Chapter 39: Reconnecting

November 19, 1990, Columbus, Ohio

“Hi,” Tracey said when she opened the door to their walk-up apartment in a gentrified section of Columbus.

We hugged.

“Hi. How are you?” I asked as she let me into the apartment.

We sat down in the living room, and Tracey poured tea for both of us. It was an affectation that all of my friends had developed hanging around me, or, if they hadn’t personally, one they always had available for me.

“About as well as can be expected,” she said.

“And your health?”

“My blood work has consistently come back good. The AZT seems to be working. If that keeps up, I’ll have a relatively normal life, though my sex life is pretty much a shambles.”

I nodded, “I had a long talk with Jessica at breakfast and on the way to the hospital this morning. We talked about AIDS and about the PML that Marty has. She and Kara were also curious about why Marty would ask to see me. They weren’t surprised that I dropped everything to come to Columbus, though I did get a fairly stern warning.”

Tracey laughed, “That was over between you and me nearly ten years ago! We went very different directions.”

“Not so different as you might think,” I said. “Sure, you and Marty were into a crazy scene, but it’s not like I was a monk!”

“But you still haven’t gone for the two-guys on a girl scenario, have you?” she teased.

“No, and I’m not likely to. It’s just not something that interests me.”

“Your wives were really worried that you’d sleep with me?” she asked.

I smirked, “I don’t think sleeping was the issue!”

Tracey laughed, “No, I’m sure it wasn’t. I’ve actually been chaste since the diagnosis. All the latex necessary to stay safe is just a turn-off. Maybe someday, if I meet the right guy, and we take the proper precautions. But for now? No.”

“Do you know what Marty wants?” I asked.

She shook her head, “He wouldn’t tell me. He just said I needed to convince you to come. It’s not like you guys were close, so I’m not sure what this is about.”

“Well, either way, it’s good to see you. How’s work going?”

“It was always the calm part of my life. Mild-mannered health inspector for the State of Ohio by day, wanton harlot by night! How’s your business?”

“Everything is going well. We have more consulting business than we can handle, and the sales of our two main software products are very good.”

“And the family? I actually should have asked that first!”

“The kids are all growing like weeds! There’s a bit of a contest between Jesse and Birgit over who is going to be in charge, but she’s winning.”

“Just like always in your life — the girls are in charge!”

“Pretty much! Shall we go see Marty?” I asked.

“Let’s have lunch first if you don’t mind,” she said. “We can go to Wendy’s just down the street, then head over to the hospital. I told Marty 1:00pm just to be safe. You never know how a drive might go.”

We left the apartment and walked to the Wendy’s. That short walk brought to mind Anna and Kyle, and I wondered how they were doing. We’d seen them a few times, but I’d always had the feeling that Gerry was uncomfortable with her being friends with an ex-lover. Many of my friends had no problem with that situation, as witnessed by the men married to ex-lovers, whom I called close friends.

We placed our orders, and when we received them, we took them to a table in a far corner of the restaurant.

“I didn’t ask last night, but when was Marty diagnosed?”

“About two weeks ago,” she said. “So far, he’s not showing any serious symptoms, but that could happen at any time.”

“Jess told me that it’s a disease that damages the myelin sheath of neurons, and it can affect just about any part of the nervous system.”

She nodded, “That’s right. They found it because he had tingling in his fingers and the tip of his nose. That led them to do a CT scan.”

“Jess said she didn’t know what the treatment was,” I said.

Tracey frowned, “There aren’t any. There have been experimental therapies, but none of them have shown any promise.”

“Shit,” I sighed.

We finished our lunch and then walked back to my car for the short drive to the hospital. We went up to Marty’s room, and after a quick kiss, Tracey left me alone with Marty. The first thing I noticed was something Jessica had warned me about — lesions on Marty’s face and arms from his Kaposi’s sarcoma.

“Hey, man,” he said.

“I’d ask how it’s going, but Tracey filled me in.”

He nodded grimly, “Yeah. That’s why you’re here.”

“I have to admit, I was a bit surprised that you asked for me, but I wasn’t going to say ‘no’ to Tracey.”

He gave a wan smile, “I know. I was counting on that.”

“I’m at a disadvantage here. Want to clue me in?” I said.

“Tracey and I have a lot of friends, but not a lot of friends if you know what I mean.”

“I think so.”

“Our lifestyle wasn’t exactly conducive to close friendships. The people we went to sex parties with weren’t the ‘close friends’ types in the way that you have close friends. And it’s kind of difficult to make close friends who aren’t part of that scene without trying to live a double life, always running the risk that they find out.”

