Caregiver

by Rick R. Reed

  called in through the screened-in back porch, but of course, no one

  answered.

  Where was Adam? Had he gotten sick again? What hospital

  would he have been taken to? Dan was chagrined to realize he didnt

  even know that critical piece of information.

  He got back in the car and thought Duncan would know… at

  least know which hospital Adam would be taken to so Dan could call

  and check to see if he was there. And he thought he needed to hurry

  home, just in case Duncan was trying to call him right now. Back he went… avoiding accidents, traffic cops, and angry

  blasts of horns, as he took the roadways at eighty miles per hour when

  he could.

  The phone was ringing as he hurried up the walk to the front

  door. He imagined racing to the ringing cordless and getting to it just

  as the ringing stopped. Fumbling and cursing as he pulled his keys

  from his pocket, he succeeded in opening the door and got to the

  phone while the machine was going. It was weird and kind of a shock

  to hear Marks voice coming out of the machine as he said, “Dan and

  Mark arent in. But if you leave a message—”.

  Dan snatched up the phone, breathless.

  It wasnt Duncan. It wasnt Mark. Nor was it Adam or Sullivan.

  It was Teri Lane, from the offices of Reports, Inc. the place where

  Dan realized he had an interview scheduled for tomorrow, reminding

  him of his appointment the next day.

  It took all of Dans inner strength to sound calm and to be polite

  to Teri, yet he assured her he was looking forward to the interview,

  meeting everyone, and finding out more about the job, which was

  classified as an “insurance inspector.” Dan had no idea what hed be

  doing.

  He said good-bye and went into the kitchen to get something to

  eat.

  The phone rang again.

  This time it was Duncan. They exchanged preliminary hellos

  and how-are-yous, and then Dan dispensed with the chitchat and came

  right to the point. “Im worried about Adam.”

  There was a pause on the line that seemed to go on a lot longer

  than it probably did, and then Duncan said, “I have some bad news.”

  Chapter Ten

  “ WHATis it?” Dan didnt want sugarcoating. If he didnt hear right now what was going on—even if meant Adam had died or something horrible like that—he thought he would scream.

  What Duncan told him was not at all what he expected. “Well, the good news is that Adam is not sick. Hes not in the hospital.”

  “Okay….”

  “But the bad news is he is in an institution.”

  Dan swallowed hard. He wasnt surprised. What with his depression and fear over his life ending at such a young age, it wasnt surprising that Adam might end up in a mental health facility.

  “Okay, so hes in what? A sanitarium? A mental ward?”

  “No. Its nothing like that.” Duncan paused again and Dan wondered what on earth could it be.

  “Dan, hes in the Hillsborough County Jail.”

  “What?”

  “Hes in jail.” Duncan blew out a sigh. “Theres no easy way to say this. But from what I can gather, Adam went kind of berserk over the weekend and assaulted his roommate. Ive heard he may have tried to strangle him.”

  “There has to be some misunderstanding. The guy I know wouldnt hurt a fly. It just isnt in him.”

  “I know. I know. Believe it or not, this isnt the first time Ive heard this story. Someone in the program does something completely out of character. I suppose its understandable, since the people we work with are dealing with a ton of stress.” Duncan paused. “Theres not much hope for them, you know?”

  Dan wanted to cry, but he managed to hold himself together. “What happens next?”

  “Its up to you. Youre still Adams buddy and you could reach out to him. If hes as gentle as you say, something awful must have happened to make him do what he did. I certainly dont have the whole story. Maybe you should talk to him.”

  “But hes in jail.”

  “Right. And from what a caseworker told me, he will be for quite some time. I dont think hell be getting released later today or tomorrow, nothing like that.”

  “Is Sullivan pressing charges?”

  “I dont know that. You should talk to your buddy,” Duncan said quietly.

  Dan had never known anyone, not in his whole life, who had been in prison. He had no idea how to even go about going to see someone in jail or where, in fact, the jail even was. “Do you know what I need to do?”

