Like People in History (71 page)

"Okay, I'll stay a minute. But only if you use a thermometer and if..." I managed to extract four cubes from the pitcher of ice water, knotted them loosely in a cloth napkin to go on Matt's forehead. I got out four more and began rubbing Matt's face and neck and chest with them. "When's the last time anyone saw you today?"

"Before lunch. That's nice. They've been busy... emergencies and..." Matt half sat up, and his neck and face twitched spasmodically in his attempt to vomit. Despite the wad of tissues I instantly held up to his mouth, nothing came out. Not even a dribble. "Everyone... had an emergency today," Matt managed to continue.

"You're not so great yourself. Don't talk. As soon as we cool you down..."

The ice cubes against Matt's skin melted as though against an August sidewalk. I reached for more.

"Where's your little oxygen tube? There it is."

His temperature was 103.4.

"It's been a hundred three all day," Matt confirmed.

"That's not good. We've got to get you cooled down. An ice pack and some kind of antibiotic." I looked around for an IV rack, for a nurse passing by—for anyone, anything! And as Matt tugged at me: "Don't worry. I'll stay and cool you down. I said I would!"

A few minutes later, that ice was gone too. I switched to an alcohol rub. That seemed to work a bit, as Matt began to cool down and his body to relax, until it almost seemed as though he would fall asleep again. Was that good or not? I wasn't sure. The body did need rest. What if he began to sweat again? I needed to find someone to tell me what to do.

An orderly blundered a few feet into the room with a wheeled gurney. Saw his error, withdrew.

"Wait!" I was up instantly. "My friend has fever. He needs a nurse."

Just then the hospital paged, "Dr. Heart. Dr. Heart. Fourth floor!" I knew the code—someone was having a heart attack.

The orderly looked up at the source of the voice. "All day, man! No nurses anywhere!"

"Can you help me? Find an ice pack? A blanket with coolant inside?"

It took a few more sentences to explain, but the guy seemed to understand and took off.

Matt's eyes were closed.

I'd take the chance. Unfortunately, both Matt and the orderly had been right. The nurses station was empty. Not a doctor, not a nurse.

The ice cubes on Matt's head were melting now. Matt's arms were reaching out for me. I eluded them, then easily held them down at Matt's side, rubbing more alcohol over his entire body.

When that was gone and Matt was still not much cooler or relaxed into sleep, I hit the hallway again. Still no one at the nurses station. Where the hell did they keep ice packs? I began throwing open closet doors, anything not locked. A woman went past using a walker, almost incurious. Where was the orderly? I looked back in the room. Matt had turned on one side, knocking off the ice pack. I charged back to the nurses station. Someone was there: that young resident, shuffling through papers.

"Hi. Dr...." I couldn't see her name plate. "Room 1265. He's running a terrific fever. I've used ice. Alcohol rub. Everything. He needs—"

"Veselka?" she asked, baffled.

"Loguidice. Matt."

"Soon as I can! We're up to our ears today. Keep him cool. Don't let him sleep."

"Can't you give him anything to fight it?"

"To fight what?" she asked.

"Whatever's giving him the fever. An antibiotic?"

"It's... The virus itself is giving him the fever," she said as though explaining what should have been so evident. "When it's this late... he's got no immune system left. There's nothing that'll work anymore. Look, keep him cool. I'll be there as soon as... Promise!"

There at the door to the room was the orderly. But that wasn't an ice blanket. It was merely a rubber foot-wash tub filled with ice.

"No ice blanket." The orderly shrugged. "This is plenty ice." "What'll we do with it?"

As the orderly set it down, he motioned with his hands: "Tub."

He meant put the ice in the half bathtub, and put Matt in the tub.

That took the two of us a good ten minutes, as Matt was now burning up again and raving and flailing about. We did get him sitting down in the square little tub/shower and got it filled with ice up to his chest. His head kept falling to one side, and I had to sit on the widest side of the tub and hold Matt's head. Soaking wet with sweat, it stained my pants, my shirt, soaked right through to my skin, to my thudding heart.

"Nice.... Thanks," Matt would occasionally utter, but I heard as though from a distance and said, "Forget it" from an equally great distance. All I could hear clearly, hear with a chill colder than any ice bath, were the resident's words:
The virus is giving him the fever. This late he's got no immune system left. There's nothing that'll work anymore.

