Read In Memory of Angel Clare for Free Online

sofa the afternoon Jack brought the issue of Film Comment with his article about him. That had been a September day like today, roughly a year ago.
    Jack visited almost every day that month, when Clarence seemed to wax and wane like a moon—even then, Jack tried to protect himself with metaphors. Slim to begin with, Clarence looked like the long bones of himself, bundled in a sweater and sweatpants despite the warm day. His neck seemed longer and his nose more prominent. “I’m turning into Jean Cocteau,” he laughed. He laughed several times when Jack read him the article, careful laughs so he wouldn’t start coughing. Jack had wanted the piece to be funny while making clear that this cheesy horror film with the embarrassing title was far below the director’s abilities. It was the least he could do for Clarence, publicizing his friend without publicizing the illness. Clarence’s first fear when he was diagnosed, stronger than his fear of death, was that nobody would hire him to do another movie, a real movie this time, if they thought he might not live long enough to finish it. He sighed when Jack finished—every breath sounded like a sigh though—and thanked him for the fifteen minutes of fame.
    “You’ll get a whole hour when you do your next film,” Jack told him, or something like that.
    Clarence smiled at Jack, a smile that looked more cynical than tolerant on his thin face. Then he said that if worse came to worst, looking on the bright side, his friends would never know what a terrible filmmaker he really might be. He seemed genuinely relieved by that idea. “I’ll be remembered as all potential and promise. It’s almost as good as being a precocious teenager again.”
    Jack told him he was being silly and had the wrong attitude, but he thought to himself that if he were to die that day there would be no mystery about who Jack Arcalli was. That he was all he ever would be. No matter how deeply you love someone, you selfishly use their death to imagine your own.
    Clarence apologized for being “spacey,” but he hadn’t slept well the night before and needed another nap. Jack said no apology was necessary, gently squeezed his bird-like shoulder—a kiss or hug might seem like he was saying goodbye forever—and left, wishing hard the pneumonia would go into complete remission.
    Even then, he did not like to think or say, “Clarence has AIDS.” The word was loaded with so much moralizing and politics that it reduced Clarence’s dying to a statistic, a social trend; it denied him a personal death. Jack might have felt differently if he knew others with the disease, but Jack lived in a small circle and all he knew were acquaintances of acquaintances and what he read in the newspaper. The word also had a sexual aura that made Jack uncomfortable. He knew the disease was not really about sex, that to say AIDS was punishment for sex was like saying the cholera epidemics of the nineteenth century were punishment for the capitalism and free trade that spread them—Laurie’s analogy. But Jack still felt a connection. That Clarence had AIDS and Jack was spared seemed like the final proof that Clarence had lived a full life and Jack hadn’t. He knew it was the most perverse expression of survivor’s guilt imaginable.
    Was it during that visit or another that Michael stood waiting for him in the door to the spare bedroom on Jack’s way out? It was always a shock that skin and bones could look gawky but healthy after seeming so sickly. Michael wore T-shirts with funny sayings and baggy gym shorts when he was home. Jack usually stopped by his room to ask if he needed anything, although Ben came by twice a week to help with the shopping. But this time Michael was waiting for Jack, and he whispered him into his room, importantly, as if he needed to talk about Clarence. Jack had tried several times to get the boy to share his feelings, without success. He sat beside Michael on the bed and felt very sad and