The Goodbye Man (26 page)

Don’t tell lies, silly boy. Truths so horrid cannot be real. Don’t lie, boy.

Tell the truth - the whole truth. Lies, lies, lies!

Coming home was hard.
Being home was harder, but getting better was torture. The runaway, prodigal son returned and the world was happy, but the boy was so broken and diseased that they couldn’t love him any longer. I was sent away to be
fixed
. Because I must be sick. I must be on drugs. They don’t see that the things I have lived and done cannot be
fixed.
I went to hell; you cannot fix that, I can’t even forget it!

The girl next door to me is also
sick,
she sits on the porch and sings sad songs that make me scream and pull my own hair out. Maybe I have gone crazy, maybe I should be locked up here. When I close my eyes, I see things that cannot be unseen. I learned things in Hunts Point that I can never unlearn. My body has healed, although some things cannot be healed, they treated my wounds. Tests were done, some things you can’t change. I was murdered in Hunts Point. When the doctors told my mother and me that I was HIV positive, she sobbed her heart out. I didn’t cry for me, I cried for the person who just got a kidney and a death sentence. I wonder how long it will take them to know they have it. When the police came to see me about my missing kidney, I told them I woke up one day and it was gone. I should find a way to tell Mateo, or even the others I was with, but my selfish anger won’t let me. I go to therapy, hours and hours of talking. No one believes the things I talk about, so I stopped talking a while ago. I sit in silence and watch my sanity dancing around, teasing me. Listening to her sad fucking singing. I miss the rough touch of a terrible lover. I miss being beaten. I even miss the dead people.

I thought about running away and going back, but I can’t; I need to tell someone the truth of The Goodbye Man and his horror shop. I need to tell my story, even if not a soul will believe it.

She is scribbling in her notebook again, the singing has stopped for a few minutes, and I watch her. Her hand moves so fast as the pencil scratches across the paper. She gets visitors, I don’t. She is going home soon, I am not. I don’t have a home. I am the gay son with AIDS now, not the boy who returned home from hell. Now I am a burden and a shame. When I close my eyes I see Pavel and fire, I smell burning skin and hair. I swim in blood when I dream at night.

“Stop staring at me, Juan.” She glares at me. I like her voice when she speaks.

“Sorry.” I look away. “What are you writing?”

“Everything. I am a writer. I write stories for the newspaper. Well, I did before I came here.” It’s the first time I have bothered to ask her anything. I don’t speak, no one believes me when I do. Her answer makes me think of something.

“Can I tell you a story and you write it down?” I ask her, looking now to see if she answers.

“Will it be good?” she asks me, a silly smile on her happy face.

“No, it will give you nightmares. You can sell it to the newspaper if you want. I just need to tell it to someone who will believe me.” Her head tilts to the side and she tucks the blonde hair behind her ear, looking at me with light in her eyes.

“Okay, Juan. Tell me your story,” she says, turning the page in her little notebook.

“You will need a bigger book. I need to know your name if I am going to tell you,” I state seriously.

“Milly.” She lies and I know it, but I don’t correct her. “I will fetch my laptop.”

I spend hours every
day talking to Milly, the words bleeding from me. Ripping open all the wounds that this place was supposed to heal. She listens, writes and sometimes she talks to me, asking me things, like how I felt.

Feelings are not something you are allowed in the places I have been. Feeling would end up killing you. Now as I allow myself to tell the truth and feel, I am dying quickly. Milly is so pretty and funny, I can’t imagine where her sadness comes from, but as I tell her my horrors, her sadness slowly leaves her. She writes it all down with passion and she is alive with the story. She never questions the truth of it, not once. She believes me.

“Do you think he saved you?” she asks me about Caesar. I think back to him, his silence. The way a sound would make him crazy. The way when he touched me it didn’t hurt, when he talked it wasn’t a nightmare. He gave me a choice. No one else had done that since I left home.

