“Who’s missing?” I ask.
Numi shakes his head and then flicks his eyes over my shoulder. “I don’t know, man, but he’s coming now. He can tell you.”
Chapter Two
A moment later, Eddie comes around and stands in front of me and looks down at me as he might a dying grandfather. His lips are pressed together and he’s sort of smiling, but sort of not. He’s happy, it seems, to see me again, but clearly sad to see me in this current dilapidated state. Mostly, he’s unsure of how to react to me. I’m used to it.
He’s also a little standoffish, which I’ve also grown used to. Someone who’s dying of AIDS doesn’t elicit a lot of physical contact, although that doesn’t seem to stop Numi. Nothing stops Numi—at least, not when it comes to me.
Eddie settles for a gesture I’m used to. The gentle shoulder pat. I’m so used the gesture that I barely notice it anymore, or let it bother me. Where once, my close friends hugged me, they now pat me on the shoulder. And handshakes are nonexistent. It is my reality. I accept it.
Numi doesn’t accept it. Eddie’s little gesture bugs my Nigerian friend. I can see it in his alert eyes. He wishes people would treat me the same. Sometimes, he insists on it. But lately, he has eased up on people. Insisting that people act a certain way generally causes conflict. People do not want to be told how to act, especially towards someone with an infectious disease.
Eddie sits opposite me, next to Numi. I try not to think that he’s sitting as far away from me as possible, but I suspect he is. Such thoughts get me nowhere. Such thoughts remind me that I’m less than human, unworthy of contact or love or compassion. Sympathy maybe. Distant sympathy.
Do you blame them? I think again for perhaps the thousandth time. They value their lives. Contact with a diseased man isn’t valuing their lives, now is it? It’s putting themselves at risk, or so they think.
Wrong or not, I get used to it, and so I sigh as Eddie gestures awkwardly towards me. He opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out. His hand sort of flops around like something dying on a hook. Finally, he drops it to the table, unsure of what to do with it or himself or what to say to me.
So I help a brother out. “Eddie, I have AIDS. Full-blown fucking AIDS with a lung cancer chaser. I’m as good as dead. So stop behaving like a scared dick. I don’t have time for dicks. Just be real.”
He nods. We’ve known each other since high school, where he and I had been close friends. Eddie went on to marry his high school sweetheart, Olivia, a girl who had been my sweetheart as well. Secretly, of course. Eddie and I had met Olivia on the same night. We both liked her, although I suspected that I liked her more. As I had been working up the courage to go talk to her, Eddie had beat me to the punch. I had hated him for that at the time, but went on to accept it. Eddie and Olivia hit it off, although once, when she had been drinking, Olivia admitted to me privately that she wished I had asked her out instead of Eddie.
My connection with Olivia would carry on into our adult lives. A sweet connection really, since we never acted inappropriately. Still, more than once we had discussed what life might have been like if the two of us had gotten together. It was a sweet thought, and often I caught her looking at me sadly. Eddie, I think, caught us looking at each other as well, but said nothing.
Now Eddie looks sheepish and finally says, “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
“So am I.”
“I should have come by more often.”
Numi, who is sitting perfectly still with his hands folded in his lap, says, “By more often you mean never one time?”
Numi and Eddie have never liked each other. Numi had always thought Eddie was an asshole. Probably because Eddie made it a habit to cheat on Olivia. And Numi knew of my fondness for Olivia.
Eddie looks at Numi long and hard. Numi continues staring forward, hands resting comfortably in his lap. He literally doesn’t move a muscle.
Finally, Eddie looks back at me. “I just didn’t know what to say, you know?”
I nod. This is coming from my closest high school friend. A guy I had spent most of my youth with. Hell, I had been his best man, watching him as he married a girl I knew I had feeling for.
“It’s okay,” I say as Numi frowns. “You’ve been busy.”
I know I’m making excuses for Eddie; I’ve done this for most of my life. Eddie was always getting into trouble and getting me into trouble as well. I also know that most people aren’t so busy that they can’t take a few minutes to visit a dying friend. But I’m not here to make people hate themselves. I do enough self-hating for everyone.