If I close my eyes, the fifteen or so years virtually disappear; I can see 
a younger, thinner version of myself getting off a subway train, urgently 
looking around the platform.  I can almost remember exactly how I felt 
right then. I say almost, because the mind thankfully has a way of 
repressing (or at least mitigating the intensity of) an unpleasant physical 
memory. 
     I had arrived at my friend Bruce's stop, 23rd Street and 8th Avenue, 
and was looking for the least obvious place to be sick, in case I was going 
to be. How I'd make it to Bruce's house, I had no idea; the headache and 
nausea were that overwhelming.  He was expecting me, though, and I'd 
somehow have to make it.  I took deep breaths, and, reasonably certain I 
could continue, I walked. 
     I was supposed to help Bruce that day, be his assistant of sorts, 
helping him paint in areas of color in a children's book he was working 
on.  As long as I was to paint in the basic areas, he'd be able to take it 
from there. He was already sufficiently bombarded by his other 
illustration projects to let someone else do the easy stuff.  
     Happy to see me, and fortunately too "crazed" with deadlines, as he 
often put it, he didn't seem to notice my state. "Here, Bethie", he 
hurriedly situated me with paints and brushes.  (He was the only one 
allowed to call me that.)  "Okay, red goes here, this color goes there." I 
tried to pay attention, automatically nodding as he spoke.  "If you need 
me, I'll be right inside!" he sing-songed, pointed in his usual 
manic/humorous manner, and raced back to his work. How in the world 
was I going to paint these colors in? I wondered, picking up the brush. I 
still felt very dizzy. Perhaps in conjunction with my nausea, I accidentally 
painted green where he had specified yellow.  Horrified, I called in to him.
     "Oh, that's okay, Bethie!  Put the yellow-he contemplated for a mere 
second---there, then!"  He patted me on the head, then made silly, 
exaggerated gestures as he walked back inside.  My mouth dropped open 
with relief. I had just screwed up his book, and he didn't even care. 
Moreover, he was funny, as always. I needed humor right now. Well, at 
least one of us was feeling well, I figured. He was so energetic, I felt 
envious.  But, while I had to share with Bruce that I had messed up 
within five minutes of working, I wasn't ready to share with him that I 
was pregnant, with severe morning sickness.  It was too soon. As it 
turned out, he wasn't ready to tell me that he had AIDS.  I wasn't to find 
out for a long time, until well after my son was born.  We worked on for 
the rest of the afternoon, with everything going smoothly. He'd call in to 
me, "How's it going, Bethie?"  I'd take a deep breath to offset the nausea, 
and call back, "Fine!"  Occasionally, he'd come in to inspect, praising me 
and telling me how much I was helping him.  Although he was paying 
me, he seemed to forget that, and treated me as if I were, as he put it, "a 
godsend!"
     When I finally, some weeks later, did divulge my pregnant state to 
Bruce, he would present it as if it were the amusing fact of the century. 
"She's pregnant!" he'd randomly, happily, inform (random) people. The 
strangers would regard me for a split second, then move on. I'd find this 
embarrassing, and would often roll my eyes.  I didn't know how to 
tactfully ask him to stop this annoying behavior.  He was so sincerely 
excited that I was having a baby, I felt a bit guilty putting a damper on 
his fun. My best friend Claudia (who'd introduced me to Bruce, or "Bru", 
as she called him, took on the job. "Stop it, Bru; you're embarrassing 
her!" In feigned disbelief, he asked me to confirm this. I nodded. "Okay, 
Bethie, I'll stop then." Eventually, after Claudia (fiercely protective of me, 
especially in that state) reminded him a couple more times, he did. 


