The Dream Ender (3 page)

*

We arrived at Tim and Phil’s right on time, and Joshua immediately ran to their large aquarium to watch the fish while Phil fixed us drinks: a Manhattan for me, a Coke for Jonathan, bourbon-Sevens for himself and Tim, and a small glass of Coke with a maraschino cherry for Joshua.

“You got a new fish!” Joshua declared, pointing to a small, bright pink fish about three inches long. How he was able to spot one new fish in a tank with dozens I didn’t know.

“Yeah,” Tim said. “He’s a pink veil-tail oscar. We just got him.”

“His name is Oscar?” Joshua asked, obviously enthralled.

Phil, Jonathan and I sat around the kitchen table talking while Tim puttered getting everything ready, then moved into the dining area for dinner. Tim had made two huge pans of lasagna, which was served with a large salad and garlic bread and wine (another Coke for Jonathan and milk for Joshua). Needless to say, it was all wonderful, and I remarked yet again that if Tim ever decided to leave his job as an assistant medical examiner with the coroner’s office, he should open a restaurant.

After dinner we sat around the living room talking, while Joshua alternately ran to the fish tank and sat on the floor with a box of crayons and the coloring book we’d brought along. Around eight twenty, he crawled up on the couch between Jonathan and me and, after a valiant effort to keep awake, began a slow but increasing list to port until his head was in Jonathan’s lap and he was asleep, Jonathan’s arm over his shoulder.

“Have you talked to Jared and Jake?” Tim asked.

“Yeah, we called both of them a couple days ago,” Jonathan said, sparing me having to find a way to avoid saying I’d had lunch with Jared the day before. “Did they tell you about their friend?”

Phil sighed. “Yeah. As we were going down to the cars after we left your place, I asked why they’d been so quiet all night and they told us. We met him once, I think, when we went out bar-hopping with them. I think it was at the Male Call.”

Again I resisted the temptation to say anything.

“Oh, yeah,” Tim said. “I remember him now. A real hunk!” He paused and shook his head. “What a damned shame!”

“Neither Jake nor Jared said anything, but I think it really rattled them, especially considering how active they are.”

“It’s like Russian roulette,” Tim added. “The more times you pull the trigger, the greater the risk you’re taking. I’m not trying to sound holier than thou here, but the worse this thing gets, the more glad I am I’m not out there on the streets anymore.”

“Amen to that,” said Phil, who, like Jonathan, had been a hustler when I first met him.

*

We left around nine thirty, me carrying a still-sound-asleep Joshua like a sack of potatoes and Jonathan a large aluminum-foil-covered tray of lasagna.

As we’d done before on similar occasions, rather than trying to put Joshua in his pajamas and get him cleaned up, we postponed the ritual until morning and put him to bed in his underwear, making sure Bunny was at his side.

When we went to bed ourselves, Jonathan snuggled up close, putting his arm around me to draw me even closer.

“Can we have sex?” he asked

“Since when do you have to ask?” I said, somewhat taken aback by the question but sensing something behind it.

He sighed, the flat of his hand moving slowly back and forth across my chest.

“I’m scared,” he said, “and I don’t want to have to be afraid of sex. I guess I just need a little reassurance.”

I pulled his head to me and kissed him on the forehead.

“You’ve got it,” I said. and then we didn’t talk anymore.

*

The days clicked by. We’d heard nothing further from Jake or Jared, but that wasn’t all that unusual. Bob called on a Thursday to ask if we’d like to join him and Mario for an after-church brunch at Napoleon, our favorite gay restaurant, on Sunday and we accepted, conditional on our being able to get Craig Richman to come watch Joshua for a couple of hours.

