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The Two Good Friends

John Clayton Young

    I.
    “When we get back to Boston, they’re going to call us names.”
    “Why in the world?”
    “For staying closeted down here.”
    “That’s Boston, not Peru. And it’s not as though we asked to get handed off to the Baptists.” A beat of contemplation, then Luke went on: “Do you think they are Southern Baptists here or . . . even more conservative?”
    Cal chuckled. “Either way, honey, do you want them to be privy to what we do in the dark?”
    “You are the one who’s going to flip his wrist when he’s not meaning to.”
    “Me?” said Cal as his unpacked the button ups one by one, each one seeming more and more unnecessary. “I’m surprised they let you onto this work-farm with your Donna Karen.”
    “You never did know fashion. All my stuff is Dockers. Here—this toothpaste is yours.”
    They relished this first moment of solitude they had had since Lima, two days ago. Their two other roommates—El Greco and Carlos—were eating lunch in the cafeteria down the hill. The rest of the students would show up at the start of the semester in another week.
    Only now, after having been dragged around Arequipa for two days with the Baptist bandwagon—giving testimonials in their very respectable Spanish as to what brought them to Canyon Country—they had their first moment to let loose the devout concentration and let the conversation come. It was also the first moment they had had to unpack.
    “So what’s the verdict?” asked Cal, a year older, a perhaps tad wiser, with a little better control of emotions as well as Spanish. “Give it to me straight.”
    “Well,” said Luke, heaving a sigh, “we’ll really have to see how much time we have with the kids in the school, how free we’ll be, and how soon they’ll let us out of this dive. I am ticked that they promised us an apartment especially on our own dime. It stinks in here. Smells like Raid.”
    “I agree. I think they really broke their word on the housing since they said we would have a place to ourselves. I’ve got the email. I say that we can jet whenever. True, we did commit to the local Methodist crew—or at the Methodist VIM’s in New York, but it was just laziness on the part of their “Peru Crew” to hand us off to the Baptists after we’d already bought the tickets. This place reeks. We put our lives on hold to teach English to their kids, paying our way, and they want to put us through the wringer like seminary recruits. No warning that we need sheets, pillows, soap. And did you know we’re two kilometers away from the nearest minimart or phone or taxi or water! Can you say Opus Dei?”
    “So we give them how long?”
    Cal blew out his breath and shrugged. “As long as we want. No longer. Quick ride to the airport, fly to Lima, spend the night, and so forth.”
    “Unless . . .”
    “Unless the teaching turns out to be fruitful.”
    “But did you catch that the school is on the other side of the city? Fifteen soles away, according to Carlos.”
    Luke shook his head. Then smiling and looking down, he reached below his towel and picked up his brandy flask. “Want some now?”
    “Are you nuts?”
    “No.”
     “Don’t you dare do it now! They’ll smell it!”
    “You are so dominant! You never let me drink my booze anywhere!” He tossed it below the towel again and then turned his attention to what passed for a bed and tried to fit a rough blanket over the mattress. “You don’t think they suspect?”
    “About the brandy?”
    “No, genius. About us?”
    “No. How could they? But nothing physical for now!”
    They worked silently for a few minutes in rumination. Luke continued: “You know what they would say back home? Dan and Jeff? They would skin us alive and they aren’t even militant.”
    Cal chuckled without looking at his partner of seven years (both were twenty seven). He stopped what he was doing, dropped a stack of clean boxer briefs on the half clothed bed. And he did not look at Luke as he responded. “What would they do? Seriously! Hold hands in the cafeteria down there where the boys and the girls can’t even sit together?” His tone was not entirely pleased.
    He closed his eyes, and for the first time in two and a half days, a wave of anger pushed the blood hard upon his optical nerve: a sign saying Breath! or you’re going to have a popper of a migraine.
    Opening his eyes, he tried, but with lungs three-fourths full, he got the stench of pesticide smack in the mucus membranes. It was that crap that the stupid El Greco was always spraying to kill flies.
    “I hate to say it, Luke, but this faking is almost as though we aren’t even together, but apart.”
    Luke took a gander out the window, and seeing the coast clear, stepped to his partner and put a hand on his neck where it met the shoulders and rubbed. The touch made Cal smile.
    A peck.
    “You comfort me,” said Cal.
    The sound of a dopey ditty told them to separate. El Greco came bopping in that moment singing.
