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Antiseptic stung his nose, filled his chest with acidic poison. Still, he gulped down air, shallow and stringent, the lights above him so blinding and so sterile –
Wait! Here is something!
June, 1982
News always came to Peter at a rapid speed, sometimes before even much of the mainland population had tuned in or bought the daily to read over breakfast; there are some benefits to being a relative of the UK. Sometimes this worked in his favor, such as listening for more attempts at destroying his fort and preparing counterattacks before Arthur’s boats or helicopters were even halfway across the sea; sometimes it was mundane fodder to get something published or broadcast to the public, something Peter could let play out as background noise or have read to him while he made repairs.
Then, there are stories that he hoped with every part of his soul to not be true, that he hoped that this supposed benevolent god out there was playing a joke that, though heartless and sick, meant that none of what Peter heard was true.
The young boy had to wait until Prince Michael slunk off for a nap, and the other fort workers bustling about as they prepared for switching out, for the opportunity to smuggle the portable radio to a small corner of the fort for a private listen. He couldn’t have his Prince Paddy hearing about Peter being preoccupied with news about a bunch of sick poofs dying in the hospital, and Peter was certain that if his crew knew –
“From what I hear,” one of the crew members said while they fried up greasy eggs to serve with the burnt toast, “another twenty or some of them sodomites died!”
– they would report it to his prince. So he clutched the radio to his chest, where his heart drummed so fast that it may very well burst out of his rib cage and break the device, if his arms didn’t crush it first.
Another twenty sodomites died! Another twenty sodomites died! Another twenty sodomites died! Peter heard in his ears louder than the metallic clunk of his footsteps as he rushed to a secured spot. He knew that not all of those patients could be saved, but as long as he was safe, as long as it didn’t touch him…
Getting to his bedroom, Peter shoved his desk chair underneath his doorknob and switched his radio on. He paced around the room, twisting the knob and watching the little red tick slide between the radio stations he knew would have the news.
“– Noah’s Farms! You won’t find fresher poultry–”
“–ince Charles to make an ann–”
He threw promises as God’s feet, that he’ll volunteer at soup kitchens whenever he’s on the mainland, that he’ll never ask for any more material possessions – he’ll give away all the toys that he has to poorer children! – that he’ll read the Bible to the blind or donate all of his organs, just please–
“–Prime Minister scheduled today to speak–”
“–Yet another twenty-two men have died of AIDS this morning, according t–”
“–rses and doctors struggle to stay ahead of this epidemic–”
–Please not him!
“Come on, come on…” Peter mumbled. Because Lisette had to be wrong.
“–now the obituaries. Mr. Derrick Loring, aged 22, passed away the thirteenth of June. Friends of Derrick will hold a funeral…”
Peter’s mind half faded out into a white noise, a buzz to try to block out all of the names, or at least distant himself from them. He didn’t need to count the high number of recently deceased; there was nothing he could do for Derrick or Jeremiah or Jianyu or Martin. He wished he could have done something for them, but maybe, as long as he was still here, as long as Lisette was wrong–
“…Eddie Brainard passed away on the fifteenth of June. Friends of Eddie will have more information on…”
He switched the radio off, looking up and past it to the floral print walls of this room that didn’t feel like it belonged to him, in this room that he didn’t feel like he was in. Stumbling backwards, Peter dropped the radio as he plopped onto the foot of his bed. Prince Paddy would have had words for Peter about being careless with expensive plastic toys, and Peter even let out a distant, weak chuckle about his prince’s curmudgeon nagging, but none of it would reach Peter as he sunk lower and lower into the deep, cold, numbing depths of water –
“Though shalt not lie with man as with woman!”
He clawed his way up, gasping, water stinging his nose. Still, he could smell the wretched spice of bourbon in her breath. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry–” he begged before she grabbed his neck and pushed him–
Peter came back to the room, finding himself shoving bundles of tee shirts and shorts and underwear into his well-worn holdall. Lisette was wrong, she was wrong wrong wrong and Peter misheard. He simply misheard or they were mistaken, and he just needed to see for himself. Yanking the zipper closed, Peter hoisted the improperly-packed bag onto his shoulders and sped all the way back up to the platform.
“Hey!” Peter screeched, his voice or the frantic thudding of his feet on metal drawing everyone’s attention to him. He stopped right where they all gathered by the pulley. “I want to come, too!”