Every Sunday, Jonathan took Joshua to services at the local gay Metropolitan Community Church. As a confirmed agnostic, I did not feel comfortable with any organized religious service so I never went, but since Joshua’s parents had taken him to church regularly before they were killed, Jonathan thought it was important to keep up the tradition. On those occasions when Craig, who was openly gay, babysat for us on a Saturday night, he often, with his parents’ full approval, stayed overnight and would then accompany the two
J
s to church. He usually attended services with his family at a non-gay church, so he always welcomed the chance to go to the MCC whenever he could.

When we called to ask if he was available, Jonathan made arrangements to meet him at the church and bring him home for babysitting after.

Just after we’d put Joshua to bed and were sitting in the living room watching TV, the phone rang. Since I was closest, I picked it up.

“Hello?”

I almost didn’t recognize the voice. “Dick, it’s Jared. Are you busy?”

I instinctively felt as though I’d suddenly jumped feet first into freezing water. “No, we’re just watching some TV. What’s up?”

“I…uh…” That damned hesitation again! “I had to come in to see Jake.”

The chill had reached my bones. “See Jake?” I repeated inanely.

“Yeah. He’s…in the hospital. He’s got pneumonia.”

Oh, Jeezus!

Chapter 3

“Where are you?” I asked, trying to sound casual, but when I saw the look on Jonathan’s face I could tell he knew something was wrong. He got up and came over to stand beside me.

“I just left the hospital,” Jared said. “I’m going to go spend the night at his place, but I thought maybe you could meet me for a beer somewhere?”

“Which hospital?” I asked.

“Mercy Memorial, where Jake’s brother Stan works.”

“That’s not far from here,” I said. “Why don’t you come over here?”

“I don’t want to upset Jonathan. I know what a softie he is,” he said, and I could tell he meant it as a joke. It didn’t work.

“It’s no bother at all,” I said. “And he’d feel bad if you didn’t.”

There was a long pause, then a sigh. “Yeah, but it’s a work night for him and…”

“Don’t worry about that,” I said. “Just come over.”

He paused only a moment before saying, “Okay. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

“I’ll keep the beer cold,” I said.

Jonathan said, “What’s wrong?” before I’d even put the receiver down.

“Jake’s in the hospital. He’s got pneumonia. It’s probably nothing,” I lied, noting the look of shock on his face…

“Bullshit!” he snapped. “Damn it, Dick, I wish you wouldn’t always try to protect me! I’m not made of glass!”

The sharpness of his tone, and the fact that he almost never swore, not only pulled me back to reality but made me realize he was right—I
was
trying to protect him. I was always trying to protect him and Joshua. That’s what I was there for.

Oh, come on, Tarzan
, several of my mind-voices said in unison,
Jonathan’s your partner, not your kid.

I reached out and pulled him toward me, wrapping my arms around him.

“I’m sorry, babe,” I said. “It’s just that I’d do anything to keep you from being unhappy. You know that.”

He raised his head off my shoulder and looked into my eyes. “I know that and I appreciate it…I do. But we’ve got Joshua, and one kid in the family is enough.” He kissed me on the tip of my nose and broke our hug. “Come on,” he said, indicating the scattered books and newspapers around the room. “Let’s pick up some of this mess before Jared gets here.”

*

“So what happened?” I asked as I handed Jared his beer and sat down.

He leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “He’s been trying to juggle two big jobs at the same time, and he just bit off more than he could chew. He was working sixteen hours a day and weekends, and about two weeks ago, after all that rain you had down here, he caught a really bad cold. But he wouldn’t let it slow him down, and then one of his foremen up and quit, so Jake had to work even harder to fill in for him. I kept telling him to talk to Stan, and when he did, Stan put him right in the hospital.”

“So it’s just regular pneumonia?” Jonathan asked. “Not…that other kind?”

“Pneumocystis?” Jared said, then shrugged. “Yeah, I’m afraid it is.”

“But that doesn’t mean…?” Jonathan began, but couldn’t bring himself to say the word.

Jared shook his head. “We don’t know. It might just be the overwork that’s affected his immune system. Stan says he’s going to try to get that test they’re working on for him as soon as it’s available, but he doesn’t know when that might be.” His voice was calm, but the strain was clearly evident.

