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Days Of 1984

Andrew Wolczyk

    The sun is high today but as it’s July it’s only to be expected. The park is busier than usual. Kids out of school for the summer are skateboarding around listening to music or walking dogs. On the benches couples sit holding hands, looking pretty and talking into each others ears. A few kids have strung together a semblance of a baseball game over by the diamond and if you listen closely you can almost hear the ball flying high in the air.
    I sit in my hard lumpy chair and watch it all pass in front of me. Summer in middle America is a good time. On the warm breeze the faint thump thump thump of the Born In The USA drums filters through and adds a homely backdrop to the whole proceedings. The lyrics are lost in the day.
    For me the warm days are the best. They chase the aches from my limbs and I momentarily forget my fear of dying. A sparrow dances on my window-ledge and looks through my darkened room, eyeing me closely, seeing a ghost and behind the spectre of death. I smile but the movement sends it into flight.
    Even on days like today it is easy to be maudlin but watching two young men strolling in the park I recall other times, better times, and I think fondly of Richard.
    He is my first love and although it is only a fleeting dalliance he captures my heart. We met five years ago, on a day very much like this one in July 1979. I am out strolling in the park when he comes up. His chat up line is so corny it’s almost embarrassing to think about it now.
    “Do you have the time?” he asks.
    I glance at my watch. The first thing I notice is his blue eyes. The colour is unusually high, almost poetic, and his blond hair emphasises the colour in the same way dark hair would have dampened it.
    With an eye that notices the subtlest traces he becomes forward. He takes me to a bar and give me a drink and later, in his car, he takes me.
    His passion is fierce and intense and when it is over I am satiated. Later he drives me home where here, in this dark apartment, on my creaking mattress, we make love again. And again. And in the morning I give him breakfast and my heart.
    In return he gives me a heart, a small one, made of pot that he claims to have made. It is warm in my hand and when I hold it tightly I believe I can feel the pulse of his heart beating.
    He leaves in a hurry and as I wave him away my essence leaves with him. Who I was prior to that time is uncertain. Who I became following it is the embryo of who you see now.
*****
    Mary liked Luke. He was non-threatening and noble. It was so sad and unthinkable that he was dying of AIDS. Yet his smile, warm and genuine, always welcomed her and drew her back to him day after day.
    “I got these groceries for you,” she said breathlessly as she let herself in.
    “You’re a good girl, Mary.” Luke was sat up today. Always a good sign. He’d probably been sat by the window.
    “It’s a hot one today,” Mary said, “and the air conditioner at the office is on the blink. How about burger and fries?” Mary made his meals for him and did what she could to make him comfortable. He was refusing hospital treatment now which, she knew, was probably the best thing. It destroyed his self-dignity being prodded and poked but the worst things were the self-righteous stares and the whispers behind gloved hands. Still, flaunting the rules and refusing treatment just seemed wrong somehow. If you’re sick you’re supposed to get treatment irrespective of whether that treatment will do any good or not.
    “Anything’s fine by me.” Luke smiled, a warm thin lipped gesture. The skin on his frame was paper thin and feathery. Mary imagined him in better days, before his illness, before his solitude. He must have been handsome with dark crystal eyes and thick black hair.
    “Did you manage to get up today?” She asked bustling around his small kitchen.
    “Yeah. Sat by the window and watched the people in the park. Did some reminiscing.”
    Mary could only imagine what it must be like for him, only yesterdays with no tomorrows. She hoped that if she was in his situation she would have as much strength, as much courage.
    They ate in almost complete silence and in the still twilight of the coming evening they both sat by the window.
    “Are you frightened?” She asked bluntly.
    “Of dying?”
    “Um-huh.” They had been friends for six months now. It was an easy relationship and she felt entitled to ask. She tried to read his face but the lines of illness made it impossible.
    “Yeah I guess you could say that but a lot of the time I wish it would hurry up and come. Let’s get it over with and set the world to rights again.”
    “I’ve never asked you about it.” She said. She didn’t know if he would want to talk about it. His life was his and he chose to spend most of it alone.
    “You hardly talk about anything else,” he smiled.
    “I do not,” she protested defiantly but suddenly realised that in some shape or form he was probably right. “Okay, okay, you’re probably right,” she conceded quietly. “Anyway what I meant was I never asked you how you got it.”
    Luke raised an eyebrow, “Really?”
    “You know what I mean. The circumstances. Did you love him? Was it a casual thing? Do you mind me asking?”
    “Oh, to be young again and so bashful,” he joked. “I don’t mind. And yes I did love him. They called him Kevin and we were together for only a year before he died.”
    “And did you know?” she asked.
    “Know he had AIDS? Not until it was too late by which time he had given it me.”
    They looked out over the park and watched the city lights switch on one by one in the distance.
    “Don’t you just love this time of day?” she asked, leaning forward and cupping her chin in her hands. “If I were a poet I could write about its magic.”
    “Young girls like you should be out walking in the park with your sweetheart not trapped in here with ghosts like me.” Luke said.
