I needed to know, but didn’t want to know. Still, it was friendly inside — long flights of stairs, rattletrap elevators, bulletin boards flapping circulars of events and items for sale, and a few offices, one of which was open.
“Yes, can I help you?” asked a woman in a green button down sweater.
“I’m looking for the support group.”
“Caregiver or patient?”
“Caregiver.”
She smiled.
“Bless you,” she said. “I’m Marie Blanchard. Welcome to Hyacinth. You’re early, you know, but that’s okay. Here.”
She swiped a goodly sample of brochures from a wall rack.
“Read these. You’ll find them helpful. The meeting is up the stairs on the third floor. Room 12-G.”
“Thank you.”
I stared at the pamphlets — The Latest Treatments. A Study of HIV at Johns Hopkin. What Every Caregiver Needs to Know. The Story of Hyacinth. I gave her a dim smile, and then hiked up the long stairs to the second floor, which contained a large auditorium and a series of classrooms. The next flight was narrower. The oaken age of the place warmed me. At the top of the stairs stood a tall handsome dude, who rocked on his heels, waiting for something, I knew not what.
“Hi,” I said. “Is this the support group?”
“I believe so,” he said.
He was hesitant, so I assumed he was new to this also.
“12-G?” I asked.
He pointed around the corner. I nodded and found the room. I was the first to arrive — well except the dude in waiting, but he didn’t follow me in. So I took a seat near the window. It was a small room, the chairs set in a circle, but I found the one chair apart. I needed air and the window was open, a cool breeze blow
ing in over the fire escape. I brushed through the pamphlets — fidgeting. I could read these at home, I thought. However, the one entitled The Story of Hyacinth seemed short enough, and not clinical. I didn’t need clinical now, so I flipped it open and read:
The Story of Hyacinth
Welcome to the Hyacinth Foundation, an organization dedicated to the care and easement of the angels who have fallen on harsh times and have contracted HIV. Our mission is to bring those who enlist to support People with AIDS, mingling wellness and suffering to create hope. We are named for Hyacinth and inspired by his story.
The god Apollo watched a field of young men at sport and was smitten by the youth named Hyacinth, the strongest and most beautiful of his kind. He was perfect in all respects. Apollo took to the field and played among these fellows — the javelin, the discus and the race. Apollo threw his discus with ease, but it veered off course and struck Hyacinth’s forehead. The youth collapsed mortally wounded. Apollo held him in his arms and prayed to his father Zeus to spare Hyacinth’s life, but blood had been spilled. It poured profusely. The youth lay dying. Apollo wept, his tears mingling with Hyacinth’s blood, and where they mingled and touched the ground, the flowers bloomed. Those flowers are known now as Hyacinths until this very day.
Both inspired and named for these flowers, the mingling of angel blood and volunteer tears fosters a hope where all else withers on the vine.
I was quietly weeping by the time the others entered the room.
3
There were ten of us and a group leader.
“Come join the circle . . .”
“Martin,” I said.
The leader was Earl Daly. He wasn’t a doctor or a psychologist or a specialist. He was an accountant who had lost his lover two years ago and who dedicated his off-ledger days to Hyacinth.
“Welcome, Martin.”
The others introduced themselves. I didn’t know anyone. I thought maybe that I’d recognize someone from the bar scene or the chorus, but no. Fresh faces, and friendly ones, except the tall dude I had already met. He wasn’t unfriendly, but he was also new to it, I assumed. The others were regulars. They chatted about their charges — one had a new recipe for a wheat-germ and spinach mixer, which helped fortify the AZT, while another gave his neighbor tips on how to circumvent the lines at the food bank in Plainfield. It made me quite dizzy.
“Let’s get started,” Earl said.
He was a big man with a booming voice. I could see him on the podium or the pulpit. In fact, I thought he might have been a preacher and was surprised later to find out about his devotion to accountancy.
“How’s Francis,” he asked. “Is he out of the hospital?”
“Two more days,” said an oriental lad, who squinted. He had a twitch. “It was the worst bout yet.” He glanced at me as if to supply an index, a reference point, which was polite of him. “Francis has Toxoplasmosis. I’m glad he’s coming home. I didn’t think he . . .”
He suddenly choked up. The man next to him gave him a hug.
“Let it out, Tu,” Earl said. “You know you’re among friends here. Let it out.”
Everyone rubbed Tu’s back, except the tall dude, who remained strangely aloof, and myself. I wasn’t sure what to do. These were strangers. True, we had something in common and if I continued to come to these meetings, I’d be hugging Tu too, and perhaps even getting a back rub myself. However, it was awkward. Earl suddenly looked about.
“Where’s Perry?”
“He called me. Bobby’s in the tank.”
“Which one?”
“Old Bridge Regional.”
“Shame.”
The hugs subsided. The rubs frittered away. There was a momentary silence for this Bobby person and perhaps thoughts for his caregiver. I wasn’t sure I could stay here. I’d be better off in church singing Hallelujahs and expunging my sorrows in the collection plate.
“We have two new faces here tonight,” Earl said.
That broke the silence. He glanced at the tall dude, who didn’t say anything. Finally, he muttered a single word.
