“Don’t worry,” Hank said. “You’ll get through
it.”
“You say that like there’s hope.”
“There’s always hope.”
I didn’t believe him, but I thought he was talking
about Matt. He was actually talking about me.
“You should come to the support meetings.”
“With Matt?”
“No. There are support groups for Matt, but as a
caregiver, you need to speak with other caregivers. You’ll learn a
lot.”
That’s just what I needed — living mirrors into my
soul. Hank hugged me.
“What’s that for?”
“You needed it. Come to the support group next
Wednesday. If Matt has a bad day, I’ll come here.”
“Baby sit?”
“I don’t think he’d like to hear that.”
“I know he wouldn’t. If he’s poorly on Wednesday, I
can ask his mom or his sister . . .”
“You’ll come then?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Hank stood, and then walked to the kitchen.
“Mr. Matt,” he said. “I’s be goin’ back to
darkietown, now. I’s see you soon.”
Matt laughed.
“Stop that now.”
Hank turned to me.
“We’ll all be fine now. You’ll see. The path is
steep, but as long as you know where to step, none of you will fall
off the mountain.”
And that’s how we met our
perfect
stranger.
I wasn’t sure how the Buddy Service deal was going
to work out, but it added to the situation's depth . . . initially.
Hank would stop by with the mail, dive into the dishes if I had
left them in the sink, dust the furniture and Lysol the tub. He was
never idle when he arrived. He was pleasant and informative.
However, I soon learned the power of this service.
Matt had a bad day at work and I received the
inevitable rescue call. He had his diaper on and the spare, but he
was so woozy that he couldn’t make it through the afternoon. This
was a problem, because if I left the tie counter early once more, I
would be shit-canned. The blue-pencil warned me. She kept me in her
scopes. Then, I called Hank. Luck had it, he was available. So he
drove over to Axum Labs, picked Matt up and took him home. By the
time I arrived at the apartment, they were playing gin rummy and
laughing up a storm. I could have kissed them both. I decided that
I owed Hank the courtesy of going to the support group in New
Brunswick, so I left Matt on a particularly good evening where he
was engrossed on the computer. I drove to Bayard Street, parked in
Ferran Deck and sought the old brownstone headquarters for the
Hyacinth Foundation.
As I mounted the short flight to the old wood and
glass doors, the light from the foyer braced me. I was fearful of
this place on some level. It represented a repository of all the
things I needed to know, but didn’t want to know. Still, it was
friendly inside — long flights of stairs, rattletrap elevators,
bulletin boards flapping circulars of events and items for sale,
and a few offices, one of which was open.
“Yes, can I help you?” asked a woman in a green
button down sweater.
“I’m looking for the support group.”
“Caregiver or patient?”
“Caregiver.”
She smiled.
“Bless you,” she said. “I’m Marie Blanchard. Welcome
to Hyacinth. You’re early, you know, but that’s okay. Here.”
She swiped a goodly sample of brochures from a wall
rack.
“Read these. You’ll find them helpful. The meeting
is up the stairs on the third floor. Room 12-G.”
“Thank you.”
I stared at the pamphlets —
The Latest
Treatments. A Study of HIV at Johns Hopkin. What Every Caregiver
Needs to Know. The Story of Hyacinth.
I gave her a dim smile,
and then hiked up the long stairs to the second floor, which
contained a large auditorium and a series of classrooms. The next
flight was narrower. The oaken age of the place warmed me. At the
top of the stairs stood a tall handsome dude, who rocked on his
heels, waiting for something, I knew not what.
“Hi,” I said. “Is this the support group?”
“I believe so,” he said.
He was hesitant, so I assumed he was new to this
also.
“12-G?” I asked.
He pointed around the corner. I nodded and found the
room. I was the first to arrive — well except the dude in waiting,
but he didn’t follow me in. So I took a seat near the window. It
was a small room, the chairs set in a circle, but I found the one
chair apart. I needed air and the window was open, a cool breeze
blowing in over the fire escape. I brushed through the pamphlets —
fidgeting.
