“I DON’T mind, really,” Aiden said after Conrad again insisted he drive himself to the clinic Monday morning. “I can always do some shopping while I wait. I know how you like your privacy. But you really shouldn’t drive after your treatment.”
“I drove Saturday night,” Conrad said.
“But you hadn’t just come out of radiation, Conrad,” Aiden persisted.
“All right,” Conrad snapped, stomping for the front door. “I’m tired of arguing about this. It’s your time wasted, not mine. Let’s go.”
They spoke little during the drive. Aiden, worried he was coddling Conrad like Daniel accused him, continued to weight his duty to ensure Conrad’s safety and his need for freedom. He dropped Conrad at the clinic and headed down the road for the corner Petco. Ranger needed more pig ears and kibble. For an impulse item he bought a rubber squeaky hotdog.
Twenty minutes later Aiden pulled back into the clinic’s parking lot and waited. He wrote furiously on his laptop, chewing through nearly ten pages before he checked his wristwatch and realized a half hour had passed.
He observed the white building, which stretched a half block. It was a place where people became well. It also represented weakness—and the worst weakness of all, death. The more Aiden labored to cater to Conrad’s well-being, the more he disliked the circumstances. He loathed how Conrad’s sickness turned Conrad into a shadow of his former self. And in that matter, Aiden was no different than Farzad Qajar.
When they shook hands that night, Nick’s old school friend barely looked Conrad in the eyes, as if he found him repulsive. Aiden understood why Farzad flinched after meeting Conrad and why later he jumped from the dining table and stormed from their home. To Farzad and men like him, Conrad’s obvious illness and homosexuality were stamped by the same mint.
Aiden too despised helplessness. But to Aiden, nothing could be more a product of masculinity than he and Daniel living apart from mainstream society. What did it matter that they shared the same bed? Perhaps that’s why he respected the Amish and Daniel’s former way of life. Because of their representation of strength. Living off the land. Providing for themselves. Devoid of public assistance.
Aiden figured the local Amish and Hutterite, if they had bothered to become friends with him and Daniel, would have reacted the same as Farzad. The ultraorthodox shared more than a strict interpretation of God’s words. They also lived off the grid as rugged pioneers, and they viewed homosexuality a creation of an anemic, postmodern world.
Because of that, Aiden could forgive Farzad’s disgust over two men living in a domestic partnership. He returned to New Jersey, to live in his gated community with his wife, to entertain his growing brood of grandchildren like any American man. The ancient Qajar family tree would flourish (albeit mixed with Irish, Italian, German, Indian…) and Farzad would live off the fantasy that his family’s bloodline beat with potency, although it had long been subdued by the modern world.
Aiden also realized he had been babying Conrad like Daniel warned, rather than protecting him. Conrad wanted to fight his weakening body by becoming more independent. Aiden, like a bison bull standing in the middle of a hiking trail, was trying to stop him. If Conrad wanted to drive himself to the cancer clinic, Aiden would no longer interfere. If Conrad had an urge to go out on the town, he’d hand him the pickup keys himself.
Relieved to have reached an understanding of his folly, Aiden closed his laptop and peered at the sliding glass doors. Despite his pledge to provide Conrad more space, a fitful urge prompted him to want to wait for him inside. He needed to see for himself the cancer clinic that Conrad had been coming to for more than a month. Surely Conrad would not mind that much.
He was about to head toward the entrance when a shout from across Route 2 stopped him. In a gap in traffic, Conrad dashed across the road.
“My treatments ended early,” he said, panting. “I was the first today.” He took Aiden by the arm and led him to the truck. “You didn’t go inside, did you?”
“I was just about to.”
“What for?”
“I thought I’d wait for you there. Where did you come from?”
“After I finished early and I didn’t see your truck, I went to Wendy’s to get something to eat.”
“I’m glad you’re getting your appetite back.”
Conrad shrugged. “It comes and goes.”
Aiden pulled out of the parking lot and started for home. He drove through a green light when he thought he saw Daniel in his burgundy Chevy Suburban pass them in the opposite direction. Aiden swore the driver had a moustacheless beard, and his head slanted similar to whenever Daniel was burdened by heavy thoughts.
He texted him at the next stoplight. By the time they reached home, there was still no answer from Daniel.
DANIEL sat in his truck, stroking his beard. Should he or shouldn’t he? He didn’t wish to go inside. Time hustled ahead. If he was to follow through with his intentions, he must get it over with. He had to get back to the shop. Phedra said something about wanting to take the afternoon off to help her younger brother prepare for his final examinations.
His cell phone text message dinged for a second time. Must be Aiden again. He had ignored his first message, which read: “Where are you?” Had Aiden stopped by the shop and wondered why he wasn’t there? Perhaps he was on his way back from taking Conrad to the clinic. He had no idea on which days Aiden had to chauffeur him.
He left his cell phone in his pants pocket unanswered and he sat, deliberating. He needed to speak with someone. Easier to have telephoned, but the issue at hand warranted a personal visit. He had no other need to head into town.
Were his instincts correct, like they often were with the weather?
He forced his feet out of the truck, planted them on the pavement. He gazed at the two-story white structure. The center stood as a testament to state-of-the-art technology and ingenuity, an aspect of the modern America Daniel always admired. Yet a formidable heaviness pressed on his shoulders.
Traffic on Route 2 whizzed past. The church across the road, the one in which he and Aiden attended a few times, sat stark and cold, its blacktop parking lot empty. Before he realized, he was stepping outside his truck and shutting the door with a heavy bang. The humanity of strip shops and traffic merged into a garish blur as he placed one foot in front of the other.
He jerked when the sliding glass doors opened sooner than he had anticipated. He thought he had stopped before getting too close to the entrance. For a moment, Daniel stood motionless, unable to cross into the vestibule. Conjuring extra courage, he willed his feet forward. He passed through another set of sliding glass doors and an assault of fluorescent lights made him wince. An auburn-haired woman seated behind a reception desk smiled at him.
“May I help you?” she asked.
Daniel worked what little spit remained in his mouth. “I’d like to speak with a Dr. Lyndon Vintos about cancer treatments,” he said.