Free Black Elvis by Geoffrey Becker

there. I don't believe they were being boyfriends together, exactly—they were both too weak. Mostly, they watched TV , drank sodas and smoked cigarettes, counted out each other's pills. It was a good thing that Clay was around, particularly those last months, since it took some of the burden off Louise. But now I could see the problem.
    "Can't he go home to his people?"
    "His people don't want him. They disowned him a long time ago."
    "Maybe he should have thought about that when he decided to embrace an alternate lifestyle."
    "I can't go through it all again. You don't know how bad it was. With your own son, that's one thing. A person can do it. But I'm really afraid. You know how you read about old people, and when their spouse dies, they just suddenly lose their own desire to live?" She looked at me. Our problems were different. I had drunk myself out of this marriage ten years ago, but it didn't mean we weren't in love.
    "You think he's going to die now?"
    "I don't think it, I know it. And I won't have it happen here. There's only so much a person can do."
    "What do you want from me?" I said.
    "Tell him he has to leave."
    I looked out at the figure on the porch. It was cold enough to freeze birds right out of the air, and he was calmly finishing his cigarette. A person in the process of moving right beyond his body. "Me?"
    "Please, Lenny?" she said.
    The twins, Kayla and Kaylin, ran past us giggling, each of them clutching a ham sandwich. "Those girls sure can eat," I said. "Maddy might want to think about putting them on a diet."
    I used to have a nice little house-painting business. After I sold that, I drove truck for R. C. Reynolds up in Cedar Rapids, mostly routes in the Midwest. Paper products. Then I started to get lower-back trouble, and at fifty I went on disability. I was already out of the house, set up in my own place out here by the river. It flooded the first year, bad, and you can still see the marks on the walls where the water came to. I drank beer at the time, and I remember how when I came back from a week on Louise's sofa to survey the damage, my empties were floating around in the middle of the living room like barrel-shaped aluminum fish. Insurance eventually took care of most of it, but I learned fast that life by myself wasn't necessarily going to be a big bachelor party.
    My second day in the house, before the flood, Louise came by with a bunch of dinners in Tupperware, each labeled neatly across the top: "Lasagna," "Meatloaf," "Soup Beans," and "Chinese." I didn't know what she meant by that last one, and I never did open it to see what was inside. It's still there. When I want Chinese, I'll usually go into town and head to Ding's for the lunch special.
    For a couple of days after the funeral, I thought about it. I didn't want to get involved, particularly, but I did want to be helpful. This Clay person and I had at least one thing in common, which was that we'd been disowned by the people that loved us because of our behavior. In my case it was drinking and causing scenes, in his it was having sex with men. We didn't have to do these things. I knew that Junior's getting sick was more or less inevitable. Before he ever turned up back in Iowa City from San Francisco, I figured there was something wrong. He was still healthy then, still shiny and optimistic, talking about how he was going to write children's books, signing up for classes at the university. But I understood why he was back, and Louise did, too. And when he started to lose weight and get sick, we didn't ever even say the word, but we all knew. He was taking almost forty pills a day by the end.
    I went by to see Clay. It was a weekday, and Louise was at work up at the hospital. I had a drink first, of course—Early Times on the rocks. It was good, but it didn't prepare me for what it felt like to step outside. Even with the sun shining, the air was a smack in the face. The river was solid as concrete, and the outer branches of