Just Another Day

I will always remember our last day together. It’s not the kind of thing that one could easily forget. Scott’s partner, Shawn, had finally slipped away. After six long months of pain, his body ultimately rejected all efforts to thwart the disease. Scott had wanted to go to the funeral, but that day he was too weak to get out of bed and the pain that ravaged his body was so severe that I could not assist him. So I stayed at his bedside and we let the dead bury the dead.

The next day he was feeling a little better so we went to the cemetery. We left flowers and said all of the things we had been taught to say. We left in silence, each in our own gray world of loss. Later that day he arranged to visit his uncle’s quarter horse ranch the next morning. He had spent much of his childhood there and wanted to revisit that happier time if he could. And of course I said I would take him. He was my friend.

That morning I helped him dress in his old western shirt and a pair of worn out Levis that were falling off of him. I punched another hole in his belt and the look was complete. I helped him stand in front of the mirror so that he could inspect himself. He began to laugh at the sight of himself and said that he looked like a heroin cowboy. He kept laughing, and for just a moment I thought everything would work itself out. But then a coughing fit cut the laugh off and I had to help him to the bed so he could catch his breath.

The next morning we loaded all of his medical gear into the truck and began the three-hour drive to the ranch. The drive up was beautiful. Clouds filled the sky with an unrealized threat of rain, and kept the temperature down to a bearable level. We listened to a tape of Scott’s own chamber music compositions. The pieces were light and airy, and I thought they were perfect, but Scott said he wished he had more time to work out the rough spots. I told him that he had plenty of time and he just looked at me and managed a weak smile.

We arrived at the ranch and I pulled the wheelchair from the back of my truck. Scott’s uncle met us about halfway to the house to tell us that we were on our own. He had fences to run in the far pasture and had already locked up the house. I couldn’t help but notice the way he stayed at least ten feet away from us. He walked to his truck but as he was getting in, almost as if in afterthought, he turned and said, “We’ve missed you around here, Scotty.” Then he drove down the dirt trail as Scott watched him through glassy eyes.

We watched the horses run in the paddocks for the better part of an hour, then he wanted to show me the barn. We went down and marveled at the new stud horse in his stall. Scott said he was a golden buckskin with black socks and I said, “Oh yeah.” like that meant anything to me. Scott explained how they breed the horses and that the stud never actually touched the mare, just mounted a dummy. I told him I could relate to that, and he laughed. He showed me the lab that was right in the barn. While we were there he toyed with a drawer that was partially open. He said that it was where his uncle kept all the medication, antibiotics, tranquilizers and such, for the horses. He said it was supposed to be kept locked, but his uncle always forgot. We had left some carrots in the truck and he asked if I would run and get them. When I got back we fed the stud and then Scott was ready to go.

On the way back he wanted to listen to some of the music we had once played together, “when we were young and invincible”. I didn’t have any of those tapes anymore, but he was insistent so we pulled into the next K-mart. I bought an old Motley Crue tape from the dollar bin and Scott bought a pair of silk pajamas and a thick terry cloth robe. He said that all his others were stained and he would like to feel clean for a little while. So we took off down the highway, Shout at the Devil blaring through the speakers, like two old men chasing some dream from the past. I like to think that perhaps Scott touched it for at least a while.

By the time we arrived home, it had begun to rain softly and the light was fading to purple-gray. I helped Scott bathe, put on his new pajamas and robe, and got him into bed. I sat with him as he spoke of his parents and how he wished they could have looked past his lifestyle and seen their son again. I told him there was still time and again he gave me that smile. He said he wished he could see all of his old friends again. They had stopped coming by when Shawn had become really ill. I told him that it was hard for them to see him this way but that they stilled cared. I told him that I would call them tomorrow and they would come.

“Yes,” he said, “call them and tell them not to feel guilty about not coming around. Tell them I understand.”

We spoke of many things after that, reliving old memories and dead dreams. He said he was feeling hungry, which was unusual, and asked if I would make him a bowl of oatmeal, “the real kind, not that instant crap.”

But when I returned he said he was too tired to eat, so I put the bowl on the nightstand. I couldn’t miss seeing the syringe sitting under the lamp. My eyes went to the trickle of blood on his left arm and then to his eyes which caught and held mine. “Will you hold my hand until I’m asleep?” he asked.

So I took his hand, his sick, withered hand, and sat beside him. I could feel his pulse grow weaker and slower as he closed his eyes. Suddenly his eyes opened, filled with tears, and he said that he was sorry. I told him that there was no need to be sorry or sad or scared. “Close your eyes and sleep.” I told him, “I’ll wait here as long as you need.”

And there I sat, feeling his pulse recede with every beat. At the end he gasp for breath a few times, but I don’t think he knew. He was finally free from pain. I just sat there, holding his hand, as the raindrops ran down the window mimicking my tears. I realized that there was still so much left unsaid, but I wonder now if there would have ever been enough time. So I did the only thing left for me to do. I wept.

I didn’t weep for Scott. He was finally free of the world that saw him as a perverted freak and of the disease that far too many believed he deserved. No, I selfishly wept for my own loss, and for the world that would never hear Scott’s music.

And outside, that world hurried along on its way, never realizing it had suffered such a loss.