Nothing'll work anymore this late. Disasters abound. Nothing'll work anymore this late. Disasters...

"Lis...nn... Roger, Lis... nn."

"I'm listening."

"Lis... nn. Fav... or. You said... fav... or."

"I remember. I said I'd do you a favor. Anything, Matt! Why not ask me a little later, okay? Do you need it now? Can't it wait?"

"Can't... wait! Now... favor."

"Okay."

"Parents... bring... here."

"Your parents? Bring them to the hospital?"

Matt slumped a bit and his eyes closed in fatigue, but he could exert enough tension with his fingers on the palm of my hand to communicate yes.

"They've not been here yet, right?" Matt signaled no. "They know you're here?" Yes and no. "Meaning yes, but not what for? Do I have to explain... what? How you got sick? That you're gay? How much do I tell them, Matt?"

"Explain... sim... ple... peo... ple... But they'll un... der... stand. 'Xplain... I... die!"

"I can't do that. I won't tell them that."

Matt signaled yes.

"How?"

No answer to that. But after a while, Matt spoke again, "Add... ress!" He gestured toward the other room.

"I'll find it. And as soon as this fever is gone, I'll get them. Tomorrow?"

Matt signaled yes.

"Tomorrow then," I said, begging for him to stop, change the subject. "Let's take your temperature."

A half hour later, when his temperature had dropped to ninety-nine degrees, Matt began to shiver. I lifted him awkwardly, wrapped the shivering body in a towel, half pulled, half carried him back to bed. He'd just gotten there when the resident arrived. She was looking as harried as before.

I sat back in the visitors chair, aware of how gingerly I was touching every single object around myself now, as she took Matt's temperature again and asked questions and took his blood pressure.

"He always says no to the machine," she reported.

"Machine?" I asked.

"No iron... lung!" Matt said.

"That's our only recourse if he goes out during fever..."

"No... lung!" Matt repeated

"If he says no, then no breathing machine!" I said from close up, so Matt could see and hear clearly. "Don't worry, I won't let them put you on a breathing machine," I assured Matt, even though the resident shook her head. Already Matt's skin was less clammy, warming up. She'd brought more alcohol, and together we rubbed him down. I tried to catch the resident's eye, but she never looked up. As we reached Matt's legs, she stopped at the false one.

"Vietnam. Medal of Honor," I explained.

She shook her head, her lips quivered as though about to say something. Then, regaining her composure, "If he gets too hot, find an orderly and put him back in the ice. 'Bye, Matt."

He did get too hot, a half hour later, and I did find an orderly, and we got Matt back into the tub, with more ice. But after a while, the ice was insufficient, and the orderly went for more, and when he didn't come back in a while, I reluctantly left Matt and went for more myself, heading for the seventh-floor cafeteria kitchen.

I cajoled it out of a caf worker who needed someone to be nice to her, and I returned with a big bag. The orderly had come back already and was there at the bathtub with Matt, filling it up with ice.

Wait. That wasn't the orderly. It was Alistair.

"What are
you
doing here?" I asked.

"I always come here at... What time is it exactly?... Six-thirty. Every night. Don't I, Matt, darling?" Then back to me: "Are you going to just dangle that ice temptingly or can we have it here for his poor hothead!"

And when I began taking the ice out, Alistair said, "I've been expecting something like this. You know it may go on for hours! Days!"

"I'm staying," I said.

"Of course you're staying. And so am I," Alistair said.

"Nice... thanks....," Matt murmured, totally out of it.

The bouts of fever and chills alternated closer and closer in time, until finally, around seven o'clock, even the night resident looking in as he took his watch recognized the seriousness of Matt's condition, and after my pleas and Alistair's only slightly veiled threats, the resident managed to get Matt onto a gurney and down into Intensive Care. Alistair carried his jacket and I the few items in the empty plastic ice tub, alongside the gurney, helping to push and steadying the hat rack of intravenous fluid lines the young medico had inserted into Matt's wrist: "Septra. It's potent enough, although who knows what good it'll do now. And sugar solutions to keep his electrolytes balanced."

