From: aa811@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Terri M. Librande)
Newsgroups: alt.ql.creative
Subject: Troubled Waters Part  2
Date: 7 Feb 1993 17:23:43 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
Lines: 210
Message-ID: <1l3givINNdng@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc5.ins.cwru.edu


Slowly, realization dawned in Sam.  He remembered HIV.  He remembered the
poorly funded research that went on fruitlessly for years and years, the
different strains of the illness that sprang up out of nowhere, and the
lack of hope for a cure.

"There's no cure, is there, Al?"

Al shook his head regretfully, eyes on his friends face.  "I'm sorry, Sam.
There isn't even a real cure in your--our--time.  The scientists are working
on viable options, but millions of people are still dying.

The Observer's voice lifted in a back-to-business tone.  "So we gotta get you
outta here."

"What'd you find out about Stanley?"  Sam asked, wincing as he pulled himself
further upright.

Al frowned, not missing the look of pain on his friend's face.  "Stanley's a
lawyer.  He has, or had a live in lover. There's some kind of problem.  He
hasn't come to visit for about two weeks now.  His name is..."  He whacked
the hand link hard and it let out an abused chirp.  "His name is Richard
something--can't figure it out because this unit..."  He gritted his teeth,
holding the handlink as if to hurl it.  "I oughta..."

"Al," Sam interrupted, smiling in weary amusement.  "Just tell me what do
I have to do."

"Well," Al shrugged in an attempt at lightness.  "Ziggy's insisting it's
something Richard has to do."

Sam frowned in exasperation.  "So why didn't I just leap into Richard?"

Al gave him a look of helpless chagrin.  "I don't know."

"Did Stanley tell you anything more?"

"No.  Every time Richard is mentioned, Stanley clams up."

"So maybe that's it, then.  Richard's the key."

"Maybe," Al conceded doubtfully.

"Who else could it be, you said, he didn't have any family."

"Well, technically he does, but they disowned him when he came out of the
closet--right after college.  He still had his inheiritance from his 
grandparents estate, but..."  Suddenly, Al's head snapped up, his eyes dark
and furious.  "Would you please turn that thing down!!!" he shouted.

Turning back quickly to Sam, he apologized.  "Purple Trash--it's a new
rock group, put together by the New Kids conglomorate.  They practically
own China now, you know.  It's the nastiest, most nauseating...Gooshie!
Don't give me that cross-wave interference stuff!  Get rid of it!"  Leaning
forward, his orange tie disappeared into the blanket of the bed in front of
Sam.  "I need to go back .  Won't leave you alone for long, Sam.  Try to
get some sleep."

Then, he was gone, vanishing through the doorway into a safe place--safer
place--where Stanley was.  What must he be thinking now, with no pain, and
time to rest?  Sam pulled the blanket around his shoulders, turning over onto
his side.  He felt a slight heaviness in his chest and realized it was harder
to breathe.  The last thing he noticed before falling asleep were his hands.
They were like white bone china, fragile and transluscent.

*****************

He was awakened by the sound of his name being spoken.  "Mr. Frazier?"  Sam
looked up and saw his nurse and an unfamiliar man, both wearing masks and
gloves.  "Dr. Hays wants to talk to you."

"Why are you wearing masks?"  Sam asked.  "You weren't before."

The doctor's words were blunt.  "Your lab results haven't come back yet but
we suspect pneumocystic carni pneumonia.  You're in respitory isolation 
until we know for sure."  With the stethascope, he listened perfunctorily 
to his patient's lungs, asking him to breathe deeply a few times, then
palpatated his abdomen.

Sam suffered the exams in silence.  He'd known doctors like this before.
Doctors who cared more about their position and possesions than their 
patients.

"No visitors,"  the doctor said flatly, turning to leave.  "Not unless 
they're wearing masks and gloves, Nurse."

"Thanks a lot, Doc," Sam said under his breath.

The nurse, Miss Smith, now he knew, said consipiratorially as soon as she
felt her superior was out of earshot.  "All the other doctors call me Jean."

"I'll call you Jean if you'll help me to the bathroom."  Sam was positive he
couldn't make it on his own.

"Okay," she answered.  
"Then how would you like to sit by the window a bit?"  She pulled a wheelchair
over and held it expectantly near the bed.  "You can look at the night sky.
How's that sound to you?  I heard you were very into astronomy."


"Great, for a dying man."  Sam immediately tried to bite back the words and
the fear that sounded loud and clear in each syllable.