    He was such a goof—this “Greco” with none of the majesty that Cal associated with the tall and svelte Greeks he’d known. How he’d gotten the name was a stupid and convoluted story. El Greco was short and stubby—nether lean nor chubby, but somehow both. Unsubstantial and soft. But it could have been that Cal’s perceptions of him were tainted at that moment with the taste of his deception. He talked about ironing his shirt and then started a repetitious ditty, looking through his clothes.
    Cal, done with the unpacking for now, leaned on the post of the bunk bed and said to Luke in an easy-breezy tone in English, “But who’s to say UMCOR would have been any better?”
    “Then,” said Luke with a smile in an equally fluffy tone to belie his angst, “we should have gone with your tribe, hon!”
    Cal chuckled, then said with a finality that was to end the English conversation: “Too bad the Nazis got here before we did. Not many Semites in Peru.”
    And though they were—it’s true—masking their irritations, what irritation they harbored was dominated by that wont mood they shared—thankful optimism—young and together and hale and hearty.
    “So, Greco . . . how was lunch?”
    It was so odd calling him that, though it was how El Greco preferred it. But to Luke it would have been like someone calling him Jew Boy . . . or Gay Boy.”
    “Rico, but you two didn’t eat?”
    “We ate downtown,” said Luke.
    “It was good too,” added Cal, wondering why he was trying to sell El Greco on how good it was.
    “Well,” said El Greco, oblivious, kind of shuffle dancing from his white shirts (they only wore white with black pants) to the ironing table, “you should have waited to eat Peruvian food.”
    Luke and Cal looked at each other.
    “Funny you say that, Greco,” said Luke (and Cal thought Oh no!). “But we would have liked to, but because Carlos had asked us to accompany him across town for an hour (which ended up being three or four hours), we were worried we were going to miss lunch, as we had missed dinner yesterday and lunch the day before. So Cal and I ate a few bread rolls for lunch. Carlos apparently ate with you and the pastor and the rest.”
    Obnoxiously, naively, El Greco laughed and said, “Oh, yeah! It’s too bad you guys ate while you were in town!”
    “Yeah,” said Luke, “too bad.” He didn’t mention that they had also bought Carlos something to eat too.
    “So what’s next on the agenda, Greco?” asked Luke.
    “I’m going to wash my clothes, and then I’ll just study until the célula tonight. Hermano Alfredo is talking.”
    Cal looked at Luke who was straining internally. Cal stifled a chuckle with a cough.
    El Greco, who was all comedy, smiled and asked, “What’s funny?”
    “Oh, nothing. Sorry. A bug flew in my mouth.”
    “So sorry! I’ll get them!”
    And in the moment that they understood that he was going (again) for the MataMoscas bug spray, they cried in unison, “No, no!”
    “Enough with the MataMoscas, Greco,” said Cal. “I think it’s starting to make me twitch.”
    The goofy Greco slapped on his own face a really unhandsome grin. It was so . . . ill plastered that Cal felt bad for wondering if El Greco wasn’t mildly handicapped.
    At least he stopped what he was doing and shrugged.
    “So,” said Luke, scratching his forehead with his finger, “uh, a célula tonight, huh?”
    “Yes!”
    “Yeah. Uh, what time is it?”
    “Eight.”
    “And everyone’s going?”
    “Of course.” The tone was neither taken aback nor angry, but just to stay Of course!—Why wouldn’t everybody?
    But they were really tired of these células. Neither Luke (who had always attended Methodist Bible study) and Cal (who always attended for his partner) had never seen anything like these células. Apparently, the better the speaker did, the more he (invariably a he) talked at the audience and never with them. They’d been to two in the last two days.
    “When do we eat dinner?” asked Luke.
    “About nine, nine-thirty.”
    He was looking at the flies again—focused on them, starting into space.
    Space Cadet was a much better nickname for him.
    “Well,” said Cal, draping his light jacket over his shirts to protect them from El Greco’s MataMoscas. “I’ll tell you what. We ate lunch earlier than you did—and, Greco, we haven’t had any time to sponge—so we are going out for dinner.”
    A look to Luke and it was confirmed: if they went downtown alone, they could look at hotels.
    “But you don’t want to eat here?”
    “It would be nice, but after the célula tonight, it will be late. And, as Luke said, we’ve missed more than one meal.”
    “Okay.”
    “But while we’re gone, Greco, you’re not going to spray that MataMoscas again, are you?” The superficial tone was light, but he really wanted an answer. “It smells like a chemical plant in here.”
