David and the Lion’s Den — Epilogue
The past and the future, a last word
The young man stood behind the empty bar and shook. He squinted at the printout again, trying to focus, daring it to tell him the same story. He could barely make out his own first name, Alonzo, as the dot-form letters blurred and flowed into the green-and-white banded computer paper.
He didn’t need to read them again. The message wasn’t complicated. His life was over. Everything good had turned to shit. Nobody knew him. Nobody cared. But even if they did, nobody could help him.
From the day he stepped off the bus at the Port Authority, he’d been fucked. First came that asshole who’d taken all his money for one lousy hamburger, then Roberto the brick mason had turned his back on him. He’d never had a chance. Esteban, Carl, Jackson — he’d never been real to any of them, just a thing to be used and thrown away.
He thought of his young cousin Raphael, how he’d grabbed onto the boy like a drowning man will snatch at random flotsam. Only he’d thought it was Raph who was drowning and needed saving. Raph had never needed him, never wanted to be rescued at all.
He’d see about that. Before he died. He probably still had a few years. He’d never let himself get as sick as those freaks Howie and the new busboy kid delivered food to every day. Before he started wasting away, he’d get back at them. All of them.
He’d show Raphael how much he loved him. No, he told himself, this won’t be revenge. This is much more important than revenge.
He crumpled up his HIV test results and threw the paper over his shoulder. He walked slowly down the stairs and stepped into the scullery, looking for a good place to hide an industrial mixing bowl.
The paper he’d thrown fluttered in the air, skittered across the floor, and landed under the bar.
It hid there for weeks, waiting for David to find it.
When I found that printout, I assumed it it was Howie’s. I assumed an awful lot back in those days.
I’ll spare you the details of what came next, the rollercoaster of ambulance rides, handcuffs, hospital rooms, and jail cells. It wasn’t until the cops got their hands on Pedro, Raph’s dishwasher friend, that things started to change. After he confirmed Arnold’s story, people started smiling instead of whispering and pointing.
They let Howie out of jail the same day they dropped all my charges.
I spent a lot of time with Pedro, trying to get to know Raph and Alonzo. I’ve reconstructed a lot over the years, and I’m glad, even though it’s too late to do anything except tell their stories.
In a better world, Esteban would have paid a price for their suffering, a much bigger price than just selling Cucina at a loss. Nobody much felt like eating there anymore — not once the stories spread around the Village.The fountain’s gone, but you can still sip a cheap scotch at the long oak bar and order some semi-decent sushi downstairs.
In a better world, Raphael and Alonzo wouldn’t be dead.
Esteban losing his restaurant hardly seems like justice, does it? It used to bother me a lot, but I’ve learned to focus on things I can control.
Like myself.
Jill was right. I am self centered. Or I was — I hope was is the right word. I watch for signs all the time, signs I’m not paying enough attention to people, not caring about them. If I forget, one quick glance at the puckered scars on my hand or my neck is enough to energize me.
I reapplied to NYU, got accepted again, and thanks to Renaud’s show (or maybe all the headlines) I landed a fellowship that paid most of my expenses. I’m still there. I’ve got a cramped office in a building off Washington Square with a nameplate on the door.
I enjoy teaching. It gives me a chance to focus on others so I don’t sink too deep into my work and lose track of the people I love.
We entertain a lot. The loft we bought for next to nothing back in the late 90s is perfect for that. We’re over by the Hudson on 21st Street, surrounded by galleries that popped up after we moved in.
The top floor is my studio, huge but cluttered. Great northern exposure. Right now, the setting sun is projecting dusty red spears through the banks of factory windows that overlook the river. I thread my way around abstract sculpture and surreal landscapes, my stock in trade these days. They’re glowing weirdly in the fading light.
It’s time to head home, one floor down to our living area, cozier and less industrial than my work space.
We’re expecting some friends later — a few artists from the neighborhood, a handful of my graduate students, and a couple freshman I think look too homesick. I’m excited because Jill’s coming. She’s such a globetrotter that we don’t see her as often as we’d like. She’s bringing her son back from a semester in London, and she’s promised to stop by with him.
Howie’s T-cells died off by 1995. He had names for all ten he had left. Sometimes I’d walk in the door of our Bronx walkup, afraid he’d be gone, afraid he’d have slipped away while I was out buying soup and jello.
Not Howie. “Mary Louise, HIV is not a death sentence. It isn’t. I won’t believe it.”
I’d pretend to believe him, even though by then he was packing only about 110 pounds on a frame built to carry 250. When his skin turned yellow, I knew the end was close.
I tried to remember how he was with all of them. How he carried himself. How he laughed and joked. I had to do to the same thing with him, right up til the end. He deserved it, but I didn’t know if I was strong enough.
I can smell the lasagna already as I wind my way down the corkscrew steel steps. Howie’s been cooking all day. He’s got some special cocktails dreamed up too. Bartending is his calling in life.
We bought the loft after the new HIV cocktail treatments came out. When his viral load dropped to near zero, we decided we’d better plan for the future.
Coming to the bottom of the steps and glancing around, everything looks ready. I hear Abba echoing out of the kitchen, and I can just make out his shadow dancing around with him in the evening sun as he throws a salad together.
I need to shower and scrub the paint off my hands.
But first …
I walk over to the fireplace with its chipped, smokey red bricks, and I flip a switch. Richard left the painting to me in his will. It’s the only one from that summer I’ll still look at. The track lighting Howie installed flickers as it warms, and then her face glows into soft focus.
I slip into the bathroom, leaving Hilda to watch over the empty space.