“Yes, Caesar saved me, and I am sure he saved may others too.” It’s the truth. I think of the bodies lining that space and I believe he saved them from fates far worse.

“But he chopped them up and sold them.” She states the fact, unable to understand it because she has never lived it like I did.

“There are worse things than being dead Milly. You couldn’t understand it. I do. I don’t want to, because it is wrong but I have seen both sides of the coin and neither one is shiny.” It’s the truth. I hate what they were but they aren’t the worst. I remember Pavel, the fucking Russian and how he treated me and the others. No, Caesar wasn't the worst thing in the world. For many, I think he was an answer to prayer, a silent angel that lurked in the shadows, setting the broken free.

I talk to her for hours every day. It sets me free and kills me at the same time. I have a choice, and I choose to make it all stop. I don’t want another person to get AIDS from the organ meant to save them. When I speak about Svetlana, my heart hurts. She is so broken and she is sick. My stomach turns, but my heart aches when I think about her with Caesar because he loved her. Not all love is right, is it? He shouldn’t have loved her that way. There are other ways to love people, like I love Milly.

“He was screwing his daughter? That’s fucked up, Juan,” she blurts out, shattering my deep thoughts with her sweet voice.

“It is, but he loved her and she understood love differently than we do.” I try to put the mess in my head into words.

“It’s still fucked up and sick,” she answers, her eyes still on the keyboard in front of her.

“There are places so diseased and sick out there Milly that we will never understand. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist.” She sighs at my answer.

I am tired, so tired of everything and I hurt at the idea she may no longer believe me. I have bared the darkest part of me to her and I have nothing else to do or give. I grab her little book as I stand and scratch her a note in my awful, left handed scrawl.

Tell
my
story
for
me
Milly

X
Juan

I close the book and hand it to her before a leave the little porch and go inside my small room. This place isn’t bad; it is a place to heal after abuse or trauma, but I am not abused or traumatized. I am dead inside. I fill the bath with hot water and undress, my finger tracing my kidney scar in the mirror. The sound of the water makes me remember the moment I should have died with his hands around my throat. I feel that same burning in my lungs as I force myself to breathe the water in. You cannot go to hell and live on Earth. The burning fire sweeps through my insides and I give up. There is no fight to be found this time. I am ready to die. I told the truth, all of it.

I tell stories, not lies.

When he started telling
me his story, I couldn’t help but be drawn into it. The horrors, the pain and the lies. I think he made it up, but I also believe him. The way he spoke about that place, it has to be real. I saw his scar where they took a piece of him out, the jagged edges stitched so poorly that it looked like a shark bite in his side.

When I found his blue body floating in the bath the next day, I knew I had to leave. I had to tell his story. He gave me the purpose I had lost. He healed me with his horrors.

I sit opposite my editor and a police chief. They have read my story, seen my research and listened to the recordings I made of him telling me.

I told his story, now this stupid policeman won’t let us publish it so they can infiltrate this business and catch them all.

I am angry, but maybe this is what he wanted to happen. It just feels wrong to me. I leave the office and drive to the place Juan told me about, slipping a note under the door.

Juan told me everything.

RUN.

The police know.

Empty spaces.

The beds are being
emptied and no bodies are refilling them. I cannot do what he did and he is gone. In a cloud of air, he disappeared from this place and it makes me so angry, but I have Lettie now. She loves me. Not him. I don’t know what to do, there is always a plan B when you live in this world. I know what it is, I know where the money is, but I am not sure it is time for that yet.

We are still working and things are good; except for the empty beds, things are perfect. Too perfect, and Caesar’s continued absence makes me believe that we might have to abandon ship and go to plan B. As I print off today’s lists, Lettie sits still on the floor next to my desk. I only ever told her to sit there once, now every time we come in here she crosses her legs and sits right next to me. I unconsciously run my fingers through her hair as I work. As the two of us slowly learn to exist together, I am learning exactly how to get what I need from her. Because I do need her, I need the feeling I get from her. Today’s harvests aren’t scheduled until late afternoon to allow for all the receiving patients to arrive and be prepared.

