THE HAUNTED HEART

THE HAUNTED HEART

by Jameson Currier

The ghost was waiting on Commercial Street. He was bored with the couple and their two children who had rented the upstairs rooms for the month. They were not easy to frighten -- slamming doors, flickering lights, billowing curtains meant nothing to them, the whole lot self-absorbed and scattering sand everywhere they walked. He preferred more drama, more purpose to his mischief. It was late, after midnight, when he gave up on them and left the house where he had been shuttered up for years, the last of his tricks -- a shattering vase -- unable to rouse the sleeping parents.

Outside, the street was crowded in front of the pizza shop. Young men were waiting to connect with one another. He had watched them for years from the upstairs bedroom, sometimes even entertaining a few of them if they rented one of the bedrooms of his house. He had come to long for their freedom, their ease, their adventures here one summer, another summer somewhere else.

He had been a sailor while alive. First, as a boy, the cook of a fishing schooner for a crew of twelve, then later, in his twenties, the captain of his own vessel. He was comfortable with the company of men, though he had given up the seas at the age of thirty-four when the great gale of 1841 had shipwrecked the Peerless Troubadour . Grief had done him in. He had survived where others had not. Seven of his crew had drowned. In the village, wives and children and parents and families had been left behind. He had returned and married, raising five children of his own, four daughters and one son, and turned a small nautical shop into a thriving grocery and hardware business. The urge to explore continued to nag him, but he never sailed again, the sound of the waves and the rain compelling him to remain inside on stormy days. As the years blew by he learned to use his pain to remind others of their fear of it, what can happen when you least expect it, how heartless the world can treat you no matter how honest or truthful you abide. He had died at the age of sixty-six: a clap of thunder, a heart attack, a rain of memories of the sea.

He had remained inside the house, a ghost, stricken with grief, while outside the seasons passed, the train tracks disappeared, the artists arrived by motorcars, the fleet of ships thinned out, replaced by noisy motorboats and gunning engines offering hourly expeditions. The ghost slept, woke, sighed, and puffed out the curtains of his house until it fell into neglect. Rain seeped through the roof. More time passed and outside the windows the crowds became more openly obvious. Men holding hands. Women with their arms slung around the shoulders of other women. A couple of men had renovated his house, replaced the rotted beams and nailed down new shingles, and turned it into an inn. The ghost had liked the smell of fresh paint, but not the steady stream of new tenants. Too many different faces angered him and he gave the inn a reputation. The house was sold and resold. But lately, year after year of the same childish pranks and mindless families, he had been looking for a reason to leave it behind.

Now, outside, on the darkened street, he felt his power diminished. His spirit lessened. He was not a traveling ghost, though alive he had traveled more than most men of his generation -- far out into the Atlantic, from Cape Breton to Cape Horn. He watched a remarkably handsome man approach where he was standing in the darkened doorway of a house, the ivy on a trellis disappearing in the blackness beside him. The young man had a lopey gait, a long, thin torso, and curly black hair. He watched the man catch glances until he stopped to talk to another man, shorter, darker-haired and stocky, like the Portuguese sailors who used to work the Peerless Troubadour .

"Hey," the tall guy said.

"Hey," the shorter one answered.

The ghost rolled his eyes, dismayed by these meaningless introductions. He would have glanced elsewhere had he not sensed something that passed between the two men, something that made him, the ghost, brighten and sway and speed in their direction. The shorter one had shown this something first, but it was the taller one who felt it, deeper and more poignantly. The ghost sensed something other than just lust for one another -- more of a need or a hunger or a thirst to understand something elusive. Most of all the ghost sensed cruelty if this game of emotions was played out wrong. Drama. Hysterics. Heart-shattering pain. He swung through the air, blowing a puff of air in front of their eyes.

"You want a slice of pizza?" the tall one asked.

"Sure," the other one responded.

The two men sat on the steps of the very same house the ghost had left. They ate their slices, drank their sodas, and talked about their favorite TV shows. The shorter one named Wade was disappointed in the conversation, hoping to have met a smarter guy than this one named Josh. The ghost was not at all disappointed, however; he kept the wind blowing between them, the expectations rising. Josh asked Wade what he did for a living. "Waiter," Wade answered. "You?"

"Musician," Josh answered, but felt it sounded arrogant and incomplete. "But I teach in Boston. Little girls wanting to play the piano. Little boys wanting to do anything else."

A musician? the ghost thought. What a lucky a find -- a man with a soul and a dream. He could certainly spook and frighten and inspire a man as sensitive as a musician. He roared up another funnel of air and tossed it at the musician, but it was the other one who felt it first.

"It's too windy here," Wade said and looked up at the starry sky, as if expecting a storm, and for a moment the ghost felt as if he had been detected, then realized it was Wade's ploy to stir Josh to his feet. "We should get inside before it rains," Wade said.

The musician did not even question this. Rain? The ghost shivered and followed the two men along the street. Within a block it had been decided they would go to Josh's apartment instead of the guest house where Wade was staying. The ghost sensed passion brewing, though the men did not touch as they walked, nor stop to kiss and grope as others did in darkened nooks. The musician unlocked the door of a house on Carver Street, the waiter followed him up two flights of stairs to a tiny apartment on the top floor. The ghost was delighted. The house was old, almost as old as his own; the stairs and doors creaked and wobbled. The musician explained that he had rented the apartment for a month. Inside, the two men sat in different chairs; Josh rolled a joint. The ghost billowed in the smoke, disgusted by the scent, then relaxed and drifted between the two men as they shared the smoke. When the conversation ran out, when the passion should have stirred between them, the musician moved to a piano which was in the room and began to play softly. It was an awful tune, unmelodic and fragmented. It left the waiter confused. "Did you write that?" Wade asked.

