Red Hornet (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} redhornet) wrote,@ 2007-03-21 23:36:00 |
|
return
preamble:
preamble:
Tonight, bigdumbjim read from his published-by-a-major-press novel. He is not so dumb. I was inspired.
Tonight, I received an informal request to return to by blog, and so I do.
Tonight, and what follows, is for Gary.
I love him, though we were never in love. This, except for perhaps the very first time, is my history with men. Three weeks ago he called spontaneously, as he does, and said his girlfriend had to work for the weekend but he was going to fly to San Francisco, pick me up and drive to Tahoe; he’d ski while I was cozy in the lodge with my book, a treat on him, a celebration for the end of my trial. A romantic proposition, even for non-lovers. I’d made another promise for the weekend and turned him down. Plus, I was horny and didn’t want to be tested. We are not twenty-five anymore, but still. This is also my history. He left a message several days later that I did not return. I didn’t want to be swayed.
He called me Sunday, and said my name like he does, my full name, all in one breath. I didn’t notice, at first, anything different. I was distracted, though; my basketball team had just choked thirty seconds earlier and was out of the Tournament. I figured he was calling to rub it in. I prepared my defensive voice.
“I’m in the hospital,” he said. “My lung’s collapsed. My pancreas is failing.”
Now I noticed that he was wheezing. “How are you doing?” he said. I said I was fine, but mostly I was silent. All I could hear was him trying to breathe, the exaggerated laboring of ten years ago, when I’d lay my head on his chest, and listen. “My basketball team just lost,” I said. “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” he said. He asked if his Final Four picks were still in it and I said yes. One is out of it, now.
I googled Gulf War Disease, as I’ve done so many times before. The repertory problems of ten years ago are a symptom. The GI tract problems and weight gain of seven years ago are symptoms. Pancreatitis is not a symptom, not yet. Bush was on tv commenting on the fifth anniversary of the second invasion. I turned him off, and lit a candle. Gary likes candlelight.