“Mutt.”
“Mutt?”
“Yes, Mutt.”
“Welcome Mutt.” Earl turned to me.
“Martin,” I said, although I had already introduced myself. I decided we had entered into the formal body of the meeting.
“Welcome, Martin,” Earl said again, this time followed by a round of Welcome Martins from the circle. I also noticed there was no similar Welcome Mutt, but Mutt was singularly . . . single. He might have been an observer — doing a paper for a class at Rutgers or something.
“We’re an informal group, Martin. We usually just introduce ourselves and then our circumstances and go on from there.”
He waited for me. Introducing myself was easy.
“Well, I’m Martin Powers, as I’ve already said, and I’m from Long Branch, and live with my partner in Eatontown. I work at the Monmouth Mall at A&S’.”
That stirred interest — perhaps thoughts of getting discounts and notions of that kind. I greeted their approval with a smile. The next part was harder. I had not talked about Matt to anyone, not even his family. They could see his condition — the good days. The bad days. However, I had never had the floor to put a spotlight on reality. There was a long silence. Look away, look away silence. Shit. I had to do it otherwise there was no use being at the meeting.
“My partner . . . my lover, Matt has full-blown AIDS. He’s still . . . ambulatory.” I was going for the clinical terms here among the stricken. “He has had one episode. PCP and was in a bad way, but has been okay since, knock on wood.” To my surprise, they did — chair backs pounded. I smiled. This was support indeed. “I have a buddy now — Hank LaCrosse.”
“Henri LeCroix,” Earl said.
That was when I learned Hank’s real name. I blinked.
“Yes, Henri . . . Hank, and he suggested that this group might help me . . . help me . . .”
“Get through it all,” Tu said.
The others concurred — This is the place. We’ll be there for you.
“There’s nothing more to say.”
“Are you passive?”
Passive? What the hell was he talking about? I haven’t been passive since I shot out of Viv Power’s womb. I shrugged.
“Are you HIV positive also?”
“Oh. No. No, I’ve been tested and so far I’m negative. Does that matter?”
“Not in the short run,” Earl said. “But those who are positive and caregivers need extra continuity support. We just like to know up front as a matter of course.”
“Well, thank you.” They were a bit nosey, but they meant well. I had new images of Hyacinth dying in Apollo’s arms, and the blood and the tears and the mingling — always the mingling. This I guessed was the bloomin’ flowers. It hadn’t dawned on me yet that this little circle — me included, were a field of Hyacinths shining toward heaven, crying out to the world with hope — mutual hope. Earl placed his big paw on my knee.
“Martin, this is the place for sharing. Nothing is too insignificant to share here. You aren’t alone. No one is alone. You only need to hear it and you will know.”
“I’m alone,” Mutt said.
He startled me and stirred the group.
“Mutt,” Earl said. “How can you be alone when you’re sitting within our circle?”
“One can be alone on a crowded street.”
There was pain in his eyes — his eyes were dark and piercing.
“That’s true,” Earl said, “but I assure you, being alone is a state of mind.”
“Is it?” Mutt said.
“Tell us. Who are you? Who?”
“I told you already. I’m Mutt.”
“But . . .”
“Where am I from? Where am I going? What the hell. I’m from Little Ferry.”
“Quite a trek down here.”
“My lover lived in Somerset. So I bounce between the two places. But I’ve been living in Sa
n Francisco.”
“Then, you’ll have a lot to share with us. AIDS has hit there quite hard.”
Mutt twitched, even more than Tu had.
“Hard there. Let me tell you.” He became agitated. “I moved there for fun. I’m a party hound. It was wonderful. You can’t believe it . . . man, it was nice. Shit, it was . . . Well, my friends started getting sick. One by one they were strapped into hospital beds with oxygen masks or creeping with lesions. Their hair fell out . . . their teeth. I did everything I could. I joined support groups. I raised money, lots of money. I went to funerals, lots of funerals. I buried my lover out there. Still, I had hope and kept the candlelight vigils.”
He shook his head. I could see the tears welling, but he fought them. I couldn’t fight mine. I wanted him to stop. What he was describing wasn’t my little world of Matt and his diapers. It was a pandemic.
“Then one morning I woke up and . . . I was alone. They were all gone. All those beautiful angels were gone. I had buried them and . . . and I had no one. I knew no one. So I came home to New Jersey. Ain’t that a laugh? I came home to fucking New Jersey, because I had no where else to go.”
He buried his face in his hands. I could see the back rubs emerging. Hell I wanted to hug Mutt myself.
“But you’re here now,” Earl said.
“Yes, and I’m not sure where here is because I’ve been here before, in a different time and on a different coast and I just want it to stop.”
Earl gave Mutt the hug. I expected Mutt to push him away, but he didn’t, and soon I saw why they called this place Hyacinth.
“I cannot promise that it will stop. Maybe some day. But I can promise you this hug, and it is the best thing I can offer you at the moment.”
That’s when I lost it. However, I didn’t flee. Neither did I cover my eyes and never again did I weep alone.
Chapter Three
In Concert
Look Away Silence Page 19