And They Descended
A flash fiction piece
A few years ago, I met an older gay man named Chris at a pride march in Brooklyn. We sat down at Stonewall (I was lucky to have gotten let in— I had a very unrealistic fake ID) and he told me about his boyfriend, Andrew, who passed away from AIDS in 1992. I told him I was a writing student and asked him if I could write a story for class based on Andrew’s life and he gave me a very enthusiastic yes.
It received a B+, but Chris really liked it. I edited it a few nights ago and wanted to share it here!
Sleep, as Christopher knew it, was just a miniature death— practice for the inevitable.
Each night, he lay his body down to rest. In his mind, he bid goodbyes to his family, his hairdresser, his neighbor’s elderly grandmother. He wrote out his will. He’d want to give his chaise sofa to his brother. His pet fish would go to his sister. He had already leased his apartment in his boyfriend, Andrew’s, name; he would leave him with all of the money he had saved up in his bank account.
In the morning, when he would wake up in Andrew’s frail arms, Christopher kissed him gently on the cheek. Maybe in thanks, maybe in sadness. Sometimes, even, in regret. He never took Sunday mornings with Andrew for granted. He felt them dwindling. The doctor with a sad smile that did not quite reach her eyes had told him his T-cell count was lower than they had hoped for, that he was lucky if he lived another three months.
He expected to break, to cry, to scream. But he had only nodded his head, bowed it down to the Lord. After all, Andrew was given a year. He was thankful for that.
Before his diagnosis, he called himself an atheist. Now he owned a rosary and slipped his fingers along each and every bead, reciting Hail Marys to his demented mother. She used to know about him, about Andrew and AIDS and all the men in the city who were dying by the hour. But she had a diagnosis of her own, one that scooped out the parts of her that were fearful. He was grateful she wouldn’t hate God for burying her youngest.
Christopher’s lesbian friend, Diana, liked to pick him up in her Volkswaggan and take him out on day trips. Last month, her partner of five years left her for a haughty lawyer. She showed up in front of his door in tears.
He remembered her saying, “I shouldn’t be crying. Oh my God, you’re dying and I’m crying over a woman who wouldn’t even have sex with me.”
He remembered telling her, “you can cry. You’re allowed. I’m not crying right now, am I?”
After that night, she came over more often. Andrew thought she was immature; Christopher thought she was funny. Despite their difference in opinion, they sat on either side of her on the sofa and held her hair back when she threw up her gin and tonic.
Christopher loved Andrew. He loved his ability to love. He loved his thin body, partially weakened from disease but still strong enough to carry his weight. He loved that his own thin body was loved in return.
That day, Diana called them up and told them she was taking them to Coney Island, and that they had no say in this excursion. Andrew grumbled, but still, he packed their bags and the sunglasses that Christopher bought him for his thirtieth birthday.
“You guys look so cute,” she gushed when they hopped into her car. “I wish I had my camera on me. Fuck, I forgot it at my ex’s place.”
They rode in silence blanketed by quick, chopped sentences about their plans for the day. Andrew wanted to ride The Cyclone. Christopher was more hesitant, but truly, he would follow him anywhere he wanted. He would give him everything he had.
He didn’t realize how frightened he was of heights until they were next in line. It seemed laughable; he was fearful of death but terrified of a roller coaster. Diana rambled about the mechanics of it. Andrew grabbed his hand and squeezed. Christopher took a deep breath in and lowered himself into the seat, securing the safety harness.
“You got this,” Andrew whispered from beside him. “We’ve been through worse. Together.”
Before Christopher knew it, they were climbing uphill. He shut his eyes at the harsh sound of grinding metal. He only opened them when they reached the top, when the ride stopped moving for a moment. This might have been his last chance to see the world from above, from a point higher than his lowest. Instead, he just looked over at Andrew and smiled.
Then they descended, and his surroundings morphed. He fell into familiarity. He fell into a bed that was once foreign to him. He fell into a body aged two years younger.
The bar was always blaring loud music, but that night, it seemed quieter than usual. No arguing in between the narrow hallways, no euphoric moans, no hushed speak of politics.
Christopher had met a man. A boy, to be exact— only nineteen years old. His shoulders were broad and he stood nearly a foot taller than himself. Amidst the weighted silence of preconceived notions of grief, this boy leaned his long body against the countertop and asked for a lime soda with a straw.
“No drinks for you tonight?” Christopher couldn’t help but ask, though he couldn’t understand why— he never spoke to strangers unless they approached him first.
The man-boy shot him a small smile and shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “I want to take everything in. You know what I mean?”
Christopher looked around. Three men stood in the corner playing pool, their mouths hung open in wide grins. Two women sat across from one another, their faces inches apart. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted an elderly man waiting to use the bathroom. He was conversing with a younger queen, her lashes batting as she laughed.
Overhead, blaring from the television’s speakers, Reagan addressed the nation in a bleak monotone.
“I’m Christopher.”
He shot out his hand for the other man to shake.
“Andrew.”
He shook it. Within the quick touch was a sense of desperation neither could quite place.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Andrew’s voice, honeyed, sank into both of his ears. It felt warm, like a stovetop that has only been shut off for a few minutes. He placed his hand directly on it, letting it lightly burn his skin. “Men are dying. Men like us.”
He didn’t have to think about it, not for a second. He knew he should have; his friend Walter passed away a week prior. His funeral was sad. His father dropped to his knees and sobbed in front of his coffin.
But Andrew was there, and he was alive in his movements. He was languid and liquid. He desired things that Christopher was too scared to speak aloud.
So, he did not have to think. He did not have to talk. He did not have to do anything but take what was offered to him like a Holy Grail.
The lighting of the doctor’s office was dim. Above their heads, the bulbs flickered and plastered two dark shadows of two bodies stark against the farthest wall.
Andrew’s was bigger, bulkier, than Christopher’s. Its arms reached out and became wider as it swallowed the other’s smaller frame inside of them. The two shadows soon became one, their edges blurred together in silence. The image mirrored the way the shoreline grew forth and pulled back when the sun sank behind heavy clouds.
It’s about to rain, Christopher thought.
He held a slip of paper delicately between his thumb and pointer finger. Though he did not want Andrew to see his own, there was an identical one crumpled inside his boyfriend’s fist.
They both knew what it meant— the little dash between the years on a headstone. A week prior, they attended the funeral of a dear friend. He was nearly twenty-nine. His mother sobbed over his coffin, but neither Christopher nor Andrew shed a single tear.
They sat in their seats and melted into each other with the desperate, static grip of dried candle wax gone cold.
The ride came to a halt. Diana was still rambling, this time about how she was going to vomit. Christopher looked at Andrew and studied the way joy crinkled the corners of his eyes. The wind pressed calmly against his back, pushing him forward. Nudging him towards another Sunday morning.
Later, in bed, Christopher kissed Andrew’s eyes, his forehead, and the edges of his mouth. There, he tasted rainwater.
“I wouldn’t change a thing,” he whispered. “Not a damn thing.”
Before he drifted off to sleep, he did not prepare for death. He counted each of Andrew’s heartbeats until they fell in sync with his own.