A Ghost of Halloween Present - 1. Chapter 1

Gayle settled into bed. He struck a match and lit the candle on the nightstand to remember Jim, his deceased partner. It was early, but after trying days at work, well, he found he was spending more and more time in bed. He picked up his book and opened to where he’d left off that morning before he left for work. He settled in further and began to read. Dauphin, his cat, jumped up on the bed, padded on and then snuggled into his lap and began a rumble in expectation of a rub behind the ears.

From his page, Gayle looked at his cat and then up at a frame on the bedside table. It held a photo taken on a mountaintop nearly 25 years earlier, a photo of Jim and him staring off into a clear, blue sky. He’d spent his Halloweens this same way for the last five years: with a book, a burning candle, a photo of Jim, and with Dauphin ensconced on his lap. Despite being a confirmed atheist, Gayle had seen things, experienced things that convinced him that, even without a God (big ‘G’ or little ‘g’), there were forces or entities or states of being that defied the clear cut, run-of-the-mill existence that was scientifically describable.

He knew, if there was a best night to be close to Jim, Halloween was it. The best night out of all 365 nights of the year. The eve of Hallowmas. The time of the year when the veils that separated planes of existence – separated the living from the dead – those dividers were stretched their thinnest. That Halloween was the best chance for Gayle to sense Jim’s presence, something he desired dearly.

Gayle’s gaze alternated between the photo and the candle flame. His thoughts fled to that day on the mountaintop. The day when Jim and he had been a new couple, brought together by their mutual friend, a yenta of a woman, who took great pleasure in matching her friends… with surprising success. She had taken the picture. She, Jim and Gayle had headed up to the Sierras to meet her partner who was spending the summer at a research facility attached to San Francisco’s City College. The four had hiked to the summit of Black Butte and there, on the dusty cliff-side, Jim had come up and hugged Gayle while they had looked out over the expanse of mountains all the way to the snow capped Mount Lassen, hundreds of miles in the far distance. Denise had snapped the picture, unbeknownst to the two men. It hadn’t been till weeks later that she had presented them with a framed copy. They had cherished the photo. It had sat for years in their bedside table. It was the first confirmation of their love.

On the bedside table, beside the photo, was a second frame holding the last photo of them, taken a decade later. In the second shot, they were facing the camera, embracing self consciously. In it, they looked different, with a little more gray in their beards and at their temples, more lines around their eyes. Still, Gayle thought they looked remarkably good for a couple of guys on either side of their 40th birthday. It was a pretty good shot of him and not such a good shot of Jim. Jim was looking slightly peaked, ever so slightly gaunt and drawn. The photo had been taken, in fact, two days following Jim’s AIDS diagnosis and less than three months before his eventual death.

There was another picture, taken almost two months later, a group shot, from a dinner party given for Jim’s boss’s birthday. It wasn’t a photo Gayle displayed. It showed a haggard Jim. He’d lost twenty pounds in the intervening weeks and his grin for the camera had an unflattering resemblance to those seen in photos of freed Auschwitz survivors.

Gayle had other images in his memory, ones that had never been preserved on film. Images of Jim after he’d lost a quarter of his weight, when he didn’t even break 100 pounds, when he could barely sit up. Images in which his hair looked sparse, in which his eyes were sunken and his cheeks, hollow. And the images from that particular afternoon, when Jim’s final exhalation had not been followed by the inevitable inhalation, when the natural order of things shifted in a way that Gayle had never imagined it could. It was like the first time he’d felt an earthquake, when that most stabile, most immutable and reliable entity, terra firma, had suddenly shuddered, that afternoon when he’d raced out of doors, assuming that something was wrong with his house, his home, only to discover that the entire landscape was shimmying unnaturally.

That afternoon, when Jim breathed his last, had been seem just as unreal, as unnatural. And yet, it was the most real, most natural occurrence that Gayle had ever experienced. At least, it was the most natural and real experience he’d had since his own birth, nearly 40 years before. Birth/death… finally, Gayle had gotten it. ‘It’ being that life wasn’t the opposite of death, or rather, that death wasn’t the opposite of life. They were/are the same thing. You don’t get one without the other. And Gayle hated that. He had never hated anything so deeply and completely in his entire life. That afternoon, he discovered that he couldn’t accept the natural order of things.

Suddenly, the science fiction novels he’d immersed himself in, the ones that featured extended life spans or immortal creatures, made a new sense. Suddenly, vampire tales took on a new depth. Gayle saw the world through new eyes. It wasn’t as if rose tinted shades had been torn off. No, it was more akin to having seen the polychrome world blanched to gray, it’s atmosphere bleached of depth. He disliked his new chromasphere. No, he hated it.

While reminiscing, Gayle let his reading lapse. Distractedly, he rubbed Dauphin under the chin. The candle flame guttered in a draft but remained strong. He glanced at the clock radio. Nearly midnight. He needed to turn off his reading light, blow out the candle and turn in. He had to be at work the following morning.