“Come, Lettie.” I stand up to leave the office. I am restless today. My uncle’s absence has unsettled my very orderly routine and it is eating at me. She grabs my hand and follows, she has been getting more brazen about touching me, something I may never be used to. It’s not that I don’t like it, I just don’t know how to feel about it. When she touches me, I am reminded that she isn’t a dead doll to play with. She is alive and she feels just the way I do. It’s not that I don’t want a lover, I do; I just want a lover that doesn’t need to be loved. When you love something, it will always be taken away from you.

When we walk through the doors into the waiting space, the empty beds poke fun at me; I cannot fill them. I might have to resort to kidnapping at this point. I am bored today. I want to have some fun, maybe let Lettie play with the dolls. I walk slowly past each still body, touching some of them as I go past just to remind me that even though they breathe, they’re already dead. White sheets, pale skin and the beeping of machines is all I can focus on in here, my sweet lovers, my dead lovers. Mine.

When my hand slides over the feet of a teenage boy with a very rare blood type I get an idea, not a good idea, but one that I might enjoy. It is time to show Lettie just how much they love me. The thought makes me smile and I see her eyes smiling at me when she sees it. Lettie doesn’t smile, sometimes her eyes do.

I pull the sheet off his body, it has started to lose muscle density and he has begun to look close to death. Everything inside him still works perfectly, everything. Men are a little different than woman in this state. They still respond to sexual stimulation. As his statue-like body lies there, I let my eyes rove over it. I look to the line of dark hair that leads to his flaccid dick, the strong hands that will never touch a woman again and his long legs that are lying dead straight. He is beautiful, there is something so haunting about death that makes it enchanting to me. Lettie stands next to the bed, like I always make her when she watches me love them. I look her in the eye as my hands slowly rub up against his chest, and when my mouth kisses his dry lips, her eyes spark with lust. I know she wishes I was kissing her, my tongue in her mouth, tasting the cherry lip balm and not the sterile nothingness. My fingers tangle in the hair on his chest as I kiss him harder. I want her to touch him, I want to share this with her today. Looking up and letting his mouth leave mine, I reach out for her hand and yank her closer to us. “Get undressed, Lettie,” I tell her softly as I begin to take my own clothes off. Lettie’s eyes are on my body and not his; they always are. She slides her pants off, there are never panties under them. She seems to disregard underwear of any kind. I help her slide her tank top over her head, now it’s my eyes that betray the lover next to me. I love the way her breasts are so perfectly imperfect, her scars make me want her more than I should. “Touch him, Lettie,” I say, shaking my head towards the body beside us. “Kiss him for me, my Lettie doll,” I whisper in her ear, our bodies so close I can feel how warm she is. She looks at me with uncertainty and fear in her eyes. “I want to love you both today.” I run my hands from her shoulders, down her naked back, far enough so I can push her down towards him. When her breath escapes and she gives up this futile fight, I am even more aroused. Lettie kisses him with passion and I watch her hands claw at his chest and bury in his hair. She tries to bring him to life with her mouth as my hands explore her body. I know if I dip between her legs she will be wet and aching for me, but today she doesn’t get me. Today, I get them both. I take her hand in mine and clasp it around his soft cock. She gasps a little and seeks out my eyes for assurance. “He can feel it, Lettie love. He will get hard for your hands.” I hiss into her neck, our hands working him together; it’s a feeling I want to hang on to. Her body and mine working together to find the bliss that we need. I use my free hand to pull her hair so her neck is exposed and her eyes cannot look away from mine. I kiss her and let her tongue dance with mine.
Alive.
I bite her lip so I can taste the blood that makes her that way, I lick it and savor it. “I want you to put him in your mouth for me.” Her eyes grow wide as his cock is now hard in our grip. “Make him feel good, like only a whore would know how.” The brown orbs staring at me begin to water from the sting of my words and the force with which I pull her hair. If she thinks she is worth more than what she has always been, she will leave me and I can’t let her go. I force her face toward the now erect cock of my lover, she resists me. I shove her harder and she gives up, her soft lips enveloping his cock and she moves with the push and pull of my hand. I fist myself behind her back, her soft ass against me and it feels so good, I am already wanting to just fuck her so I can come. I let go of her head and my hand slides down her naked curves, the bones I felt before are gone, replaced with a feminine softness that I can’t resist. I breathe her in, the smell of her cherry lips and the sweat on her skin drive me insane. My fingers find her wetness and she stops for a second, I pull them away and she continues to suck him harder. I don’t give her what she wants, the wetness flowing down her thighs betraying her desires. Instead, I take that sweetness and spread it between her cheeks. When my finger slips into her ass, she arches her back and lets him go, moaning loudly at my intrusion. “I want you get on top of him now, I need you to fuck him, Lettie… while I take you here,” I tell her as I force another finger inside her. “No, Mateo. I want you to fuck me,” she begs as I withdraw my touch completely. “Get on top of him, Lettie,” I bark. Her defiance makes me angry. I don’t want angry love now. I was enjoying this.

