To Those Who Have - 1. To Those Who Have

Nick spent too much time on the Internet when he should have been packing to move. On the floor lay moving boxes that needed to be filled with books. Why was he even keeping them? No one would read them after he was gone. He didn’t want to leave his small cozy apartment behind that he decorated with fabric panels to give the impression of artworks and bookcases to project a sense of intellect. He felt too tired and resistant to get started, so he killed too much time chatting with friends to put off the inevitable.

He leaned back in the desk chair feeling shame run through his limbs. He shut his eyes for a moment. He bent forward to the keyboard to type. His fingers trembled slightly over the keys.

“When can I see you? I want to see you so much,” the computer screen asked.

“I don’t have a cam.” Nick typed back. His fingers felt weary.

The boy on the screen made a pleading look.

“You can get one? Please.”

This was a recurring request on John’s part. Nick felt more ashamed every time he denied it. He just couldn’t show his face. Nick waited a long time to respond.

“I keep forgetting. Maybe I will remember next time I go out.”

John’s face on the screen smiled slightly then faded.

“Ok.”

John would mope around with hurt feelings.

Nick turned his face away from the computer screen and swiveled in his desk chair. He put his head in his hands in anger and frustration. Why the hell was he letting this clingy Filipino boy from a nation on the other side of the planet, in a country he had no desire to visit, and who Nick was not even that attracted too, manipulate his emotions? Why can’t this kid just stop bothering him?

How many times had he denied John's request to see him on the video camera? “I don't have a cam,” he kept telling him. John kept insisting that he get one. “Please, just let me see you,” John would beg. Nick kept resisting. It isn’t like he couldn't get one, they were inexpensive and there was an electronics store nearby, but he kept saying no.

Nick kept his eyes closed. He could see John's soft brown eyes, short black hair, and a boyish smile on the video feed from his college computer lab. Nick played John's silly childish wave to the camera in his mind: his little hand waving back and forth next to his cheek, before he covered his mouth in shy embarrassment.

He opened his eyes and leaned back in his chair, remembering the times he spent helping John edit his school papers, fixing John’s mangled up English verb tenses, and John’s amusing attempts to lose his Filipino accent and talk like an American, which only made him sound like a juvenile cowboy with a speech disorder. John was endearing and sweet and always faithful to their chats. Nick had to put on end to them, even if it meant cruelly hurting John.

Nick closed the black box on the computer screen where John’s face had been moments ago. He reached for and grasped the cane leaning against his desk to help him lift himself from the chair. He stood, balancing on his cane, and looked around the small studio apartment that he occupied for the last several years.

Now that he was no longer working, Nick couldn’t cover the rent anymore. He was packing up to move back to his childhood home: his mother’s house. Nick’s father had left them years ago. His mother lived there alone with her three little dogs that she kissed on the nose while feeding them treats from her hands. Soiled pads lay around the rooms where the dog relieved themselves. She spent hours every day in front of the TV (trapped Nick would say) watching soap operas, game shows, court dramas, romance movies, old westerns, and God know what else. When he came to visit, after being away for several years, school and work consumed his twenties, he noticed the neighborhood had decayed; the houses were in greater disrepair than he recalled. His own childhood home was more dingy then he remembered. He felt resistance to touching doorknobs. The rooms seem smaller. Nick felt he had mentally outgrown the space and now felt like a stranger. He wondered if he could find someplace nicer to die.

Since his illness, he avoided saying the “C” word. Really? That is what he was going to die? Not AIDS or alcoholism. He wasn’t even going to live long enough to flirt with heart disease. They found it in his testicles of all places. The surgeons removed them, but it had already spread. They managed to slow its advance but not stop it.

Nick decided today was the day. He would have to go out.

Unsteadily, he walked to the bed, avoiding any glimpse of himself in the mirror mounted on the closet door. He no longer looked like the picture of the modestly handsome man in his mid-thirties that was posted on his messenger. When John thought of him, he would have pictured a healthy young accountant.