    And laaaughs, as though Space Cadet was a laugh track. “No, no, no! Okay!” and laaaughs!
    Cal nodded. “Okay. Greco. We’re heading out. But we’ll be back.”
    “Okay!”
    “And, uh, I’m sure we’ll be back for the célula, but if for some reason we get held up, then . . . well, just don’t worry, okay?”
    “But I’m sure you’ll make it back!”
    Cal gave the sign to Luke. “So we’ll see you!”
    “Have fun with the laundry,” said Luke.
    And this made Cal just have to ask: “By the way, Greco, where is the laundry machine?”
    “No!” Laaaughs! “You use the basins by the stream! Do you have soap, or can I lend you some?”

    The second taxi ride downtown at least brought them to the conclusion that the seminary lodging wasn’t going to fly, since, here they were escaping from their own rooms to be able to eat, to relax, to be alone, and to have a place to crack their books. The dorm—or, better said, the common sleeping room—was a downer. Were they to rest their heads against the pillows they didn’t have—or were they supposed to lie on their backs and hold their anthologies over their heads? Or were they supposed to sit in the seminary library that had never yet been open? And were they supposed to acclimate (and enjoy?) the pervasive stench of chemicals that floated around the place.
    So they were escaping to find new shelter.
    Shortly before three, they started their search, radiating out from the Plaza de Armas, looking for an affordable hostel that would last two weeks. Less than seventy soles a night for both was their limit, but three nights at this price would have purchased a month’s rent in a single bedroom apartment had one been procured for them.
    They discussed it as they walked: “We get a place for two weeks. If they can’t find us lodging in that time, or if we find it and they’re unhappy about it, we blow.”
    The Plaza de Armas was undeniably beautiful—with its incomparable sun to illuminate the fauna and the cathedral and the restaurants and the buzz of lovers, pigeons, tourist masses—but hundreds of thousands of gringos had learned of its majesty long before Luke and Cal, and for them the extreme UV index which lasted until seven or eight at night was not their cup of tea right now. Its wash bleached them, and they would have preferred a quiet classroom over the lingering Plaza sun any day.
    On a street a kilometer away from the Plaza, they found a room for their two weeks and their budget. The native concierge opened their door to show them a spacious bedroom and a sanitized bathroom. Down to the grout was white. “And the water,” said the concierge, “is always hot!”—which they doubted, but for about $25.00 a night, could trust.
    At nearly seven o’clock, there was no way they could have obtained their possessions, left the seminary, and arrived the same night in the hotel. So they planned for the next day, and the concierge said it made no difference.
    And stepping into the increasingly balmy air (which would ultimately grow cold in the desert night), they walked with a little more bounce, and even the skyline and the cobblestones—instead of throwing the sunlight into their eyes like a javelin—reflected the orangey glow of heaven.
    They stopped at the corner of Santa Catalina and the street they had just come—and inching towards the wall to stand away from the human traffic, stopped to assess.
    “It’s seven,” said Cal.
    “Do we rush back, go to their célula, and hope they feed us? Or do we royally tick ‘em off and have a nice meal here, for cheap, blow off the célula, and maybe, if we can get to where no one can see us, steal a kiss?”
    Luke smiled.
    Cal gave back an easy, cool smile and knew that he looked good to him in the shade he wore as twilight neared. It meant the world to him that Luke had done for him what he had tried to do for Luke. Luke loved church, so Cal had gone. Cal loved languages, so Luke, knowing a little Spanish, had worked up sweat on his face by studying—and after several years spoke it very well. It didn’t matter a comino that Luke didn’t have a Hebrew education, or French, or music. He loved him even more than if he had been a perfectly matched erudite because then he would have lost that his own rough charm, an organic, natural coolness.
    “Honey, let’s eat.”

    They were glad they did. Just off the Plaza, they had stuffed peppers and Arequipenas, and at 8:30, after a couple Inca Kolas to get rid of the beer smell, they stuffed themselves into one of the clown car taxis and headed again to their outskirt destination—not really wanting to return.

    II.
    It was hard to pin the mood of El Greco when they saw him again. He was undoing his tie from his white shirt and doffing his polished shoes. Skittish to begin with, he just seemed a little more uppity now.
    If he was angry about the célula, then they’d welcome his complaint.
    Cal thought he would probe: “Too bad we missed the célula, hermano. We were engaged with some business and didn’t get finished until 7:30.”
