LITMIR.BIZ

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case. Diagnosed a couple of weeks ago. You know him?”

      Peter swallowed. “Never met him.”

      “They say Johnny’s dying, Peter. Just diagnosed. And the Kaposi’s is already killing him.”

      “That’s enough, goddammit!”

      Billy put his hand over Peter’s. “Can I ask you something? What were you sick of when you were in the hospital? Level with me, Peter. Have you got it, too?”

      “Fuck you.”

      Peter slid from his barstool and moved toward the hunk. He stood next to him for several minutes, then brushed against him, as if by accident.

      “Sorry,” Peter said with an engaging shrug.

      “No problem.” The hunk smiled, all teeth, like Burt Reynolds. “I’m Eric. I don’t remember your—”

      “Peter.”

      “Peter. Right. Peter.”

      “That’s my name, not my most important feature.”

      Eric laughed. His teeth shone. Peter rested one foot on the rung of Eric’s barstool. Eric leaned toward him, his eyes intent, exactly as Peter expected. What Eric lacked in verbal skills, he probably made up for in bed.

      “You live close by?” Peter said.

      Eric’s eyes flashed. He was getting the message. “Close enough.”

      “What’re you into?”

      “Hi,” said a voice from behind Peter’s shoulder. It was Billy, beer mug in hand. “Mind if I join you?”

      “Yes, actually,” Peter said. “We’re having a private conversation.”

      “Sorry,” Billy said. “I know you guys don’t want me interrupting or anything.” He turned to Eric. “I sort of thought I ought to tell you that we all think maybe Peter . . .” He stopped and looked away, burped, blinked, and looked back. “I don’t know how to say it exactly, but, uh, we all been talking and all, and, um, we think Peter has AIDS.”

      Peter’s mouth dropped open.

      “I thought I should tell you,” Billy said, “so you could think twice, you know—”

      Peter hit him in the face with all his strength. Billy staggered backwards and fell with a thud. His beer mug shattered beside him. The room was deathly quiet. Three men knelt beside him.

      Peter examined his knuckle. “I’m bleeding. Do you have a handkerchief?” He held his fist in front of Eric’s face.

      Eric pulled his head aside and stepped backwards. “No—look, I . . .” He was edging away, slipping out of Peter’s grasp. “Hey, listen,” Eric said, “take it easy. Listen, I got to go anyway. It’s late.” He fumbled in his pockets and threw bills on the bar.

      In the silence, Peter could feel all eyes on him. People were sidling back, moving away. They know.

      “No!” Peter shouted, “let’s not get together. Don’t you leave. I was the one coming onto you. I’ll leave. And for all I care you can fuck every queen in the place!”

      Peter ran. Out of the bar, out to the street, out to the darkness. Humiliated, raging, hurt. No regrets. No remorse. He’d wanted Eric. And he wasn’t going to tell him. Goddam Billy.

      Peter rolled onto his stomach and buried his face in his pillow. He hadn’t seen Billy since that night. He hadn’t seen Johnny, either. Johnny hid himself and died. At least Peter had escaped KS so far. He shuddered. Please, God, no KS.

      He stopped. He was so changed from what he had been, but he was not so weak that he would abandon his atheism. What had become of him?

      When he heard a key in the door, he realized that he’d been asleep. “Hi,” he heard Martin say. He rolled over and opened his eyes. There stood Martin, grocery bags, mail, and keys in hand.

      “What time is it?”

      “Little past six,” Martin said over his shoulder on his way to the kitchen. “Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you for dinner. You really got tuckered out today.”

      Peter slid from the bed and shuffled to the bathroom. He checked his eyebrows in the mirror, pissed, and returned to bed. Lying on his back, his hands behind his head, he listened to Martin putting away groceries, drawing water for coffee, lighting the stove. Finally, Peter got out of bed and dragged a dining room chair to the door of the kitchen. “I’ll sit here in the doorway so we can talk while you work.”

      “Sure.” Martin frowned. “You need your robe.”

      “No, I don’t, either.”

      Martin was past him and back again with the robe before Peter could protest further. “Put it on, grumpy.”

      Peter gave Martin the finger and put the robe on.

      Martin went back into the kitchen and finished peeling potatoes. “What did the doctor say?”

      “My T-4 helper cell count is down.”

      “How low?”

      “Seventy-one.”

      Martin grunted and put the potatoes in a pot of water.

      “That’s bad, isn’t it?” Peter said.

      “Is it?” Martin lit a burner with a match and put the pot on it. He stopped. His eyes met Peter’s. “Yes, it’s bad. I know it’s bad, and so do you.”

      “What’s a healthy count?” Peter asked.

      “You know.”

      “Yep. Do you?”

      “At least four hundred.”

      They eyed each other. Martin turned back to the counter and unwrapped chops. “These were on sale. Hope you like lamb.”

      “Fuck the lamb. I’m in the danger zone with a T-cell count that low. Martin . . . I’m going to die, you know.”

      Martin blinked at the chops as if trying to remember what he was doing. He took a frying pan from the cupboard.

      “My weight’s down to one-fifty,” Peter said. “If I go below one twenty-five, I won’t live long.”

      Martin put the chops into the frying pan, lit another burner, and slid the pan onto it.

      “Cohen told me,” Peter said. “I was suffering from malnutrition.”

      Martin stopped. “What?”

      Peter nodded. “Before you started taking care of me.”

      “Weren’t you eating?”

      Peter shook his head.

      “I thought,” Martin said, “you had all these friends coming in all the time to help you.”

      Peter shook his head again. “I lied. I was ashamed that everybody keeps staying away.” He took a tissue from his robe pocket. “Where did you think they’d all gone since you started taking care of me?”

      “Thought I shouldn’t ask.”

      “I scare them shitless.”

      “You’re the shadow they live in, day after day.”

      “Fucking cowards.”

      “Fucking cowards,” Martin repeated with a nod.

      “Why aren’t you afraid?”

      Martin lowered the heat under the chops. “I’m at no risk. I’m not gay, I’m not an IV user, no hemophilia, no blood transfusions, not Haitian.”

      “But we don’t know for absolute certain that the virus can’t be transmitted casually.”

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