If people came to help, they’d wear latex gloves. His vision blurred again. He was weeping, drifting back into the colorless surf. Raising his head, he fought for consciousness and forced himself to sit up, but the more he lifted himself out of the haze, the more he hurt. The coughs and sobs were suffocating him. No one to call. Why couldn’t it just be over? He pulled himself to his feet and clung to the towel rack, clutched the door frame, then the wall.
The bed was only a few feet away. He lurched across the floor and caught hold of the desk chair. His eyes rested on the desk. Where was that dog-vomit yellow brochure? That stuff about a helping hand. He eased himself into the chair and pawed through the stacks until he found it. “Charbonne Clinic of Washington, D.C.” in broad letters across the top. Beneath was “A helping hand.” He’d telephone the clinic. They’d send a buddy.
Martin looked at the brass number on the door and tried to control his breathing. Apartment 736, on the seventh floor of the Quebec Towers. His palms were sweating, and it wasn’t the August heat.
He knocked. Nothing. He knocked again. Finally, a man called, “Yes?”
“My name is Martin James.”
Silence.
“Peter, Mort Gray from the Charbonne Clinic sent me.”
“Come on in.”
Martin opened the door, stepped inside, and almost gagged on the raw smell of body odor, smoked cigarettes, and—he was sure—human waste. He was in the hall of an efficiency apartment. Ahead of him, the main room ended twenty-five feet away at a large, murky window, the only one in the room. Books, magazines, phonograph records, tape cassettes, socks, underwear, dishes, and papers covered the desk, the floor, the bureau, the top of the television, the yellow wing chair, and the small table in the dining alcove. Angry cigarette smoke hung in the air.
In a bed below the window lay a man in wrinkled pajamas and a stained bathrobe of the same royal blue as the bedspread and rug. The man turned on his side and glared at Martin. “I’m Peter Christopher.”
Peter was dirty and unshaven. His hair was cold black, uncombed, too long, and shining with sweat, his eyes an unsettling blue. His face was a ruined sculpture with a classic nose, prominent cheekbones, hollow cheeks overgrown with stubble, and a sensuous mouth. What showed of his chest was darkened by hair.
The face, something about the face . . . With a jolt of surprise, Martin placed it—Michelangelo’s David. The unformed shape of youth. But Peter’s face had the shadows of an older man who had seen too much of life.
“Like to sit down?” Peter said.
Martin took off his jacket and searched for a place to put it. On a straight chair by a desk lay a telephone book, magazines, an ash tray, and a white tee shirt.
“Put that stuff anywhere,” Peter said.
Martin moved the chair’s contents to the desk and hung his jacket on the back.
Peter said, “I thought the clinic would send someone my age.”
Martin tried to think of an appropriate response.
“You want coffee or anything?” Peter said. “You mind making it?”
The tiny kitchen, adjoining the dining alcove, was littered with dirty dishes. The glass pot held half an inch of rancid coffee, and the plastic basket was full of moldy grounds. Martin washed the pot, the basket, and two cups, found a can of coffee, and started a fresh pot. He returned to the living room and sat by the bed. “It’s brewing.”
Peter rolled onto his back, scowled out the window, lit a cigarette. “Maybe we could start by getting to know each other.”
“My name’s Martin James. I teach music at Lincoln College. I published a book ten years ago—on Romantic Period use of the Neapolitan sixth. You like music?”
“Ever know a dancer who didn’t?”
Martin fished in his jacket pocket for the intake file on Peter. “Says here you’re a waiter and translator.”
“That’s what I told the aging queen who interviewed me. Mort. You know him?”
“Never actually met him.”
Peter narrowed his eyes. “We all know each other. The gay community isn’t that large.”
Martin tried a smile. “I’m not gay, Peter.”
Peter wrinkled his nose as though he had detected a bad smell. He put out his cigarette. “Didn’t think they’d send a breeder.”
“You want them to assign someone else?”
Peter shrugged. “Tant pis, tant mieux.”
Martin said, “Should I go on?”
Peter nodded.
Martin cleared his throat and tried to calm his trembling. “I live in a rented house in Wheaton with three other guys,” Martin said. “And let’s see . . . fifty years old, divorced, have a daughter eighteen named Catherine. Most important person in my life.”
“What’s she like?”
“Too smart for her own good. Very articulate for her age—graduated from high school in June and will be starting college. Even got offered a scholarship at MIT, but I think she’s going to turn it down.”
“She live with you?”
“With her mother.”
“If she’s that important to you, why isn’t she living with you? Why aren’t you spending time with her instead of screwing around with dying fairies?”
Martin hesitated. “Don’t get to see her very often.”
“When did you see her last?”
“June.”
“June? I thought she was important.”
“Peter, we’re not here to discuss my personal life.”
“Yes, we are. If you’re going to be my—” He signaled quotation marks with his fingers. “—buddy.”
Martin glanced at the door. Maybe he should leave.
“Sorry,” Peter said. “Guess I got a little nosey. Go on.”
Martin collected his thoughts. “While I think of it—” He rummaged through his wallet. “—here’s my address and phone number.” He leaned a business card against the telephone. “Your turn.”
“I told her highness Mort I’m a waiter because that’s what I do for a living. I don’t get enough translation work to count. I’m a dancer by profession. Before I got sick, I was really getting into Strauss and Mahler—even though you can’t dance to their stuff. The way they use language—I did a masters in German.” Peter took a drag and blew smoke through his nose. “Do you know Der Rosenkavalier? And Das Lied von der Erde? Das Lied is a German translation of Chinese poetry. After I listened to it, I found a wonderful book of Chinese writings. Ever hear of Hàn Hsīng? Then I lost interest and gave the book away.”
He held his hand out, palm down, and studied his fingernails.
“For the record, I’m thirty-one and gay, and I work at the Nouveau Riche in Georgetown. Been trying to make it as a dancer for twelve years. Spent three in New York, but starvation was ruining my looks. So I moved back.”
“You’re from Washington?”
“Baltimore originally. My folks live there.”
“You have a lover, Peter?”
Peter pulled his lips back from his teeth, but he wasn’t smiling. “None of your fucking business.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“If