I reached out and took his hand. “We will be,” I said. “Trust me.”
*
Just before we went to bed, Jared called. Jake had responded well to conventional treatment, and his brother was hopeful that if he continued to improve, he could be released Monday. We asked if he was up to receiving visitors, and on being told yes, said we’d be over Saturday morning.
Because children were not allowed on patient floors, we brought along enough things to hopefully keep Joshua occupied while we took turns going up to see Jake. I sent Jonathan up first while Joshua and I sat in the main floor waiting room.
“I’m hungry,” Joshua announced after noticing the waiting room led to the hospital’s cafeteria.
“We had breakfast just before we left the apartment,” I said.
“Well, I’m hungry anyway,” he said. “I’m a growing boy. Uncle Jonathan said so.”
“Well, when Uncle Jonathan comes back maybe you and he can go in and get something to keep you alive until lunch.”
“When’s he coming back? I’m hungry now!”
“Be brave,” I said, and recognizing a losing battle when he saw one, he reluctantly returned to his coloring book.
Jonathan returned about ten minutes later.
“How is he?” I asked, although I’d be seeing for myself in a minute or two.
“He looks a little tired, but otherwise he looks the same as always.”
“Jared there?” I asked in a classic example of a dumb question.
He nodded as Joshua hopped down off his chair and tugged on his shirt.
“I’m hungry,” he said. “Uncle Dick promised you’d take me to get something to eat as soon as you got back.”
Jonathan shot me a look, and I merely rolled my eyes toward the ceiling.
“You two work it out,” I said. “I’ll meet you here…” I paused and nodded toward the cafeteria. “…or there in a few minutes.”
*
Jake was in a private room on the tenth floor. Jared sat on the edge of one side of the bed, and on the other side stood a spectacularly handsome specimen of manhood in a white doctor’s lab coat. I didn’t have to ask who it might be—the resemblance to Jake was clear.
Jake grinned, and Jared stood up when I came in.
“Dick!” he said. “Good to see you.”
I hurried over to shake hands with him, then with Jake, who still was hooked to an IV.
“Dick, this is my brother Stan. He just stopped in to pester me about going hunting this fall.”
We reached across the bed to shake hands, and I was a little ashamed of myself for a quick rush of erotic fantasies.
Jeez, Hardesty, this is a hospital, fer chrissakes!
one of my mind-voices scolded.
Hey, hot is hot!
another responded.
I noticed that Stan wore a large silver wedding ring. Oh, well, so much for that.
“Hunting?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “We go deer hunting every fall. We’ve been trying to talk Jared into coming along this year. Especially since he has a cabin close to where we normally go.”
Jared grinned and shook his head. “Not fair to the deer,” he said, looking mildly uncomfortable.
“He was a sniper in Special Forces in the Army,” Jake explained.
“I didn’t even know you had been in the service,” I said, looking at Jaren.
“Yeah, well, that’s a part of my life I’d just as soon forget,” he said.
I decided it was time to change the subject and turned back to Jake.
“You look great,” I said.
“Thanks to my big brother here,” he said.
We talked in generalities for a few minutes until Stan excused himself. “I wish you were the only patient in the hospital,” he said to Jake. “The nurses tell me you’ve been acting like it. But since you’re not, I’ve got a few other people to look in on.” He offered me his hand again and said, “Nice to have met you, Dick. Jared, you keep Jake in line, hear?”
When he’d gone we picked up our conversation in mid-generality. Not a word was said that might even imply the potential seriousness of Jake’s situation, and after a few more minutes, a good-looking male nurse came in to give him some medicine. Jake, Jared, and I exchanged glances and knowing smiles, which were not lost on the nurse.
As the nurse was leaving but was still within earshot, Jared grinned at me and said, “Damn! And I forgot the condoms!”
The nurse paused at the door and turned around with a grin.
“Maybe next time,” he said and left.
