Logan
We're so incredibly late for our flight that Charlie is forced to leave behind his one and only pair of acceptable 'trousers'. Is Charlie the only person on earth that still calls them that: 'trousers'? Is this because he refuses to buy clothes (even boxer shorts) at any store other than Brooks Brothers? Is it because he chooses to shore up his eccentric sense of propriety with an archaic vocabulary? It cracks me up. The weather is 'inclement'. He has no money 'on account'. He 'appropriates' (steals) my t-shirts. It could be worse. He could say 'issues' or 'whatever' or 'dude' - goatees galore phrases he loathes.
Whatever. The 'trousers' aren't ready at the cleaners in time so we refuse to pick them up. We are not going to be late. We will not miss our plane. This is not some pitiful movie we can skip the beginning of. This is a once-in-a-lifetime embarkation.
Meanwhile, all Charlie's been able to pack in his ratty puke-yellow duffel bag with the broken zipper are a single brand new pair of brown-striped Brooks Brothers canvas shorts, the Episcopal Academy sweatshirt ("Esse Quam Videri'), the 'Drags, Dicks and Dykes' white-on-black t-shirt, two pairs of sox ('hose'), unfolded underwear and a couple of pairs of jeans. No trousers. He wonders aloud if Evjan and Gracey (Evjan's boyfriend, Kevin Fitzpatrick Kelly, whom we nickname 'Gracey' after Grace Kelly or Gracie Allen depending on the context) will take him into Geneva on a shopping spree (Evjan's credit cards). I doubt it.
Not having decided yet as to what may or may not belong in the particular puke-yellow dufflebag - a procedure he wants no help with nor advice about - leaves Charlie alone in the apartment. The secretive distribution of miscellaneous items makes him frantic, may make him perilously late, but is impossible to circumvent. Besides, he has to pick up something at the drugstore. He does not say what. I don't ask.
We will take separate cabs.
I'm happy to get to Logan on time and to be right about it. To get the ticket, process my own personal pile of backpacks, take my apprehensive seat in the waiting room and wonder if, after all, he'll ever make it onto the plane.
I photograph the baby blue nose of our Sabena jet: a color so innocent we could never crash?
I dial up a pair of blue plastic waiting room chairs, sit down, yank out the Big Green Dear Diary and begin to write. Three sentences in I hear my name called, a muted shout, halfway down the corridor. There he is, my roommate, Donald Charles Isenberg, puffing ecstatically on a non-filtered, duty-free Camel, jet-black, disheveled hair disguising his 'spot', Brooks Brothers shirt untucked, the meager non-trousered dufflebag en route to Sabena's belly and a mile wide grin proclaiming how pleased with himself and relieved he is to have actually made it here on time, by the Living Jesus.Periscope eyes scan the waiting room watering hole for talented youth. A gold-blond blue-eyed fifteen-year-old holds hands with his geeky, tag-along sister. He smiles benevolently. I overhear him pronouncing the word France:
'Frawnce'.
Time to board. 'Frawnce' stands up and on his way down the gangplank gives me a look. A frank winking sort of look as if to say, 'Hey...dude.' My heart races. This kid is a Total God.
Devin who?
On the Plane
The Sabena interior is cramped and claustrophobic. Knees touch unwanted knees. We've lucked out because the first row of seats in front of us are five feet away to create an access aisle. We can stretch our legs.
French and German newspapers, The Boston Herald, The New York Times, The Globe, and USA Today are sprinkled and plopped in our laps by perky, overly caffeinated stewardesses. I look over the top of The Times at Frawnce. Teen cheeks are flushed, wrestler's hour glass waist slouched provocatively low on the seat, knees apart, mouth agape. He's sporting the ubiquitous backwards baseball cap and decks himself out in an 'ensemble' - what I choose to (falsely) identify as Euro: designer sneakers, earth colored, mismatched, layered shirts, Stussy jeans with a shingle-shaped section of hard cloth in the crotch. This kid is a work of art. The casual way he has assembled the package tells me: 'I'm rich, but I'm interesting. I'm smart, but I'm not a geek. I'm aloof, but I might consider talking to you if you don't come at me with any weird homo voo doo.' For myself a similar outfit/impression would require a month of Doyle's tips, an agonizing deliberation at trendy, third rate Urban Outfitters and a hundred bucks in charm school. This kid's either from some well-heeled Dutch Tulip family, or else he's a famous Armani fashion model from Milan. (I project all sorts of irrational theories.)
He sits diagonally behind me, across the aisle cracking open a new CD, squinting at the fine print. He looks perturbed when I stare. The eyebrows knit. The nape of his neck curves in concentration. Small black hairs catch the sunlight and glisten with perspiration.
(How does one observe and imagine so many fine details at such a furious pace? The devouring Pack Man homosexual brain.)
Within two hours Charlie has downed five or six complimentary Vodkas-on-the-rocks and is making friends in the back of the plane with a Greek person who's going to Belgium and an Israeli who lies prone in the aisle with his shirt off. Something is wrong with his equilibrium. Dr. Isenberg rounds up addresses, phone numbers, pertinent medical information, etc. I fall asleep after a single thimbleful miniature Maes beer. No dreams.
I wake up with a piss hard on hidden, thank God, under the Arts section of The New York Times. I gotta go bad. I adjust things, somnambulate across a prairie field of dozing passengers, bat open the door of a stainless steel urinal and relieve myself. There I take stock. Who is that asshole in the mirror in the painter's pants, turquoise plaid boxers, neon translucent chlorine blue wristband on a fruity Swatch watch, Irish setter hair (a dye job), Red Sox T-shirt, serious black leather belt? Do I know him? He is not the guy I think about when I can't see him.
The head of my cock looks shy. It peeks out of my fly like a miniature Harry Truman head. The body holds, the muscles haven't melted...yet. The face: skin somewhat tight, eyes bright. Can I decipher interior clues in the half-smiling, wary expression? How many times have I tried this? Drunk, on acid, after a shower, urinating? Today it's a cinch. This is the face of a guy who is not HIV positive.
Just before we left town my primary care physician called from Harvard Health. She reported that my CD-4 count was way up, the 'sed rate' normal, as were liver functions, white blood cell count and the test for mononucleosis. The horrifying June false alarm HIV ordeal is finally over. I can take off for Europe without fear of infection, of death, of having to lie to strangers about my status, of having to imagine the painstaking corrosion of disease eating away at my mind, body, and soul from the inside out. I've been granted a reprieve from the unreprieveable. I feel guilty. Who among my HIV pos friends has gotten a stay of execution? Not one.
Back in my seat I notice a hard zit on the bottom of my ass where it creases the upper thigh. It's less bothersome when I cross my legs. I pinch it and it just gets worse, no pus. The bitch hurts like a bastard.
Chapter 4