Soft come the dragons

had been and seen and felt too much to cry.
    But that night it was Libby, heaving his guts out on the bed.
    I too must have cried a bit, for Libby.
    It was Gabe who put a first hand on his shoulder. We could see him there in the half-darkness of the ward, sitting on the edge of Libby's bed, a hand on the old man's shoulder. He moved it up and ran it through Libby's hair. "What is it, Lib?"
    Libby just cried. In the dark and the closeness and the shadows like birds, we thought he would make his throat bleed if he didn't soon stop.
    Gabe just sat there running gray hairs through his fingers and massaged Libby's shoulder and said things to soothe him.
    "Gabe, oh God, Gabe," Libby said between gasps for air.
    "What is it, Lib? Tell me."
    "I'm dying, Gabe. Me. It wasn't ever going to happen to me."
    I shuddered. When Libby went, could I be far behind? Did I want to be far behind? We were inseparable. It seemed that if he went, I must die too—shoved into the ovens where they cremated us—side-by-side. God, don't take Lib alone. Please, please, no.
    "You're as healthy as a rat, and you'll live to be a hundred and fifty."
    "No I won't—" He choked trying to stop tears that moved out of his eyes anyway.
    "What's the matter, pain?"
    "No. Not yet."
    "Then why did you think you're going to die, Lib?"
    "I can't piss. Goddamn, Gabe, I can't even—"
    We could see him then, lifting the thin, wrinkled body we called Libby, Bertrand Libberhad, lifting it against his young chest and holding it. He was quiet in the darkness for a time, and then he said, "How long?"
    "Two days. God, I'm bursting. I tried not to drink, but—"
    He seemed to crush Libby to him, as if the old man could gain some strength from the flower of his youth. Then he began a rocking motion like a mother with a babe in her arms. Libby cried softly to him.
    "Did you ever have a special girl, Lib?" he asked finally.
    We 'could see the head rising off the young chest—just an inch. "What?"
    "A girl. A special girl. One who walked just so and talked like wind scented with strawberries and flooded with warmth. A girl with smooth arms and nice legs."
    "Sure," Lib said with not so many tears in his voice. "Sure, I had a girl like that. Boston. She was Italian. Real dark hair and eyes like polished coal. She was gonna marry me once."
    "She loved you?"
    "Yeah. What a fool I was. I loved her and was too dumb to know. Mistake, huh?"
    "We all make them. I had a girl too. Bernadette. Sounds like a fake name, but that was hers. Green eyes."
    "Was she pretty, Gabe?"
    "Pretty as the first day in spring when you know the snow is gone for good and maybe a robin will build a nest outside your window soon. Real pretty."
    "Sony for you, Gabe."
    "And did you ever tie on one helluva drunk, Lib?"
    "Yeah." There were tears in his voice again. "Yeah, a few. Once in New York for three days. High as a kite, not knowin' where I was at."
    "So did I," Gabe said. "New York too. You could have picked me up and set me down in the middle of a cattle stampede without me ever the wiser."
    I think Libby might have laughed then. A funny little laugh that threatened tears and didn't really announce joy.
    "And Lib, did you see much of the world, you're being a seaman?"
    "Tokyo, London, Australia for two weeks. I been in every one of the fifty-six states."
    "More than I saw."
    Then in the wings of the shielding darkness, you could hear it—like phlegm bubbling in his old throat. "But, Gabe, I can't piss."
    "You've been in love and been loved, Lib. That's more than a lot of people can say. You've seen almost every corner of the world, and some places in it, you've drunk yourself silly. Don't forget all that."
    Then I realized that he was not trying to con the old man into forgetting his sickness. He was trying, instead, to show him that there was a dignity in Death, that he could hold up his withered head and say that life had not been an empty cup, the dry bed of a river.
    Libby saw a little of that too, I think.
    He said: "But Gabe, I don't want to die."
    "No one ever does, Lib. I don't; Sam doesn't."
    "It does hurt!"
    "You said it didn't."
    "I never would admit pain."
    "How hard have you tried to relieve yourself?"
    "I think blood came a little the last time. Oh, Gabe, blood. I'm an old man, and I've rotted to pieces here for years and saw no sky and no girls and no newspaper, and now my vitals are bleeding on me and my gut feels like it's gonna up and explode with the pressure."
    Gabe pulled out