Halloween 2010 marked 15 years and 18 days since Jim’s final breath. It marked 25 years, 14 days since their first night together. It marked almost 11 years since Gayle turned 43, Jim’s age when he died. Gayle had lost other friends, other former boyfriends and other family, but no one’s death had ever shaken his understanding of existence the way Jim’s had.

Gayle dragged himself out of his morbid thoughts for a last glance at the time before turning in. It was midnight – time to rouse Dauphin so he could skootch out of his seated position, curl onto his side and drop into sleep.

Gayle slept. His breathing fluctuated as dreams came and went. Dauphin slunk off to stare out the window at the shadows of bare tree branches in the moonlight. Much had happened in those 15 years and 18, now 19 days. Gayle had started anti-retroviral therapy to counter his own HIV infection. He’d used Jim’s life insurance settlement to fulfill his dream of buying his own home, a home where he’d developed an extensive garden. He’d buried his mother. He’d spent eight of those years with a wonderful man with whom he’d believed he’d live till his own dying day. It was ironic that after he’d sworn he’d never fall in love again, after learning how destructive was the death of a life partner, he’d taken another chance at love and jumped in with both feet. He’d lived another five years since that ‘wonderful man’ had told him that he felt too limited loving only a single other man. He’d lived two years since he’d halted his HIV cocktail, having grown tired of dealing with the continuing grind of life. After 15 years, 19 days, his own health was now slipping. He was developing a new understanding of Jim’s final months, of Jim’s solitary struggle, an understanding that a person’s health is intensely private, that no one: not doctors, nor relatives, nor a life partner can have a jot of input on a person’s living or dying.

Like so many nights, a dream woke Gayle in the early hours. It had been something about an attack on a ship, about being caught in the hold as it filled with sea water, about being chased through floating crates until there was no more airspace and then finding he could continue to swim and breath underwater, about finding a rent in the hull and swimming free into the ocean depths.

Not fully awake, Gayle spent an undetermined amount of time hoping to fall back asleep, hoping he could still get at least seven hours before the alarm forced him to begin a new workday. His hopes became worries which brought him further into wakefulness. When he’d lost hope of slipping back into sleep’s oblivion, he turned to look at the time. 4:24 AM. He picked up his book and reached for the light but was caught short by Dauphin’s motionless silhouette in the window. Dauphin turned his head and caught Gayle with his piercing gaze. In Gayle’s post-sleep stupor he didn’t notice his cat’s intelligent examination.

‘Gayle?’

“Hunh?”

‘You’re almost awake. Good. You’re not feeling so well, are you?’

“What? Who?”

‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m not a who or a what. It’s Hallowmas. With your impending death, you and I are closer than we’ve ever been since I left the physical plane. It’s good to be this close again.’

“Jim? This can’t be…”

‘No need to talk. I can’t create sound waves so you’re not ‘hearing’ me.’

Gayle looked more closely at his cat. Dauphin stared back impassively.

“Dauphin?”

‘Gayle, I’m not the cat.’

Gayle felt a frisson of humor lave his consciousness. ‘Of course,’ he thought. ‘Silly me. I’m not entirely getting this. It’ll take a while for me to become accustomed. How long can we do this?’

‘Oh, we have a little while still. Long enough to connect. Truthfully, time doesn’t make much sense to me.’

‘Jim, it’s wonderful to feel your presence. I’ve missed you. Terribly. I’ve tried to keep going. I tried to live well after you died. Actually, I did… live well for a while. I fell in love with a very special man, but it didn’t work out. I told him about you. He helped me spread your ashes. I told him everything, things I’ve never told anyone else. He really cared and then… then he didn’t care anymore. Jim, I’ve given up. I just don’t much care any longer. Does that make any sense?’

‘No, it makes no sense to me. You’re alive. Why would you want to not be alive?’

‘I… Jim, I can’t explain it exactly. It doesn’t make actual sense to me. I can’t figure out why I’m so… I don’t know… rudderless. Nowadays, I just can’t see any future. Not here, not for me at least. Not as a human being. What’s it like, being a was-once-a-human?’

‘Gayle, I can’t make sense of your question. All I can say is, I’m definitely not human – not now. It’s inconceivable that I ever was like you. The whole concept is… well it just doesn’t add up. But then, the entire concept of losing the will to live is equally incomprehensible.’

‘Jim, I have something I need to tell you… admit to you, actually. This feels awful. I think… I might be… responsible for your… death.’ Gayle’s breath hitched. He couldn’t go on. Jim waited while Gayle cried.

‘God this is killing me, telling you this. I can’t. Oh, Jim… you’ll never forgive me. I’m so… so sorry!’

‘Dear, it’s not a problem, whatever it is. I think I know anyway.’