Nick retrieved a worn pair of jeans from the floor, carefully slipping them on. Then slowly pulled on a pair of socks, watching his bony fingers stretching the elastic then slipped on a pair of shoes without untying them. He left the laces loose now, so he wouldn’t have to fumble with them. All this bending made him tired and lightheaded.

He put on a heavy coat, since it was a chilly January day, and pulled the hood up. He found his keys and wallet and slipped on a pair of sunglasses. With his hood up and his sunglasses on; his face looked almost normal. He locked the door behind him, and carefully made his way down the steps so he wouldn’t fall. On the way out, he once again avoided looking at his reflection in the glass doors of the entryway.

Outside, ominous black birds cawed to each other. The sky was a heavy gray ceiling of clouds, the ground, brown and cold, and the trees leafless and bony like him. The streets were wet with cold rain. He found the shiny gray car that he was so proud of, that he thought projected professionalism parked curbside outside the brownstone where he lived. He slid into the cold vinyl seats. Inside the car, he allowed himself to glance at the rearview mirror, where he could only see his eyes over the sunglasses, which seemed more gray than blue, and crows feet puckering at the edges. He started the car and let it run for a few minutes. He watched his breath come and go in the chilled air until the interior warmed. He put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.

There wasn’t a lot of traffic at this time of the morning, so he could drive slowly. It would only take a few minutes for him to arrive. While driving, Nick wondered if he was the gullible type, falling for some elaborate scheme. Maybe he could convince himself that John was just like that, but John never asked for help with a VISA, he never laid on a sob story about his sick mother to get him to send money, like so many other Filipino boys did, which he would occasionally send and never hear from them again. Nick didn’t mind that too much, he was being the generous one, he told himself. Maybe he was gullible and John was playing a game with him. It would be easier if Nick could get himself to believe that. Still, John never offered to show himself naked. He seemed shy about his body. Instead, they talked about his schoolwork: John was studying to be a teacher, his struggles with English grammar, but mostly about how alone they both felt, and how they could never bridge the distance. Nick had to end it and shove John out of his life. He couldn’t become emotionally dependent on someone so distant as he worsened.

He parked in the lot. A sudden wave of pride and defiance made him steer away from the handicapped space, which he recently qualified for. An extra fifty feet wouldn’t kill him, not yet. He popped the handle and pushed hard against the car door. It seemed to get heavier each time he drove. He dragged his feet out, holding the door frame, and wobbled before gaining his balance.

Nick shuffled toward the entrance, avoiding puddles of water covered with a gray oily sheen in the parking lot. The overcast clouds gave the light a quality of transparency, yet shaded everything in gray. It washed out the vibrancy of color, yet lifted the quality of his features so they stood out in relief. When he got to the sliding glass doors, he couldn’t avoid seeing himself from head to toe. Luckily, his oversized coat concealed his meager body. He had forgotten his gloves, so his hands seemed clawed, protruding from his coat. His face was buried in his hood. His reflection stood out in the gray light. The sunglasses looked absurdly grandiose. He turned his face away in disgust, grabbed the handle, and threw the door roughly open. He was met by the warm, humid air inside that caused his sunglasses to fog over. He slipped them into his coat pocket and made his way toward the computer accessories.

The interior of the store was bright and smelled like cardboard. Nick scanned the signs above each aisle looking for the video equipment.

His shuffling gait caught the attention of the floor salesman. “Can I help you find something?”

Nick turned to the tidy young man wearing a polo shirt, with the store’s logo stitched into the fabric, and black men’s slacks.

“I’m looking for a video camera for my computer,” said Nick rather hoarsely.

His false salesman’s smile disappeared from his face turning into a disgusted embarrassed scowl. He turned momentary pale at the dilapidation of Nick’s face but quickly recovered.

“They’re over here,” the salesman gestured with his hand, avoiding eye contact, with the false smile returning.