    His habit was to speak very formally in Spanish. It generally did more good than harm.
    “I understand,” said El Greco, oddly pausing his disrobing to make a point to look at first Cal and then Luke.
    “And,” said Luke, volunteering what Cal hadn’t, “we ate lunch early—earlier than everyone else—and needed to be sure to get dinner.”
    The Greek again made that special pronouncement, and because neither of the boys felt comfortable with the Greek professing his comprehension of something they doubted he comprehended, they turned their attention to their own hygiene matters.
    The Greek started singing a song, something to do with trust—but he was really mush-mouth, especially when singing, and Cal didn’t get half of it.
    Space Cadet.
    He asked them if they wanted to join him for dinner, and only since it was the least meal they could share and since they had declined to eat lunch with the group, Cal and Luke agreed to accompany El Greco but not eat. When they arrived at the cafeteria, they were involved with a winding conversation at the locked doors with Carlos. Nothing in the conversation indicated that dinner would be served soon.
    They gave it an hour and called that politeness enough. The desire to sleep trumped the need to socialize. They politely excused themselves saying that they would like to do some reading before bed, but thank you for the invitation.
    With relief, they jumped into the filthy beds, and each took a book in his hands. Thirty minutes of this, and then lights out.
    They had gone days before now—in El Salvador and in Mexico—without having kissed or touched much; it was no brutal hardship since it was necessity in Latin America and they could make it up later. But as they put their books down, the moment delighted them when they found themselves in a corner of the room invisible to all the windows.
    A quick kiss was all, but it was enough.
    The lights went off. And when they were in bed, with a chuckle, Cal spotted the brandy flask Luke had. He raised it and said, “Here’s to that kiss! I love you!”

    “Cal. Cal. Cal, wake up!”
    It was day. No. No. It was night. But the brain-frying fluorescents radiated into his eyes. But—the question of the hour seemed imperative, as though he couldn’t get any thought in order before he got that one.
    “What time is it?”
    “Early.”
    “Huh?”
    “You just fell asleep.”
    “Why are you waking . . .”
    “Cal. I don’t feel good. Something is wrong.”
    “What?” And the sizzle of the fluorescent lights coursed through his heart. “What?”
    “The brandy. Something is wrong with it.”
    Cal was now entirely awake as though ten minutes of sleep had been sixteen hours.
    Jumping out of bed, bare feet on the repulsive floor, he pulled Luke to the bed and looked first at the eyes. Somewhere he’d read to look at the eyes. The pupils were the same size. But still, still, he wasn’t thinking clearly.
    Caaalm.
    Luke spit a mouthful of saliva on the ground with a splat!
    “I’m drooling. And my heart is pounding.”
    Cal stifled a plea to God to help them. He wanted to kiss Luke’s lips, hold him, assume him in a hug that would absorb all bad. But still he dared not touch him for fear of hurting him.
    “You heart?”
    “It’s tripping. Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic.”
    “God help us.” It managed to come out this time, and he thought, To the hospital. But how? Have him walk?
    That wouldn’t do.
    Then ask for a ride? From THEM? Demand it, rather!
    But who was there who had a car? Not even the pastor—and certainly not any of those lingering seminary students who washed dishes to eat. And perhaps to confirm, he could find El Greco, and ask if anyone had a car, and shake him back and forth until his head rolled off and then stomp it like a pumpkin.
    But El Greco wasn’t in his bed.
    And whether he was thinking clearly or not (although as of now he was sure that he was) the answer and only option stood clear.
    “Let’s get you to a hospital. The only way is by taxi. I’ll run and get one. Can you wait for me?”
    On Luke’s face sat the look of an uncertain puppy, which the capable young man had never shown before to his partner of so many years.
    God! How I would take this for him if I could!
    And though the thought of leaving Luke’s side scared him, not to go meant isolation. The fear pulled him towards the door as it was.
    “In fifteen minutes,” he said in going, “—no more.”
    And in the second it took him to get out the door, there was not an opportunity to look back.
    And down the hill where they dinned—(Or celebrated?)—there was nothing to see. No one was in sight. All was quiet, and he felt nausea with the possibility that he talk to them, consult them, plead with them for an ambulance.
