“We’ll see,” I said. Sounded like a lame lie.
“I love Mom’s on Turkey day. It’s so wonderful there. You know I love it. And you love it too. And they’ll love to have us. Right Mom?”
“She’s inside . . . cleaning up.”
“Where’s Hank?”
“Out,” I said. “As for Thanksgiving at Mom’s. Maybe we can have it here.”
“Don’t make up stories, Pumpkin. I’m no child. I want you to shove me in a fucking wheelbarrow and push me there if you have to. I mean, there’s not much left of me that bones in a wheelbarrow couldn’t accommodate. Promise me, Pumpkin. Promise me that we’ll go.”
“We’ll see.”
“That’s not a promise. That’s a no. Especially when you say it that way.”
“Matt, wouldn’t it be better if they all came here and spent it with us? After all, it’s the people that count.”
Matt frowned, his cheeks unable to catch the tears from his lifeless eyes.
“I’m not going to make it to Thanksgiving, am I?” he said. “I’ll never see anyone again. No eyes. No energy. No dreams when I sleep. I’m a mess beyond all belief. I feel bad for my parents when they get old like me and suffer like me. If I’m not going to make it to Thanksgiving, I want to die today, Pumpkin. I want you to go out and buy the biggest load of medical shit possible and shove it down my throat so I can end this nightmare. I’m only twenty-five years old and now I’m not going to have another Thanksgiving or feel another snowfall or get fucked again. Pumpkin, let me go. Let me fucking go.”
I hugged him, weeping along with him. But I heard another voice.
It’s not so bad here. Not so bad.
“You’ll live today,” I said. “You’ll get to Thanksgiving. You’ll see another snowfall. I promise you. I’ll carry you myself over the threshold of your Mom’s place. We’ll be like newly-weds, before the eyes of God. I promise you.”
“I knew you would,” he said. “I knew you would.” He sighed. “I’m so tired.”
“So am I.”
I lowered the bed, and then stroked his thinning hair. He smiled at my touch, and then kissed my hand. He fell asleep muttering.
“I knew you would.”
I moved away from that hulk of a bed. I fell to my knees in prayer, in the piles of clothing. I felt the eyes of God and also Louise’s peering in at her lost children, I being among her flock.
Chapter Eleven
Letting Go
I kept my promise. On Thanksgiving Day, I carried Matt over the Kieler threshold and placed him on the couch before the picture window. Although Matt couldn’t see the landscape, he could sense the light. He had had a series of very bad days. In fact, I considered taking him to the hospital at one point. However, as my fingers hovered over the 9-1-1 buttons, I couldn’t bring myself to break the promise. More than one promise. Funny things, promises. They can be easily broken, but in the breaking, they become glass shards that stick in your soul, never to be removed. I wanted no such glass shards. Matt pleaded to go to his parent’s for Thanksgiving. If he continued the bad streak, I might be able to convince him to go to Robert Wood Johnson, but I didn’t think any supplication could change his mind. After all, this man begged me to end it all. Why would he submit to science’s tortures when nature was doing just fine without help?
Holiday aromas permeated the Kieler home. Louise was busy in the kitchen aided by Mary. Ginger and Leslie were invited this year. I was happy that they came and that they didn’t participate in the cooking. They were in the den watching the football game with Sammy. Viv was supposed to spend Thanksgiving here also, but called at the last minute that Frank had a crisis at work and she needed to head North with him. Head North? Could there be a crisis in the auto insurance business? I supposed that Frank remembered the assault on his profession from last Thanksgiving and decided to be a reduced target by being no target at all. Probably for the best.
The table was set with the best china and gold ware. The chandelier twinkled with hospitality, twinkling in Matt’s memory, because he could only sense it. He wasn’t at the table. He sniffed the aroma of turkey and stuffing beckoning him, along with creamed white onions and mince pie — the remembrance of Thanksgivings past, no doubt. These aromas were leaden to me. They raised no joy or festive glee in my heart. Nor did they stir any thanks. I just hovered between the rooms, staring blankly out the picture window, noting Matt’s shadowy reflection from the couch. Then I sighed and came up on him from behind.