"Yes," the musician answered proudly. The ghost moved closer, intrigued to discover the musician was also a composer, even though he found the music discordant and tuneless, too. "It's based on a fragment of Schubert," Josh said and slowed the notes and his fingers and the music changed into a beautiful melody. The ghost was astonished. Wade moved in closer, amazed.

The ghost waited through another song, another fragment becoming another lush melody. In his day courtship had taken much longer than this, though he was aware he was now waiting for one man to begin what the other man feared to start. Nothing like this happened this slowly in this village today. This was Provincetown in 1978 and the ghost was impatient for the fun to begin.

* * *

The ghost remained with the musician because he thought Josh snobbish and condescending and should be taught some manners. Alive the ghost had been known as Raymond Hennegar, the grandson of a poor Irishman who had sailed to Cape Breton from Limerick. His father had traveled farther south and become a drunk after his wife died from smallpox; the ghost had been given up by his father when he was only eight. At sea he had been forced to do more than cook for the crew; the needs of men were not unfamiliar to him.

Josh, the musician, was from old money. The ghost had recognized this while waiting that first night on the street. Josh had grown up in a Boston townhouse, had a nanny and godparents, never known even the hard labor of mowing a lawn. The ghost felt he deserved to be toughened up with a few scares. Raymond Hennegar had taken nothing for granted; he had had to earn every penny in his bank account through long days and bleeding hands, bad backs and weakened knees.

That first night, when the musician and the waiter had finally kissed and undressed and fell onto the bed, the ghost stood by the window rattling the blinds. The waiter was the aggressor, pushing and prodding and twisting the musician into one embrace and then another. The waiter was a descendant of Eastern European immigrants -- Hungarian grandparents and a Czechoslovakian mother. The ghost knew that was why the waiter was stocky and taut; he had been a bag boy and a janitor's assistant before taking orders and delivering meals to tables, and which was why he worked harder to be liked by a guy he found attractive. The two men fell asleep sticky and stained, first the waiter's arms around the musician, then later, the musician embracing Wade, as if reaching out for a stuffed animal to keep himself warmed from the night breeze. The ghost blew in between the cracks of their bodies, rustled their hair and dried their sweat. The next morning there was an awkwardness that Josh would not attempt to alleviate -- his upbringing kept him cold and contemptuous. There was no offer of breakfast or coffee or even a shower before leaving; Josh wanted the waiter gone and to be alone with his music. It was Wade who left his phone number and the desire to get together again, which is why the ghost decided to stay when the waiter left the apartment discouraged. Raymond Hennegar was angry and shattered a plate, thinking that the musician might have to be frightened into showing civility.

That was not what happened, however. The musician did not change and the waiter did not give up. Wade was back later in the day with flowers and a note that included the word love. The ghost now roared through the room with contempt and rustled through a pile of manuscripts on the piano, indignant to find the waiter groveling to be liked by a man who did not appreciate the easiness of life. The musician was alarmed and pissed by the note and the re-appearance of the waiter -- he sat Wade down near the window and said that nothing else would be possible between them -- Josh had a boyfriend back in Boston and he had no desire to make his life more complicated than it was.

Complicated? the ghost thought. What was so complicated about balancing a checkbook that was never without funds? The ghost sensed that the boyfriend was only a prop to use when he was needed. He stirred up a draft, sent a glass rolling off the table and smashing to the floor. The waiter cleaned it up, thinking it was his fault, and the musician let him believe he was the clumsier and foolish one. The ghost slammed the bedroom door and knocked over a bookcase. The waiter bent down to reshelve the books and when Josh reached to stop him, found himself without willpower. He kissed the back of Wade's neck, then moved around to his lips. They had sex again, this time on the floor. The musician pushed and groped and twisted Wade. That night, before the waiter left -- Josh had decided another evening sleeping together was an intimacy he could not afford -- Wade had suggested that they could be friends. They didn't live far from one another in Boston and Wade was only a waiter because it was his means of paying his way through college. And then the waiter confessed that he didn't know many gay men.

"I'm afraid I'm not a very good gay man, myself," Josh said; he was dismayed at being labeled in this particular way because he did not consider himself gay, other than from the desire of wanting to have sex with men. "You would find me boring. I don't go to clubs or bars and have never been to a bathhouse."

"So I won't hold that against you," Wade answered.

Josh was as uneasy with the idea of friendship as he was with intimacy. "I would probably be a lousy friend," Josh said. "I think too much of myself."

The ghost was surprised by this admission. And amused that Wade handled it with humor. "So it would give you something else to talk to your therapist about," Wade said. "Someone other than your mother and boyfriend."

"It's that clear?" Josh asked in his most patronizing tone.

"We're all fucked up in our own way," Wade said.

The ghost was shocked to find the waiter so full of insight, brighter and more ambitious than when he had been spotted on the street -- someone more than just a luggish hunk with an old man's face. When, at the end of the week, Wade returned to Boston, the ghost followed along with the waiter, tucking himself up in the pocket of a knapsack. Raymond Hennegar was tired of being a phantom, hoping, instead, he might become a guiding spirit.

