We Break the News

A Short Story

Jon Rutherford

Copyright 2012 Jon Rutherford

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This is a work of pure fiction.

We Break the News
A Short Story

“A bridge abutment?!  And he — come on, this is in really awful taste, guys.”
The tone of James’s voice left no doubt that he had been shocked by our announcement but then instantly dismissed it as some deplorable joke.  Our task now became to disabuse the young man and get on with what I wish could have been a joke followed by an effusive apology and a nice uneventful social visit.
But I hope even I would not stoop so low as to joke about...that.  And I wouldn’t want such a prank played on anybody, anybody, let alone a friend.  Let alone one I loved as I love James.
“James, no, no,” I said, “it’s no joke.”
“We would hardly joke about something like that,” said Raoul, sounding put-upon.  I suspected I’d soon be wishing I hadn’t brought him along.  But it would have been difficult to avoid it: He was there in my house, sleeping on my sofa, when the call came from the doctor, who’d been notified by the police.  “And maybe you ought to sit down, you suppose?” he added in the same tone.
“Raoul, sweet, please...” I said.  But pleading means little to him at these times.
James started to wobble where he stood in the doorway, a sure sign his remark about joking had been only a defensive response after all, a token of denial.
“James.  Let me help you,” I said.
I took James’s arm, steadied him, and, without an invitation, entered his small, actually cramped, apartment and got him into what I knew was his favorite chair, the one he used for serious reading.  Beside it stood an expensive special reading lamp, a gift from Clyde, the dead man, on James’s twenty-fifth birthday only a few months earlier.
James had gone all pale.  I knelt beside him and held his hand.  “Raoul, could you bring a glass of water?” I said, half-turning momentarily to Raoul where he still stood, hands in pockets, scowling, a couple of steps behind us, in the open doorway.  “And, hon, could you get the door, too?”
He shut it quietly.  Then he walked in the direction of James’s kitchen.  “And see if there’s any brandy or whiskey or something like that while you’re in there, okay?”
“Okey-doke,” came the echo-y reply from the kitchen.  I cringed.  I soon heard cupboard doors slamming as Raoul pointedly searched for alcohol.
In a few moments Raoul reappeared with a tall plastic tumbler of water in one hand and a fifth of Cutty Sark in the other.  He handed the water to me and set the whiskey on a little side table.  He had to shove aside a stack of books to clear a space for the bottle.  One tumbled to the bare floor, ancient hardwood tattooed with battle scars from the rapid turnover of many years of low-rent tenants.  He let it lie.
It was only a couple of strides to cross the room, but Raoul succeeded in charging them with emotion.  I read something close to contempt, whether for me, for James, or possibly for both of us — or maybe neither — I wasn’t sure.
It was never easy to be sure about Raoul.  But this was obviously not one of Raoul’s happy days and I wondered why.  Maybe it was the shock of the news we’d received, and its impact on him.
He’d seemed so much better, almost cheerful, when I’d tucked him in, on the sofa, the way he always likes and years ago insisted on, around eleven, and reassured him that I was only a room or two away in case he woke up scared.  But since he started the medications, I usually was able to sleep the night through, and so, I guess, was he.  It was a little after seven in the morning, now.
I got James to swallow several sips of water.  Behind me stood a small sideboard.  I remembered seeing tumblers on it last time we’d visited the place, various shapes of glasses for different drinks, I supposed.  I poured about an ounce of the whiskey into some kind of obviously expensive, heavy, I’d guess 5-oz glass, and handed it to James in exchange for the plastic one of water.  His hand was shaking.
“Here, sweetheart,” I said.  “Drink this all in one go, okay?”
I’d read about this procedure in so many stories and seen it in so many films that I felt confident it would calm down a shocked person, at least part way.
James did as I asked, then handed me back the glass.
“I can’t get myself to believe it,” he said.  His voice sounded close to tears.
“Sometimes it takes a while, James.  There’s no rush.
“The doctor phoned us — you remember, the one we all met last time we visited Tony in the hospital, the friendly young one with the stubbly beard that was so concerned, and I told you at the time I liked him a lot and was glad Tony had him for a doctor.  He phoned us about 6 am to tell us.  The police had notified him.  How they got his number and all, I don’t understand yet.  But anyway...”
Raoul had silently taken a seat across from us in James’s one tattered arm chair, slouched with a look on his face that, if not black, was an aggressively deep shade of gray.  One hand fidgeted with a strand of his always unkempt raven hair.  The other lay motionless, clenched on the chair arm.  At least his mouth was shut for a change.  God help me, I love him so, poor guy, but he’s a trial.  To put it mildly.
“...anyway, the doctor — what is his name, Raoul?”
“Hotchkins.  Hobson.  Something like that.  Hotchkins, I think.”  Then he muttered something to himself.
Raoul sounded so unsociable.  It was not like him.  Well, yes, really it was, but not on his good days.  Still, those had always been outnumbered by the others.
“That’s right.  Thanks.  Dr. Hotchkins wondered if we’d tell whoever we felt should know, and maybe come see Tony this morning as well, to be there.  For support,” I added perhaps needlessly.  “He said we could decide then if we wanted him to break the news, or if we thought we could handle it ourselves, as friends.  And if...if you wanted to come, too, James, we’ll be happy to give you a lift.”  I made this sound like a hopeful question, for I did think Tony would like, or at least want, to see James, and James, Tony, especially with something like this.  And I’d rather have James there in addition to Raoul.  Now, frankly, I was wishing it could be James instead of Raoul.
Raoul shuffled his feet and squirmed.  A micro-squirm, but a squirm regardless.  I saw it in the corner of my vision.  I know his body language by heart, but can’t always decipher it.
I was looking at James’s face.  He was still pale, and now tears were zig-zagging silently down his cheeks.  I put an arm around his skinny shoulders.
“Oh, James,” I said, “I’m so sorry.  I...  Well, what can I say.  I’m sorry.”  You poor dear, how I love you and how I hate to put you through this, I was thinking, but I didn’t want to say that with Raoul along.
Instead, I got up from where I knelt, went behind the chair, and began to gently knead James’s shoulders.  My God how bony they felt.  I wondered if something was seriously wrong.  He was wearing a dingy but clean T shirt and pinstriped boxers, and that was all.  He’d got out of bed to answer our knock with sleepy eyes.  The sleepiness had all gone now, displaced by woe.
But now that Raoul was in full view, I could no longer doubt his displeasure.  I hoped he was not mad — angry, I mean.  Just pissed off; there’s a difference.  (We try not to refer to Raoul as mad, ever, his few friends and I, at least when he’s in earshot.  He’s so quick to take things like that literally and get mad — I mean angry.  So quick.)
I shuddered inside, anticipating the ride back to my place or to the hospital, depending, with Raoul driving.  Maybe I could convince him to let me drive.  Sometimes that worked.
He’d shown up without phoning around seven the evening before, and still had his backpack there with some books, his toothbrush, I don’t know what all, maybe even his medications this time.
As much as I love him, and that’s a lot, I’d just as soon sometimes he didn’t even come over anymore.  It was that way oftener and oftener now, and it made me sad.  But who else could he turn to when things started spinning out of control?  That part had me concerned, as well.  He was so used to my support after all these years, and, besides, I couldn’t think of anybody else who would put up with him for more than an hour, if that long.
But that doesn’t mean I regretted having befriended him — it must have been around 1997.  When I bought the house.  Yes, I think somebody brought him to the housewarming (I’ll never forget how pleased and excited I was by that total surprise).  He’d instantly attached himself to me and soon wouldn’t let go.  I just let him hang on.
“So, James, uh, shall we pick you up about eight-thirty, or...”
“Yeah, Gerry, I want to go,” he said almost inaudibly.  The tears had left his voice, but it sounded so dismal it felt like my heart might break.  I kept kneading his shoulders.
I love James so much. Quiet, studious, hypersensitive lad.  I love him, in fact, more than I like to think about.  While the terrible thing had happened to Tony, well, to Clyde mainly, of course, but now he was dead and it was his partner, Tony’s, turn to suffer the loss, on top of the other stuff that had landed him in the psycho ward again — still, it had happened to James as well, though I reckoned he was feeling a different kind of loss.  Or maybe not even all that different.
I didn’t know for sure how close James and Clyde had been, but I’d always suspected very close, as close as lovers maybe, though they were not that in name nor, so far as I knew, technically even in fact.  I could be wrong about all that.  Neither one had been much of a communicator.

With not all that much time to fill between now and 8:30, I rapidly contemplated alternatives.  It didn’t take long to decide.  It seemed silly to leave and then turn right around and return for James.
“James, you feel up to some breakfast?  Maybe at the Byzantine?”
That’s a phenomenally successful little cafe about three blocks from my place — roughly halfway between my house and James’s little apartment, then — that I knew James had enjoyed eating at.  So had Tony and Clyde.  I wasn’t sure if Raoul had ever tried it.  Not with me, is all I know.  I’d eaten with Raoul at almost every other place in town, though, as well as at several in Chicago, San Diego, and Albuquerque, and he had consistently found each of them deficient in at least something, and more often than not in everything.  So I figured it didn’t make much difference what I suggested this time.  I’d given up on expecting him to like almost anything, for example those not-inexpensive vacation trips I once hoped would divert him.  They hadn’t been nightmares, but they had been devoid of pleasure.
“I guess,” said James.  “You mean now?”
“Well, yes, that’s what I had in mind.  Raoul, that sound good to you?”
“I guess,” said Raoul, and I felt a little jab of anger as I recognized that he’d molded the sound of the words in mockery of James’s simple, innocent reply.  If Raoul was going to continue on like this...
I had never but once told him to just “Go home!” and that was years ago, maybe even before I ever met James and Tony and later Clyde, but it wasn’t beyond imagining I might do it again, and sooner rather than later.  It was like hitting the poor kid when he was down, and for no reason, so it seemed to me.  It would have been rude at any time, and surely uncalled-for.
“You don’t have to, you know,” I said, taking care not to express my growing tension and incipient anger in my kneading.  I varied the strokes to emphasize my thumbs for awhile rather than the fingers and palms.
“That’s all right,” said Raoul in a perfectly civil tone this time.  “It sounds okay.”  He paused.  “Can I buy?”  Maybe he was ashamed of his sarcasm and was trying to make amends, though I thought it exceedingly doubtful.  There was another possibility, but I hoped it wasn’t the reason.
“How’s about you and me, 50-50, treating James?” I said.  I knew James couldn’t afford McDonald’s, let alone the Byzantine, most of the time.  I stroked James’s neck a couple of times and patted his shoulder before carrying on the massage.
“Okay,” said Raoul.  “That’s fair, I guess.”
“Good,” I said, feigning not to have noticed let alone decoded his delivery or choice of words.  “We’ll let you get dressed then,” I said to James, winding up the shoulder massage with a couple of affectionate pats.
“Thanks.  That felt good,” he said, getting up from the chair and turning to hug me over its back.  I hugged him in return.  I could hear Raoul snort and mutter something to himself and scuff his feet on the shabby floorboards.
“We love you.”  I whispered this lie into James’s ear before we broke loose from each other.  I knew — it had long been apparent — that Raoul didn’t like James one bit.  But I did.  So it was half true.