He knew how odd his demanded sounded: he wasn’t due to visit Arthur for another week, and they usually had to drag him kicking and screaming onto the boat – or bribe him with promises of their homes to escape to should Peter feel the need to run away – but what had changed? He saw hope flickering on their faces, that maybe this child had finally come around and let go of his unreasonable grudge. He would have to play along with this ruse and quell his nervous energy as they lowered him and his belongings to the boat below.
It would have pissed Peter off to see Arthur as how he was when he opened the door: well put-together, brand new tie straight and tucked neatly into his blazer, not a bag under his eyes. It was almost as if he didn’t have innocent civilians dying on his land, that he was about to end another pleasant night with a glass of Scotch like the plague wasn’t decimating the people Peter loved.
But Peter was barely registering his older brother, or anything else, really. Being on edge for hours made the colors too bright and the shapes too fuzzy for his darting eyes, made words distant and meaningless for his young ears. He was aware of a line of questioning, probably why was he there when it was too early, or why hadn’t anyone ring Arthur before making this unexpected drop off. He knew that Arthur moved out of the way to let his brother in, because Peter had been about to drop off his bag in the guest room and find a way to contact Eddie’s friends for his location when Arthur complained:
“I was supposed to be visiting the hospital, though! Who the hell can I call to babysit Peter at the last minute?!”
“I can come with you!” He turned to find Arthur and his fort crew member looking at him, Arthur with a hand on his hip and the other combing back his hair, a burdened contrast to the other man whose crossed arms and hip tilt spoke that none of this was his problem and he would like to get home. The hesitance in the room dried Peter’s mouth, fearful that he would be commanded to stay inside and, therefore, forced to find some other way to sneak out of the house and get to town.
He could even see Arthur weighing the options presented to him, whether the further inconvenience and possible repercussions were worth letting Peter tag along, or – Arthur glanced at the crew worker out of the corner of his eye – if he would have to ask the other man his price for keeping Peter in place for a few hours or even overnight. Arthur sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “…If I take you with me,” he mumbled, “you have to promise me that you’ll stay put in the waiting room, understood?”
“Understood,” Peter agreed with a sharp nod.
Peter went to put his bag on his bed and hurried back out to the living room, where he found his crew worker absent and Arthur waiting with his arms crossed and his keys clutched in his hand. Following his older brother out, Peter perched himself onto the passenger’s seat and assumed the same guarded position as he had on that long boat ride to shore. Stiff shoulders, hands tucked underneath his thighs, eyes trained onto a point in the horizon outside his window and beyond the slow rebirth of the night life. Somewhere on this street is the secret entrance to the dance club; somewhere out there, more of his friends are getting sick–
Thou shalt not lie with man–
No. Lisette was wrong! The Bible… it can be wrong, too! Sometimes God had a reason for the choices He made, sometimes He had to bring his angels back home. It was why Peter understood Marion’s death. But he couldn’t understand why God would punish love.
Once the car was parked and the two marched into the hospital, they stopped to put on the protective equipment, only for Arthur to take Peter’s arm and sit Peter down in the waiting room just as they agreed. He went to the singular concessions table at the far wall, where he mixed a drink with a white instant mix packet and some hot water from the blocky teapot. Carrying the styrofoam cup back to Peter, Arthur picked up an abandoned copy of some children’s mystery novel and handed both to his younger brother.
“Remember, Peter,” Arthur said, fitting the mask over his face and bending slightly to meet Peter’s eyes, “Stay put. Like you promised me. I’m going to try to make this as quick as possible. If you get hungry, come find me and we can go to the cafeteria.”
“Alright,” Peter agreed mutely, keeping up his hours-long ruse by taking a sip of the watery hot cocoa and opening the book. Peter watched his older brother leave from the corner of his eye and listened to Arthur’s footsteps, hearing its fading volume stop as some public relations official greeted him before they continued on together.
Peter counted out thirty seconds, then set the book and drink down on the table and hurried out of the room.
He kept his ears open for Arthur’s voice as he walked down the hall, tugging a bouffant cap on to make himself look less recognizable at first glance. When he returned to the front desk, the new nurse there had her head hung, fingers tangled in her golden blonde curls in the back of her head. Being this close up allowed Peter to really see all of the styrofoam cups and emptied packets of ibuprofen strewn around her. In his barely-contained panic, she looked like a glowing angel in despair.
“Excuse me, nurse?” Peter said, before clearing his throat and trying again more firmly, “Nurse!”
The nurse sighed and raised her head, lowering her hands and turning to the child, giving him a look that warned him that he better have had a damn good reason for bothering her during this one breathing break she had. “Yes, honey…?”
