Free Nightswimmer by Joseph Olshan Page B

until I remembered the point we’d been arguing before we hit the subject of HIV. When I remarked that I still didn’t understand why anybody would blame you for a man’s death, you shrugged and said you couldn’t think of any other reason than you were the last person he’d been involved with. And that it didn’t work out and that he was really upset for a long time afterward.
    “Was he sick when you dated?”
    “Not at all.”
    I thought how horrible it would be if your lover, whom you hadn’t really loved, had sickened. Then you’d be faced, morally, with caring for him, but not caring—the most horrible paradox.
    You were now gazing at me with the dismal expression I’d seen at Splash. “Things ended badly between us. I mean, I was only involved with him for around four months. But I was honest with him the whole way, honest from the very beginning.”
    The guy just never believed that you wouldn’t eventually fall in love with him.
    Yet I sensed something was being withheld about this man. I felt I was trying to grope my way along the dark borders of your story. But then you told me the real reason why you’d left your machine off, why you weren’t answering the phone. This man’s ex-lover, someone he’d been involved with before he met you, had been calling and harassing you.
    We’d reached the West Side Highway, the body of the Hudson a dark void pearled with searchlights from Circle Line boats. I thought I heard music being piped in from somewhere.
    Remembering the phone message the first night I met you, I said, “This guy who died, his name was Bobby, right?”
    “His name was Bobby Garzino.”
    “So how exactly is Bobby Garzino’s ex-lover harassing you?”
    “Well, he’s basically trying to get stuff back. Stuff that Bobby gave me. This guy thinks he deserves it all back because he really loved Bobby and I didn’t. And I’ve refused because Bobby made them as gifts for me. Naturally I consider what Bobby gave me is mine.”
    Earlier in. the day, Bobby’s ex had managed to get through, and when you’d balked at his demands, he told you there were people he knew who wanted to ruin your face forever.
    The horror of this idea stunned me for a moment and then I growled, “Not while I’m around.”
    “Come on, Will, he couldn’t have been serious. He was just trying to scare me. And I certainly don’t need you to be my protector. I can deal with this on my own.”
    “Now, wait a second, Sean. Just one second!” I stopped walking to emphasize what I had to say. “If somebody came up to us right now, am I supposed to just stand back? Let them hurt you?”
    You laughed scornfully and faced the Hudson.
    We continued to stand there in suppressed indignation, bracing ourselves against the wind. The moment passed, and when we started walking again, you turned to me, your eyes glistening.
    “What would you do if I came up to you one day and my face was completely wrecked? Would you dump me then?”
    “I didn’t even know I had you to get rid of.”
    “Come on, you know what I’m saying. Let’s say you did have me … to get rid of.”
    “How about this, Sean: I’d blind myself so I wouldn’t have to see what had been done to you.”
    You threw your head back and howled with laughter. “Oh, God, so grandiose. So nineteenth-century.”
    “Don’t knock the nineteenth century. Some great novels came out of the nineteenth century.”
    “Yeah, and so did some bad operas,” you said.

SEVEN
    Y OUR APARTMENT WAS EVEN messier than it had been several days ago. The pile of clothing and magazines in the middle of the floor had continued to gather and there was a daunting collection of dirty dishes on the dining table. Yet there you sat wearing a crisp white T-shirt and those military shorts with a razor-sharp crease down the front. I noticed clusters of cut flowers everywhere: on the mantel white roses floated like lilies in a glass bowl; the violet faces of pansies draped over a short