* * *

Josh and Wade did not have sex with each other again for almost eight years; instead, they became best friends. They went to concerts and baseball games together, met for brunch on Sundays, helped one another pick out presents for family birthdays and holiday gatherings. Josh complained of his boyfriend's apathy and egotism. He felt no one took his compositions seriously and he didn't want to be a teacher the rest of his life. Wade talked about politics and economics and the injustices inherent in the American dream. He also told Josh of every trick he found and what had happened between the sheets (or in the steam room of his gym, if that were the case). The ghost settled into the pipes of Wade's apartment off-campus, scratching the metal risers like a rat when the weather was warm, banging and clanking the radiator with gusts of steam during the winter months. The ghost helped Wade select the proper utensils and equipment to use in the kitchen, helped him decide to give up the crates and futons and buy a grown-up couch and a decent bed. He helped Wade into a better haircut, helped him buy tailored, well-made clothes, made him realize he needed a dentist and to cap his chipped front teeth so it would soften his smile. The ghost thought Wade showed poor taste in his selection of men, however, or rather, perfect taste for finding a guy with a terrific body and a lousy attitude, and he felt Wade worked too hard in bed to please a guy who would not remember his name five seconds after reaching an orgasm. Raymond Hennegar knew that this sort of sex was too mechanical for Wade's passion, though he blithely tagged along as Wade experimented with bondage, dildos, and water sports, and hopelessly groped for Mr. Right in darkened backrooms and clubs.

Raymond Hennegar always liked it best when Josh reappeared in Wade's schedule. He knew they were destined for each other, could see that they were to become something more than just good friends, though he could not foresee the future for details, other than what should happen was not what usually occurred. The ghost liked to use this knowledge to heighten the sexual tension between the two men, however; he brightened the lights when Wade was still pumped and flushed from working out, tossed windmills of air through Josh's curly hair to make him look more accessible and boyish, flickered candles and ruffled shirts to make the atmosphere more romantic when the subject of lousy dates and bad boyfriends crept into the conversation. The ghost had a deeper dislike for Kent, Josh's boyfriend, than of any of Wade's tricks; Raymond Hennegar could see right through Kent's indifference toward Josh's rising co-dependency. The truth was that Josh was never sexually at ease with anyone, the boyfriend or otherwise. He was never sure if what he felt was pain or joy or even, what he should feel during sex. The ghost realized this confusion translated itself into the atonal mess at the keyboard. Wade was right when he told Josh he was too uptight to believe in a simple melodic line; no, that who Josh was was a frightened and repressed romantic who couldn't admit that what he really wanted to believe in more than anything else was the pure, unadulterated power of a simple, melodic line. The ghost laughed at this, though Josh did not appreciate the bluntness. "I know what I'm doing," Josh said. "Deconstruction is very hip right now."

"But it's boring," Wade said. "And it sounds awful."

Provoked, Josh composed a discordant string quartet that was technically brilliant and difficult to perform. Wade was more supportive when this work was panned by a reviewer in The Globe ; he tried to convince Josh to continue composing and suggested applying for a fellowship in New Mexico or Vermont. Instead, Josh joined the faculty of the conservatory where he had trained, using his misfortune to shape the technique of his students and hoping his own music would one day merit reassessment.

Josh used a tough approach on his friendship with Wade, too. Since graduating with a degree in history, Wade had bounced from one temp job to another. Josh told Wade that he had no ambition, no goals, no ideas other than the next bar he might try. Wade countered that it was Josh who was really purposeless -- he had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and could not even summon up a bad fragment anymore. The ghost swarmed up to the ceiling during this bitter exchange, writhing in the anger of the air; abandoned by his father, poverty was a tarnish that Raymond Hennegar had never polished away. These boys -- yes, boys -- knew nothing about the true horrors of struggling to find the next meal or a piece of clothing to make it through winter. He burned and seethed and decided to let them continue to torture one another. Instead, they did not see each other for a period of several months.

Josh tried to break it off with Kent, though Kent, every time he thought he was close to being dumped, played a little harder to keep stringing Josh along. Josh tried to see a few guys on the side, but found it more pleasurable to be anonymous at a bathhouse than out on a date and hoping to fuck, then gave up on the practice when first crabs, then amoebas left him sidelined and Kent protested enough was enough or else.

Wade took a job working in the library of an insurance firm, a thankless position that gave him benefits and paid vacations. The ghost followed Wade to a new apartment, a bit more upscale if certainly not deluxe, and took up residence in the back of a large closet which he could simply unhinge by slithering along the latch. Wade went through a string of men until one of them decided to stay. His name was Liam and he made Wade happy at first, then miserable a few days later. The ghost did not like this arrangement at all. Liam was sloppy (sloppier than Wade), left milk cartons on the counter and used Wade's clean underwear instead of washing his own. He never had a problem finding Wade's wallet, however, or asking Wade for money. This behavior horrified Raymond Hennegar and he no longer cared to be a guiding spirit and turned himself into a demon -- pictures fell from their hooks, books tumbled to the floor, favorite shorts and sweatshirts were ripped to shreds, all with the hope of driving Liam away. Wade began going out on his own and staying out late, which was why the ghost decided to tag along one evening. Raymond Hennegar thought he could guide Wade toward finding a better boyfriend.  

Was it fate or chance that took Wade to the same bar where Josh was drinking that night? Or, the ghost wondered, had it been planned all along? The two friends sat together in a darkened corner and apologized and caught up. The ghost stayed close between them, drawing their hushed voices together. Wade was not happy with the way things were going in his life but it was Josh who seemed more unfulfilled. The ghost listened to Josh's complaints of a lost commission and his diminishing desire to compose. "I don't know why I keep doing it," Josh said. "When nothing seems to work out."

Raymond Hennegar was horrified that the musician could so easily abandon his talent. The ghost knew it was time to leave Wade to let him work out the kinks in his own life; it was time for him to stay with Josh. The ghost would now become a muse.

