Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

“Harlan said you were both careful.”

“No, not the exception to AIDS. I thought I was going to be the first person to live forever.” He reached under his glasses to wipe away tears, although none had fallen.

“Joe, just so that I’m sure of what’s going on, you don’t have fullblown AIDS, do you?”

“Ain’t I lucky?”

“You could live for a very long time. They might find a maintenance cure, like insulin. Supposedly—”

Joseph pushed the white machine off the table. I think it sparked when it hit. Many beakers fell and the noise was terrific. A small cloud of smoke rose and dissipated quickly.

“Denial, denial, denial!” Joseph shouted. Screamed actually, out of control.

I let the noise settle. When Joe was finished yelling, he became transfixed by something behind me. I glanced back. Harlan stood at the entrance to the lab. Diane lingered in the office. The lovers looked deeply at each other: Harlan’s light blue eyes sweet and pleading; Joseph’s small and dark behind his dirty glasses; they seemed cold and unsympathetic. Did he blame Harlan? How could he? Was he angry that Harlan had tested negative? Was the rage general and merely being displayed? After a long moment of this mute exchange, Joseph returned to me and asked, “Come on. Enough politeness. Tell me why. For once, I won’t give you an argument.”

I stood up. “I’ll let you two—”

“No!” Joseph banged the table with his fist. It made no sound and must have hurt. “Tell me. I really want to hear.” His eyes had welled up again. “Come on, Rafe. It’s a simple question. I’m gonna die ’cause I like it up the ass. I deserve some kind of answer, don’t I?”

“There are a lot of different ideas—”

“I want your answer. Don’t bullshit me. I don’t give a fuck about other people’s theories.” Joseph lowered his head again, as if he were praying to Mecca. “Please,” he whispered. “Say something I can think about. Something I can believe. Something I can make fun of.” He seemed to be crying, although when he raised his head, no tears had dropped from his full eyes. “Give me something to think about, Rafe.”

“I think it’s very specific, Joe. I don’t believe in general theories.” Harlan had gradually moved closer, only a foot or so behind me. I turned to go; allow him to take my place.

“Well, you know a lot about my fucking specifics,” Joe said. “Don’t turn away from me.” I faced him, side by side with Harlan. “So why me?” Joe insisted. “I never wanted women. Not once. I was born this way. I don’t remember ever having a choice. That’s the way it feels for me. But you think that’s crap, right? It’s ’cause Mom didn’t let me sit on the furniture, ’cause she wouldn’t let me have sleepovers with my buddies, ’cause she wouldn’t leave me alone, not for one fucking minute.” He really began crying now, head forward, propped up by his fingers, speaking to the hard surface of the lab table. Harlan pushed past me and bent over Joe, rubbing his back and shoulders tenderly, kissing his neck, his cheek, his temple.

I turned to go.

“No!” Joe shouted. Looking back, I saw Harlan had stepped away, off to the left. My friend was on his feet, yelling at me. “Come on! Give me something.”

Harlan, Diane and Joseph were positioned on three sides of me, a triangle that felt like an ambush. I couldn’t hold down my sadness at my friend’s condition much longer. I knew right away what his death would mean to me. He was, the last connection to my childhood, the last person who knew me when I felt normal: the son of loving, energetic parents, part of a world that made sense.

“Remember Portnoy’s Complaint?” I said and giggled nervously. I had lost control.

Joseph lifted his glasses to wipe his wet face. “What?” he mumbled.

“Remember how much you liked it? You said it was your autobiography.”

Joe’s mouth hung open stupidly as he nodded.

“Philip Roth fucks women. He loves fucking women. Maybe he’s really gay and you’re really heterosexual. It doesn’t matter, Joseph. Theory is garbage. Ideas are white noise.” I smiled and opened my hands to the triangle of questions, gesturing to each, showing them that’s all I had to offer. They didn’t seem satisfied. I let my arms go wide and then slapped my chest hard with my palms, shouting, “We live here! Here! In our bodies.”

Harlan returned to Joseph’s side, putting an arm around his small lover’s shoulders. They looked at me as if I were a performer and they hadn’t made up their minds if they were enjoying the show.

“You’re not dying because you’re gay. And I won’t tell you why you’re gay. I know, but I’m not gonna tell you. Why not? Because you’re happy about it. You’ve always been happy about it. We’re not supposed to look at happiness, Joseph. It’s the face of God.”

He said something. So did Diane. I don’t remember what. I think I ended up crying more than Joseph, I’m not sure. I do remember that he teased me about it.

PHIL SAMUEL CAME TO NEW YORK ON OTHER BUSINESS. HE SUGGESTED we meet for breakfast in Greenwich Village at Elephant & Castle, a restaurant whose clientele, wobbly wood tables, piped-in classical music, and menu of spinach omelets, croissants, and espresso provides the sort of atmosphere a tourist would expect from the neighborhood’s bohemian reputation. Actually, it’s a dowdy relic of the sixties, a haven for the now decidedly bourgeois population of aging gays, radicals and artists who live in the expensive town houses nearby. Phil beamed at our surroundings. He was dressed in a white Brooks Brothers button-down shirt, a single-breasted blue blazer that was an inch too short in the sleeves and beige corduroys smoothed at the knees.

After we ordered, he said, “I love New York. My wife and I came here for breakfast on our honeymoon.” He leaned forward to ask in a whisper about our waitress, “Is that a woman?” Her skinny body was covered in black, her head shaved to the nubs of a crew cut, and a diamond was embedded in her right nostril.

“Yes,” I said.

“Lesbian?” he asked, eyes restless, scanning the patrons.

“Maybe,” I said. “But not necessarily. Fifteen years from now she could be living in Scarsdale raising three kids.”

He laughed heartily.

“Although,” I added, “even raising kids in Scarsdale, she might still be a lesbian.”

“Right!” he said and laughed again. Our waitress reappeared. She plunked our coffees down with a sullen attitude, as if we were her boring male relatives and Mom had nagged her into helping out. “Thank you,” he said, trying to be friendly.

“Un huh,” she said and wandered off.

“Don’t the kids at Webster dress like that?” I asked.

“Not that far-out.”

“Far-out,” I said.

“Groovy,” he said and laughed again.

I asked after his family. Listening to him talk cheerfully about how he strained his back rollerblading with his seven-year-old daughter, or describe rising at dawn to take his nine-year-old son for hockey practice, I both envied him and felt I couldn’t understand him. This was a contented man, rounded so as not to bruise on the world’s sharp corners. What made him want to be a psychologist, albeit a researcher, specializing in child abuse? Was Diane right not to trust this kind of removed scientist, living in suburban academia? Was this man driven to find proof that children were unreliable witnesses to abuse because, for him, the thought of adults savagely tormenting children was unthinkable, as difficult to imagine as the gender of our waitress? And what did it say about me that a paradigm of normality seemed as odd — and as unlikely — as a little green man from Mars?