Another Red X Marks the Passing of a Friend to AIDS

When my friend Dan died, I opened his address book, elegantly bound in dark green leather with gold alphabet pulls.

I knew Dan was a gentleman, but I hadn’t anticipated such an imposing orderliness, each name and address, area code and number, entered meticulously in dark blue ink. There are numbers for offices, apartments and country houses, even a movie star and a famous talk show host.

Most striking though are the audacious black X’s slashed through names, their angry boldness a vivid contrast to Dan’s elegant hand. These are his friends who died of AIDS.

I recognize many of the names, and attach vaguely recalled stories and images to the graceful script as I skip from one X to another. There are four friends under B, seven D friends, and a remarkable 12 M friends, 134 Xs in all. I knew Dan had lost many people to AIDS, a whole lifetime of people, but still these blackened pages stun me.

At home, I retrieve my own address book from under the clutter of my desk, a tattered roster, held together with two rubber bands. I have Xs too, but mine are red. And more obsessive even than Dan’s, I have entered the letters A-I-D-S beside each and the date.

In a final competitive gesture with my dead friend, I begin counting them, but abandon the effort in the Ls. I know I will lose. I have far fewer Xs than Dan.

Or is that winning? And is it winning to be HIV-negative when most of my friends have died? No, it is just chance I tell myself, not sexual reserve or proclivity, not wisdom or morality, just fate. But I cannot help feeling both guilty and relieved as I envision myself bobbing to the surface from the teeming deck of our sunken vessel, while Dan’s emaciated corpse sinks deeper and deeper and settles atop Bill, Mitchell, Ken, Paul, Jim, Mel, Ray, Peter and Mike.

My phone interrupts this reverie. It’s my friend Richie. “This one’s yours, right?” He means planning Dan’s memorial.

“Yeah.”

“What’s it going to be, tired old St. Luke’s, St. Mark’s, the Joe Papp? How about some trendy loft space in the East Village with outsider art all around, very Dan Bailey.”

“St. Marks, the last Saturday in March.”

“Flowers?”

“Twigs up on Madison. One extravagant white basket, off to the side.”

“Perfect. Caterers?”

“I’m trying to get Any Occasion.”

“Oh, the salmon mousse and chicken quesadillas. Yum! Anything I can do?”

“How about champagne? And somebody has to pick up the family at the airport.”

“Done,” he says, and hangs up.

I stare at the gray skeleton of a Ginkgo tree outside my window, thinking the market must be wide open for a good memorial consultant . . . colors for the mother of the deceased, seating for divorced parents, a good baroque quartet. Call it Elegant Exits Ltd. or Marvelous Memorials Inc.

Dan’s friend, Helene, and I meet at the funeral home to pick up Dan’s ashes, delivered to us in a compact cardboard box set in a sturdy brown shopping bag. We stand in the lobby, deciding what to do next. Helene takes charge. “Is there a coffee shop nearby? We need to discuss arrangements.”

“Sure,” I respond, unable to think of a place though this is my neighborhood, aware only of the enormous weight of Dan’s remains.

We turn away from the wind on 14th Street, toward 8th Avenue. In the restaurant, I place Dan on the chair beside me. I have the impulse to order him his usual decaf and a slice of pound cake, but instead I order a Coke for myself, something I never drink.

Helene discusses the memorial and her recent conversation with Dan’s sister, Joanna, in Texas. I listen, but I am distracted. The bag looks so large on the chair. I worry that the waiter will tell me to put it on the floor. I feel strangely protective of Dan, still.

“I was talking with Joanna about the mix-up on the death certificate,” Helene continues. “You know the resident who pronounced him dead entered the wrong date, the 21st instead of the 22nd?”

“I heard.”

“Well get this. The same thing happened when Dan was born.”

“What?”

“It seems he was born at home, his parents claimed on the 14th of March. But when he went for his driver’s license 16 years later, his birth certificate said March 15th.”

“Wow! You mean he got two extra days?”

“No, two less, silly. They got him coming and going.”

We laugh. “He always had trouble getting a date,” I rejoin, sheepishly. Helene raises her eyebrows and glances over at the bag.

We’re putting on our coats when I realize she expects me to keep Dan’s ashes until the memorial. “You know, I don’t think I want Dan at my place. It’s a small apartment,” I argue, as if there weren’t room for both of us there.

“Well, I’m going to his apartment on Friday,” she says. “I could take him home with me now and bring him back downtown then.”

“That makes sense,” I reply, aware that this was a phrase Dan often used. Helene smiles in recognition. But of course it makes no sense at all since she lives up on 106th and Broadway, and Dan lived only four blocks from where we stand. Nevertheless, I hand Helene the bag, which descends with a resounding thud to the tile floor, followed by her arm and shoulder. “Christ! He weighs a ton! I can’t possibly carry him uptown and back.”

Reaching for the rolled paper handles, I say, “I’ll just take him over to his place now.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, that’s OK.” We embrace at the corner before Helene descends into the subway and I trudge west on 23rd Street, thinking this is the last time I will make this walk with Dan, and wondering if I should have come alone. I am especially cautious at the intersections, feeling vulnerable and thinking how ironic it would be to fall under a taxi, clutching Dan’s remains.

The doorman recognizes me, and guesses the contents of my burden. Gesturing toward the bag at my knee, he says, “Ah, Mr. Bailey. Such a fine man he was, too.” The doorman is Irish, with traces of a brogue. “You’re his brother, are you not?”

“No, just a friend,” I reply, as if that were less. Before I can reach the elevators, he touches my arm. “You know we have a custom in my country, a little libation to see a fellow on his way. Follow me,” he winks.

He leads me into a tiny storage room, retrieves a bottle from a cupboard and pours us each an inch of whiskey. He raises his glass to the plain brown bag. “To Mr. Bailey. May the good Lord bless him.”

“Salud!” I say, smiling, thinking this is a moment Dan would have enjoyed.

Upstairs, the apartment is nearly dark, but I don’t bother with the lights. I remove the cardboard box from the bag and lean it gently against the pillow on Dan’s bed. I want to leave, but instead stroll through the living room, running my fingers across surfaces, a Shaker chest, a camelback sofa, a cherry drop-leaf table.

At his desk, I sink into the chair and rest my forehead on the cool polished writing surface. My tears come at last, in waves, like vomit. “Oh Dan, I am so sorry. I loved you, Dan. I loved you.”

On his desk is a colorful array of pens and pencils standing in a milk-glass canister. I select a red felt-tip pen, and from my satchel withdraw my address book. I open it to the Bs, the bright red point poised between my thumb and forefinger.