“How long will he be in the hospital?” I asked.

“It depends on how he responds to the treatment. Probably a couple of days. He just needs to rest up.”

“We’ll go see him tomorrow, if that’s okay,” I said.

“I’d rather you didn’t. He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s in the hospital or make a big deal out of it. When he gets a little better…”

“Of course,” I said. “Just let us know, though. We do want to see him as soon as he’s up to it. I assume you haven’t told the rest of the gang?”

“No, there’s no point in worrying them. Everybody is so skittish about this…this whole business, they assume the worst when someone sneezes. So, please don’t say anything.”

“We won’t,” Jonathan and I said in unison.

“I’m taking some time off from work,” Jared continued, “just to make sure that Jake takes it easy when he gets out. I know damned well he’s going to want to go directly from the hospital to work, and I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Maybe you can take him home and tie him down,” Jonathan suggested with mock seriousness.

Jared grinned. “Been there. Done that. Often,” he said. “But don’t think for one minute I won’t if that’s what it takes.”

Jonathan’s comment had eased the general tension, and by unspoken mutual agreement, we switched the conversation to other topics.

Jared left around eleven thirty to head over to Jake’s for the night. Normally, I would have invited him to stay with us, but now that Joshua had taken up residence in the guestroom, sleeping on the couch would have been a little impractical for someone Jared’s size. And I sensed that he would feel more comfortable at Jake’s.

When he left, we merely exchanged hugs—I didn’t say anything about calling if there was something he or Jake needed or that we could possibly do to help. I’d already said that when we had lunch and there was no point in belaboring the obvious.

We went to bed shortly after Jared left and neither of us said much. There really wasn’t anything either of us could think of to say. But as soon as we got into bed, Jonathan turned on his side facing away from me and reached behind him to take my hand and pull me into our favorite “spoon” position, my right arm around his chest and our clasped hands between his cheek and the pillow.

And so we slept.

*

I really do try not to worry about things until I’m sure there is, indeed, something to worry about, but I couldn’t get Jake and Jared out of my mind. AIDS, as it was now being called, was like a gigantic stormcloud hovering over all our lives, with ominous flashes of lightning advancing over the horizon. But the prospect that it might strike someone close to me had been incomprehensible. I continued to tell myself that just because Jake had pneumonia didn’t automatically mean he had AIDS; I was probably worrying for nothing. But that didn’t keep me from worrying.

Right after dinner on Friday we called Jake’s apartment and left a “just checking in” message. We figured Jared would be at the hospital until they kicked him out and that he’d get the message when he got back.

“We’ve got to get tested,” Jonathan said after we’d returned to the living room from putting Joshua to bed.

“You heard Jared. There isn’t one yet,” I said.

“Why the hell isn’t there?” he demanded, and again the fact that he almost never swore showed the intensity of his feelings. “People are dying, and they can’t even test to see if they have it or not?”

“They will,” I said.

“Sure they will. You know as well as I do that the government doesn’t give a damn about a bunch of faggots dying. Good riddance! And I read that not everybody who has it gets sick right away, and they carry it around with them for who knows how long.”

His bitterness was shared by much of the gay community. I knew that we’d both been pretty—well, promiscuous is kind of a prissy word, but it’s fairly accurate—before we met, and that could potentially be a problem. Even though we’d been monogamous since we first got together, I, too, had heard rumors that in some cases there was apparently a long incubation period.

It was quite possible the disease—and we all thought of it as a disease now rather than a series of unrelated illnesses taking advantage of a weakened immune system—had been like a seed just waiting to germinate. Like just about everything else relating to that disease, no one knew how long the seeds had been waiting to germinate. But once they did, the Reaper was not far behind.

I knew what was behind Jonathan’s concern, and he finally expressed it.

“We’ve got Joshua to think about,” he said. “We’ve got to be sure we’ll be here for him until he grows up.”