Fiona said, “Remember Nico’s comic about Hot Todd getting the runs on a date?” Yale did. The strip ended with Todd rushing home, the dream date alone on the sidewalk, left wondering what he’d done wrong.
Fiona sat with him on a couch in the lobby. He wanted to rejoin the protest, but not yet. He could use a few minutes to make sure.
Fiona smiled like she was about to present him with a gift. She said, “You know he likes you too.”
He said, “Who?” even though he knew, or hoped he knew. He’d felt cold and drained, but now all his blood and breath rushed back into him.
“He told Nico. And Nico told me.”
“Oh. So it was ages ago.”
“Sure. But people don’t let go of that stuff. And I talked to him after you broke up with Charlie. I said he should go for it.” She kept talking too loud. She wasn’t following his cues to whisper—although the lobby was mostly empty, and the family at the desk seemed preoccupied.
“And he didn’t go for it.”
“The thing is, he’s not into monogamy, and he knew that was what you’d want.”
“Jesus. I mean, I don’t believe in it anymore. It’s the entire reason I’m sick.”
Fiona tilted her head. “That’s kind of the opposite of what happened.”
“Not really.”
He was angry and excited and confused. None of which helped his stomach. He wanted more than ever to head back out there, and he knew less than ever how he would hold it together.
When he was finally ready, when they slowly stood, he was overwhelmed with what he thought at first was déjà vu—but no, it was a real memory: leaving the bathroom at Richard’s, walking downstairs to find no one there. What if it happened again? What if they walked back out to a normal day in a normal city, the protestors having marched into the void?
Fiona said, “Let’s go straight to the County Building and wait for everyone by the Snoopy.”
“By the what?”
“The Snoopy in a blender. That statue.”
It took him a second. “Oh my God, Fiona, that’s a Jean Dubuffet.” Abstract and white, with black lines. A sculpture that invited climbing.
“I am not the only one who calls it that, and we can’t all be art experts.”
He liked the idea of crawling inside it, watching the protests, watching Asher from inside a sculptural shell.
* * *
—
They did beat everyone there, aside from some organizers milling around with clipboards, megaphones by their sides. They learned from one that there had been arrests at the AMA, some guys who’d blocked the building’s entrance. “They’ve got Mounties out now,” he said.
They sat down, leaned against the Dubuffet.
Yale said, “It’s called Monument with Standing Beast. Just for future reference.”
“Nope, no way. Never. Hey, you’ll be my date to Nora’s opening, right?”
“Maybe you’ll bring your sociology professor!”
“Yale, my parents will be there.”
“Good point,” he said. “Definitely better to show up with a diseased gay man. I know that’s your dad’s favorite.”
In February—nearly ten months away—Nora’s collection was finally, finally going up at the Brigg. After infinite delays, endless nonsense. Bill had messed things up badly, promising the Foujitas on loan to the Ohara Museum in Japan before the Brigg even had a chance to display them itself. Yale was still on the mailing list for the gallery, and he’d been alarmed to notice that in the write-up of the show, every artist but Ranko Novak had been listed. Even Sergey Mukhankin was there. He’d called the gallery and pretended to be from Out Loud—why not?—and asked the woman who answered if there was an artist named Novak whose work would be featured. “I don’t see that,” she’d said. And Yale had leaned his head all the way back, left his chin and Adam’s apple pointed at the ceiling until his neck ached.
At least Nora had died believing she’d given Ranko his show, but whatever part of Yale believed in an afterlife (he was trying to believe, at least, lately) felt he’d let her down enormously. She’d trusted him, had left Ranko’s legacy in his hands alone, and he’d failed. And it had been her own work, too, even if she hadn’t seen it that way. Yale had wanted, more than anything, to see Nora’s portrait of Ranko on the gallery wall, next to Ranko’s portrait of her—a secret triumph only a couple of people would ever understand. And now it was all relegated to some storage closet. When he thought about it, his throat constricted. He hadn’t told Fiona the news yet; telling her would feel like telling Nora.
Yale and Fiona sat by the Dubuffet another half hour, but then they could hear everyone coming down Clark, and then they were there with their wind-battered signs, sweaty and hoarse. George Bush, you can’t hide! We charge you with genocide! There were news crews now, running backward in front of the mass. He spotted Asher right near the front, and Teddy too. Teddy was doing a postdoc at UC Davis, but he was back for this, and he’d caught up with Yale at the vigil. He was tan and happy, and he’d gained a few pounds, in a good way.
Yale and Fiona joined the chant: Health! Care! Is a right! Health care is a right! Whatever momentum he’d lost from their detour to the hotel, he easily picked back up again.
When was the last time he’d yelled? He’d yelled at Cubs games. He’d yelled at Charlie when they were breaking up. But he hadn’t yelled about AIDS. He hadn’t yelled at the government. He hadn’t yelled at the forces that had denied Katsu Tatami health insurance, at the county hospital system that had made Katsu wait two weeks for a bed when he couldn’t breathe and then let him die on a ward that smelled like piss. He hadn’t yelled yet at this new mayor and his lip service. He hadn’t yelled at the universe.
Fiona took his hand and led him into the fray, and they wove their way toward Asher. Asher was busy yelling into his megaphone, but he winked at them, and when he lowered it he said, “You okay?”
Yale said, “You know what this feels like? It’s like coming out all over again. I’m in the middle of downtown, shouting about being gay. I’m shouting about AIDS. And it’s amazing.”
“Stay with me, okay? You want these?” Asher reached into his pocket, pulled out a roll of Silence = Death stickers. “Put them everywhere. My friend stuck one right on a horse!”
Teddy bounded up, told them that back at the corner—Yale couldn’t see that far, but he heard the roar from that direction, the whistles and shouting—women had thrown fifteen mattresses into the street to represent the beds that lay vacant from understaffing. They were lying on them, making an impromptu women’s ward.