* * *

And so began a period of romantic creativity for Josh. On their daily routes through the city, the ghost tinkled through balcony chimes, swayed through buckets of flowers, sprayed moist gusts of air up from the riverside, anything to catch Josh's ear and heighten his sensitivity. The ghost knocked books off of library shelves for Josh to find and hummed old melodies of his days at sea in his ear. Josh heard the notes, one by one in his mind, thought at first they were folk songs or children's tunes, mesmerized by their repetition, then discovered by research and reading that he was thinking of chanties and ballads, tunes sung by men working on ships. As a teacher his lessons began to soften as well; he taught his students that interpretation was as important as technique. Away from the classroom he broadened his repertoire, studying manuscripts by Schumann and Brahms and Chopin, listening to recordings in his office and cassettes while he walked through town. He grew sideburns and let his hair grow out long enough so that it covered his ears and tapped against the collar of his shirts, and he stopped wearing T-shirts and dark jeans, favoring instead loose-fitting clothing and pleated pants. Kent liked this quixotic transformation in Josh, but as Josh worked harder at his compositions his appetite waned; he grew thinner and soon there were small dark rings beneath his eyes from late nights hunched over pages of notes. Sex was still on his mind but it was now coupled with a yearning for fulfillment, something he understood he was not capable of finding with Kent. At first Josh sought partners in darkened pockets of parks and the campus grounds where he taught classes, believing the heightened sensations of being outside, at night, the chill and dampness of the air and the wet sensation of a mouth at his crotch was what he sought, but he soon realized he needed more intimacy, and he began to go to a neighborhood bar desiring a short conversation first, and hopefully followed by a longer, more arousing score.

Wade was alarmed by Josh's dramatic changes, not by the long hair and the vintage costumes, but by the continued restlessness and the persistent, feverish way Josh said he felt most of the time. Josh had developed a way of clearing his throat before he talked that had turned into a light cough that wouldn't go away.

"You should get that checked out," Wade said, after they had seen a movie together one night. Josh had coughed throughout the film.

"It's nothing," Josh answered. "It'll go away when it turns warm again."

Wade, of course, was worried about every ache and blemish he uncovered on his own body; young gay men everywhere were falling sick. Was a cold something more than a cold and a bout with diarrhea other than from re-heating old Chinese take-out? Wade started calling Josh every morning with a round-up of the news: Did you see the story on the front page about the blood bank? Did you read the obituary of the actor in New York? Do you know what they think is causing it now?

The ghost let out a tormented moan after every conversation Wade had with Josh, but the momentary distraction the ghost created -- a falling book or a creaking door -- was never enough to frighten the subject away. Wade's fear of death summoned up Raymond Hennegar's own dread, reminding him of the night the Peerless Troubadour sank and he clung to a wood plank for sixteen hours waiting to drown until he spotted the coast line. Martin Gillis was lost that evening, so was young Manuel Pavao, only nineteen years old. Raymond Hennegar had seen Luis "Zarco" Camara wash overboard when a great swell tipped the ship and he lost his grasp of the rigging. Carlos Benevides' body washed ashore two months later. Raymond Hennegar had avoided the horrors of the great wars after his death by shutting himself up in his own house and ignoring the news of other young men lost in battles and ships. Now, he wailed and whined as the current news became more grim: A virus in the blood? A growing epidemic? What the hell was going on in this world?

Wade's reaction was to look more seriously for a long-term commitment from a guy. (Liam had long ago moved out, dropping Wade for a man who was willing to shell out more money for his unpleasant company.) Wade continued to parade potential new boyfriends in front of Josh, calling him up the day after a dinner party or a concert with a bout of more questions: Do you think this one had a sense of humor? Do you think he was too self-absorbed? Do you think he's too tall? -- too short? -- too old? -- too boring?

Josh's response was to channel his anxiety into his work; Raymond Hennegar's hummings had finally paid off, inspiring Josh to write a song cycle for male chorus, adapted from chanteys and ballads of men working at sea. The ghost guided the musician's hand when he was in doubt, dried the ink on the staffs and clefs, floated up to the ceiling as Josh revised and rewrote at the piano. The ghost was unprepared for the grief the music unleashed in himself, however. Josh dedicated the work to the "lost boys" and used the first performance as a benefit for gay men with AIDS. The concert hall was packed for the debut and the ghost hovered near the vents where the sound was best. Raymond Hennegar enjoyed the chanteys, some sung in unison or a capella, others harmonized in four parts. But when a solo baritone began singing a slow, plaintive version of "All My Sailors" to the accompaniment of a harmonica, he was startled and overwhelmed, sending a gust of air down to the aisle that toppled the music stand and stopped the performance.

The performers recovered and started the song again and the ghost of Raymond Hennegar left the hall but did not stay out of earshot. Zarco Camara had sung "All My Sailors" aboard the Peerless Troubadour the night before the fatal storm. Zarco had a clear, deep voice but seldom sang, instead using his harmonica to keep the other men going. In the lobby of the concert hall the ghost rose into a funnel of anger and sent a wall sconce smashing to the floor. Zarco had been his mate, his best buddy, since the days when they were both boys working on the Blue Parrot . Zarco was the soul of the schooner -- part mediator, part nurse, part teacher -- he kept the crew in line and the captain enlightened.

After that, the ghost sulked and pouted inside Josh's armoire for days: How could the musician have known of his love for Zarco and the grief of the Peerless Troubadour ? He had only given the musician clues, not facts. He rattled through the old clothing, tossing shirts and jackets and coats off their hangers and onto the floor. Why was he so spooked? He was the one who was supposed to be haunting. Was this why he was confined to this unending limbo? Was he haunted because of grief or was grief the cause he was haunting others?