    “Who said I’m trapped?” she asked defiantly, “I’m here because I want to be.”
    “And why would you want to be?”
    “Ah, now that is the crux of the matter.”
*****
    They say your first love is your strongest and remains your one true love. In a way that is true although I have loved others and, for more complicated reasons, I loved them more strongly, but Richard shines bright and eternal in my memory as the one who helps me discover me.
    The next time I see him is two years later. Again it was July. He comes out of a bar accompanying a man in a yellow shirt. I almost don’t recognise him. His hair is now dark, dyed no doubt to make him look younger, more sultry, a gay James Dean. But his eyes are still a startling blue. It is obvious they are lovers. Neither of them see me. My heart skips and in this inconsolable moment I duck into a doorway and hide until they pass.
    Who can say why I follow them? Maybe it is my police training. Maybe it is jealousy. Maybe it is an icicle in my heart that will not melt.
    I hide and watch them kiss. I watch them talk until the sun sets burning the horizon as it sinks into the earth.
    My hiding place is not the cosiest of places. Hiding in a bush spying on two lovers is perhaps one of the most degrading things a person can do but when reason leaves, a person is not always accountable for his actions.
    With bitter sweet fondness I wonder if anyone had watched us all those years ago. We never thought to check if we were being followed. As long as we were discreet no one would have troubled us and although it was quite common for gays to get worked over it was usually those who advertised their sexuality rather than accepted and welcomed it as normal.
    I watch Richard perform acts on the man in the yellow shirt, acts that he has practised on me. I can arrest them but what good would that achieve? In the ensuing revelations my own sexuality will be disclosed and I will lose my job. At best I will be ridiculed in front of my peers and in police work you count on them to cover your back, quite literally in some situations. So I hide and watch and when it is over I follow them home. They are so wrapped up in themselves they wouldn’t have noticed me had I bumped into them on every corner.
    I’ve no idea how long I stand outside his apartment looking at the door, memorising its number, its grain, its colour. I’ve no idea if anyone sees me standing stock still waiting, waiting, waiting. In the end I leave feeling empty and used.
    That night I lie in bed and think about them together, their bodies locked, his light touch on a bare shoulder, their shared kisses, their passion. Unable to sleep I roam aimlessly around my apartment looking for the pot heart he had given me. I turn over every corner, every nook, but to no avail. I have lost his heart.
    Some weeks later I return to his apartment not really knowing why or how. As part of your police training you are taught certain tricks: how to disarm a knifeman; how to break up a fight; how to handle a drunk. Other tricks you pick up by being around the forgotten underbelly of society. Hot wiring a car is not that difficult once you know which wire to cross. Picking a lock is painfully easy one you have the right tools.
    The apartment is tidy. For some unknown reason it is exactly as I expect it to be. The predominant colour is red, not the gaudy blood colour associated with brothels but a pale gentle shade that warms the room and invites you to stay awhile and relax. The furniture is sparse and functional and blends together well. If I did not know better I’d have said the room had been put together by a woman, an artistic one at that.
    I don’t know what I am looking for and it makes me uneasy to think that perhaps I’m not looking for anything other than a tangible link to Richard. I can’t find him anywhere. There is no duality to the rooms, no sense of his passion or his art. The books on the shelves do not reflect his zest. If I hadn’t seen him walk through the door a few weeks earlier I would say he had never been in this place.
    And then I see it.
    It sits on the top shelf of the curio cabinet in the corner by the television. It calls to me like a beacon and like a distressed ship I home onto its signal. It is not as polished as the one he had given me. It is not as smoothly shaped but I know it is his. The heart is the same ruddy earth colour as mine had been, it is the same texture. How I long to touch it, to hold it close and feel its beat next to my heart. Dry mouthed I look at it like an alcoholic looks at his bottle. Fingers trembling I reach up and I would have touched it but for the fact that my nerves will shatter it. I withdraw my hand and leave my lover to someone else. The apartment suddenly seems claustrophobic and I have an overwhelming need to get out, to breath clean air and see the sun. So I leave, quietly, quickly and efficiently, a police officer leaving the scene of a crime.
*****
    “Coffee?” she asked changing the subject.
    “That would be nice and can I have mine with two lumps of honesty?”
    “We’ll see,” she said lightly and danced across the room towards the kitchen.
    When she came back Luke was staring silently across the view from his window.
    “Are you not afraid of catching AIDS from me?” he asked as she handed him his cup.
    “I think there is a lot of ignorance in the world and I think a lot of it is misdirected. I don’t know if I’ll get it or not just the same as I don’t know if I’ll get to the other side of the street if I try to cross the road. But that doesn’t stop me from trying anyway. Besides you’re gay. It’s not like we’re going to have sex, or even kiss. By the way I heard the other day that they think it can’t be transmitted by kissing.”
    “Why don’t you get yourself a boyfriend?” Luke said.
    “Because I’m not interested in relationships. I’m too young to be tied down and there are things I want to do and see first.”
    “But isn’t this,” Luke said waving his hand between them, “a relationship?”
    “Not the type you mean.”
