He said, “Where’s Roscoe?”
“Who the hell is Roscoe?”
“The cat. Nico’s cat. Terrence had him.”
“That’s what you’re concerned about? I’m sure Fiona has it.”
Yale said, “I was with him at the hospital on New Year’s.”
“That’s good. I’m glad.”
“Where the fuck were you on New Year’s?”
“Yale, don’t start. The thing is, the service is at three.”
“Today?” How many days had passed? Two? This seemed even less plausible, even more of a horrid joke than the actual death. He said, “Wait. So he what, he called an ambulance on Friday? Or someone found him? What time?”
“I don’t know the details, Yale.”
“How is this happening today?” He was asking the wrong questions. Watching Julian’s production of Hamlet, he’d been struck by Laertes’ response to Ophelia’s death. “O, where?” he’d said when he heard the news. But yes, look, it was right: The details were what you grabbed for.
“Fiona’s organized it.” Of course; that was part of the whole power of attorney thing, dealing with the body. Charlie said, “It’ll be odd if we aren’t there together.”
“Will it.”
“I just mean we shouldn’t burden Fiona with this right now. You can sit beside me. It won’t kill you.”
Yale had never hit anyone in his life, not really hit, but he wanted to right then. He wanted to grab all the gay weeklies from around the country that Charlie hung on those pretentious racks behind his desk and crumple them, one by one, in his face.
But Charlie looked so tired. Blue moons under his eyes.
Yale said, even though he knew it was ridiculous, “Where did you even have this testing done?”
“Yale. It’s positive. I was exposed, and it’s positive. One plus one is two. I’m dead.” He flung out the last word like a hand grenade.
And if Charlie had broken down right then, if his face had crumpled—Yale might have softened, gone around to him, held him in his arms even as he stared out the window conflicted. But Charlie’s face didn’t change.
Yale had come here planning to yell, and the fact that he wasn’t yelling was concession enough.
Charlie said, “Would you please just sit near me at the bloody church so we don’t have to explain this to everyone?”
The thing was, Yale wasn’t ready to explain it either.
“I’ll need a suit. Fuck. Is Teresa in the apartment?”
“I can call and send her on an errand.”
“Yes, please do.”
“It’s at the Unitarian place. You’ve got, what, two hours?” This was the same church where they’d held services for Asher’s friend Brian. A gay-friendly church right off Broadway, and thus—recently—Funeral Central.
Yale said, “I don’t even understand. I don’t get—” And he stopped talking, wiped his face with his sleeve.
Charlie said, “I’m sorry you’re so torn up about Terrence.”
“Okay, Charlie.” Instead of screaming, he walked out of the office. He closed the door, really believing that Charlie would call him back, chase him down. Had this truly been their first and only conversation since Yale had called him, jubilant, from Wisconsin? He’d talked to Charlie so many times in his head that it didn’t seem right.
And how had he left without making Charlie apologize, beg forgiveness, explain?
He got angrier as he walked. He’d felt deflated in the office, but the cold air, the sun, every step away from Charlie, filled him again with indignation. Charlie had not, for an instant, expressed concern for Yale, for his health.
But then had Yale said, at least, “I’m sorry you’re infected”? Maybe they were both terrible, prideful people. Maybe they deserved each other.
He tried to imagine the kind of man who, faced with the news that his jealous lover was, in fact, making a fool of him and had blithely exposed him to a fatal disease, would say it didn’t matter, would stay calm and supportive and sign up for months, years, of bedside care and devastation. Who would do that? A saint, maybe. A patsy. It had taken ages for Yale to learn to stick up for himself—after those boys on the basketball team tricked him, hadn’t he gamely sat with them at lunch the next day?—but apparently, somewhere along the line, he’d figured it out.
He knocked first to make sure Teresa was gone, and he turned the key slowly. He hated the version of himself that had stood here last, ready to share the details of his amazing trip, oblivious to the coming ambush. He hated that if the Yale from three days ago could see the Yale of right now, he’d misinterpret the scene, think he was coming home from lunch somewhere, a little bedraggled but happy, normal.
Everything was slightly out of place. Teresa’s pillbox sat on the table next to a New Yorker he hadn’t seen yet. A stack of cassette tapes stood balanced on the arm of the couch, as if Charlie had been sorting them or looking up lyrics. Yale found his own mail stacked neatly by the phone. Some alumni thing, a postcard from his cousin in Boston. No utility bills, thank God, or he’d have torn them up, left the scraps on the floor. Yale usually paid the rent, but the apartment was in Charlie’s name; he’d been living here when they met.
Yale changed into his suit, and then he found a decent-sized box on top of the refrigerator—Charlie had bought a carton of grapefruit right after New Year’s for some fundraiser—and filled it: his passport, his grandfather’s watch, two shirts, a pair of khakis. His checkbook, and a mug of CTA tokens. He put Nico’s Top-Siders in there, but shoved the other clothes he’d been wearing into the laundry hamper for Charlie or Teresa to deal with. He put his dress shoes into the box for later, got his snow boots from the front closet. He padded the rest of the box with socks and underwear and draped the whole thing with a sweater. He’d have taken a suitcase, but the only big one was Charlie’s.
In the refrigerator were cold cuts he’d bought before his trip. They ought to be long expired, from a different decade, but they were still fresh, still fine. He made a sandwich with turkey and Muenster and stood at the counter to eat.
It felt too normal—as if Charlie were down the hall, ready to step out of the shower with a towel around his waist, everything fine. He could put his hand on Charlie’s chest, feel his heart through his wet, warm skin. The truth was his body missed Charlie, or missed Charlie’s body. Just the presence of it. Not sexually, not yet, although surely that would get worse, on nights when he lay alone and awake. The tensed muscles of Charlie’s thighs, the way he bit Yale’s ears, the taste of him, the impossibly slick smoothness under his foreskin. Well, here it was, then: longing, missing. The most useless kind of love.