Bleeder Page 7

  Outside, clouds balance upon the marine-blue sea, and beside the pier, I gaze out to an ocean bleeding into a vermillion sky. A woman and her dog jog past: he breathing hard, tongue slapping out his open mouth; intent upon moving forward, they are immune to the view.

  The sea washes my feet as the waves spread foam across a slick of sand. The wooden pilings labor to hold up a blood-red sky. Night descends.

  June. In the blood-drawing lab, the phlebotomist plumps my arm with her tourniquet, and soon my stout veins run in vague blue streams from my elbow to my finger joints.

  “Wow,” the phlebotomist remarks. “You’ve got great veins. It’s not often I see a set like that. Like mountain chains.”

  “I guess if you’re going to be a hemophiliac, you should come with good veins.”

  She laughs lightly as she lines up small purple-, red-, blue-, and orange-topped tubes. After the blood collection, the tubes are spun and the blood tabulated, and today I wonder what the numbers will say. I wonder how my decision to stop AZT will affect that count.

  The phlebotomist swipes my arm with the alcohol swab, feels her finger along a vein in my forearm.

  “Please don’t bruise it,” I say, as she slips her silver-tip needle into me. “I need all the good veins I can get.” Often, the oversized needles the doctors use leave my veins blown and complicate my home treatment. Blood flows into the clear tubing and into the test vials. I watch it; the nurse watches it; the tubes fill.

  When I am done, I meet Mom in the lobby. She rode up with me from New London, where I’m staying over the summer break. She wanted to be a mother today, she had said the night before, and she wanted to visit the doctor with me, like she used to do, she added. I did not object.

  “All done?” she asks with her general cheerfulness.

  “Yep.”

  Through the long white corridor as we return to the hemophilia clinic, I tell Mom about stopping AZT. She shakes her head in concern and disappointment.

  “I don’t understand. You just quit it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Dr. Trum thought it was best?”

  “I’m telling him today.”

  “Oh, Son,” she says. “Oh, Son, no.”

  We keep walking.

  While we wait in the clinic, we toss magazine pages by and pass the time in silence. Here, in People, everyone looks so happy. In my lap lies a pile of endless smiles.

  “Shelby Smoak,” a nurse calls.

  “That’s me,” I answer while rising to be ushered to my examination room.

  And later when Dr. Trum enters, my mom blurts out that I’ve stopped taking AZT.

  “He just told me this morning,” she says as I swing my legs over the table’s side. “Even his father doesn’t yet know. I can’t believe he’s done this without telling us.” She looks at me. “I can’t believe you’ve done this and put yourself at such danger while leaving us all in the dark, especially Dr. Trum. He’s the specialist here.”

  Dr. Trum joins in: “You should really thoroughly consider what you’ve done. Of course, as your doctor, I’ll support your decision and treat you as best as I can, but without taking AZT our options are limited. I just want you to understand that this isn’t like stopping Tylenol.”

  “If it’s the nausea,” Mom says, “Dr. Trum says he can give you something for it.”

  “Yes. We can treat the side effects.”

  “No,” I say, with a confused conviction that I stand by. “There’s the cramps, my inability to eat, the headaches, the throwing up . . . My decision is made. I can’t go back on it. I felt far too lousy those last months, and I can’t imagine it will get any better.”

  “But, Son,” Mom says. “This is . . . This is . . .” She tries to maintain composure, but trembles and grabs a tissue from her purse and dabs her eyes to catch the tears while Dr. Trum rustles his papers.

  “Please, please, stay in touch with me and this clinic,” he says, addressing me. He frowns. “We need to work together on this. We’re here to help you. Always remember that.”

  Mom blows her nose.

  When Dr. Trum finishes his examination and before we are sent on our way, he once again expresses his grave concern about my decision. The room quiets, as there is nothing more to say.

  Outside, the wind blows an April downpour upon us as Mom and I hurry to the parking deck. We are soaked, and as I shake the rain loose from my hair, Mom begins again:

  “What if you get sick now? What if you get a cold . . . or worse? What then?”

  “I just think I’m better off without AZT. That’s no way to live.”

  “But medicine has always saved you. Just look at your factor and what it’s done.” We reach the car and dip inside and fasten our belts and begin to drive off.

  “You know I love you, Son, and I just want you to be well. That’s all I ever want. I’m not going to cry anymore to you about this, but I really don’t agree with it. I wish you’d reconsider.”

  “Mom, I just can’t live like that. That’s not living.”

  “But I’m worried.”

  “And I’m worried, too.”

  We exit the parking deck into a clap of thunder and a dark sky falling with blue rain. I steer past the flooded hog lots and soaked meadows with the wipers squeaking along the windshield.

  I am lost in the thought of my life hanging in the balance; only hope swaddles me, for there is nothing other than AZT to save me.

