But Hector couldn’t really concentrate. Out of the haze of the past few days, jigsaw pieces of anxiety were floating back into his consciousness: he had left Brisa, the dog, his prize bitch and only constant companion, with a tweaker friend in New York whom he thought would be trustworthy because he claimed he wasn’t doing meth anymore, just some ketamine. Hector took pride in that he never let his partying keep him from feeding, walking, or showering love on Brisa — he’d take her to the vet when he was crashing if he had to, numbed out on Klonopin — but he hadn’t much thought of the wisdom of leaving her with fucking Scooter Rosen, who had twice nearly died from GHB overdoses. Then there was the rental car. He hadn’t even thought to tell this lady — um, this Dreena or Deana? what was her name again? — about the car he’d left parked outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
And the kid. This thought pierced the glue of his brain. Walking out on the kid and the girl and the twink from Palm Springs in that apartment, everybody boinked out of their mind on what had to be about four different drugs. The scene started to take up space there again, as he listened to the AA people babble, growing like a vision in a nightmare that was peaking. He knew that the EMTs came. But still. .
He’d been staring off, absently watching the dogs in the dog run, when he blinked back and realized everyone was giving him that horrible kind, expectant look. He’d apparently not heard someone say something.
The rich woman who’d brought him here put a hand lightly on his arm. “Do you have a burning desire to say something?” she asked him softly.
He felt his face burn scarlet. They were all fucking waiting for him to say something? He shook his head. Everyone held him in their kind, concerned stare for a moment longer, as though they really didn’t believe him, before someone else raised their hand and the focus was blessedly taken off him.
Then — oh God — the meeting was ending, everyone was clapping, and they were standing and holding hands and saying that fucking prayer. The rich lady slipped her hand into his. Of course he’d come across this prayer in his past rehab stints. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. What the fuck did that mean? He’d acknowledged the last time he was in rehab that he couldn’t change the fact that Ricky and nearly everyone else had died and he hadn’t. Did he have the courage to change the fact that he’d become a meth head? He didn’t see it that way. He personally didn’t have an interest in changing it. He had the benefits that covered his rent, the food stamps, Brisa, and the buddies to party or crash with day and night. He still managed to get to Fire Island or take a plane somewhere now and then. And the way he saw it, the medications had been invented, he’d done his job. Nobody really died of AIDS anymore. He’d done enough.
As soon as the meeting was over, the rich lady and the AIDS bear Vinny walked over to him. “So what’s your story?” Vinny asked him. “Where do you live?”
He stared at Vinny blankly. “New York,” he said finally.
“Hector sort of found himself in L.A.,” the rich lady said.
Vinny had beautiful watery blue eyes that bore into Hector intensely, a look of empathy and connection that made Hector want to crawl in a hole. “You want to come with us for coffee?” Vinny asked.
“How are you feeling?” the rich lady asked him.
He struggled for words, openmouthed. He could walk away again. He could — what? Rudely walk away and go off and try to find the rental car. But he knew he wouldn’t do it. He knew he would kill himself before he got that far — the courage to kill himself, at the moment, was far greater than his courage to clean up the mess he’d made.
“I need to talk to you for a second,” he said to the rich lady.
She and Vinny looked at each other. “Just me?” she asked him.
“Just for a second,” he said. He managed to put a hand on Vinny’s upper arm. “Sorry, just a sec,” he said.
Vinny and the rich lady glanced at each other again. “No worries,” Vinny said. “We’re hanging out here for a second. Let us know if you want to tag along.” Vinny walked back over to the group at large — the group that was all smiles and chatter and hugs.
“What is it?” the rich lady asked. “You want me to take you to the ER?”
Did he? “I dunno,” he said. “I dunno where to go.”
Her brows knitted close together, appraising him. “I think we better go to the ER,” she said. “I’m worried about leaving you alone.”
“I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
“You know the kid? Your friend’s kid you mentioned who ran off?”
“You mean Mateo?”
“Yeah.” Oh God, he thought, this was the point of no return.
The rich lady’s face darkened. “What about him?” she asked.
“I was with him out here. We were, um, partying — getting high — together.”
She stared at him, baffled. “What? You — you guys are friends?”
“Uh—” He was stammering, shaking. “We would get high together in New York. At my place.”
“Oh my God,” the rich lady said. She stepped back slowly, her hand over her mouth. “You got him into heroin? In your neighborhood?”
“No!” he said, startled.
“You came out here and found him?”
“No! I didn’t even know he was out here. He texted me and told me to come over.”
“What? Come over where?”
“To a — to a girl’s house.”
“When?”
“Like, two days ago.”
“That’s when he disappeared. Well, where, where? Where is the house?” She was panicking now.
“I don’t know, I don’t know! It was near the church.”
“What church?” Her voice was rising now, attracting the attention of the others. At the edges of his vision, Hector saw the bear Vinny walking back toward them.
“The big modern church.”
She threw up her hands, as if to say, That’s a big help. “Was he okay?” she asked. Vinny stepped up to her side, put an arm around her.
“We were all high. I called the ambulance.”
“Did they come? What happened?”
He felt like she was going to hit him. He stepped back a pace or two. “I saw the ambulance pull up and I drove away.”
Her hands flew to her mouth again. “Oh my God!” she cried, walking away from him, aghast.
“Sh-sh-sh, it’s gonna be okay,” Vinny said, taking her in closer. Hector shrank before him — a shame he’d tamped down for years rose up from his chest and seared him in the face.
“Just explain to me what’s going on,” Vinny said, looked from the rich lady to Hector and back again.
The rich lady gasped in a long breath, took Vinny by the elbows. “A friend’s son who was staying with me,” she managed to say. “I have to make calls to see what happened to him.” She was already rifling through her big expensive leather bag, pulling out her iPhone, a little notebook, a pen. She turned abruptly to Hector. “How could you not have said something when I first told you about Mateo?” she pleaded.
She walked away toward the picnic tables where the meeting had been. Hector felt like his head was on fire with shame. He began weeping.
Vinny put a hand on his shoulder. “I think you better let me take you to the ER,” he said. “What’s your name again?”
Hector managed to say his first name.
Vinny stared at him a bit funny. “Are you Hector Villanueva?”
Hector looked at him, startled.
“I was an activist, too,” Vinny said. “In San Fran. I remember we met at a conference, like, twenty-two years ago. In New York.”