Nick felt a strange sense of shame overcome him. He felt his body become momentary hot and his heart sped up its beats. Why should he be the one to feel ashamed? He knew he had disrupted the salesman’s sense of ordinariness and expectations. Nick also felt too tired to make an issue of it. He decided to be generous to the salesman and not make him uncomfortable.

“I just want something simple and easy and not too expensive.” Nick gave him a waning smile. “I might not have much time to use it.” He let him in on a conspiratorial moment, the vanity of fulfilling a dying man’s wish: “for saying goodbyes.”

The salesman lowered his eyes and looked at the cameras. “This is a good one and easy to use.” The salesman tried to meet Nick’s eyes again but just for an instance.

“If you recommend it then I’m sure it will be fine,” Nick allowed his voice to sound weary and far away.

“It is,” the salesman assured him.

Let the young man have his vanity, Nick thought to himself, the pity of helping the poor dying man. He can share his act of graciousness with his family tonight as Nick was being ungracious himself.

The salesman held the camera out to him with both hands. “Is there anything else you need?”

Nick told him there was nothing else. The salesman offered to take him to the checkout and ring up the purchase himself. Nick agreed and walked haltingly behind him. He fumbled in his pocket and put his sunglasses back on. He paid in cash.

As he turned to leave, the salesman called after him, “you have a good day and be safe.”

“I will.” His eyes suddenly stung with tears as the hypocrisy of his purchase struck him. The words almost caught in his throat. This time the shame was truly his.

Outside, it was drizzling, making a light pattering sound on his coat, making him feel hot and stuffy inside. He slipped back into the car and threw the cam on the passenger seat. He drove home with the windshield wipers on low, each passing stroke cleaning a clear view before it was speckled again with light raindrops. Nick wondered about the weather in Manila. If there was a warm tropical breeze blowing that could soothe his joints or a tropical storm blowing in that would lash the palm trees with a deluge of rain. Maybe the beach would be warm and calm with low puffy clouds drifting overhead and the ocean running little waves of foam up onto the sand.

John would go on about how much he loved the beach and the warm sunlight on his brown skin. Just his arms and legs, he was too shy to take off his shirt in public. Nick longed to feel the wet sand between his toes. John endearingly offered to be his personal cabaña boy. Nick wanted to lie on the beach and feel the warmth of the sun penetrating his skin. He momentary imaged his body as healthy, his muscles strong and his skin smooth and bronzed. He saw in his mind crowds of Filipino boys jealously eyeing John and staring at the handsome white American man lying at his side.

Instead, Nick endured chilly drafts, surprise pains from within, and strings of growth wrapping themselves around nerves and probing into organs. He wanted anything other than the cold days of waiting and sickness. He felt so tired when he finally reached home and locked the door.

He wanted to get this over with, despite the aches and pains developing in his back and abdomen and his shortness of breath. He managed to get on the floor and pull the computer out of the space in his desk that housed it. He had planned to buy a laptop or invest in a smartphone, but those plans, like so many others, lost their importance. He plugged the new camera into the appropriate slot and fed the cord up to the top of the desk. All that activity left him exhausted, sitting on the floor panting. Finally, he crawled into his chair to rest.

Installing the software was easy; a few clicks and he was good to go. Then he hesitated. He would really have to look at himself. His face was now pale and thin, the skin hanging on the bone and heavily lined as the chemotherapy ravaged his face, leaving his eyes sunken and his hair thin and tangled. When Nick looked at his own face, he saw a ravished old man. He felt an urge to weep but held it back. After a long time of self-pity, he went and lay on the bed, and waited for John to come online.

Sometimes, John would become whiney and reproachful, accusing Nick of cheating on him. “You don’t love me! If you loved me you would show your face,” he would complain and fill the screen with juvenile crying emoticons. Nick felt like he was in an impossible position, and he tried to soothe him, telling John over and over that he did care about him. Nick guessed that he did care but was annoyed by these juvenile outbursts. “Come on, John,” he would plead, “I’m not seeing anyone.”

I’m in hiding. Soon you will see. Nick turned on the TV. He flipped through the channels and paused for a moment on a Christian station.