Zarco Camara had saved him from the crew of the Blue Parrot . Young boys were often abused by the older men while at sea, but Zarco, four years older than Raymond and taller than some of the crewmen, had kept the seamen away from the young cook by bunking together at night, claiming, in essence, the boy as his own. Raymond Hennegar had promised Zarco that one day he would repay the favor, and he did, over and over again, hiring him first for the crew of the Integrity and then, later, for the Peerless Troubadour . Raymond Hennegar had taken care of Zarco's widow and daughter after the gale had swept away five boats and fifty-seven men. But he had never loved anyone else in his life as much as he had loved Zarco. Not his own wife, not his five children, not his mother or his younger brother. Was this his curse? The reason for his wanderings? Was this God's retribution against him? Was this the sin he was re-paying? Was this why he was consigned to limbo, to haunt the living?

The ghost grew weaker and weaker; grief now disheartened and dissolved him. He could no longer rattle the hangers or dislodge the bottom drawers of the armoire. Only when Josh opened the doors and began packing did he find the strength and courage to move on, slipping inside a suitcase on a wisp of air to follow the musician to New Mexico. Josh had been awarded a two-month fellowship in Taos and the ghost thought the change in climate might do them both good.

* * *

The dry climate suited Josh. His two-month residency was on a small estate between the desert and the mountains. Josh had decided to use his knowledge of the sea chanteys as the basis for a larger work, a symphony with the working title of The Voyage . During the morning Josh worked on the manuscript at the desk in his small bungalow, then took a break for lunch and a short walk, then worked and napped in the afternoon. The ghost grew lazy in the bright sun, enjoyed the solitude of the artists' retreat, only moving from his spot in the folds of the curtain when Josh needed reminding of a melody or a specific note. During Josh's second week, a new turnover of fellows arrived -- there were fourteen artists in all at the colony, a mix of writers, painters, playwrights, and photographers who stayed for a varying length of terms -- and at the communal dinner that Josh went to every night he met a graphic artist named Simon who had arrived from San Francisco. Simon was tall and blond and as nonchalant about his talent as he was about his beauty, a welcome change to many of the other high-strung or high-karma fellows who thrashed out their neuroses or insights over their meals.

The ghost always joined Josh for these gatherings and was delighted to uncover the subtle ironies of the other residents -- the watercolorist who painted languid, hazy landscapes and yet worried about minute, germ- carrying insects, for instance, or the novelist who was hard at work on a memoir of her string of short, fleeting love affairs yet couldn't understand that she might have bored her lovers to tears. The ghost took an immediate liking to Simon, however. Simon produced poster-size prints of bold, simple images emblazoned by contradictory words or slogans, such as a coffee pot with the word "COLD" or a beach umbrella with the word "WARNING." He had earned two college degrees, one in art history and the other in psychology, and he could hold a conversation on any subject when he wanted to, and it was this asset, along with his boyish attractiveness, that made him an easy target for the companion-seeking fellows.

In his first few days at the estate, Simon moved through a flirtation with a screenwriter and a resounding rebuke of the female novelist, before settling into an ongoing friendship with Josh. Simon wasn't as disciplined toward work as Josh or the other fellows were, and he began showing up at Josh's bungalow in the afternoon and talking about a recent book or article he had read. Josh had not broken the habit of his afternoon naps, but he would chat with Simon for a while and then excuse himself and lay down to sleep. The first few days Simon would read while Josh slept, but the ghost found this behavior too discouraging and frustrating; he liked listening to Simon talk and enjoyed heightening the sexual tension between the two men, and so by the end of the week Josh and Simon were sharing the bed together and Josh's afternoon naps were replaced by other activities.

Josh had never allowed himself a lover as willing a student as he was a teacher as was Simon. Simon admitted he had a low threshold for boredom (an attribute, he explained, because he was a Gemini). Simon loved to talk during sex, not the "Uuhs," "Oohs" or "Aarghs" of porno films, but by revealing details of his prior sexual partners (tattoos, piercings, favorite body parts, and what they could do best with the equipment God had provided them). Simon liked to flatter Josh on his own attributes as they kissed, and Simon's willingness to be spontaneous and rough kept Josh from being sentimental about the affair, though it did not keep him from silently fantasizing about something more long-lasting with the artist. Josh always hesitated about revealing this desire when he was with Simon, worried, instead, it would reveal his vulnerability. Josh must not have hid this yearning too well, however; one afternoon, during Josh's final week at the retreat, Simon said while they were in bed, "You're definitely a water sign. I'm going to miss that."

Instead of hinting that it did not have to be the end of things, Josh, instead, said he was not a water sign.

"No?" Simon asked. "But there are waves all around you. There's definitely water nearby."

Josh explained that perhaps it had to do with his music -- the sea chanteys, the ballads and song cycles, the new symphony he was writing -- he tried to use the fluidity of water in all of his compositions. The ghost, who had been watching them have sex from a chair in the room, blew himself into the folds of the curtains and onto the bed beside Josh, prompting the musician to continue. Josh, then, admitted that he was a Libra, hoping it would somehow reveal his wish for long-term compatibility, particularly to Simon.

"Ah yes, the closeted romantic," Simon responded a bit too critically.

Josh realized that he took offense at the comment and said, rather coldly, "You don't believe all that stuff, do you?"

"I don't disbelieve it," Simon answered. "I keep an open mind about everything -- tarot cards, tea leaves, psychics, ghosts."

"Ghosts?" Josh asked.

Raymond Hennegar, shocked and worried that he was at last about to be revealed and exorcised, rose to the ceiling to remain elusive within the white stucco of the room.

"Sure," Simon answered. "Ghosts, daemons, guiding spirits. You've had one with you this whole time."

The ghost began to circle the room, still hovering near the ceiling, concerned, now, that Josh was disappointed and distressed.

"What are you talking about?" Josh asked.

"A guiding spirit," he answered. "Something moves you that doesn't move everyone. A gift. A talent. A muse. Call it what you want. But it's with you."

