I wandered the halls. Your family could keep me out of a room, but they couldn’t evict me from a building. Eventually they would relent, this family of yours who didn’t know you. Sooner or later they would crack. Someone would say, “Get that boy in here, the one wandering the halls.” They wouldn’t like it, but they would recognize that we had you in common. After a few awkward hours your mother would reach out and hold my hand in fellowship. No? At the very least someone would need me. At some point you would require clothes, you would need to be dressed. To come home, or—as it turns out—to not. They had the key to your room, but I had the key to your things. That never happened. I think they bought you a suit for the service at—god help you—the Beverly Center. That’s the thing about putting a hospital across the street from a mall. Haunt them, would you? Like, rattle some fucking chains. I want them never to sleep again. I imagine this is what it was like at the height of AIDS. This awfulness. Hateful families swooping in and erasing loving partnerships. You’d think we’d left all that in the last century, but no.
It’s this anger that’s taken over. I used to be scared of anger, and that’s because I bottled it up inside. Not anymore! It’s like vomiting after drinking too much. Sure, it’s unpleasant in the moment, but then you feel so much better! Anger is beautiful if you express it just right. Let it out. You should see the face of the woman who ran over my shoe with her cart at the grocery store. She won’t do that again! （That’s an extreme example; I probably owe her an apology.） Anyhow, I only mention this because they’ll probably tell you in Bhutan that finding a way around anger is a form of enlightenment, and I’m telling you that that’s a load of horseshit. Anger, when justified, is glorious.
Do you know what it’s like to be so close to you when you needed me most and not be able to cross a ten-yard divide? There was a minefield between us, filled with explosives made from years of brainwashing and religion and intolerance and spite. I could have made a run for it, like a soldier storming Normandy in a war film with things detonating all around me—I could have broken through. But I was so afraid. I was afraid I wouldn’t make it, that I would step on the land mine that is your mother, who would have me removed from the hospital altogether, in pieces if necessary, and if that happened I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life.
Instead I regret this.
There was a kind man who took pity on me. His name was Seth, a nurse. He brought me in to see you when your family stepped out. I held your hand and we said goodbye. As best as I was able.
Your organs have been donated. At least that’s my understanding. I looked up the form and the questions they ask. Sexual history. Do you think your parents knew how to accurately answer? I don’t. I think they lied. Isn’t that the way? They won’t take our blood, but they’ll take our organs! This fucking world. I’ve about had it with straight people. Although I suppose they’d take our blood if we lied on those forms, too.
I am less me. I left part of myself with you. I don’t know what it was, but I felt it leave my body the last time I held your hand. It was incinerated with you, with that cheap suit from Macy’s and, I assume, scattered with you. Wherever that may be.
I will continue. I’m told repeatedly I have to. Greg threatened me not to do anything stupid. （Although, what recourse he would have if I did, I don’t know.） Sara is flying here to be with me. She’s arriving tomorrow. I was supposed to pick her up, but I told her that cars were traumatic and she said, “Of course, I’ll take a cab.” If I play this hand correctly I may never have to drive again. Certainly not to LAX. I will grow old and you won’t ever have to. You will always be perfectly Joe. With your skin and your hair and your teeth and your ability to do three sit-ups and somehow see results.
My life will be different. For a bright, shining moment I was part of a team. I thought we would see the future together and be—oh god, writing it like this sounds so maudlin—A FAMILY. Now I don’t know. I don’t even know what family means. I’m adrift in black space like an untethered astronaut, each star I float past a shining memory reminding me that I don’t live that life anymore.
Yours in science,
Patrick
PS This is dumb. I’m not going back to this therapist.
TWENTY-ONE
The visitors’ lounge at the Coachella Sober Living Facility smelled familiar—eerily recognizable; Patrick couldn’t quite place it and it was driving him mad. The walls were painted concrete brick, like an elementary school classroom, the furniture equally unimpressive. Not in a donated way: there was no sagging, puffy sofa one might find in an old church basement, batting spilling out of a tear in the arm. But certainly nothing high-end or evocative of the clientele this place seemed so desperate （according to their literature and pricing structure） to attract. Patrick took a seat on a chair that was as uncomfortable as its spare design suggested and inventoried the other furnishings. The lines were clean, the design Swedish, Danish perhaps, but everything looked disagreeable and had an air of mass production. Restless, he stood and paced the room in a hyped-up panic, like a dog whose owner promised to be right back.