Venice Neighbors #3

John and his boyfriend lived two cottages down and we had a sort of a nodding acquaintance. They would walk by and ooh a bit on our new twins. John's boy friend was already showing the signs of AIDS. He borrowed tools from me occasionally, and then he was gone. John moved into the smaller house right next door to us. He became a friend and would come over for parties. He'd sit out front and stick his feet in the wading pool with me while the twins cavorted about. I recall worrying about the scrape on his foot and the exposure in the wading pool water, but I didn't say anything. The kids loved him. Once we were at a nearby park and locked our car keys in the trunk by accident and called him for help and he came and got my wife and broke into our house for the duplicate set, while I babysat two toddlers with very dirty diapers. John was the neighbor that was screaming at the gang house across the street, which got me involved trying to act as a peacemaking of sorts. He didn't care at that point, I guess. He knew he was going to die. There was little they could do for AIDS then. He worked in a restaurant in the Marina until he couldn't work any more and friends helped and his sister came and he died with a smile on his face they said. He told me once that he didn't even realize he was gay until he had fallen in love with his boy friend and he had been the only lover he had ever had. 

J  IS  FOR  JOHN  IN  OUR  HOUSE

In the August evening’s light,

The twins, with their mother, go to pick beans

From the bamboo fence

Where you had them help you

Plant, not so long ago.

 

The woman from the next house down

Joins them with hose in hand,

So the world won’t turn brown

Before the new tenant arrives.

Christopher flirts with her- the way three-year-olds flirt-

With tricks and hops

And declarations, while his sister

Holds tight the handful of beans

For tomorrow’s dinner.

 

We’re through explaining now, I think,

Why they took your things away,

And your car,

And why they came to clean.

Alexandra has learned to say,

“I miss John, Mama.”

You’ve come to say good-bye

On consecutive nights:

First to Alexandra’s dreams

And then to Christopher’s,

You, who couldn’t tell them apart,

In the beginning, when you passed our yard.

 

I was afraid for them,

When death looked at me from your eyes,

You were nothing I could fix for them,

You were as old as I and should have known better

Than to die in front of them.

 

If you’ve returned to me to say good-bye,

I might barely know,

My dreams, so walked upon,

Scarcely remain with morning.

But I do know too well where faces go

When children grow

And yours was just too early.