  “I think you have to call the jail and get on an approved visitors list. It will help, maybe, that youre with this program. But I think its ultimately up to him. If he doesnt want to see you, you wont get on the list.”

  “Um. Okay. Ill keep you posted. Thanks, Duncan.” Dan hung up, feeling like he was in the middle of some surreal dream. Of all the things he thought might have been wrong at the house in Brandon, this situation was certainly not one of them.

  Adam had hurt someone else? His lover? Or, as Duncan had referred to him, his roommate? Why? Dan hadnt really spent all that much time with Adam, he knew, but Dan trusted his instincts when it came to people; he always had. Dan believed that you could pretty much size a person up within a few minutes of meeting him or her. He thought that there was something almost instinctive in human relations, where it was possible to know if there was a connection right away, before you even had any logic upon which to base it.

  Something had not gotten through his filters or Adam was a damn good actor, if he had actually tried to strangle Sullivan.

  Wow. While I was having my own problems at home, Sullivan and Adam were having theirs. What could have happened? Dan recalled Sullivan in his minds eye—his lanky frame, his curly dark hair, and hazel eyes—there was an innate gentleness about him. Dans heart went out to the man. He couldnt imagine what it must have been like for him to have been strangled by the man he loved.

  Dan realized he knew very little about the couples relationship. He had spent a lot of his time with Adam—he thought now with shame—talking about his own issues with Mark and his own problems. It made him reconsider how well he was cut out for the position of buddy, if he was using the volunteer work to find a sympathetic ear for his own travails.

  Well, there is a way you can redeem yourself. You need to call the jail. Get on the visitors list and go talk to Adam. Its the only way to understand whats going on. Even though he had just heard that his buddy was in prison for assault, and even though he had just heard that assault was an attempted strangulation—which Dan thought could be classified as something as serious as attempted murder—he still could not believe his new friend would do such a thing.

  Not if he was in his right mind.

  And therein lay the possible answer to the dilemma of just what kind of person Adam Schmidt was.

  For the first time, Dan wished Mark was around, just so hed have a sounding board, just so hed have someone to help him track down the number of the jail and to coach him into making a call he was afraid to make.

  He felt utterly and completely alone.

  Thoughts of Mark brought on other thoughts—namely, the fact that he needed to make another call, to the health department, so he could get STD and HIV testing lined up. Wouldnt that just be too rich, if right after he finally got around to volunteering for an AIDS organization, he turned up positive himself?

  Turmoil. Life had gone from somewhat problematic and tepid to a roiling cauldron of trouble, all in such a short space of time!

  And its not going to get any less tumultuous if you dont start dealing with it. The time to do that, my friend, is now. Get over there to the desk, grab the Yellow Pages, and get on the phone.

  Dan loca
ted the Yellow Pages at the top of their linen closet and found both of the numbers he needed under Hillsborough County Services.

  Figuring the easier call to make would be to the health department and its STD clinic, he made that one first and was told he could come in any time during the regular business hours for testing; he didnt need an appointment.

  Ill go day after tomorrow, Dan thought, putting it off, putting the worry and the fear aside for a couple of days. I dont need to be worrying about having HIV or something else when I have a job interview to go to, for Christs sakes. He noted the address for the nearest clinic on a sheet of scrap paper and then stared for several minutes at the number for the Hillsborough County Jail.

  He felt like he was standing on a precipice. Big changes, he was certain, awaited him at the other end of the line.

  The call was just as routine and businesslike as the call to the STD clinic. The woman at the county jail took Dans information, told him when visiting hours were, and that he should just show up during the small window when inmates were allowed visitors. “The inmate will have to get you on the list. Make sure you bring photo ID.” Dan wanted to ask what would happen if Adam didnt approve him, but the woman had already hung up.

  The next chance Dan would have to visit would be later that week. He pulled out a map of Tampa and located Orient Road and saw that it wouldnt be hard to get there. But what would it be like? Sometimes, distance was as much a matter of space as it was a state of mind.