“Is it cold out?” asked James when he returned from his bedroom.
He was now wearing a tartan plaid flannel shirt, clean but ancient blue jeans with a rip on one knee, not for fashion but from wear; and those old penny loafers that he’d worn ever since I’d known him.  I wondered if they had any heel or sole left.  But I guess there are still places that will do that kind of thing, replace heels and soles, if you can find them.
Skinny to the point of looking malnourished, which I felt sure he was, none the less James looked dazzling in a way I have no word for.  I think maybe it was his air of radiant, uncompromising vulnerability, so that he affected you more as a sweet-tempered nine-year-old, rather than a young man of twenty-five years.  Whatever the cause, it was unpretentious, innocent, and beguiling.  I’d seen middle-aged women turn to smile at him when we were out walking together downtown.  He was — just that way.  I think Raoul hated that.  Which meant he was aware of it, too.
“Cold?  No, not even really brisk.  That flannel’s just right, and it may even be too warm for you later on, towards midday.”
“I’d better take the chance, though,” he said, and it dawned on me that no, it probably wouldn’t be too warm for such an underweight guy.  He had a good five inches or more of belt hanging loose after the buckle.  I’ve known a couple of guys, healthy ones, who had to do some of their shopping for clothes in boys’ departments.  I wondered if that’s what James had to do.
We walked to the Byzantine since it was only three blocks, and the weather was fine, air just barely crisp, full sunshine; one of those mid-October days that can turn into a scorcher, and then relapse into an evening full of melancholy, the kind as apt to conjure thoughts of mortality as of hayrides and carving pumpkins and making sure the furnace works.
I wondered if James would want, or need, company later.  Maybe autumn didn’t affect him the way it did me.  Yet this was no ordinary Saturday.  I’d find out if James wanted to be alone or with somebody, when Raoul was out of hearing’s way.  I’d find a means.
We had to wait twenty minutes for a table.  Actually, a booth.  I’d requested the booth for privacy; otherwise we’d only have had half that long to wait.  Barely a word was spoken, and by about ten minutes I was wishing that either I’d never thought to suggest breakfast, or at least here, or that Raoul were not along.  Preferably, to be honest, the latter.
Once seated and our orders placed with the affable and obviously gay young waiter, server I guess they like to be called now, conversation still failed to pick up.  I’d hoped it might.
I smiled across at James, seated next to Raoul, once or twice.  He tried diligently to smile back.  I felt sorry for him, for more than one reason.
Breakfast was, as always at the Byzantine, out of this world.  I marveled at how they consistently were able to endow the simplest dishes with some special oomph, or smoothness, or subtle spiciness, always in a way that didn’t proclaim itself as wonderful, but simply suggested, “Now this is how this food ought always to be.  Here, it’s routine.”  As for their special creations — oh, my.
I could even see some clear enjoyment easing into James’s expression as he savored his eggs Benedict and that extraordinarily full-flavored coffee the little cafe had become known for.
But of course Raoul had to complain about everything from the server (“Thinks he’s really something, doesn’t he” he scoffed) to the orange juice (“There’s way too much pulp in this juice, Gerry”) even though he had exactly the same order as mine, and I knew for a fact that not only was there nothing wrong with anything (including the server) but that the food was the ne plus ultra of cooking goodness.  I was sorry James had to listen to Raoul’s relentless whining.
For his part, James said simply, “This is so good.  Thanks for having this idea, guys.”  (Note the plural.)  And not one word more.
By the time we left the cafe, it was time to start out for the hospital.
Visiting hours were 9 am to 10 pm, in the psychiatric wing as well as in the rest of the place.  The main difference between the psycho ward and the rest was that you had to have somebody unlock the door to the psycho ward; you couldn’t just walk in and wander down the halls, as in the rest of the hospital.  Then you had to have somebody see you out, too, so that no eager-beaver patient would sneak through with you.  The glass in the entrance/exit door had mesh like chicken wire embedded in it.  There was an observation booth near the door with a nurse on duty twenty-four hours a day.
We walked, silently, from the cafe back to Raoul’s old Ford sedan.  By now I wished I had not asked him along.  But I couldn’t very well explain the early morning phone call other than for what it was, as Raoul would have put two and two together eventually (like maybe five minutes later).  Then he would have felt shunned.  I was beginning to think that might have been preferable to all this uneasy silence.
The sidewalks were full of fallen leaves.  Raoul was kicking them right and left, walking a few paces behind James and me.  Once I turned briefly out of curiosity and saw him go back a couple of paces and deliver a swift, fierce kick to a few as though they’d incurred his special wrath.
But to my surprise, when we reached James’s building, with Raoul’s car in front, he turned to me and said, “Do you mind driving, Gerry?  I think I’ll just go home.  Or maybe back to your place, if that’s all right with you.”  He seemed oddly subdued but I was grateful for both that and for his suggestion.
“Well, if you really want to.  You have your key?” I asked.  Raoul’s had a key to my house for years, and I, to his apartment and his car, in case of dire emergencies, none of which had, thank goodness, occurred yet.  I don’t know what good he’d be in an emergency, anyway; but you never know, do you?
“Let me make sure,” he said, and fumbled in his pants pocket.  He usually left my key at his place when he wasn’t coming over, so he wouldn’t lose it if the lost his own keys.  But he had come over, and he did have his copy of the key.  “You’re sure you don’t mind...”
“You’re welcome to stay at my place anytime, sweetheart,” I said.  I gave him a quick hug.  He’d put on too much of some bizarre cologne. “You know that.  I’ll go with you to see Tony some other time if you...don’t quite feel up to it now.”  I was floundering for the right thing to say, if there even was a right thing.  Please don’t let him change his mind again, I was thinking.
“Okay,” he said, still in the manner of somebody who’s been scolded good, and for good cause.  I had no idea what had brought this change about; maybe it was just part of his psychosis.
“Good to see you, Raoul,” said James, and it sounded as though he meant it.  Well, he almost surely did.  That’s the kind of generous guy James is.  He held out his hand, to no avail.
“Uh-huh,” mumbled Raoul, eyes downcast.  “Well, see ya,” he said, and turned and walked off towards my place, slowly, hands in pockets, kicking at the leaves.

On the way to see Tony in the psycho ward, his third confinement there, only the first one voluntary, I asked James if he wanted company later.
“Can I answer later on, Gerry?” he asked.  “I’m still kind of...I dunno...this is all about too much for me.  I’m sorry.”
“Sure,” I said.  “Anytime.  And, James, I hope you know you can always call, day or night.  I don’t know if I ever made that clear or not, before.  I mean it.  Don’t hesitate, bud, okay?”
“Thanks, Gerry.  I will call if I ever need to, I appreciate it a lot.  Thanks.”  After a few seconds’ hesitation he leaned over and kissed my cheek.
“You’re a good guy, James,” I said.  “We ought to get together more.”
“I know,” he said, but he didn’t suggest doing it.
If I weren’t fifteen years his senior, I thought, I’d...There was no use thinking like that, so I squelched that train of thought.  But it wasn’t the first time I’d had it, and it almost surely wouldn’t be the last.
I loved James, deeply, though with a kind of unsatisfied and perhaps unsatisfiable protective fervor.  In all probability, I knew, I was hiding some erotic component from myself.  But if it was there, I  didn’t feel it.
He seemed so alone, and so unworldly, and so genuinely good, and...so skinny...and...  I did my best to snap out of that chain of musings, too.
It was made easier by our arrival just then at the hospital.  Soon we were inside, and they were unlocking that door with the wire mesh embedded in the window.
Patients were not permitted any sharp or easily breakable objects, in that wing.  When one wanted to shave, an attendant supervised every minute after supplying the disposable razor.  The shower rooms (individual ones) were specially constructed with no superfluous surfaces that could be used to harm yourself, and special controls for the water.  
Once I’d seen a patient being forcibly removed from the “day room” in a strait jacket; he’d gone — I guess I oughtn’t say “crazy” — wild? berserk?  Anyway, uncontrollable and threatening and had to be subdued.  Ordinarily, though, it was a quiet place, and the patients, bored silly.  You can only survive on a daily diet of crosswords, jigsaw puzzles, and snooker for so long.  Oh, yes, there was also selected TV.  Enough said there, I hope.
Dr. Hotchkins met us near Tony’s room that he shared with another patient, a sixteen-year-old boy who’d tried to kill himself.  The boy, Mason, was as lovable as anybody I’ve ever met in my life.  He exuded good-heartedness and a sweet charm in the naive, exuberant, and wide-open way that is seemingly accessible only to the very young.
I have a theory that most suicides are carried out because the victims were simply too good for this deplorable world.  Mason was just another confirming example, for me.
We crossed Mason’s half of the room to get to Tony’s.  Mason wasn’t there at the moment.  There was a curtain that could be drawn between the two halves of the room, but I’d never seen it drawn.
Tony and Mason had become pals since Tony’s admission three weeks earlier: Mason having been admitted just two days before our friend.  It didn’t bother Mason in the slightest that Tony was gay (and Mason wasn’t).  But Tony had been so scared it might, that he couldn’t sleep, and he’d finally summoned all his courage and just simply asked one evening that first week.
“Fuck, no,” Mason had replied.  “Why do you think you being gay would bother me, Tony?  I like you a lot, man, and it doesn’t matter at all what you are.  Hello?  You’re still you, aren’t you?”  He laughed.  Then he tightly embraced Tony, who was mortified.  Tony started to cry from a mixture of fear, confusion, and relief — and, I think, simple, unaffected love for his roommate.  
Mason let go when Tony began to cry, and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.  I love you, dude.  Please believe that and don’t worry yourself about me.  I’m glad you’re my roommate in this shitty place, that’s all.”
Before the evening was over, they knew each other’s life story (pretty much), even some parts that weren’t rated PG, and Mason was teaching Tony to play chess.  He became really good at it.

