Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. The arrangement of the words, that's my choice, so yes, I sort of own that. But nothing else.

Mark tried, as he climbed the stairs to the loft, to digest what he had learned. He had been trying on the subway, as he walked, oblivious, his camera packed away in his bag. He felt as though he was floating, as though in spite of the support beneath his feet the world had fallen away from him.

Lost in thought, Mark saw nothing of his life. On the street he had bumped into people, mechanically apologized and continued onwards. On the stairs, he collided-- "Sorry"-- and continued up towards the loft. Half a floor later, he realized who he had bumped into and turned. "Maureen!" He clumsily jogged down the stairs after her. "Maureen, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there!"

"Oh," she said. "That's fine."

"So… you're going out again?" he asked. "When did you get back? I'm sorry I wasn't here, I went to the--to the library…" And then he saw it: the bag in Maureen's hand. "Wh-where're you going?" Mark asked, his voice higher than usual. It was one of her equipment bag, but she hefted it carelessly. "You're not performing tonight, remember?"

"Yeah," Maureen said.

"So you… you're setting up, um, already? For Friday?" he asked, pathetically hopefully.

"Actually, I found a new place," Maureen told him.

Mark nodded. "Well, that's, that's good, right? I mean, it's good for you to have your own place, and with Roger home, you know, it's… crowded, in the loft…" Pathetic. It had never been crowded when the five of them lived together--Maureen, Mark, Collins, Roger and Benny.

Maureen smiled at Mark. "We had fun, Pookie," she said, then leaned in and kissed his cheek. "It was a real good time."

Stunned, he could only manage, "Yes."

"But you're not really what I'm looking for right now…"

"It's been over a year!" Mark squeaked.

Maureen nodded. "It was a good year," she said. "But I've met someone, someone I can really connect with. There's this lawyer I met--"

Mark couldn't believe it. "A lawyer?" he asked. Surely he had misheard. "But… you're an artist. I'm an artist. We're not… like them."

"Neither is she," Maureen said.

"S-she?"

"Her name's Joanne, and she really gets me, you know? Well, you don't. If you did… well! So I'm moving in with her," Maureen concluded.

Mark tried vainly to understand. He knew that Maureen was leaving him in the same disconnected way he knew Roger was dying: his logical mind knew, but his emotions could not understand.

"So I'll see you at the performance space on Friday, right?"

"Uh… yeah," Mark said. "Yeah."

"Great. 'Bye, Mark."

He raised his hand in a pitiful, frozen wave. "'Bye," he said, and because he could think of nothing else do to, he raised his camera, wound it, and filmed his girlfriend, the love of his life, walk away. He filmed her bouncing step as his heart turned to dust, until filming her would mean following her. Then he left the dead relationship for the dying.

Mark looked around the loft. It had never seemed so cold to him before. It had never been steel and concrete. Mark dropped his camera onto a chair. Knowing Roger, he'd sit on it before realizing it was there. Mark moved his camera to the table. Where was Roger, anyway? "Could've at least left a note," Mark muttered. It was just like Roger, to leave and not say where. How was Mark to be legally responsible for Roger? It was like having a teenage daughter. Like having a disobedient dog.

He poked his head into Roger's space; it was more a space than a room. Had it always smelled like Roger, or was that a rejuvenated effect? If Mark knew what Roger had taken, he would know where he was. Everything was in its place: the guitar against the walls, the sheet undisturbed. A tear in the mattress… it's so cliché, I thought no one did that. Zoom in, Mark thought.

Roger had left himself strewn across the bed, again in blue jeans, topless. One hand dangled over the edge of the mattress and nearly to the floor, two fingers on the lip of a beer bottle. Beer. Beer, who drinks beer? Since when does Roger drink beer? Oh, shit. It was Maureen's beer. Suddenly Mark wanted to grab that bottle and smash it over Roger's head, which he barely seemed to be using.

The AZT was sitting on the table, where it had been the previous evening. Mark opened the bottle and spilled its contents onto the table. He counted the capsules carefully, twice, to be certain, then checked the label. He sighed. Roger had taken only six pills. He should have taken the last one at noon the next day, but the bottle was nearly full. Roger wasn't lazy. He wasn't negligent.

