This had not been Jamey’s way. Before the illness, he’d been cheerful, agreeable, accommodating, and affectionate. Which was why Dempsey had offered to take him in. She’d liked his company. He liked hers. He would die in a state of mutual regard. It hadn’t happened that way.
Jamey’s last words to his friend—aspirated and barely audible, but still a snarl—were: “Never mind. Forget it.”
She’d been trying to lift his hips so she could slide a fresh diaper into place before he soiled the sheets. He hadn’t seemed that heavy but by now had become dead weight, a gathered center of gravity already responding to some primal pull back to the earth. When she’d rolled him toward her to begin to place the diaper, a spill of yellow fluid came from his mouth, onto his pillow, smelling like rotted vanilla pudding. She’d quickly righted him again, then realized he might choke on whatever it was he’d been trying to disgorge. She rolled him toward her again. No more fluid came. Jamey jerked his head away from her as if she’d been trying to rub his nose in the mess he’d made. And so he died, his bowels emptying themselves in a swift leakage escaping onto the flowered sheet—huge daisies—that Jamey had brought with him when he’d first moved in.
Dempsey was unable to convince herself that the real Jamey was being revealed in his final weeks and days. Jamey had become petty, whiny, surly, and snarling, without even the good grace to be merely sullen. This was the revealed Jamey. The previous Jamey, Dempsey felt, had been a construct, manufactured from bits and shards of charm, wit, and warmth. No wonder he was such a popular artist. His paintings, then his collages, were obviously the product of an experienced manipulator. The effort he had expended in the creation of himself—with such notable success—was easily transferred to the canvas, the fabric, the wood, whatever medium he might choose. The mean-spirited, sneering, whining Jamey could have created next to nothing. It would have been crabbed, petulant, like the work of some she could name. But he had invested what spirit he’d been given in creating a workable image of himself, one that could project itself into art that was both skillful and pleasing.
But then, on a winter afternoon, not long before Jamey had died on the last day of February, Dempsey realized she had been wrong. A wet snow was falling outside.
She had turned on the lamp near the couch and the bulb over the kitchen sink so the loft would have pools of warm light, the color of burnished leather, not the glare of the spots she used for her paintings. She’d lit the bedside lamp as well, tipping the shade away so the glare would fall lightly into the room. Jamey’s temperature was one hundred and four and Dempsey was moving a cool washcloth over his face—slowly, gently, to soothe the fevered forehead, the cheeks, the dehydrated lips. Slowly, slowly she let the washcloth be drawn across his closed eyes, across his mouth, then along his neck, under his chin. It was while the cloth was passing under the chin that Jamey raised his head higher so the cloth could pass more easily. Never had Dempsey been gentler, more measured in her movement than she was then. As the cloth continued its near-glacial move, Jamey opened his eyes. From his mouth, from his chest, came a sigh of such deep contentment that Dempsey, without effort, became even gentler, more measured. The sigh came again and Dempsey saw in Jamey’s eyes a look of sorrowing gratitude that, in its sweetness, seemed close to an ultimate fulfillment. The eyes closed again and Dempsey dipped the washcloth into the basin, wrung it out, and began the slow move across the forehead.
With quick jerks from side to side, Jamey refused the cloth. “Why can’t I ever be left alone!” His voice was abrupt and had more energy than Dempsey had heard for a week. She dropped the cloth into the basin, letting a few drops splash onto Jamey’s cheek. He hissed, then clutched the sheet into his fists and held it tight.
He had become again the familiar ingrate, but it was too late. Dempsey had seen for just that one moment the real Jamey and nothing would ever take from her the truth of what she’d seen. Standing at a window, contemplating the peaceful snow, she realized this meanness had been inflicted on him, yet another opportunistic infection—like the pneumocystic pneumonia, the cytomegalovirus that preyed upon his exhausted immunities. Jamey was not mean; he had meanness. Meanness was his illness, not himself. Jamey was not spiteful, he had spite. Jamey was not ungrateful; he had ingratitude.
People do not become cancer; they do not become tuberculosis. They have cancer and they die of it; they have tuberculosis and it kills them. Jamey had meanness and it was going to kill him. But at least Dempsey was now in possession of this distinction. Her affectionate, charming, warmhearted friend had been momentarily returned to her. Now she could forget his terminal petulance and recognize it for what it was—a malignity that had taken hold of her kind and gifted friend. It would bring him, sneering and whining, to his death.
The pancake batter was ready. Dempsey watched Johnny put the first two spoonfuls onto the griddle. The batter rose and began sputtering around the edges. The smell that only pancakes can produce, more welcoming even than bread, began to overwhelm the smell of paint and turpentine that usually took over the loft. Bubbles began popping open on the surface of the batter. Johnny flipped the pancakes over. They were crisply ridged, with a darkening brown in the middle. As Dempsey watched, they puffed up higher, then settled down. Johnny slipped a corner of the spatula under the surface and lifted the edge to see if the pancake was done. He then slid the spatula under each in turn, stacking one on top of the other, and slipped them onto the plate in front of her. He shoved the syrup and the butter closer, an encouragement rather than a needed assistance. Dempsey’s reach could have found them easily enough, but Johnny obviously wanted to make an offering, a small act of caring and of love.
Just as Dempsey was about to pour the syrup over the pancakes, she heard the chirping sound of her pill dispenser. Without letting the flow of syrup continue to its natural conclusion, she set the jug down, wiped her fingers on her napkin and pulled the dispenser out of her jeans pocket. Shaped like a cosmetic compact, the dispenser held all the pills prescribed for the day. The beeper had been set to remind her that the appointed time had come.
Once more the chirping sounded. Dempsey shut off the beeper with a single swift click of her thumb. Using her thumb, she popped it open and delicately took out a tiny burgundy-and-yellow capsule, which she immediately deposited into the gallon-sized brandy snifter that seemed to be the centerpiece of the table.
Inside the snifter was a mound of pills that looked like beach glass—blues, purples, yellows, with a scattering of maroons and a few reds, but with too many whites, grays, and tans to make the collection as interesting as she’d like.
This was Dempsey’s medicine depository. AZT thrown in with Zovirax and Diflucan, old bits of Bactrim and Rimactane pressed against Propulsid, Selenium, and Pyrazinamide. There was even some Senokot and a full bottle of vitamin C thrown in for color.
For the past month and a half, it had been Dempsey’s habit, when it came time to take her medicine, to faithfully remove each pill or capsule from her dispenser and toss it into the snifter. Only at assigned times would this be done; no contribution was postponed, none was anticipated before its prescribed moment. Never had she been tempted to simply empty a new prescription fresh from the pharmacy into the snifter all at once and be done with it. Instructions were to be followed, the schedule faithfully adhered to. With her, or within hearing distance, at all times was her dispenser with its bird-like beeper, reminding her it was time to make a deposit into the snifter.