Right To Die

"Early call?"

"Del's an office temp. Knows three word-processing programs by heart. That's how we met, actually, although not really."

"I don't get you."

"Well, I met him when he came for an interview – I'm Bacall Office Help. On Boylston, across from the Common? But I didn't really say anything to him then."

"Why not?"

"Because he was hoping for a job, and I've always thought it a little unseemly to put the move on potential employees."

"Sounds like a good rule for any business."

"It is, believe me. About two months later, though, we ran into each other at a First Night party – last New Year's Eve – and that got us started."

We'd reached the intersection of Beacon. "Well, this is where I turn."

Bacall said, "The meter still running?"

"I charge by the day, not the hour."

"There's something I want to talk over with you. How far is your car?”

I pointed up Beacon. "Six blocks that way."

"A little closer than mine. Can we take a drive?"

"A drive? Where?"

"South Boston?"

***

"So that's the famous Powerhouse Pub?"

We were passing the gigantic Edison plant on our left, the tavern on the right across Summer Street as it becomes L Street. Bacall was swiveling his head like a kid at the circus.

I said, "You've never been to Southie before?"

"How could you tell?"

"Most people would come by car, and this is the most typical route. You can't miss the Edison, and the pub's pretty obvious."

"Well, you're right. I moved to Boston in 1974. Can you imagine the impression I had of Southie from the bussing controversy?" In the seventies a series of federal court orders desegregated the Boston public schools. No white kids from South Boston were bussed out, but black kids from other parts of the city were bussed in. The television cameras captured white mothers and fathers throwing curses and rocks at innocent black children, local politicians taking stands that would have made Lester Maddox blanch.

I said, "Not Southie's finest hour."

"No. But it all looks so… I'm sorry, but ordinary."

"It is ordinary. Just a stable neighborhood in an era when most people move around a lot. You've still got at least two and sometimes three generations under the same three-decker roof."

"Fascinating. "

I didn't think demographics were the reason for the ride, but I gave him time.

Bacall squinted at a street sign. "Broadway. This is where the St. Patrick's Day parade goes?"

"That's right. They march between Broadway station and Andrew Square. Not as big a deal now as when I was little."

"You grew up here?"

"No, but I used to think so."

"Good line to remember. I'm from New Jersey myself, near the George Washington Bridge. When they built the lower level, they called it Martha. That was pretty much the humor when I was little."

When I didn't respond, Bacall said, "John, does my being gay bother you?"

I glanced away from the traffic. He was staring at me. I said, "It keeps me from being completely at ease."

"How do you mean?"

"Having to be careful what I say."

"In the sense that…?"

"At the Rabb tonight, I enjoyed you and Wonsley joking. But I didn't jump in."

"Why?"

"I was afraid I might say something you'd take the wrong way."

"You don't know many gay men, do you?"

"A few. No real close friends so far as I know."

Turning left onto Day Boulevard, I glanced at Bacall again. He was smiling, but not in a condescending way. "You put things very well, John."

"Is there a reason you're asking me all this'?"

Bacall looked ahead. "Is that Castle Island?"

The old stone fortress loomed out of the moonlit water. "That's it."

"Can you pull in and park?"

"Sure."

We went over the curbstone, the only car in the lot. I killed the engine.

Bacall unfastened his seat belt so he could face me. "I was raised Catholic, John."

"Me too."

"It wasn't till junior high that I realized I was interested in other boys rather than girls. I didn't do anything about it, not even those gross circle jerks that stupid boys do. I went to church a lot, and to confession about the unclean thoughts. I played basketball, a good small forward. I even dated one of the flag twirlers to look right, though I obviously didn't feel right. I came out sophomore year of college, and I haven't regretted it one day since."

Not knowing what I was supposed to say, I didn't say anything. "It was difficult, but life's difficult. Any life, all life." He lowered his voice. "Have you been following the AIDS epidemic?"

"Just TV reports on the victims."

" 'Victims.' Not a good word, John."

"It isn't?"

"No. Victims shrivel up and die. Persons with AIDS, or PWAs, fight back."

"With these new drugs?"

"There are only a couple of approved ones, like alpha interferon or azidothymidine, which you hear called AZT. Accordingly, most PWAs take other drugs against the opportunistic infections AIDS allows, like pentamidine against pneumonia. I'm not a doctor, John, but we're years away from even a vaccine, much less a cure."

"Which is why you support Maisy Andrus on the right to die."

"Partly. Most of those infected can and will live a long time. Productively too. But for some, there has to be a way out."

Bacall cleared his throat. "In the early eighties, before we knew a great deal about AIDS, a friend of mine contracted it and… withered terribly. He begged me to help him end his suffering, but I couldn't… see it that way, then. I couldn't do for my friend what Maisy had the courage and compassion to do for her husband in Spain. That's really why I support Maisy, John. She's living proof of the need to convince society that everyone has the right to end the fight mercifully and honestly. Without having to hoard pills from valid prescriptions and before descending into blindness and madness and… diapers, goddammit."

Bacall lowered his voice again. "Tommy – Tommy Kramer – told me you served in Vietnam?"

"That's right."

"I have a reason for asking this, John. In the war, how many friends did you lose?"

I looked away. "You didn't… When you were over there, you didn't keep some kind of tally."

"Between five and ten?"

I whoofed out a breath. "Ten, twelve. Around there."

"John?"

I looked back at Bacall.

His eyes were wet and glowy, but he wasn't crying, just twitching a little. "John, in the last twenty-four months I've buried twenty-eight friends."

"Jesus."

"They were older, younger, every color. They were the best people and the worst, the most fun and the least. But they were friends, and no matter how careful they thought they'd been before they even knew they needed to be careful, they got taken. Opportunistically, horribly, slowly."

I thought back to being in-country, mostly as a street MP, once in a while in the bush. The way people died, the randomness of it. Bacall cleared his throat again, then shook his head like a fighter who'd had his bell rung. "Maisy is trying to help us her way. In helping her, you're helping us your way. And if there is anything I can do, you've got it."

"Understood."

Bacall's twitches became spasms.

"Alec, are you all right?"

"No, but I will be." He dug through his overcoat to the side pocket of his suit jacket. "Sorry about this."

"What's wrong?"

"I'm diabetic, John. More a nuisance than anything else, but the last few… with all the excitement. I'm a little off my insulin schedule, I guess."

Bacall drew out a leather case. He opened it to reveal an ampule of liquid and a hypodermic needle. Reaching down to his sock, he pulled up his trouser leg past mid-thigh. Even in the faint light I could see the track marks on his skin.

"You want the courtesy light?"

"No. Believe me, I can do this with my eyes closed. The double pleats keep me from having to drop my pants." He took out the syringe and, after two false starts, filled it from the ampule. I turned away to see a cruiser stopping, the uniforms inside readying themselves to step out and over to us.