The Book of Joe

gums. I wonder if he’s possibly lost even more weight since last night. “I really shouldn’t have let you drink like that,” I say, alarmed by his deathly pallor.
    “You’re not the boss of me,” he says with a wan grin. “And besides, you’re not looking so pretty yourself.” I look pointedly at the fatty hanging loosely between his fingers. “For medicinal purposes,” he says. “I shit you not.”
    I wheel over the leather desk chair and sit down at his bedside. “I don’t want to be a nag, but don’t you think you should be in a hospital?”
    He frowns and closes his eyes. “They recommended a hospice,” he says. “But I’m not going to lie in some white room, doped up on painkillers and antidepressants, waiting for the end. How would I know when I’d actually died?”
    I nod sadly, for the first time fully comprehending how far along Wayne is. He isn’t looking at a matter of years or even months. Weeks is probably more like it, or maybe even days.
    It must have taken a Herculean effort for him to get dressed and come over to see me the way he did last night, and I feel like an idiot for not having recognized the full extent of his condition. I should have driven him home and put him right back into bed. Instead, I took him out drinking.
    “Have you seen Carly yet?” he says.
    “Why do you always go right to that?” I say, although I’ve been waiting for him to ask.
    “Because it’s what matters.”
    “Other things matter too.”
    Wayne opens his eyes, takes a short drag on the joint, exhaling a thin gray plume of smoke as he sits up a little. “Here on the cusp of the hereafter,” he declares with mock gravity, “I’ve been granted a certain wisdom, for lack of a better word. An ability to see things with a clarity I never before possessed. It’s a parting gift, I guess. You won’t be advancing to the next round, but here’s a consolation prize, and thanks for playing. That sort of thing.” He pauses to smile ironically at his analogy before continuing. “I suppose that not being weighed down with the normal, self-absorbed concerns over health, wealth, and the future, my brain is freed to finally see the greater truth in everything. Or in other words” - he pauses, giving me a sharp look - “what really matters.”
    “And what does really matter?” I ask, inhaling a whiff of secondhand ganja so strong it stings my throat.
    He grins at me, not answering, and looks out the window.
    The sun hangs low in the purple sky over the roofs of the houses across the street, and the afternoon light is quickly fading into the soft pink hues of evening. “Do you remember that day we cut school and took the train into the city - you, me, and Carly?” he says.
    I nod. “Sure. We went to the Central Park Zoo and then saw a movie.”
    “Back to the Future,” Wayne says, closing his eyes as he remembers. “We were the only ones in the theater.”
    I have a sudden, vivid flashback of Carly doing cartwheels down the empty theater aisle in the middle of the movie and then skipping back to our seats, her face flushed with excitement, as Wayne and I applauded. I’d forgotten about that, and, recalling it, I feel a hot lump in my throat. “We had Kentucky Fried Chicken afterward,” I say. “Brought a bucket of it on the train and stuffed our faces the whole way back.”
    Wayne nods, smiling. “All that shit with Sammy was going on then,” he says. “I was still in denial that I was actually gay.
    That was a tough year for me. I was scared and confused, and I had this big secret I didn’t feel safe sharing with anyone. But that day we all had a great time, better than if we’d done it on a Saturday.” He turns away from the window and looks at me.
    “The three of us laughed a lot that day. That’s what I remember most. And that for one day, I completely forgot about my secret and just enjoyed myself, for the first time in ages.”
    I nod, feeling my eyes becoming moist. Sitting there with Wayne, I can actually recall the way that day felt, the sensation of it, and what it felt like to be me then. The crisp autumn air, the noise of Manhattan, the delightful, conspiratorial sense of being somewhere we shouldn’t have been, the flush on Carly’s cheeks from the cool wind as we walked through the zoo.
    “That day mattered,” Wayne says emphatically. “There were plenty of other days that mattered too, but not nearly as many as there should have been. I’ve thought about it a