There's Something I Want You to Do

Close by, a boy about nine years old sat on a chair watching her. I had the impression that they had both been there, mother and son, for a week or so. Four other patients immobilized by illness were in other beds scattered around the room. Outside a dog barked in the local language, Amharic, and the air inside remained motionless except for some random agitation under a rattling ceiling fan. The hour was just past midday, and very hot.

That’s when I noticed Quinn: he was approaching the woman with a cup in his hand, and after getting himself underneath the mosquito netting, he supported her head as he helped her drink the water, or medicine (I couldn’t see what it was), in the cup. Then he turned and, still under the mosquito netting, spoke to the boy in Amharic. His Amharic was better than mine, but I could understand it. He was saying that the boy’s mother would be all right but that her recovery would take some time.

The boy nodded.

It was a small, simple gesture of kindness, his remembering to speak to that child. Not everybody would go to the effort. Even when the woman’s husband arrived — sweaty, gesticulating, his eyes narrowed with irritation and fear — to complain about the conditions, Quinn smiled, sat him down, and calmed him. Soon the three of them were speaking softly, so that I could not hear what they said.

Young white Americans come to Africa all the time, some to make money, as I did, others in the grip of mostly harmless youthful idealistic delusions. Much of the time, they are operating out of the purest postcolonial sentimentality. I was there on business, for which I don’t apologize. But when I saw that this man, Matty Quinn, was indeed doing good works without any hope of reward, it touched me. Compassion was an unthinking habit with him. He was kind by nature, without anyone asking him to be.

Sometimes you arrive at love before going through the first stage of attraction. The light from the window illuminated his body as he helped that sick woman and then squatted down to speak to the boy and his father. After that I found myself imprinted with his face; it gazed at me in daydreams. Here it is, or was: slightly narrow, with hooded eyes and thick eyebrows over modestly stubbled cheeks, and sensual lips from which that day came words of solace so tenderhearted that I thought: This isn’t natural; he must be queer. And indeed he was, as I found out, sitting with him in a café a week later over cups of the local mudlike coffee. He didn’t realize how his kindness and his charity had pierced me until I told him about my own vulnerabilities, and the erotic directions in which I was inclined, whereupon he looked at me with an expression of amused relief. When I confessed how the sight of him had stunned me, he said, very thoughtfully, “I can help you with that,” and he put his hand on my knee so quickly that even I hardly noticed the gesture.

Being white and gay in Ethiopia is no easy matter, but we managed it by meeting on weekends in the nearest city. We’d go to multinational hotels, the impersonal expense-account Hiltons with which I am familiar and where they don’t care who you are. In those days, before he got sick, Matty Quinn walked around with a lilt, his arm half-raised in a potential greeting, as if he were seeking voters. His good humor and sense made his happiness contagious. A good soul has a certain lightness and lifts up those who surround it. He lifted me. We fucked like champions and then poured wine for each other. I loved him for himself and for how he made me feel. I wonder if Jesus had that effect on people. I think so.

By the time we both came back to the States, however, Quinn was already sick. I said I could fly out to see him, but he asked me not to, given his present condition. He was living in a friend’s basement, he told me, and was looking around for a job, and he didn’t want me to visit until his circumstances had improved. That was untrue, about the job. Instead, he was losing himself. He was breaking down. He was particulating. When he disappeared, I resolved to find him.

—

Entering The Lower Depths, the bar on Hennepin that I finally identified as the place Quinn had described to me, I saw, through the tumult of louts near the entryway, a man sitting at the back of the bar, reading a book. He did not have graying black hair, but he did wear glasses, so I made my way toward him, reflexively curling my fingers into fists. I elbowed into a nearby space and ordered a beer. After waiting for a lull in the background noise and finding none, I shouted, “What’s that you’re reading?”

“Shakespeare!”

“Which play?”

“Not a play! The sonnets.”

“Well, I’ll be! ‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes!’ ” I quoted loudly, with a calculating, companionable smile on my face. I extended my hand. “Name’s Albert. Harry Albert.”

The man nodded but did not extend his hand in return. “Two first names? Well, I’m Blackburn.”

“Black Bird?”