William asked.
I kept shaking my head. “We were in gym together for two years.”
“Twenty,” William said. “Shit.”
I clenched my right hand tightly, rubbing a knuckle with my thumb. My throat filled quickly with tears. Still, it didn’t seem quite real to me, not only because I’d been out of touch with Todd for two years, but because the event seemed like something he’d have staged, watching it take place from afar, then obnoxiously showing up at his own funeral— “ta da” —laughing at everybody, then apologizing for all the grief he’d caused. Dead. How could Todd, of all people, be dead?
William rested his arm on my shoulder. I must have looked sadder than I knew.
“Wasn’t he too young?” I said. “I mean, I thought it took ten years to come down with symptoms.”
He raised his eyebrows again. “Not always. Sometimes—” His voice trailed off.
We sat still, reading about the impending water shortage and the proliferation of hi-tech firms in Boca Raton, pretending that it was just another humid South Florida morning, that something of consequence hadn’t split open the day. A sluggishness settled in my arms, the tips of my fingers. I wasn’t used to seeing my friends die. There was June Pulte, of course, whose car had sledded off a storm-slick road into a cypress stand after leaving Disney World, and Mark McNitt, who’d OD’d on a lethal cocktail of speed, Valium, butane, and vodka, but neither of these had been close friends of mine, and these incidents were mere accidents, quick dealings of fate that hadn’t mucked with the deepest part of their identities. It was happening all around us, I knew it, though it was sometimes hard to believe. William, for one, had lost nearly all of his friends: Thomas and Mark, David and Larry, Tony and Richard. But it was something that happened to older men, men in their thirties and forties, not to people like me.
William took the Dobermans for a walk, and I squatted beside the pool, testing the water chemistry with the little kit, waiting for the PH to go pink. I strained out some leaves from the surface. Poor Todd. I thought about how he’d tried to get closer to me, how he’d called me one day out of the blue to watch videos with him. He’d gotten a hold of the whole Pam Grier “ouevre,” he called it— Coffy and Foxy Brown among them—and he’d wanted to watch them with me because he thought only I would appreciate them, and then I promised to get back to him. I knew what a big deal it was for him to call, how he’d probably worried about it all day, and yet I completely and totally blew him off.
Secretly, I believed he had a crush on me. True or not, this was the real reason I kept my distance from him. I preferred to spend time with him in public, at Dadeland, at Haulover Park—any place where he couldn’t jump me, for every time I was alone with him I felt a tremendous pressure, even if it was only communicated through the weight of his gaze and the way he sat so close to me. It was too bad that I didn’t feel the slightest bit of attraction to him.
Still, I believed he was the funniest guy in the world. He could make me fall down the stairs in stitches, mimicking friends or second-rate celebrities like Joan Van Ark or Tori Spelling, though he also embarrassed me with his airy-thin voice, his occasional cackle, his broad, overreaching gestures. More than once I’d slipped into an empty classroom when I saw him walking toward me down the hall, clutching to his chest his three-ring binder—decoupaged with sunflowers, smiley faces, Day-Glo peace signs—as if he were shielding his breasts.
Once he’d worn makeup to school. Some of the boys had finally had enough, and he’d probably called one a name, and he was going to get throttled. I could hear him now: Hey straight boy, hey pencildick. Want to get fucked? Straight boy loves to get fucked. He was too much for them. His very presence mocked, and they couldn’t stand it,
I kept shaking my head. “We were in gym together for two years.”
“Twenty,” William said. “Shit.”
I clenched my right hand tightly, rubbing a knuckle with my thumb. My throat filled quickly with tears. Still, it didn’t seem quite real to me, not only because I’d been out of touch with Todd for two years, but because the event seemed like something he’d have staged, watching it take place from afar, then obnoxiously showing up at his own funeral— “ta da” —laughing at everybody, then apologizing for all the grief he’d caused. Dead. How could Todd, of all people, be dead?
William rested his arm on my shoulder. I must have looked sadder than I knew.
“Wasn’t he too young?” I said. “I mean, I thought it took ten years to come down with symptoms.”
He raised his eyebrows again. “Not always. Sometimes—” His voice trailed off.
We sat still, reading about the impending water shortage and the proliferation of hi-tech firms in Boca Raton, pretending that it was just another humid South Florida morning, that something of consequence hadn’t split open the day. A sluggishness settled in my arms, the tips of my fingers. I wasn’t used to seeing my friends die. There was June Pulte, of course, whose car had sledded off a storm-slick road into a cypress stand after leaving Disney World, and Mark McNitt, who’d OD’d on a lethal cocktail of speed, Valium, butane, and vodka, but neither of these had been close friends of mine, and these incidents were mere accidents, quick dealings of fate that hadn’t mucked with the deepest part of their identities. It was happening all around us, I knew it, though it was sometimes hard to believe. William, for one, had lost nearly all of his friends: Thomas and Mark, David and Larry, Tony and Richard. But it was something that happened to older men, men in their thirties and forties, not to people like me.
William took the Dobermans for a walk, and I squatted beside the pool, testing the water chemistry with the little kit, waiting for the PH to go pink. I strained out some leaves from the surface. Poor Todd. I thought about how he’d tried to get closer to me, how he’d called me one day out of the blue to watch videos with him. He’d gotten a hold of the whole Pam Grier “ouevre,” he called it— Coffy and Foxy Brown among them—and he’d wanted to watch them with me because he thought only I would appreciate them, and then I promised to get back to him. I knew what a big deal it was for him to call, how he’d probably worried about it all day, and yet I completely and totally blew him off.
Secretly, I believed he had a crush on me. True or not, this was the real reason I kept my distance from him. I preferred to spend time with him in public, at Dadeland, at Haulover Park—any place where he couldn’t jump me, for every time I was alone with him I felt a tremendous pressure, even if it was only communicated through the weight of his gaze and the way he sat so close to me. It was too bad that I didn’t feel the slightest bit of attraction to him.
Still, I believed he was the funniest guy in the world. He could make me fall down the stairs in stitches, mimicking friends or second-rate celebrities like Joan Van Ark or Tori Spelling, though he also embarrassed me with his airy-thin voice, his occasional cackle, his broad, overreaching gestures. More than once I’d slipped into an empty classroom when I saw him walking toward me down the hall, clutching to his chest his three-ring binder—decoupaged with sunflowers, smiley faces, Day-Glo peace signs—as if he were shielding his breasts.
Once he’d worn makeup to school. Some of the boys had finally had enough, and he’d probably called one a name, and he was going to get throttled. I could hear him now: Hey straight boy, hey pencildick. Want to get fucked? Straight boy loves to get fucked. He was too much for them. His very presence mocked, and they couldn’t stand it,
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