The Rescuer by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

brother’s company, but didn’t really know me; for the medical records of patients are meant to be confidential, and Harvey had not ever revealed to me what his medical condition was except he was “anemic”—had some kind of “low blood count.” And he’d had some sort of “rehab” that had to be related, I supposed, to drugs. The nurse hesitated before she confided in me, in a lowered voice, and in a way to indicate that she assumed that I already knew these somber facts—
    “For HIV patients, it’s the medication—how well it works, and how they tolerate it. How their general health is, of course. Your brother has other issues too, you know—he isn’t using now, he says, but—he was .”
    For the nurse, it was Harvey’s (possible) drug use that was the issue; for me, the stunning news was HIV.
    My brother was HIV-positive!
    “Yes. You are right. Yes—thank you.”
    I turned away, not wanting the woman to see tears of anguish welling in my eyes.
    Tears of chagrin, disappointment.
    Too dazed to sit with rows of patients and their relatives in the crowded and airless waiting room. Better to remain standing, or step outside into the cold air.
    Why hadn’t I known, or guessed? Why had I wanted to think that Harvey’s medical condition was only drugs? And why hadn’t Harvey told me? When I’d virtually cast away my life for him.
    When Harvey emerged from the interior of the clinic, nearly an hour later, I was still in a state of shock but had taken a seat by this time.
    Harvey complained in his affably embittered way of having to be “poked” for the blood work. “Fuck that needle! The tech can’t find a vein, God damn makes me feel like a Death Row prisoner they’re poking to get the death-IV in .” Harvey laughed as if he’d said something witty. Then he saw me, blinked and stared at me. “Lydia? You all right?”
    “Yes. I am—‘all right.’ ”
    “You know, I told you not to come to the clinic with me, I’m perfectly capable of coming here by myself.”
    “I know. You’ve said.”
    Exiting the clinic Harvey was about to propel himself down the steps then wisely hesitated. Wordlessly I slid my arm around his waist, as before.
    I’d glimpsed Band-Aids on the insides of both his bruised arms. Very likely there were Band-Aids on the insides of his legs as well, and on his ankles. I would not ask.
    Such pity for my brother, such love!—yet it was an angry love.
    For Harvey was to blame, I thought—HIV-positive!
    No wonder he’d left the seminary, escaped to another life where no one knew him and would not judge him.
    No wonder he’d taken up poetry as the most futile gesture of his life.
    Quietly I said, guiding his descent down the cement steps, “I don’t blame you, Harvey. If anyone is to blame it’s me.”
    * * *
    A second time, as it was a final time, I returned to Book Bazaar. I yearned to see Wystan again. In my loneliness in Grindell Park—in my fevered imagination—the secondhand bookstore clerk had grown more attractive. I’d forgotten the disheveled hair, the baggy T-shirt and cargo pants—if Wystan’s face hovered in my memory it was now blurred with light, like those ghostly figures on TV that are being censored for reasons of privacy, or decency.
    Somehow, Wystan was merging with Harvey. With an old memory of Harvey. And hadn’t Wystan said that Harvey was a “patrician” of some sort—and so was I; hadn’t Wystan said that Harvey was “the most remarkable person” he’d ever met.
    The name suggested refinement—“Wystan.” And he’d seemed to like me—he’d followed me through the store. He’d hinted at treasures in the basement. He’d tried to acquire my address but, foolishly, I had refused him.
    “ ‘Wystan’? He doesn’t work here anymore.”
    A fattish woman of bleak and dissatisfied middle age regarded me suspiciously. In her mouth, “Wystan” had a flat New Jersey twang.
    So suspiciously, you would think that a succession of conniving