Zombie Mountain(41)

“No, man. I’m unemployed again. I have no excuse. I don’t know what to say.”

I like that about Eddie. He can be real and honest. Most of my friends are honest. It’s a trait I look for in friends. If you’re dishonest, then beat it. Who needs you, right?



* * *



Anyway, Eddie is growing a goatee and I see a tattoo hiding under his short sleeve. I wonder about both, especially the tattoo. I try to grasp its meaning: two vertical lines topped with a horizontal one, kind of like a capitol T but the two lines make it plain it is a symbol of some sort. The horizontal top is curved a little. Maybe it’s his mane in Chinese or Sanskrit or who the hell knows. I figure Eddie is going through some kind of midlife crisis with the tat and goatee.

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“Look, I’m and asshole. I’m the worst fucking friend.”

“No,” I say. He doesn’t need to be down on himself. His reaction is normal, after all. I didn’t expect anymore, or any less. “You’re not an asshole.”

Numi makes the smallest movement of his head to indicate that he disagrees with me. I ignore Numi.

Eddie doesn’t notice. He says, “A friend of mine, a good friend of mine is…”

“Dying,” I say.

“Yeah, that. And I don’t even have the balls to see him.”

“You have little balls,” I say. It is part of our humor. My balls are big, his balls are small, and vice versa. Har, har. It’s what guys do. Simple creatures we are.

But Eddie isn’t up to my playful ribbing. I’m barely up to it myself. That joke took a lot of energy. He says, “How… how did this happen?”

“How did I get AIDS?”

He nods and shrugs a little. Even mentioning the word makes him clearly uncomfortable. More so, I see that he’s embarrassed that others might have overheard us. Numi misses nothing. He sees Eddie’s embarrassment and frowns even more.

“I had a steady girl,” I say. “She had it and didn’t know it. A few weeks into our relationship, the condom came off and never went back on. We saw each other on and off for a few months. Months that were filled with lots of sex. She had some random blood work done and the results came back. She had it, and now I have it, too.”

Eddie turns a little pale. I avoid using the word “AIDS” for his benefit. He says, “But I thought, you know, guys didn’t really get it from girls.”

“Not common, certainly, but there are times when it’s not safe to have sex with a woman.”

He nods. “Her period.”

I nod. “Bingo.”

“Jesus.”

“It happens,” I say. “It’s in the blood. I must have been chafed at the time. Like I said, too much sex.”

“But I thought AIDS was, you know, treatable these days. You know, Magic Johnson and all.”

“Sure,” I say. “Except when it’s not.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do the doctors. Not really. It’s called AIDS-related cancer, and the connection is not completely understood, but the link probably depends on a weakened immune system. Had I just had AIDS, I would probably beat it. My AIDS was the prelude to my cancer.”

“And having AIDS…”

“There’s no fighting the cancer,” I say. “Although we tried.”

Months of radiation had proved fruitless. It had only proven to weaken me more.

“I’m sorry,” says Eddie.

“I’m sorry, too.”

We’re both silent. Numi’s silent, too, but he doesn’t count. He’s usually silent, especially when Eddie’s around. Numi, I think, was glad that Eddie disappeared. Showed his true colors, as Numi tells me. I watch a small, fat bird nibble on some fattening crumbs.

“Do you still see her?” Eddie asks me.

“The girl who gave me HIV?”

“Yes.”

I shake my head. “She lives with her family in Montana. Last I heard, she’s living a fairly normal life, just with HIV.”

What I don’t tell Eddie is that she doesn’t talk to me, which I find hard to believe. She’s ruined me, but I’m not worthy of a phone call?

She didn’t ruin you, asshole.

I know this. I have to take ownership of this. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do: taking responsibility for my AIDS. A hundred times a day, I’d wish I’d never met her, I’d wish I’d never pressed her for sex, I’d wish I’d never developed a relationship with her, I’d wish the condoms had stayed on, I’d wish I hadn’t been so reckless.

I’d wished for a lot of things. Now I wish for nothing.