Dear Justin

It didn't occur to me as significant at the time, but in the very first email Justin ever sent me, he mentioned his hand.

July 9th, 2003

Hey Ben,

I just got this month's PIFA newsletter and they're having a show I thought you might be interested in. It's a study on queer artists from the 18th and 19th centuries, some paintings, a lot of sculpture. I'd absolutely go if I were in town, but unfortunately I think I'll be eighty before they even give me a night off, let alone a weekend.

Hope everything's going well there. I miss all of you. LA's gorgeous but stressful, though thankfully no one's trying to make Rage straight yet. All I do is draw all day, which is a nice change from slinging plates at the diner, but it's rough on my hand, and then the nights spent sucking up to studio execs and trying to remember everyone's name and the name of their agent and last project and wife and mistress are rough on my soul.

Take care, and try to get a decent meal into Brian if you can,

Justin

Looking back on it, I wonder: did he want me to ask? Was he already reaching out about it, even back then?

I'd heard him use the word disabled for himself before then, and I remember being somewhat startled by it. We were at Babylon, not long after Brian and Justin got back together, and they were taking a break to drink and look out over the crowd. I pried myself away from Michael and Emmett and got a drink and got close enough to hear their conversation.

“The idea behind intersectionality is that people with multiple marginalizations aren't ever just one of them,” Justin was saying. “One thing is always informed by the other. And that's something people who are only marginalized in one way sometimes feel threatened by, because it's like saying that their one experience isn't enough because it's on its own.”

I think until that minute I'd assumed Brian and Justin didn't talk about anything more sophisticated than what position they were going to try that night.

Brian said, “But what they fuck do you care what those people think?”

“I don't know. I guess it's weird for me because the worst instances of discrimination I've dealt with weren't intersectional at all. The shit at PIFA, that had nothing to do with being gay. Everything at St. James, I wasn't even disabled then.”

You don't hear a lot of people casually refer to themselves as disabled, especially not back in in the early 2000s. So I was surprised just by that, but also by the fact that he said it to Brian. And also by the way Brian didn't flinch.

“But you can't really be sure of that, right?” Brian said. “I mean, the high school stuff, sure, but there's no proof that the dean wasn't thinking about the fact that you're gay. Maybe that's what it is. That you can never be sure.”

“Maybe. I don't know. Every day I sit in that class I feel like I need to face some sort of specially tailored gay, disabled experience in order to fit the mold of what they're trying to teach me.”

“Give it time. Everything bad possible happens to you eventually.”

“That's true,” Justin said, even though they had no idea what they were in for, at that point.

I remember asking Michael about it later. “Did you know Justin considers himself disabled?”

Michael spit out toothpaste. “Huh?”

“It makes sense,” I said. “I just didn't know he used the word for himself.”

“What, because of his hand?”

“Because of all the effects from the bashing, I imagine. Physical and psychological.”

Michael shook his head, laughing a little. “I'd hate to see Brian's face if he heard Justin talk about himself that way.”

I'm not sure why, but I didn't correct him. But I didn't forget that, that Justin was using the word disabled for himself long before he lost his hearing.

And that Brian, tacitly, was too.

April 12th, 2004

Hey-o,

I know Brian's dragging Michael to Suds and Studs tonight. Are you going, or do you want to grab dinner?

Ben

April 13th, 2004

Hey Ben,

Sorry for the late answer. As I'm sure you've now heard from Michael, I rained all over the Studs and Suds plan (accidentally! I actually was planning to go). I don't know what Brian told Michael by way of details, but basically I've been on an anticonvulsant since the bashing and we tried lowering it for the first time last week and everything was going fine until it...wasn't, and that was last night. I'm fine now, just tired. I spent the day sleeping in Brian's office. Want to do lunch tomorrow instead?

Justin

I didn't ask him any details about what happened that night, either in my follow-up email or at lunch the next day. I felt like if he wanted to tell me, he would have, which was pretty stupid, in retrospect.

Something they don't tell you about what it's like to have a chronic illness, at least in my experience, is how much time you will spend fielding questions from people who you don't want to talk to about it, strangers and Facebook friends and distant relatives, and, conversely, how much time you will spend waiting for questions that never come from people you love.

They don't want to pry, but you don't want to feel like you're boring them, or burdening them, so you just sit around waiting for the other one to talk. I suppose even though I knew about Justin's hand, even though I'd heard him use the word disabled, I didn't think of him as chronically ill at that point. The seizures weren't nearly as debilitating as they'd become a few years later after his disease changed his brain chemistry again, and he did a very, very good job hiding them from us. Still does, for the most part. I recognized them as seizures the first time I saw Justin's hand spasm—I have a cousin with epilepsy, and his presents a lot like Justin's—but when I mentioned it to Michael he was confused. “What? His hand just gets tired.”

So I assumed that's what Justin wanted everyone to think, and I assumed that that everyone included me.

Which, like I said, was stupid. Across history, across culture, one thing remains constant: we're all always looking for community,

January 8th, 2005

Hey Ben,

Thanks for dinner last night. That chicken was amazing, and the new paint color in the bathroom really does look good. I told you it would work out once you saw it on the wall! Brian says let us know if you two end up taking that trip to Mexico, because apparently he fucked some travel agent who mentioned a good resort, but he can't remember the name of it so he needs to track him back down. First person Brian will talk to post-coital since me, probably.