“OK. I see where you’re coming from.”

“You’ve always been a very good friend to Tracey. Even if you guys haven’t kept in touch, there was still a bond there from back in High School. I’m probably going to die, and if I don’t from this, something else will kill me, though I might not even know it because of this thing I have. Tracey has been a champ, supporting me, helping me with my treatments, everything. Right now, she’s healthy, but we don’t know if that will last. I want you to promise me something that I hope you’ll never need to do. If she gets sick, promise you’ll be there for her. As a friend.”

He was asking a lot, especially with Tracey in Columbus and my family and business in Chicago. But I understood his dilemma. He needed someone he could count on and someone who was a friend but not part of their old scene. Tracey hadn’t had many friends back in Milford, and when they came to Ohio State, they were looking for the sex scene, not friends. I’d been lucky and managed to have a lot of sex partners but to also develop close friendships with many of them that endure to this day.

I nodded slowly, “I want to make that promise, but I live in Chicago, and she lives and works here. That could make it difficult.”

“I’m hoping it never happens, but if it does, even being available by phone will help. And if it comes to it, the University of Chicago, Loyola, and Northwestern are doing some serious research on AIDS. Being in Chicago wouldn’t be a bad thing for her. We’ve saved a lot of money, and she has a great job with great health insurance and both short- and long-term disability coverage. Just as I do at Battelle. That’s how we can afford all the super-expensive drugs. And the teaching hospitals are always looking for suitable candidates for drug trials.”

“I can promise to do what I’m able to,” I said. “But I do have a family to care for and a business to run.”

“I understand. But Tracey has talked a lot about you, and I know you’ll do everything within your power to help her if it comes to that. I hope it never does. The AZT seems to be working for Tracey, and if it stays that way, you won’t need to keep your promise to me, though I know she values you as a friend.”

“I can do that,” I agreed.

“Thanks. To be honest, if you hadn’t agreed, I’m not sure who I might have asked. We’ve been estranged from our parents since the diagnosis. They can’t understand that it’s not a ‘gay’ disease anymore, and I’m not sure it ever was.”

“I feel like I dodged a bullet,” I said.

“I suspect you made better choices for partners than we did. We weren’t exactly discriminating.”

“Perhaps, but I’ve actually dodged a few bullets because the girls insisted I have any potential partners get tested for STDs.”

“To be honest, if I had to do it over, I’d make a clean STD test the price of admission to the parties. When we were at OSU, it wasn’t quite so risky — there were four couples, and we all stuck to ourselves. But once we graduated and got into the serious casual sex scene, it was a very different thing. I don’t think you’ve been involved in anything like that.”

I smiled, “There were some wild multi-partner encounters, but it was almost always girls close to me. Later on, there was one that was interrupted by a fire alarm that probably would have been insane. But by that point, I was requiring STD tests.”

“I see a pattern there,” Marty said with a smile. “Somebody clued you in early on.”

“My wife Jessica and my friend from Milford, Bethany, around 1985, right before AIDS was more seriously into the heterosexual community. Jess is a doctor, and I have other doctor friends as well, one of whom I’m pretty close to. He’s not going to let me slide any more than Jessica would.”

“You can ask Tracey to come in now,” he said.

“Do you guys need some time alone?” I asked.

“Maybe ten minutes.”

“I’ll go get a cup of coffee,” I said.

I walked out of the hospital room and down the hall to some chairs where Tracey was sitting and let her know he wanted to talk to her. I said I was going to get some coffee and I’d be back in about fifteen minutes. She went to Marty’s room, and I took the elevator down to the first floor, where the cafeteria was located. I got my cup of coffee and checked to see if my cellular phone had service in Columbus. It did, so I called the office to check on my messages.

“No messages,” Keri said. “Is everything OK? I got your message about taking today and tomorrow off.”

“Everything is fine with my family and NIKA. A friend needed me, so I drove out to Columbus to see her.”

“Uh, OK,” Keri said.

I knew that tone of voice.

“A friend, Keri. And that’s all. She’s in a long-term committed relationship.”

Not exclusive, but Keri didn’t need to know that.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just, well, never mind!”

“Exactly. My mobile phone works here, so if anything comes up, I’m reachable. I didn’t have much signal across Indiana, so when I’m driving back tomorrow, I’ll be out of touch. I’ll call in when I can.”

“OK. See you Wednesday!”

It was still too early to call Jessica or Kara at home, so I closed my phone and put it back in my leather bag. I sipped my coffee for about ten minutes, then headed back up to Marty’s room.

