Carry Me Like Water

  5

  MARIA ELENA WAS WADING through the waters of one of Eddie’s journals as he stood over the stove and stirred the soup he was making for dinner. She held the baby in her arms as she read. “He doesn’t weigh very much,” she said half to herself, half to Eddie.

  “Well, give him a break. He’s still little. He doesn’t talk yet, either.”

  “He’s awfully quiet.”

  He nodded, only half-listening to his wife. The olive oil where he’d planned to saute the garlic was beginning to smoke. “Oh shit!” he said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the smoke alarm began blaring. Nena jerked at the noise. “Turn that thing off!” He placed the part in the oven, and climbed on a chair and reached for the alarm. He screwed it off the wall and took the battery out. The kitchen was quiet again.

  He looked around the room. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?”

  “The baby?”

  “What are you talking about, Eddie? He’s an angel—just look at him.”

  “Why isn’t he crying?”

  “What?”

  “Nena, that thing should have scared the hell out of him. Startle reflex—we all have startle reflexes. He didn’t hear it.”

  She looked at her son still lying peacefully in her arms. She had noticed it, too, though she’d said nothing. She was working hard at ignoring the fact that he didn’t respond to noises. She didn’t want to know. “He’s fine, Eddie.”

  He shook his head. “If you don’t take him to the pediatrician, then I will, Nena.”

  She nodded. “Take him, then. He’s going to tell you he’s fine.” She wondered why she was fighting what she already knew. He’s awfully quiet. She stared at her husband. She expected to see anger, but there was no anger in his face. Instead she saw the face of a worried father. She knew her husband was staring at the face of a frightened mother.

  “Are you OK?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You look upset.”

  “The fire alarm startled me.”

  “Me, too,” he said.

  “We’ll be fine,” she whispered to herself.

  6

  January 1988. San Francisco

  “Jacob Lesley, I’m not feeling very well lately.”

  “You’re working too hard, J.”

  “I’m not working too hard—I’ve never worked less in my life.”

  “Maybe you’re coming down with a cold.”

  “It doesn’t feel like a cold.”

  “You’re not a doctor. How the hell do you know?”

  “I know what a cold feels like, gringo. My lymph glands feel hard as a rock. Feel.” Joaquin took Jake’s hand and placed it on one of his glands. “See?”

  Jake nodded. “It’s nothing, J.” He started toward the door. “Take an aspirin. I’ll take you out to dinner.”

  “An aspirin, Jake? You want me to take an aspirin?”

  He heard the anger in Joaquin’s voice. “Don’t worry. Where does worry get you? You’re always worrying about everything. Lymph glands get enlarged for everything. They’re like little penises—they get excited all the time. Doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “What if—”

  “You’re fine.”

  “Right.” Joaquin shook his head.

  Jake pulled him against his chest. “It’s OK—don’t overreact. It’s Tony—his death has you a little rattled.”

  “It isn’t that. And how come you get to overreact about everything—and I don’t? You get to yell and kick and scream. You kicked the door down once, the goddamn bedroom door! I can’t even breathe too deeply because—if do, I’m labeled theatrical.”

  Jake smiled. “See, you’re getting that thing you get in your voice—like you’re in a play. That’s why I married you, for your sense of humor—your sense of drama.”

  “Are we married?”

  “Yes,” he said, “absolutely.”

  Joaquin pretended to be comforted. “Go to work,” he said. When his lover walked out the door, he shook his head. “I’m sick,” he whispered. It was no use to talk about it with him. Jake always avoided everything—and when he finally faced things, he faced them with a fist. “I’m sick, gringo.” He trusted his body. There was a reason he was bone tired, a reason why his glands felt like he was carrying a second set of testicles under his chin. He was carrying a weight, a heaviness he’d never known, and Jake was adding to it by his disgusting arrogance. He was going through an immortal phase—something he had skipped while growing up. He had survived his childhood, had survived his mother and his father, had survived a hundred lovers and at least that many fistfights. Jake had survived his drunken self-destructive twenties—after that, he thought he could keep everything at bay just by not being afraid. Joaquin sensed this visitor—this thing he had—would pound at the door—was pounding even now—would pound until he let him in and embraced him, until he let him take his body, his mind, and his life away like a strong wind stole the tiny seeds of a dandelion. He took a shower, slowly examining his body. It looked the same—a little weight loss but he was busy, yes, that was it, he would slow down and eat more. As he shaved, he couldn’t ignore the pain of his enlarged glands. Don 7 panic, Joaquin, it’s not that painful. You can’t even tell by looking. You can never tell by looking. He shook his head as he looked himself over in the mirror. “You look great,” he set aloud, “just great.” His heart raced. An anxiety attack, it’s just an anxiety attack. Panic held him now. He reached for a cigarette, then lit it. He trembled as he smoked it. He smoked another. He felt calmer. He walked into the bedroom and lit a candle. He always lit candles for special intentions. Jake hated them—especially because he never told him what the special intentions were.

