10
Darryl wondered why that bearded dude had been staring at him, then decided he didn’t care. He’d looked kind of familiar. Like maybe he’d seen him around the Lodge. Another sick Kicker? Well, who cared? Wasn’t going to be able to care much about anything until he got the results of those blood tests.
Weird how they’d told him to wait right here for the results. Whoever heard of getting test results right away?
This had to be real serious.
He had to say he was impressed with Drexler’s suck. He’d made his call and next thing Darryl knew he was on his way uptown to a big-time specialist. He’d been ushered right through Dr. Orlando’s office and into an examining room. He’d spent fifteen seconds, tops, with the doctor, a bald, round-headed fat guy in a white coat who reminded Darryl of Dr. Honeydew on The Muppet Show. He popped through the door, took one look at the rash, rattled off a bunch of medical gobbledygook to his assistant, and disappeared. Next stop had been the lab where they sucked out some blood, and then here to wait.
Why here? Darryl wondered why he wasn’t cooling his heels in Dr. Orlando’s office. He’d noticed INFECTIOUS DISEASES on the door. That was good, right? Infections could be cured.
“Mister Kulik?”
It took Darryl a second to respond. No one hardly ever used his second name. He was just Darryl to folks. He looked up and saw the doc’s skinny, red-haired assistant. Her name tag read B. SNYDER PA.
“Doctor will see you now.”
Darryl started shaking as he rose from the chair.
“He’s got results? What do I have?”
“The doctor will tell you.”
“Hey, if you know—”
“He wishes to discuss this with you himself.”
He shook all the way to the office. The walk, the elevator ride—blurs. Eventually he found himself sitting across the desk from Dr. Orlando.
“Well, Mister Kulik,” he said as he stared at the printout in his hands, “the stat labs confirm what I knew the instant I saw your skin lesion.”
“You mean the rash? What is it?”
“Kaposi’s sarcoma.”
“What’s that?”
“A form of cancer associated—”
“Shit!” Darryl would have leaped from the seat if his legs would have held him. “I got cancer?”
“Yes, but we can keep it under control by treating the underlying cause.”
“Which is?”
“AIDS.”
It took a while for the word to sink in, and when it did, Darryl felt like he’d turned to stone.
“What?”
“Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, Mister Kulik. Your HIV test came back positive.”
He said it like a sandwich guy telling him they were out of ham but he could have turkey instead.
“But-but-but queers get AIDS!” he blurted when he found his voice. “I ain’t queer!”
“We prefer the terms ‘homosexual’ or ‘gay,’ Mister Kulik. And indeed you need not be homosexual to catch HIV. Heterosexual transmission occurs, but the majority of HIV-positive heterosexuals I see are the victims of contaminated syringes. Are you a drug addict or do you have a history of drug abuse?”
“No way. Never.”
Dr. Orlando’s tone said he didn’t believe him. “Yes, well, be that as it may, I—” He stopped and pointed at Darryl’s hand. “Oh, I see you have a tattoo. Contaminated tattoo needles can spread the infection as well.”
Darryl looked down at the little black Kicker Man in the web between his thumb and forefinger.
“Aw, no. Don’t say that.”
“The manner in which you were infected does not affect your treatment options. The fact that you have Kaposi’s indicates that you’ve been infected for some time—years, most likely.”
Years? Then it couldn’t be the Kicker tattoo. He hadn’t had it anywhere near that long. But how then? Darryl couldn’t imagine. He’d had a couple of girlfriends back in Dearborn after his divorce—well, okay, before his divorce too—but he’d always used a rubber because they hadn’t been the choosiest women.
But right now how didn’t matter all that much. He had AIDS, man. Fucking AIDS!
He listened to the doc go on about staging him and waiting for the results of tests that would take longer to complete and how treatment was so much better these days.
Yeah, sure. Medical bullshit. Everybody knew AIDS was a death sentence. So as the doc rattled on about this and that, tossing out terms like T-cell counts and remission, Darryl rose and forced his rubbery legs to carry him out of the office and back down toward the street.
Dead man walking.
He wasn’t a fool. He’d been handed a death sentence.
He just couldn’t let anyone else know.