    “So what type of things do you want to ‘do and see?’” he asked.
    Mary paused as she thought about it and assembled her words.
    “Oh, I’d like to travel. Meet people. See what’s out there and what’s on offer.” She said lightly.
    “Welcome to the real world.” Luke mumbled bitterly.
    “Stop it.” Mary scolded, “If you’re going to be depressive I’m going home to bed.”
    They sat in silence for a long time.
    “Sorry.” Mary said finally.
    “No, it should be me who apologises.”
    “Yeah, like you’ve nothing to be depressive about.”
    “Ah, but is my glass half full or half empty? Here I am whiling the hours away with a beautiful girl who’s half my age, who’s just cooked me an excellent meal and is willing to make polite conversation while I sit bitter and twisted.”
    “Well .... if you put it like that ...” They both laughed easily and the mood shifted.
    “Do you have any regrets?” she asked.
    “Only a truck load but none that I would change if I had my life over again.”
    “Not even the AIDS?”
    “Nope, not even that.” He paused as he thought about his answer. “This disease is a by-product of something that was much greater. It would be wonderful if I didn’t have it. Hell, I might live to see Christmas. Given my time over I might have used protection but the relationship ... no ... I wouldn’t want to change a second of that. In a warped way the disease is all I have left of Kevin. He lives through me ... in me. Once a lifetime, if you’re lucky, you get something so good it’s worth dying for. For me that was Kevin. Regrets? Yes. Kevin? No.”
    “I think you are very brave,” she said honestly.
    “Brave? No. Not me. Bravery is when you get into something knowing the danger. I’m not brave just unfortunate.”
    The evening wore on and Luke was drained. He asked Mary to help him to the bed and as she threw his sheets over him he said, “You’d make a good mother.”
    “No I don’t think so,” she said laughing.
    “Of course you would. You have the caring instinct.”
    “A nurse maybe but not a mother.”
    “Oh, I think you’re wrong,” he persisted.
    “Well it will never happen anyway,” she replied wistfully.
    “Why?”
    “Because I’m a lesbian.”
*****
    A year later, when my circumstances have changed and I have nothing to lose I think about the heart again. In my mind it symbolises everything good I feel about myself. It balances the blackness of my disease and the ignorance of those around me. I am living off my savings now, my job, my career, long gone. Hospital visits become more frequent and I come to hate them. What can they do for me? I am going to die. It’s as simple as that. Yet the man who unintentionally gave me my death sentence is not at the forefront of my mind. The heart of another is. As I sink into myself I dream of the heart beating, pulsing, life-giving and sitting on someone else’s shelf. In an effort to escape my thoughts I go out walking. I am going nowhere in particular except away from myself. After a couple of hours I find myself outside his apartment again. What I am doing there I don’t know. And yet I do. It doesn’t take long and that night, laid in bed, the darkness smothering me, the heart held close to my chest gives me something tangible to cry over.
*****
    “You’re the first person I’ve ever told.” Mary said to Luke the following day. He was propped up in bed, his face ash grey and his thin lips cracked through dryness. He was having one of his bad days. He couldn’t find it in his heart to tell Mary that this wasn’t just a bad day but the worst day ever ... period. He didn’t think he could take much more of this.
    “Mary,” he croaked, “look at me.” He held her hand as she sat on his bed. “Be careful Mary. Don’t end up like me. If it gets out you’re gay you’ll be deserted. Your friends will leave you, maybe your family too. You’ll risk losing your job, maybe your apartment. And, God forbid, if you ever test positive get in some good books, you’ll need them. This is a disease of solitude.”
    “Don’t worry, Luke, I will.” His compassion touched her.
    “Listen, I don’t think it will be long before it’s time for me to go. I want to give you something.” He fumbled with his bedside drawer. His diseased fingers hadn’t the strength to grip and pull it open. “It isn’t much,” he began, “just a little token that maybe you’ll want to remember me by.” She helped him open the drawer. He lifted out a white envelope that bulged misshapen with its contents.
    “It’s worthless,” he said as she pulled open the flap, “but it’s always meant a lot to me. I used it to remember the good times. In a way it’s like a talisman. I want you to have it.”
    She turned over the pot heart and could feel the warmth and ... yes ... it felt like it was beating.
    “Thank you, Luke. It’s wonderful.”
    “It’s worthless, I have nothing of value to give but I hope it brings you a little of the comfort it has given me.”
    Later, as she returned to her apartment she held the heart in her hand and felt close to her friend. She went to her window and looked over the same scene he enjoyed so much. Evening was growing into darkness and below her a friend slept a disturbed and lonely sleep. She held the heart up to the moonlight to marvel at its beauty but it had been a long day and her fingers were tired. She fumbled and lost her grip and it fell from her fingers over the balcony. Time slowed so that a second lasted a week, a week a month, and she watched as it somersaulted slowly, seductively, and fell towards the sidewalk below. The moon glinted mysteriously off its dull sheen before it hit and exploded into oblivion.
    “Oh no,” she said as in the apartment below her friend welcomed death.

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