    And he ran—how had he gotten his shoes on?—ran up the hill, past the guard house while saying nothing—and he ran, ran down the dirt street with the cart load of wadded, half-burnt diapers dumped at its shoulder, down the road by which ran parallel a stream in which people washed and drank, down the dirt, stony road over which he and Luke had had to haul their suitcase the day they had arrived because Carlos expected them to walk and hadn’t offered a ride—down the road over which reigned the majestic volcanoes: Misti, Chachani, Ampato. And the moonlight gave him enough to go by to channel his furious, acidic energy into a sure sprint down the two kilometers to the road.
    At the street lined with traffic, a taxi jetted past though he half dove in its way with his hand out.
    Headlights. Taxi, maybe? Cars enough. A taxi would come, right?
    The hour? He had no watch, but it was no later than 11:00. Maybe 11:20, but who knew and what did it matter? There were cars enough.
    A taxi. Didn’t stop. Honked at him. “You ass!” he cried, but looking back at the curb, he saw that he was standing in the street.
    A lull in traffic. There will be more.
    “Anger won’t serve. Anger won’t do.”
    Lights. A taxi? Yes. Here!
    It pulled over. “Señor,” he said climbing into the passenger seat, “my friend has been poisoned by—“ and he had to think of something that wouldn’t care the driver but something that was serious. “—by insecticide, by accident. And, and—” and the reality hit him.
    He knew what had happened, and he knew that it was El Greco and what he had poisoned him with. He gritted his teeth.
    “A hundred soles to get him, down this dirt road here—“ He indicated whence he’d come. “—and another hundred soles to get him to the hospital, if you go fast!”
    The driver did not complain. Jammed into gear, his econobox bounced over the rutted road with more alacrity than Cal could have wished. Each jar went into the frame of the car and into the frame of Cal. Over this forsaken stretched they’d had to haul their cargo in, and now the most valuable cargo was coming out.
    “Go to that light post,” said Cal, pointing. “I’ll talk to the guard.” The automobile gate was down. Cal had his window lowered well beforehand.
    To the guard, “My friend is sick. I’m obtaining him.”
    The guard, another seminary student paying off his tuition, looked confused. Cal loathed the oaf.
    “We need in! Open up!”
    Without qualm, Cal would have stepped out and not stopped beating the guard if it had served in any way, but the confused student at last moved to open the gate—apparently still not having understood—and lifted the bar.
    “Okay,” was all Cal said. The driver gassed it, jumping a score of yards beyond, and Cal told him to halt. He bounced out of the seat and ran around the side of the darkened dorm building to the single lighted room.
    The door was open, but Luke called Cal’s attention from the dark. “I’m here,” he said, sitting plastically on small stood he had drug outside, away from the room. “I needed fresh air.”
    “How are you?”
    For the circumstances calmly enough, he replied, “No better.” The quantity of saliva in his mouth obscured his words.
    “Can you walk?”
    “I think so.”
    “Hold onto me.”
    And it didn’t do much good, but that Luke’s arm around his neck and shoulders helped talk some burden from Luke’s own feet.
    Quickly enough, they left and left all, even the lights on and the door open without a thought. And from the door they rounded the corner to the waiting cab.
    For some reason, that it was yet there was a shock—as though any good luck at this point in this labyrinth of wrongs was a shock. And as he put his partner in the backseat, a fearful thought closed his throat and squeezed his chest.
    The gate?
    And turning, he found again a shock—a real shock: that the gate was still open.
    Both men in the back seat, the driver started the car again and backed fully the dozen yards he’d come.
    “Keep going,” said Cal. “Don’t stop.”
    The driver obeyed without a word.
    The guard looked on doubtfully as the car passed.
    “Stay calm, Luke.”
    Luke nodded, his head inclined. Cal had his arm around him.
    Cal got the impression that Luke couldn’t say anything because his mouth was full of saliva.
    Induce vomiting?
    No. Every warning label he’d ever seen said not to.
    Luke was sweating, horribly. The collar of his t-shirt was saturated. Cal put a hand to Luke’s forehead and found what he’d feared. Fibril. He wiped the sweat just from above the eyes. Cal removed his arm but put his hand on Luke’s knee.
    “Relax. We’ll be there in two snaps. I love you so much.”
    He’d said it in English, betting that the driver wouldn’t understand. To have been turned out of the cab because the driver knew they were homosexuals would have been bad, but just as bad would have been if Luke had lost consciousness before Cal had had a chance to say that to him.
    The driver didn’t respond.
    And the money? Had he even grabbed his wallet?—Oh dear God!
    Yes! There is was!—because, he remembered, he’d been sleeping with it in his pockets for safekeeping.