  And what would Adam have to say for himself?

  Dan sighed and guessed dinner with Adam at Jimmy Macs that Friday was off.

  THURSDAY afternoon, Dan made his way to the outer edges of Tampa and Orient Road. The jail looked modern, beige against the blue sky and surrounded by palm trees. If not for the sign announcing Hillsborough County Orient Road Jail, Dan might have driven right by, thinking the place was an elementary school or some civic administration building.

  He parked the Escort and went inside, where he waited in a large room with other visitors, and then waited to be checked in, and finally he was allowed to see Adam.

  Behind the glass wall, Adam looked small and helpless. He wore the standard-issue orange jumpsuit. Instead of making him look hardened and mean, as one might expect of a prison jumpsuit, it only served to make Adam look more childlike, smaller. Behind him, Dan could see other inmates, some of whom stared at him with interest. It gave him a chill.

  Suddenly, it felt as if so much more than a thin wall of glass separated him from Adam. It was like the glass was a divider between two very different worlds, worlds that did not intermingle.

  Adam smiled at him, as though this were just another visit at his home. He didnt look particularly frightened. Resigned would be the better word.

  Dan sat down and picked up the phone, having no idea what he would say. He smiled at Adam through the glass.

  Fortunately, Adam was first to speak.

  “Wait a minute. Im the one whos supposed to look petrified.” Adam barked out a short laugh. “You look like youre seeing a ghost. Im not dead yet, pumpkin.”

  Dan tried to smile, but was sure it came out as more of a grimace. He still had no idea what he should say.

  Adam nodded back toward the inmates behind him. “They like you. Theyd like to get you in here with us.” Adam wagged his eyebrows, laughed again, and Dan made a feeble attempt to join in, avoiding the lascivious gaze of a burly inmate behind Adam.

  Dan cast his eyes down at the scarred surface of the table, upon which the hand not holding the phone rested. “Whats going on, Adam? What happened?”

  Adam didnt speak for a while, long enough to cause Dan to fear he would simply hang up the phone and walk away. Perhaps he had come right to the point too quickly, but he had been waiting and worrying for days and, in spite of his newfound affection for this man and his concern, Dan needed some answers.

  “I dont know.”

  “What?”

  “I said, I dont know. I dont remember much about Sunday.” Adam shrugged, his pale blue eyes boring into Dans dark ones. “I know Sullivan and I fought. It was the same old shit, me wanting some dick and he refusing to give it, nothing all that out of the ordinary, except I was feeling majorly down.” Adam traced a figure on the glass, and then put his hand back down on the table. He shifted the phone to the other ear. “We had been drinking, or rather, I had been drinking. A few cocktails here, a few there, throughout the day.”

  Dan swallowed. “They say you assaulted him.” He screwed up his courage and added, “They say you tried to strangle him.” In a breathless voice, he asked, “Thats not true, is it?”

  Adam smiled at him and, for the first time, Dan was chilled. “I dont know.”

  “What?”

  “I cant remember. I remember we were fighting, not physically, just bitchy jabs at each other, which was becoming more common for us since I joined Sullivan down here in Florida.”

  Dan cocked his head. He had assumed the pair had come down together.

  “And the next thing I knew I was in the back of a police car with my hands cuffed behind me. The neighbors were all out, watching me.” Adams eyes grew shiny with tears. “I dont know where Sullivan was.” He sniffled and pressed a hand angrily to his eyes to quell the flow of tears. “I cant believe Id hurt him. I mean, honey, I am not the most innocent guy, but I have never been mean, certainly never violent. Goodness, Im not butch enough.”

  “You really cant remember?” Dan wondered if Adam was making this up, for fear they were somehow being watched, or worse, recorded. He hoped Adam would give him some sign that this was a kind of doublespeak, or that he at least wasnt at liberty to talk freely.

  In a jail, one seldom is, Dan thought.