I gave some thought to your offer about auditing your class and I really, really appreciate it, but I don't think it's right for me right now. It's amazing what a relief it's been to be out of college; I don't think I realized how much it was weighing on me until I stopped. My short-term memory isn't great, so keeping track of assignments can be hard, and I can get pretty anxious in crowd situations, so large lecture halls are pretty miserable. When I do go back—if I go back—I want to be working towards something, so auditing probably doesn't make much sense anyway. And please, save me the “education for education's sake” lecture. I promise I read plenty of books.

Thanks again,

Justin

It's not that every email Justin sent me mentioned something about his health—after all, there were a lot of emails, as the years went on. It's just that a lot of them did.

November 19th, 2005

Hey you,

I remember when I was in the hospital after the bashing and earlier this year with the whole appendix fiasco that I was just drowning in downtime, so I thought I'd give you something to read. Nothing's going on with me, so it's going to be boring as hell, but I would have happily read about paint drying when I was laid up, so here's hoping you're just as desperate. Or maybe Michael brought you adequate entertainment, in which case you can just delete this. Brian's the worst at that. When I'm sick and I tell him I'm bored, he just says, “Go to sleep.” In Brian-land, if you're sick enough not to go to work, you're too sick to be conscious. Sometimes I wonder how I didn't just kill him myself when he had cancer.

They still won't let us visit you, which is pretty annoying. Michael said maybe tomorrow?

Let's see, let's see, what's going on out here...Emmett and Drew are looking for an apartment, and I'm like, didn't you two just get back together two and a half minutes ago? Debbie put up all the Christmas decorations and is already all maudlin that Brian and I are going to be in Spain. I'm trying to act like I'm sorry, for her sake, but I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. Last time we were in Europe it was just for his work, so we didn't have a ton of downtime, so this time we're doing a ton of art stuff, like the Picasso museum in Barcelona and plenty of cathedrals, even though Brian says they give him the willies.

What else, what else...they finally tore down that decrepit apartment building on the west side of Liberty Avenue. Ted said it's going to be a coffee shop, so they might take business away from the diner, but I guess I'm not supposed to worry about stuff like that. Plus the diner's a fixture, so it's not like people will stop going, right? Melanie won that escalator case she was doing. No one would tell me any details about what it was about, which I'm assuming meant it was the kind of gruesome shit that would give me nightmares. I know it should probably bother me that they coddle me like that, but...I don't know. It doesn't, most of the time. Sometimes I need some kind of reassurance that everyone hasn't just forgotten what happened to me, since no one really talks about it. I'll take what I can get.

We went to see my sister last week in her school musical. Brian got really bitchy about how Molly was clearly better than everyone, so anytime someone who had a bigger part started singing he'd get all fucking offended that Molly didn't have their part. It was cute. Molly is a really excellent singer, but she can't dance worth shit, so she's never going to get the big parts. Brian doesn't get that, but then again, neither does Molly.

Let's see...oh, Gus had a basketball game on Saturday. They lost, but he scored eight points, so that was cool. But then afterwards, we were standing around with Mel and Lindz waiting to talk to him, and Gus came out of the locker room with some friend and then he was like, “Hold on, those are my parents,” before he came over to talk to us.

And I mean, it's possibly he meant just Melanie and Lindsay, and Brian and I were just some guys hanging around, or maybe he meant Brian and Mel and Lindsay and I was the only guy hanging around, but...I don't know, there was something about the way he gestured at all of us. I can't explain it. And I don't think it's just because that's what I wanted him to mean, because I was totally freaked out by it! Mostly because I was ready for Brian to completely lose it. I mean, we're great now, me and Brian, we've been together without any real hiccups for almost three years now, I've lived in the loft for two, but still...you know Brian. You've got to be careful with him. I still think he's going to wake up next to me some day and suddenly realize he's not single and go, like, start a sex club in Cancun.

So all night after that I was totally on edge waiting for Brian to freak out. We went out afterwards with Melanie and Lindz and Gus and got dinner and the whole time I'm like watching Brian, analyzing every single thing he says, and he's acting completely normal, being all weirdly sweet and sarcastic with Gus, hitting on the waiter, baiting Mel, slipping his foot up my leg under the table, and I have it in my head that it's like...like he's being manipulatively normal, you know? Like trying to trick me. But then we got home and the normalness continued, and now it's been four days so either this is the slowest burn in history, Brian didn't hear Gus say it, or he...legitimately doesn't care.

Maybe Brian's not the crazy one anymore. Maybe it's me!

So, anyway, that's the very uneventful world outside the hospital. But here's hoping it was at least sort of entertaining to read about. And here's also hoping I can come see you tomorrow.

Feel better. We all miss you.

Justin

August 15th, 2006

Hey,

Sorry about rushing out of your place last night. I realized after I didn't even hear how the Rage meeting went. Brian filled me on everything. Thanks for going; I'm sure Michael really appreciated it.

Anyway, I just wanted to apologize for not hearing the baby monitor. I hope J.R. wasn't too upset. I guess I was just distracted or something.

See you soon,

Justin

We found out what was going on three and a half months later.