“Steve, I’m sorry! I had no idea!” Tracey said when I walked into the room.

“Tracey, there’s no need to apologize. You know how I am with friends, and I consider you a friend.”

“But we’ve hardly talked over the past seven or eight years.”

“I’m not sure that matters much in the scheme of things. I’m happy to do what Marty asked.”

“Trace, please don’t fight me on this,” Marty pleaded.

She looked at him, then at me, then back at him, and smiled. Tracey and I stayed for a few hours, talking about things that had transpired in our lives over the past five years that we’d more or less been totally out of touch. The more we talked, the emptier I realized that their lives were. Everything revolved around maximizing sexual pleasure, with everything else — family, careers, money, the future — taking a back seat to the quest for the next over-the-top sexual experience.

It hit me hard that it could have been me trudging along that path, if it were not for a small group of girls that did their best to rein me in when I got out of control. I’d been lucky that I hadn’t done any serious long-term damage to myself or others, though I’d certainly come close with Becky, Anna, Annie, and some others. I was, at this moment, even more grateful for the help I’d received from my closest female friends.

“So when do you get out of this place?” I asked.

“Thursday or Friday. They’re still running tests and administering IV drugs. It’s all experimental, as I was saying. I actually feel OK except for that weird tingling in my fingers and nose. Then, it’s a matter of weekly checkups with the AIDS team here. And waiting to see if this disease kills me or just leaves me with long-term neurological damage.”

“The doctors don’t want him to leave,” Tracey said. “But Marty doesn’t see any value in staying in the hospital, and I agree. If it comes to that, he’ll go to a hospice here that specializes in AIDS patients.”

“My friend Stephie opted for hospice care rather than a hospital,” I said.

“She’s the girl who died of cancer?” Tracey asked.

“Yes. She couldn’t be at the wedding because she was undergoing chemo at the time. It looked like she had beat the cancer, but in the end, it came back.”

“That really sucks,” Tracey said.

A nurse came into the room.

“Time for your treatment,” she said. “We need to take you upstairs.”

“That’s our cue to leave,” Tracey said.

She kissed Marty, and I shook his hand. We waited until an orderly wheeled him away in a wheelchair, and we left the hospital. We agreed on dinner at a local diner and afterwards went back to the apartment.

“I wish Marty hadn’t asked you to make that promise,” Tracey said as we sat on the couch sipping red wine.

“Why? I consider you a good friend.”

“Even though we haven’t been in touch for years?” she asked.

“So what? I have friends in Europe that I only exchange occasional letters with, but that doesn’t make any of them any less of a friend.”

Tracey took a long drink from her wine glass.

“The truth is, we don’t have any friends like you.”

“Marty pretty much said the same thing,” I said.

“It’s how we chose to live our lives. Except for AIDS, I wouldn’t change anything. But AIDS changed everything. Suddenly, when we needed close friends, we didn’t really have any. And with Marty’s Kaposi’s sarcoma, it’s pretty obvious he has AIDS. I’m sure you noticed the skin lesions.”

I nodded, “I did.”

“And you were still your normal self. Well, most straight people, when they encounter someone with AIDS, treat them like a leper, or worse. You didn’t hesitate to shake hands with him. A lot of people wouldn’t even come into the same room with him.”

“Ignorance,” I said. “Barring an exchange of blood, saliva, or other bodily fluids, there’s no transmission path. At least that’s what Jess told me.”

“Being married to a doctor has its advantages,” Tracey said ruefully. “A lot of people think you can catch it from simple contact. Sure, if you had an open wound and they had an open wound or something strange like that, it MIGHT be possible.”

“The more I talk with Jessica and Al Barton, who’s the doc in charge of the ER where Jessica works, the more I find out just how little I know about medicine. I’m on the periphery, so I know more than most. I can’t imagine what Joe Six-Pack thinks or knows.”

“And that’s the problem,” Tracey sighed. “A bit of education would help, but about a third of the country is opposed to even teaching basic sex education in schools. And then, if you add in the Catholic objection to condoms, the problem just gets worse and worse.”

“To be fair, the Catholic Church also objects to sex outside of marriage, so the need to use a condom for STD prevention would naturally be limited. That said, I don’t know too many Catholics who follow the church teachings to the letter.”

“No, but the bishops are loud and influential, and if you add them to the evangelicals, there’s a lot of pushback on proper sex education, including birth control and disease prevention. The gay and lesbian community is really pressing for education, along with some progressives, but the country is pretty much conservative.”