  He had stayed awake at night worrying—worrying and listening to Jake snore. He snored so quietly, a man at peace, a man resting from his tabors, a man who had earned these quiet, necessary hours. Jake was so sure they were safe, so untouchable, had convinced himself they had escaped. They alone had escaped. For a second, Joaquin hated him. He felt the pain near his throat. He dressed himself after he lit his candle and walked slowly toward the free clinic. He didn’t want to go to Tom. He would go to Tom later. The counselor spoke to him in a soft, clear, tenor voice—was he sure he knew the facts, yes, yes, he nodded, knew them all. A man with warm hands drew the blood, and he thought his body was a strange and foreign thing. Did anybody know their body—did anybody? He looked away—didn’t even feel the needle take the blood. He signed something. Results in two weeks, maybe less. He walked away. He decided he wouldn’t come back, forget he had ever come here, live a long and happy life.

  The next two weeks were a daze. When people spoke to him, he wanted to tell them to shut up; he watched their lips, wanted to grab their words from the air and shove them back down their throats. When Jacob talked, he pretended to listen. He did a lot of smiling. He felt tike crying all the time. He made love to his Jake—almost like normal, only it was just a body thing—not a heart thing. His heart could do nothing but worry and mourn. During the day, he took walks, talked to himself, thought about his life. Hadn’t it been good—hadn’t it been a good life? If he was negative, he would praise God the rest of his days, be kind to all of the people in the world, be grateful for everything—good and bad—in his life. If he was negative—then he would never let himself feel this heavy again, and he would lighten burdens everywhere he walked. Were November’s night sweats really the flu? If he was negative—he would … For two weeks, he hoped. He knew, but he hoped. Was it so bad to hope? After all he had done, the life he had lived—the men he had loved—he still hoped? When the kind man in the free clinic told him as kindly as was humanly possible that he was positive, Joaquin almost smiled. It was almost a relief—to know. To finally know. He would never know anything like he knew this. Knowledge was power—it was true. Maybe he would live a long time. There was still a life to be lived. I’m only twenty-five, I’m only twenty-five. People live a long time.
Yes, people live a long time. More than ten years, and maybe they’ll find a cure—in my lifetime? In my lifetime? Ten years, yes, that’s a long time. I’ll be thirty-five by then. There is still a life to be lived.

  When Jacob opened the door, Joaquin smiled and hugged him. He looked into his eyes. “I’m positive,” he said.

  “What?”

  “A couple of weeks ago I went to the clinic.” He paused and looked at the expression on his lover’s face. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  He poured a lot of bourbon into their glasses—just a little ice. He handed one to Jake, the cold of the cubes still on his skin. Jake sat on the couch and said nothing.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, J?” He sounded numb and far like a light breeze against the growing grass.

  “You didn’t want to hear it.”

  “That’s not true,” he said.

  “You told me to take aspirin,” Joaquin almost yelled back.

  Jake nodded his head up and down as if his head were a buoy in the ocean. He finished his drink in one gulp, got up from the couch and fixed another. He sat down right next to Joaquin. “We should have gone together,”

  “It’s OK,” Joaquin said.

  “Call Tom.”

  Joaquin nodded. “I’ll call him. You should go, too.”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  They finished their drinks. Joaquin started for the door. “I think I’ll take a walk.” His back was toward his lover. As he opened the door, he felt Jake’s hand pulling him back inside. They stood in the doorway and looked at each other saying nothing. “I’m sorry,” Jake said. “Forgive me.”

  In all of the years they had been together, Jake had never said “I’m sorry.” He was not the kind of man who ever overtly asked for any kind of forgiveness for any reason. After a fight or a disagreement, he would simply make some kind of gesture—dinner, a movie, a quiet weekend. He was better at gestures than at words. “After all this time, you don’t know that I’ve forgiven you?”

  Lizzie stared at Joaquin’s burning candle as she sat in the room.

  “Will you miss me when I die?”

  “I thought you were asleep,” she said softly.

  “Will you miss me?”

  “Funny man,” Lizzie said, “Always being funny. I’ll miss you, miss you, miss you.” She pushed his hair off his face.

  “Three times.”

  “Three times for luck.”

  He laughed. “Jake says you have out-of-body experiences.”

  “Yes,” she nodded, “I do.”

  “I’m about to have one, too,” he said.

  She smiled crookedly.

  “Jake doesn’t believe you—about your experiences.”

  “I know. Did you expect he would?”

  “No—I guess not. Tom believes you. Tom says you’re real, the real thing.”

  “As opposed to what? As opposed to whom?”

  Joaquin ignored her question, “Lizzie, did you dream me?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Am I your dream?”

  “You are much more than my dream. So much more than that, my love.”

  “But don’t we invent each other?”

  “What a strange thing to say.”

  “Isn’t it true, though? Don’t we just make each other up?”

  “Well, in a way. I guess so. Still, we’re real aren’t we?”

  “I don’t know anymore. Except my body, it hurts. That’s the only thing that’s real.” He sipped on a glass of water. “My throat’s so dry. Did you know that I was born in the desert? They say you return to where you were born when you die. Already my mouth is full of sand.” He stared up at her. “My mother used to say there was a grain of sand for every human being that was ever bom and died. When I die, I will become a grain of sand.”

