Postmortem

Jonathan wrestled to free a rubber-banded wad from his cubbyhole mailbox and in the process scraped his thumb against the aluminum plating. He sucked on the scarlet smear, shook off the pain, then proceeded to sort through correspondence next to the junk mail bin.

His fingers froze upon a textured, ivory envelope, graced with fountain pen flair for Mr. J. R. Urbain. The staircase slope of Jonathan's address mirrored an affectation of his, a remnant from his tenure at British boarding school, while his Belgian father and Filipino mother lived first class lives in third-world nations on behalf of a multinational conglomerate.

Seven cities, four continents, three careers, two degrees, and eighteen years later, here he was, on Cleveland's east shore, tying up loose ends to Aaron's last will and testament, looking up mid-list titles at the Border's information desk, and warming up his writer' s voice.

The anthrax alert was days old and he amused himself by shaking the letter's contents as if it were a pack of sugar, before riding the elevator up sixteen stories into his solitary apartment.

Jonathan waited until he completed a ritual unbeknownst to him-- pee, pour a vodka martini with lots of olives, click open email, check for voice mails, plop onto the couch and turn on CNN -- before returning to the object of his piqued curiosity.

Halfway through reading the engraved script, Jonathan raised his head at the whitewashed ceiling and walked over to his desk. The room's scale seemed to shift, becoming smaller and stifling. He leaned his elbows on the gel pad that was supposed to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome, then clasped his palms over his face like a monkey wanting to see no evil.

His eyes did not well up though he started to sob. He caught himself and wiped tears that weren't there.

Bill Bowers had died.

Jonathan read the rest of the announcement.

Bill Bowers was dead.

Jonathan did a double take at the time display on his laptop as well as at his Franklin Planner he had opened to "October-at-a-Glance." Today's Friday. Bill's memorial service was still in progress at St. Bartholomew's in Midtown, back in Manhattan, an hour and a half's plane ride from where Jonathan sat. A resigned "shit" was all he could muster.

He stepped out onto his perch of a porch overlooking Lake Erie, as it squeezed the last juices out of the sourball sun. An early chill licked his cheeks. Tides crashed in predictable intervals against the concrete barriers shaped like jackstones of Jonathan' s youth.

Jonathan thought of calling a friend, but all his friends were Aaron's as well, and too much mangling of details would be required to put Bill into proper context. He couldn't help but wonder why the envelope had been mailed just two days ago without a return address. He never had a chance to get himself together for such a hasty return to New York.

Upon retreating to the sparseness of his living room, Jonathan sank back onto the coffee couch (anything that reminded him of Aaron had been boxed and stored in the basement).

Not even reports from Islamabad of collateral damage in Kabul could pierce his numbness. Would he have even gone?

He choked the announcement into a crumple, then flipped it over to find the same

meticulous handwriting as on the envelope. It read "BillBowers.com." Jonathan jerked into attention and ran back to his desk. An eternity ticked by as his browser's flashlight stretched its beam into cyberspace.

For Jonathan, Bill had fallen somewhere between acquaintance and friend, like everyone Jonathan ever met throughout his nomadic existence. They had slept together twice. The first time was July a year ago, hours after they met during Friday happy hour at the Townhouse in Midtown.

Jonathan had just returned from East Hampton, where he left what remained of Aaron in an urn, with Aaron's parents. They never understood why Aaron wanted to manage a nature preserve in Ohio or preferred what his mother once called a 'male mutt' as a companion to any one of the pedigreed lasses at their synagogue. They could not handle their thirty-six year old only son's rapid deterioration from a disease that seemed so passé, so Africa, so manageable with all the advances they had heard about on the news. Distance became their defense of choice.

Yet once the illness had run its course, the Segals were perfectly willing to take whatever they could. But their attorney was powerless against Aaron's wish to leave everything of his to Jonathan with the exception of Aaron's ashes "that they may serve as a constant reminder to my parents of the pain and suffering they have caused to me, my lover, and themselves." Jonathan left the urn in the Segals' gazebo per their instructions while they sailed on Long Island Sound.

Jonathan's loneliness had to be muted. He chose to do so at a bar, and later in bed, with Bill as his accomplice. Bill was a Park Avenue architect who snuck in a cocktail, even a trick or two, whenever his boyfriend was out of town. It took a casual turn of two heads and two rounds of drinks, martinis for Jonathan, Heinekens for Bill, for each to lay his cards on the table. Except for Chinese delivery, they did not emerge from Bill's room that entire weekend at his Victorian fixer-upper, overlooking mostly Bayonne, and which passed for a Staten Island property with a vista view of New York Harbor. On the ferry back into his Midtown hotel room, Jonathan hummed Carly Simon's song from "Working Girl." He imagined himself a sort of Melanie Griffth protagonist taking on the enormity and majesty of Manhattan. The refrain remained in repeat mode onto La Guardia, and all the way back to home base.

