The night had turned into a flea market transaction. Mac wasn’t going to haggle for sex. He put his clothes back on, and Gideon quickly followed.
“Why are you so afraid of having anything down there?” Mac asked. “Scared that you’ll like it?”
“This isn’t easy for me like it is for you.”
“This isn’t easy for me, either. I’m nervous, but I feel better knowing this is all happening with a friend, with someone I trust and care about.”
Mac averted his eyes. He did not mean for those last two words to come out. They were on their own mission.This is what happens when I turn my brain off. The filter shuts off, too.Mac waited for Gideon to respond, for him to say that he trusted his friend, that he cared about Mac.
“I’m still hungry.” Gideon went to the kitchen and fished around for food in the cabinets. Mac stormed after him.
“This is horseshit,” Mac said. “Typical straight guy horseshit.”
“Did you eat all the saltines?” Gideon didn’t look at him. He focused on foraging. Classic Gideon avoidance that made Mac want to scream.
“Fuck the saltines, Gideon. You can’t be the only one calling the shots in this…whatever it is. You think that if you don’t bottom, then you’re not doing anything gay? Well, guess what: kissing a guy and jerking him off and letting him blow you are pretty standard homosexual acts. You can categorize and compartmentalize in your head all you want, but those are the cold, hard facts.”
Gideon found a sleeve of Ritz crackers hiding in the back of a shelf. “Perfect.”
Mac ripped them out of his hand, crunched them into a million little pieces, and shook them out all over the hardwood floor.
“What the hell has gotten into you?”
“You don’t get to just walk away from me.”
“I don’t have a say in what we get to do anymore?”
“You don’t get to have the only say,” Mac said.
Gideon acted like Mac’s words didn’t dig under his skin, which hurt more than anything he could say back. Mac was proud of standing up for himself, and so instead of having Gideon say good night, he walked away first.
Φ
Mac left for the bus station early in the morning. He tiptoed out of the apartment, when the sky still had the midnight blue of pre-dawn. A part of him hoped that Gideon would rush out, charge down the steps, and stop him on the street. But this wasn’t a movie.
The bus ride to Pittsburgh was a little over three hours. He gripped the four-leaf clover keychain the entire trip. Mac prepared for the emotional onslaught. He remembered what Gideon said. Aunt Rita would be fine. They call it benign for a reason. But a tumor was no match for the cold detachment of Mr. and Mrs. Daly. He wondered if they would even acknowledge them. Would he do the same? He stared out the window to distract him, but it was just trees and road signs. Not much help.
At the bus stop in Pittsburgh, Aunt Rita’s friend Helen waited in her Corvette. The woman was far from rich—her stuffy, old-lady-smelling two-bedroom apartment down the street from his aunt was proof of that. But when her mother passed away, she used her inheritance to buy the one thing she’d always wanted. The car she never got to have in high school. It wasn’t just a car to her, it was a new lease on life.
“Mackie!”
He blushed at the name. It was home to him.
He threw his stuff in the back seat. They gave each other a tight hug, expressing the worry and hope for Aunt Rita that words couldn’t.
“She’s doing good, Mackie. She’s going into surgery in a little bit.”
They headed to the hospital. Mac passed familiar buildings, and they gave him comfort.
At the hospital, Helen went up to the nurses station to find out if they were still allowing visitors. She worked her chatty magic. She seemed to make friends with everybody. Helen turned around and gave Mac a “follow me” nod.
Mac held her hand as they made their way down the hall. Aunt Rita was not a person who was supposed to be in a hospital. She was vibrant and had a laugh that took over a room. Thanksgiving was coming up, her favorite holiday.
“Look who I found,” Helen said.
This was not the Aunt Rita Mac wanted to remember. Part of her head was shaved. Her pale skin didn’t match the vivaciousness struggling to be known in her eyes. She smiled at Mac.
“Don’t tell me. I look awful,” she said. “Hospital gowns are not like evening gowns, I’m finding out.”