Tony was still asleep.  I remembered he didn’t have either a talk therapy hour or a shock treatment on Saturdays or Sundays.  Patients could sleep late if they wanted to and had no commitments.  Then they could always grab a sweet roll or two and some fairly decent coffee in the day room when they finally got up, or sometimes, if it wasn’t too late, they could even get the regular hospital breakfast brought to them.  The staff seemed to feel no good purpose was served by making patients feel all regimented and marshaled around.  They had enough problems already.  I thought that was an enlightened outlook.
About the ECT, I wasn’t so sure.  But that was Tony’s regular psychiatrist’s call, and not the hospital’s.  They just provided the atropine, the muscle relaxant, the quick-acting sedative, the alternating current and the little black machines with their innocent-looking dials and knobs.
Tony was usually disoriented for ten minutes, sometimes less, after one of his zaps; his memory had not, so far, been severely impacted, as far as any of us could tell.  About that, we’d know more after his release to surroundings that should be familiar.  If they weren’t — then that was an impact.
He would often be cheerful after a session.  But not for more than a day, and usually less.
We hesitated to awaken Tony.  As we stood silently debating, Mason appeared.  Dr. Hotchkins walked over to the boy and said something so softly I couldn’t make it out.  Mason nodded.  “Sure,” he said.  He waved at me and James, whom he hadn’t yet met, and went back into the hallway and out of sight.
“He’s a great kid,” said Dr. Hotchkins on returning to us.  “I’d be happy to have a son like that.”
“I know,” I said.  “He and Tony get along splendidly.  They’ve become buddies.”
“And that’s all to the good for both of them,” said the doctor.  “Patients are often the best therapists.  I’m tempted to say always, but I have to save face, don’t I.”
“Well,” he said, “Do you guys feel up to taking care of this yourself?  I’ll be glad to do it, but honestly I think it would be better for him to hear it from somebody familiar.”
I looked at James.  He nodded.  Then I did.
“Then why don’t I absent myself to the little lounge, you know the place, around the corner, and if you need me, you can just fetch me there.  Otherwise, I’ll look in after, say, ten minutes.  That suit you two?”
“It sounds perfect, doctor,” I said.  “Thanks.”  We all shook hands and he left.
“Wow,” said James.  “He seems like a great guy.  I only got to say hello the other time.”
“I think he is,” I said.  “I had a good feeling about him from the first moment I met him three weeks ago.  And not just because he’s about as hot as they make ’em, either.”
James laughed quietly.  “I noticed that too, believe it or not,” he said.  “A gorgeous man.”
Tony stirred in bed and then opened his eyes and rubbed them.  Then he saw us standing nearby.  “Hey, guys,” he said.  “What brings you here?  What time is it, anyway?”
“About nine, Tony,” I said.
“Hi, guy,” said James.  He advanced and kissed Tony on the forehead.  Tony drew James down for a kiss of his own.  “Good to see you, James,” he said.  “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, I know,” said James.  He stepped back to my side.
“If you guys will excuse me just a second,” said Tony, climbing out of bed.  He was wearing plain blue pajamas with narrow dark blue piping that I recognized because I’d packed them for him when he got admitted this time.  I’d driven him to the hospital in his car, as I also did the time before.  Both times, he was there by court order, but they trusted him to surrender himself, so to speak; I’d spoken to the judge, whom I happened to know, and he was satisfied that I’d see to Tony’s getting checked in, as an old trusted friend.
We heard Tony urinate in the tiny bathroom built into the room, its door open part way; then the dramatic flush of the hospital toilet, and water running, and a little later he was back with us.  
He sat on the edge of his bed.  There was only one chair, and I motioned to James to take it.  Then I sat down next to Tony and put my arm around his shoulders.  I could feel uneasiness in him despite the cheerful tone he’d presented so far.  It was early for us to be visiting, and he knew it.
“So what’s new, fellows?” he said.
James suddenly looked down at the floor and I felt a little jerk or quiver run through Tony when he saw that.
“Is something wrong?” he said.  He turned to look at me.  I squeezed his shoulder.  “Something is wrong,” he said.
“Actually,” I said, “yes, I’m afraid so.  I’m sorry, Tony, but this is one of those times it’s not real easy to say something.”
I’d thought I was all set to break the news, and now I felt at a loss, completely.  I started to have a panicky feeling.  But I knew I couldn’t afford that.  I had to swallow hard and take a really deep but shaky breath in order to say another word, when what I really wanted to do, and my body was prepared to do, was run away sobbing.  But that was clearly not a viable choice.
“Tony,” I said, on the verge of speechlessness and struggling to say the words steadily enough they could be understood, “I got a phone call this morning.  You know that Clyde had that month-long series of reorganization meetings in Chicago and Cincinnati.  You remember about that?”  Clyde’s company was getting a complete overhaul in the wake of the financial troubles besetting the world just then, and fitting everything into even a month was going to be a tight squeeze.  They would use the company jet to shuffle key personnel between Cincinnati and Chicago for various sessions.
“Yes, I think — I’m pretty sure I do...”
It didn’t matter if he did or not; what had happened, had happened, and now he had to hear about it.  And it was up to us to break the news.
“Tony, sweet, something really bad happened this morning, real early, about 3 am.  Clyde was driving back here from Chicago, from the wind-up meeting, and — ”
The expression on Tony’s face was one I hope I never see again.  It felt like my heart was being torn out of me.  James saw it, too, and was instantly beside Tony, on the other side of him.  He put an arm around Tony’s waist.  Tony began to shake with fear.  We could smell the fear.  I don’t know what causes it exactly, but it’s a smell you never forget, like the smell of death.
I thought, If it were only me, not him.  Oh, God, why couldn’t it be me?
We just held him from both sides.
He began moaning in a way terrible to hear, and tears flooded out of him, more tears than you’d think one man could hold.
He started rocking back and forth; his hands formed clenched fists and he held them as though to strike an invisible opponent.
He fell back onto the mattress.  James and I didn’t let go of him, we didn’t dare, it would have been inhuman.  So we were all three of us down on the mattress in a strange half-involuntary embrace.
“Oh, Tony,” said James.  With his free hand he stroked Tony’s forehead.
I didn’t know what to do but lie there.
Tony kept sobbing and making that moaning noise and I wished I were almost anywhere else because I felt so powerless to do anything useful.
We must have lain that way for a good five minutes or longer.  Finally there was a soft knock at the door and a couple of seconds later Dr. Hotchkins entered and closed the door softly again behind him.
He stood a few feet away and just nodded when I looked over at him.  If the sight we presented looked odd to him, he didn’t let on.  He looked composed but awfully sad.  Death is the one thing that defeats physicians, after all.  He was defeated, once again.
After a bit, he gestured towards himself, looking questioningly at me.  I nodded, and he came over to us.
I gave up my place gladly to Dr. Hotchkins.  James remained where he was, now caressing Tony’s head.
Dr. Hotchkins said something to Tony that I couldn’t make out.  Nor did I understand Tony’s response.  Apparently Dr. Hotchkins couldn’t, either, for he looked over at James as if to request a translation.
“I think he said, ‘Just leave me the fuck alone,’” said James in an embarrassed way.  Dr. Hotchkins smiled and nodded at James.
“Thanks,” he said.  “I don’t want to give Tony a sedative without his knowledge and preferably his consent, and I don’t know that that would be a very smart move, anyway.  People react in many ways to terrible news.  Grief is normal; shock is also normal.  Often it’s better to work through it than to try to stifle it with chemicals.
“If you two are willing to sit it out with your friend, I think the best would be for me to step out again.  Okay?”
We both nodded.  “You know where to find me,” he said.  “Don’t hesitate.  But he needs his friends more than he needs me and my white coat right now.”
He patted Tony’s thigh as he stood up.  He left the room quietly again.
Then he stuck his head back in to say, “Oh, if Mason comes back, can you just kind of play it by ear?  You know Mason, don’t you, Gerry?”
I nodded.  “Sure,” I said, hoping in fact Mason would show up.  Then at least Tony would have another friend with him.  And I thought seeing Mason might be the best thing for him.
Dr. Hotchkins left again, shutting the door softly.
Tony had quieted down quite a bit but we still held him in our arms — I’d resumed my place at his side.  It was awkward lying like that but we just did what we could, I guess.  James seemed more self-possessed than me; and I felt he was acting from pure compassion.  I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t too cowardly to be compassionate.  But maybe I was judging myself too harshly.
After a bit the door slowly swung partway open, and Mason peered in.  He looked at me with a questioning expression and I nodded and beckoned to him.  He shut the door quietly and walked over to us.  He looked worried and concerned.
“Mason, this is James, another friend of Tony’s.  James, this is Mason, Tony’s roommate and also one of his best friends.”
They shook hands and said the usual things.
“Dr. Hotchkins kind of filled me in on what happened,” said the boy.  “I don’t know if I can help or not, but...”
“Mason, why don’t you take my place.  Is that okay?”
“Sure, Gerry.  Don’t go too far though, okay?”
I smiled and shook his shoulder.  He was wearing a T shirt that advertised some brand of skateboard and showed a skater probably about his own age challenging gravity on one of those terrifying curved ramp things.  “I’ll be right here, bud.  You’re probably better at this than me, though.”
I happened to know that Mason had been through a similar event when his elder brother had died, by his own hand, and despite his own grief he’d had to try to comfort his mom.  His dad was away in Alaska with an oil company as consultant on a pipeline project, and unreachable for two or three days.  Mason was only fourteen then.
He took my place and put a hand on Tony’s shoulder.  Tony saw him there and there flashed the briefest smile of recognition.  Then he reached up and took Mason’s hand and held it tight in his.
Mason said nothing, but I swear I could feel the love between the two of them.  Man, I thought, Tony sure lucked out on both doctor and roommate.  I felt enormous admiration and gratitude for them both, but especially for the sixteen-year-old.  After all, the doctor was only a trained, paid professional.  Mason was a friend.
I felt Tony was in better hands, by a long ways, than with me, so I stepped into the little bathroom, leaving its door open, and splashed some water on my face.  I began to shake uncontrollably and I felt one of those knifelike painful surges of adrenaline on both sides.  It made me wince and I had to grab hold of the sink.  For a moment I feared I would pass out.
But I didn’t, and as soon as I could move again, I stepped back into the room.  Tony was sitting up now, Mason embracing him with his head on Tony’s shoulder, eyes shut.  James was just observing now.  I sat down in the chair.
“If you guys want to go get coffee or something,” said Mason, opening his eyes, “Tony’ll be okay with me now.”
I hadn’t seen it till then, but Mason’s cheeks were wet.  That’s why he’d shut his eyes, I guess.
“James?” I said.  He nodded and stood up.
“Can we bring you anything, Mason?” he said.
“A Coke would be great.”
“You’ve got it, amigo,” said James.  They actually high-fived each other, something I’ve never been able to bring myself to do with anybody.  But it seemed right when they did it.
“We’ll be back in a few,” I said.
“No rush,” said Mason.  “We’ll be okay.  Thanks, guys.”  He had a smile that would melt an average-size iceberg.