“Is that you, Pumpkin?” he said, his voice labored.
“Who else would sneak up on a blind man and kiss him?”
I leaned over the back of the couch and kissed Matt on the cheek, but he clenched me so tightly, I thought maybe some strength still stirred in him. It was the tiger strength of our earlier days when we would wrestle under sheets for the best parts. I hopped over the sofa top and planted myself beside him. We cuddled.
“Well,” he said. “Thank you. You got me this far. It’s a joy to be home for Thanksgiving. All that food. I once could eat a horse, if it was unsaddled and served with barbecue. Where’s my appetite now? I think our sense of smell is hungrier than our sense of reason. I don’t have an appetite now, but that turkey and stuffing is driving me crazy. Oh, the aroma. You’ve brought me to heaven, Pumpkin. This is the place.”
“I tasted a bit of the stuffing,” I said. “Your Mom’s in a generous mood.”
“That’s her only mood. I’ll guess I’ll need to dream of that taste — sausage and cornmeal and onions and seasonings, brown and soft to the palate. Oh, how many Thanksgivings have I said, pass the stuffing, and then chomped on it, bolting it down like dog on a bone? Now I’d kill for the appetite to have just one savory taste.”
My heart broke for his longings. Simple longings. After all is said and done, it’s the simple things we miss. I propped a pillow behind his head.
“Is that better?” I asked.
He grinned.
“As long as you’re near, it’s always better. I love your Ivory soap aroma.”
“And I still love that coconut shit you use.”
“Pumpkin,” he said. “I’m so glad my parents love you. You’ll be a comfort to them when . . .”
“ . . . your Mom’s an angel and a helluva cook.”
“Did she make the whole-berry cranberry sauce?”
“Yes. It’s amazing.”
“Did she let you lick the spoon?”
“Yes.”
“I love to lick the spoon. I can taste it now. Mmmm.”
“Well, we’ll see just how much you can have,” I said as I gazed into those once beautiful blue eyes — still beautiful.
“It’s a curse to still smell things and not have the stomach for them. But then again, there’s no divide when it comes to us.”
I kissed him, and then stroked his hair. He pulled on my tie.
“You’re wearing a tie?” he asked, and then laughed softly. “It doesn’t take a blind man to guess which one. I bet it’s that hideous, purple tie. How can anyone look at that thing and eat dinner?”
“It was from a special friend,” I said. The words choked in my throat. “My little over-the-counter encounter.”
“I should have had it gift-wrapped. You know, they offer free gift-wrap.”
“I know. But the cheap bastard who bought it didn’t even remove the price tag.”
“You could have any tie you wanted that night. Givenchy, Yves St Laurant. Any one.”
“I know. But I was jealous of the bastard you bought it for, so I suggested the ugliest tie in the place.”
“Jealous. And of yourself.”
“I’m not jealous of myself anymore. No one should envy me when . . .”
“We’ve had a good run of it, Pumpkin. We’ve had the best of all things; and that we didn’t wind up on a porch, on old rocking chairs, balancing our gay checkbooks is just the price. So we didn’t have the good old Pink American dream. But we had much better than m
ost.”
“We did,” I said. “And still do.”
Matt yawned.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I feel so drowsy and . . .”
“Here, let me prop you up.”
Mary came by with a bowl of chips and dip.
“Martin, some dip?” she asked.
“No, thanks.”
“How’s my Newt? Sleeping?”
“Sis,” Matt said. “Is that you?”
“I’d offer you some dip, but . . .”
“Come here, baby sister.”
He reached out for some dip. I guided his hand into the bowl, putting some on his finger.
“Onion, I hope,” he asked. “Not veggie or crab shit.” He licked his fingers and smiled with great satisfaction. “Maybe I’ll be able to have some of that stuffing yet?”
Mary wept quietly. Suddenly, she put the bowl down.
“Shit,” she said, looking out the window. “It’s snowing.”
I gazed out. It was snowing. It was too early for snow. However, it was really snowing, like a shaker ball.
“Snowing?” Matt asked, his lips trembling.