The second encounter was five months later, when both of them welcomed 2001 slow dancing naked on the shellacked wood planks Bill had just installed in his living room. Jonathan could not bear a Cleveland New Year' s with Aaron's friends casting their jaundiced eyes at him asking, "How are you holding up?" while obliging in pitying pats upon his back.

The Downtown skyline and Bayonne's and Brooklyn's, for that matter, had become a halogen sequin matted against a gallery of icy darkness. Jonathan's noodle arms wrapped around Bill's neck, and his heart beat against Bill's chiseled chest, which emanated the clean, crisp scent of a man's fragrance with a woman's name, the evening perfect and complete with champagne, candlelight, and that Barry Manilow song. His boyfriend had taken a cruise to Cancun, a hiatus, Bill said. Since then, Jonathan and Bill curtailed their contact to e-greetings on Hallmark holidays and the occasional exchange of instant messages.

The Web welcomed Jonathan with an "In Memory" marquee, followed by a fade-in of that familiar face sporting high-wattage eyes and a caramel crew cut. Jonathan once called Bill's hairs "toothbrush bristles," while running his palm on his head back and forth in the afterglow of lovemaking. The 100% completed download revealed Bill posing next to a grill, spatula in hand, the musculature of his arms and calves bursting from beneath a white apron, a sort of optical illusion suggesting he may have been barbecuing in the buff

Jonathan scrolled down the page to see a red, white and blue ribbon, that which has become de rigeur in this era of pop-patriotism. He raised his palm to his mouth, as if to stifle hurtling phlegm.

Bill Bowers

Beloved Son, Brother, Friend, Coworker, Volunteer, Lover, New Yorker

May 17, 1958 - September 11, 2001

For the rest of the evening, Jonathan did little beyond heat a Japanese Cup Noodle in the microwave and tune in and out of CNN' s revamped, personality-driven line-up.

Somewhere between Wolf Blitzer and Greta Van Susteren, Jonathan cried, his drawn out bawls punctuated by canine yelps that left saltiness on his tongue and stinging in his eyes. It no longer mattered whether the neighbors could hear what was going on through cardboard walls, as he had often admonished Aaron that it did, whenever they argued or fucked. For a moment Jonathan could not tell whether he was crying for Bill or making up for Aaron's eulogy when he left everyone guessing how he truly felt about losing Aaron.

Though Jonathan had shed his share of September tears like everyone else, he thought his tie to the tragedies was many times removed, that of spectator, albeit one whose cable news addiction was reaching intervention proportions. Like most of the nation, he was permitting himself to return to some semblance of normalcy. But the consternation and confusion of that brilliant, marine sky morning of 9/11 regurgitated and washed over him with the force of a tsunami. He broke down and fell to the carpeting.

Larry King was coming on for the second time that evening when Jonathan staggered up from the floor. It was midnight. He should have been word-painting characters and twisting tension into a short story and stopping as soon as he reached his daily quota of 1,000 words. But tonight would have to be made up for some other time. Jonathan was three martinis too many into his discombobulated state. All he craved for that very moment was water to soothe his scratchy throat, a pill to temper his migraine, and sleep. Sleep with the promise of waking up to an alternate reality. He was zigzagging towards the bedroom when chimes from his computer beckoned him to chat.

Jonathan braced himself for a parental check-in from Antwerp or, worse, one of Aaron's friends assuming Jonathan was searching for sex online while feigning a recluse spinster routine. Truth was, Jonathan never cared for Aaron gallivanting with his clique through Numbers, Keys, The Lasso, or any one of the handful of nightspots which completed Cleveland's gay circuit. He never probed for details on why Aaron would come home stinking of smoke and scotch and halfway to oblivion, just as he never confronted Aaron on how he might have contracted HIV in the first place after eight years of supposed monogamous bliss.

Jonathan swallowed a saliva lump as he squinted at the screen.

EZPast40: jonathan, are you available to chat?

Jonathan's heart back flipped. He sat up straight against his chair and looked around the room to see if he was being spied on before tapping a response.

OHJon: Yes, I am. This is Bill's screen name though.

