Harlan's Race

36, and his health had been frail for years.
    Through February I visited George as he got thinner, coughed like crazy. But he was being medicated with the standard thing for Pneumocystis, and seemed to be getting better.
    I yearned to live alone on Fire Island. But the weather had turned cold and stormy. Getting myself out there, making the beach house livable in winter, seemed like a huge task. Nights, I sat in the apartment and tried to write. The damp Manhattan air made me cough. When I thought about Vince, about Chino and Chris, my heart felt like a lump of dirty Manhattan ice. Even making love to myself was too much effort. Sexual tides of old had ebbed to the barest of wet dreams.
    It had been months since LEV. was in touch. Had he gotten bored with the whole thing?
    On February 19,1 came down with flu. Vitamin C, herb tea, and cough medicine didn’t help. Michael was alarmed at how my flu dragged on, complete with swollen glands and graveyard cough and a profound dragginess, and he pestered me to go see Doc Jacobs. But I was the Neanderthal, toughing it out.
    “It’s no big deal,” I told him.
    One evening Harry called. Vince was in some kind of trouble, and Chino was extracting him. My morale was so low that I didn’t give a hoot what happened to my ex-lover.
    By February 28, the flu seemed to be gone, except for a cough. No word on Vince.
    That day, feeling guilty about physical inactivity, I bundled up and took a one-mile run down toward Wall Street. When I got home, my body felt dead-flat and achy.
    For the next two days, I hardly stirred out of bed. The cough got worse, and my lungs gurgled. On the third night, when my temperature hit 105, the thought went through my thick head that I was in big trouble. Was I developing the Pneumocystis thing that George had? Steve had coughed too. Jacobs kept raving about sexual contagion, but I hadn’t been in bed with either man.
    Michael sensed my distress, woke up and came to my room.
    “Dad, enough of this shit. I’m calling your doctor.”
    The ambulance ride was a blur.
    At St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, I waited three hours in the emergency room, watching the human wreckage of New York stream past. Early that morning, somebody died, or was released, and I was wheeled to a freshly made bed in a private room. The next day was another blur of oxygen mask, blood work, bronchoscopy, sputum test.
    When I woke up, Chino was sitting by the bed, wearing a surgical facemask. Seeing his grave eyes over that mask gave me a shock. People wore masks for heavy contagion, didn’t they? My mind was going wild.
    “Hey, loco,” he said.
    He took my hand in his strong warm hand, and squeezed it hard. One tiny drop of melt trickled down the side of my icy heart. Why wasn’t I in love with this maimed but loyal friend?
    Doc Jacobs, also masked, stood over me in his white coat, with clipboard and fistful of X-rays.
    “I suppose I’ve got what George has, huh?” I croaked.
    ‘What you’ve got is bacterial pneumonia, and bronchitis. And,” Jacobs added, “you’ve got tuberculosis.”
    “Come on. TB went out with the horse and buggy.”
    “Glad to see you arguing with me,” said Doc. “It’s a good sign.” He was writing stuff on his clipboard.
    “So now I sit in some sanatorium?” I croaked. “Like in a goddam Victorian novel?”
    “Oh, no,” Jacobs chuckled. ‘Today treatment is medication ... six months. Once we get your pneumonia under control, you can handle it as an outpatient.”
    When the doctor left the room, Chino said, “You’ve had the bad news. Want to know about Vince?”
    “Only if it’s good news,” I whispered.
    Sleep slid over me for a few minutes, and when I woke up again, Chino had left the room. Another pair of eyes, beautiful, but haggard and sad, were looking at me over another white mask. They belonged to Vince. Gone was his military drag. His clothes were bottom-drawer leavings from somewhere — faded jeans, tom ski jacket, old Adidas and an ancient Watergate T-shirt. He was clean-shaven, with an air of a quick spit-polish for viewing.
    Slowly he sat down by the bed.
    “So your little adventure is over... is that it?” I croaked. He chose his words carefully, in case we were being overheard.
    ‘Yeah,” he said hoarsely, looking down. That shame was glowing in him again, the way it always did when he felt or imagined my judgment. “I got to the training camp and it was like... I don’t know...” He drew a deep sigh of