The colonel was the last to arrive and his hat with the gold braid was shoved up deep into his armpit and his uniform was sharply creased and he looked like he had just walked off a war movie set. His hair was salt and pepper gray and his face was etched with lines that ran deeper than the ones I could see when we were up in the mountains. He had aged.

He went immediately to Greg's mother without speaking, kissing her on the cheek before he went to the far side of the room and sat ramrod straight, leaning his head back against the window frame and closing his eyes as he waited.

She sat knitting. Her fingers moved adroitly at an impossible speed as her steel blue eyes peered through the lenses of her silver framed glasses. She chewed gum with the same focus with which she wielded her knitting needles. I wished I had something to knit.

I would have paced but Doug had already taken that on as he went from one wall to the other, strolling as you might do if you were on a casual walk in the woods. There wasn't room for two of us to pace and so I sat with a magazine on my lap, starring at the door that rarely opened. I don't know which magazine. I never looked at the cover or read a word. It was strictly for show.

I don't know why we didn't talk or interact but I've got to figure that this was a private vigil no matter how many people waited. I'd considered all the outcomes and liked none of them. I saw Greg the way I saw him the first day I ever saw him. He was beautiful, walked proudly, more strutted arrogantly, and had the world by the tail. My world was completely different, as was his.

I knew most of what I knew about life as a direct result of loving Greg. There had never been any doubt that I would love him. I knew that without ever having loved anyone before and I certainly never had been loved by anyone that I knew about. How does a kid know something like that, when he looks upon another boy for the first time? Was it truly written in the stars? Was this some play that was acted out over and over again? We knew our parts when we took the stage? Or was it a series of random events and decisions, an accident?

Why was there so much tragedy in the world? Why did people hate when loving was so much more rewarding? Even though it was the most painful thing I'd ever done, I'd take that pain every day of my life to reach the love I felt for Greg. I had been made angry, jealous, dizzy with delight, warm and fuzzy, alienated, desperate, content, devoid of all feelings, crushed, alarmed, sympathetic, nurturing, liking, loving, and hopelessly intertwined in his life.

I would do it all over again to reach his love if we then only shared that love for a minute. It was that love that made my life worth living. Nothing did that before.

Now I sat listening to my heart beat, trying to keep all negative images out of my brain, praying for all the positive energy in the universe to bombard the hospital and Greg. I could hear the gum and the fingers next to me without looking. I could hear Doug each time he turned to pace back to the other wall, not really seeing him. The colonel sat without motion as we waited for the unknown to become known. We were Greg's family.

It was something short of noon when the man with the white coat came into the room. The colonel stood, Doug turned, Greg's mother became paralyzed in mid-stitch, looking over top of her glasses at the door. I stared and a rush of fear ran through me. My heart stopped and I did not dare breathe.

"He's in recovery. He's resting comfortably. We made a small incision so we didn't disturb too much tissue. We removed the growth, sent samples to the lab, and checked the condition of the break. It all looks good to me. All the hardware is holding fine and there are remarkable amounts of calcium that have cemented the bone together as well as we could have hoped."

"The growth!" The colonel ordered.

"I don't see a problem. Looks good. Preliminary tests show no sign of malignancy. Certainly nothing that could have spread. We got it very early. Of course we'll wait for a final analysis of the tissue we removed. I'd say we're good on that front. We're on the lookout for it now."

Suddenly we were all breathing at the same time. Massive amounts of air were expelled into the room as the doctor seemed oblivious to our anguish.

"We're going to try a soft cast so he can go home tomorrow if everything checks out. We think he'll do better in a home setting. The ward nurses mentioned how full the orthopedic ward. A lot of broken bones these days. The head nurse in orthopedics was certain Greg would do better at home. She was really concerned about him. He was there for half a year. They get so attached to our younger patients.

"I bet," I said, and everyone looked at me. "They were swell to him. Like family."

"I'll tell them you said so. They'll be so pleased. You his brother?" the doctor asked.

"Oh, they know," I said.

"Yeah, that's us, dear old Gregie's brothers," Doug said, patting my head happily.

"Keep in mind he must take things slow. No steps or rough housing. If you think he's too active for the soft cast, we'll bring him back and put the full cast back on."

"The full cast will be a necessity. Give him a few days without, but then put the full cast back on and we'll need to come in here less often," the colonel explained.