EZPast40: did you know bill?

Jonathan flinched.

OHJon: Yes. I received something in the mail.

A minute passed and no reply. By now Jonathan's breathing was clipped and his fingers trembled over the keyboard.

OHJon: Edwin, right?

EZPast40: hi, jonathan. nice to meet you, i guess

EZPast40: must be strange, huh... finally got around to opening bill's buddy list and messages

OHJon: I am so sorry. What happened?

EZPast40: u were the only one listed

Jonathan inhaled with a snort. He had to think fast. He did not want Edwin to think there was more to what had gone on between Bill and himself.

OHJon: I met Bill only twice.

EZPast40: don't u want to know what happened?

"Shit," Jonathan said.

OHJon: I'm sorry. Pls. Continue.

Edwin proceeded to explain why Bill was dead. It was actually a theory he had no way of proving, though it had been confirmed that Bill's assistant, Melissa, received a panicked call from Bill she could barely make out, except for the words "fire" and "fuck" and "forgive me" before the first tower collapsed. Bill never showed up for work or returned home that day and had not reappeared since. Edwin said he and Bill's family and friends fanned out to all the borough hospitals and far into New Jersey. They pleaded for help on television. Jonathan had not come across any of them during his news network vigils. Edwin was certain he connected enough dots to conclude that Bill was having an affair with someone he'll probably never know, who happened to work at the World Trade Center. And that that was the safest place for them to have a rendezvous.

OHJon: But are you sure?

A couple of minutes passed. Jonathan fidgeted, uncertain of what else to say.

OHJon: Is there anything I can do?

EZPast40: sorry i kinda lost it just now.

EZPast40: the bastard we agreed to an open relationship it's how we stayed together so long now he's goddamned gone

EZPast40: i found your card in his desk.. . and xmas card... he said you were here new year's

Jonathan wanted to curl up into a fetus.

EZPast40: i'm not angry or anything.

EZPast40: it was a large ceremony today his whole firm was there his family wanted closure

Jonathan wanted to know why Edwin had not notified him earlier. He was about to lash out his accusation but decided otherwise.

OHJon: Is there anything I can do?

EZPast40:

EZPast40: are you coming to nyc anytime soon?

Jonathan wanted to say and do whatever it took to rid him of the guilt and grief that now clung to him like a filmy residue

OHJon: I'm coming to New York on business next week.

EZPast40: oh

EZPast40: can you come to staten island?

Jonathan sobered himself up in his head long enough to look at October-at-a-Glance once more and write in "Call in Sick/NYC" for the following Friday.

OHJon: Of course I can.

Jonathan inhaled the panorama of steel and concrete rushing passed him while he was crossing the 59th Street Bridge. He commented to the Bangladeshi driver on the noticeable drop in traffic for a Friday morning and avoided any discussion of the war or the spread of anthrax-laced letters.

Fragments of memory pieced themselves before Jonathan: the Village studio he subleased in the late ' 80s, the Bloomingdale's buying office where he turned men's wear imports into upscale private label, the mantra of his youth -- "work hard, party hard.” Everyone wanted a piece of him, mostly sexually, and he had lots to pass around. With the life-altering force of being struck by lightning, he fell in love at the sight of Aaron during intermission at an off-off-Broadway show featuring male frontal nudity. It wasn't long before they took turns shuttling back and forth between New York and Aaron’s Cleveland and that Jonathan learned of Case Western Reserve's MBA and how the ‘mistake by the lake’ had a lot more going for it than most comedians would lead one to believe. And perhaps for the first time in his life, he let his heart trump his head, and in Aaron, found what Jonathan always imagined home to be.

After checking in at the Marriott Marquis and with a throwaway camera in hand, he embarked on a foot pilgrimage towards South Ferry. He stopped to catch his breath and ponder over signs of a changed city: missing person flyers, mounds of melted candle wax, rotting floral offerings wedged into wire fences. Each time he looked to his left and right and over his shoulders before making a mini sign-of-the cross, something he had not done since high school.

Jonathan's eyes never wandered from the frame that was downtown for all twenty-five minutes of his ferry ride to Staten Island. He was not the only one. It was a warm for October afternoon and gaggles of tourists surrounded him, as they too soaked the outdoors from the aft, many shooting away at the altered skyline with paparazzi fervor. No movie score or song could capture Jonathan's desperate attempt to reconcile the alien stretch of sky where the towers once stood.

Edwin had agreed to 4:15, enough time for Jonathan to arrive at St. George and walk up the hill towards the Catholic church which dwarfed Bill's and Edwin's home next door.

