Chapter Nine

"Time Flies, Time Dies"

Roger

He missed his guitar.

Never before had the songs in his head had to remain… just that… in his head.

Pacing floors of counted time.

Hands apart we stand beside.

The shivering night comes rolling in

And now the nightmare may begin.

In every argument, there is one statement, which, at the time it is uttered, seems innocuous enough, but after the argument is over, it eats away at you. Mark and Roger had been arguing on and off for near an hour, and that statement had yet to be uttered. Roger steeled himself for the blow.

"It doesn't matter." Roger whispered, the fight had made him too tired to raise his voice anymore.

He turned his face to the window so that when his tired eyes slid out of focus, he could watch the neon lights become a river, instead of watch Mark's expression grow more dour.

Mark sighed. Even with his back turned, Roger knew that the filmmaker was leaning against the counter, expressing his frustration by raking his fingers through his short hair.

"It's just a doctor's appointment. You sitting in the waiting room isn't going to change the diagnosis, you know?"

The silence rose up between them like a cobra, ready to inject their newfound peace with poison.

Here it was; that one fatal remark was coming now. The way Mark's breathing slowed as he sharpened the words on his tongue was a dead give away.

Sometimes, Roger wished he didn't know the other man so well.

"Don't you think you've been through enough alone?" Mark muttered.

The action of standing made him dizzy, but the lightheadedness made his mind a little bit clearer. He gripped the back of the couch so he wouldn't stumble as he made his way over to Mark.

"No matter how much you want to be there for me, Mark. You can't. There are some things that I have to do alone."

He reached out and clutched Mark's shoulder so he could stare deeply into the other man's eyes and touch the fragile strength within him.

"And dying is one of them."

The filmmaker's grip around the songwriter's shoulder was not as firm. "Are you scared?"

"No." Roger lied.

"Then, neither am I."

They stood on even ground at last; holding up equally bitter smiles up with lies.

Screaming lies of kerosene

Bitter tears of silver sheen

And weak with all the words unsaid.

Unfallen tears inside my head.

"I want you to run a CBC on the patient in exam room one. Her PT is way too long, I want to check for thrombocytopenia." The doctor backed into the exam room, speaking rapidly to a nurse who was standing in the hallway.

As her back was facing him, Roger's first assessment of the young woman was the fact that she had an amazing ass, even through her lab coat.

"Room number three needs a chem-7 done, the guy has serious diabetes complications and I can't believe some idiot hasn't run it before! And the punk in room four needs a tox screen before we can give him anything stronger for the orbital fracture. The history suggests he's done everything known to man, the kid's so stoned as it is, he won't need painkillers for another couple hours. Until the tox screen is back don't give him anything. I don't want to deal with another drug interaction today."

She snapped the door shut and turned to face Roger. She glanced down at his chart, chewing on her bottom lip as she skimmed over his extensive medical history trying to locate his name.

His second assessment of the woman was that she was far too young to have actually graduated med school.

"Mr. Davis." She said, and looked up at him smiling. "How're we doing today?"

He wished that she had asked the question before she had made eye contact with him.

Her eyes were the same deep, chocolate brown as Mimi's had been and for several seconds he was so struck that he was unable to form words. "Fine." He managed.

"Ah, and if you were fine you wouldn't be here." She chuckled as she pulled two latex gloves from a box and pulled them onto her hands. "They should make these in little kids sizes." She held up her hands to show him that the gloves were about a half-inch too long on each of her fingers.

He couldn't help but smile.

"Now, it says you're HIV positive?" The doctor glanced down at his chart again.

"Yeah." His smile melted.

She stood in front of him and took his face in her hands, which were so small that as she cupped his cheek in her palm, her fingers barely reached his cheekbone. "So you're here for this?" She smoothed her forefinger over the lesion on his cheek.

"Yeah."

She released his face gently and stripped off her gloves, tossing them into the biohazard bin. "Well, Mr. Davis, I don't know why you're here, we both know exactly what that is, and it's not a bruise."

He nodded slowly. "Yeah."

"How long have you been resistant to the AZT?" She leaned against the counter and fixed him with a look of genuine care.

Roger shrugged. "A couple months now, I guess."

"I have to be honest with you, it isn't good news. The blood draw the nurse did, shows that your CD4 lymphocytes—white blood cells that help you fight off infection—are very low." She raised those doe-brown eyes to stare at him. "The KS lesion is—"

"An opportunistic infection. I know."

She pulled a stool out from underneath the cabinet with her foot, and sat down. "So, you know the prognosis."

He never answered.

He never had to.

"Kaposi's Sarcoma generally wouldn't kill you, but with the CD4 count, I can tell you that it's already spread. Sometimes chemotherapy is effective against it, but in your case, I wouldn't advise it, it would only further depress your immune system and cause the KS to spread faster. There are antiretroviral therapies that are helpful in some cases…"

"Not in mine?"

"It's… unlikely. Look, as a doctor, I'm not supposed to leave the treatment options in your hands, but, this really has to be your decision. Any treatment I could give you would probably not give you anymore time. I'm sorry."

Her face was filled with a delicate sympathy.

Roger felt strangely at ease. It was so comforting to finally know that the guessing game was finally at an end.

"How long do I have?"

"A couple months. It depends on how fast the KS spreads, or if you develop any other opportunistic infections. I'd say between two and six months. You can speak with one of our councilors before you leave, if you want."

Roger smiled at her. "I'm fine. Someone's waiting for me."

"Hey." A familiar voice hailed him the moment he stepped out the front door of the clinic.

Roger whirled and found Mark leaning against a light pole, trying to look casual, and failing miserably.

"Thought I told you not to come." Roger laughed.

"You said not to wait in the waiting room, nothing about waiting in the street." Mark replied.

Roger slung his arm around his best friend. "You know what? I'm okay with it."

"I'm not."

Roger smiled and pulled Mark closer. "All things with time."

He didn't mention how little of that he had left.

Ending seconds of delusion

Running from sick confusion

One silent path left to tread

Leave me now, left for dead