"Yes, sir. Understood, I'll wait for the go ahead that we're done with the leg, and the full cast will go back on. Mid-week next week at the latest. Leave me your number and I'll tell you when to bring him over. We'll do it in the morning and he'll be home for dinner."

"I'd like to see my son now," the colonel said.

"He's out of it right now, sir. I'll get the nurse to come for you when he wakes up. I wouldn't tire him out too much today. He's going to want to sleep but by tomorrow morning I suspect he'll be ready to go home."

"I'll need to see him now. I won't stay. I want to see my son," the colonel explained.

"Yes, sir. I'll take you back," the doctor said.

"Does he know he's coming home?" Greg's mother asked.

"No, we didn't want to risk upsetting him if we didn't like what we found. You'll be able to tell him when he wakes up."

"You coming, hon?" the colonel asked.

"No, you go. We'll stay. I'll send the boys for something to eat and I'll be here when he wakes up. They want to wait," she said without asking us if we did, but we did. *****

There is disbelief and then again there is disbelief. It was difficult to take it all in at that instant. Dealing with matters of life and death are life-altering experiences, to say the least. I couldn't see it in anyone's terms but my own. Thinking that Greg was going home hadn't entered my mind but that was most certainly a life altering experience. I knew the complication that was going to create in my life but for the moment, hearing the doctor's prognosis, was good medicine for a lot of people that had been on tenterhooks.

Doug finally sat down and immediately began to weep gigantic tears of relief. He shook and the tears cascaded out of his gentle blue eyes as his mother dropped her knitting and sat beside him, pulling his head into her lap as he sobbed. The colonel left with the doctor so we were all alone.

"He's going to be fine, Doug," she reassured him.

"I know," Doug said softly, hesitation in his voice. "It's just that I wanted his baseball glove."

We all laughed hysterically at Doug's successful attempt at lightening the mood.
*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Greg was in less than good humor, after we were finally allowed to see him a few hours later. He didn't mention my disobedience as he stared blankly at us. We were jovial and lighthearted and he hated it, wanting to sleep and be left alone by this annoying group of admirers. After his mother and brother got out the door, he stopped me. I figured I was in for it for one reason or another.

"Come back here," he ordered, and I was sure it wasn't for a goodbye kiss.

"What?" I asked, still giddy with delight over his prospects.

"Pull the sheet off my legs."

"What?"

"You heard me. Pull the sheet off. I want to see for myself. They said it was still there."

His words were not friendly and the order was hostile at best, as if he thought we were hiding the truth from him. I raised the sheet and turned it up to reveal his legs.

He closed his eyes tight and let out a sob, "It's still there."

"Yeah, it's doing fine. Nothing to worry about. No cancer. You're going home, Greg. You're going home as soon as your lazy ass wakes up completely."

"Home!"

"Yeah, as soon as you straighten your ass out."

"Fat chance. I thought ... I was sure ... I dreamed they took it off. I was afraid to look until you ere with me. I've been laying here thinking they were keeping it from me."

"It's fine. They aren't putting that big Dumbo cast back on either. You'll be able to sleep without anything. For a few days, I think."

"Home!" he repeated, closing his eyes and starting to fall asleep before I bent to kiss him.

I didn't know what he had gone through. I only knew what I went through and I suspected what his family was going through, but there was no way for me to know what Greg had gone through while there was some concern that he would lose the leg. I couldn't imagine it. All the pain and suffering he endured was just a preliminary for losing the leg. It was too cruel to me, but his leg was going to be fine.

Life, like love, is fleeting. Even if it lasts one hundred years, one, everything ends. That means we've got to get the most out of life, most especially love. That means a little love is better than no love, because who's to say that a little love isn't all you get. What I know is that of all the things I experienced, everything paled in comparison to what it was like to be in love.

How close had I come to losing Greg? How close had he come to losing his leg? How does it all alter you? Me? Him?

Loving Greg was the most painful thing I'd done. The thought of losing him had been the most painful thought I had to endur. Finding love was certainly a life-altering experience, and it did create the possibility for pain. It also created the most incredible bliss along.

My life had been about dealing with being alone before Greg. It was never more clear to me how alone I was than after I met Greg. Meeting him was falling in love with him for me. There were no preparations. It was like getting hit with a brick. I flat-out loved him the first time I saw him. I hated it and at times I hated him. I'm not sure if I hated myself too, or if it was my life I hated. I couldn't be sure about much at the time.