The chartreuse-coated house dressed in rose vines and perennials of Jonathan's recollection was shrink-wrapped in pallor. For a moment he thought he had taken a wrong turn. The outer screen door to the front entrance had a run in it. What little landscaping remained had given way to weeds and the lack of watering.

"Hello," he said after knocking on the door. "Hello," he repeated.

Jonathan checked his watch when he heard the click and clack of a triple-bolt lock.

Edwin looked older than in the picture frames Jonathan had stolen glances of on Bill' s credenza. Jonathan knew Bill had a penchant for Asian men, Chinese men especially, and Edwin was as mainland as they came, with his hairpin eyes and ruddy complexion. It left Jonathan to wonder what Bill saw in a Eurasian. The same question seemed to cross

Edwin's mind the moment he laid eyes on Jonathan.

"Edwin?" asked Jonathan.

Edwin picked up a Siamese Jonathan had not seen before and motioned for him to come in.

"Please excuse the mess," Edwin said in a heavy New York accent.

It was as if a maelstrom had passed through with most of the shellacked flooring covered in files, books, and clothing for all seasons. Jonathan instantly knew what was going on.

Edwin offered a seat on the brown leather couch with his palm. "I'm just organizing

Bill's things. He has so many nieces and nephews. Can I get you a drink?"

"Please don't bother. I'm really sorry about what happened to Bill. I did not know him that well though. "

Edwin turned away and walked a few steps before making an about face. "That may be, but I haven't found anyone else who knew him the way you did."

"What do you mean?" asked Jonathan.

"Do you have a lover?"

Jonathan wasn't about to divulge his life story to a relative stranger. "I did. Once."

"Like I told you, we had an open relationship. It didn't matter as long as he came home to me," said Edwin. "Now that he’s gone, I just want to know what I did not know all this time. I suppose it's my way of keeping him alive, somehow."

"I can appreciate that," said Jonathan. Beads of discomfort trickled down his back while he pondered the notion of ratting on the deceased. But it was the familiarity of the emotional terrain on which Edwin was treading that struck Jonathan.

"What did you find attractive about Bill?"

Jonathan flinched at Edwin's audacity but wanting to be empathetic, he raised his finger as if to say he needed a moment to gather his thoughts.

"Bill was available. He just happened to be there. We were at a bar talking. Sure he was good-looking and friendly...

"Did you know he was married?"

"Did I know he was married?" echoed Jonathan. He wasn't sure if this was a trick question.

"Edwin, what are you getting at?"

"Why are you the only one he kept in contact with? Why did he take you here? Why did you sleep in our bed?"

"Edwin, I'm sorry. I had no intention of coming between the two of you. I live in Cleveland for Christ's sake. If you have issues with Bill why... " Jonathan stopped in mid-sentence, realizing there would be no way Edwin could resolve things with Bill. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it that way."

Edwin walked towards a window overlooking the bay and Manhattan in the distance. "Wait one minute," he said and disappeared into the spiral staircase leading down into the kitchen and den.

Jonathan was looking for a way out, back down the hill, and off the island. This was not such a good idea after all, he told himself. What did he owe Edwin anyway?

Edwin returned with a Mason jar filled with what looked like sand.

"This is for you," said Edwin.

"Uh, thanks," said Jonathan as he wrapped the cold surface with both his palms.

"What is it?"

"Some of Bill's ashes. Well, not really. It was retrieved from the Fresh Kills site. Yes, illegally, by a friend who is raking through the debris and remains. I want you to have it. "

"I don't really think it's appropriate."

"What is appropriate?" Edwin's raised voice and accusatory tone caused Jonathan to take a half-step back.

Jonathan felt morbidity cloud his head and was afraid of the jar slipping from his sweaty palms. He did not want a token of the thousands missing in neither his carry-on nor conscience.

"I don't know who else to share them with," said Edwin. "You cared for Bill, right?"

Jonathan was about to reply "yes, but" but decided otherwise. He turned to Edwin whose eyes were glistening. Jonathan knew those eyes. They were of loss and fear and anger, and of not knowing how to go on living when what was once there to give life meaning, no longer is.

He put the jar on the coffee table and embraced a shaking Edwin whose body twitched before he broke down into wails.

"It's okay, it's okay, " said Jonathan, patting Edwin's back as he looked out the window, past the harbor, past the shimmering cityscape, and up into the twilight sky.

(This won The Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation Award for LGBTQ short fiction based on a historical event.)