Michael cried the night after we got home from Debbie's house, where Brian and Justin had gathered us all to tell us the news. Part of that was the adrenaline, I think; when the two of them sat us all down like that, I think all of us, and I know Michael, were expecting to hear that Brian's cancer was back and that it had spread.

The relief when that wasn't it was pretty short-lived.

“Brian can't handle this,” Michael told me that night. “You weren't there when Justin got bashed...he can't do this, he's going to fall apart, he's going to fucking leave him. Justin's going to be fucking deaf and alone and Brian's going to drink himself to death from guilt.”

“We'll cross that bridge if we come to it, all right? We'll take care of both of them.”

Michael nodded, wiping his eyes. “I'm gonna call Hunter and let him know.”

“Good idea,” I said.

December 1st, 2006

Dear Justin,

No pressure to answer or anything, all right? Just wanted to check in to see if you felt like talking. I'm going to be at the diner alone for lunch if you want to join me?

Thanks for trusting all of us with your news yesterday. I'm sure the decision for when to tell us wasn't an easy one, and we're honored that you've trusted us to handle this. I know it can be hard to ask for help, but one thing I've learned is that people love to have a task they can handle, so don't be shy about telling us if you just need someone to clean the loft or work your shift at the diner or come bring dinner over. We love you and we want to help however we can, we just don't always know how.

Ben

**

Hey Ben.

Thanks for checking in. I really appreciate it. Sorry I didn't get back to you until now about lunch today; since it's after five I guess that ship has kind of sailed. Sorry. I've been sleeping a lot. My hand's really been bothering me on top of, you know, the other stuff, and I always get tired when it acts up. Brian's all over my neurologist trying to find out if all of it's tied together, like if there's a connection then somehow it'll make a difference. I don't know. I have a hard time really caring about all the medical stuff, which I know is dumb and lazy of me, so it's a good thing Brian does it. He has a filing cabinet just for stuff from doctors at this point, all alphabetized and everything. I don't ever look at it.

Anyway.

Yesterday must have been pretty intense for all of you. God, Deb crying like that was brutal. Maybe we should have sat you down each individually and told you, but...I don't know, I just don't have the stamina to go through it that many times. Brian offered to do it but that just felt so fucking cowardly to me, I don't know. It's going on with me and I can't even talk about it?

He says it's not my job to hold people's hands about it and make it easier for them. I told him maybe he should keep that in mind next time he's having a temper tantrum about me not putting the orange juice away which is very obviously NOT about me not putting the orange juice away, and he just glared at me. At least some things haven't changed.

I shouldn't sell him out like that. Yeah, he's raw right now, and he's burying stuff and drinking a lot and screaming at his assistant and beating the shit out of the treadmill, but he's here and he's trying and he's following my lead. He kept all of this a secret for months because I wasn't ready to tell people. And he's...you know. He's here and he's dealing with it and he's not running away. That's about all I can ask for. And he's been the realist here, because I keep trying to convince him that maybe the doctors were wrong and this is all some big mix-up because...I feel fine. Just tired.

So tell Michael to stop worrying, because I know he is, if he isn't already buying plane tickets because he thinks he needs to rescue Brian from this. I keep going back and forth on whether he's going to be Team Justin or Team Brian after the imminent breakup I'm sure he's imagining. Can never sort that one out. Obviously he loves Brian more than me, but he also REALLY loves being disappointed in Brian, so I might have a Cinderella story.

Anyway. We're fine. He just got home and he brought me a sandwich and he's bitching at me about how I'm going to blow my hearing out even faster if I keep turning the TV up this loud. Doesn't sound that loud to me. Guess maybe it wasn't some big mix-up! Ha.

Thanks for the invite and everything. I appreciate it, but I think I just want to be by myself for a little while. Brian can answer any questions if you have them. I just need some time to process, I guess.

I'll be fine.

Justin

Everyone wanted to talk about Justin losing his hearing, all the time. The boys brought it up at the diner and Babylon and at Sunday dinner, whether or not Brian and Justin were there, but especially if they weren't. Brian, God, I never thought I'd feel pity for Brian Kinney, but he couldn't fucking inhale in this town without someone interrupting to ask how Justin was.

“You'd think he was fucking dying,” Brian said idly to me one time, smoking a cigarette outside the diner.

“They're just concerned.”

“Gotta wonder where they were when he was spilling coffee all over himself and having panic attacks in crowds and dropping out of art school because he couldn't use his hand,” Brian said. “But I guess that's not as exciting.”

“You can't really compare his hand spasms to losing his hearing,” I said.

Brian said, “Why,” as slowly as you can say a one-syllable word.

February 10th, 2007

Hey,

Noticed you made a kind of quick exit from the diner last night. Just wanted to check in, see if everything was okay.

Ben

**

Hey Ben,

Yeah, sorry about that.

The truth is, it's kind of hard to manage everyone when Brian's not there. It's hard for me to understand everyone when they talk all over each other, but I don't want to tell them because...God, you know how these people get when you point out something they're doing wrong. It's just hours and hours of self-flagellation about it and you end up having to reassure them that they weren't doing something wrong actually after all or else they'll just slit their wrists to make it up to you. Brian has this way of correcting people where he's just an asshole about it, and that usually controls the freakout because they still get to feel self-righteous about it, but somehow I haven't mastered being a jerk the way Brian has (he would probably disagree with you).