  THE SPLIT

  SEPTEMBER 1992. JUNIOR YEAR. ANOTHER HEAT WAVE HAS LEFT THE COAST, dragging its humidity across the southern sands; now the temperature peaks in the high eighties instead of the nineties. I swim in the Atlantic where the water is cool enough to enjoy and not yet cold enough to prohibit entering it. I let the waves buoy me and allow the tide to tell me where to go.

  Last night Ana had called and said that she had found a ride to Wilmington for the weekend, and I suddenly felt a greater distance between us than our geography, for I told her to stay in Greensboro. I was busy; friends were coming to visit. We had had our summer together, and now I wanted more time for myself. I had explained this to her as we lay together on her parents’ couch at the end of summer, but I could tell that my feelings were not hers. She sobbed. She bleated that she missed me. And I tried to explain that I only wished to spend more time alone; that it had nothing to do with her, or our relationship; that I felt as if my time was a grain of sand sifting through a giant sieve; that I needed to be with me. But she did not understand then. And that is how we left it. Until last night. And now she’s upset.

  A roll of water buoys me. My feet lift from the sea floor. I drift along with the current: as aimless and unguided as the ocean sand that is pushed to shore and then pulled out again with the ebbing tide.

  William, visiting for the weekend, rises from his beach towel, strokes out to meet me, and stretches his body flat against the undulating water. He kicks into a coming wave. We swim. A brunette girl sunning herself on a float paddles nearby, and William asks me if I know her from school.

  “No,” I say.

  “Well, I wish you did.”

  “Me, too. She’s pretty.”

  “But you’ll know some girls at this keg party tonight, right?”

  “Probably. At least a few from my classes.”

  “And Ana? What about her? She coming?”

  “No. Not tonight.”

  “Really?” William paddles on his back. “I’m surprised. I bet you miss her right now. I bet you think about her all the time.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Ah . . . come on. You’re a romantic. You can admit it. You believe all that stuff you read.” William swims in a circle.

  “Most of what I read isn’t all that happy and romantic. It’s sad and full of desolation. Fitzgerald, for example. Besides, I think Ana and I are breaking up.”

  William pauses his backstroke, treads water. “Breaking up?”

  “Well, yeah. I told her I needed time for myself . . . Space.�
��

  “Ahhh. That’s one thing you should never tell a girl if you wanna get her pants off.”

  “Ha-ha. I just think I need to focus more on myself, my studies. It was getting too serious, and I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. Mostly it just boils down to the fact that my feelings are not the same as hers. Not anymore.”

  “Does she know?”

  “Well . . . I told her we’re taking a little break, but we didn’t ‘officially’ break up, I guess.”

  “Oh . . . Falling out of love, are you?”

  “Maybe. Hard to say. Just taking time to figure it all out.”

  “Well, man. I’m sorry it ain’t all roses, but I haven’t heard of a relationship yet that is. Anyway, forget about it. Maybe your two’s time has passed. Try and let yourself feel free and lose some of that lead baggage you’re always dragging around with you. The sooner you make a decision about it, however, the better off both of you will be.”

  “I know, I know. It’s just tough. It’s hard to know what to do.”

  “Life’s tough, man. You just gotta decide and move forward.”

  “I hear you.”

  William rides a wave to shore, and, climbing out of the sea, he props up again on his towel next to Sean and opens another beer from our cooler. I float on my back, feel the warm sun on my stomach, and listen to the swish of water in my ears. The flat sea shimmers, a giant sheen of metal.

  When I lie on my towel, my body drips ocean. Sean opens the cooler, passes me a beer. “Come on, man. You gotta have more than one,” he says.

  And as I accept the beer and press the cold can to my forehead and roll it along my face, I understand that we are true pals again.

  “It’s for drinking, motherfucker.”

  “I know. It feels good, though.”

  I open it, swallow, and watch the day: the sun paused overhead; the waves spreading in an endless foam of white; the gulls wheeling round in an empty sky; and a couple tossing a Frisbee back and forth, their bodies statues with an occasional toss of the arm.

  A girl in a two-piece passes nearby. We sip our beer and watch.

  “I’d do her,” William says before taking a long draft from his can.

  “Maybe. But she’s got a skinny ass. Nice tits, though.”

  Their eyes follow her as she walks down the beach, where she is replaced by a group of three girls.

  “Oh, yeah. The one in the middle. I’d do her. No question.”

  “In your dreams,” Sean says. “I’d do her first. Then her red-haired friend. Then both of them at the same time.”

  “As if . . .”

  I sip my beer, watch another suntanned blonde pass. “I’d do her,” I say, pointing with my can.

  Sean and William look. “Oh yeah. There you go. Major hottie,” Sean says.

  Autumn.

  “Remember me?” Ana sobs over the phone line. I imagine her at the other end: sitting cross-legged atop her bed, twirling the cord around her unsure hand. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a ponytail and a box of Kleenex rests in her lap.

