Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
MAX
The young man was back, and Max couldn’t keep his eyes off him. He’d worried what he said had sent the young man fleeing and considered going after him until he watched Ess catch up and give him a hug. And then Cart had talked to him and brought him back into the classroom. Now, he was staring at Max as the discussion turned to dating and how their status had affected their love life, and Max wished he had something as uplifting to say as the thing about his house.
The truth was, Max hadn’t done a lot of dating in the previous thirty years. All thoughts of hooking up or having casual sex, all desire for it, had evaporated when he got his diagnosis and thought he was about to die. After that failed to happen, he was too busy recovering and building his body back, learning to live healthier even while friends continued to die around him. Then, once anti-retrovirals meant a diagnosis was no longer a death sentence, Max found there weren’t a lot of men his age left to choose from, and he decided to focus on earning the money he’d now need to live by going back to school, getting his degree, and becoming an accountant. It was the most stable thing he could think of, and he’d always been good with numbers. It eventually led him to becoming a financial advisor, at which he’d been very successful, so he didn’t have to worry about the future which, until he was in his late thirties, he hadn’t planned on having.
The conversation around him was pretty lively despite touching on some heavy topics like when to tell a potential partner you were positive—“I put it right on my dating profile,” the guy to Max’s right said. “If it’s going to be an issue, I don’t want to have to deal with it.”—and how creepy it was to find some people were interested because you were positive. “Virus chasers,” the young man on the end called them. “I’ve had a couple of guys beg me to infect them. That’s an instant block. I don’t want that on my conscience.” The panelists discussed condom usage and safer sex practices—“Even if you’re with someone who’s also positive, there are a whole host of other STIs you need to protect yourself from,” the woman who’d done the AIDS Lifecycle said.
Max watched the young man standing next to Cart begin to deflate and could tell he wasn’t getting the answers he wanted. He was looking for hope, and Max wanted to give him some.
“I’ll be honest,” Max found himself saying. “I haven’t done a lot of dating or been with a lot of guys since my diagnosis, but I have had a couple of long-term relationships with people who could see me for me and not my status. We broke up for reasons besides me being positive or my partners worrying about catching the virus from me.” As he spoke, he stayed focused on the young man, hoping that something he said would help bring back that smile Max had seen when Ess hugged the guy. “For me, at least, my status is no longer the thing that puts a limit on my love life, it’s the fact that I’m closing in on old geezer status in this community.”
That got a smile and a head shake from the young man, and a couple of wolf whistles from the teens in the audience which made Max blush.
“Look,” Max continued. “Rejection is always going to be part of dating, and I wish I could say that rejection because of your status isn’t going to happen, or that when it does, it isn’t going to hurt. Someday, it’ll be one hundred percent safe to date someone who is HIV-positive, but that’s not the case yet. The truth is, you need to take care of yourself. Use condoms, take PrEP, and trust your gut about the people you’re with. Relationships of any kind require trust. If you don’t feel comfortable with someone or you’re not getting the answers you need to feel safe, get out of there. You don’t have to be a jerk about it, and this diagnosis is not the end of the world, but your first responsibility is to yourself.”
The young man in the back of the room took a deep breath, then turned and walked out again. Max’s heart stuttered and ached for someone who was so clearly hurting, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it right now except continue to answer questions from the teens who had taken time out on a Saturday to learn about life with HIV.
Half an hour later, Max stood with his fellow panelists as the teens filed out of the room. Some of them hung back and approached with additional questions, or went to Diego and whispered their inquiries to him. Max fielded a couple of questions before Cart touched him on the arm and motioned him to the side.
“I’ve got someone in my office who wants to speak to you,” Cart said, then smiled when Max raised an eyebrow. “It would mean a lot if you would speak to Marcello. You can probably guess why, but it’s not my place to tell you. If you’re not comfortable, I can ask someone else, but he said he wanted you.”
“Why?” Max asked.
Cart shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
Which was how Max found himself climbing the stairs to the offices on the third floor and opening the door to find the young man who had captivated him during the talk. He was presently turned toward the window, which gave Max a moment to study him—Cart had called him Marcello—and admire his slender body and dark wavy hair which reached to his shoulders. The lower half of it was streaked with highlights, but the top half was completely dark. Max wondered if that was an indication of how long it had been since Marcello found out he was positive because he now had no doubt that was what this young man wanted to talk about.
“Hi, Marcello,” Max said. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Max. Cart said you wanted to speak with me.”
The young man turned, and his beauty took Max’s breath away. His face was flawless with smooth, golden skin, sharply defined cheekbones, and dark brown eyes framed by thick black lashes. Max tried not to stare at his lips which were full and a luscious shade of dark pink.
“Hi,” Marcello said, his voice a husky breath and much quieter than Max had anticipated. “We’ve met before.”
“We have?”
“Yeah. You signed my petition a couple of years ago when we were trying to save the center from eviction at the old place.”
Max squinted while Marcello shifted his weight. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
“It’s okay. I looked a lot different then. Before.”
Max chose to ignore the obvious question in favor of getting Marcello to relax. “How so?”
Marcello pulled his phone from the back pocket of his jeans and scrolled through a lot of photos until he found the one he wanted and turned the screen so Max could see. The image made him smile. It was definitely Marcello, but he was dressed in a flamenco-style dress, hair tied up with colorful ribbons, and wearing glittery heels that were so tall, Max got dizzy just looking at the photo.
“Ah, yes,” Max said as he gazed at an image of the young man in front of him dressed in his baby drag finery holding out a clipboard. “I do remember you.”