I could read these at home
, I thought. However,
the one entitled
The Story of Hyacinth
seemed short enough,
and not clinical. I didn’t need clinical now, so I flipped it open
and read:
The Story of Hyacinth
Welcome to the Hyacinth Foundation, an organization
dedicated to the care and easement of the angels who have fallen on
harsh times and have contracted HIV. Our mission is to bring those
who enlist to support People with AIDS, mingling wellness and
suffering to create hope. We are named for Hyacinth and inspired by
his story.
The god Apollo watched a field of young men at sport
and was smitten by the youth named Hyacinth, the strongest and most
beautiful of his kind. He was perfect in all respects. Apollo took
to the field and played among these fellows — the javelin, the
discus and the race. Apollo threw his discus with ease, but it
veered off course and struck Hyacinth’s forehead. The youth
collapsed mortally wounded. Apollo held him in his arms and prayed
to his father Zeus to spare Hyacinth’s life, but blood had been
spilled. It poured profusely. The youth lay dying. Apollo wept, his
tears mingling with Hyacinth’s blood, and where they mingled and
touched the ground, the flowers bloomed. Those flowers are known
now as Hyacinths until this very day.
Both inspired and named for these flowers, the
mingling of angel blood and volunteer tears fosters a hope where
all else withers on the vine.
I was quietly weeping by the time the others entered
the room.
There were ten of us and a group leader.
“Come join the circle . . .”
“Martin,” I said.
The leader was Earl Daly. He wasn’t a doctor or a
psychologist or a specialist. He was an accountant who had lost his
lover two years ago and who dedicated his off-ledger days to
Hyacinth.
“Welcome, Martin.”
The others introduced themselves. I didn’t know
anyone. I thought maybe that I’d recognize someone from the bar
scene or the chorus, but no. Fresh faces, and friendly ones, except
the tall dude I had already met. He wasn’t unfriendly, but he was
also new to it, I assumed. The others were regulars. They chatted
about their charges — one had a new recipe for a wheat-germ and
spinach mixer, which helped fortify the AZT, while another gave his
neighbor tips on how to circumvent the lines at the food bank in
Plainfield. It made me quite dizzy.
“Let’s get started,” Earl said.
He was a big man with a booming voice. I could see
him on the podium or the pulpit. In fact, I thought he might have
been a preacher and was surprised later to find out about his
devotion to accountancy.
“How’s Francis,” he asked. “Is he out of the
hospital?”
“Two more days,” said an oriental lad, who squinted.
He had a twitch. “It was the worst bout yet.” He glanced at me as
if to supply an index, a reference point, which was polite of him.
“Francis has Toxoplasmosis. I’m glad he’s coming home. I didn’t
think he . . .”
He suddenly choked up. The man next to him gave him
a hug.
“Let it out, Tu,” Earl said. “You know you’re among
friends here. Let it out.”
Everyone rubbed Tu’s back, except the tall dude, who
remained strangely aloof, and myself. I wasn’t sure what to do.
These were strangers. True, we had something in common and if I
continued to come to these meetings, I’d be hugging Tu too, and
perhaps even getting a back rub myself. However, it was awkward.
Earl suddenly looked about.
“Where’s Perry?”
“He called me. Bobby’s in the tank.”
“Which one?”
“Old Bridge Regional.”
“Shame.”
The hugs subsided. The rubs frittered away. There
was a momentary silence for this Bobby person and perhaps thoughts
for his caregiver. I wasn’t sure I could stay here. I’d be better
off in church singing
Hallelujahs
and expunging my sorrows
in the collection plate.
“We have two new faces here tonight,” Earl said.
That broke the silence. He glanced at the tall dude,
who didn’t say anything. Finally, he muttered a single word.
“Mutt.”
“Mutt?”
“Yes, Mutt.”
“Welcome Mutt.” Earl turned to me.
“Martin,” I said, although I had already introduced
myself. I decided we had entered into the formal body of the
meeting.
“Welcome, Martin,” Earl said again, this time
followed by a round of
Welcome Martins
from the circle. I
also noticed there was no similar
Welcome Mutt
, but Mutt was
singularly . . . single. He might have been an observer — doing a
paper for a class at Rutgers or something.
“We’re an informal group, Martin. We usually just
introduce ourselves and then our circumstances and go on from
there.”
He waited for me. Introducing myself was easy.