This was not the direction Josh had hoped the conversation would take. He wanted to talk about the two of them, as an ongoing and continuing couple, not about himself and his talent. "And you?" Josh asked, still a bit icy, aware he was inching himself further and further away from Simon out of a habit of self-preservation. "Do you have a muse?" When he asked this, he realized -- perhaps for the first time in his life -- that he was more in love with someone than that someone was with him, and he was frightened about going any further -- or asking for anything else from Simon. The ghost realized this too, felt, for the first time himself, that he was holding Josh back -- holding him from falling deeply, intensely, and intimately in love with someone -- something that had never happened in all his time with the musician. And Raymond Hennegar understood that he had reached another crossroad, too -- that if he stayed with Josh he would continue to hamper the musician's emotional growth even at the expense of brightening his talent. Someone like Simon could also use a muse -- someone whose artistic spirit needed both inspiration and discipline. It was not an easy choice for him to make -- he'd grown to love Josh like a lover himself. But three days later when Josh's residency was over, Raymond Hennegar stayed behind in New Mexico. And then he followed Simon to San Francisco.

* * *

Josh knew when he arrived back in Boston that something in him was lost, or had disappeared, or that he had changed in way he could not quite name. At first, he felt it was from leaving Simon behind, that something had not been resolved between the two of them, and then, he thought it was because he had reached a crisis point in the writing of The Voyage -- the climax where the churning, rhythmic pattern of waves overwhelms the melodic line of the ballads, meant to symbolize the wreck of the vessel from an unexpected storm. Josh stayed away from the manuscript for days because he did not want to end it, fell into a moody depression, then noticed his cough had become worse, deeper, perhaps, because the weather was more burdensome in Boston than New Mexico, and he became sick with a feverish cold that did not go away.

It was Wade who suggested the blood test. He was glad that Josh was back in Boston, but worried by his own health concerns -- he had detected a sore on his ankle that did not seem to go away, and Wade, unable to face the possibility of finding out a HIV-positive status on his own, took Josh along with him to the clinic. Wade tested negative, but Josh tested positive. The news brought Wade more resolutely into Josh's life. Kent dumped Josh, broke off their nine-year relationship without even a consolation or benediction, and Wade's daily calls turned into a necessity, at least a necessity for himself, if not for Josh. Wade found a support group for Josh to attend, but Josh balked about moaning and groaning in public with a group of gay men. Instead, Josh found a new doctor through his academic network, enrolled in a protocol study and began volunteering on a hospital ward -- delivering books and magazines twice a week to patients in a cancer ward.

Josh's new doctor treated the persistent cough and it seemed to go away, or at least seemed subdued, and Josh, not about to be weighed down because of a virus in his blood which could or could not be the cause of AIDS, went back to work on finishing The Voyage and threw himself into the dating pool. Wade was surprised by the ease with which Josh now moved from one guy to the next; Wade complained voraciously about his own dates -- the guy who paid for his meal in quarters, the guy who fell asleep during a blow job, the guy whose vocabulary consisted of three syllables -- "Oh," "Yeah," and "Uh." Once, at a reception for one of Josh's students, Wade stood beside Josh and some of his music colleagues and entertained the group with a list of the lousy dates he had the week before. A professor, a thin, short-haired woman who worked in the office besides Josh's own, simply responded to Wade's litany with a question that seemed to be on everyone's mind, including Wade's own. "So when are you two going to get together?"

Josh clenched his jaw and blood rushed to Wade's face. "Why mess up something that works fine the way it is?" Wade answered, finally, after a space of what seemed to be like hours to him.

The unfortunate thing was, things were still changing. In another week, Wade went to three memorial services -- one for a guy who had been one of Josh's students. After the service, the two friends walked to a bar and sat and had drinks. Wade was light-headed after his first few sips of beer and this made him bold enough to ask Josh, "Well, what do you think? Should we give it a try?"

Josh pretended not to understand what Wade was suggesting, then, after Wade had repeated himself, answered. "I don't want you taking care of me."

"Why not?" Wade asked. "And what makes you think you're going first?"

"I don't want to talk about this," Josh said, stood up and left Wade in the bar alone.

A few days later, over brunch in a Back Bay restaurant, Josh broke down, cried, and confessed his love for Wade. Wade held himself together, did not reach for a drink to celebrate, but questioned Josh if he was certain about taking steps to redefine their relationship. Josh outlined his weaknesses (all of which Wade knew) and Wade confessed his own (some of which surprised Josh, though they did not make him change his mind). Then, they made plans to get together the next day to see a movie in Cambridge and spend the night at Wade's apartment. Two months later they moved into an apartment together in Beacon Hill, a bit too expensive for Wade's liking, but large enough for Josh to assert some independence.

* * *

The ghost of Raymond Hennegar had just found a comfortable niche in the damp spot of Simon's bathroom when death sent him weeping through the corridors of the building. He cried through the water pipes, short-circuited fuse boxes, and sent garbage tumbling down the stairwells. Simon went swiftly, drowning overnight in fluids which had collected in his lungs from an infection. Once again, grief caught Raymond Hennegar unaware. Why was this happening? These young men did not deserve this kind of treatment. Nothing in their lives -- no one, from the most sexual or the most purposely cautious of gay men -- warranted these random killings. Yes, killings. This was murder . The ghost refused to attach himself to only one man now, not after the loss of Simon and his memory of losing Zarco. Raymond Hennegar howled at the unfairness of it all and his lack of good fortune, riding on the back of one guy to the next, from one bar to a support group to a single bed in a hospice to a four-poster canopy in a townhouse near the wharf. It took weeks before he could decide how to work through this kind of depression. He felt best at community vigils and demonstrations, raucous gatherings protesting rising costs of medications and ill-treatment of patients where angry, AIDS-impacted men swore and chanted and marched and yelled. Once he rode on the back of an activist into a city councilman's office; another time he flickered candle flames at a benefit concert. One morning he would wake and feel fine until more news -- more obits and more wakes and more memorials -- sent him out sobbing and shrieking through the streets of San Francisco. Some nights he would wail like a banshee because of his unhappiness; he once shared a hospital room with just such a revenant -- a pale Irish woman with long blond hair and a hooked nose who viciously wept as her family's heritage came to end with the death of its final son -- a young gay man tied to IV tubes and a respirator machine and with a living will which instructed his best friend not to make any attempt to revive him. Raymond Hennegar's contact with the rest of the spirit world was only what fate allowed, and there were nights when he floated along the rising mists of the bay watching parting souls on their way to Heaven.

