OVER THE NEXT THREE months, Kevin was strong enough to bring his new trials unit up to speed as well as work out at a gym, which was where he met Barry Rose. Kevin was on a treadmill and noticed a neighbor walking at the same pace on the same incline. His curious glance was met by a shy smile. Barry’s olive complexion, thick black goatee, and craggy face aroused him. Kevin was surprised he was still capable of lust. The last time he had felt it was while Marco was still healthy.
After exercising, they ran into each other at the juice bar. Kevin found out Barry was a native New Yorker who had moved to the Bay Area in the 1960s. He worked as a civil rights lawyer and had been on AZT for a year now.
It was an easy relationship to fall into. Barry made few demands. Sex was relaxed and companionable. Kevin felt none of the intense yearning that had gratified and occasionally tortured him with Marco. They kept their own apartments, sleeping together two or three nights a week.
In June, they went on a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. Kevin drove his new car, a Japanese compact with an automatic transmission, to Arizona where they met up with old friends of Barry’s at the river’s edge. Their guide, a bearded, burly man in his twenties, turned wan on discovering his clients were six gay men. Though once they were rowing, his appreciation of how cooperative they were outweighed his discomfort.
“River running is about synchronicity, balance, and following instructions,” the guide said at the end of the day. “And you guys have all three in spades. This is going to be a great trip!”
For Kevin it was. While floating on calm water, linear time vanished. He was only conscious of what he could sense. While rowing, he meditated on what he remembered from a pre-med physics class, imagining he could see time as a fourth dimension in the ripples his oars made.
Mid-days were windless, too hot for rowing, so they took dips in the cold water and hiked up folds in the great canyon, shaded by steep rock walls—sandstone on the first days, then older limestone, then even older schist and granite as the river cut through geologic eras. They followed streamlets studded with tufts of grass and piñon pine which they grabbed to pull themselves up and belay their descents. No one spoke, out of respect for the naked innocence of these places spared the overgrazing, logging, and mining that had ravaged surrounding lands. Twice they found ancient Pueblo pictographs. Kevin and Barry returned to camp with every muscle spent, ravenous for food and later for sex.
The river was low, the rapids little more than riffles, until the final day. Three Class V runs blocked their passage. They made it through the first two unharmed, by luck as much as skill. On the third run, turbulent water knocked them back and forth. Their oars were useless. Just as their raft’s bow rose over a rock, it was slammed by a swell and upended. Sitting in front, Kevin and Barry were thrown underwater and spewed out downstream. Both were shivering violently when they reached shore. While the others made a bonfire, they stripped and held each other inside a damp sleeping bag.
In the morning, with the help of ibuprofen, they were able to hike to the canyon rim where they left their rafting partners and drove on to Mesa Verde in western Colorado. The next day, they awoke eager to explore the cliff dwellings—a honeycomb of rooms, courts, and kivas built in the same century the Black Plague was killing half the population of Europe. However, the moment Barry got out of the car and faced a cold breeze at eight thousand feet, he began coughing. They joined a tour but immediately had to turn back. Barry was too short of breath to climb the wooden ladders.
Kevin drove to Salt Lake City, the nearest town he was sure would have a hospital with ventilators, just in case. Barry’s panting decreased once they dropped altitude and was holding steady when Kevin saw the city’s lights in the distance. It was nine in the evening. He calculated they could easily make San Francisco in eleven hours. Though Barry was drowsy, he claimed the ride would be tolerable as long as he could lie still. He didn’t feel hot to touch and wasn’t bringing up the yellow phlegm typical of a bacterial pneumonia that could be rapidly fatal if antibiotics weren’t given soon. Kevin was certain Barry had Pneumocystis pneumonia, which worsened slowly. He decided waiting overnight to start treatment was less risky than trusting the doctors in Salt Lake City. They would only know a fraction of what he did about the disease, and he feared they would ignore his advice. The place wasn’t exactly a haven for gay men.
He drove on. By dawn, he was climbing the eastern slope of the Sierras. Barry lay across the back seat, eyes closed. Kevin had been rousing him hourly. ICU nurses don’t check vital signs more frequently than that, he thought, intent on remaining optimistic. It was time to wake Barry again. Kevin called his name. There was no reply.
They passed a sign for Donner Pass. Kevin’s ears popped. Seven thousand feet, he read. In the rear view mirror, he saw Barry’s lips were blue. Horrified by his stupidity, Kevin sped up to ninety on the winding mountain road.
“Hold on, baby,” he kept repeating, hiding his angst. “We’ll be at sea level soon.”
Barry’s color improved as they descended into the Central Valley, but his desperate gasping continued. On reaching the outskirts of Sacramento, Kevin followed signs to the regional medical center. Once there, he drove past a waving security guard onto the apron reserved for ambulances.
Inside the ER, Kevin observed quietly. He didn’t interrupt the nurse who meticulously flicked Barry’s forearm as she hunted for a vein, the respiratory technician who pressed an oxygen mask on Barry’s face, or the intern who examined Barry’s wrist under a bright light as he chose where to stick the radial artery. When Kevin heard anesthesia paged overhead for an emergency intubation, he left the room. Yet the fact was inescapable. He had lost Barry the instant he started climbing the Sierras. He loathed himself.