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He hurried the last couple of feet to the pay phone, stride deliberate and heavy, eyes glancing both ways down the dark
deserted street to make sure he was alone. Grabbing the receiver and dialing subconsciously, he repeated in his mind the words
he prayed to hear on the other end of the line: You tested negative, sir.
The clinic picked up; it was a woman's
voice, soft and professional. In the spare split second available, he imagined her saying it: You tested negative, sir.
"Calling for my results," he sputtered out, too nervous to worry about altering his voice. He gave her his code number; she
put him on hold. I'm happy to say you tested negative, sir, his brain chanted. The mantra that had gotten him through
the last week.
He turned to peer up at the lights on Santa Monica Boulevard in the distance: a warm gust of wind came
along and smacked him in the face, slightly ruffling the fake bushy eyebrows and fake gray-tinted beard that helped turn him
into an old man. In a mild panic, he reinforced his disguise, straightening the eyebrows and beard and the nappy-haired wig
under his green fisherman's hat, pushing the wire-rimmed glasses up on his nose, making sure the small latex beer belly was
secure underneath his faded blue workman's shirt and yellow golf jacket. He then used the reflection in the glass encasing
surrounding the phone to check his face and the makeup that gave him crow's feet and raisin-like skin on his cheeks and brow.
He looked like somebody's old black high school janitor if anybody bothered to notice.
Maybe I shouldn't have gotten
tested this way, he thought. Maybe I should have gone to a doctor of the rich and famous who could keep his mouth shut. Maybe
I should have never come down to West Hollywood dressed like this. A thousand—make that a million maybes—
The
line clicked. When the woman finally spoke, he only heard one word:
"...positive..."
Eyes shut, total blackness,
the line went silent, the world went dead. Total blackness and death. That's all he felt. That and the rest of the world finding
out, somehow, some way, someday.
The receiver fell and began swinging like a twisted pendulum, the woman's faint voice
crying out to the night from within. For a moment, he stood there, eyes unfocused, lips trembling, mind disoriented. Then
he began walking, too dazed to affect the limp that usually went along with the old-man getup. He thrust his hands into his
pockets, grabbing at the envelope with the wad of cash in the right pocket and the blank check in the left. Complete thoughts
were hard to come by. It was enough of a battle putting one foot in front of the other. He moved down the darkened sidewalk,
thinking of everything and nothing, but mostly the headlines ... OTHELLO'S DEADLY SECRET: STAR IS GAY AND HAS VIRUS
...
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