This was an idyllic time, though, for Wade and Josh. Wade got a new job and then a promotion; Josh remained healthy and his T-cell count stable and he was able to finish The Voyage and the work premiered in Houston. The two of them took trips together to Ireland and Spain and spent Thanksgiving with Wade's family in Connecticut and Christmas with Josh's sister in Maine. The next summer they rented an apartment in Provincetown, not far from the spot where they had met more than a decade before. Wade talked about investing in real estate, buying a summer place on the Cape -- he'd been promoted once again and was now part of the senior management team of his firm. "Do you want something close to here?" he asked Josh. "Or out of the way?"

"You should decide," Josh said. "Since you'll be the one using it the most."

"What do you mean?" Wade asked. "I don't want to come here without you."

"I won't always be around," Josh said. "Don't do anything because of me."

"I'm not going anywhere without you," Wade answered and dropped the idea.

Wade always looked back to that summer as the beginning of the end, aware that Josh's cough had returned and was changing for the worse, and that the night sweats and the loss of weight could be explained because of Josh's declining immune system. Josh moved through a slow and painful descent, and when neuropathy crippled his legs, he refused to use a wheelchair, relying instead on a cane and Wade's shoulder. His sunken brown eyes still had a warm, sexiness to them, even as he became weaker and weaker; Wade, however, was the one who began showing his age, his hair graying and his brow furrowed with worry.

And then there came a time when Raymond Hennegar knew it was time to leave San Francisco; his heart could bear no more grief. He followed a man to Sacramento and from there hitched a ride to Tahoe. He was fascinated by the casinos, the loud sounding clink-clink-clinks as he moved from slot machines to the blackjack tables to the more exclusive back rooms where the stakes were higher. He was somewhat in awe of the gamblers, people risking their life savings and hard-earned wages for the dim hope of winning more. For days he intervened against fate, sending tumblers and chips and cards in directions that could not have been predicted -- he helped one woman -- a diabetic on insulin -- win big time at the slots and forced a businessman to cash in more than he had planned with a losing hand of cards. He loved watching the anxiety of losers hoping to turn around their luck, loved the exhilaration of winners ready to celebrate, for in these feelings of happiness, excitement, and defeat he found reminders of what it was like to feel alive. After every great loss he wanted to walk away, but he returned to play again, aware, however, that when each new game began he grew harder, colder, less willing to give gifts or help to the gamblers, because he wanted to watch the agony of their failure and feel the joy in their defeat. He soon wore himself out on this vicious cycle because he knew at the core of himself he was not a malicious man, and overwhelmed by shame and nausea, he knew it was time to move on again.

He followed a woman from the casino to the airport where she caught a flight to Oklahoma City. He rode with her back to her house in the suburbs and stayed there longer than he had anticipated, moving from the woman's house and in with her sister Maggie, a much prettier and younger and practical version of the gambler. Maggie reminded Raymond Hennegar of Elizabeth Sharper, the woman he had married a few years after the sinking of the Peerless Troubadour . Maggie's family provided him the distraction he needed -- three kids, two dogs, a cat, and an aquarium full of guppies. They drove around town in a mini-van, ate raucous meals together, tumbled out into the yard onto swing sets and into vegetable gardens. Raymond Hennegar became happily mischievous again, puffing up the cat's fur and watching the dog howl with fear; he loved spooking the youngest child, Sarah, because she reminded him of his own daughter, Tessie, when she was five years-old.

Wade had one single goal during these months -- to keep Josh alive; for himself, he found ways of "getting on" and "getting by," ways of avoiding the drama and hysterics that welled up inside himself. He learned to sit quietly, to save his breath, and to manage with little breathing. He learned, while slowly breathing in, to quiet his heartbeat, to lessen his heartbeats until he found an inner calm. Josh resented the decline of his looks; some mornings he begged Wade to help him end things. Wade ignored the requests, or at least tried to find a reason for Josh to want to continue to live -- reminding him of a concert they were going to or a film he wanted to see or a friend's birthday he should not miss.

"It doesn't mean anything," Josh would say, disheartened.

"It means something to me," Wade would answer. "So don't dismiss it so easily."

Soon, Josh was so sick and thin his pants would fall off of him. He went in and out of dementia and Wade breathed slowly in and out to keep himself from going mad. In his final weeks, Wade helped Josh write as much music as he could, inking in the notes and rhythms where Josh had pointed to on the page. Even on his death bed, Josh was humming the songs of the sea, the melodies Raymond Hennegar had implanted in his sub-consciousness.

