- - Well, it’s been a very long time since I approached this story. I don’t have much of an excuse not to work on this now. The beginning may be stilted as I try to return to the story, but bear with me. - -

I feel as if have spent the last three hours digesting in the belly of a dyspeptic grizzly bear. True to my word, I broke the news to my brother. Is there any tactful way to tell your family that you’ll slowly deteriorate before their eyes and there isn’t a thing in the world they can do? I sure couldn’t find one.

Since Jimmy glowered at me the entire time and my new medication doesn’t agree with me, I had to dive into my confession on an empty, roiling stomach. Jay cried. Sean stared. Julia was at a girl friend’s house, blessedly. The questions stabbed at my soul and the beseeching look my brother gave me shattered the little composure I had managed to gather. All in all, the evening was hell, pure and complicated.

“How were you infected?” Jay wanted to know. I rubbed my shoulder and picked up salt grains with my index finger.

“Ryan’s ex-boyfriend was an intermittent junkie and gave it to him. Ryan was lucky enough to have a long latent stage, where he felt just fine. He had no clue he was infected. With me, the disease snuggled in quickly.” I sighed. I didn’t wish AIDS on Ryan. He didn’t live long enough for it to develop, anyways. But it was all so unfair. He hadn’t even known that Kyle, the ex, was on drugs. I never met the guy. But in an oblique way, he was to be my killer.

Sean piped up, “So is it HIV, or AIDS?” He held his breath. I shook my head.

“Freshly fledged AIDS.” There wasn’t anything else I could say. Yep, I’m gonna die? I have had time to accept my future. They were just learning.

Finally, after lots of hugs and tears, I retreated to my art room. Truthfully, I feel like crap. Having been through the emotional wringer, my mind is as tired as my body. I settle into my armchair with an unfired figurine of a tiger. I shakily carve delicate stripes into him and cough slightly. All the dust in this room is starting to get to me. I’ll clean it tomorrow morning. I’m too tired today.

I fall asleep in the chair and dream of Audrey. When I wake at nine, sunlight streaming past half-dried vases, I decide to take a short trip up to New York next week. I’ll take Jimmy. Then he won’t protest; accuse me of running away again. I’ll bring the tiger. Audrey likes cats.

I take my medication and shuffle out to the kitchen, grabbing some toast and grabbing the phone. Jimmy lounges warily in my chair when I return. Ignoring him, I call an art dealer who has had success selling my work before.

“Great, well I’ll see you on Tuesday, then. Thank you. Yes, I’ll bring some examples.” I hang up and finish my toast. Jimmy picks at his nails and looks at me expectantly.

“I’m not going to collapse into a heap of dry bones before your eyes, Jimmy. Is there something you want?” I plop down on a stool, pulling a dolphin figurine before me.

“I know that. I was just wondering…”

“Yes?”

“How did Ryan react?”

“Badly.”

- - -

For two full weeks, Ryan was a different person. Every time he looked at me, instead of love or amusement hulked a load of slicing guilt. Somehow, I wasn’t really surprised I was sick. It felt like one more step in the ironic drama of my life. After all that had happened, I decided to make the most of the time I had and for once, follow doctor’s orders. To a degree.

This isn’t to say that I wasn’t upset or that I did a dance of happiness after diagnosis. I did my own share of railing at God and crying. But I accepted it so much more quickly than Ryan. He was determined to blame himself.

- - -
“By the way, I’m still furious with you.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“Just so you know.”

- - -

“If you had never met me, then you wouldn’t be …sick right now!” was Ryan’s common refrain. After the twelfth time, I finally spoke my piece, “Yeah, instead I’d be dead in an alleyway thanks to my buddy Nino!” He had had his little guilt trip. I needed him now, so it was up to me to snap him back into life.

“I’m not dead yet, Ryan. And we don’t know how fast the disease will develop. I have a chance at several more decades!” I know now this isn’t true, but neither does it matter. “You didn’t know. And I don’t blame you.” This has stayed true.

“But I blame myself!” He turned away from me. I got angry.

“We don’t have time for this, Ryan. I need you now, and your self-indulgent tragedy is just pissing me off. How about instead of pretending I’m on my deathbed you look at the here and now: the rest of the world is moving on without us.” I grabbed his shoulders and kissed him lightly. He sighed, and exhalation of breath that physically wracked his frame.

“Aren’t you scared?”

“Shitless.”

“Then how can you say all that philosophical crap?”

“Because it’s true.” I held him tight and smiled, “After all, now I am a true artist with a nice dose of disaster to make me worth something.” He punched me in the arm and grinned back. After another week or so, he laboriously worked HIV into the picture. I did all I could to minimize its effect on our lives, with a decent amount of success. I finally managed to distract him by constructing a Master Plan to help out his family and mine.

- - -

“You have a plan?”

“Master Plan. With capitals.”

“Drama queen.”

“No. Poet and Mastermind.”

“Shut it.”

I stretch. “Really, it all has to do with money and how to relocate it to the best effect.” I wave the dolphin at him. “Kitschy crap like this makes up the bulk of it.” I get up and walk around, coughing ineffectively. “Help me clean this place up. The dust is awful.”

We dust for the next hour, silently. I can see Jimmy struggling with the enormity of a chronic disease. The cleaning helps and we break for lunch. Sean makes Jimmy go with him to pick up the takeout, leaving me with my brother.

It’s obvious he doesn’t know how to start a conversation with me. I’m no longer just Jack, his little brother who has fits of artistic impetuousness. I’m now an embodiment of AIDS, a victim: exactly how Ryan used to look at me.

“Jay. Are you ok?” I take his hand. It hurts to see him so lost. He raised me, taught me self-sufficiency and morality and kindness. Even in my wandering in New York, he was always there to think of in particularly difficult times.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” He rubs his eyes and squeezes my hand. His laugh is defeated. “Well, I’ll be fine when Sean finally gets back with the fried rice,” I crack. The joke helps some and Jay finally wraps his arms around me.

“I just don’t know what to do,” he says in a muffled voice. “I always have a solution! But I’m not a miracle worker, and I have no sturdy faith in a redeemer.” He rubs my buzz cut. I smile, grappling with a decision.

“Well, you actually have.” I scoot my chair back a little to get a little emotional space, continuing, “For awhile, after Ryan died, I toyed with the idea of suicide.” Jay’s eyes widened with shock and then pain. “I was sick, my lover died, and the medicine made me feel horrible. But I thought of you, Sean, Julia, Jimmy. Instead of killing myself, I decided to come home.” I smile ironically.

Jay can’t find the words so he just squeezes my hand. Sean and Jimmy come in loudly, quarreling over the validity of the lucky numbers in a fortune cookie. Throughout the meal, my family ignores the elephant of AIDS and has a raucous, normal meal. It’s wonderful.

- - Not much action in this chapter, but it had to be written. I promise to post more soon. The end is near!

Thank you’s:

MispeledWell, this one was forced, too. Hopefully next chapter will be better. And I definitely reveal too much plot!

Demonic-muses: Yes, it’s sad. I’m trying to put a bittersweet spin on the end, I promise. Everyone has their own way to cope. - -