Everything I did and every thought I had was about Greg. I didn't do anything without first considering him. I loved Doug and I loved Kent but I never considered my love for either of them without first considering my love for Greg. He came first, last, and always in my life, and I suspected he always would.

Before Greg there was no love of any kind, only a hostile world that I had to avoid rather than tame. There was nothing that told me that happiness existed or that my life mattered in the least, and then there was Greg. He consumed every fiber of my life. No matter if he hated me, was angry with me, avoided me, or loved me back, he came first.

Now, it was all about to change again. My captive audience was captive no more. Everything we had said and done and experienced together had now been reset. It was a whole new ballgame. My life at home was going to get even more complicated than when I refused to obey and never came home even for the vaunted evening meal that somehow made my chaotic family healthy in my parent's distorted minds.

In reality, nothing could make my family healthy. We were by nature alienated from one another, or at least they had always been alienated from me, and perhaps that's unfair. Maybe I was the one who was flawed, deficient, unable to close the gap between us, but I was their kid and it wasn't up to me to find a way to get my parents to like me. How would I know how? They never told me what they expected from me. While speaking of my flaws, my shortcomings, and their disappointment in me, they never told me how to please them, and I didn't, wouldn't, and no longer tried or cared.

So, perhaps loving Greg was inevitable, because I had to love someone sooner or later. But there was Doug, a boy anyone could love, and Kent, a boy who would gladly love anyone. There were all the boys that flowed through Greg's house, during endless weekend orgies that no one acknowledged took place. There were countless numbers and countless boys with wide smiles and willing willies, but I had never felt anything minutely similar for any of them compared to what I felt for Greg.

Love can have degrees and most certainly is different each time you love, depending on who it is you practice the art with, I suppose, and in loving Greg, I was loving the best, not so much because of his experience, or willingness, or his cocky self-confidence, but because, when I was with him, my entire life belonged to him. I would do anything for him. Well, almost anything, because I wasn't a big enough fool to always let him know what a sucker I was for him, but again how could he not know?

But how could he not know his leg was still attached? He'd later say he asked but he didn't believe the answer, and only when I was there with him, alone, did he know I would let him know the truth no matter what that truth was. How could he have not known that his leg was there? I never understood that. What was going on inside of his head during the time he believed it might not be there? What would have happened to him if it hadn't been there? How would all of our lives have been altered?

Everything is fleeting and if you don't make the best of it while you can, you will regret it, but I never regretted loving Greg.

"Gather ye rosebuds while you may ... " You're damn right.

There was a new world before us. As Doug sat crying and his mother rocked him like a little boy, I knew the world was changing and I didn't have a clue what it meant or what came next. Did she know I was crazy about her son. How could she not know? I was a fool for him.

Change is always difficult for me. For one thing I didn't want to go back to feeling what I felt before Greg. Change was my biggest fear. I had no fear of feeling too much, but of going back to when I felt nothing.

What if I didn't have him? What if he left me? What if he loves someone else? What if ... ?

You've got to live no matter how scared you are of life. There is no point to living if you don't live completely, reach out, go for the gold, the gusto. If not love... nothing makes life as good as love. I'd rather have love than all the money in the world. What do you do with all the money in the world? Buy someone to love, who will love you? Can money buy you love?

I wouldn't know how not to love Greg, so loving him was the only thing I could do and it was easy now. It was still scary to know it was all about to change and I was resigned to the change but now that it was upon us, it also represented the scary unknown.

Greg was a captive audience no longer, but he'd captured my heart.
*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The distance from school to Greg's was a lot shorter than the distance to the hospital. The next day I took some exams and turned in a late paper before exiting. Graduation was almost upon us and I couldn't hurt myself all that badly in my mind. Most of the seniors already knew if they were in trouble and how much that trouble might be. I was home free if someone wasn't plotting to give me a hell of a surprise when I showed up for my diploma. I was just passing in spite of myself and I would graduate if I showed up for the exams and turned in the papers that were due.

Greg was alone in the house when I got there and he was lying on the foldout bed in the television room. I had some fond memories that included that bed. Seeing him there added some good ideas, because he was home now, and not just visiting. Best to establish a new routine early, so I'd know what to do when I got there.

"Where have you been? I'm thirsty and I'm hungry."

"Nice to see you too," I said, going over to kiss him.

"Why didn't you come earlier?"

"School," I said. "What do you want to eat?"

"I don't know. Anything but hospital food. Be creative."

I fixed him a ham sandwich on rye bread along with some Coke and potato chips. I found some root beer and fixed the same meal for me after I served him his.