‘Jim… you know that parasite that killed you? When you weren’t digesting food anymore? How you had diarrhea for weeks? They said you could have picked it up from surface water. I’m terrified that you picked it up at Lake Sunapee, where we spent our vacation that summer. Sunapee was my idea. It could have been the lake water.’

‘Gayle, dear… it really doesn’t matter. Even if I picked it up from you, if you’d, well, not been completely faithful, it doesn’t matter anymore. You understand that, don’t you?’

‘I… suppose.’

They didn’t talk for a period. Gayle felt encompassed by warmth and acceptance. He tried to reflect that sense of love back towards Jim.

After a bit he felt Dauphin nuzzle his shoulder. He renewed their conversation.

‘You know, Jim, it’s nice having a cat. I’m sorry you were allergic. I wanted us to have a cat. I mean, having Babs was wonderful, but I never really was a dog person. She was always your dog, anyway. She lived a long life, a good life after you died, Jim. I had her put to sleep four years later. It was time. She lived well but it was time. God, I cried! She was ours and then she was gone, and I had to be the one who made the decision to end it, to end her life!’

They were quiet until Gayle picked up the thread. ‘You remember when we went backpacking, the three of us, and she kept chasing chipmunks until she pulled a muscle and we had to head home early?’

‘Sort of. Not really. I remember that she was a special creature. It was wonderful to share existence with her.’

‘Babs… She was wonderful. Babs… Barbara… I don’t think I ever mentioned; I never liked Barbara Streisand. Or Diana Ross. Did I ever tell you? I asked Steve (do your remember him?) to sell all your Streisand and Supremes albums after you died. God, you had a lot of them. I couldn’t do it myself. I’m sorry, Jim.’

‘Yeah, I remember Steve. He sure could cook! Who were Barbara Streisand and Diana Ross? I don’t remember them. Were they some of your co-workers?’

‘Uh, nevermind.’

A minute passed.

‘Jim, this entire conversation is probably just my unconscious talking to my subconscious. Or vice versa. You’re probably just an expression of my overactive imagination.’

‘Yeah, probably…’

They were silent again. Gayle imagined a touch to his forehead, just a light brush, as if someone had brushed his bangs from his eyes… bangs he hadn’t had for over a decade.

‘Well, Steve’s partner died. And Will died, too… and his partner. Do you remember Will and Wallace? It’s tough with so many gone. Like I said before, I’m having trouble imagining a future with me in it. The whole concept of the future doesn’t make sense. Maybe it’s not having any offspring. I know I suggested it to you, us having a child. You weren’t interested.’

‘Well, that was a non-starter. I couldn’t imagine siring a child and parenting another generation. No – humans have messed things up enough. I can’t see a reason to continue the damage with further generations.’

‘Maybe it’s a selfish desire but I would have loved to squire a child or two into life.’

‘Really, after the existential horror you suffered after I left your plane?’

‘Well, I did try to love again, so I guess hope springs eternal. Ach! Maybe not. I’m not hopeful anymore. I’m just, simply… done living.’

‘I suppose I remember feeling that way right before I left your plane.’

‘Dear, that was the worst. Those last few weeks, really those last months… As you required more assistance, as we got organized to help you, driving you to your appointments, as I cooked more and more and did more of the housekeeping and scheduled your friend’s visits and kept your garden weeded and, well, all of it, everything at the end… Jim, that was the best loving I’ve ever offered, the most selfless, the most generous, the best quality loving I have ever shared. And, after all that… you were gone so suddenly, so unexpectedly. It took my breath away. You left a void. I felt hollowed out.’

Gayle wasn’t aware of falling back to sleep. It was as if his conversation with Jim had drifted into a dream and then he’d slipped into dreamless oblivion. The morning sunlight illuminated Dauphin curled tightly on the pillow beside Gayle’s tousled hair. Outside the window, the bare tree branches shifted in the slight breeze.

Too loudly, the beep of the alarm woke Gayle at 6:30 AM. He felt disoriented. His last memory was of talking with Jim. He remembered sharing heart and soul in a manner he’d not shared with anyone ever before in his life. He’d felt understood. He’d felt cared for and welcomed down to the depths of his being. He was struck by the completeness of the love he’d felt. He’d not felt that way since… since suckling at his mother’s breast when he was just a few hours old. No, actually, since his very birth. In fact, since before then… ever since he was awash in warm amniotic fluid before that horrid voyage through the canal that brought him, squeezed and crushed, into this human experience.

The horror of living came crashing down on him: the solitariness of birth, the existential loneliness of death and all the pitiful attempts at communality in the intervening hours, days, months and years. He covered his head with the pillow and wailed himself back to sleep.

He missed work that day, didn’t even phone in until he re-awoke mid-morning and called to try to explain his no-show. He hated being so irresponsible, but the fact was, he didn’t much care any longer. He had no future at his job. He had no future on this plane. He just wanted to be conjoined with the one man who had loved him with all his heart until death had parted them.