Eventually, too, Claudia (or Caud, as I called her) came to visit when the 
baby was a few months old, and sat me down. "I have to tell you 
something." She had known for a long time. She'd stalled telling 
me for as long as she could that Bruce was, not HIV positive, but 
afflicted with full-blown AIDS.  She hadn't told me sooner, as she wasn't 
sure how I'd handle it. Now, he had asked her to tell me. We sat for a 
long time, Claud and I. There was nothing great to say.  There was 
nothing at all, in fact, to say. I wanted to ask prognosis-related 
questions, pertaining to time frames, that probably no one could answer. 
Instead, I stared at the floor. Then Claud, as always, trying to be 
optimistic, thought of something: "He says he's not dying of AIDS; he's 
living with AIDS". 
     Sure enough, for awhile he did.  He saw my son get to be almost two.  
Then, as hard as he tried to hide it, it became apparent that Bruce was 
the one who wasn't feeling well now. Until he became too sick to be 
funny, though, he still found humor in all sorts of things-- and was 
sometimes too ready to share it. Even now, I think of him, not dying, but 
sitting next to me at a packed seminar, making me (inappropriately) 
laugh, with mock-horrified expressions and double takes. More urgently 
than I had searched for a place to be sick on that platform, I had 
helplessly eyed the door that night, with no escape; the room was that 
crowded. There were thirty or so people I would have had to go past, 
with, "Excuse me, excuse me" s, (with barely any space between rows of 
seats) in order to leave. I decided it wasn't worth getting more dirty looks 
than I was getting already. I opted to stay, trying my best to stop 
laughing to myself. It didn't matter that I refused, at this point, to look at 
Bruce. He quickly scribbled unflattering cartoons of the disappointing 
artist-speaker, and put them in front of me. This artist had previously 
been his hero. Now, Bruce complained incredulously, "He wants us all 
(illustrators) to work for free!" The coup de grace, and what just about 
sent me climbing over the people I didn't want to pass, was a cartoon 
which depicted this artist/speaker as a microphone, with a head made 
of-well, use your imagination here. "I will work for free", said the word 
bubble coming out of the head. I don't know that I ever fully got my 
revenge on him for that one.  Whatever was left of the evening was pure 
torture after that.
     Bruce died April 12, 1989.  A few years later, Claud and I became 
estranged. Bruce, Claud and I now agree, would not have liked that. 
Nevertheless, for around ten years, we didn't speak. It was actually my 
son Jared (now a teenager) who convinced me to call her. Having 
mentioned her to him enough times throughout the years, it seemed to 
have built up in him, and when I told him it was her birthday, he was 
adamant: "Mom, you were best friends!"  He was right. It was time. 
      "I sent Jared an e-mail, thanking him for bringing us back together", 
Claud told me recently, via computer "instant message".  Bruce, I'm sure, 
would not only be happy about that, but who knows that he wasn't also 
somehow instrumental in our reunion? I assume nothing, though. He 
taught me not to make assumptions, based on the fact that that day we 
kept our most important secrets from one another: I was going to bring a 
new life into the world; he was going to have to fight to keep his own.  
Sometimes, the most important truths are the least obvious. Sometimes, 
they're time bomb-like, and will inevitably become obvious. I remember 
the irony hitting me, so many years ago: however sick I'd felt that day, it 
was I, not he, as I'd thought, who was the healthy one. I remember 
starting to write about this in my head, so many times, after I realized it.  
Without Claud to bounce it off of, though, it stayed safely where it was.  I 
wouldn't be ready to put it down for a long time- the duration of my 
estrangement from Claud. In not doing so, I could more easily repress 
the pain of losing Bruce--and Claudia, too. I don't need to do that 
anymore. I have Claud once again, to share a thought with, (via 
computer instant message) such as, "I think Bruce would have hated 
computers". "Yeah", she typed back, "But he would have adapted."  If I 
envy Bruce for anything (besides his amazing talent, indomitable spirit, 
and great sense of humor in the face of death), it's that he never had to 
adapt to computers. Claud's right, though, I suspect. I can imagine him, 
still here, calling her up to curse about some computer problem or other 
that he was having: "What the *@*# does (any computer acronym/term) 
mean? I can't get this to. (whatever he was trying to do)." I can also 
imagine him leaving another message later, sing-songing, "Never mind! I 
figured it out!; thanks, anyway!" (and being brilliant with whatever had 
him stuck, right afterward.) "Don't call me back; I'm crazed."
     That's what I suspect, anyway. Only Bruce knows whether or not 
Claud's theory about his computer adaptation is correct. I guess we'll 
have to wait for that answer. I'm still waiting, too, for Bruce to channel 
some of his amazing talent through the pencils and brushes of his that I 
still have, and use.  It seems, though, that so far I'm stuck with whatever 
talent I possess.  ("That's okay, Bethie", I think he'd say. "I love the way 
you draw.." and he'd name something I drew to boost my esteem.)
I know, anyway, that I ended up with more than some of his art supplies.  
(In fact, how he painted with some of those splayed-tipped brushes, I 
have no idea.)  Everything I learned from him continues to help me every 
day.  Besides, he gives me something to look forward to: 
I still plan to get my revenge on him when I get to the other side, 

for torturing me by making me laugh that night. I can imagine that right 
now, he's pretty afraid of me:  "You've got plenty of time, Bethie.   
Besides", (with a wink and comic expression) "How do you know you're 
going where I went?"  He'd have a point there. Claud had told me that 
right before Bruce died, he looked at the totally blank wall across from 
his bed, and wondered with admiration, "What artist did that beautiful 
gate?" (It was very apropos of Bruce to want to give credit.) He found out 
the answer to that question shortly thereafter: The best artist of all, who 
was expecting his arrival, and-unlike me--- put all the colors in the 
right places. (I will allow myself to make that assumption.) Bruce was 
obviously impressed with the picture-- even though the artist did it "for 
free!"  His sharing that he saw it was like a gift to Claud, and some 
others that were there.  Claud says she's not afraid to die anymore. That 
makes one of us. I don't know what to think.  What I do know, however, 
is when I think of Bruce, I smile almost instantaneously. That's because 
in my mind's eye, I can see him looking very happy. For now, that's a 
beautiful enough picture for me.


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