He also just...I don't know. He fields the questions. I hate people asking me about it when he's not there because I have to manage other people and myself and

I don't know.

It's scary how much I rely on him. I'm trying really hard not to let people know, because I know they'll judge me for it. And I'm scared he's going to get overwhelmed and sick of this and bail, and I can't even say that to him because he gets all pissed off and asks what he's done in the past few years to deserve that kind of expectation, which is totally true, he's been such a fucking rock through all of this.

But I still worry.

**

Justin,

You know something funny? I've never worried that Brian was going to leave you over this. Not for a second.

I believe, without hesitation, in the magic of caretaking. That it forms a kind of bond between two people that can't be forged any other way. There's an intimacy there, a trust, and whenever the self-loathing threatens to take me over when I'm not doing well, I try not to get caught up in the image of myself, this toxic-masculinity-mandated idea that lying in a hospital bed makes me less of man, and instead think of it as an opportunity. If I were healthy, would Michael and I be connected the way we are? Would he have had a chance to turn into the person he has?

One thing I've learned not to do is ascribe regret to people who aren't showing it.

There's a magic about the human tendency to help others, and an even bigger magic in people who go above and beyond that tendency. Every once in a while you'll come across a person who has that natural affinity, who you can see come alive, who goes out of their way without fanfare or struggle.

I remember right after I met you, the way Brian would watch you. Michael casually dropped into conversation with you that he'd never complained in taking care of you after the bashing, that he never seemed overwhelmed, never wavered. Michael didn't understand what a big deal that was.

Neither does Brian.

People like us, we understand. And I think we have a way of attracting people like them. It's magnetic. We find each other. We give them something too.

It's okay to contribute a disabled person to the world. To a relationship.

Brian's been comfortable with that word for years.

He's not going anywhere.

Love,

Ben

March 8th, 2007

Hey Justin,

Thought I should warn you that Michael's planning a joint birthday dinner for us this Sunday, so our place instead of Deb's. Everyone should be there. Might want to start easing Brian into the idea now. Is paella okay?

Ben

March 9th, 2007

Hey,

That's fine. We have a sign language class at four on Sunday so we might be a little late, but we'll get there when we can. I'll pick up some wine.

Brian actually asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday this year, which on the Kinney scale (I just realized how much that sounds like Kinsey scale, and now I have this idea of categorizing everyone based on how attracted they are to Brian, except fucking EVERYONE would be a six) pretty much equates to hiring a parade and some fireworks. This is, unless the doctors are really really off, the last year I'm going to have any hearing, so there's kind of a weight hanging over this birthday.

Anyway, thanks of the heads up, we'll be there. And I'll try not to be a wet blanket. Happy 35th! I know it'll be a great year for you.

Justin

June 8th, 2007

Justin,

Well well well. Michael kept the secret for an admirable nine seconds after I arrived home from work. Kudos to Brian for managing to keep it from him as long as he did. God knows I can never hide anything from Michael. He'll get it out of you somehow.

So, a belated congratulations. I assume there's no registry? I have to get you guys something.

Ben

June 10th, 2007

Hey Ben,

Sorry for the delay. Rough couple of days.

Anyway, no, there's no registry. It wasn't really a secret, we just didn't really feel the need to tell anyone. It's just...I don't know, whatever the health insurance equivalent of a green card marriage is. Not a big deal. Emmett knows now, and he called yesterday wanting to throw us some kind of post-wedding reception and I think Brian threw the whole phone away just to be safe. Fine by me.

Thank you for the congratulations, but seriously, it's no big deal. I still hate that I missed your wedding, and I know it was a beautiful celebration of love for the two of you, and it meant a lot for you to be able to share that love with the people closest to you. That's beautiful, truly, but it's not me and Brian.

We're selfish bastards and want it all to ourselves.

Justin

July 14th, 2007

Hey you,

Just checking in. We love you. Michael and I will be over tonight with enough food to feed an army, so you two should be set for a few days.

You're going to be just fine, okay? Everyone's here for you. You're still you and we all know it.

Love,

Ben

Brian opened the door to the loft that night, looking ragged, dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. He probably hadn't gone to work; Justin hadn't been discharged from the hospital after losing all his hearing two days ago until late the night before, and no one had seen them since then.

He rubbed his forehead. “Really not a good time.”

“Not a social call,” I said. “We're just dropping off food. Have you eaten?”

He sighed. “No.”

“Then let us come in and make you something. You don't even have to talk to us.”

Michael was a little surprised by this, I could tell—as hard as I'd tried on the way over, I couldn't shake him of the idea that Brian and Justin would want company and comforting—but I knew sometimes the best gift you could give someone was a promise that they could pretend that they weren't alive for a little while. And Brian, standing in the doorway right then, really, really looked like he did not want to be alive.

“I emailed Justin and told him we were coming.”

“He's been sleeping all day,” Brian said, but he stepped out of the way to let us in. We set the food on the counter, and he loped up to the bed and sat down on the edge with a gentle hand on Justin. Michael was craning his neck, trying to see.

“Help me plate,” I told him.

Brian came back a minute later, alone. “He's going to eat later,” he said.

I nodded. “Okay.”

