Bleeder Read Free Page A

can talk to you now.”
     
    He wheels the car past the Pavilion, turns, turns again, and we ride on the last road before ocean. The Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum is there, advertising its miracles. Along the sidewalk, bathing suits bob and tan bodies bustle by, and I watch a group of girls pass, their strained bathing tops bouncing with their gait. One swings her blonde strands behind her shoulders and reveals to me a stretch of skin, and it doesn’t seem to me that I belong anymore in such a physical world, in such a sexy place. Everyone here seems so healthy, so happy.
     
    I wipe my eyes.
     
    “Does anyone else know?”
     
    “No. Well, my family. But no one else. Please keep it a secret, too. Don’t tell.”
     
    “I won’t. It’s between us.”
     
    William’s hands tightly grip the steering wheel. He stares silently ahead as we move forward slowly.
     
    When we arrive, we find our other friends enjoying long afternoon naps and although William joins them in sleep, I am restless and in want of an ocean swim, so I head to the beach, alone.
     
    I love this time: a warm fading sun, the constant ebb and roll of the ocean’s sound, a rhythm I can count on. I remove my shoes and press my feet into the sand. The sun reddens my back as I face the sea, watching wave after wave after wave of salt water wash over a geography of silt and brine. The effortless curves of the ocean continually fold atop themselves, salty tiers of white foam. The water rides lazily around my feet, then retreats,pulling sand from underneath my soles. I wade deeper. Stroke out beyond the breakers, and from here I can see the fading blue of the horizon, the few birds that give form to this plain and shapeless sky. I slender my long body in the water and imagine the lands beyond my limited sight, cleft by the Earth’s curve. I think how all that lives by water lies undetected beneath this giant flat surface.
     
    Tucking my legs tightly to my stomach, I grab hold round the knees, dip my face in the sea, feel how the current moves me, tugs me north, then east, west, then north again in the undulating water. I’m a pale island of flesh in this quiet ocean of fish. I am moored to nothing.
     
    Uncurling, I swim with the tide. Swim more. Toward the pier, then back. Float freely. I return to my towel on the sand, where I no longer cast a shadow. The marine sky fades black all around me while the stars begin to peek their dim faces on a moonless eve. Salt water drips from my hair, clings to my eyebrows, tightens my pores, dries to my skin. I think of nothing, but enjoy this simple moment of living. I float in it and am in no other place. And I feel inexplicably cleansed.
     

A MAN IN HIDING
     
     
    A UGUST 1990 . A LTHOUGH I HAVE DECIDED TO ATTEND COLLEGE, IT has crossed my mind to forgo my education and do other things: to travel while I’m still healthy, to see Rome or Venice or Paris or London or Bali or any of a host of places that one wishes to see before they die. . . . Or perhaps, instead of tiring myself out with world travel, I should do nothing other than read books at poolside and let my mind slip away from this reality. How much of my life should I change? How much should I adapt to HIV? Or perhaps, it has already been altered enough. So instead of any of these grand plans, I am here at UNC-Wilmington, or as the natives call it: UNC by the sea. I will get my college education.
     
    My family and I hoist boxes of my belongings and cart these up two flights of stairs to my college dorm room, and after several hours the heat exhausts me. I sweat—trickles of perspiration slip from my pits. My family, too, sweats in the coastal heat, Dad the most, his cotton polo patched with dark splotches. We breathe heavy. We rest on the unmade bed. And then, feeling we’ve had enough recovery, Dad announces that it’s time for the family to go. A mournful silence descends on us all.
     
    “You’re going to be so happy at college,” Mom says