Look Away Silence (29 page)

“Hey, Martin,” Gus the Bouncer said. “You’ve been a
stranger. Heard . . .”

“Yes,” I said. “There’s been an unwanted visitor in
my house.”

“’Sbeen in many homes lately, guy.” He turned.
“Carlos, look who’s turned up.”

Carlos, the DJ waved. The music was soft and low,
from the Jukebox at this early hour.

“Martin,” Bruce said. He turned to Teddy, the
bartender. “A
Corona
on the house for my long lost
patron.”

“Thanks, Teddy.”

He waved, and then tapped me a mug. I didn’t feel
like beer. I wanted the hard stuff. Lot’s of the hard stuff.
Something to give me the courage to head back to the kitchen drawer
and the Roman tub. However, I needed to be hospitable. I noticed
Nick, the busboy. He seemed to have graduated to waiter, by the
looks of his tuppenny.

“Relax,” Bruce said. “It’s good to see you. I hope
everything is . . .”

He stopped. I saw Gus signal him. I just grinned — a
pig’s grin, if a pig could grin, and then took may place on a
barstool. I just sat there, sipped my beer and stared into the
mirror. I was a mess. I needed a shave. My hair was a barnyard
disaster. I could have drunk my way to hell and back and could be
more attractive. I slouched.

“I pray every night,” came a gruff but feminine
voice. Mother had joined my reflection in the mirror. “I pray every
night that they could all come back.”

That they could all come back.
The thought
chilled me. It stabbed at my soul. Mother wasn’t talking about the
war dead. She was invoking the fallen of this age — the sick and
dying and the gone. The gone gone, never to return.

“They are angels,” Mother said. “Martin, dear boy,
look at me.”

I didn’t want to look at him. I saw enough in the
mirror, but he insisted on twisting me around. Mother’s face was
drawn and over-rouged. He had missed his lips altogether, while the
wig was raven and mismatched to the grey plug line. His falsies
slipped, one boob lower than the other, the bra strap barely held
by his bony shoulders.

“I have seen it all,” Mother said. “I have survived
all that the world and God had to crush us and I have never sought
the exit.”

How did she know? Had it been pasted across my
forehead?

“I’ll be okay, Mother.”

“Yes, you will. You are a strong boy. A cutie and
I’ve had my eye on you since you stepped across that threshold
years ago. But I know my limitations.”

Thank God for that
, I thought. But it was an
unkind thought. This dinosaur — this refinement gone to seed, still
flowered across my bosom.
Is this what we have to look forward
to? Wisdom set in an ashtray.

“A penny for your thoughts, Martin, because I can
read them anyway. But it will help if you spit them out.”

“Then you know that my lover has . . .”

“He is not among the angels, Martin. He waits
somewhere for you. He needs you, foolish lad. When he no longer
needs you, you must decide then. But until then, you must set your
course to survive whatever this world has set down to crush you.
Look at me and remember. I’m still a pretty thing. There was a time
when I was the Queen of the Jersey Shore. Now . . . well now, I’m a
mere Dowager to the many sparkling things that strut the runway and
lip sync.”

He kissed me, the smear missing my forehead as the
lipstick had missed his lips.

“Martin, a penny for your thoughts?”

“I need that penny, so I’ll tell you. I lost my job
today.”

Mother smiled. It was a
no big deal
smile

“Bruce, dear,” she croaked. “Martin needs a
job.”

“Really?” Bruce asked.

I rocketed about.

“You have a job opening?”

“Yes,” said Bruce. “Busboy. Nick took Bobby’s place
when . . . well, I need a busboy.”

“But, I’m afraid I’ll be unreliable. I mean, with
Matt in the hospital, I can’t keep to a set schedule.”

“No problem. Work when you can. I’m sure he’ll be
out and about soon and then you can double up.”

I sighed and forgot the kitchen drawer. I turned to
the frail drag queen who cocked his head, the wig slipping further.
I planted a big kiss smack on his lips.

“There’s hope for me yet,” Mother said, and then
pinched my bottom.

“So what will you do without a job?” Leslie
asked.

“I got one. It’s part time and maybe full time, when
Matt comes home.”

Ginger raised an eyebrow.

“That’s lucky.”