Brian sat on a stool and dropped his head into his hands. Michael slid a plate in front of him, and Brian picked at it listlessly.

“How is he?” Michael asked, ignoring the look I gave him.

Brian cleared his throat. “Fine. Not as dizzy as he has been.”

Fine clearly wasn't the answer Michael was looking for. “That's, um, that's good. But I meant...”

Brian wiped his face. “What, Michael? Is he happy? Can he hear? What are you asking?”

“I don't know...”

“I don't have any reassurances for you right now,” Brian said. “I'll put a spin on this in a few days, I'll get a game face on for him, can you fucking just let this fucking suck for a goddamn minute?”

Michael nodded and looked down, and I started putting leftovers away. Brian whispered, “Fuck,” and threw his plate at the sink.

Michael glanced at the bedroom. “Brian—”

“I'm not going to wake him up!” Brian yelled. “He can't fucking hear me! Fuck!”

“Brian,” Michael said again, and he looked pointedly behind Brian this time, and Brian winced and pinched his nose as Justin came up behind him and started rubbing his shoulders.

“Hi, Justin,” Michael and I said together.

Justin nodded at us and moved in close to Brian, kissing his cheek and whispering something in his ear. Brian closed his eyes and leaned into him, nodding a little, his fingers tight around Justin's waist.

“Fuck,” Michael said to me later, after we left.

I thought about how Brian relaxed the second Justin touched him.

“They'll be okay,” I said.

July 18th, 2007

It is not your job to take care of him. This is your illness. Other people can take care of him. Take care of yourself.

Ben

**

It's my job and you can pry it from my cold dead hands. If caretaking is such a joy, don't deny me that just because I'm sick.

Justin

Things returned to some semblance of normal, eventually. Brian and Justin started coming out again more, and we signed with him the best we could and Brian never seemed to mind interpreting for us when we couldn't. They seemed happy, at first hesitantly, eventually genuinely. They still laughed, and danced, and were unable to keep their hands off each other in public places. Justin went back to work at the diner, and all the patrons who adored him before adored him again, and the Deaf waiter became a bit of a Liberty Avenue fixture. Everyone always wanted to show off the little bits of sign language they'd learned, and people would come up to him elsewhere, Woody's or Babylon or just on the street, to say hi to him. Brian was annoyed, but Justin was patient and encouraging.

At some point, though, we stopped seeing Justin out all that often. Brian was still around, and it's not as if we never saw Justin, so there was no worry that he'd vanished from the face of the planet, or that he and Brian had broken up or anything like that. But he missed a few Sunday dinners, didn't always come to Babylon, showed up for one beer at Woody's and bailed before the night really got going.

Eventually I asked Brian about it. “So where's Justin been lately?”

“Deaf friends,” Brian said casually, sipping his drink.

“He has new friends?” Emmett said, faux-scandalized, or potentially really-scandalized. “What about us?”

Brian looked at him like he was an idiot. “You don't sign.”

“Yeah we do!” Michael said.

Brian laughed. “Sure. Okay.”

April 30th, 2008

Hi Justin,

Michael showed me the new issue of Rage tonight. Absolutely gorgeous artwork as always, so beautiful job there. The story seems kind of dark, even for you guys, so I just wanted to check in and see if you were all right over there.

Love,

Ben

May 1st, 2008

Hey,

I'm just fine, thanks for checking!

Justin

Michael came home depressed in February of 2009. “It's really happening,” he said morosely.

I knew exactly what he was talking about, and I couldn't help but laugh. “They've been talking about it for almost a year. They got the apartment months ago. The place is all packed up. You're just now realizing it's happening?”

“He's threatened to move a million times!” Michael whined, flopping down in my lap. “There was always...I don't know, at least a chance that he would back out.”

“They need to get out of this place, Michael,” I said, petting his forehead.

“Justin needs it,” Michael said, with some of that old disdain I hadn't heard in a while. Justin would probably be pleased that Michael wasn't afraid to be pissy at him anymore, I thought idly.

“Yes,” I said. “Justin needs a fresh start, and an area with a better Deaf community than Pittsburgh's.” I kissed his forehead. “Imagine living somewhere without a Liberty Avenue. Wouldn't you want to go somewhere with people like you?”

“What about Brian?”

I laughed. “There are queers in New York, I hear.”

“He's just totally in Justin's world now,” Michael said. “And Justin's world is just...he's just like a full-time disabled person now.”

“Yeah, Michael, he is. That's not a bad thing.”

“But he only hangs out with other Deaf people! He's totally isolated himself. It's not like you only hang out with other people with HIV.”

I stared at him. “Yeah. They keep dying.”

He was quiet for a beat. “I'm sorry. I'm being a jerk.”

I sighed. “Trying to relate to people who don't share that kind of experience can be exhausting. Especially when they don't speak your language that well.”

“Okay, so...so that's fine for Justin. But what about Brian? He's just disappearing into it.”

“He's changing,” I said. “You've been on him to grow up for years.”

“How is this growing up!” Michael said. “He's still tricking. He'll probably be worse about it in New York. They're married and they still act like they're not. It's growing up just because he's—”

I love Michael, I love him to the ends of the earth, but I have long, long given up on trying to love the person he becomes where Brian Kinney is concerned. It's easier for us both that way.