There was pretty decent coffee in the lounge where Dr. Hotchkins was sitting.  He was filling out some forms on a coffee table.  If he does that often, I thought, he’s going to end up paying a chiropractor.
He looked up when he heard us approach.  “How’s it going?”
“Mason’s with him.  He’s good medicine, doctor,” I said.
“I thought he would be,” said Dr. Hotchkins.  “Well, you guys stay here as long as you want to.  I’ll be here till at least 2 pm.  You have a cell phone?”
I did.  Dr. Hotchkins scribbled a number on a little notepad he was carrying, tore the sheet off, and gave it to me.  “That’s my cell number.  Just in case.  Let me or a nurse know when you leave, okay?  And I’ll probably see you soon, Gerry, if not again today.  Hey, good to see you again, James.”
James and I sat in the little lounge and drank our coffee.  We couldn’t think of much to say.  What was there to say?
We took Mason his Coke.  He and Tony were still side by side on Tony’s bed and still hand in hand.
Tony looked better: haggard but now with a faint, sad smile.  It was obvious that Mason and Tony loved each other as you can only love somebody you’re thrown in with by chance, and you find you can support each other.  Eventually support, while still important, becomes secondary to love and friendship.  Again I felt grateful Tony had such an extraordinary roommate.

~~~

I knew the few details of the crash that had robbed Tony of his partner that morning, midway between here and Chicago.  But to hear them would only upset him further now; they didn’t clarify anything; they didn’t even amount to all that much.  And knowing those things was not going to bring Clyde back.
So I decided not to burden the poor guy with them yet.  Maybe he’d never want to know, unless he needed to.  I couldn’t imagine needing to know much about a fatal one-car crash into an abutment that took the life of the car’s driver, its sole occupant.
Anyway, the doctor knew as much as I did.  It was Hotchkins I learned what little I knew from.  I would write up a kind of account of the accident as its features were known to me, when I got back home, and keep it in some safe place for Tony should he ever ask or wonder, or if I wasn’t around anymore.
Tony and Clyde had been partners now for — I wasn’t sure how long, I realized with a start.  Three years?  Four?  One of those.  In any event, I knew that they had never registered a domestic partnership, the closest thing to marriage our state in its purported wisdom allows gay couples.
I wondered if Clyde had carried life insurance.  If so, had he made Tony beneficiary?
If the beneficiaries were Clyde’s parents, up in Michigan as I recalled, they might see fit to give some or even all of it to Tony, whom by all accounts they knew of though they hadn’t met, and at least didn’t despise.  They’d been more or less at ease with Clyde’s orientation, which he’d made plain to them in his senior year of high school: supportive but disappointed, they represented probably the commonest form of parental approval, all in all.
All this took far less time to think, or muse about, than to write down.  Now it’s twilight and I can hardly see the page, so I’ll switch on the reading lamp, the one Clyde gave James on his 25th birthday, now seven months past.
It’s really great — almost no eyestrain even if one of us reads for hours at a time.  I intend to get another just like it, so we don’t have to take turns reading.  I’m kidding, of course, but it only makes sense now that we’re living together at my place.
Are you surprised?  Well, so was I.  Especially at the suddenness of it.  And frankly, I —  But I don’t want to get any more ahead of myself than I already allowed myself above.  
So, back to that Saturday morning in October.

James and I chatted with Mason for over an hour.  For that whole time, Mason and Tony remained side by side, there on Tony’s bed, except for each, at different times, using the bathroom briefly.
Tony had quit crying some time ago.  He was probably in that phase that sometimes follows right on the heels of such a traumatic disclosure, of accepting it, in a way, but feeling it’s all unreal.  As though it had happened, sure, and I’ve learned about it, okay.  And I’m not terribly upset now, as I was at first, when they broke the news.  But for all that I feel I’m in an alternate universe now, a place and a time that I never knew existed.  And there’s this thought in the back of my head, kind of, like “How am I going to live in this place after being so long accustomed to that other one, the one that suddenly ceased to exist for me?”
I don’t push it away; it’s just there, waiting patiently, whenever my attention flags, even for a second.  Neither friend nor foe, it just keeps on nagging; only, it’s not nagging.  That’s a kind of negative thing, nagging is.  No.  This reminding — whatever it should be called — is different.  Patient, insistent, like a living being.  
I found my own mind wandering, too.  There was only so much to talk about, after all.  The crash was plainly out.  “Did you enjoy your suicide attempt, Mason?” would hardly do, anymore than, “Well, Tony, is this breakdown pretty much the same as the other times?  More fun?  Less?”
Seeing them there caused me to wonder if they’d stay in touch after being released from what amounted to a prison sentence, albeit in a prison with few rules, talk therapy thrown in gratis, and almost no risk of rape by the other inmates.  I suspected they would, for a while, as long as Mason’s parents had no objection.  And from Tony’s account, Mason had made them out to be reasonable people.
It was approaching 11:30 and I asked Tony and Mason what time they ate lunch, or at least intended to, today?  “Noon,” came their simultaneous reply.  
I knew Tony could go out on a day pass for a few hours with me as his guarantor.  We’d been over that in the past, and it actually worked nicely.  But I also knew Mason couldn’t go out except with a staff member, so I didn’t even suggest going, let’s say, for pizza.  I was not going to separate the two even briefly.
“Hey, excuse me, guys — I’ll be right back.”
I walked to the nursing station a ways down the immaculate, disinfectant-redolent hallway (they use something with an odd, sickly sweet yet phenolic odor that I hope one never encounters anywhere else) and asked the very friendly and laid-back middle-aged woman on duty if I could bring in pizza for Tony and Mason, and of course James and me.
“Why, sure, hon,” she said.  “As long as you don’t forget me.”
“How many of you on duty for the next couple of hours, May?” I asked.  They wear name tags, legible ones.
“There’s me and Tina, you know the pretty black girl with the killer smile” (I did indeed) “and, let’s see, Sam and Jake” (two imposingly muscular, friendly but no-nonsense crewcut assistants all in white) “and maybe Dr. Chilton, and — she glanced at the computer screen — “it looks like Dr. Hotchkins is still here, too.”
In five minutes I had the order written down, in five more, had phoned it in to Leaning Tower of Pizza; in fifteen after that, they promised to have it ready.  I’d go pick it up in Raoul’s car.
Dr. Chilton sent a nurse with thanks, an hour or so later; Dr. Hotchkins, passing our open door, made the famous “okay” sign with thumb and forefinger of the hand not occupied holding a drooping slice of pizza.  Talk about killer smiles...
Before we left, every staff member had individually thanked us one way or another.  I was sorry I couldn’t include the patients, except for Tony and his pal, but obviously that would have posed problems.
There seemed no point in staying longer.  We offered, each or both of us, to stay on if Tony wished, but he said he was glad we’d stuck around as long as we did, and he didn’t want to take up any more of our day.  We emphasized he shouldn’t hesitate to phone if he wanted to see us later, or needed our help with anything.  I said I’d be back tomorrow.
Finally we said good-bye.  Mason wanted to hug both of us.  Tony was actually pretty cheerful by then.  But I thought to myself, Just wait till nightfall.  Mason is apt to find his hands full then.  It might even be time for that sedative.

~~~

“I guess I’d better get this car back to Raoul,” I said as we drove homeward from the hospital.  The streets were littered with gold and brown and yellow fallen leaves but there were still lots on the trees, and the air said “autumn” so vividly it was, for me at least, almost painful.  I had memories associated with autumn, though, that...  Well, that’s neither here nor there.
“Raoul’s probably at my place,” I added.
“I never saw him quiet down so quickly as this morning,” said James.  “Do you have any idea what that was about?”
“Who knows.  He’s many things, but the main thing he is, is unpredictable.  We saw an excellent example of that today.”
“Do you think he’ll want to visit Tony in the hospital, later?”
“I don’t know.  Raoul’s funny about those who offer to be friends with him.  He’s distrustful, disdainful, mocking, and above all sabotage-prone.  In short, yes, I imagine he will.  But I’m desperately thankful he declined to come along today.”
“Poor guy.”
“Yeah.  A few years ago, he would not be living ‘out here.’  He would be locked up in some godawful so-called mental hospital.  I don’t know which is worse, freedom that isn’t really freedom, or captivity that makes no bones about it.”