He took a deep breath and almost gagged – good Lord, were the cleaners always this strong? – and stood up taller. “I’m friends with Eddie Brainard and I would like to see him. I was told he would be in this hospital.”
“Honey, I’m sorry,” the nurse – Nurse Bethany, read her tag – said. She shook her head. “Unless I have direct permission from your brother or Eddie Brainard’s close ones, I can’t allow you to see him.”
“But I am one of his close ones!” Peter jabbed a finger into his chest. “I’m one of the few family he has left–!”
“Peter?”
Peter gasped and spun around, the familiar voice cutting through his anguish like the silver light of thunderclouds. “Tom!” Peter was already sprinting across the hall before he could stop himself, arms thrown around the foremost blue plastic-clad man’s hips and making their gowns crinkle.
“Oof!” Tom grunted. His arms wrapped around Peter’s shoulders for a quick squeeze. He nudged Peter away so he could crouch in front of him, slanted dark brown eyes meeting wide blues that were on the brink of tears. “Peter, what are you doing here?”
“She won’t let me see Eddie!” Peter gripped the sides of his gown. “Tom, I need to see Eddie!”
“Peter, shush! Shh!”
“Er,” Nurse Bethany rose halfway out of her seat. “Do you know him…?”
“Yes. He’s my nephew.” The lie came so quickly that Peter, himself, had nearly forgotten the identities they had forged, the one they told Peter one night over rounds of hot chocolate. Adopted family.
The nurse scrunched her face as she seemed to try to figure out how this child would fit into this “family” of Eddie’s, already massive with interracial adoptions, as their nephew – did their parents have bleeding hearts? But the “uncle” had managed to wrangle the little boy, and the nurse had already worked nonstop for eight hours, and will probably have to spend another twelve more in the pit of the dying, so she turned back to her desk to drain her remaining coffee.
Tom sighed with relief and turned his attention back to Peter. “You shouldn’t be here, Pete. This thing is getting really bad–”
“Eddie isn’t dead!”
Tom blinked, then closed his eyes as he exhaled slowly through his mask. When he opened them, they held a gentleness that brought the whole world around Peter to an end, that brought the choking rancidity of brimstone to mix with the antiseptic. “…Peter, love, I’m sorry but–”
“I need to see Eddie! Please! I know he isn’t dead! He doesn’t deserve to die!”
Tom looked over his shoulders, exchanging glances with other members of Eddie’s family. Shaking heads, shrugging shoulders, sighs, grimaces, and sad eyes all around. If Peter wasn’t busy telling himself that Eddie was fine, that Eddie was alive, that the world was still whole and there weren’t any cracks forming beneath his feet to make the world gape open and swallow them all, he would have been pissed that even wordlessly, adults would talk about him like he wasn’t in the room.
Tom stood up and took Peter’s hand, reluctance making his grip weak. “You should see Eddie, Peter. He would want you to say goodbye.”
HE’S NOT DEAD! Peter wanted to scream until the very walls of this hospital came down around them, until Lisette’s soul burned from the outrage in his voice, but the gentleness in Tom’s eyes, in Tom’s hand wrapped around Peter, was solemn like a prayer. It quieted the fight in Peter’s body, and the anxiety came crashing in, pushing him under. The men led Peter to the elevator; he knew that it was all in his head, but somehow, as the doors glided closed, the antiseptic’s odor reeked stronger, thickening the lower the elevator went, tightening around Peter’s neck like a hand shaky with drink, but strong with conviction.
You shall repent by the name of God!
Then the doors opened again and it was a full-on miasma. Eyes watering, Peter looked up at the men around him, wondering how is it that none of them were fighting to not gag like he was? Did they not feel like they were drowning in water so cold and crushing it could shatter their bones? He forced himself to not grip Tom’s hands tighter, for he knew that human bones were as delicate as robin eggs. Without this tether, Peter felt more alone than ever as he plunged deeper into the depths, breaths shallow and unsteady as they came to the solemn creature decked in white, who looked up from their clipboard, met Tom’s eyes, and looked at the clock.
“You’re here to see Brainard, right?” the white-cloaked creature asked.
No. Peter’s hand dropped out of Tom’s, sweat filling his gloves. No no no no no no no.
He saw Tom nodding. With the man’s hand gently pressing against his upper back, Peter was guided down the hallway that was both tainted with darkness that should not exist in this world, and glowing with icy sterile lights that burned brighter through the boy’s unshed tears.
