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Spring came on like gang busters and the sunflowers reached for the sun. At ten cents a pack I filled the raised beds with mounds of seeds and a dozen and a half tomato plants at twenty-five cents a piece. Chanter’s Saturday morning visits became regular and we kept sending out proposals and hounding Clark Gable and Van Johnson, who kept putting us off because they couldn’t get the partners in one room. Go figure.

After the fiasco with the pig people, and not eager to deal with any white coats for the short film, BG put me on to the Real George McCoy—the first recorded human to have been treated with recombinant factor VIII made with DNA technology. The doctor who had treated him was Chief Clotter, Dr. Gilbert White. I had sent George a script and he was a natural for some of the more technical stuff.

The Boss sent another thousand dollars, so we were still in the ballgame. The Earl died. I had only met him at Camp Care Free and he never returned my phone calls, but I knew he’d been sick. The fact that other members of the community would be attending his services and the fact that I could afford it at the moment helped me make the quantum leap to go. He had been buried out of state and the services were being held by a competitor of the Boss in Greensboro, and Wayne was being sued by them for unfair trade practices, so Wayne and BG were not planning to attend. Wayne had made trips North to see the Earl before he died because that’s what kind of guy Wayne was—Earl worked for the competitor, but Wayne’s trips were to an old friend not a rival. Wayne had found the Holy Grail—that cup of compassion–not bad for a drug dealer, but he was still an American businessman.

I copped a car and called SP8 on my way to the service to offer a ride. His mother and stepfather were working so he accepted. I drove to his house with the directions he gave me and found him without much problem. The door was unlocked when I arrived and I made my way through the kitchen and back to SP8’s cave. I had spoken to him several times by telephone and his voice was so quiet I often had trouble understanding him, but he was always sharp and funny. He had his own space with giant screen TV and a waterbed where he spent much of his time. He had just begun treatments with the new protease inhibitors and was a little bit shaky but game. I walked into his room where he was stretched out watching TV wearing shorts and no shirt.

“Hey, SP8,” I said, “I thought you would be ready.”

“What’s this SP8 shit, motherfucker. Call me turtle.”

“Turtle?”

“That’s right. SP8 is a personal thing.”

“Okay, Turtle. We’re late. Get it up.” I said.

Every movement he made looked as though it involved pain and extreme effort. He crawl-stepped whenever he could just to keep in touch with walking, hanging onto every movement as though it could be his last. He threw tee shirt with a rude logo over his shorts and he was ready. Nobody would question him. Nobody could feel his pain. I loaded the wheelchair in the trunk of the car just in case and we headed to the services with Turtle pointing out the speed traps. He also handled the radio in the gold Taurus GL, surfing the channels. I stumped him when I named the group and songs on the classic rock station in a few notes, songs from before he was born, songs from the early seventies.

We arrived at the services, which were already underway, and cruised to a stop in the parking lot not very far from the tent. It was far enough for me to ask him if he wanted his wheelchair, but he chose to crawl-step with his cane. As we approached the tent I saw Dale Brisson and Kathy and Charley Register and Richard Atwood and the Roman. I didn’t recognize most of the people at the small gathering but enough not to feel a complete outsider. I had known about hemophilia for fourteen months and this was the third death of a person with whom I had had some direct contact. There were many more, one a day I was told, but these deaths had voices I knew. They had died from the complications of AIDS and hemophilia–Hemophilia because of the contaminated blood product which treated it, the same thing that turned the turtle into a tortoise in his movements.

When we got to the tent the turtle went off on his own to other people he knew and I sat in a chair in the rear as the mourners gave remembrance to the dead. Dale Brisson read a couple of his own poems: “The Battle Hymn of the Hemophiliac” and “Carrier Mom.” There were cookies and beverages afterwards and I met a black man, Henry Jones, who was severe factor VIII and positive and pissed off. He gave me his number.

Wayne showed up as the sky grew dark and Turtle and I followed him to a restaurant where we drank whiskey and ate chips and flirted with the waitress, having fun. Wayne Ward left us there, and then I began to notice that everything was an argument. Everything became a conflict. I thought it was funny but the kid was pissed off.

