* * *
Fraser’s parents, Ata, and Pierre entered the hospital waiting room and Mrs. Goodman stopped abruptly, eyeing Fraser’s “bad taste of character,” his gardener and “house boy,” Vernon. Ata went over and hugged him. Vernon awkwardly patted her back, eyes bouncing off Mrs. Goodman as they settled to wait for the doctor.
Vernon tapped his suede Hush Puppies. He shifted his long gaberdined legs and slouched a little in the hard plastic seat. Fraser and Pierre used to laugh at Ata’s imitation of Vernon’s voice and manner of speech, an incomprehensible, deep rumble that rolled out as he looked everywhere but at you. His eyes were shuttered but smart and dark-street wise, when you got a glimpse of them. In his early twenties, tall and darker than Fraser, he had an invisibility about him, a way of wearing clothes so that you didn’t notice his body. So when you saw him topless, with perfect abs and every muscle moving as he swept leaves, it was shocking. Like a stray dog used to being unnoticed, he could appear and disappear without a shadow, just slipping past the gate, down the steps, to his “grotto,” as Fraser called it. His fleeting handsomeness was captured in a quick sketch by Fraser and it made you wonder how you could miss it. Or, could Fraser only see this for his attraction to him? His romantic attraction to ghettoness. Or artist’s eye for beauty in the unusual. Mrs. Goodman had repeatedly warned Fraser about having Vernon “all inside” his house and about letting him drive his jeep. “You can’t trust them,” she insisted. And Fraser would hand Vernon his keys while looking her straight in the eye.
Mrs. Goodman glared at Vernon like he had no right to be at the hospital now. She sat there quivering her purple-tinted hair at him but then SC arrived together with Helen the Greek, Fraser’s best friend. After hugging everyone firmly and somberly enough, SC had to break the silence. “Oh jeez, this is something else, eh? Who could’a guess? Youall had any idea…?” She needed no answer but turned straight to Vernon, to feel some impact.
He squirmed, with more than his usual discomfort, in her full-on female presence.
“Thank God for Pierre’s doctor-friend or else he could’a … knock out, right there on the couch.”
Helen had sat quietly next to Mrs. Goodman, holding her hand and staring deep into her eyes. Her full, genuine features radiated all the goddess compassion and intelligence that Fraser worshipped.
“And poor Thomas, all now-so he must be still blaming heself … Jeez, man.”
“The thing is, we all feel guilty,” Helen said, looking at Mrs. Goodman. “It’s natural we feel we didn’t do enough.”
Mr. Goodman was looking at Mrs. Goodman too, looking for the guilt. She glared at Vernon some more.
A clack of shoes approaching announced Dr. Turner, a tall female nephrologist with a slight stoop, ill-fitting ordinary clothes, and a medical preoccupation about her — the air of someone who cares more about their profession than their own health and appearance. Dr. Turner turned to the parents.
After the complicated report and answers about procedures were finished, Helen kept looking anxiously from Dr. Turner to Mrs. Goodman, again and again. Something else was bothering Helen. She pretended to usher Dr. Turner out, to get out of earshot. The details had already been softened by all the general predictions and preparatory medical explanations of renal failure but Fraser’s parents both looked a little older and weaker. SC put an arm around Mrs. Goodman’s narrow shoulders.
“We going in to see him,” Mrs. Goodman said to Ata and Pierre. “When Helen comes back, tell her to meet us in there.”
SC moved off slowly with them toward Fraser’s room
“There’s something more, that Helen’s hiding,” Ata whispered.
“I daresay,” Pierre mumbled, hugging himself again.
Vernon was still seated across the room, studying his hands.
Pierre continued, “They had to test for HIV, of course. And that would change everything. It’s highly likely.”
Ata almost hit him in sheer anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“The results are only now ready! It’s only a possibility … and I didn’t want to worry you any more—”
“I should have thought of it anyway, of course it’s a possibility. But … I don’t like you hiding things from me.”
Helen returned and Pierre demanded immediately, “He’s positive, isn’t he?”
Helen looked at him, startled, then she softened.
“Worse. It’s advanced too. You know as well as I do that renal failure is sometimes the consequence of AIDS.”
Ata’s eyes welled as she turned away and held on to the aluminum window rim.
“But we don’t have to tell his mother this — it would kill her!” Helen insisted. “It would kill him — to come out of a coma and find out that his mother knows, before he has a chance to…”
“The doctor wants, is obligated, to tell the parents but I asked her to give us some time.”
“What? You plan not to inform his parents?” Pierre demanded again.
Ata turned back to them as Helen accused Pierre of not understanding Fraser’s relationship with his parents.
“But they do have a right to the full picture of what’s happening with their son. And how could we ask Dr. Turner to not do what she’s legally and ethically bound to? We can’t do that,” Pierre said, as if he had the final say.
“At least give it a few days — give Fraser a chance to gain consciousness and tell his parents himself, or give permission to someone else to do so.”
“And if something happens?”
“Like what?” Ata asked instantly.
They all became silent as the true implications crept through.
“They can’t put him on hemodialysis because they only have two machines, and everyone has to use them,” Helen whispered.
Wood-lash pain-cracking ribs and heartstrings twang. Breath feeding life falters, curdles, wringing soul salt. Ata crumpled into tears with Helen now, hugging. Over her shoulder she saw Vernon sitting across there, looking at them.
“I’ll ask Dr. Turner again if she could put it off for a few days. It’s asking a lot but I’ll try.”
Vernon watched all of this and no one knew how much he could hear, how much he wanted to hear or maybe knew already.
~ ~ ~
“IT SHOULD CONSUME YOU!” God of Design’s voice rings steel-clear in the big old airplane hangar. Ata’s shadow hops in ahead of her in the slanty sunlight, through the door cut out of the metal entrance, to work. Her eyes cool from the outside brightness.
“Imagine. Just imagine.” His white T-shirt materializes in the dim center. Performers, dressed in black, group dark round him. He starts twisting up his body, contorting. “Let your mind crawl beyond your eyes. Let it move your body, push away limits. Let it breathe and expand. Fill up this whole space!” He flings out his arms and spins around.
Ata can see clearer now. Hanging his glary face forward, Slinger shrinks the dancers, pushing them back. Elfin ears red and trembling, blazing eyes skinning under a clean white skull, he pauses. None of the performers know where to look, unsure if they should stare back in his eyes, or freeze looking at a speck on the floor, or what. Dare not smile. A few new members glance around, fidgeting.
“IMAGINE!” So loud everyone jumps. It booms out like his chest is an empty warehouse itself. “A parade in celebration of … a wedding! Cupid has been at work and Venus is at her peak. Imagine. Columbus is marrying Liberty. Saint Valentine has given his blessing, Eros a gift, and all the gods in heaven are watching — the Old World marries the New. The conqueror and the virgin. But oh!” He jumps aside and crouches.