I parked in front of my little somewhat run-down, well, better make that pretty badly run-down, bungalow.  Its front door, I could see from the street, was standing open.  I could hear the stereo from the street, too.  I wondered if the neighbors were hearing it, and, if they were, what degree of annoyance it had provoked so far.
If one of them had called the cops on Raoul, it wouldn’t have been the first time.  Generally the police didn’t want to make that kind of visit before ten pm, though.  So they probably hadn’t been there, nor were they likely to be on their way anytime soon.
James and I walked into my living room.  That’s the room with the front door.  My house isn’t nearly grand enough to merit a foyer or anything else without an equivalent in the English language.  Many things need fixing, and I intend to get around to them one of these days.  Some of them, anyway.
I turned the stereo down to where I knew the neighbors would not object, even if they failed to be appeased.  “Raoul,” I cried out.  No answer.
He wasn’t in the kitchen or little dining room either.  Nor in the front bedroom, one of two, and the one I use for storage of some of the stuff I’ll never need, use, or even faintly want again, but which resists getting thrown out.
Feeling somewhat like Goldilocks now, and with James tagging along every step of the way, I looked in my own bedroom (that’s the one with the bed in it), the bathroom (had its door been shut I would of course have knocked, but it wasn’t), and the utility room beyond the kitchen at the back of the house just before an open-air deck where in fair weather James, or Tony and Clyde, or Raoul, or all four, and I would hang out and try to make small talk till we simply couldn’t tolerate the tedium of it any longer, and the others drifted away to home, or a bar, or the movies, or to cruise a park, or wherever.
That left the basement, surely an odd place to go especially if you were seemingly listening to music.  I’d never discovered Raoul there before, but they say there’s a first time for everything; one of those bits of folk wisdom, that, like so much of it, if analyzed for about half a second, is seen to be inescapably true.
And there he was, asleep on the floor beside the furnace, which was not going as it was 70 degrees indoors on this nigh-perfect day, without it.
My black-and-white cat, Fido, was asleep — I think — on Raoul’s chest.  It’s hard to tell if Fido’s awake or snoozing.  She’s not an awfully vivacious pet.  But that doesn’t keep me from loving her, at least some of the time.  And she’s someone I can depend on to inject a little orderly routine and rhythm into my day-by-day existence, feeding her, changing the litter box, attempting to get her to play, etc.
James loves Fido and I’d thought many times about asking if he wanted to take her.  But one consideration or another always kept me from it, principally that James had enough trouble looking after himself, witness his skinniness and pale complexion, and perhaps some of the anxiety, too.  Poor dear.  (How often I thought of him in terms of just those two simple words; and every time I did, it came to me as a genuine and somewhat troubling surprise how deeply and thoroughly I loved him, even longed for him.)
“Yoo-hoo, Raoul,” I sang out.  His name lent itself to various musical effects like that one, in a way “Gerry” or even “James” or “Tony” never would.  But then he was of French parentage (immigrants).  So it was not unexpected.
He failed to respond, so James went over and knelt down and gently nudged his shoulder.  Fido saw James and leapt up onto James’s own shoulder.  She’s always excited; well, at least pleased — when James comes over to visit.  One reason I still considered now and then letting him take her, if he wanted.  Actually, I thought now, it might do him more good than me to have her around.  I’d have to give it serious thought.
Raoul finally shifted slightly and then woke up in what seemed to be a normal way.  Thank God, though crazy he does not use drugs.  It’s hard even to make him take his anti-psychotics, which, granted, don’t seem to be very effective, but at least they help still the voices that sometimes torment the poor guy, and which were a terrible psychic burden before I got him to seek help, and medication.  (And if that didn’t take some doing.)
“Hello, uh...” he had to think a moment — “James.  Hi, Gerry.”  Well, he’s recognized both of us.  And hasn’t snapped at us.  That’s a good sign, I hope.
James steadied Fido, perched on his shoulder, with one hand, and stood up.  Fido began kneading James’s shoulder affectionately (yes, cats can be affectionate; they’re just a hell of a lot choosier about the objects of that affection than, say, dogs, or hamsters, or pythons).
“Ouch!” said James.  He has no fat to intercede between surface and nerve, and Fido has sharp claws.  I keep forgetting to trim them.  I’ll have to do that, someday.
She jumped down and streaked off somewhere, probably to sulk.
Raoul made no effort to get up off the basement floor, but he wasn’t hurting anything there, except maybe himself (it’s concrete, after all), so I didn’t mind and didn’t suggest he either rise or shine. The fewer suggestions you make to the man, the better, anyway.  We’d been friends, if odd and sometimes pretty tentative ones, for many years, and that was something I learned in the very first week.
Then Raoul grabbed hold of James’s ankle.  Oh, no, I thought, this is something new and perhaps terrifying.  I think he’s going to throw poor James to the floor!
I started to step forward to protect James, who’s about as incapable of self-defense as anybody I could imagine; but to my surprise, and I suspect to James’s as well, Raoul just began stroking James’s ankle, tenderly, like you would a kitten, over and over.
“James,” he said.  “James.”  I wondered what was going on in his crazy head.  He never has liked James even a little.  And now here he was petting him and saying his name softly and for no apparent reason.
“Raoul,” said James in the same soft way.  Then he knelt again and put his hand on top of Raoul’s head and smiled his beautiful smile at him.  The smile I can’t see without trembling.
There they were, tenderly regarding each other, a sight hitherto unknown to science, or to me, or them for that matter.  They just stayed that way for a couple of minutes.  I stood stock still, unwilling to break the spell.
Then Raoul let go, or rather quit stroking, James’s ankle, shifted a bit more, and stood up.  He gave James a quick hug.  James hugged him back the same quick way.  Then Raoul said, “Well, I better be off, I guess.  How was Tony?”
Amazed to find him solicitous about two potential friends he ordinarily rejected with anything ranging from cool disdain to overt threats of violence, with a varied repertory of intriguing but unpleasant behaviors in between, I was for a moment at a loss for words.  James stepped in to fill the linguistic gap.
“He’s okay,” said James.  “At least as okay as he could probably be after hearing that awful news.  He’d like to see you, too,” he lied.  I knew Tony would not mind a visit from Raoul, or else I’d never have started out in the morning with the intention of all three of us going to see him in the hospital.  But he’d never said or let on that he’d actually like Raoul to visit.  Still, where was the harm in a fib like that?  Maybe it was the perfect thing to say in this probably tiny window of sanity and sociable, if still peculiar, behavior.  I think James has a good deal better sense of how to deal with people than I do.
Raoul started up the basement steps.  James had wandered off peering into all the dark and musty corners of the basement, behind boxes, old furniture, gas and water pipes, and so forth, in search of Fido.
Raoul paused and beckoned to me.  I went up to the next step below where he stood.
In a low voice, almost a whisper, Raoul said, “Gerry...  I’m sorry I was rude and mean over at James’s this morning.  Will you tell him for me?”
“Of course, dearest,” I said.  “And I know it’s hard for you to control your moods.  It did annoy me, but it didn’t bother James.”  I debated for a second before adding, “Raoul, why are you so considerate all of a sudden?  I mean, you know, starting when we were leaving James’s and you decided to come back here instead of going with us to see Tony?”
“They told me to shape up — or else,” he said.
“Oh, my.  Your voices, then.”
“Yeah.  Oh my God, Gerry...” He started to cry silently.  He could still speak but big tears rolled down as he did.
“You can’t imagine...their power, their threats and all.  I was so scared.  I didn’t want to show it.  I was afraid of what they’d do to me if I did.  But...”
He seemed momentarily confused, or more confused than usual.
“Anyway, they told me ‘or else.’  I know what that means.  You wouldn’t want to hear about it.  But I know.  And besides...  Anyway, I came down to the basement where I don’t think they know how to find me.  The concrete and all.  It kind of blocks...something...it’s like radar, probably...”
He took a bandanna out of a jeans pocket and mopped up some of the tears.  “Gerry, I know I’m a sonofabitch to deal with.  If I say I can’t help it, it sounds like a cop-out, but I — well, I can’t, that’s all.  I’m so fucked up.”
He paused.  “You wouldn’t understand.  I’m sorry.  I really am and you don’t have to believe me but I am anyway.  Even if they didn’t...threaten me I’d want to do better.  You think I’m lying.  That’s okay.  But I’m not, Gerry, I’m not.”
Now he was overcome again and all he could do this time was cry.  If James heard him sobbing, he tactfully remained absent.
I stepped up the one step separating us; there was barely room for the two of us, side by side.  I took him in my arms and said the words and made the sounds and gestures you make when you try to comfort somebody.  “Raoul, you don’t have to go.”  I really wished he would, but feared for his safety in that condition.  “You can stay as long as you want, you know that, sweetheart.”  We’d been over this time and again over the years, but it always seemed to bear reaffirming.
And if I was honest about it, I’d have to say that in a sense Raoul’s behavior was nothing short of heroic.  Which of the rest of us could bear his interior burdens even for a day, let alone a lifetime?  Not me.
“That’s all right,” he said, finally back pretty much to normal, if the word even applies to Raoul.  “I’ll walk, I’ll leave you the car, okay?  But I’ll be okay if I just walk.  I want to go home.”
“I’ll drive you then, and walk back,” I said, “or drive you and bring the car back here, if you’re afraid to have it available right now.”  I knew very well he might be; he had been, before.
“No, I’d rather walk.  Thanks anyway.  Thanks for putting me up again, and for putting up with me again.”
I made a mental note to phone him later on.  There was always the danger of the phone frightening him, but it was worth the risk to attempt to let him know I did care.  And I did, and I do.
He went on up the stairs and I heard the front door shut quietly a minute later.  I went back down to find James, still trying to find Fido in all the dark places.

~~~

“You wanted to know if I’d like company this evening,” said James.  
We were in the kitchen sipping some V-8 juice at the little breakfast bar, a remnant of the ’30s when the house was already fairly old.  The place had been kept up splendidly all those years since — till 1997, when I acquired it and started letting it go pretty much to hell.  I’d felt ashamed all along, but failed to remedy my behavior.  I was still basically squalid about it.  Well, that’s just how it was.  I wasn’t house proud by any means.  I kept it fairly clean, but nothing like conventional notions of presentable.
I’d just started coffee dripping in the coffeemaker Tony and Clyde had given me two Christmases ago, a solid, dependable, no-nonsense German machine that knew how to do its job right.  I knew the best way to make coffee was still by hand, but damned if I wanted to stand there and do it when a machine could do it for me while I read, or listened to music, or watched a movie, or masturbated — if not all four at once.
“I wasn’t sure then, but now I am, and, yes, I’d love it.  If your offer still stands.”
“Of course it does.  Good!  I thought we might watch a movie here, if that sounds good to you.  Or, we could take a walk or just about anything, eat out, whatever.  I’d rather not go to a bar, is all, but last time I checked, that wasn’t your favorite entertainment, either.”
James laughed.  “You remember right.  I’ve come to loathe them, Gerry.  I’ve never been fond of crowds, as you know, and now I’m not even fond of alcohol, either.  I just keep it for company.  So that leaves cruising, as far as bars go, and I’m really, really not fond of cruising anymore.”
I didn’t say anything, but just silently gave him a quick sideways hug.  He had never been picked up in a bar, nor picked anybody else up.  I suspected his gaunt appearance made guys afraid he had AIDS.  He doesn’t.  And it shouldn’t matter anyway, but...  Well, I won’t go into that.  I’d get too angry.
“I know, I know, twenty-five years old and doesn’t want to cruise, what the hell’s wrong with him, etc., etc.  I really don’t care what people think.  That’s just — that’s just another crowd, isn’t it?”  He laughed again, and not at all uneasily.  He seemed to know his own mind and to be his own man as well as anybody I could think of, including me.
“Bound to end up an old maid, then, is that it?”
“Well... Not inevitably, but, yes, it does appear probable.  Aren’t there worse fates though?  Like...like unhappy relationships, disastrous marriages or partnerships, you know, all that stuff Ingmar Bergman made all those great films about?”
“But that’s Sweden!” I retorted, feigning indignation.  “No, you’re right.  Still, I think a young man of your goodness and intelligence doesn’t have to settle for either solitude or a second- or third-rate life with somebody, though, James.  To choose and embrace solitary existence is one thing, and for the right person a fine thing, but it’s not for everybody by a long shot, and to settle for it — as opposed to making that choice — well, that’s pretty sad, though pretty common as well.  Anyway, that’s how it seems to me.  Does that have to be you?”
“I can’t quarrel with that.  But...  Hey, I think the coffee’s ready.”
I brought two brightly colored cups of coffee to the bar.  I’d found the cups, Mexican pottery, from Monterey as I recalled, in a local import shop during the summer and was delighted with them.  They had folk-art designs.  I was not at all knowledgeable about Mexican folk art, so maybe they were fake or made-up patterns or something; it didn’t matter, they were pretty.  And hand glazed, not just silk-screened.
“Oh, this is great!” said James.  “Where on earth did you get the beans?”  He’d watched as I ground them.
“At Sweet Marjoram,” I said.  “They’ve just recently started selling the beans they use in the cafe themselves.  They only bring out small batches at a time, so they stay pretty fresh till sold.”
“I’m going to take a look next time I’m in there,” said James.  “Say — want to go tomorrow afternoon?”
The cafe, Sweet Marjoram, is quietest on Sunday afternoons, so I knew James would be most comfortable then.  I said yes, that sounded fine, and maybe we could stop in at the art museum while we were downtown.
We drank our coffee, me feeling pleased and a little smug that it had made such a hit with James.  I had this urge to impress him, if you want the truth.  
I had one hand on the bar, and he put his on it, and then we just held hands there and drank our coffee.  He has a way of caressing your hand; I can’t describe it.  I can’t do it, either.  It’s the equivalent of Fido’s kneading, only painless.  It’s really nice.  He did that now, and he caught my eye at one point and smiled timidly.
“I’d be tempted, if I didn’t know better, to say you’re flirting,” I said.  Then I immediately wished I hadn’t.  I was afraid it sounded like I was flirting.  And I didn’t have that intention, not consciously at any rate.  Nor did I want to discourage him from it.
“God forbid.  Or heaven forfend, or whatever one says for an indignant denial,” said James.  He smiled.  “I just like to hold hands, that’s all.”
“With everybody,” I suggested.  And again wished I’d kept my trap shut.
“No, not everybody.”
He released my hand and stood up, walked around to my side of the little counter, and started kneading my shoulders in the way I had done his, in the morning, which now, to me, seemed long ago.
“It’s payback time,” he said in an near-whisper.
“Don’t let me stop you.  But if I fall asleep, please fetch a blanket and cover me up on the floor.”
“Okay.”
He massaged and I enjoyed, in silence as it grew dark outside.  There had been no need for lights when we came into the kitchen, so now the almost-darkness of the room was punctuated only by the glow of the bright red power indicator LED on the coffee maker across the room.
“You’re not scared of the dark, are you, little James?” I teased.
“Not so long as you’re here to protect me.”
Finally after maybe ten minutes I said, “If you keep that up I really truly am going to fall asleep.”  
He stopped, but left his hands on my shoulders.  I reached up, took one, and kissed it.  “Thanks,” I said.  “You know, I was tense and hadn’t realized it till you started massaging.  I think today’s been stressful, at least for me.”
“Me, too,” he said.  “Sorry I was such a mess this morning, but the news hit me really hard.”
“I should have been more tactful, more careful,” I said, though in truth I’d forgotten just how I’d exposed James to the news of Clyde’s accident.
If it was an accident.
“Gerry, do you think Clyde might have...”  It was as though James was reading my mind.  I shuddered.
“I don’t know,” I said.  “What reason could he have had for deliberately ending things that way?  I realize it’s been done before, and probably oftener than anybody would like to believe, but...”
“I wonder,” said James.  There was a long silence.  Then he took his seat across from me again.  Eyes now accustomed to the gloom, I could barely make out his slender silhouette, and a few other vague forms: the refrigerator, the gas range, the open doorway to the utility room.  The hum of the refrigerator seemed amplified against our uneasy silence.
“No, Gerry, I don’t wonder,” he said at last.  “At least, I’m pretty sure.  Something he did and said right before he left for Chicago.
“I was in his car and he was driving.  Tony had a meeting of the cycle club at the library that he was obliged to attend.  So I was going to accompany Clyde to the airport where he was booked on the 7:40 flight direct to O’Hare, and then drive his car back to his and Tony’s place.
“About halfway there, he made a sudden U-turn.  I mean, burning-rubber variety.  It wasn’t like him.  He never broke traffic laws, or any others that I was aware of.  But he made that U-turn and I practically peed in my pants.  I was honestly terrified.  Had he lost his mind?  ‘What are you — ’ I started to say.
“ ‘James, I’m sorry.  I’m taking you back to your place.  Thanks for offering to return the car for me, but I’ve changed my mind.  I’m not going to take that flight after all.  I’m going to drive to Chicago.  I’m sorry.’
“His voice sounded normal enough, yet there was something there I couldn’t put my finger on, a feeling about what was happening, and about what he’d said.  It was painful and unnerving.  I don’t think I said another word — I know he didn’t — till he dropped me in front of my place and leaned over and said to me through the open passenger window, ‘Take care, bud.  Tell Tony —  No, just take care.  Okay?’
“I said, ‘Okay, Clyde, sure.  Good-bye, then, drive safely.’  And that was that.  He drove off again, making another screeching U-turn to do it.  I watched till I couldn’t see his car’s taillights any more after that hilly place right past Farley Avenue.”
“My God,” I said.  “I assumed he’d meant to drive all along.  All I knew was that he had gone to a meeting in Chicago.  What did Tony say?”
“I was unsure what to do.  Finally, after I figured he’d be home from the library, I phoned Tony and explained Clyde had taken his car so that’s why it wouldn’t be there along with Tony’s in the apartment building’s gated garages.  He didn’t act surprised.  And that really puzzled me.”
“Maybe Tony thought he was driving, all along.  But no, surely then he...” 
I thought of various ramifications and scenarios and suddenly felt as though I were in one of those psychological thrillers they knew so well how to make in the ’40s.  Except for me nothing was black-and-white.
“I haven’t figured it out yet,” said James.  “I guess I shouldn’t even be suspicious.  I suppose it’s just an awful coincidence, a grievous thing that wouldn’t have happened if he’d taken that plane instead.  But at the same time...”
“He didn’t have a fear of flying, by any chance?”
“Gerry, he had tons of Frequent Flyer Miles, so, no, I doubt it, unless he was a champion masochist.”
“Good grief.  I don’t know...”  — what to think, I continued mentally.  What was I supposed to think?
“I guess we’ll never know,” James went on.  “I don’t think I want to know, for that matter.”
I got up and turned on the recessed lights over the work area.  That cast a soft indirect light into the room, but even so it was a sudden adaptation for eyes accustomed to those minutes of darkness.
Back at the breakfast bar, I saw James looking as sad as I’ve ever seen him.  I went over to him without even sitting down again.  I put my hands on the sides of his shoulders and gave a gentle squeeze.
“Let’s watch a movie, what do you say,” I said.  “More coffee?”
“That sounds good.  Yes.  Sure.  Why not.”