One thing you’ve gotta say for gay men—you can knock us down, but you can never count us out.
Chapter 4
I was surprised when, just before noon on Sunday, while I was reading the paper and Jonathan and Joshua were at church, I answered the phone to hear Jonathan’s voice.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I wanted to get your okay on something.”
He had me. “Okay…like what?”
“Well, Craig’s here with his friend Bill—we met him once at the Cove when we were having breakfast with Craig after church.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
Bill had been with a bunch of gay teens around Craig’s age, and the two of them had spent the entire time we were there cruising each other. When Bill and his group finally got up to leave, Jonathan told Craig to catch him before he left and get his phone number. Apparently, it had worked out.
“And?”
“And Craig wants to know if Bill can come over while he watches Joshua. They want to go to a movie after. It’s okay with me, but I didn’t want to say yes until I’d talked to you.”
Well, now, that was something of a dilemma. Craig was a great kid and I trusted him completely with Joshua, but I also remember when I was seventeen and had the chance to be alone with somebody I was hot for. Raging hormones tend to be stronger than common sense. Yet if I said no, Craig would understandably think we didn’t trust him, and that’s the last thing I wanted.
It wasn’t easy being a horny gay teenage boy living at home—the options for spending some private time with someone were limited. But by the same token, his parents trusted me not to put him in a position where he might do something they would object to.
Do we trust him or don’t we?
“Okay,” I said.
*
Brunch with Bob and Mario was great, as always. As a bar owner and bar manager, respectively, they always have an endless string of stories and we all laughed a lot—something I, for one, definitely needed.
But eventually, as all conversations at the time tended to do, talk turned to AIDS and the countless rumors and speculations circulating through the bars.
“There’s a new one going around that’s really unbelievable,” Mario said. “I don’t know if Bob’s heard it, but I’d guess so.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“That someone is going around deliberately spreading AIDS.”
Bob nodded.
“Yeah, I’ve heard it, too.”
I shook my head. “How can people believe that shit?”
Mario looked at me. “I thought that, too, until I was talking with one of my regulars who had just lost his best friend. The friend told him he got it from a really butch guy who refused to use a condom, and after they’d finished and the guy was leaving, he stopped at the door and casually said, ‘Oh, and I’ve got gay cancer. Welcome to the club.’ And he left. The friend thought it was just a really cruel joke, but then he got sick.”
“Who could do something like that?” Jonathan asked, incredulous. “It’s bad enough that other people want to see us dead, but our own people? I can’t believe it!”
Bob shrugged and sighed. “I’m afraid it might be. I’ve heard similar stories,” he said, “and sad as it is, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them were true. I guess some guys just want to lash out at everyone else when they know they’re going to die. They figure somebody gave it to them and they’re getting even, somehow.” He was quiet a moment then added, “But the interesting—and disturbing—thing is, now that I think of it, several of the rumors involve the Male Call. A lot of their regulars have been getting sick, I hear.”
Jonathan just shook his head, and I hastily changed the subject.
*
We made a quick stop at the hospital on the way home. Jake was chomping at the bit to be released, but Stan had insisted he stay until Monday.
All seemed to be well at home. Craig and Bill were in the living room on the couch watching TV with Joshua wedged between them. Typical. I suspected he was probably a little jealous of Bill for diverting Craig’s attention.
“So, you guys are going to the movies?” I asked and instantly wished I hadn’t, since Joshua immediately wanted to go, too.
Bill gave Craig a meaningful glance that said I hope not!
“Yeah,” Craig said, apparently oblivious to Bill’s glance. “We’re going to catch an early show of
Ghostbusters
. I hear it’s great.”
“I like ghosts,” Joshua volunteered eagerly.
“I thought you wanted to see
The Muppet Movie
?” I said, trying to head him off at the pass. “Kermit? Miss Piggy? Remember, we said we’d go tomorrow night right after supper?”