"Dammit," Mark hissed. He clenched his fists against the leaden feeling in his gut. "You bastard." Roger wasn't stupid. He had a library card, he used it. The first time he went into rehab, Mark had returned works by Lenny Bruce, Samuel Beckett and Vaclav Havel to the library. When the three lived together, Mark remembered Collins and Roger staying awake into what they called "the genius hours", the time between nighttime and morning, talking about such authors, about society. Any time this was mentioned, Roger blushed and hurriedly changed the subject, but the truth was, he was a closet intellectual.

And he wasn't taking his AZT. He took heroin more regularly.

Mark picked up the phone and dialed out to Massachusetts. After three rings, an answer: "Yes?"

"Collins?" Mark asked hopefully.

"Mark?"

"Yeah."

"Hey! Hang on." Collins covered the mouthpiece of the phone, looked at the two juniors from the upper class of society who stood every chance of failing his class, and said, "I have to take this. You guys go, and remember, you don't ace every single paper from here on you're not passing my class." The boys nodded and left, complaining to one another. "Mark, how are you? You sound bad."

"It's bad. Collins…" Mark started to tremble. "Roger's dying," he said. His voice broke. Slowly, Mark filled his lungs. He exhaled, trembling, and inhaled again, until he wasn't shaking any longer.

"Shit. You mean, it's AIDS now? It's bad?"

Mark nodded, though Collins could not see him. "It's bad," he said again. "It's not AIDS, not yet, it's still HIV, but Collins, he won't take it."

"What?" Collins asked.

"He won't take his AZT," Mark explained. "What am I supposed to do, Collins?"

"Mark, just because I have AIDS doesn't mean I understand everyone who does," Collins said gently.

Mark tried to protest that he hadn't thought that, but in truth he had. He had hoped that Collins would understand Roger, offer some insight into his crazed psyche. "Even so…" Collins had a cleverness Mark couldn't rival. He had a wickedness to him, the same wickedness Roger had and responded to. "I thought maybe… something like the timer?" Mark asked. "You practically made him quit with that thing."

"Well, I don't know about that… Trick him," Collins suggested.

That caught Mark off his guard. "What?"

"Trick him," Collins repeated. "You know what he's taking?"

"Yeah, AZT."

"It's not just that, never is. Well, find out what else and trick him into taking it. You ever given a dog a pill?" Though Collins did not await a response, Mark began to understand. "So, wrap the AZT in peanut butter. Maybe not exactly peanut butter--"

Mark finished the sentence, "Because Roger only eats peanut butter when he's been smoking marijuana. I know. That's no good. He should stay clean right now. He's drinking beer, though."

"Uh… that's not ideal, but it'll do," Collins said. "If he won't take it knowingly, that's my suggestion. Trick him into it."

Needing to vent his frustration, Mark suggested, "Maybe I could beat him into taking it."

Collins laughed out loud. "Good one," he said. It had not been a joke. "Look, you'll sort it out. You've never given up on Roger before."

Mark smiled. "Yeah, but that was making him stop doing something," he said. "It's easy to make Roger do nothing, but something? I can't even get him to pick up his dirty socks." Again Collins laughed; this time the joke was intentional. "So, how're you? I feel bad, calling you up with my problems and not bothering to ask about yours."

"Thank you for assuming I have some! Alas, it's papers and papers over here. Grading and ganja, what more does a man need? I'm coming to visit you guys at Christmas."

"Excellent! I can't wait. Maybe Roger will've left the apartment by then," Mark commented, trying to sound vaguely hopeful and failing miserably.

"What do you mean?"

Mark sighed. "Sorry. We're on this again. He's been here a week, and it's… like he's scared. He won't leave. Half the time I come home and the landing smells like vomit. I don't want to ask him about it, but it's weird."

Collins asked, "You're sure he never goes out? Not just he gets home before you?"

"No, he doesn't leave," Mark said certainly. "You should see how pale he's gotten."

Collins groaned. "Did he do that the last time?"

From Roger's space, there was a dull groan. Mark glanced over his shoulder. "I should go," he said, "if I'm going to drug his beer before he wakes up. But thanks, Collins. We'll see you at Christmas."

"Good luck, man."

TO BE CONTINUED

Concerning Lenny Bruce: the man did stand-up comedy; he also wrote it book. It was an autobiography entitled How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. Concerning comedy, he said, "I am not a comedian. I am Lenny Bruce."