“Well, I’m Martin Powers, as I’ve already said, and
I’m from Long Branch, and live with my partner in Eatontown. I work
at the Monmouth Mall at A&S’.”
That stirred interest — perhaps thoughts of getting
discounts and notions of that kind. I greeted their approval with a
smile. The next part was harder. I had not talked about Matt to
anyone, not even his family. They could see his condition — the
good days. The bad days. However, I had never had the floor to put
a spotlight on reality. There was a long silence.
Look away,
look away silence.
Shit. I had to do it otherwise there was no
use being at the meeting.
“My partner . . . my lover, Matt has full-blown
AIDS. He’s still . . . ambulatory.” I was going for the clinical
terms here among the stricken. “He has had one episode. PCP and was
in a bad way, but has been okay since, knock on wood.” To my
surprise, they did — chair backs pounded. I smiled. This was
support indeed. “I have a buddy now — Hank LaCrosse.”
“Henri LeCroix,” Earl said.
That was when I learned Hank’s real name. I
blinked.
“Yes, Henri . . . Hank, and he suggested that this
group might help me . . . help me . . .”
“Get through it all,” Tu said.
The others concurred — This is the place. We’ll be
there for you.
“There’s nothing more to say.”
“Are you passive?”
Passive?
What the hell was he talking about?
I haven’t been passive since I shot out of Viv Power’s womb. I
shrugged.
“Are you HIV positive also?”
“Oh. No. No, I’ve been tested and so far I’m
negative. Does that matter?”
“Not in the short run,” Earl said. “But those who
are positive and caregivers need extra continuity support. We just
like to know up front as a matter of course.”
“Well, thank you.” They were a bit nosey, but they
meant well. I had new images of Hyacinth dying in Apollo’s arms,
and the blood and the tears and the mingling — always the mingling.
This I guessed was the bloomin’ flowers. It hadn’t dawned on me yet
that this little circle — me included, were a field of Hyacinths
shining toward heaven, crying out to the world with hope — mutual
hope. Earl placed his big paw on my knee.
“Martin, this is the place for sharing. Nothing is
too insignificant to share here. You aren’t alone. No one is alone.
You only need to hear it and you will know.”
“I’m alone,” Mutt said.
He startled me and stirred the group.
“Mutt,” Earl said. “How can you be alone when you’re
sitting within our circle?”
“One can be alone on a crowded street.”
There was pain in his eyes — his eyes were dark and
piercing.
“That’s true,” Earl said, “but I assure you, being
alone is a state of mind.”
“Is it?” Mutt said.
“Tell us. Who are you? Who?”
“I told you already. I’m Mutt.”
“But . . .”
“Where am I from? Where am I going? What the hell.
I’m from Little Ferry.”
“Quite a trek down here.”
“My lover lived in Somerset. So I bounce between the
two places. But I’ve been living in San Francisco.”
“Then, you’ll have a lot to share with us. AIDS has
hit there quite hard.”
Mutt twitched, even more than Tu had.
“Hard there. Let me tell you.” He became agitated.
“I moved there for fun. I’m a party hound. It was wonderful. You
can’t believe it . . . man, it was nice. Shit, it was . . . Well,
my friends started getting sick. One by one they were strapped into
hospital beds with oxygen masks or creeping with lesions. Their
hair fell out . . . their teeth. I did everything I could. I joined
support groups. I raised money, lots of money. I went to funerals,
lots of funerals. I buried my lover out there. Still, I had hope
and kept the candlelight vigils.”
He shook his head. I could see the tears welling,
but he fought them. I couldn’t fight mine. I wanted him to stop.
What he was describing wasn’t my little world of Matt and his
diapers. It was a pandemic.
“Then one morning I woke up and . . . I was alone.
They were all gone. All those beautiful angels were gone. I had
buried them and . . . and I had no one. I knew no one. So I came
home to New Jersey. Ain’t that a laugh? I came home to fucking New
Jersey, because I had no where else to go.”
He buried his face in his hands. I could see the
back rubs emerging. Hell I wanted to hug Mutt myself.
“But you’re here now,” Earl said.
“Yes, and I’m not sure where
here
is because
I’ve been here before, in a different time and on a different coast
and I just want it to stop.”