“Don’t make fun of me,” he said.

“I’m not making fun of you,” I told him.

“Why are you laughing? he said.

“Because we’re arguing over silly shit,” I said.

“You talkin’ to me,” he said with his eyes narrowed. “I don’t argue over silly shit.”

He was twenty-one years old. I knew I shouldn’t coddle him. He got enough of that at home. I may have been wrong there, but if we were going to spend any time together I wanted it to be authentic.

“I’m not your father,” I said.

“My father killed himself,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I’m your friend and I won’t hurt you. You are safe with me but I ain’t going to take any shit off of you and I don’t expect you to take any shit off of me so we’ll have to work it out.”

“How come you keep giving me shit?” he asked.

“Maybe I’m just a screwed up guy and I don’t know no better. But I ain’t gonna kiss your ass.” I really didn’t think that I was giving him any shit. But this was actually the first time that we were hanging out together without his Mom or Wayne and they had more patience than I did. He was a good kid. I honestly liked him. But if he didn’t have full blown AIDS and hemophilia I probably wouldn’t have been there and neither would he. This is where our paths had converged. That’s what it all had been about, the entire fourteen months, not working on a project but trudging through the woods and creating a path that I could look back upon but no one else would be able to follow.

And then we left the crowded restaurant, Turtle crawl-steppin’ with his cane and me clearing the way for him. Anyone watching the two of us must have been puzzled. He told me he had gotten a couple of shots at the bar. He was drunk. I wasn’t familiar with any of the meds at that point, but even the way he smoked cigarettes was his responsibility, the same as any self-destructive behavior. What are you going to tell a twenty-one year old with AIDS–”Don’t do it?” After his own government, an entire industry, and even the National Hemophilia Foundation kept the facts hidden for so long that the blood supply that he was dependent upon for his blood clotting factor was contaminated with HIV.

We got lost on the way home and his mom was waiting up when we got there. She made a cot up in his room for me and I got to spend the night at the feet of a pretty tough little guy. It was quite an honor. I had planned on returning the car to Triangle right after the services for the Earl, but once again from death came new life. At Craig’s funeral I had picked up Kathy and Charley for the film. When I learned of Larkey Deneff’s death at the Ricky Ray Rally the Preacher promised a grand to keep things alive. And the Earl got me to spend time with the Turtle and I got to meet Henry Jones. There had been other instances also, but maybe there had simply been so many deaths and occasionally something good happens, like a good meal after the sacrifice. Anyway, I don’t like to miss a good funeral.

The next morning after a shower and coffee I was invited to accompany Turtle and his Mom to Winston-Salem where Turtle was to see his doctor since he had just started the new protease inhibitor, Ritonivir, along with his AZT and a few other things that were supposed to help him. I saw it as a great honor and went along. We took the Taurus and made the hour’s drive to the hospital where I dropped them at the entrance while I parked the car. I caught up to them quickly in the hospital and we went to the cancer ward waiting room where Turtle took a seat far away from his Mom. It was a guy thing.

I sat next to Turtle while we waited. A beautiful young woman came and sat next to us and struck up a conversation. The kid was a chick magnet. I suspected as much from the fun we had had with the waitress the night before, but this was a reaffirmation. We were called, much too quickly, into a back examination room. I had never witnessed such great service in a hospital. I still occasionally heard the wonderfully absurd exchange:

“How are you?”

“Fine, thank you.”

“How are you.”

“Fine, thank you.”

This was a hospital. Most of the people were sick or dealing with sickness. How could anyone be exposed to such pain and suffering all the time and still answer, “Fine, thank you?”

I was allowed to go back to the examination room with Turtle and his Mom and sure enough, when the doctor came in he asked, “How are you?”

Turtle answered, “I have AIDS, what do you think?”

The examination went quickly and we were out of there in less than ten minutes. That was it. We stopped for breakfast on the way back to Turtle’s house and I asked him if he wanted to drive back to Wilmington with me for a few days, being careful to tell him that I didn’t have a TV and the money was tight. I knew that the opportunity wouldn’t present itself again in the near future days since time with the kid was project-related. I justified the expense of keeping the car a few extra days only because of my personal circumstances.

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