  But Adams face was blank and his expression was unreadable. “Honestly, its a blank. Theres an empty space in the day that I just cant seem to fill, no matter how hard I think about it.” He leaned closer to the glass partition separating them. “This has to be some kind of mistake. I wouldnt hurt Sullivan. Hell, I wouldnt hurt anyone. Im too big of a sissy for that.” He laughed again and Dan wished hed just quit it. None of this was in the least amusing.

  “Do you have a lawyer?”

  “Ill get a public defender once they sort things out.”

  “Sort what out?”

  Adam took on a faraway stare. “Theres more to this story, but I do not want to go into it right now.” Adam sighed. “So whats new with you?”

  “Adam. Dont you think we should talk about this?”

  “I believe I asked you, my dear, what was new with you.” Adam glanced up at the clock over Dans head. “We only have a few more minutes. And I do not want to spend them talking about me.”

  Dan realized he wasnt going to get any more from Adam, at least not today. He soldiered on. “I had a job interview and went to the STD Clinic today.”

  “In that order? Do tell!”

  Dan filled him in about his breakup with Mark.

  “The prick. How could he treat a nice guy like you like that? Im glad to hear you had the balls to kick his cheating, druggie ass to the curb.”

  Dan couldnt help but smile. “But he at least was good enough to let me know I should get tested.” Dan shrugged. “So thats what I did. Gave a bunch of blood and had a wire Q-Tip stuck up my dick.” Dan winced at the memory and could swear that the afore-mentioned dick shriveled at the thought of the gonorrhea test.

  “When will you know?”

  “A couple weeks. Easy.” Dan clenched his teeth, wondering how hed get through those weeks, waiting to know if he was infected or not. “At least for the HIV part.”

  “Well, sugar, I hope everything turns out okay for you. I mean, Id hoped wed have things in common when they told me you were going to be my buddy. But AIDS was not one of them.”

  Even though he didnt feel convinced himself at all, Dan replied, “Ah, Im sure Im okay. I havent had any symptoms. And as far as I know, neither did Mark.”

  “Right. Youll be
fine.” Adams words sounded as empty and as lacking in conviction as Dan felt. Dan had a feeling they both knew an absence of symptoms meant nothing; the virus, he had heard, could live silently for months, even years, in ones body before it rose up and started causing trouble.

  Dan changed the subject. “But on to the good news! I got a job.” He launched into telling Adam how he would be working part-time for Reports, Inc. doing over-the-phone underwriting interviews for people who had applied for large life insurance policies, then writing up the reports. It wasnt much money, and the introvert in Dan wasnt sure how he felt about calling people up and prying into the intimate details of their lives, but at least he would have some income and a way to take care of himself before the savings completely disappeared. In the meantime, he could continue to look for full-time employment.

  “Sounds glamorous as hell,” Adam said when Dan finished up his summary of his new job and its duties, which would begin the following Monday. “Although considering my current state, I have a lot of nerve poking fun at the gainfully employed.”

  Finally, they both laughed.

  Visiting hours were coming to a close, all too soon. It seemed like they were just beginning to relax with one another.

  Adam said, “Write to me, okay? Just address it care of the prison, Orient Road, blah, blah, blah. Theres so little to do in here other than contemplate what a sucking hellhole my life has become, it would be nice to get a letter or two.”

  “And Ill come back. Next visiting time, Ill be right here.”

  “I know. I know you will. But just to ease the time between visits, Id love to get a letter… and Id love to write to you. Ill draw you pictures. Ill tell you funny stories.”

  “Oh, I didnt mean to say I wouldnt write. I will. I will. Every day.”

  The two stared at one another through the glass. Adam hung up the phone and pressed his palm to the glass.

  Dan did the same, so that their hands were against the others, separated by the Plexiglas.

  Chapter Eleven

  THE results of his syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea tests were all, thankfully, negative, which made it easier for Dan to be optimistic that the HIV test would be the same. Yet it still nagged at him; things like his own lack of luck, and Murphys Law, made him fear that the one test that would come back positive would be the HIV. He now had ten more days to wait until he got his results.