The Prettiest Star

by Carter Sickels

The body remembers more than the heart.

AIDS is a story of America, he said. It’s a story that must be told.

Sometimes, during the thick, oppressive New York summers, my body would crave the sound of crickets, the smell of honeysuckle, the green hills. Homesickness for the place I thought I’d never see again. I’d stand at a window looking out at a city that was never dark, and then a man, Shawn, or a stranger, or a lover, would call me back to bed, and I could find home there: an earlobe, a crease in the stomach, a shiver of breath. It feels like a dream, sometimes, the men I loved, and who loved me too.

The truth is, it isn’t just that I couldn’t look at him. I hated how the doctors and nurses looked at me. I was ashamed—ashamed to be gay. I betrayed him, like Judas, but without a kiss, even. I didn’t put my arms around him and tell him everything would be okay.

Once you get sick, it’s impossible to remember what it felt like in the Before. My body only knows what it feels now.

We live our lives not realizing which moments are special or which are ordinary—what will we remember, what memories will we try to grab onto, to hold close? All of these moments that make up a life.

I could have swam to the bottom. Could have drowned in the Hudson. But I came back here. Why? Why does anyone go home? You come back to be seen, to be accepted, and to be loved.

Travis wants things to go back to the way they never were.

Brian told me he doesn’t want to see family anymore anyway. “Why not?” I asked, and he shot me a look. “I’m not a side show,” he said. I don’t press him. I can’t forget these last few months either, all the times they didn’t come over to the house or avoided us in public. I’m furious at all of them. It’s not like when my mother was sick, when women from the church came every day. Nobody was scared of catching it. Nobody blamed her.

He makes Brian laugh, and I wish I could too. But I feel like I’m alone in a snow drift, clawing at the sides that keep collapsing in on me, trying to find my way out. It’s so cold and white and empty.

“I don’t want to put you out. You don’t have to do this.” Andrew neatly folds the towel and drapes it over the counter. “Yes, I do. I have to, and so do you. It’s the only option.” He looks at me, serious and clear-eyed. “This is the only thing we have to do. Take care of him.”

My husband is not a bad man, but he is terrified of letting go of this mask of normalcy—because then what will he be left with, what will he have to look at?

In our grief, our love has turned in on itself, eating itself alive.

Grownups either ignore me or they act extra nice because they feel sorry for me. When I’m running, I’m so far inside my body, nobody else can see me. It’s different at school—no matter how hard I try, I can’t hide from the stares.

I feel invincible, not invisible. I walk past the long line of lockers. The bell clangs and everyone spills out into the hall. I hold my head up. Nobody yells anything, nobody says a word. But they all see me. I’m the killer whale gliding through the halls.

The one of him and Shawn at the beach, arms around each other—best of friends, but more than that. What was it like to lose him, when they were both so young? Brian sometimes stares at the picture, says Shawn’s name, a prayer.

I look awful. My hair hangs dismally around my face. Puffy eyes. Lines around my mouth. I haven’t worn makeup in weeks. I’m ugly but it’s okay—I want to look ugly. I want people to look at me and feel guilty about how they treated my son. I want them to see how I wear my own guilt.

“Lettie, is he right with the Lord?” he asked urgently. Lettie said she wanted to spit in his face. Furious, she told him her grandson was more right with God than most people in Chester, including him and his son. I don’t ask God to forgive Brian anymore. I ask him to forgive me, to forgive his father.

He couldn’t look at Brian before because of his earring, but now he can’t look at him because there is no more pretending. He is a creature with only the slightest resemblance to our son.

I move the needle to the “The Prettiest Star.” Brian used to play this song for me when I couldn’t sleep. It’s different from the rest of the tracks—jaunty, upbeat, sweet, almost like a jazzy show tune.

Others believed killer whales are the souls of humans. They believed killer whales live in a parallel world—as people, deep under the ocean. And when we die, we return to our true selves: we return to the sea. This makes more sense than a heaven in the sky. There is life in the ocean. It’s where we originated, so maybe that’s where we return. Nothing transforms, there is no magic. Or, does everything transform? I hesitate, and then reach up and touch my brother’s face. His skin is warm. I don’t pray anymore, but sometimes I dream. Giant, enormous, beautiful bodies. All of us together in the ocean. We die and we swim. I hold my palm to my brother’s cheek, and he looks quietly at something I cannot see.

New York, the city of dreams. Most of the night is a blur. What I remember: everything is loud and fast and thrilling. What I remember: the three of us dancing, jumping around and twisting our bodies with abandon. The reflections of the disco ball like a million pieces of colored glass. What I remember: Shawn coming up behind me, his sweaty skin sliding against mine, his voice low in my ear, Baby. What I remember: Annie, laughing, pulling me onto the dance floor and spinning me around like I was the girl. What I remember: feeling breathless and joyous and invincible. We loved the city, we loved each other. By the time we leave, the sun is up, it’s Sunday morning and people are going to church, and we’re leaving ours.

This night, we thought then, was just one of many. This is what life was, and this is what our lives were supposed to be. I didn’t do anything to cause this—none of us did. We were just living. We were young and happy and alive, and nothing could stop us.

We’re waiting. We don’t want the moment to come, we do.

I want to believe there is a God and heaven and continual life. But all I see right now is the pain of the body.

Millions will die of the disease all across the world if they don’t do something to stop it. Some deaths don’t matter, that’s what people think. There are people who are glad his son, and his kind, are dead. AIDS. Say the word. AIDS. They used to play catch in the backyard, and they watched TV, side-by-side, his son snuggled up next to him on the sofa. His son, who moved to New York City, who was not afraid. His son, who saw what he couldn’t. Who recorded memories. Who made things.

It wasn’t just that he was embarrassed—there was that, but it was more. He was scared. He didn’t know how to protect his son, how to save him. That’s what went wrong: he let him down. The things people said, the way they acted. They helped kill his son. His silence. He helped kill his son.