He’s not dead… He’s not dead… He’s not dead…
Peter could run. He could turn and run from the swinging double doors and take the elevator back up, go back to the waiting room and wait for Arthur like he promised
Leviticus twenty verse thirteen! SAY IT!
This was a mistake. Peter didn’t need to be here. He knew Eddie was alive, he knew that Eddie was going to live a long life full of love and cherishing because Eddie was a good person, Eddie was kind, Eddie was fun, Eddie’s God was a benevolent one that made no mistakes. Eddie was not a mistake. Peter was not a mistake.
They were not sinners who deserved to be punished, because Eddie said so.
But they pulled the white sheet down, and Tom squeezed Peter’s shoulder, and Peter drowned.
This was not the Eddie whose dark skin had an angel-kissed warmth
The cold clutched him and dragged him down
and thick lips held vibrant life. His closed eyelids seemed so bare without the thick lashes
I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!
to fan them, his cheek bones not so high with the blood drained away. Where was his laugh? His belly-deep laugh where he threw his head back and
He clawed his way back up, choking and coughing and
pressed a manicured hand to his chest? This was not the queen who dominated the stage in trailing gowns that dazzled with jewels like she was
She pulled him back up, eyes distant and glazed over with drink. “Leviticus twenty verse thirteen! SAY IT!”
the goddess of rain and dewy mornings who swayed her hips and belt and crooned and made even the most sugary pop songs sound like love letters and Peter couldn’t breathe.
“Peter?” Tom started to pull Peter away. “Son, are you okay? Peter!”
He couldn’t breathe. Antiseptic stung his nose, filled his chest with acidic poison that curdled his stomach. Still, he gulped down air, shallow and stringent, the lights above him so blinding and so sterile and flashing and swimming around him as he swayed on his feet. He reached out, grabbing for Tom, twisting the gown until it ripped when he feel and still held onto it because he was drowning. He was seeing beady green eyes, rimmed with red and glazed over with drink
“Peter!”
and his body locked, shivering with cold, as a thick hand pressed into his chest and pushed down and down and lips leaned close to his ear.
What did I tell you, you little queer? Lisette hissed.
He screamed. He screamed and threw himself about, calling out to a dead man, Eddie’s dead, Eddie was dead and he was a liar and a sodomite and Lisette was right!
“Peter, stop!”
He kicked and thrashed about as he drowned
“Don’t just stand there, help me!”
“Get him out of here!”
“I knew this was a bad idea!”
“I’m calling security!”
He screamed until he choked on cleaners and water that wasn’t there but pulled him under all the same. Eddie was a liar. He was a liar, he looked right into Peter’s eyes and lied to him and Lisette wouldn’t stop cackling with her sour alcohol breath and the Bible verses that dripped from her tongue like venom and burned Peter’s blood.
He screamed into Tom’s chest as Tom pressed his face close. He screamed as the world split. He screamed as Tom rocked him and a nurse hurried into the waiting room demanding to know what the hell was the noise was and
“Peter?!”
Peter jerked his head up, his scream dying in his aching throat. Arthur stood in the doorway, tugging his mask down as his eyes jumped from Peter’s shaking body to the man whose lap Peter curled up on. The world split further, twisting and fuzzing and going light, then dark, so, so dark and sharp as Arthur’s voice faded out and Peter looked around to see who was responsible. Someone was responsible, maybe one of these queers, maybe the very one whose lap Peter rested on. But they were still humans, with their bones easy to snap and their hearts fragile and what was it that Arthur said?
You have to be careful with humans, Peter. They don’t come back to life like us.
In this mad, distorted, cold, lonely world, Peter found the one responsible.
He leapt out of Tom’s arms.
Too late, Arthur stumbled back, eyes popping open wider and his arms flinging out in front of him. “Peter, wait!”
And he crashed into Arthur.
He thrashed and kicked his limbs to stay above water, to punish this man who let it happen. Who let it all happen. He kicked and punch and screamed louder than Arthur screamed, throwing his fists into Arthur’s chest where bones cracked, into Arthur’s throat where a burst vein bloomed red against his neck, into his jaw where teeth flew out and scattered across the hospital.
“Jesus Christ, get that kid off him!”
“PETER, STOP!”
Men piled on him, grabbing him and wrapping their arms around him and pulling this child who they could have sworn looked lighter than he felt, calling in more help as Peter ripped himself away and lunged after the gasping man on the ground twisting and wheezing for air. How dare Arthur do this to him?! How dare Arthur abandoned them all like this?!
What about Georgie–