When I opened my eyes I was still warm, but I wasn’t wet. I was warm because I was in bed with the covers pulled up to my chest. Leonard was sitting by my bedside reading one of my paperbacks. I said, “What are you doing here?”
“Well,” Leonard said. “I finish this book, I’m gonna steal everything you got while you’re lying there like a dumb ass. And then I’m gonna turn heterosexual and me and Brett are gonna run off together, but not until we sell your organs to science and burn the house down and collect the insurance money. I was thinking we might buy a pig to take with us, start a hog farm.”
“You need two pigs,” I said. “One male, one female.”
“Guess I hadn’t thought that through.” Leonard reached out and took my hand. “You back, brother?”
“Was I gone?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Brett? I remember seeing her, hearing her, but I couldn’t answer. Where is she?”
“Downstairs fixing me and her some breakfast. Want me to add you to the list?”
“That would be nice… But, what happened?”
“You had what some people call a nervous breakdown, and what I call a major fuckup by way of an easy chair and crapping your pants. You peed too. The world got hold of you and whipped your ass, Hap. But only for a round. You’re back now and pretty soon you’ll be off the stool and back in the fight. Though you may have to start with some tomato cans and work your way up to the contenders.”
“I’m glad Brett called you.”
“I’m not. I had to change your clothes and bathe you, wash the shit off, and then dry your ass with a towel, put you in your jammies, and carry you upstairs. I tell you now, boy, you got to lay off the pancakes if you want me carryin’ your fat ass up a flight of stairs. Let me have Brett fix you some eggs or somethin’.”
Leonard got up and walked toward the bedroom door.
I said, “Leonard.”
He paused, looked at me. “Yeah?”
“A man couldn’t ask for a better brother.”
“Hell, I know that.”