Centuries from now, future archaeologists would open his grave and pry into his remains for clues into the twentieth century. They’d think they’d stumbled onto a new breed and he would be embalmed in some museum, displayed as the first Homo Chemicus.
He took his tablets to the kitchen, set them on the violently yellow counter. Same counter, twenty years later. Nick had liked the color. He had said it was cheerful.
Phil frowned at the counter.
Cheerful.
He got a glass from the overhead cabinets, filled it with tap water and started the endless job of swallowing tablets: one, two, three tablets.
At first, a year or so ago, when he’d been prescribed this mix to keep full blown AIDS away, he’d read the indications on each of the medicines prescribed for him. The cross-linking of side effects had given him nightmares and he’d given up.
He now took what Dr. Michelopolis told him to take. Two of the blue, three of the red, four of the light pink and half a dozen of the yellow.
Oh, and swallow his multivitamins, everyday, like a good little boy and take calcium to prevent the medicines leaching calcium from his bones. Four, five and six. Seven, eight and nine. The tiny pink one and the mammoth purple capsule were last.
He’d gotten so that he could swallow each pill dry, but he forced himself to drink a little water after each, and then drank a full glass afterwards.
Done, he noticed a thin phone book on the counter and a glimmer of not-quite-hope made him reach for it and turn to the s. He ran his finger down the Stev-column—from Steva to Stevenson and back up—but there were no Stevelanos listed and, therefore, no Nicholas Stevelanos.
Phil closed the book, pushed it away, set his empty glass down next to it.
He hadn’t really expected it to be this easy. He couldn’t expect it to be this easy.
To begin with, there was no reason for Nick to be in Gold-port. True, no one had picked up a trace of his leaving Goldport, but that could just be shoddy investigation. Surely, if finding Nick were as easy as looking in the phone book, one of the detectives would have managed it.
Of course, Nick might be living with someone and the phone under his partner’s name. Gay men could be as hard to find as women who married and changed their names.
The thought of Nick’s living with someone else hurt and Phil flinched from it, like a man favoring a twisted ankle, putting all his weight on the other. Even to himself, Phil couldn’t pretend that it would be logical for Nick to have lived celibate for twenty years now. He couldn’t hope that Nick had never found anyone to replace him; never found a love to compare to the sweaty groping and shaky promises of a twenty-two year old’s crush—composed as much of lust and relief at finding someone who understood, as of friendship and confused admiration.
Phil made a face at his hollow eyed mental image of himself.
Sure, boy. Nick has never found anyone to compare to yourself as a clumsy virgin. What about you? Didn’t you find others? How many Phil? Can you count them? Should we make an accounting of every one-night-stand, every grope in the dark, every time you thought you’d fallen in love and crossed your fingers and believed, really believed in ever after?
And yet, through it all, ups and downs, hopes and disappointments, he had remembered Nick, hadn’t he?
Maybe Nick remembered him.
Maybe. Or maybe, maybe, just maybe, Nick only talked of him as a joke, a youthful mistake.
Nicky, with his sensitive fingers, so nimble on the guitar strings, his perfect voice, his renaissance features, his quick, quick mind. Nick had deserved better, even then. Maybe he’d found it.
The maybe felt like a nail, driven into Phil’s future coffin. A shiver went up Phil’s spine. Tired. He was tired.
He stumbled to the bed, shoved his bag to the floor, pulled his jacket off, and fell, face down, on the mattress. Sleep overtook him immediately, as if a switch had been thrown.
Sleep brought a dream, a dream he could neither define nor describe when he woke on his back, in the dark room, staring at the ceiling and listening to the radio.
It played very low, just loud enough to be perceived as a whisper over the sound of the raging waves outside the window. But when the voice of the announcer came on, even low, what he said made Phil sit up, stark awake, trembling.
“That was Nicky Stevelanos, folks, with his latest ballad The Songs I Wrote For You. All the talking heads say he hasn’t grown as a musician and that his songs need to develop some different rhythm and some different theme. Yeah, right. Bet you he’s laughing all the way to the bank, uh? Now, let us listen to one of his older hits, Saying Goodbye and see if any of you agree with the talking heads, uh? Call me and give me your opinion, right? The phone is”
Phil repeated the phone number to himself—bemused—and got out of bed, and hung, speechless by the radio. Laughing all the way to the bank? Nicky was living off his song-writing? Off his singing? Was he well known? He must be a local phenomenon, or Phil would have heard of him in Denver. The detectives must truly be incompetent, not to have found Nick.
Would the radio announcer know Nick’s address? Oh, please, please, please.
It would be some other Nick, though. Someone with the same name. Unlikely but possible….
The seconds before the song started stretched in Phil’s perception, endless and barren. He licked lips that felt too dry.
Then the song started with a whisper of acoustic guitar, followed by Nick’s voice. Unmistakably Nicky’s voice, clear and pure and perfect, a voice that couldn’t be forgotten if you tried to forget it.
Phil’s emotion caught in a knot at his throat, a pulsing in his chest. The song Nick sang was something that Phil had never heard. And yet, Phil couldn’t avoid thinking it had been written for him. The line about “My hand shall not hold yours ever again,” wrung his heart and “Though I still want you, I don’t expect your kiss, ever again,” might as well have been an accusation aimed at Phil.
Closing his eyes, Phil could imagine that Nicky was right here, sitting in the living room, on the old brown couch, his guitar held like a lover, his eyes closed, his voice caressing every note as it dropped from his lips.
Nick sang for him, for him alone. Nicky had forgiven Phil’s desertion, Phil’s indefensible cowardice.
He wanted Phil back.
The song ended. The music stopped. Phil waited for the announcer’s voice. Nothing. Not even static.
Slowly, Phil opened his eyes, glared at the yellow-painted radio, now as dead as the table or the yellow counter top.
He punched an ivory button, two. Nothing. He looked behind, to see if the thing was plugged in, but couldn’t even see a cord. The only plug had one cord attached to it, and that was the cord for the television.
Well, Phil still knew the number to call. This was weird, but weird things happened.
Maybe the radio had been on next door. That must be it.
He found the phone behind a teddy bear on the bedside table, and dialed the number from memory.
It rang for a long time, before it was picked up. “Yes?” a woman’s voice.
“Uh… Ah…” Phil had no idea what the station was, or if it was local. No, wait, the phone number had dialed local But what information could they give him on Nick? They’d think he was a crank. “I—You asked for opinions on Nick Stevelanos. I—I’m an old college friend and I’ve lost touch—Lost touch. I don’t suppose you’d tell me what he’s doing these days and the name of his albums? I’d love to”