“It is,” I confessed. God and Mother cut me a break,
and a big old bear named Bruce. “At
The Cavern.
I’m busboy
there. Stop by sometime.”

“Will that cover your rent?” Ginger croaked.

“No, but Viv is going with a sugar daddy, who, as it
turns out, likes me. She’s taken over the lease.”

“She’s living with you now?” Ginger asked.

“Viv has always lived with me after a fashion.” I
laughed. “She comes and goes, but it’s still my place. I mean, now
that Matt’s coming along and will be home, I need to decide whether
to move him to my place. Save on expenses. Our finances are so
entwined, I don’t know up from down sometimes.”

“You’d better settle that, in case . . .”

Leslie’s comment trailed off. She was a lawyer and
thought like a lawyer. I knew where she was going.

“Fortunately,” I said. “The Kielers will never
create a legal quagmire for me.”

Ginger shrugged, just as the Kielers appeared. I was
never sure whether they heard my last comment. Never sure.

I could see at once on Leslie and Ginger’s faces
that Matt’s gaunt visage took them by surprise. They had certainly
been in sick rooms before, and in the presence of this plague.
However, the radical change in my cowboy’s appearance since their
last encounter with him, gave them a start. They quickly
recovered.

“So this is where you’re hanging out now,” Ginger
bellowed through the mask.

Matt smiled. He was free of the tubes and masks and
tents, but he appeared small in the hospital bed.

“You look funny in that get up,” he said.

“I’m surprise you recognized us,” Leslie said.
“After all, we could have been the new nursing crew.”

“Not a chance,” he said. “They’re a skinny lot, and
. . . well, you’re not.”

“If you weren’t sick, I pound you one,” Ginger
said.

They surrounded him. He attempted to sit up. He was
supposed to rest. He had been up and in the chair when Louise and
Sammy visited. Now he was supposed to stay in bed.

“Wait,” I said. “I’ll get it.”

I dove at the switch and the mechanical bed rumbled
quietly, levitating him. He looked like the Queen of Sheba — a very
pale and thin Queen of Sheba.

“Do you want to see my tattoos?” he announced.

“They’ve branded you in here?” Leslie asked.

“Probably to track you down if you tried to get
away,” Ginger added.

He laughed, but I wasn’t happy. He was glad to show
his lesions now, but when they first appeared, he wasn’t so fast to
reveal. If he had, his entry into the AIDS ward wouldn’t have been
so dramatic. He leaned forward cocking his head and exposing a
purple bruise, almost inviting the girls to touch it, which they
didn’t.

“He’s got a few more,” I said.

“I can’t show you those,” he chuckled.

“Too much information,” Leslie said.

“I’m thinking of renting him out as a sideshow,” I
remarked. “Only if he keeps it up, he’ll have black and blue ones
to go with the purple ones.”

Leslie hoisted herself onto the end of the bed.

“Get comfy,” Matt said. “Is it still snowing?”

“Snowing?” Leslie glanced at me. “It hasn’t snowed
in weeks.”

“Oh. I keep forgetting.”

There were no windows in his room. Even when I took
him for short walks, the lounge was windowless. Maybe there was
some parasitic condition caused by light. Maybe he’d melt like a
vampire. Who could tell? Still, Matt was starved for sunlight.

“How could you tell, snooks?” Leslie said. “This
place is quite confining.”

“It’s my own private hotel room, right,
Pumpkin?”

“It’s a cell,” I said. I shouldn’t have said it, but
reality was quicker at hand these days. “All we need is the padded
walls.”

“You’re terrible,” Leslie said.

Ginger sneered at me as if I had no heart.

“What?” I said.

“Where are your bedside manners?”

I laughed. “They’ve run away with the dish and the
spoon. Matt’s used to it by now.”

Matt shrugged. “He tucks me in at night, that’s
bedside manner enough.”

Leslie and Ginger kept the conversation going and
going and going. Nothing was said — nothing of interest. There were
a few medical queries, which Matt answered himself. He was getting
as smart as the doctor, for all the good it did him. I just shut
up. It was a surreal scene watching two lesbians in surgical garb
chattering through masks about the turnover at the Bed &
Breakfast and how Matt needed to recuperate on their front porch
when spring kicked in. Matt just nodded, punctuating their comments
like
can I pee on the cats.
Then his eyes suddenly pleaded.
That was for me. He needed to sleep, either that or a trip to the
bathroom, which wasn’t always a successful mission. Timing was
everything.