She sniffs back a sob and climbs clumsily onto the bed, her eyes begging me to stop this, but my heart won’t let me. “Fuck him, Lettie. Look how hard you got him.” Gripping his cock in her hand, she closes her eyes and slides him inside her wet pussy. When she is flush against him, she starts to move slowly, her body dancing so well with death, like they were meant to be lovers all along. I climb onto the bed behind her, watching her grind against him, seeking some pleasure from his lifeless body. Gripping her hips from behind I change her rhythm, making it faster, the sight of his cock inside her delicious from where I sit. Bending my doll forward, she puts her hands out to support herself, the movements of her body against him at this angle giving her the sweet pleasure she was chasing. I lean over so my chest is against her back and I can feel her muscles tightening and rippling with the beginning of her orgasm. As I force myself into her tight little ass, she shrieks with her release and I feel every last shiver and twitch of her body as I begin to fuck her. She doesn’t stop moving, she makes love to the boy below us with sensual strokes. Her body squeezing against mine is making me take her harder. I can feel myself ripping into her, but I don’t care if I cause her pain.
If she would just be dead, she wouldn’t feel it. If she would just be dead, I could love her, not them.

When I finally finish inside her, the world comes back into focus and so does the sound of his flat-line on the monitor next to us. I look down to see Lettie’s hands around his throat. One of the doctors looks on from a small distance, obviously alerted by the sound that is deafening me. Lettie is crying but her hands stay clasped around his neck as her tears keep falling. I hear her whispers “Why can’t he stop loving you and love me? I hate you. I hate you all. I wish you would wake up so he would love me and not you.” She chants over and over. I let my dick slip out of her and slide off the end of the bed. My naked body is less exposed than my crushed heart. Why can’t I love her? Why do I need them?
Because she is alive, Mateo. Kill her then you can love her. Look what she did, she killed your lover. Do you know what that body was worth?
Anger starts to fester again as I see her strangling his corpse still. I dress myself and leave her there with the disgusted doctor looking at her naked sorrow. My shame follows me as I walk down the passage to the office, I hate her.
I love her.
Hugo is waiting for me and when I walk in, his eyes are empty. He couldn’t care less about what has just happened. My heartbreak or insanity is irrelevant to him. I want to cry. I want to punish her. I want to love her. I can’t. I can’t do anything because there is too much wrong with me. I cannot fix her because I am too broken. Why does she just do what I say, why won’t she fight me? Why does she love me? I sink into my chair and the huge man slams a small note on my desk. It takes three seconds for everything to change. It takes two words from him to make me forget what I just did.

“Plan B?” his deep voice questions me.

“Yes, Caesar will know where we are if he comes back. Start moving the doctors today and let’s dispose of the rest. My lovers will all die today. Lock Lettie in her room until we are ready to leave Hugo. I can’t look at her any longer.”