  She blows her nose, clears her sorrow.

  “Of course I remember you. Don’t be silly.”

  “Well, I haven’t seen you all semester, so I wasn’t sure. Am I still your girlfriend?”

  “I don’t know, Ana. I’m not anybody else’s boyfriend if that’s something.”

  “That’s nothing. It just feels like you don’t know.” She pauses, blows her nose again. “So, are you coming to see me over fall break?”

  “Yes, Ana. Tomorrow. I’ll be there.”

  “Okay.” A sniffle. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  And when Ana hangs up, I drive to the ocean.

  The sea is tumultuous; the sky dark with rain. It bellows and foams and sprays and is stirred to life by an offshore storm. Soon, a hurricane is expected: Category 3 with landfall in a few days. Residents await to hear about evacuations. And now everything seems so delicate, so fragile. I witness how the sea—so calm and pacific days ago—is now pitching and yawing with uncertainty; how a quiver of rain is only the veil before the whirling drape of a hurricane.

  The pier lights disappear into a simpering sky. A lone surfer struggles against a crashing sea before he is swallowed and then spit out closer to shore. Before long, the rain begins and drives me to shelter in my truck, where I sit and watch the sky spark and alight with zags of lightning. All is in an uproar.

  The following day, through the wind and the rain, I drive to see Ana. I’ve dreaded this moment: my heart tightens, my hands sweat; my anxiety dizzies me. I try to focus on the speech I will give. For days, I’ve rolled it over in my mind: how once, I loved her dearly. I loved her for doling out her love to me, for I imagine her love for me as a sacrifice, she throwing her body upon mine as upon a burning pyre. And I called this the ultimate love. But now I cannot breathe for it. The air between us is polluted by my own thoughts. How it has come to this, I cannot say exactly, but now my heart is empty and cannot be filled by her. I am ending our relationship.

  It happens in her dimly lit dorm in the quiet of the weekend night. We are on her bed, where we often spooned our bodies tight together and made promises of hope and love. But now it is different.

  “I don’t understand,” Ana weeps.

  “I don’t understand, either. It has just happened.”

  “What has happened? You don’t love me anymore?”

  “I don’t know. Something has changed in me. It’s me. I know it’s me. I’m so sorry.”

  “But I trusted you. I put all I had in you.” Ana sobs and sniffles as tears pour from her eyes and then she rushes from the room, leaving me to wonder how to react. I twist my hands together. Play with my thumbs. If I could yank out the guilt crushing my heart, I would.

  When Ana reappears with a box of tissues, she sits at the opposite end of her bed, slumps into its corner, and curls her feet beneath her while blowing her nose, wiping her eyes.

  “And you waited until you came here to tell me.” She clears her nose again. “Why? Answer me that,” she flares out. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want to do it over the phone.”

  “Oh, you’re a real gentleman . . . Is that all you can say?” Ana rights herself. “Is there someone else?” she asks. “Have you met someone else?”

  “No. There’s no one else.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. This has everything to do with me . . . There’s no one else.”

  Ana places her hair behind her ear and wipes her eyes, and I feel the event I’ve set in motion. The end of this, of something. My heart sinks into a hollow pit beneath my lungs, and I feel the sudden, gripping fear of loneliness.

  “Maybe I don’t know what I’m doing,” I offer in a moment of retraction. “I’ve just had so many pressures on me at school, and it’s been hard to keep seeing you.”

  “I don’t think I ask for much.”

  “I know.” I am forgetting about all those times I thought differently. “I know you don’t ask for much, but it’s the idea of it. Perhaps I still need space. I want to be able to concentrate only on the things that are at school.”

  Ana grips the tissue between her hands. She moves closer and leans herself against me, and I instinctively put my arms around her. “We can take more space if that’s what you need,” she bargains. “This is just too much to take in at one time, and we shouldn’t rush into things too quickly. Besides, I have my own studies and now that I’m working within my major, things are really busy for me, too.”

  “I don’t know. I’m not so sure.” I’m growing scared and fear blots out my clarity. Who else can love me as Ana has? Who can accept my HIV? Who?

  “We can take some space, become more like friends. If this is what you need, I can do it,” she pleads.

  We kiss. She inhales, then sighs out heavily, and rests herself into my open arms. I can feel darkness around me. Everything is unsure, nothing is decided.

&nbs
p; “Well,” Ana says, tracing her finger along my hand, “what kind of friends do you think we should be?”

  “I don’t know.” I feel the past revive itself. I remember love, happiness, sex.

  “There’s all kinds of friendships, you know.”

  Ana places her hands underneath my shirt and kisses me along my neck. And soon, we are slipping out of our clothes as if nothing has changed. We cleave to one another, are caught up in the natural grip of desire. And I let it happen, for it is easier this way.