~~~

We used Raoul’s car to get ourselves Italian carry-out from La Fiorella, over on Grainger.  I wondered when James had last had a decent dinner.  This one, at any rate, was more than decent.  You can depend on La Fiorella.
We ate off the coffee table while we watched a couple of DVD’s.  You’d think it would be etched into my mind, what they were, considering what happened next, but I honestly have no idea.  I just now asked James, but he didn’t remember either.  Neither of us is likely ever to forget what came after, though.
“That was fun, and the food — wow, Gerry, thanks.  It was so good!  I don’t remember the last time I ate at La Fiorella.  Probably when I was still making better money.”
James had lost a good IT job in the global financial downturn and been unable to find another.  Now he did mainly web design and security work from his home.  He joked about some of the goofy requests he’d get from porn webmasters in particular.  He’d patiently explain to them why what they wanted was not feasible.  They were invariably attentive and civil and said they understood, and then accepted his alternatives, designs that would not encourage malicious tampering, insertion of malware, etc.  But the pay was about 2/3 of what he’d made before, at best.
“Let me take you there now and then,” I said.  “I’d rather have company anyway, especially when it’s yours.  And...hell, James, I just plain want to help.  I worry about you, to be honest.”
“That’s sweet, Gerry, thanks,” he said, putting on the lightweight jacket I was lending him as we’d decided to walk back to his place.  The night was really pleasant, after that perfect day.  “I’ll gladly accept.  But if things get better for me, you have to let me do the same for you.”
“Agreed,” I said. “It’s a deal, then.”
We locked up and set out for his apartment.  Sure enough, it was one of those October nights that strike me full of melancholy.  Being with James did little to improve matters.  For I felt frustrated with regard to James.
We were nearly there.  Nobody else was out.  Ours is a quiet neighborhood of mostly professionals, teachers, student apartment dwellers.  
I took hold of James’s shoulders and stopped him.  I turned him to face me.
“James, come and live with me.  Right now, tonight.  Please.  Will you?”
He didn’t even seem surprised.  
“All right,” he said, “I will.”
We stood there on the sidewalk hugging each other for a long while.  Finally he said, “Gerry, I’m getting cold.”  Only then did I notice he was shivering.  But so was I, so maybe that’s why I hadn’t noticed.  But I wasn’t shivering from the cold.