He laughed at the afternoon reruns as he stuffed his mouth full of "real" food. Doug came in and sat down in the chair and stared at Greg. He was all smiles and offered to go get Greg his favorite ice cream. I gave him the keys to the car after Greg approved.

"What's his problem?" Greg asked, after Doug jumped up and headed for the car.

"He's relieved," I said. "We're all relieved."

"Think about how relieved I am," he said, setting down his last half of sandwich. "I'm full. It was good though. You relieved."

"Immensely."

"That's a lot," he said.

"How do you feel?"

"Bummed. I've got this headache. It's killing me. I wondered if you would come up. Where were you all day?"

"School," I said.

"Oh yeah. You told me that didn't you?"

"You feeling alright?"

"Not really. I'm really tired. I've got pain pills and they're really potent. I don't like taking them but I don't like hurting even more."

"The leg?"

"Yeah, where they cut into it. Fucker's a bitch. The pills help but then I feel like a dope. I only pick up about ½ of what's going on."

"It'll be okay," I said.

"I start rehab next week once it is starting to heal."

"The hospital?" I asked.

"Yeah, Three days a week. If you move in and are here, then I don't have to worry about how I'm going to get to the hospital."

"You could walk," I said,

"Yeah, I can't bend my knee. My right leg is pretty good. I don't trust it but I think it'll hold me up okay. I'm a real gimp when it comes to the left leg."

"It'll take time, Greg. You've had that cast on it forever."

"Yeah, this soft cast is cool," he said, picking up the new cast that he had thrown on the bed beside him.

"When do you use it," I asked.

"When I get up," he said. "I haven't gotten up yet. I don't know how I'll take a dump. Lucky it hasn't come up. When did you say you were moving in?"

"Greg! You just got home."

"So, when are you moving in anyway?"

"I'll talk to my parents. I really didn't expect you to be home this fast," I said.

"Oh, you figured I'd be stuck up there for the rest of my life. That would have been great, huh?"

"No, I went from worrying about... you to you coming home. No time to adjust. I haven't mentioned it to my parents."

"You want my mom to talk to them?"

"No, I think I'll need to tell them."

"When do you graduate?"

"Friday."

"That soon? Good! You can move in Friday night. What can they say?"

"You know, it isn't about what they can say. It's about keeping peace and not making matters worse than they already are. I've pretty much pushed it as far as it goes. I need to go slow."

"Oh, fine time to start going slow. You should have thought about that before you fell in love with me."

"Yeah, well that didn't come up back then."

"I missed you."

"Missed me?"

"Yeah, I was here all alone all day. I told the old man you'd be over and he figured it was okay leaving me."

"It wasn't?"

"What if I had an emergency? What if I had to take a crap?"

"Greg, how long were you here alone?"

"Three or four hours at least; He doesn't know how to take care of me," Greg complained.

"No, he won't put up with your shit, you mean," I said.

Greg turned his head and looked at me like a curious little boy. He smiled a shy embarrassed smile and shook his head.

"It's not good when someone knows you too well. No, Pop isn't about to put up with as much shit from me as you do. I do appreciate it, Martin. I doubt if I would have made it through this without you. I can't imagine being lucky enough to have a friend like you."

"Yeah, well, you remember that in a year, so you know who loves you."

"I've known that as long as I've known you," he said, in a more serious tone. "You don't hide anything, you know."

"Yeah, well, I didn't think I had to. Loving someone is never having to say you're sorry."

"I am sorry, you know."

"Sorry?"

"For being such an asshole. I wasn't very fair to you. Of course I had it all back then. I was a total dick about it. I'm sorry and I wish I had made it easier on you."

"Yeah, well, if you hadn't been so hard on me, I wouldn't have been so happy when we finally got together."

"Yeah. I never thought of it like that. I was kind of doing you a favor, being mean to you all that time, huh? I guess that means you owe me," Greg said, smiling again, but not being serious.

"Yeah, I do. Big time. I owe you everything I feel and most of what I know about love."

"Just most?"

"Yeah, well, I did figure a little out on my own."

"Well, maybe you should just come over here and show me just how appreciative you are for me putting up with you all this time," he said, patting the bed beside him where he wanted me to sit. "We can suck face until my brother gets back with my Rocky Road if you want."

"I want," I said, sitting where he indicated he wanted me and being showered with his kisses before I had time to get ready.

I did love him so.


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