More and more, my visits seemed to coincide in timing with the
changing of Steve's bandages.  This was not planned, it was just that
they needed changing every few hours now.  It was a gruesome process
of gingerly removing the soiled gauze and cleaning the enormous tumor
on the bottom and side of his foot.  The tumor was as large as the
foot itself and looked as if someone had packed rotting raw hamburger
around a normal foot.  The small dining room that had sufficed as a
place to put the rented hospital bed began to fill with a sickening
stench.  Mike carefully bathed the gigantic tumor with a wash bottle
while I held a towel beneath it.  He paid particularly close atten-
tion to the areas that were green or pussy.  We worked in near silence
and I noticed for the first time how truly exhausted Mike appeared.
    "Have you been getting any sleep?" I asked, handing him the aerosol
that kept the odor down and the nine by nine inch Johnson gauze surgical
pads from sticking.
     He sprayed the tumor that strangled Steve's foot and held out his
hand for a package of gauze pads.  "Not really.  His fever is real bad.
The nurse told me that the infection in his foot has spread to the rest
of his body.  He can't fight it; his body is just too weak."  He care-
fully placed the pads over the worst parts of the hamburger while I
tore open a new package.  I knew it would take three, so I set the open
one aside and began on the next.
     I glanced at Steve.  Just yesterday he greeted me weakly when I
came in the room.  Now he didn't seem to know I was even there.
"Sh*t," I whispered as I handed Mike the next gauze stack.  I couldn't
think of anything else to say and Mike didn't seem to need anything
more than that.  The stench was making me nauseous so I concentrated
on the parts of the growth that were neatly covered with the large
white squares of gauze.  It was my job to hold those squares in place
while Mike began winding a roll of gauze gently around the foot and
the hideous tumor fastened to it.  This took some coordination, but
we performed it expertly.
    "The nurse told me that I had to tell him anything I needed to
before it was too late," he continued absently.  "Don't have regrets
later about things you wish you had said is what she told me.  What
do you say to someone after eight years when you know they're your
last words?  You know?  'It's been nice,' sounds pretty stupid."
His eyes searched mine, but I had nothing to give him except for
the next roll of gauze.  He took it and finished the job.
    "Mike, how are you doing this alone?" I changed the subject,
returning to my earlier observation of his exhaustion.  "How about
if I stay over tonight so you can get some sleep."  Mike was protec-
tive of Steve and was afraid to leave him for more than a few minutes
at a time.  He was also fiercely independent and I was momentarily
afraid he would turn me down.  "I will wake you immediately if any-
thing happens," I hurriedly added.
     To my surprise he readily accepted.  "Thanks," he smiled wearily
as he opened a window and turned on the ceiling fan.
     I washed my hands in the kitchen and returned to survey the
dining/sick room.  Medicines and hospital supplies were stacked
everywhere. Steve's foot looked like a giant burrito, folded care-
fully in the gauze wrappings.  Mike took out the trash and I finally
had a chance to say hello to my friend.  "Hey, Stevie-boy," I breathed
as I kissed his forehead.  "You and I have a date tonight."  He did
not move.  His eyes were half opened, but there was no focus, no
Stevie-boy.  I picked up his Gatorade sports bottle and put it to
his lips.  He drew on the straw and swallowed after several seconds.
I wondered if he knew I was there and was too weak to respond or if
he was completely out of it.  I voiced that thought aloud to him.
    "The nurse said to assume that he can hear and understand every-
thing you say to him," instructed Mike as he came in from the trash.
    "Will you laugh if I tell you a dirty joke?" I teased.  The only
response was the hum of the ceiling fan and Steve's shallow jerky
breathing.
     Mike could not just go to bed as exhausted as he was.  There were
errands to run.  He left and returned with one bag from the pharmacy,
one from Carl's Jr., and one from the video store.  He set out three
movies and ignored the food.  "I got these for Steve," he said sheep-
ishly.  "He's been wanting to see them and I thought you could play
them during the night."  Suddenly his voice broke and his eyes, red
rimmed from fatigue, spilled over with tears.  I took him in my arms
and held him tightly.  He is a large man and I felt small and inade-
quate in comforting him.  I wanted suddenly to shield him from all
the grief and loneliness that comes with watching a loved one suffer
and waste away.  We stood for several minutes, silently clinging to
each other near Steve's bed.  Steve's choked breaths and Mike's quiet
sobs mixed in the air that the fan overhead stirred.
     Mike went to sleep without eating much of his Famous Star with
cheese.  I popped in the first movie and settled back with Steve
while intermittently holding the sports bottle to his lips.  Occa-
sionally he would draw from it.  After the second movie, Mike got
up and we changed the bandages again.  It did not take long for them
to become soiled and rank.  I coaxed him to return to bed and Steve
and I were again alone.  I sat and watched him for a time, remembering
the years that led up to this moment.
     I had met Mike and Steve four years ago.  They were wonderful guys
and we quickly formed a friendship group of about eight people.  We had
enjoyed barbecues and "game nights" together.  Our favorite games had
changed from time to time, but Steve's favorite had always been Pic-
tionary.  Last year we had all traveled to New Orleans for a week.
It was a time I would never forget.  We had prayed together, partied
together, vacationed together, and shared our lives together.
     The entire time we knew Steve was sick.  His illness had never been
real to me.  He was always healthy, always upbeat.  I had never known
anyone terminally ill before, but I did not expect someone who was dying
to be so happy and gentle in spirit.  I had erroneously held the Holly-
wood picture of the angry brooding victim in my mind.  Steve rarely
seemed down.  He shared about his disease with school kids, churches
and support groups.  He had always commented that the disease was just
"damned inconvenient."  He had been patient with the ignorant, and
joking with those who really understood.
