this one's for kuzi, whose brown skin i can still see shining in the sun (concluded)

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part 1 of this story

part 2 of this story


due to a keystone cops-style comedy of errors i'd love to blame on tina's lousy map-reading skills but which really came down to my own nonexistent sense of direction--and which would've amused kuzi no end had he been around to watch--we completely missed his funeral.

as annoying as driving 70 miles in the wrong direction was, i think that tina, joo hee and myself--the three of his co-workers who had bothered to make the trip--were in a way relieved, because none of us really wanted to see him in the box.

and it gave us more time to talk, and they wanted to know everything. so as we drove, i told 'em, starting with that night on padre when i first realized what was really up with our friend.

* * * * *

i shake him--"kuzi, you ok?"

he awakens with a start, looks down at himself, pushes my hand away, gets outta bed, heads to the bathroom without a word--door closes, shower starts.

eventually he comes back with a beach towel, spreads it out on his side of the bed, lays back down, says without looking at me, "i was hoping this wouldn't happen this weekend--sometimes it doesn't, you know?"

i start in with the questions:

how long you been havin this shit? a couple months maybe.

you been to the doctor? yeah, six weeks ago.

is it--yeah, looks that way.

but how--i mean, you've only been with one guy in three goddam years. at this, he laughs harshly--only time i ever saw bitterness in him.

turns out model/boyfriend hasn't exactly been a model boyfriend. when steve, shaken and stirred, drives up to dallas to give the guy the bad news--whole time i knew him he was almost always driving up there, it was rarely the other way around--instead of the rock he's hoping for, he first gets guilty defensiveness, then tearful confessions of serial infidelity and entreaties for forgiveness from the man he'd loved and trusted.

[did kuzi get his dose from said slutty model/boyfriend, or did it happen before? who knows--i've always gone with the model/bf theory because it gives me somebody to blame.]

i don't remember anything about that weekend beyond the point of this conversation--got through the rest of it somehow, i guess.

[suddenly wish i could say the same thing about this post. you know what? fuck details--let's just get this over with]

* * * * *

it happens fast--at first he's still fit and healthy and i can almost forget; a week or so later he's too tired to go to the gym; couple weeks after that he's wheezing and coughing at his desk, and the week after that, middle of the afternoon, i drive him to the emergency room.

of course i'm gonna park and come in with him, but he'll have none of it--gets angrier than i've ever seen him. after a heated back-and-forth, and not wanting to upset him further, i yield.

i'll pack a bag for you, kuzi, come back tonight. fine, you do that.

by the time i return with my lame-ass care package, he's quarantined and they won't let me anywhere near him. three weeks later, he's dead.

i let him go in there alone, i remind myself regularly.

* * * * *

by the time we pull into schulenburg, fully two hours late, the girls are up to speed. we find the family compound--it's like a combination picnic/wake--whole town's there. we park, get outta the car, and the hugs begin.

kuzi had vividly (and usually hilariously) described his family to me--his mother and father, grandparents and siblings, uncles, aunts and cousins. i have in turn passed this knowledge on to joo hee and tina, so they're ready; we practically know them all by sight.

the welcome they give us--their beloved stephen's big-city friends--is touching and heartbreakingly sweet. behind their smiles, i see the uncomprehending pain--they still have no real idea what happened to their boy, or why.

sudden motion outta the corner of my eye. i look up, and there he is--tall, alec-baldwin handsome, as alien and apart from these farm folk in his italian suit as he could possibly be, striding toward me with his hand out.

my god, he actually came.

the crowd parts as he approaches me, smiling warmly.  "you must be mike--steve told me so much about you."

as i reflexively return model/boyfriend's smile and take his outstretched hand, i can't help but wonder if, like me, everybody else there is thinking

guess you're next.

* * * * *

end of a long day--i drop the girls off, go back to my place, throw some shit in a bag and start the drive up to east texas. i don't even call; i just head home, because that's where i need to be.

surprised and delighted when i walk in the back door, my mother hugs me, sits me down, does what mothers have done from time immemorial when their first-born sons are troubled: she fixes me food.

i eat, she waits.

eventually i finish, sit back, light a cigarette, start to talk. i tell her everything: kuzi, his life, his death, the aftermath. and when i'm done with him, i tell her about me.

she takes it well, as i've always known she would. "honey, i don't care--you know i just want you to be happy."

i tell her, "fuck 'happy,' ma--if what happened to kuzi is all i've got to look forward to, i'd rather spend the rest of my life alone."

hell, it's my nature anyway, right?

back in austin, i gather up all the phone numbers collected during those many nights out at halls and the boathouse, dump 'em in the garbage, and as long as i live there, never go anywhere near colorado street again.

* * * * *

i'd stay in my fortress of solitude for the next four years, until i'd worked through it all and was finally ready to go west (and once that actually happened, it would happen with a vengeance).

but, you know what? as acclimated as i'd eventually become to gay life, never again would i feel at home in a club, on a dance floor or with the music of my tribe--for better or worse, that fleeting feeling of communal belonging, along with many other things, was buried along with one of the best friends i ever had.

* * * * *

well, that's it--another one in the can. i'm gonna celebrate by cueing up some simple minds and raising a glass to the ghosts of my past. we'd appreciate it if you'd do the same.