“Because he's creating a life that he loves around the needs of another person,” I said. “It still counts if that person isn't you.”

April 18th, 2009

Hey Ben,

Sorry I've been off the grid for a while. I was going through a thing with adjusting my meds...it's a whole long saga, but basically they cranked my anti-convulsant up really high and I felt like a drugged out zombie for a while, and then they lowered it and I had a kind of major seizure, so I've just been basically reacclimating myself to human life.

I started a new job a few weeks ago and that's been amazing so far. I'm helping out Marie Blair, a gallery owner in Chelsea. She's this incredibly accomplished person, and her gallery's incredible. Her son's Deaf, so she signs really well, but she's never made me feel like she was hiring me for some kind of disability outreach or something. She loves my art and says she's going to show me some day, when I'm ready. I hope she tells me when that is, because I would have said I was ready now!

We went to the ballet last week for our anniversary. Have you been? It was...ridiculously romantic, so don't go spreading it around or Brian will just about die of embarrassment. But between you and me, it was absolutely incredible. Poetry in motion.

Hope you're well.

Justin

I remember reading that email a few times before replying back with something bland and useless about the ballet that I immediately felt cowardly for. And not a week after that, we got a phone call in the middle of the night from Brian in Australia, and Michael was off to New York. He came home two days later, and I gave Justin another day before I sent the email I probably should have written six years before.

April 27th, 2009

Justin,

How are you feeling?

**

Better, thanks. Fever's almost gone. Not back to work yet so I'm still just resting. Should be feeling a lot better in a few days.

Justin

**

That's not what I meant.

Ben

**

And after that, the floodgates were open.

June 16th, 2009

Ben,

I've been reading Sontag like you recommended. Thank you so, so much.

I can't stop thinking about the way we use illness as metaphors—how many times have I heard (ha) someone say someone's “deaf to” something, or someone makes a “tone-deaf” remark, and God, I never even unpacked that, I just accepted it—and that's not even touching on all the “spaz” stuff.

But I'm also thinking about kind of the inverse of that, the way we metaphorize illness. How we do everything possible to prevent physical suffering from being physical. I mean, just the act of using words for it is kind of metaphorizing it in a way, right? You're representing something literal in a non-literal way. And I guess it just..it kind of emphasizes to me the way that people who aren't experiencing this can never understand it. It's literally impossible to convey.

Because how do you even say it? “I feel like crap all the time?” That's a metaphor. And even in a less obvious sense...everyone wants to relate chronic illness to something that they've experienced, oh, so it's like having the flu but all the time, it's like how you feel after a hard work out but all the time..and how can that even come close to making them understand, since the “but all the time,” is actually the point, not the fucking...exactness of what is you feel all the time? It's the constancy that gets to me, not any specific symptom.

Anyway, thank you for the recommendation. I'm devouring it.

**

Justin,

You're very, very welcome. Now, when are you going back to school? You're a professor's dream.

July 2nd, 2009

Hey Ben,

So here's something that I can't say to anybody else.

Sometimes I hate abled people.

And not in a jealous, I wish I was them, so it's easier for me to hate them way. Not in a “I just mean the ableist assholes” way. I mean sometimes I fucking genuinely hate abled people, and this fucking society they've made, and their expectations that we all want to be like them and that the only way to have a good life is to fit into their mold of what it means to be normal.

Please tell me I'm not alone in this. Because you're also in a relationship with a healthy person and I need someone who understands how I can love Brian with every fiber of my fucking human and still look at him and think, you are part of the fucking problem and I am so goddamn tired of the problem.

And he's so good most of the time. He is. But every once in a while...it's that thing at the hockey game, or it's him freaking out the other day because I've started pronouncing words wrong, or it's the fucking sadness on his face when my arm starts shaking in public and he's waiting for me to be humiliated that someone saw, and like how do I even fault him for that because sometimes I am humiliated, but sometimes I'm not, and I just expect him to read my mind on that? Fuck, I know that's not fair. None of this is fair to him.

I am just...I am tired of how many people want to know how Brian is handling this and who tell Brian how strong he is and what an amazing partner he is like I'm a charity case he should get a government grant for supporting.

But it's not like I want people to tell me I'm brave and strong. So I don't know what I want. I just...I recognize that none of this is me being fair to him. But I just needed to tell someone that sometimes I fucking hate abled people and I need someone to know that that does and doesn't include the ones that I love and need that to just be okay.

Love,

Justin

**

Well, I don't know if it's okay, but I can definitely assure you that you're not alone.

Hating abled people is, I think, a step on the journey of accepting yourself. It's not a particularly fun one, for yourself or others, but it's an important process.

Back when you first lost your hearing, I sent you some trite bullshit about how you're still the same person you used to be, because I knew that's what you needed to hear at the time. It's what I needed to hear after I got sick. But the truth is, disability and illness are transformative. You're not the same person you were, and you know that by now. We're not the same as healthy people. Remember the Sontag quote?

**

“There is a link between imagining disease and imagining foreignness,” yeah.

I'm in such a weird fucking space with all of this because being Deaf doesn't make me sick—all my Deaf friends are healthy as hell—but it's the thing that most obviously sets me apart. And it's the thing that hearing people grapple with, and they don't even think about epilepsy. Why would they, when me being Deaf is so big and scary and obvious? It's only Deaf people who understand—and Brian, Brian is such a fucking Deaf person except when he's not, but he's never, ever a sick person, and God, that contradiction...