And Raymond Hennegar knew when Josh died. One morning, an icy chill stole over him and he realized something profound -- not how out of place and isolated he had made himself in Oklahoma City -- but how lonely Wade was now feeling, hundreds of miles away. Wade, Wade, Wade : Why was he feeling this and about this particular man? He shivered and followed Maggie into the mini-van and then waited in the parking lot of the grocery store for another ride. He made it to the interstate and another town six miles away and then had to wait in another parking lot for another ride for another short trip in the wrong direction. Finally, he reached a diner where he waited for a trucker who was heading northeast. He slept through the ride, waking up near Providence to send a shriek through the brake pads so the trucker would pull off the highway. At a rest stop, the ghost waited for another ride, sensing the deepening humidity of the air, the closeness of the sea. He thought again about Zarco and the nights they spent together in their small berth of the Blue Parrot . And then the years afterward consumed him -- the death of his wife, the loss of his daughter from diphtheria, his middle son's wedding on the wharf, holding his first grandchild in his arms. He tried to understand the right and wrong choices of his life but could not distinguish between the two. He was thankful and grateful that he had had the love of a wife and a family, but he also wished he had never lost Zarco.

Since then he had felt an emptiness of his soul that never felt complete again; loneliness had settled into his own heart, haunting him both day and night.

* * *

It was late when the bus pulled into Provincetown. The ghost followed a man off the bus and into the station and then out onto the street. He found his way easily to Commercial Street and stood outside the house where he had once lived for forty-one years. It was still an inn, the sign outside read "No Vacancy," which Raymond Hennegar thought meant his devilish reputation had finally waned. He could not enter the house unless on the shoulders of a visitor or resident -- such was the ways of being a ghost -- and so he waited on the corner, in the dark of the alley where he had stood years before, where he had once waited to embark on a new journey.

It was late, after midnight, and the street was crowded in front of the pizza shop next door. Young men were still lingering to connect with other young men. A light mist filled the air as if it were weeping. The ghost wanted to warn the men of the potential sorrows and misfortunes ahead, when he realized that it was not sorrow or misfortune that had governed and guided his time as a spirit, but adventure and the quest for companionship, just as it had when he was alive.

In the dark of the doorway where he waited, he watched a remarkably handsome man approach. He had a lopey gait, a long, thin torso, and curly black hair, just like Josh had had fourteen years before. He watched the man catch glances until he passed by another man, shorter, darker-haired and stocky. It took him a few minutes to realize that this was Wade, waiting in front of the pizza place, a bit dazed and confused to find himself here again. Raymond Hennegar knew at once why Wade was alone and back in Provincetown; he had come to scatter Josh's ashes, as Josh had wanted it, along Herring Cove beach.

Wade stood staring at the printed menu which hung over the counter of the pizza shop. He was aware of only one thing -- that he could not go back to the way things were. His dream was finished. The music was gone. Over. He was full of misery and sorrow and guilty for surviving when so many other men had perished. He deeply missed Josh. He felt there was nothing else in the world that could give him pleasure or solace, so he thought, then, about his own death. To be at rest. Outside the store, he looked skyward, at the dark starry night above him. A widow's walk caught his attention and he wondered if he were to climb up to the wooden terrace and then leap toward the ground below it if things would finally be over for him, if the impact would be strong enough to kill him. Or if he could only take some kind of poison, fall asleep and never wake again. He felt his life was full of mistakes and filth and despair and wrong choices. He wondered if it was ever possible to feel human again -- to eat, sleep, cradle a man in his arms.

He had no reason to go any further. For what purpose? There was nothing but a deep, painful longing to shake off this whole confused time of watching Josh die. Yes, he was at the end. He looked down at his feet, ready to climb and leap and die. Then, from a remote part of his soul, from the some place in his past, he heard a sound. It was a fragment of a melody -- an atonal, discordant tune, as if someone was sucking air through a pipe.

As he looked up he felt the sound change, brighten, harmonize. It became a line of "All My Sailors," a melody Josh had used years ago in a concert.

Wade was horrified with himself -- so this was what it felt to be so lost, so confused, so devoid of reason that all he wanted to do was to die. The music blew through the street now -- someone, somewhere in a room, was playing a harmonica. Wade felt the music overcome him and he smiled. Raymond Hennegar heard the song, too. He rose up in the air, determined to find the source of the song, then waited, not wanting to spoil the moment, not wanting the music to end. He knew, then, why he had returned to Provincetown. It was Wade who would bring back the soul of Zarco Camara for him. Why had he not detected this so many years ago? Why hadn't he realized that this was his fate? Not to haunt himself because of his own unbearable grief but to absolve Zarco's soul over his own sorrows at abandoning Raymond Hennegar without warning.

Out of the darkness another man approached the pizza shop. He was older, tougher-looking, as if he had been weathered at sea. To Raymond Hennegar, he looked exactly as he remembered Zarco the night before he was lost. The man carried a harmonica in his hand, which he slipped into the front pocket of his jeans when he studied the menu over the counter. He turned and asked Wade if he wanted a slice. Wade shook his head no. The man did not let this deter him. "Then come sit with me while I eat mine."

They sat on the steps of a house while the man ate his slice and asked Wade questions. Wade's answers were perfunctory at first. "Boston." "Thirty-seven." "Getting over a bad time." But he gradually began to talk more, his sentences and thoughts longer and warmer.

Raymond Hennegar was lost in his own disbelief, even when the man introduced himself as "Bobby Dublin" and "forty something from Baltimore" and pointed to the house where the ghost had once lived and haunted and said it was where he was staying for the weekend. The ghost flickered the outside lights of a storefront and blew a thick mist around the two men. Raymond Hennegar was no longer homeless or lonely; he climbed on Bobby Dublin's shoulders and curled himself around his neck and chest like a warm scarf. Wade followed the older man up the stairs and through the front door of the house, surprised to find his grief replaced by a mixture of happiness and relief. He felt as if something was starting over again. He felt he had been saved, as if a guardian angel had been watching over him. He felt lucky and blessed. This was 1993 and he was alive, his heart haunted and full of music.