  She nodded.

  “You’re a very kind woman. Why did you come here? Was it my mother, did my mother send you?”

  “No, not your mother. You asked me to come—don’t you remember? I heard you. You asked me. And so I came.”

  “I remember,” he said, “yes.” He took another sip of the cold water, the sweat running down his face like the sweat that used to run down his chest after a run. “I used to be very healthy, you know? You never knew me when I was—will you take care of Jake?”

  “Your job isn’t to worry about Jake. Jake will be fine.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “I’ll see to it,” she said.

  “And you’ll help him find Jonathan?”

  “Jonathan?”

  “His brother.”

  “Yes, I’ll help him find Jonathan.”

  “Read to me,” he said.

  “What should I read?”

  “Anything. Anything to help me sleep, to help me dream.” “Well, I should have brought my journal—that would make you sleep.” She laughed. “Though I doubt it would help you dream.”

  “Will you?” he asked. He smiled. “Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  She brought her journals the next day. For two weeks, she read him sections, different entries, she smiled as she read pans of them. It didn’t seem that it was her life at all. She laughed at some of her entries. They seemed to have so little to do with anything that was real. Well, what was the harm? She liked reading them to Joaquin—it made her feel as if she were keeping him alive. He would stop her sometimes and ask her questions. “You have bad taste in men,” he said once.

  “Well, not always,” she said. “You’re a man, aren’t you?”

  “Queers don’t count.”

  “You are a man.” she said deliberately, “a man. And queers count.”

  “OK,” he said.

  Joaquin looked up at his lover as he bathed him. He almost enjoyed the feel of his soapy hands on his skin. He was calm and steady and careful. “I won’t break,” he said.

  “You might.”

  Joaquin smiled. “How did it come to this?”

  Jake stopped washing him, and sat down on the bathroom floor staring at his lover. He tried to imagine Joaquin as he used to be. He was the same man. He was not the same man.

  “Don’t look at me,” Joaquin said.

  “What will happen if I look, J?”

  “If you look at me too hard, you’ll make me want to live.”

  Jake looked down at the floor. He stared at his hands.

  “It’s hard for you, isn’t it, Jake?”

  “I’m not dying, you are.”

  “I’m the future.”

  “J, if you’re the future, I could do a lot worse.” Jake placed his hands in the water, cupped them, and held as much water as he could in them. He lifted his cupped hands in the air. If I hold my hands very tight, he thought, then the water will stay. But already it was pouring through his fingers. He slowly let the water go back into the bathtub. Joaquin stared up at the ceiling as if he were trying to imagine himself somewhere else. “Joaquin, are you afraid?”

  “Someone in the village where I was from was always dying. They used to ring the church bells and we’d go. I grew up kissing other people’s caskets before they lowered them into the ground—that was my life. And how many friends have we lost, Jake? Death after death after death. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of grieving. You want to know if I’m afraid? Sometimes. Sometimes, I’m terrified. But most of the time I’m not. Why the hell should I be afraid, Jacob Lesley? Hell, I’m more afraid that this will go on forever.”

  Jake looked down at the floor as Joaquin spoke.

  “Look at me. Don’t look at the floor. You’ve spent enough time looking at it—you stare at that floor as if you might find a cure down there. It isn’t there, gringo, I know you don’t want me to die. but I don’t want to live, anymore. I don’t. I don’t. Look at this body. I’m suffering, Jake. I know how to spell that word now—I know what that word means. I know every letter of that sad and ugly word. Do you understand? Do you know what that is?”

  J
ake nodded. “Let me help you out of the tub.” He helped Joaquin up, his bony body trembling. He imagined that the drops of water dripping from his body were tears. His body was crying. He dried them off. He carried him to bed, and stared at his eyes. They were still the same.

  December 24, 1972

  It was a cold night to be crossing the river. Joaquin could see his breath in front of him, and he tried to catch the warmth with his hands, but his hands were too small and too slow. His coat was too thin for this weather. His mother whispered that the desert was being unkind to them tonight. She had always said the desert was a fickle god not to be trusted. She stopped and rubbed his arms and legs. She whispered words in his ears that sounded like prayers. He hugged her when she finished and told her he was not afraid. He lied, but he did not want her to know. He had never felt so strange, nor had he ever felt this scared. He was glad it was cold: His mother would think he was shaking from the cold. He wanted to go back to the village. He wanted to go back to the house where he had been born. But he did not tell her what he felt. She should not be worrying about him, not now. She was doing this for him. Yes, that’s why they were doing this. He watched his mother as she walked through the desert. He thought there would be nothing when she died. She had always been there from the beginning, and the world seemed hard to imagine without her smile or her touch or her voice. He smiled at her. When she died the world would end. He told her he was fine. He was fine. The man leading them said they had to hurry. They walked quickly like pilgrims reaching their shrine—at last—happy at last because they had been afraid they might not find what they were seeking. When they reached the river, his mother made the sign of the cross. The river was not very wide. He thought it would be much bigger, much wider. It was not far to the other side.