    One, two, three bills worth a hundred soles each. He passed two. “Two, and the third if we get there fast!”
    The driver nodded. He was driving at maybe fifty, sixty through a downtown street that still had people trying to cross it. Cal regretted having said anything since the cabbie was doing all he could.
    Cal reached past Luke to roll his window down for him. When the driver slowed to proceed through a red light, Luke leaned his head out and let all the saliva fall with an audible splat. He rolled himself back in and, in opening his mouth, was already drooling again.
    Sweat just away from the eyes.

    At the same time it seemed that only mere minutes had passed while it seemed that the process was taking far too long. But how should he know? The zone of the city to him may as well have been Calcutta.
    But a sober reckoning calmed him. Only a few minutes yet.
    And before the sensation of horrid anxiety crested, the driver halted in front of an unpretentious building that only was distinguished by one smog coated placard: CLINICA.
    “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” And he dropped the last 100 on the front seat. “Please wait for us for five minutes, just in case.”
    “Of course!” said the driver who raced around to help them as he could. But by then Cal had already run around to Luke’s door and had gotten him halfway out.
    Cal hauled his friend up the curb. In spite of the cascading sweat and the heart in his chest chopping like a machine gun, Luke was doing well enough keeping up with the steady pace of Cal after being hauled from the cab although his eyes were dulled and stupefied.
    “Steps. First one. Oh! Good.”
    And then steps served as minor obstacles only—until, en route to the glass doors illuminated greenly from behind, Luke just bent double in a bow, almost with his head on the sharp concrete ledge although his legs remained rigid. Had those legs given out, Cal never could have kept the 5'11 frame of his partner from toppling.
    But with this slight shade of good fortune in a picture of gloom, he’d been able to stoop down, put his shoulder in his partner’s crotch, and hoist him in a fireman’s carry—something he had never in his life done before. And he lifted.
    This, without a thought of the taxi driver behind him or the hospital staff in front of him.
    The weight seemed insupportable—but realizing he could not put him down, he stepped and stepped again until he was at the landing, and then at the glass door.
    And now the damn door. And the fact that no one was behind them to offer a hand. The two facts pained him.
    With right hand, he clutched the seat of Luke’s pants and sacrificed the aid and support of his left hand. With this, he jeopardized all by reaching, reaching for the handle, and opened the door.
    “ÁAYUDA!”
    The scream flew from his lungs and rattled his teeth as well as the halls.
    “ÁAYUDA!”
    And someone—a nurse—came running—an orderly beside. The latter was a middle aged indigenous with skin almost black in a white uniform.
    As they neared, he slid Luke down his front, carefully, standing him on his feet. He held him as he said—
    “He’s been poisoned. Fibril. Insecticide ingested. Needs a doctor.”
    The nurse then split down the adjoining corridor while the orderly pulled a wheelchair from behind the reception desk and while he hauled to Luke. “Set him in,” he said, helping.
    The nurse was running back. A man who was surely a doctor—light skinned, donned in a white robe and tie—ran too.
    The orderly pushed the wheelchair quickly towards the corridor that lead straight back from the reception desk.
    Cal never left his side, his face bent low to Luke’s who had his eyes closed in a wince. And then came the vomit.
    Cal sprung his face back horrified for his partner and snapped his vision around to find where the doctor had gone. But the doctor was just reaching them after having run.
    “What happened?” asked the doctor in English.
    “He’s vomiting!” Cal shouted back in Spanish. “He was poisoned! They put it in his drink: insecticide. He told me his heart is racing. And look at the sweat. And the saliva. There has been a lot of saliva.”
    He’d shouted it all because it was the only way he could manage while trotting. Other nurses had popped their heads out of the adjoining corridor, and down this passageway the orderly pushed the wheelchair.
    “We go to the emergency room now,” said the doctor in Spanish. He put his fingers on Luke’s neck.
    Cal was hysterical, grabbing at the doctor, screeching, mumbling in English during his inhalations.
    The orderly rounded the corner, and the doctor, grasping him, said “a solas”—which made the orderly let the amassed nurses take the wheelchair from him while he himself turned around to block Cal.
    “Are you mad? Let me in!”
    The orderly said nothing, just strained against him.
    “Let me in!”
    The orderly who was just a little shorter but much thicker than Cal, had his head lowered as though sure he was going to get nailed in the nose. The sight made Cal a little calmer since he did not want to hurt the man who, like the taxi driver, had done something for his Luke. He only slunk away with an impotent feeling and a reverberating howl and fell on his knees.

