So... For the second time since I moved back to the States, my lover has died. I guess it's part of the price of getting older. I came home and found him on the floor, his face contorted, drooling and making gestures with his right arm. An obvious stroke. The ambulance came quickly enough and I found myself in the waiting room among other relatives and friends of the stricken. Later that morning I went back to his place, our place, scrolled through his address book, found his son's number and called him at his office in Chicago. He would arrive the next day.
I spent the night in the waiting room, surviving on vending machine coffee, waiting for someone to inform me of what was happening. The military grade nursing staff would not allow me to see him and had no news other than he was seriously ill. Finally, at around 5:30 am a guy with a stethascope hanging around his neck came into the waiting room and confirmed the nurse's whispered diagnosis, he was seriously ill and fighting for his life. I still couldn't see him. I scooted back to my perch, nursing yet another awful cup of coffee.
Sometime later that morning a pudgy, pasty and sweaty guy, in an orange t-shirt, Bermuda shorts, balding with flaming red hair and Coke bottle eyeglasses came strutting into the waiting room shouting, "Is there a Mel here?" I stood up and walked over stuck out my hand and said, "That's me". Ignoring my hand he then says, quite loudly, "So. you're the cocksucking fag he's been shacked up with?" After a night of bad coffee and trying to be comfortable on a chair designed to discourage sitting, the red mist descended over me and I answered, almost as loudly, "Yeah, that's me. I usually take it up the ass after I suck him off. Why don't you go fuck yourelf?" and then I turned my back on him and retreated to the farthest corner of the waiting room.
As the day wore on more relatives showed up, eventually monopolizing a corner of the waiting room and receiving the total attention of the stethascope squad to my total exclusion. Every once in a while I hostile glare was shot at me, but not a word was spoken. The fag in the corner didn't count anymore. Through the next day and a half the standoff in the war zone continued until a couple of white coats huddled with the knuckle draggers and I could tell by the crocodile tears that it was over. He was gone.
The mob retreated, probably to make the arrangements and rifle his apartment. Whatever I left there they could have. I would never return. I suspect some of them will find use for the dildos, butt plugs and panties. I didn't feel like going back to my empty apartment, so with another 75 cent cup of something resembling coffee I curled up on the unseatable seat lloking for the will to leave the air-conditioned comfort of the uncofortable waiting room for the sweaty walk home.
I must have slept for a while and then became aware of a whitecoat standing above me. I looked up to see that he was offering me a cup, a real cup, not some recycled cardboard, a real cup of coffee. He was tall, quite Black, and good looking. I took the proffered cup from his hand. It was real coffee, hot and good. "Thank you", I said. He smiled and said, "You're welcome. Are you the cocksucking fag I heard about?" "That's me", I replied. He sat down next to me and said, "I guess we have something to talk about". We're going to meet for dinner in a week or so. Who knows where that will go.
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