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WE OF ONE BLOOD
by
Tracy Price-Thompson
I savor the memory of that last good day. Can still hear the slapping sounds of red-back Tally Ho's as they slid across the Formica tabletop in a blizzard of colorful quadrilaterlas. Can feel the energy readtiating from his eyes as he studied his hand with analytical intensity. And then I saw it . the telltale tucking of his bottom lip, snagged betwen his teeth in anticipation. Man. He had our butts. It was all over but the shouting.
"Seven, " he said. "No trump."
He was a Whistologist, of that there was no doubt, but today there was going for broke, playing with a particular fury, risking all wrath and coming this close to going out the dreaded back door. Bidding high and taking his partner out, lettting skill and genius rule. He would lead with the big joker today. Today, he would play to win. Play like it was the last game of his life.
He was feeling much better, he said on that last good day. After spending torturous days glued to the bed, soaking his pajamas, soiling his sheets, and retching up his future, he felt like being in the kitchen where all the action was. He wanted to play cards. After all, The Bid was in our blood. Spades was for scrubs, and he was a big dog who never even looked at the porch.
As his eyes scanned the cards, greedily counting books, wagering set-cards, calculating which suits to keep and which to toss back into the kitty, I examined his faded youth. Deep lines creased his brows where mischievous vigor had once dwelled. His flesh hung limply about his cheeks ,listless and sagging, its plumpness now all gone. Never one who would pass a paper bag test, his caramel skin had darkened to mocha. And his hair. What could I say? In the beginning, before we'd known, we'd marveled that our kinky-haired brother had suddenly sprouted the baby fine tresses gently framing his deepening cowlicks. Junior! Boy, how'd your hair get so good? And then we rationalized. Good hair runs on our granmother's side, doesn't it?
What disturbed me most on that last good day, though were his eyes. Luminous beacons in the sunken recesses of his skull, they had never been more lively, more determined. More accepting, more at peace. More beautiful.
Roaming the surface of the cards, they'd shone with something that had been sorely missing in our lives during the past year. Something the monster that was AIDS had stolen from us. Something the ever-haunting specter of death had kept us from sharing as we counted down the days and kept a watchful vigil over our cherished, only boy-child. And as he raised his eyes in triumph, filled with confidence that the power he held i nhis hand would shut my partner and me out and take him and his straight to Boston, the thing I saw shining in my big brother's eyes, reaching out to touch me and bring comfort to my heart, was given a name.
And its name was hope.