Anyway, it's just Deaf people who look at the epilepsy and think, okay, this is the problem, this is the disability, and a lot of them have divorced themselves so far from the idea of being disabled because Deaf pride was a thing long before disability pride was that they other me just as hard as hearing people. And even the ones who do think of themselves as disabled...it's a whole different thing to them, this idea of fucking feeling like shit all the time. It's a completely additional experience to just having a disability. It's just this endless goddamn grind.

And some people are just so uncomfortable with illness. My good friends aren't, and thank God Brian isn't, but I think maybe in my heart I kind of would have been, if I'd had the opportunity to be. I've been thinking of that other Sontag quote recently, you know the one, from AIDS and Its Metaphors? “It is not suffering as such that is most deeply feared but suffering that degrades.” God, I was so fucking torn up about this idea of the loss of dignity for the longest time. I didn't want anyone to see me as less of a person. Less of a man. All that toxic shit.

And I know I just said Brian's not like that, but fuck, he so is when he's sick, I mean, remember when he has cancer? I don't know if it's that he thinks the rules are different for him or that they're different for me, but either way, he's always...he's amazing at letting me know that he doesn't see me as a patient, that he's not afraid of me. I think I'm still kind of bent out of shape about how hard a lot of the Pittsburgh crowd has withdrawn. Lindsay can barely look at me. She doesn't know what to say. She thinks I'm...you know. A foreigner. And not in a cool, sexy, I'm gonna marry this French guy way. Oh, God, you weren't around for that. Thank your fucking stars.

 But I guess when Brian was sick, I never thought that made him less of a man, and I was so irritated by his whole "but my dignity" shtick when I just wanted him to fucking stop fighting me and let me take care of him.

So maybe it's just always different when it's ourselves, I don't know. I wish I knew how to be as kind to myself as I am to like, a fucking stranger, let alone someone I actually love.

Anyway, basically having these two different things going on with me is a fucking trip, and no one is paying attention to what I want them to pay attention to. And Brian's amazing to talk to when I'm not feeling well, always wants to hear that, wants to know what's going on, a hundred percent, but I can't imagine sitting down with him and having some philosophical conversation about chronic illness when I'm feeling okay. I just think it would make him so sad that I'm thinking about it even when I'm doing okay. I don't know.

Love,

Justin

**

Give him a chance.

Love,

Ben

The next time I saw them, Brian sat by Justin's hospital bed as Justin recovered from his burns. Brian had his feet up next to Justin's leg and a book in his hand. Illness as Metaphor.

He had pages dog-eared.

August 21st, 2009

Do you ever wonder why you?

Justin

**

“Nothing is more punitive than to give disease a meaning.”

**

That's what Brian said too.

Fuck. Am I allowed to say I'm lucky while I'm still coughing every five minutes and I have barely healed skin grafts all over me? 

**

Yes.

If Justin hadn't already mentioned to me that Brian was in Pittsburgh for a few days, I would have known by the way Michael stormed into my office after lunch one afternoon in October. No one can rile him up like Brian—or, more specifically like Brian talking about Justin.

I have to admit I was unprepared for this one, though. Justin was considering an experimental treatment for his epilepsy. It had a seventy-percent success rate, and a thirty-percent chance of major disability or death.

“Brian won't tell him not to do it,” Michael said. “I can't even...I think he wants him to do it.”

“No,” I said. “Not possible.”

“You weren't there.”

Brian called me two days later to ask me my opinion, which was surprising, and there was a desperate edge to his voice that I hadn't heard in years. He was trying to give Justin space to decide this on his own, that much was clear, but what Justin really needed—what anyone with any chronic illness experience would instantly know Justin needed—was someone to tell him that it was okay for him not to do it. That it didn't make him cowardly, complacent, or someone wallowing in victimhood.

He needed permission to not want to be cured.

October 11th, 2009

Justin,

So are we going to talk about it?

Ben

**

Heh. Yeah. Sorry.

I don't even know what to say. Brian keeps telling me I have to decide on my own and I just...I don't know what to do.

It's just that if you'd asked me about this hypothetically, I would have said that Brian would tell me not to do it. That it was too risky, and not worth it, and we were doing fine how we are. And that's not what happened. And he says it's just because it's up to me and he doesn't want to influence me and he'll support me whatever I decide and lots of stuff that's kind of...un-Brian. I mean, not that he doesn't usually respect what I want, because of course he does, but the 'I'll support you whatever you decide' is a little partnery for him.

So it doesn't feel real, and i'm wondering if maybe that's because he wants me to do it.

I think maybe he's been waiting for a cure this whole time. And maybe I just...what if he doesn't want to wait for something with a rate better than seventy percent? What if he won't wait?

Seventy percent isn't that bad. I would risk that for him. Of course I would.

Will you tell me what to do?

Love,

Justin

**

Justin, have you ever played bridge?

**

You know I'm twenty-six, right? I go to clubs, Ben, I don't play bridge.