We hadn’t, but I was desperate. Jonathan looked at me but said nothing.
I gave Craig a little extra so they could get a pizza after the movie, and they went on their way.
*
Time passed. Odd thing about time—every single day seems chock-f as we’re going through it, yet looking back it’s often hard to tell one from the other. But there is definitely something to be said for a comfortable routine.
Jake went back to work and Jared went back to Carrington, and after the jolt of the initial scare, all seemed to have settled down. The gang kept in touch, mostly by phone, with an occasional brunch or dinner. Jared and Jake became much more cautious—for them. They cut back on their group-sex encounters, and they wouldn’t have anything to do with anyone who wouldn’t use a condom. Still not a total guarantee of safety, of course, but a solid start.
Then, one Sunday morning while Jonathan and Joshua were at church, Jared called from Jake’s, where he’d been spending the weekend. A couple of minutes into our conversation, he said, “Oh, and I wanted to give you a heads-up. You might be getting a call from Carl Brewer.”
“Carl Brewer? The owner of the Male Call?” I’d been there a couple of times in my single days—usually with Jared, since I was never much into the leather scene—so I knew who Brewer was but had never officially met him.
“We stopped in there last night for a drink and were talking with him,” Jared explained. “It’s obvious he’s got some serious problems. You know the Male Call—it’s usually packed on a Saturday, but the place was practically empty. There’s a rumor going around that somebody there is deliberately spreading AIDS, and it’s scaring everyone away.
“To be honest, we’d been staying away ourselves and only went in last night because we felt guilty. Carl’s one of the good guys and has always been a straight shooter with us and we wanted to show him a little support. He doesn’t deserve to lose his bar because of rumors. He told us he’s sure somebody’s deliberately trying to drive him out of business, and we mentioned your name. So you might be getting a call from him.”
“Thanks, Jared,” I said. “I appreciate it. I’ll let you know if he calls.”
We talked for a few more minutes until he announced that Jake was out of the shower and dressed and waiting for him to go out to breakfast. We signed off with mutual promises to talk again soon.
Carl Brewer, eh? Well, trying to figure out if someone might, indeed, be out to shut a business down through rumor would be a real challenge. More of a challenge would be what to do if the rumors proved to be true. In either case, I wasn’t sure what Brewer might be able to do with the information.
Working for Brewer and tracking down the source of the rumors would put me closer to two areas in which I was woefully lacking practical experience—the leather scene and AIDS. The leather scene didn’t bother me. AIDS did.
Don’t get me wrong about the AIDS thing. Life wasn’t one big sturm-und-drang Wagnerian opera, totally revolving around it. While it was an ominous cloud on everyone’s horizon, it was largely separate from our daily lives so long as it kept its distance and did not affect us directly. It did, however, become something of a ritual in the community to scan the obituaries for familiar names among the ever-longer columns reporting the deaths of single men, most of whom were between 20 and 35. The cause of death was never mentioned. It didn’t have to be. The fear had not subsided; it merely became one more fact of life for gay men.
Realistically, though, I didn’t expect Brewer to follow up on Jared’s and Jake’s suggestion—far more advice is offered than taken. So I was rather surprised when I arrived at the office on Monday morning to find a message waiting for me…from Carl Brewer.
I checked the phone book to see if the number he left was the Male Call. It wasn’t, which meant, one, that it must be his home and, two, if it was, he would probably be there at this time of the day. There was also the three that if he worked until the bar closed at 2 a.m. he may well be asleep and not welcome being awakened by a phone call at 8:35. But what the hell, he’d called me and asked me to call him, so I did; he hadn’t specified a time.
The phone rang three times before I heard the receiver being picked up, followed by “Brewer.”
“Mr. Brewer. This is Dick Hardesty of Hardesty Investigations returning your call.”
“Ah. Yeah. Glad you called. I was talking to Jake Jacobson and Jared Martinson about you. They think you might be able to help me out with a problem.”