For a whole week, that season, Sean had been paying nightly visits to his redheaded friend in the hospital. The news was bad. His friend was in frequent pain. His morale was low, and he was filled with anxiety. His fevers came and went, and although he was clinging to his health with an iron grip, both of his cancers were spreading, and there were new infections, too.

Apparently, the patient's mother already made one urgent trip, travelling from Indiana to New York, and she was bracing for another.

Sean felt helpless. Had he been riding for a fall? He was exuberant after his arrest in Albany, and the plea bargaining there had gone smoothly, resulting in fines for the group. Then came this crisis with his friend's health.

This time at least the patient had a hospital room. Sean's first visit there was painful.

He donned a filmy synthetic gown and rubber gloves. He stood outside the door and realized there was a commotion, inside. A couple of nurses stood in the hall.

Sean told them, "I telephoned, but there was no answer."

They saw his coalition button through the translucent gown and asked if he was a friend of the patient's, and he said, "Yes," adding he helped the patient at home and saw him in the hospital during the last stay.

One of the nurses said, "He's forever pulling the phone cord out of the wall."

"What?"

"He's forever pulling the phone cord out of the wall."

Sean overheard the doctor and the patient arguing inside.

"I want to see him," Sean said, firmly.

The nurses tried to deter Sean. The buddy from GMHC came by and got a quick update.

"Whose that out there?" the patient said from within.

Sean made another move to the door.

"Hey, hold on," said the GMHC buddy. "What do you want?"

"To see him. I want to know what's upsetting him so much."

"Look, Sean," said the buddy. "You are obviously disturbed and are going to cause him more discomfort -"

"But-"

The doctor emerged, angry as hell.

"You can see my patient in about ten minutes," he said, "And not a second sooner." The doctor was a burly man with a beak of a nose and a ruddy mustache. He spoke in a gruff voice and asked the nurses to join him inside. The buddy took Sean to the lounge down the hall.

"I remember you, Sean. I met you at his apartment a few times. I see you're still with the coalition," the buddy said.

"He was a member once, too, when he was well. Why is he so upset?"

The buddy looked at Sean and said, "Because his health is going and he's scared. And his fear makes him take it out on the hospital staff." Sean trembled with anger and sadness, now. The buddy continued, "I've been talking to our ombudsman department. We're encouraging the hospital to be more open with him about the decisions the doctors are making, so that he doesn't feel excluded."

"It's just that he sounds so helpless in there -"

"Which is why we're working this way - to make him feel more respected, all right?" The buddy was sounding impatient with Sean, now, and Sean felt like a fool. "Just stay here for a few minutes in this lounge and think about what I said. I'm sure he'll want to see you, but cool off for a couple of minutes. Okay?"

"Okay," said Sean, his pride wounded.

The man stepped away.

In the silence that followed, Sean heard the elevators open and close. He saw out of the corner of his eye, a TV set glowing in a room. Visitors murmured softly to patients. He swallowed his hurt and approached his friend's door.

After a moment, he entered. One of the nurses was there. The buddy was talking slowly to the patient. His friend had KS lesions on his face, his arms, and edema on his ankles. His lymphoma caused fluids to swell in his loins. He had some tubing at his lips and nostrils to help with his respiration. A catheter was feeding bloody fluids from his lymphatic system into a plastic casement on the floor. Each chamber was filling up one by one with the pink runoff. The friend's eyes stayed fixed on Sean. His face looked gaunt. After a moment, the buddy stepped out to talk to the doctor. Sean's friend said to Sean, "I heard you got angry out there for me."

Sean swallowed hard, and said, "Yeah, I'm afraid I did."

After staring a little longer, the friend said, "It's because you care about me, right?"

Sean got tears in his eyes. He said, "Right."

He and the friend gripped each other's hands. The patient's grip was powerful. The friend smiled, drowsily, and said again, "It's because you care about me."

The nurse said to Sean, "Congratulations, Sir. That's the first time I've seen him smile in seven days."