Blushing, Marcello dipped his head as he turned his phone off and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans.
“Are you still doing drag?” Max asked, his heart breaking when Marcello shook his head. “Do you mind if I ask why not?”
They sat in the chairs in front of Cart’s desk, facing each other as Marcello haltingly told Max about the guy he’d started seeing two years before, how they’d gotten serious and moved in together, and always got their tests done at the same time.
“We decided we’d be exclusive about a year ago,” Marcello said, and Max knew what was coming. “We got tested again, and went bare for the first time after we were clear across the board.”
Max longed to finish the story for Marcello to save him the pain of saying it out loud, but he held his tongue, knowing the power that came in speaking the details one’s self. When Marcello remained silent, worrying at his fingers and staring at the floor, Max reached out and took the young man’s hands in his own. They were warm and soft, and Max found himself absently stroking his thumb over the pulse point on Marcello’s wrist.
“I didn’t know he’d been cheating on me the whole time we were together.” Marcello’s fingers gripped Max’s. “I wouldn’t have gone bare with him if I’d known. And I feel so stupid for not getting on PrEP, for believing him when he told me he was safe.”
Marcello’s voice had risen, anger present in his tone, in the tension in his body, the fierceness with which he held on to Max’s hands.
“He kicked me out when I got sick because he knew what it was. The whole time he kept accusing me of cheating on him .”
“Where did you go?” Max asked, and his heart dropped when Marcello shook his head.
“My family hasn’t wanted anything to do with me since I came out, so there’s no way they would want me back knowing I had HIV. They’d freak out and tell me it was all my fault. I ended up staying with some friends of Cart’s. They had an apartment on the top floor of their house, and they let me stay there until I was able to find someplace permanent.”
“Thank God for that,” Max said.
He wanted to ask more, but at that moment, Cart returned with baby Xian. “I hate to interrupt,” he said. “But someone needs to be changed, and the diaper bag’s in here.”
Max looked at Marcello, knowing there was more the young man needed to say. “Do you want to get coffee?” he asked, smiling at the nod he received in response. He looked up at Cart as he stood. “We’ll get out of your hair.”
As Marcello stood, Cart smiled at him. “Would you mind holding Xian while I get what I need?”
At Marcello’s terrified expression, Max reached out his hands for the baby. “I’ll take him.”
There was a quick shuffling of positions, and then Max’s arms were full of a wriggly baby who cooed at him while trying to grab for his hair. “Hey, dude,” Max said with a laugh. “None of that. I need to keep what I’ve got left.”
“What you’ve got is plenty,” Marcello said quietly, but Max caught it along with the blush that had risen to the young man’s cheeks. He was about to say something when Xian made another grab for him.
“Hey, hey,” Max said, but he wasn’t pissed off. Xian was a firecracker, and Max loved the little boy’s giggles.
By the time Cart reclaimed his son, Marcello was laughing along with Max, who gratefully surrendered the baby to his father. “You weren’t kidding about hellion, were you?”
Cart shook his head. “Not a bit.” He snuggled his face close to Xian’s and rubbed noses with him, laughing when Xian opened his mouth and put his lips on the tip of Cart’s nose. “But we love our little monster, yes, we do.”
“Better you than me,” Max said as he motioned for Marcello to precede him through the door. “And tell Diego thanks for including me today. I enjoyed it.” He patted the messenger bag at his side, feeling the weight of the panel it contained against his leg. “It dug up a lot of memories, but that’s not a bad thing.”
“I agree,” Cart said. He nodded toward a photo on his desk, and Max glanced at it, immediately recognizing it as a photo of Cart and Sam in front of the old youth center. Right next to it was a photo of Cart and Ry taken at the Forbidden City in Beijing. Max knew they’d gone to China to visit Ry’s extended family a few years before. “Not always a bad thing at all. And, Marcello, it was good to see you around again. If you want to come back to volunteer, we’d be happy to have you.”
Marcello ducked his head, his cheeks turning an endearing shade of pink that only made him more attractive in Max’s opinion. “Thank you. I’ll think about it.”
With that, Max headed down the stairs to the ground floor with Marcello on his heels.
“Let’s head over to Thorough Bread,” Max said. “They’ve got good coffee, and it’s quieter in the back than at Spike’s, so we can talk.”
“Okay.”
They headed down 18 th to Church and walked the two and a half blocks to the bakery. Marcello was quiet the entire way, and Max didn’t try to fill the silence with idle talk. The young man had some serious questions to ask, Max was sure of it, and it was probably better to give him some space to organize his thoughts.
For his part, Max spent the walk turning over things that had been said at the panel, and marveling at the way the Castro kept changing. Sometimes, it depressed him as he found parts of his past that had been erased by a new business or overwritten with a new building, but today, it felt energizing. The streets were full of people, coffee shops and restaurants teeming with patrons. He and Marcello passed a walking tour, catching a snippet of the history the tour guide was talking about and dodging the tourists who had their phones out. Max often wondered how many photos of himself were scattered about on social media because of all the Castro tours he’d encountered. Today, it amused him to think of himself as some tourist’s encounter with an actual gay man in the Castro.
They reached the bakery, and Max told Marcello to get whatever he wanted, it was Max’s treat. They each ordered coffee—a decaf Americano for Max and a vanilla latte for Marcello— and slices of quiche, then found a table in the back corner of the rear garden. The space was expansive and filled with plants and trees that provided privacy for each of the tables. Max loved this place because it felt like a jungle oasis in the middle of the city. But today, he loved it even more because it gave him a chance to get to know Marcello a bit better.