So he went into his bedroom and got dressed. Then he went back into the living room and said, “I’m going down there to see what this is all about.”
“Are you sure it’s safe to do that?” Sherman asked. “What if he recognizes you with your new haircut and your new look? Then the world will know what you’ve been up to.”
Jase shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “I haven’t been up to anything,” he said. “I just wanted to disappear for a while, to find out what it was like to be a gay man. I’m not ashamed of what I’m doing, and I’m not going to apologize to anyone or be blackmailed by anyone. I’m certainly not going to apologize to a sleazy tabloid journalist. If, in fact, this guy is following me, and he’s on to what I’ve been doing, it might be time to go public once and for all. I’m tired of not being who I want to be. The only reason I decided to drop out for a while was so that I could live an authentic life.” He clenched his fists and squared his shoulders. After being with Luis the night before, he realized how much of his life he’d missed. They were lost years he’d never be able to get back, and he wasn’t about to waste the next half of his life pretending to be someone he wasn’t.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Sherman said, reaching out to hug Jase. “I’m only concerned about you.” Then he kissed him on the lips and rested his cheek on Jase’s chest.
Jase patted Sherman’s back and stepped away from him. He’d noticed Sherman was becoming more affectionate and he didn’t want to encourage him. “I’ll call you later this afternoon. Lock the door on your way out, please.” He didn’t ask Sherman to stay until he returned.
Sherman smiled. “I have some cash for you. I’ll leave it on the desk in the bedroom before I leave.”
“Thanks,” Jase said, then turned and walked out of the apartment.
When he went downstairs to the street, the man in the brown leather jacket was still leaning against the post. Jase walked to the middle of the sidewalk and looked back and forth. He hesitated for a moment, then turned and started walking toward Riverside Drive to see if the man would follow him.
On his way to the park, Jase strolled along as if he didn’t have anywhere important to go.
He kept his hands in his pockets and casual expression on his face. He looked up at the sky a few times and smiled. He even whistled and nodded at people who passed him. A couple of times, when he came to the end of a street, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. The man in the brown leather jacket was right behind him. The man remained far enough in the background so he wouldn’t look too obvious. But when Jase turned and walked into the park entrance with the man still behind him, Jase knew for sure he was being followed.
It was a warm, hazy day and it was still too early in the morning for the park to be filled with people. The only other people there were walkers and runners out for their early-morning workouts. A few were wearing business suits and carrying briefcases. Jase walked to a secluded end of the park, where there were rows of empty park benches facing the river, and he sat down.
The man who had been following him stopped and leaned against a tree not far from where Jase was sitting. For a few minutes, Jase waited there to see what would happen.
When nothing did happen, he turned to the man, stood up from the chair, and said, “I don’t want to play games. What can I do for you?”
The man remained still, then a second later he walked over to Jase and said, “Let’s sit down. I’d like to talk to you about something important.”
Jase’s eyes opened wide. When the man sat down on the bench, Jase sat next to him and tilted his head to the side.
“Who are you? And what could you possibly want to talk about with me?” Jase asked.
Though this was unusual, at least Jase knew this guy wasn’t a tabloid reporter. Jase knew how to spot them immediately. This guy seemed too defensive and cautious. If he had been a reporter, he would have been aggressive and he wouldn’t have been sly enough to be so polite. He would have confronted Jase with questions about what he was doing and why he was doing it. Then he would have pulled a camera out of his pocket.
“I’m Dr. Kenneth Barton,” the man said. “I have a small practice back home in Tennessee. I guess I’m what you’d call a country doctor up here in New York. I still make house calls.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a photo. He held the photo up to Jase’s face and pointed to someone in the middle. “This is him. This is why I’m here and why I’ve been watching you. It was taken three years ago outside our home.”
When Jase looked at the photo, he pressed his palm to his chest. He leaned forward and examined it closely. There were three people standing in front of a large brick house, with black shutters and tall white columns. Luis Fortune was in the middle of the photo, Dr. Barton was standing to his right, and there was another man standing to his left. The man on the left was painfully thin, with sunken features and large round eyes. Jase studied the photo for a moment.
Luis’s hair was longer and he looked about ten pounds heavier. The other two were smiling, but Luis was just standing there with pinched lips and his hands folded across his stomach.
“Are you Luis’s uncle?”
Dr. Barton laughed and pointed to the photo. “No, that’s his uncle. I’m his partner.”
“Partner?”
Dr. Barton nodded. “I met Freddie just after he turned eighteen.”
“Freddie?”
“His real name Freddie Bowles,” Dr. Barton said. “I fell in love with him the minute I laid eyes on him. He came from a rural area…grew up there with his mother and father…born-
again Christians. When they caught him in the barn with one of their farm hands in a compromising position, so to speak, they packed his bag and kicked him out. He was about sixteen at the time and he had nowhere to go.”
“They just kicked him out of the house at sixteen?” Jase asked.
“You have to understand,” Dr. Barton said. “These people are serious about their religion.
They are the bible-carrying, card-carrying fanatics. And there’s no tolerance for gay men. When they found out about him, they said he was doomed to wind up just like his faggot uncle with AIDS, and they kicked him out of the house. He went to live with his uncle at first. But the uncle lives in a rundown trailer outside of town and he could barely afford to feed himself. I get him his HIV medications when I can, but those medicines cost thousands of dollars a month and he doesn’t have any insurance. He’s too disabled to work. He had lung problems on top of it all. I do my best, though. I help him out whatever way I can without charging him. But he’s not in great shape.”