**

All right, well, when you're getting ready to play a round of bridge, you go around and place bets around the table. You and your partner use codes to tell each other how many points are in your hand and what cards you have, and from there your partner knows how high to bid. You try to tell your partner what's in your hand without going right out and telling them. And when your partner asks you for something you don't have, if they bid a heart and you don't have any hearts in your hand, you bid something else to tell them you don't have what they're asking of you.

But then, say, your partner says two hearts anyway, even though you've already told them you don't have any hearts. You told them you couldn't improve on what they had, that what they have in front of them is all they're going to be getting, and they hear you and they still say, it's going to be hearts. You still have nothing to offer them, and you look at your hand and think that it would be so, so bad in hearts, that it isn't any help at all, that your partner's going to be disappointed when they see what cards you have, even though you've already told them you can't help them, and your instinct is to bid something else, anything else, because you're so afraid of the hearts.

But you don't do that. Because your partner might not have the other thing you're asking them for. If you switch to clubs, when you don't really want to be in clubs either, you're probably putting both of you in a worse position than if you just threw up your hands, said, “Pass,” and let your partner do the hearts on their own. You have to trust that your partner knows their own hand. And that even if they don't, and you might be fucked no matter what, you will get both of you in worse trouble if you make some wild guess and what would be better that isn't really based on the cards that you're looking at.

It's one of the first things they teach you when you're learning to play bridge: Don't rescue your partner.

Brian is telling you the cards that are in front of him. He's been telling you the cards that are in front of him for a very, very long time. And now he's asking for your bid, and you're looking at what you're holding and you're scared, and I understand that. And if this treatment is something that you want to try because it's something you want, then I will support you, and so will he. But if you're thinking you should try it because you're scared that you can't be what he's asking you to be, when he knows exactly what you have and he is sitting there and saying two hearts ANYWAY, when all he's ever done is tell you what he's capable of, and what he is capable of is YOU, Justin, then, well...

**

...then don't rescue your partner.

**

Don't rescue your partner.

**

I think this is illness as metaphor, by the way.

**

Yeah, yeah.

January 1st, 2010

Hey Ben. Happy New Year.

How did it take me this long to read Frida? I've always loved her work. I had this amazing conversation with Brian about her, and we looked through this book of her paintings and talked about how pain and illness motivate you and inspire you and then drain the shit out of you, and it was...God. He just listens. And he TALKS. A healthy person who will fucking talk to me about illness.

“You deserve the best, the very best, because you are one of the few people in this lousy world who are honest to themselves, and that is the only thing that really counts.”

I'm sure you can guess who that makes me think of.

**

“Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing.” Happy New Year, Justin.

February 14th, 2010

Hey Ben,

“I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling.”

This decent and good feeling. It's not really where you expected that sentence to go, huh?

So I've been thinking a lot about chronic illness joy.

Deafies talk about it a lot, the concept of Deaf Gain as a contrast to Hearing Loss. It's about community, and culture, and history. Richness, depth, appreciation. And all of that is so completely true and SO important to me, don't get me wrong. But that's established. That's been written and written about. Who's talking about the joys of having epilepsy, of being sick with anything?

I think there's a few reasons we don't talk about it. The main was is that, obviously, we don't feel joyful about it a lot; probably plenty of people never feel joyful about it at all. A lot of the time we're just...sick and angry and sad, and so even if we do feel good about it once in a while, we don't want to share it with people because we've been fighting so hard to make them pay attention to the fact that we're sick and angry and sad.

I think the other reason is that we're scared what people will think of us if they know we're not always miserable. That they'll think it means we're faking it for attention, or sympathy. That we want to be sick.

I didn't really turn down the treatment because of the risk. I mean...of course that was part of it. And of course if it was a hundred percent chance of success I would have done it. But I wouldn't have had a lot more complicated feelings about it than people want me to have. I didn't want to be sick when I was healthy, but I don't want to be healthy now that I'm sick. And people don't understand that. It's weird. Healthy people walk around happy the way they are, but the idea of us doing it is borderline offensive to them. Why is that? Are they really so insecure in their healthy lives that they need the rest of us to want them too?

People just have a really limited idea of what a life looks like, I think. I've noticed that ever since I threw in with Brian and it wasn't exactly the relationship people wanted for themselves, so it couldn't possibly be what I wanted either.

People mean well, but God, they're exhausting, trying to turn everyone into their clones.

Anyway, the joy. Part of it is that I think I know people quicker than I ever could before. I don't know them really well, or anything, but I immediately know if someone's worth getting to know, because so many people are dying to get away from me the second they can. I have a built-in screening process, and only people who are really worth it get through.

I also think I love Brian more than I ever could have if I were healthy, and it has nothing to do with him taking care of me. Not that that hurts.

I think I'm just not scared anymore. I mean, what's the very worst thing that can happen, I die? That's really supposed to freak me out at this point? Fuck, everything just feels so much...lower stakes than it used to. Why should I be afraid to just give Brian absolutely every single part of me? What am I saving it for?

Frida said that, too: “I love you more than my own skin.” And I'm not sure people who have health are capable of loving someone more than they love their own skin. And that's probably very great and healthy for them.

I'm not really interested in great and healthy. I'm interested in love without moderation.

And joy.

**

Tell me what else Frida said.

**

Heh. Yeah.

“I am that clumsy human, always loving, loving, loving. And loving. And never leaving.”

Happy Valentine's Day from us.

Love,

Justin