Mary went about the house announcing this unusual weather for this time of year. An early snow was a treat indeed. Soon, the whole company gathered by the window.
“It’s snowing, Matt,” I said holding him tightly. “Really, really snowing.”
“How can it be?” he said. “You’re just making that up to cheer me.”
“No, lamb,” Louise said. “It’s true. It didn’t say in the forecast.”
“Oh, how I wish I could see it,” Matt said.
“It’s snowing Matt,” I said. I rocked him. “It’s snowing, Matt, and just for you, because I prayed to God and he’s granted me this one small blessing. I prayed to God. I prayed for it.”
“I wish I could go out and make some snowballs.”
I trembled now. I hugged him so close and sobbed so hard, the others gave us privacy. They retreated, but only to a room away.
“Oh, Pumpkin, I love you. Snowing. It’s snowing. I can’t see it. I can’t see it. I want to see it.”
“Oh, how I wish you could. I’ll tell you. It’s the big flakes, just the kind you like. And they’re sticking on Mrs. Bolkonsky’s roof, and on Ginger and Leslie’s car.”
“Did they bring the BMW or the Mercedes?”
“The Mercedes,” I said. “I think this snow will pack nicely. Maybe I’ll make some snow angels. It’s really the most beautiful snowfall I’ve ever seen.”
“No, Pumpkin. No. I can see the most beautiful snowfall ever. Here in my mind. I see it now. You know I can. I looked back at your place. The big flakes stuck to the whole world. It was like in a movie; and then . . . I saw you. You were naked in the doorway, and I said then and there. I will live the rest of my life with that man. That man is my snow angel.”
“I remember,” I said.
“You wouldn’t come out in it. You just stood by the door; and I was so happy. So very, very happy. And I decided to give you a little serenade.
“I wish I were in the lan’ o’ cotton,
Ol’ times there are not forgotten,
Look away, look away . . .
Look away, look . . .
away”
And he was gone. On that Thanksgiving Day with the family an earshot away, my little blue-eyed cowboy left me. He was gone gone.
Part IV
The Mingling
Chapter One
Folding Again
1
The tears mingled with the blood and where they blended, the Hyacinths bloomed. However, I had no more tears. I had shed them while Matt was alive and although he suffered, he was noble in that suffering — a brave soul, a ride ‘em cowboy. After my initial shock, and then grief, I held together better than I could have imagined. Perhaps I had already arrived at the end long before it came — in my mind at least. How can you stop the tide? I tried. He tried. Can’t be done. I shuddered and had a small outburst when the body bag arrived to take him. Matt wanted to be cremated and all I could think of during those first few hours were all the details. So many details. How would I get through them? What would I do?
I turned to Louise and Sammy, of course. Hank was a great assistance, and even Viv was staunch when I needed her. If I were a man of seventy-five letting go of an ailing spouse, perhaps the road would have been clearer. But how does one prepare for this at age twenty-three. How? So I was surprised when the funeral director informed me that the funeral was already arranged — paid for, even, to the tune of nine thousand dollars. I turned to Sammy in thanks, but he was as stunned as I was. In fact, I soon learned that Matt paid for it himself. It was the first thing he did upon arriving in New Jersey, even before we met. It raised some specters in my mind, but if I had no room for tears, I certainly did not have room for anger. I chalked it up to thoughtful preplanning.
Leslie had insisted that Matt and I draw up a will since I had no rights in these United States as next of kin. We, however, did not do it. I saw no need for it, and as it turned out, I had no fears. Although I had nothing more than emotional and moral rights to all of Matt’s little kingdom of furniture, computers, books, clothing and bank account, the Kielers, as the legal inheritors, assigned it all over to me.
“But, Sammy,” I said. “The hospital bills and the second mortgage and . . .”
“We’ll not hear of it, Marty.”
“No. You are our family,” Louise said. “Matt was our son, but he was your husband. If times were different, and who can tell that things will not change, there would not be a question.”
“But, Louise. The memories.”
“He is in our hearts as he is in yours. We shall select mementos. Don’t worry. However, you are the next of kin in the eyes of God and in the heart of the Kielers.”