    A half hour later, the doctor came out and first introduced himself. Fountain water sprung from Cal’s stone countenance.
    “Your Spanish is excellent, so that is what I’ll speak. He told me his name is Luke Craft. Is that correct?”
    “Yes.”
    “And your name is Dryfus?” The doctor didn’t have to consult any notes which was a very good sign of his intelligence.
    “Yes. My surname.”
    “And you are his friend?”
    “Yes.”
    “Your friend is stable. His heart rate has lowered from that which is considered dangerous after the administration of a drug called Pralidoxime. We are monitoring the fever closely. His temperature is currently at 39.5 degrees, which is awfully high, but we will wait to see what it does before taking action.” The doctor was a slender man, slender in the face and maybe a vegetarian. His skin was very white for a mestizo (if he even was a mestizo) although he was certainly Peruvian. “He is receiving an IV which he will keep at least until tomorrow.”
    “Will he recover?”
    “Prognosis is good, but he has been poisoned—poisoned enough to send him into a shock. Will you tell me a little more?”
    American volunteers, tricked into staying at a seminary where they had affronted the roommate with the brandy flask and therefore reaped the nastiness of a prank involving MataMoscas. That was all there was to tell. But . . . could El Greco or someone else have suspected?
    How could they have? And why mention the relationship to the doctor who probably had similar prejudices.
    “The next step is to call the police,” said the doctor. “I shall do that from here.”
    “Okay.”
    “You are planning to stay, yes?”
    “You can bet your life, doctor. May I see him?”

    For the time being, the answer was no, but there was good enough reason. At 3:00 a.m., he was allowed to slip in for a few minutes.
    They had changed his clothing—or at least his top. His bangs were matted to his forehead, swept sharply to the left, probably done by the nurse. The eyes were open by slits, though he smiled upon seeing Cal. Cal took his hand and squeezed. Luke smiled a little more.
    “I feel better,” he said slowly. “But let me just rest. Stay by me, though. Sit by me.”
    And Cal did and whispered in his ear frequently that he loved him. The doctor himself slipped in every few minutes, continuing his monitoring, verifying blood pressure, taking temperature. And Cal sat patiently at the bedside, watching, until he was called out to talk to the police.
    The detective chewed gun and wore a black leather jacket. His cranium was large, body small, and demeanor and manner miniscule. He doubted and seemed hostile to the story. When Cal mentioned the name of the seminary, the cop furrowed his brow and said, “Lemme tell you sometin bout that seminary: one o’ de best.” Cal pulled his head back as though smelling something fowl, and concluded with a brief reiteration of the facts: that a student had poisoned Luke. “I fin’ out tomorrow,” said the cop.
    Cal knew he wouldn’t. But two intelligent professionals was a lot to ask, and he was happy at least that the doctor was the competent one.

    After four, he reentered. Luke’s eyes were closed. Two beads of sweat stood on his forehead. Cal used the nurse’s towel to daub them.
    Twenty minutes later the doctor came in. Now his own brow shone with sweat in spite of the dry air. His fair skin shone pale.
    “How is he holding up?” asked Cal.
    Verifying, the doctor said, “Heart rate is down, which is good. Temperature remains near 39.5. We will continue to watch.”
    A beat.
    “The policeman didn’t seem very interested,” Cal offered.
    The doctor with his hand on Luke’s neck looked to Cal and remarked, “Lamentably, you will find that is often true of Peru, Señor Dryfus. It depends on the office, but if there is no immediate recompense for the officer, then he may either pursue or decline.”
    “And with us?”
    “This happened in the seminary?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then if your friend makes a full recovery, which I suspect he will, then you will not have much hope for legal justice.”
    Cal shook his head.
    The doctor went on—“You two are very good friends, aren’t you?”
    “As good as they come, doctor.”
    “I see.” A pause. “God bless your faithfulness. One doesn’t see it every day.”

    Around six, at dawn, he fell asleep in the chair and for several hours oscillated between wakefulness and dreamless sleep. The nurse, doctor, the face of Luke asleep.
    Cal’s own body felt poisoned when he finally forced himself awake, but he was sure that it was the stress and the worry and the hatred that had envenomed him.
    It was noon when he was on his feet again, and the doctor came in to say that he was leaving but would be back at midnight, and that Luke would remain in the hospital for at least another day or two.