Whatever combo it was, it worked. Within an hour, Matt—now attached to a heart machine and an electroencephalograph (though without any breathing apparatus other than his little wall-to-mouth oxygen tube)—showed signs of fever abatement. Within three more hours, the resident came by the two chairs dumped at one end of the Intensive Care Unit hallway, which served as a lounge, and told us, "Aggressive treatment sometimes pays off. Fever's gone. He's stabilized. We'll keep him here all night. And if there's no return of fever, we'll return him to his room tomorrow morning."

We could leave, the resident said. But, of course, we couldn't leave, wouldn't for hours more, not until we were thrown out, except for a quick hop to the seventh-floor cafeteria, about to close for the night, then back to the ICU hallway to wait. To say the least, I was astonished Alistair was staying so long.

"Don't you have some heterosexual to deflower?" I asked.

"That is so beneath you, Cuz," he said, looking up from his copy of
The Amway News
, "I won't even reply."

I chose not to point out that he already had replied. Instead I hunkered down, prepared for a long wait.

"You could go home and go to sleep, you know," Alistair said. "I promise I'll never tell a soul."

"I'd rather have sharpened bamboo hammered under my fingernails," I replied.

"That could be arranged. Just kidding. But you don't—and I am
not
being snide—don't look your usual fabulous self, Cuz."

"I've had a bit of a day," I admitted. "In fact, I came here to relax."

"Wrong move," Alistair said.

He listened to my tale of theatrical woes and betrayal, listened with more interest and niceness than he'd expressed in any matter in my life in a long time—so much so, my distrust grew and I finished off recounting the horrible day by asking, "So you've been seeing Matt since when?"

He could have easily—and correctly—accused me of bitchery. Instead he said, "The beginning. Eleven months ago."

"Eleven months ago."

"When he was first hospitalized with Pneumocystis."

I realized that I'd not asked Matt anything about his illness. I knew nothing really about his recent life. What a jerk I'd been. "Here?" I asked.

"Another hospital. Second bout was eight months ago. Then, three months ago, the CMV began. Then this time. And, of course, all the time in between. Luckily I retired just after the first hospital stay and decided to become a stock market whiz kid, although some have suggested I'm already approaching my sunset years. So I had time to keep an eye on him."

I had no idea how to ask it, so I just blurted it out: "You two lived together?"

"Not since Europe. Matt's been house-sitting Count Ugo's
pied-à-terre
in the U.N. Plaza. But naturally, whenever he wasn't well, I spent time with him."

"Weren't you ever going to let me know?"

"I knew you'd find out soon enough. That night at Casa Mercadente, after the atrocious memorial? That was when you first found out, wasn't it? No wonder you fled like Cinderella at midnight. But you do understand why I personally couldn't say a word?"

"Because Matt wouldn't let you?"

"Darling! Wake up and kiss the carnations! Because I felt so fucking guilty about Matt being sick!"

"How's that your fault?"

"Well... I don't know that it
is
my fault. I only thought if I'd not... you know, interfered with your relationship at the Pines when I did..."

"There's no proof of that, Alistair. I'm now hearing the incubation period may be seven, ten, twelve years. A hepatitis test was done in '76. Four hundred gay men in New York and San Francisco. They've just tested the frozen blood for HIV. Twenty percent of the samples showed it present. Back then! Anyway, you saw how guys threw themselves at Matt. He couldn't beat them off with a stick. It could have happened anytime."

"I still feel somewhat guilty."

"Well, good! Keep feeling guilty."

"Which is why I want to know more about Bob Jeffries's bankruptcy."

"I don't follow."

"Not for nothing, Puss, but all those junk bonds I've been buying and having my stockbroker sell—by the way, he's a simply ghastly human being. Cute as shit. But
perverted!
You don't know the half of it! And of course, he thinks like a machine. And naturally in return for all of his money-making for me, I've occasionally forced myself to submit to his less outre fetishistic whims. But anyway, as a result of all that, I've simply tons of cash! So why don't I just buy the theater company and fund the show for its run?"

"I can't ask you to do that. Besides, there's no guarantee you'll make money. Or even break even."

"Roger, Roger, Roger! I just told you I've simply oceans of cash. I don't need to make money. On the other hand, I could use a good investment loss."