Tales of the City 04 - Babycakes

and wait for the end to come.”
“Couldn’t you … get him out of there?”
“And take him where, male? No one loves a fox.” He turned and looked at Michael with tears in his eyes. “I bought him something especially nice this time. I’m not coming back. Me nerves can’t take it.”
Michael himself was beginning to feel fragile. “He looks like he appreciates it.”
“Yeah. He does, doesn’t he?” He smiled faintly, wiping his eyes.
“How about you?” Michael asked. “Can I buy you breakfast?”
“Sure. Sure, mate.” He glanced in Dingo’s direction again; the fox was scampering away.
“Do you know a good place?” Michael asked. “Yeah,” the kid nodded.
It turned out to be a tiny Greek greasy spoon only two blocks from the fox’s lair. Wilfred ordered for both of them, insisting upon the specialty of the house: fried eggs and banger and a side order of stewed tomatoes. While they ate, the skies opened up again, varnishing the cast-iron blind child that was stationed outside the door.
Michael peered at the statuette through a rain-blurred window. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” he remarked. “Do you drop money in his head?”
Wilfred nodded. “They have them for dogs and cats, too.”
Michael gave him a sympathetic smile. “But not foxes.”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen a real dingo?’’
“No. Me granddad told me about them once.”
“He was … Australian?”
“Abo,” replied Wilfred. “You can say it, mate.”
“What?” He didn’t recognize the word.
“Aborigines. You’ve heard of ’em.”
“Oh.”
The kid smiled impishly. “The ones the niggers get to pick on.”
Michael felt instantly uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Well, I would.” He sawed off a chunk of banger and popped it into his mouth. “Me grandmum was Dutch. Her and me granddad left Darwin during World War II … when you Yanks were all over the place and everyone thought the Japs were coming. Me dad was born in London.”
“And your mother?”
“She ran off when I was eight.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Sick o’ me dad and his bleedin’ port. I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t fancy me.”
“I doubt that.”
“You don’t fancy me.” He was looking at his plate as he said it.
“That’s not true.”
“You don’t want to go to bed with me.”
“Wilfred …”
“Just tell me why, then. I won’t ask again.”
Michael hesitated. “I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense … even to me.”
“Try me.”
“Well … my lover and I didn’t split up. He died of AIDS.”
The kid blinked at him.
“Do you know what that is?”
Wilfred shook his head.
“It’s this thing that gay men are getting in the States. It’s a severe immune deficiency. They get it, and then they catch anything that flies in the window. Over a thousand people have died of it.” It felt strangely cold-blooded to start from scratch and reduce the horror to its bare essentials.
“Oh, yeah,” said Wilfred soberly. “I think I read about that.”
Michael nodded. “My lover weighed ninety pounds when he died. He was this big, lanky guy and he just … wasted away. I was sick myself about six years ago … paralyzed … and he used to carry me all over….” His tears tried to burn their way out. “And then he became this … ghost, this pitiful, pitiful thing….”
“Hey, mate …”
“He was blind the last two weeks of his life. On a respirator most of the time. The last time I saw him he didn’t see me at all. All he could do was press his fingers against my face, feel my tears. I just sat there holding his hand against my face, telling some stupid joke I’d read in the newspaper … making plans for a trip to Maui.” He snatched a napkin from a dispenser and dabbed at his eyes. “Sorry about that.”
“I don’t mind, mate.”
“So I just …”
Wilfred finished for him. “You miss him.”
“A lot … oh, a lot …” He began to sob now, in spite of himself. Wilfred came to his side of the booth and sat down, squeezing his shoulder. “So I’m just … treading water right now. I just don’t feel like being with anyone in that way.” He composed himself somewhat, taking another swipe at his eyes. “I’m not afraid of sex or anything. I just haven’t been horny for a long time.”
“Right,” said Wilfred gently, “but doesn’t your heart get horny?”
Michael gave him a bleary-eyed smile. “Sometimes.”
“Well … a friend might help. Eh?”
The offer was so