     The day eventually came when Steve got sick.  He made his hospital
room into a social gathering.  One day a nurse, mocking exasperation,
counted thirteen visitors crammed into his small room.  She scolded us
for making a party out of a sick room.  "Give up the M&Ms and the cheese
balls!" she demanded laughingly.  Steve convinced her to not only stay,
but also to bring in three pitchers of water to go with the snacks!
    We watched his battles with different infections that took him down,
but he always resurfaced victoriously.  Health had always returned to
the strong young body ...until the tumor.  It had started small, the
size of a quarter, small and dark in the sole of his left foot.  Nothing
the doctors did seemed to help and it took root there and grew and grew
until it had gripped his foot and then began to rot.  They had recom-
mended hospice care and...
     "Hey."
     The word snapped me back to the small dining room with a shock.
Although it had been a barely audible whisper, I knew I had heard it
clearly.  I quickly leaned over the bed and searched his face.  Our
eyes locked in the dim light of the television.  Steve was there and
conscious of me.  His eyes had a strange light to them, as if he had
already visited heaven.  "Where have you been?" I asked him.  He made
no reply, but continued to stare into my face.  I tried again, this
time more composed.  "You're a fighter, Steven," I reminded him.
"You hang in there.  If you can just break the fever, you can maybe
beat this thing."  He only continued to stare, but it wasn't an empty,
glazed stare; he was focused, cognizant.  Remembering what the nurse
had told Mike, I began to pour out of my heart all that he meant to
me.  I told him how he had taught me so much about faith and courage
by the way he had lived his life.  I told him the ways in which he
had inspired me over the last four years.  I wept, I prayed, I told
him to fight.
     I woke Mike and he sat with Steve and talked to him while I sat
on the front porch steps.  After a while Mike came to the door.  "He's
gone again."  He leaned into the door frame, lit a cigarette, and
exhaled lazily.  I watched him smoke while he watched some spot near
my feet.  "Well," he tossed the butt into a geranium planter, "let's
get the bandages changed."  I rose and followed him back in the house
as the dawn began to break gray and pink in the east.
     Our friend Janet was due in an hour, so I went home, called in sick
to work, took a long shower, and crawled into bed.  I couldn't sleep
right away, but it felt good to let my body rest.  I kept thinking of
Steve and the strange light in his eyes.  I wondered what it was like
to be in his brain through all of this.  Time passed and I must have
fallen asleep because the ringing phone seemed like an alarm clock.
I rolled over and picked up the receiver.  "Hello," I murmured.  It
was Mike and his voice was tight and worried.  "It's Steve, he's real
bad."
     "I'll be right there."  I hung up and looked at the clock.  It was
after 3:00.
     I swung my car into the driveway as the afternoon sun cast long,
sad shadows over the house.  I stepped quickly in the door and turned
into the dining room.  Mike and Janet sat beside the bed.  They turned
pale faces toward me.  I was stunned at the sound that filled the small
room:  a gurgling, aquarium kind of sound, an underwater sound.  I some-
how knew that it was the death rattle.  Had I read about it in books?
I vaguely wondered how I had the knowledge that I did.  I moved effort-
lessly, floating to the empty space near the bed, at Steve's head, and
sat down.  I took his head gently in my arms and kissed his forehead.
     "Steve, baby, it's me."  My voice sounded strange to my own ears.
"Do you remember what I told you?  Do you remember that I told you to
fight, that you have to fight?  Well, sweetheart, you fought a great
battle.  You did real well.  Steve, it's over now, and you don't have
to fight anymore.  You can rest now, honey.  Just rest and don't fight
anymore."  My face was wet with the tears that silently rolled down my
cheeks.  The world turned slowly on its axis while I spoke words that
I didn't know from where they came.  His body shook from the horrible
gasping and his eyes were filmy and vacant.
     I looked at Mike and Janet.  I knew their ashen and wet faces
reflected my own.  Janet dropped her head and began to pray.  Mike
stared for a moment at me and then at Steve.  "If you see Jesus,
Steven Charles, you run to him.  Do you hear me?  You run to him."
His voice sounded strange too, as if he were from a different world
that turned just as slowly on a different axis.
     After that it took hardly any time at all.  Steve's body spasmed
under the burden of breathing, and then with a huge exhale everything
stopped.  The room went quiet like a tomb.  As we sat motionless, I
heard the fan above our heads beat the still air with a rhythmic hum
like the flutter of a dove's wings.
                                  registered script, Veronica Coleman
.
The only artistic creativity added to the reality of the above events is
the ceiling fan.  The author, a long-time loving friend, submitted this
piece for an advanced creative writing course at Cal.State Long Beach.
It received the first A+ grade awarded by her professor in his 14 year
tenure.
In reality, my name is also Steve.  Ronnie also thought the same-name
thing might prove confusing to the reader.  I was blessed to have shared
almost eight miraculous years with my lover, Stephen.  I am a born
again, name's written in the Lamb's book of life, baptised in water and
the Holy Spirit and fire, Christ redeemed, sanctified, child of the
living God.  And I am the proud gay man my God created me to be.  All
honor and glory to God, Creator of everything that is, author and
finisher of my faith, absolute source of loving, accepting Grace!
One favor... be careful what you claim is not of God.  It took the Holy
Spirit of God THREE personal visits to the apostle Peter, first-hand
disciple of Jesus Christ, to convince him that 'what God sanctifies...
IS sanctified.'  Furthermore, John's Revelation  p r o m i s e d  that
in the end times, God would pour out of the Holy Spirit UPON ALL FLESH!
It's not  m y  Word... it's God's!
---
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