    Around two in the afternoon, with Luke sleeping, Cal got into a taxi.

    “Hermano Cal,” said the guard as Cal stepped through the open gate, “the pastor wants to speak to you.”
    “Fine.”
    But the first thing would be to find El Greco. Cal felt hard and mean and immune to hurt.
    At the corner of the dorm building, he turned to see if the guard had followed him or if anyone was watching, but he saw that he was alone.
    At the threshold of where the horror had occurred the night before, he flung open the door to find only the smell of the pesticide . . . and no Greco.
    To the bathroom, and the smell of more chemicals, the omnipresent smell here, assailed his nostrils. But the bathroom was empty.
    Outside, with a panorama view, he saw nothing—no one except for some goofy student he’d had nothing to do with, bopping his way across the field.
    At the cafeteria, on the way to the office, no one—the doors locked. And the offices were closed except for the one that belonged to the head pastor.
    Only there, there only.
    The pastor and associate pastor sat within.
    Cal stepped inside.
    He did not speak.
    “Have a seat, hermano,” said the pastor, rising from behind his desk. The associate pastor, a slender and nervous man, also rose.
    “I’ll stand,” he said dryly.
    The pastor nonchalantly nodded and asked the associate pastor to close the door.
    Both pastors sat.
    “You wanted to see me?” asked Cal.
    “How is Luke doing?” His tone was pacific, concerned.
    “He is in the hospital, incapacitated from poison.”
    The pastor shook his head. “Brother Javier,” he said referring to the associate pastor, “has just come from the hospital. “I am sorry this has happened.”
    The associate pastor nodded.
    “And?” asked Cal.
    “Brother Greco got ahead of himself. He did something that was inexcusable; and we are still in the process of penalizing him.”
    “And what did he do?”
    “Last night, after you two had left the seminary, he confessed to us that he had put his bug spray in Luke’s drink. Now he is reaping the remorse which he had sown as a seed in his crime. Rest assured that he will not do the same again.”
    “You freely admit it?”
    “Not to do so would be an offense to you and him.”
    “Then let’s hand him over to the police. And we will give him a trial.”
    The pastor took a breath.
    “It is not that we believe that we as a group are above or apart from the law. Not at all. It is that in this case, since your friend will recover as we have been told by the hospital staff, we are more effective than the law. In this case. With El Greco. Not with everyone, but with him, there is no doubt.”
    “And of what does the punishment consist?”
    “Education. Prayer. This is more than it sounds.”
    “Nevertheless, I say that for me and for Luke that is not enough.”
    The pastor was silent. The associate pastor would not say a word.
    Still with that pacific and hopeful tone, he asked—
    “What is that you want, hermano? The crime will never be repeated. He is in pain. Your fiend is recovering in the hospital, and no punishment will better his health. If you want vengeance, then you may seek it—we will not stop you—but it will make nothing new and good grow.”
    The adrenaline mingled with fatigue, and he was sure that he could have bounded over the desk, clutched the pastor by the throat, and held the associate pastor at bay until vengeance was had. He was sure of it. But what damage he could do would only bolster them and their flimsy logic in the eyes of their crew.
    He had lost. Luke had lost—but thanks be to God only by a margin that, although hurtful, would probably not be permanent. Cal did not buy what the pastor was pushing, but there was no hope of seeking anything more.
    He turned to go without a word.
    The pastor spoke again—
    “Hermano, know that your friendship and loyalty to your friend have touched us and have shown us a better example. I mean it.”
    It was his turn to laugh—heartily—at the cosmic irony.
    “Between him and me,” he said, “there is a love that you cannot fathom with your agenda and which you will never understand.”

    All signs were improving.
    “In thirty-six hours,” said the doctor at midnight after having come on shift again, “you will be able to take him from here and board a flight to Lima. From there, get him home. Contact his doctor. I’ll give you my report to take with you.”
    Cal nodded. After a long beat, he thanked the man.
    “You are welcome.” Perhaps sensing that Cal wanted to say more, he hesitated to listen. Cal spoke what he had not planned to say—
    “Some . . . person put poison in his flask because he thought it was a sin that Luke had alcohol. I wonder what they would have done if they had known that we are homosexuals.”
    The doctor’s expression did not change.
    “I do not know,” he said. “I do not know. But I know that any loving God would smile to see how you have behaved, Señor Dryfus—and would roast over the coals anyone who used his name as a gimmick to salvation while poisoning others along the way.”



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