“Matt,” I asked, stepping up to the mound. “Do you
need . . .”

“I think I do, Pumpkin.” He smiled at his company.
“I hate to be rude, ladies, but if you stay here much longer you’ll
get to experience a sight that you will not soon forget.”

Ginger and Leslie bowed out like Geishas. They gave
me reassuring hugs.
Anything you need. And we mean anything.
We exchanged kisses through the masks, and then they were gone.

Alone. Matt heaved a sigh, and swung his legs over
the side.

“It was good to see them.”

“Too many visitors in one day,” I said.

“Maybe you’re right.”

He gasped, his eyes shutting. I sniffed. I didn’t
smell anything.

“It’s just the gas,” he said. “But I think it won’t
be with the next one up.”

I gave him my shoulder. He stood precariously.

“Dizzy?”

“A bit. It’s just from being in bed so much.”

“That’ll do it.” Although I didn’t believe him for a
moment. He took a step and nearly fell. I anchored my hands about
his waist. I could feel his hipbone.

“Steady me, Pumpkin.”

I gripped him, moving him toward the bathroom. I
only needed to get him to the door. The room was outfitted with
bars and other contraptions that he could use to maneuver himself.
He made an odd sort of shuffle. As we progressed, he twisted his
head back.

“Make me a promise, Pumpkin.”

“Anything.”

“Get me the hell out of here and don’t let me ever
come back.”

There was nothing I could say. How could I promise
such a thing? I’d been reading. This was only an episode. He might
have a string of them this year, and as long as the bankers kept
pushing the Kielers further into debt, this hotel room at Robert
Wood Johnson would stand in readiness for him. Still . . .

“I promise.”

“Good, because I’m holding you that one. I never
want to sleep in a room without windows again.”

I got him to the door, where he grabbed the
handrails.

“Okay from here?”

“Okay.”

I let him go, and then stepped back toward the bed.
I trembled. It would be the first of many shuffles to bathrooms,
but it was that promise that I dreaded most. I knew I had just
committed myself to the full bull of nursing. I tore the mask off
and used it to dry my tears.

“Pumpkin,” Matt called.

I replaced the fucking mask over the chaff behind my
ears.

“Yes. Are you okay?”

“Okay,” he said. “Just wanted to say that I love
you.”

“Okay,” I said.

If I had returned the favor, I think I would have
collapsed.

Matt was able to walk out of the hospital ten days
later. I had talked to him about staying at my place, because of
the stairs at his apartment, but he insisted that he could still
climb them. He could, with my heart attack nerves behind him. I was
becoming a wreck. Sammy and Louise had been there to greet us, and
Mary had baked a pie. Mary wasn’t much of a baker, and it wasn’t
much of a pie . . . cherry I think, and sour, but it was the
thought that counted. Hank dropped by, and Jasper too. For the
first week, there was steady company, including Doug Lynch from
Axum Labs. He brought work — not prime programming work, but data
entry and some sub-routines, he called it. I was pleased with Doug
and his understanding. He knew that Matt couldn’t return to work,
yet they kept him on the payroll and gave him what amounted to busy
work. Matt didn’t complain, although he did mention to me that a
newbie programmer could handle
this shit
. Still, it kept his
hands on the keyboard on the good days. Doug even gave him
deadlines. Matt responded well to deadlines.

I was grateful that Matt was occupied, because I
needed to work. Bruce Q. was good-hearted, and he didn’t pay me
when I didn’t work, but he didn’t penalize me on those evening when
I called off. In many ways,
The Cavern
kept me sane. It was
smoky and loud — numbing at times, but a good numb, the kind that
lifted you to another world and spit you out into oblivion. Bussing
was mindless work, especially when running behind a queenie waiter
like Nick. I also got see people again. Most of the Jersey Sparrows
stopped by to water on a Saturday night. I was guilty of partying
more than working when they showed up. I even danced with John
ducking when the
Zippilin
made its flight. Laughter. I
needed laughter, and I had some. Mother never gave me a maudlin
speech again, but he always winked at me, and sometimes would blow
me a kiss. I never looked upon her in the same light again. She was
beautiful — an old icon like some feminine version of a wooden
Indian.