We got a few things out of his apartment while we were there, and walked leisurely back to my house with them.  “I knew I should have kept my little Red Flyer wagon,” he said.
James stayed at his place that night, so he could sort things out a bit in preparation for more moving.
The next day we moved a lot of stuff using Raoul’s car, but we stuck to our plan to visit the cafe and museum, too.  There was plenty of time to get everything moved over.  He didn’t possess all that much anyway.
That first night together at my place, I asked if he wanted the front bedroom for his own.  Or I’d swap him mine if he preferred the back one.  In any event, I’d gladly take the couch till we could move his bed in.
“Isn’t one bed enough?” he said.  We were in the kitchen where I was preparing ahead for tomorrow’s dinner a casserole I hadn’t made in ages.  We’d picked up the ingredients at the supermarket on our way back from downtown.
His question had been in my mind, and I hadn’t succeeded in finding the answer for myself.
“I guess it is,” I said.  I’m afraid I didn’t sound overly enthusiastic.
“Ah.  You’d rather sleep alone,” said James.  I thought I heard disappointment in the way he said it.  “Sure, that’s okay.”
“No, not necessarily,” I said, hedging, “it’s just that, well, James, I love you more than I ever thought I could love anybody.  I have for a long time, only it seemed so hopeless I tried my best to keep it out of my mind.  
“But it doesn’t seem to be an erotic kind of love.  I guess that sounds completely weird.”
I also guessed we should have discussed that subject before making our minds up to live together.  I was starting to feel panicky.
“But would it bother you to try, well, the one-bedroom model, so to speak?”  He put his arm around me.  I had to lay my chef’s knife down, but I was almost done with the tomatoes anyway.
I felt the warmth of him, standing beside me.  It felt like a wonderful gift.  I felt his breath as a gift when he spoke.  Just his presence felt like a miracle.  I wanted to seize him and hold him as close as possible and never let go.  Yet there wasn’t erotic motivation as I’d experienced it time and again, before, with others.  He won’t understand, I thought; how can he, when I don’t myself?
“No, it wouldn’t.  In fact I’d like to.  I just don’t want to disappoint you, that’s all.”
“You wouldn’t.  You won’t.  No way.”
“Well...it would sure save carting a lot of junk down to the basement.  And probably cut down on the winter fuel bill as well.”
“Sure!” he said.  “That’s the spirit.  I bet we’ll find lots of other advantages, as well.  Let’s try it.  At the least, we can always say we carried out a noble experiment.”
I squeezed him around the waist in response.
“And,” he said, “I don’t mind at all having my own bedroom.  It just seems a bit unnecessary, that’s all.  I promise I won’t complain if that’s what you decide.  It’ll be fine.  Housemates that love each other — that sounds pretty cool, actually.”
So starting that night we began our experiment, and now several months later we’re still sleeping in my bed, comfortably.  Has there been any erotic stuff?  Yes, but I don’t imagine you care about that, so I won’t go into it.  We’re happy, that’s what matters.  Very.
Every now and then we kind of check in with each other to make sure each feels it’s all still working, and as often as not the answer is non-verbal but unmistakably affirmative. 
The fact is, we’ve found ourselves deeply and calmly in love.

~~~

We’d carried the bad news to Tony in the hospital on a Saturday.  The next Tuesday, Mason was released.  He stuck around on his own time, so to speak, to have a lengthy talk with Tony.  He was worried about him.  Tony said not to worry but Mason would not be convinced.  
A week later — James and I had visited at least once every single day in between — Mason was still coming to see Tony every afternoon after school, even though, without a car, he had a long subway ride from Terrapin Heights, an affluent suburb to the north, to the hospital in midtown.  And then a similar ride back home, of course.  
“I’ll be here to see you every day till they let you out of this place, Tony,” he said.  “I promise.  I don’t wish I could have stayed, to be honest, but I almost do.  Because of you.”
We happened to drop in one afternoon when Mason was there.  I swapped cell phone numbers with him, just in case one of us needed to contact the other.  The boy called a couple of nights later — James and I were at home — to report that Tony was noticeably better, or at least it seemed so to him.  And they had discontinued the shock treatments.  There was talk of letting him go home.  
“I’ll miss seeing him,” said Mason.  “He’s a great guy.  You guys are lucky to have him for your friend.  But you know that already.”
“Yes, we do.  Any chance you two can stay in touch somehow, after he’s released?”
There was a pause.  “Email, maybe,” said Mason, but he didn’t sound hopeful.  I didn’t pursue the matter.

Two days later, they released Tony.  James and I took his car to pick him up at the hospital.  What little he had with him there, fit into a plastic shopping bag.  It included a book on chess that Mason had given him during one of his post-release visits.  He’d inscribed it, with fairly typical teenage awkwardness, “From Mason to Tony, a truly great guy, love forever  xxx  Mason”  Tony laughed when he showed the inscription to us, but he also was unable to speak for several moments afterward.
We stopped at La Fiorella on the way home — it happened to be 1 pm — and the three of us had lunch there.  Carlo Fiorella had heard about Tony from me.  Somehow we were not charged for our meals.  One of those gorgeous young waiters — servers, I mean — brought to our table, in lieu of the check, a bottle of Valpolicella: “Compliments of the maison,” he said.
I asked Tony if he needed anything from the supermarket or elsewhere before we got to his place.  He couldn’t remember if he had groceries at home or not.  We stopped and bought perishable things on the theory that whatever was there might better be replaced anyhow.
I parked his car in front of his apartment building.  We got out of the car with the wine and the groceries.  Instead of moving toward the entrance, Tony just stood there.  James and I were already underway but stopped, of course, when we saw that.  
“Is...I mean...is this where I live?” said Tony.  
The ECT was showing its dark side.  I had been afraid that would happen.
“Yeah, Tony, this is your place.  Doesn’t look familiar, I guess.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.  I mean — sure, I must have but...”  He seemed dumbfounded and his face bore a lost expression.
“It’ll come back to you, bud,” I said, not knowing if it would or not.  Sometimes it doesn’t.  Usually things that recent do.  It’s things from earlier that sometimes disappear forever.  I knew about the effects from a couple of friends who’d experienced them, and from reading that my association with them had spurred me to do.
He looked like he was about to cry, so I said, not knowing if it was wise or not, “Tony, if you’d rather come over to our place for a while, you’re more than welcome.  Maybe you’ll feel more like doing this tomorrow or the day after.  You know.”
“No,” he said.  “I might as well get it over with.  I’m shaky about this, is all.  You guys are going to stick around a while, aren’t you?”
“As long as you want,” said James.
“Maybe longer,” I said.  Tony was able to laugh, but his expression didn’t change much.  He looked scared.
We went on up to his apartment, where he had lived with Clyde all during their relationship, on the third floor, front.
He didn’t recognize one thing about it.  He really looked scared now.
James made some tea in Tony’s little kitchen.  The whole place was spotless, beautifully kept up; I didn’t know which of them had done that, maybe they shared the housework.
We drank the tea in Tony’s living room with soft music playing.  I steered the conversation toward life in the hospital, which, though a seemingly dismal topic, at least was something Tony was familiar with; he’d forgotten little if anything that had happened there.  As often with patients finally free of the four confining walls of a hospital room, he actually seemed to enjoy recounting some of the embarrassing moments (hospitals seem to invite them), the eccentricities of one or two doctors, the special kindnesses of some of the nursing staff, both male and female, and so on.  And Mason.  He really brightened up when he started talking about Mason.
“I hope we can stay in touch,” he said.
I had my doubts, but I didn’t say so.  Mason had not given Tony his cell phone number, whether intentionally or not, and I didn’t think it was my place to offer it.  I kept still about it.
He did have Mason’s email address, though, and Mason, his.  I began to hope desperately that it would be possible at least for them to talk via email.  Tony, it seemed to me, might need that pretty badly.
It was around 4 pm.  James and I had nothing in particular on our almost non-existent agenda, but I was afraid we might be wearing out our welcome.  Still, I was reluctant to leave Tony in what amounted to totally strange surroundings.  I felt terribly sorry that his memory had been violated by the treatments.
“Well,” I said, “James, unless Tony wants us to stay, I think we might better be heading home, don’t you?”
“Probably so,” said James.  “Tony, you going to be all right?  You know you can call us anytime.  The number’s right there” (he motioned toward an address book lying on an end table) “under ‘Gerry.’ with a ‘G’.”
Good for James, I thought.  It wouldn’t have occurred to me to brief him like that.  And it may be necessary.
“Guys, I can’t thank you enough for helping me today, and for all those visits you paid me while I was...locked up.
“I imagine Clyde will be home anytime now.  He gets off work at 3, usually.  So I think I’ll be okay.”
I don’t know how good I was at maintaining some semblance of composure.  Even James, usually more adept at that kind of thing than I am, showed a startled response and then, just for a second, a look of utter dismay.  I felt like slowly and painfully killing whoever came up with the idea of electroshock therapy.  If I’d ever had doubts about the trade-offs involved, they were resolved once and for all from that moment.
We couldn’t leave now.  But what the hell were we going to do?  Break the news again and have Tony wind up in the psycho ward again — or worse?  I felt full-scale panic setting in.  But just as that time in the hospital, I knew I couldn’t give in to it.  It was simply not a possibility.
“God, how I’ve missed him,” Tony was going on.  “You can’t imagine what a great guy he is, I mean all the time, all the time.  I don’t know how I lived so long without him.”  He kind of laughed.  
Then, “Guys...  What...  I mean, you look funny.  Did I say something wrong?  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...”
“No, Tony,” said James.  “But...”
“Something’s wrong,” said Tony.  It was the same words he’d said that day in the hospital.  He sank into an easy chair.
We both walked over to where Tony was seated.  The chair had one of those expensive reading lamps beside it, the kind Clyde had given James, and that I intend to buy a second one of.
“Guys, what’s happening?”  He looked bewildered, frightened, and completely lost now.  I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest — over and over.  This can’t be happening, I told myself.  But I knew damn well it was.
“You probably don’t remember that Clyde had a series of meetings in Chicago he had to attend,” said James.
“No.  Did he?  No, I don’t remember.  You mean he’s still there?  Shit,” said Tony.  “Sorry.  I’m just disappointed.”
Then he looked at our faces again.
“That isn’t what’s wrong, is it.”
“Well...  Not exactly,” I said.

And then we broke the news, again.

