If only he never had to sleep.
Danny sits in his car, the windows rolled down to catch the warm breeze that slithers in from the street. He glances nervously at his side mirror, afraid to see his own red face staring back at him. Through the windshield, he can see the entrance to the bank. A security guard paces inside the glass doors. Finally, the last customer leaves.
Frank emerges from the bank, a binder in his hand and his jacket wadded up in a ball under his arm. He slowly walks west on Robson, away from Danny. He can see that the seat of Frank’s pants is starting to sag. Danny’s hands grip the wheel, but he stays inside his car.
After twenty more minutes, Danny watches as Cindy talks to the security guard. She laughs as he unlocks the door and holds it open for her. Danny waits until her camel-coloured pumps hit the sidewalk before he stirs. He stands up, half shielded by the open car door. He has to grip the top of the frame in order to stand up straight enough that he doesn’t appear deflated. The outside air washes over him and he feels dizzy.
“Cindy!” he croaks, reaching with one hand toward her.
She looks up and down the street, oblivious, and starts to cross.
“Cindy!” This time it comes out shaded with desperation.
She turns her head, sees Danny and rushes forward.
“Danny! Are you sick?” She grasps him around the waist. “Here—can you make it to that café over there? You need to sit and have a cool drink, that’s all.”
She helps him to the café and props him up in a chair near the back, away from the sunlight streaming in through the big front window. She goes to the counter and orders two iced teas. Danny leans his head back and wonders whether, if he stares long and hard enough, a picture will begin to form among the stains on the ceiling.
“Drink this,” Cindy says, sliding an iced tea to him as she sits down. “You look like shit.”
Danny gulps half the drink in one swallow. The cold liquid travels, sharp like broken glass, down his throat. He smiles at his sister, at her face tanned from hours of lying in the sun at Kits beach, her thick hair in a long ponytail, her glossed lips. So pretty, he thinks. What a waste.
“What’s going on, Danny? Did you come here to see me?”
“I—” He pauses. “I need you.” It’s out, but the urgency is gone. All that’s left is his own voice, boyish and soft.
“What do you mean?”
“I saw Frank.” He tells her the story, about the unnamed disease, the fear. He pauses to drink and looks away, for he sees that her eyes are changing: from sympathy to fear to anger to overwhelming pity. The ice in her untouched drink melts and a pool of water forms under her glass.
He had thought that talking to Cindy would somehow clear his confusion, would separate his thoughts so that he could consider things one at a time, like he used to. His family. His work. Cruising. After Danny finishes talking, he gulps down the rest of his iced tea and shudders.
Cindy pushes hers across the table. “Go ahead, I don’t want it.”
“What am I going to do?” he asks. Please, he thinks, give me an answer. Any answer.
“Do you need to see a doctor?” she says, scrutinizing his face with narrowed eyes.
“I don’t know. I don’t have any spots or anything. I feel all right. Well, scared and sleep-deprived, but all right.”
“Maybe they can give you a blood test or something, or an immunization.” He begins to hear an undercurrent of desperation in her voice, a thin line of brittle panic, yet her face remains smooth.
“There’s nothing. They know nothing.”
“You can’t go out and cruise anymore, Danny. You can’t go to the clubs or the baths or anything.” Her voice breaks, and she brings her hand to her throat. “What will Mom and Dad say?”
Years ago, on a still Saturday morning, Danny was polishing the insides of the shop windows with newspaper while Doug grunted in the back, unpacking a pallet of Chinese comic books. The sky was overcast, and there were no shadows on the street. Danny stared at the tiny fingerprints near the sill and wondered which child Doug had allowed to touch the glass. A pair of feet in grubby sneakers appeared outside the window. When Danny looked up, he saw a freckled face