"Just get in the chair, Stanley," Jean said, ignoring him. As she assisted
Sam from the bed and comfortably settled him in with a sheet around him,
she touched his hands, his face, as if reassuring him that she was'nt afraid.
The gloves and mask were another story, but she was under orders to use 
them.  "Your friend, Richard, uh...I think it's MacNamara...came at visiting
hours, but he left when we said he could go in.  I think he'll be back
tomorrow, or later tonight.  If he shows up, I'll sneak him up, okay?" she
said, wheeling him to the bathroom.

"I'd appreciate it."  Richard was here, not too long ago.  A hope rose in
Sam that maybe he'd be able to get this over with soon.  Like tonight.

******************

The hospital grounds were quiet as Sam gazed out the window, waiting, for
what he wasn't certain.  It wasn't quite nine o'clock.  The city beyond,
seemed heavy with smog, his lungs aching as if from it's effects.  Coughing,
he tried to clear his throat.

Al's voice came from behind him.  "Los Angeles and smog.  A perfect example
of what the industrial age has done to our enviornment.  Do you know how
much of teh ozone layer could have been preserved if people had just
recycled the freon in their car's air conditioners?  That won't be law here
until '91."

"Al?"  The Observer was behind him, dressed in a chartruese suit, purple
tie askew.

"How are you feeling?" A note of concern tinged the older man's voice.

"Lousy.  The doctor thinks I might have pneumocystic carni."  He twisted in
the chair, trying to get a better look at Al as he spoke to him.

"Nah, the autopsy report said you died of congestive heart failure."

Al kept moving around and it was annoying Sam.  "I don't like this place,
Al.  My...friend...showed up, but didn't stay."

The older man flinched at the pain on his freind's face.  "I think he'll be
here later--tomorrow--but I'm not sure and Ziggy isn't giving me anything
to hold onto.  Stanley insists you don't talk to Richard."

"Why?"

"I don't know," Al retorted testily.  "A lover's spat, I guess.  I don't
know anything about this stuff."

"What's the matter?" Sam asked, concerned.  There was more than tension here.
Outrage would be a more fitting term for what he was sensing.  "You have a
problem you're not telling me?"

Al gave him a side-long glance, as if he had been caught with his hand in
the cookie jar.  "It's just," he shrugged expressively.  "You know..."

Sam regarded him, puzzled.  "No, I don't.  What?" he asked, watching the
hologram toying with his cigar.

Al shrugged again, taking the offensive.  "Aren't you feeling a little
funny in the body of a man that..."

"Yeah..." Sam admitted thoughtfully.  "But what I'm really worried about
now is dying.  Next to that, being gay doesn't seem like a big thing."

"But you're not gay, Sam," Al stated firmly.

"But I'm in the body of a gay man.  From what I'm feeling, being gay isn't
much different than being straight."

"But I think it is."

"Have you ever known anyone who was gay?"  Sam asked, trying to draw Al out.

"Yeah," Al returned defiantly.  "My Mom's brother, Charlie.  Uncle Charlie."
He held Sam's gaze.  "He used to come stay with us before she left.  Even
afterwards, he came around every so often to make sure 'his' kids were all
right.  He was always good to Trudy.  He didn't treat her like she was
different...and I guess I know why now.  He was different, or at least felt
that way and..." he hedged.  "He .... Liked me."

Sam felt his chest tighten in apprehension.  "He 'liked' you?  How much?  did
he ...molest you?"

"No, he did NOT molest me," Al clarified.  "He liked men, I learned later.
When I was about fourteen, he'd come to the orphanage to visit.  He made a
pass at me, not a big deal.  And, I guess in retrospect, it was'nt a pass.
Some of the kids at the orphanage made jokes about him...calling him a
limp wrist, you know.  I took one of his usual shows of affection the wrong
way, once the jerks told me that.  I can't forget the hurt look in his eyes
that last time, when I pulled away."

"The guys at the orphanage said it was like a disease. Now, I know better,
but then...  I thought because he liked me that maybe I was gay so I did
everything to show people that I wasn't.  Charlie was at my wedding...the
first one...and I made a big point of kissing the bride right in front of
him.  He let the thing go right over his head...was pretty gracious.  I...
I have a problem with the whole gay thing, Sam."

Suddenly Al's fear of being homosexual when Sam had been a beautiful secretary
came into focus.  No wonder, Sam realized, he'd had so much trouble dealing
with it, given this past experience.  Al wasn't a scared, misinformed,
adolescent now, and Sam needed his help.

more to come
-- 
"Unscrupulous--but effective!"  Al in "Starcrossed"
Terri Librande aa811@cleveland.Freenet.edu  Assistant Sysop
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Sig--Go SCIFI