~~~

We didn’t leave Tony till almost noon the next day, and reluctantly even then.  But one thing made it a little easier to go.
About a year earlier, I’d met one of his neighbors, a retired professor of Asian Studies named Albert Steadler.  Around 11 am I went to knock on his door.  To my relief, he was home.  He invited me in, remembering me from just that one brief meeting a year earlier.
He’d had a partner, Tom, who was killed in the collapse of the second World Trade Tower on September 11, 2001.  Tom had just happened to be in New York to lead a training session for the company he worked for, and had just happened to be breakfasting in the tower when all hell broke loose and life changed forever, for those of us left with a life.  No remains were ever found, but a little Buddhist amulet, carved in stone, that Albert had given him on one of his birthdays was discovered weeks later in the rubble.  
They’d been together over thirty years.
So Albert knew something about loss, and specifically about the kind of loss Tony had suffered — twice now, thanks to the treatments he’d been, probably uselessly, subjected to.
In his wood-paneled apartment, with a Buddhist altar off in one corner and art objects which at least to my untrained eye appeared priceless, sitting casually here and there among hundreds of books; a writing desk with a laptop computer and a couple of thick dictionaries on it; and a Tibetan woven rug on the floor, we sat opposite each other in comfortable low-slung leather arm-chairs.  He’d made us green tea.  I told him the whole story of Tony’s loss, coming on top of hospitalization (which he knew about), the catastrophic effect of the treatment Tony had received, and the way we’d had to break the hardest news of his life to him — twice.
Albert was aghast, as you can well imagine.  He said he would be glad to keep an eye on Tony, unobtrusively if possible, less so if necessary.  We exchanged numbers and email addresses.
I also told him about Mason.  He just shook his head.  “It’s the kind of thing that’s really difficult to pull off in our society,” he said, knowing that I already knew that.  In other words, that was a rhetorical remark.  “If the parents are willing, sure, they may stay in touch.  If Mason remembers Tony as loyally as he thinks now he will, well, in two more years they can have all the contact they want, regardless.  But chances are, he won’t.  That’s just the plain truth of it.  Or rather, he will, but things will have changed.  Lots of things.  Could he do anything to help, now?  I don’t see how.  It’s up to you to call him or not.  I don’t know what I’d do, frankly.”
That was the conclusion I’d come to already.  I’d pretty well decided not to call.
We talked for quite a while.  Albert made a profoundly positive impression on me: learned but down-to-earth, articulate to a fault, obviously sensitive, he seemed heaven-sent to keep tabs on Tony till — it was to be hoped — Tony could begin to come to terms — again — with his loss.  It was unlikely he’d forget a second time; that just wasn’t how it worked.  
I asked Albert if he’d mind coming with me to see Tony just briefly before James and I headed for home.  He said he’d feel delinquent if he didn’t.
So we sat ourselves down in Tony’s living room with Tony.  To say Tony looked like hell is to compliment him unduly.  He looked far worse.  He’d said hardly one word since learning for the second time of Clyde’s...accident.  
We did learn, a lot later, though, from Tony that the reason he hadn’t shown surprise at hearing from James that Clyde had decided to drive to Chicago, was that Clyde had already told Tony, several days earlier, that he hadn’t decided for sure how he’d travel.  The car would be convenient in the city, but the plane was less hassle, in a way; more, in another, of course, especially these days with the indignities brought on by paranoia on a national scale.  
In fact, Tony had rather expected Clyde would drive, not fly.  
Maybe it really had been an accident.  The insurance investigators, so far at least, have not been able to determine one way or another, and it will most likely never be known from actual evidence at the scene.  
Had Clyde acted unusually moody or disturbed prior to his trip?  No.  Not at all, according to Tony.  And I felt confident that was the truth.
On that day, though, the day after we broke the news the second time, he was in such a state that I wondered if we should just drive him back to the hospital.  I hated to inflict that on him.  And what if ECT was deemed called-for again?  I absolutely would not have that happen.
We decided that, come what may, Tony was through with hospitals for a while — just as Raoul had not been hospitalized for years now, it was Tony’s turn to wing it outside the system.  If that was wrong of us, it was just wrong, that’s all.  Tony, for the moment, was in no state to say one way or the other.  I was willing to accept full responsibility, including the legal kind, if it came to that.  James merely said, “Count me in, Gerry.  I’m with you all the way.”
Luckily, Tony vaguely remembered Albert.  He told me later his appearance was familiar, though he couldn’t quite think where he’d met him.  On learning Albert lived in the adjacent apartment, Tony seemed to process that information easily enough.  Victims of amnesia quickly learn to accept some things on faith, if the evidence seems convincing enough.  It’s tougher at first, of course.
We left the two to confer in Tony’s bedroom for awhile.  After about twenty minutes, they came out and Tony actually looked a little improved.  Albert said (in Tony’s hearing) that Tony understood he, Albert, was going to be kind of looking after him for awhile, as Tony was having trouble coming to terms with unfamiliar surroundings and terrible news all at the same time.  Tony nodded that that was the case.  If need be, Albert would stay with Tony night and day.  He didn’t mind.  But it probably wouldn’t come to that.  
To start with, he was going to be with Tony for five or six hours to assess how much tending to his neighbor needed.  Then if things were going reasonably well, he’d go back to his apartment but Tony was to fetch him immediately if anything went wrong, anything at all, and he meant at all.  “If you can’t figure out how to clean up after the toilet, then I’ll help you with that.  Tony, I mean it when I say I expect you to call on me for any and everything you need, period.  Understood?”  Tony nodded assent again.  
“I think he’ll do okay,” Albert said to me as we left.  “But I’ve raised two children in my time.  And I’ve cared for my partner when he was really, messily, smelly sick.  And I know the in’s and out’s of grief.  Nothing will shock me, disgust me, or keep me from doing my best, and that I promise.”
James and I felt considerable relief as we made our way home finally.

It took about six months, but Tony finally came around to accepting everything, and he was back to almost his old self, which had been laid back, friendly, helpful, and fun to be with.  He and Albert, friends before, but only on the most casual basis, were now real buddies, despite their age difference, and Tony looked after Albert when he came down with flu, with all the care that Albert had shown him when he needed help.  They dined together two or three times a week.  Albert got Tony interested in his field, Asian Studies, and Tony enrolled in a continuing-education course at Upper State U.’s urban campus downtown.  For his birthday, Tony received from Albert the little amulet that had been his partner’s.
Tony also was able to resume his work as a freelance editor; he’d already earned himself a good reputation that wasn’t affected by his troubles and his relatively brief absence from the scene.
But last I knew, he was showing no interest in trying to find a new partner.  Well, I couldn’t blame him.  Maybe that would just take more time.  Or maybe he’d just remain single.  As James had thought he would, before I practically kidnapped him that October night and made him mine.
Only kidding.

Raoul still comes over when he’s in distress and doesn’t know where to turn, except to me, as he has for years.  Sometimes he phones first, usually he doesn’t.  That’s all right.  We’re used to it.
When he slacks off on his medication, the voices return.  But they’ve taken to admonishing him as they did that Saturday in October.  So he’s a lot more in line than he used to be; ironically, when he’s good about his medication regime, he tends to get meaner and more ornery.  We both just put up with it.  At least now Raoul invariably apologizes afterward.  He never used to.
Well, as I’ve said, I’m used to it.  James has become used to it.  Besides, James is so benevolent towards everybody, it’s practically impossible for even Raoul to piss him off.
Raoul has shown no jealousy at all towards James, which surprised me.  I thought he might find it impossible to get along with me after James moved in.  Not at all.  He’s even told me he likes James and is glad James and I are together.  I almost fell over.
And James doesn’t mind when Raoul beds down on the couch because he’s afraid to be home.  He’s just not that kind of guy.  Thank goodness.
I even caught them playing chess one day.  I had to rub my eyes.  It was for real.  Maybe that’s progress, for Raoul.  I hope so.  Though I doubt it.  
Fido ignores me almost totally and is devoted to James.  That didn’t surprise me at all.
It’s been fair weather for several weeks now, as I write this.  Tony, Raoul, James and I, and Albert have hung out on the deck a few times already.  With Albert there, the conversation is a lot more interesting, and we linger on till past dark sometimes.  Fido even wandered out once, stared at us one by one, and then went back indoors.
Nobody has heard from Mason.

The End.

~~~

About the author: Jon lives in the Midwest USA, in a city not too far from the nameless fictional one — the only one in the Midwest with a subway system — where these fictional events take place.  The same imaginary city is the locale for much of this writer’s fiction.