That made me weep. In fact, that was a catalyst for much weeping, but it came from the love of a family and not the grief for my cowboy.
I decided that the funeral would be a proper send off. Leslie and Ginger helped me pick out a suit for him, while Hank and Jasper went into the apartment and supervised the clearance of such things as the hospital bed, the diapers and wipes, and the meds. The remaining AZT went back to Hyacinth for redistribution. Don’t think me cold. I had my moments, but they came on me without warning. I didn’t sit in a corner and bawl. I remember when I was putting his clothes away, I espied his hat. It came at me on the periphery like a knife. I doubled over. I held onto the wall and wept for a good ten minutes. Then I retrieved it, sniffed it and put it on my head. It was too big for me, but I felt him again. It still held his aroma, but I had stopped crying by then. I strutted about the room. Even felt like singing Dixie, but then put it aside. I decided never to part with that hat. I also had a blanket I took from the Kielers — the one that he was wrapped in when he passed. It got into my head that his spirit passed through that blanket on its way to God. When they came for him, I latched onto it and was holding it for the next day. I took to sleeping with it, as morbid as that sounds. It still held his essence and it helped me sleep. And I did sleep. I slept the sleep of the ages. I dreamt of him every night. Sometimes I never wanted to wake up listening to the soft sounds of his laughter and his call to me. Pumpkin. Pumpkin.
If anyone tells you that losing the closest thing to your heart is a turbulent, unending trauma, they are misleading you. It’s a numbing experience, as if nature built a response to it and kicks in — a combination of release and relief, holding on and letting go, disbelief and denial, but with a taut sense of reality. That taut sense got me through the funeral, although I couldn’t deliver a eulogy. It wasn’t expected from me. I was just pleased that Matt looked restored as he laid there, those precious fingers laced into one another. I thought he would open those blue eyes again and wink. When I kissed him, I could almost hear him say Goodbye, Pumpkin. However, I wouldn’t say goodbye. I said, “Until we meet again. Look away silence.”
Then it was over. My l
ittle over-the-counter encountered had lasted much past Christmas, it had. Longest run ever. Still running.
2
Keep busy.
I cleaned Matt’s apartment from top to bottom. It took me a week just to restore it to its former glory. I had decided to pay down the lease. There was enough in Matt’s bank account to cover it and I meant to get the security back for Sammy and Louise. My name wasn’t on the lease, but Sammy, as the legal next of kin, was ultimately responsible, so the transaction filtered through him. I then invited everyone in to select a memento. I had purchased a silver urn and decided I wasn’t going to spread his ashes to the four winds. He would stay with me until my ashes could be commingled in that breeze. I would decide on a good place for the scattering. I wasn’t sure how long that would be, because I was still periodically testing for HIV thinking each time my time would come. Never did.
Hank needed some furniture, so I let him take the couch and sofa, and since death didn’t permeate Matt’s bed, Leslie and Ginger took it for the B&B. Some pieces went to Mary — she was in a new apartment, while Viv got the kitchen table and chairs. I kept all of Matt’s clothes. We were the same size and I was wearing them anyway while he was alive, and he mine.
I was going home — well, back to my apartment by the ocean. I couldn’t concentrate in Matt’s place. Too many memories. I wanted the memories and they would follow me back to my place, but it was for the best. I couldn’t expect Frank Perkins to pay my share forever. Besides, I would be within walking distance of work.
Work? That was a question. I wanted to work, work, work. Working prevented me from thinking too much. However, so many people were kind and with each kindness came reminders. I also considered returning to retail. Christmas was coming and, although there would be no Christmas for me this year, the stores were doing their seasonal hiring. However, the thought of standing at a counter, thinking, thinking — contemplating the jacket rack and the Tie and Tux and the Old World Coffee Shop, wasn’t to my liking now. Too soon. It would be better that I tote beer kegs up from The Cavern’s cellar or rattle over the snow between the back bar and the shack with burgers and fries. Bruce Q, as usual, was very accommodating, allowing me to do a host of jobs. He even let me tinker with the fabled Zippilin.
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