“As the Lord taught in Matthew,” some pastor was sermonizing, “To those who have more will be given. God has promised to those who seek his salvation.” The pastor’s voice trembled with excitement. “God will reward them with riches, and health, and happiness.” He drew out his voice in ecstasy. “Oh, but to those who have not, what little they have will be taken away. Those who turn away from the Lord will be condemned to a life of poverty, and disease, and despair.”

Nick quickly turned the TV off and threw the remote control across the room. So I’m one of the have-nots! Nick wanted to scream, but the words only came out as a mumble.

He turned to face the wall, a traditional position to die in, and dozed for a while. He half-consciously reflected on lost dreams from the past that would never reach fulfillment, potential never to be realized. Depressing thoughts creped in that he tried to shove away about degrees and certificates he worked for but couldn’t use, promotions he’d never get, medical bills that would leave him bankrupt, health insurance that would soon drop him. Lovers he would never meet. Lips he would never kiss. Embraces he would never hold.

He let the anger and resentment build up inside of him until he could feel it burrowing into his guts and stabbing at his heart. What hurts the most was the shame of being sick at such a young age and the guilt of liking a boy on the other side of the world, who frustrated Nick with his emotional outbursts, and who he couldn’t get rid of but couldn’t stop talking to either. John had to go. In his mind, Nick screamed: Look at me now. Look and reject me! Give me some peace. Let me die alone, quietly.

Nick imagined the look of horror on John’s face; John turning away in revulsion, suppressing an urge to vomit, and quickly clicking the camera closed on his end. Then filling the chat window with curses and expletives: calling him a fucking monster, a hypocrite and an exploiter, swearing to never chat with him again. Then it would be done; everything over.

Since it was January, the sun set early. Night was intruding into the room. He felt cold drafts coming from around the windowsills. He lay there while the room slipped into darkness. On the other side of the world, John would be going to his morning classes. Nick calmed himself to wait.

Later, in the dark room, Nick heard the tone of the messenger. It was time for John to come online. Nick slowly arose from his bed and turned on every light in the room before he sat down at the computer screen. Then he turned the monitor on.

“Good morning. Are you here?” followed by a pair of kissing lips appeared on the screen.

“Good evening,” he messaged back.

“I missed you. You have a good day?” John opened his cam, and Nick accepted the invitation. John’s smiling face appeared and he waved.

“It was. I went to the store. I bought a cam.”

John filled the screen with smiley faces. “Then I can finally see you!”

“Yes, but I have to tell you something.”

“What? I just want to see you.”

“I don’t look like my picture anymore,” typed Nick. “I have been sick for a while. I look old and I’m dying now. That’s why I wouldn’t show my face.”

“What! Don’t lie to me! You are just trying to get rid of me. You don’t love me.” Crying faces filled the screen. “Let me see you!”

Nick positioned himself in front of the camera. Defensively, he held out his hand to block the view and clicked send video with this other hand. A box opened showing his palm. Then he slowly lowered his hand and watched John’s reaction. John stared at Nick’s video for a few moments. He could see the shock in his eyes. Then John covered his mouth and turned away. He fled from his computer. All Nick could see was a blank white wall in the background.

There, it’s done, thought Nick. He leaned back in his chair, keeping his face in the center of the view. After a few minutes, John came back, staring down at his keyboard, trying not to cry, taking a few glances up at Nick’s face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he typed. “I could’ve helped you.”

“We don’t have a future together.” Nick typed back. “You have to reject me now. Please let me go.”

John looked straight into his camera and burst into tears. “I still care about you, let me help.”

At that moment, Nick also burst into tears. He wept in front of the camera crying harder than he had in weeks. He looked into John’s soft brown eyes wet from tears. Nick expected to see anger and resentment there, but instead, Nick felt a wave of compassion flood over him and realized how unjust he had been to John. At that moment, with tears streaming down his face, the only thing that Nick wanted more than anything else was to live.