Rustin tightly closed his eyes. In his intense and indescribable fear, he suddenly felt the icy steel of a gun barrel slowly kiss his forehead. The tinge of its deathly cold was absorbed by his skin, and steel and flesh became one.
“Ple . . . please,” Rustin gasped. His eyes squinted with tension. The man was holding the gun calmly as if he had done this a thousand times. Rustin was oly going to be a thousand and one in the list of collaterals.
“Let me live . . . Pleease . . . I don’t have long to live.”
He felt the barrel slightly shifting on his skin. The gunman was disconcerted.
He managed to get their attention. The would-be executioner turned to another man hidden in the shadows.
“Wutz he sayin’?”
From nowhere, another man appeared from some corner of the room. Rustin couldn’t see their hooded faces in the poorly lit basement.
“You saying you’re going to die soon, bro?” His voice no longer had a threatening tone.
Rustin fearfully bit his lower lip. He began to cry and sob continuously. He took a deep breath and said, “I don’t have long to live. I have Aids.”
The gun barrel slowly parted his forehead.
“Damn! The wrong guy and a dead man walkin’ too!” the kidnapper said.
“Since when, bro?”
Rustin’s mind was a rush of confusion!
He had to keep up his bluff. This had them thinking and could be his last chance to survive.
“Somewhere between too fast and too soon.” He tried to appear calm and swallowed deeply trying to regain his composure. But his heart beat faster as he wondered if they were going to take this lie.
“That’s the first time I’ve heard it described that way,” the man sniggered.
“Geez, you remind me of my cousin Brent who died of Aids. Hidden, swift and silent,” the man from the corner made a smacking sound with his lips.
Rustin felt a little relieved. It seemed they were going for the ride after all. He still had a chance.
“If he’s goin’ tuh die anyways, might as well end it here,” the man with the gun said. Rustin felt the cold barrel kissing his forehead again.
“Nah, let’s leave him be. ‘Sides, he ain’t seen us.”
“Darn, how many times do our informants have tuh lead us to the wrong rats?” He lowered the gun and tucked it away.
At these words, Rustin exhaled with relief and dropped unconscious to the ground.
* * *
Three weeks later.
“Mr. Rustin Blakes?” A nurse’s gentle voice called out.
Rustin picked up his shoulder bag and followed the nurse.
“Good morning, Rustin!”
“Morning, Herald,” Rustin shook the hand of his long-time friend.
“You’re trembling and ice cold,” the doctor observed.
“How can I not freeze in the waiting room that has the thermostat set for penguin-mode, Herald?”
“That’s the Rustin Blake I know with a good sense of humor and wit!”
“What do the results say, Herald?” He was not amused with his friend’s humor. He was eager to immediately know the results and return to work.
Rustin read a sudden change in Herald’s face. He sensed it had to do with the results.
They sat down. Herald began silently reading through the findings of Rustin’s annual checkup.
“Rustin, something went wrong in the lab the other day,” Herald started.
“If the lab went wrong, at least I’m not the one who’s sick,” he quipped.
Herald didn’t say anything.
“Actually, it’s not that kind of wrong. More of finding something by doing something wrong.”
“I don’t understand.” Rustin became uneasy and rather annoyed with the way his friend put it.
“I mean, the technicians were not supposed to run certain tests because they weren’t required. But someone wrongly did and . . .” Herald paused trying to find the right words.
“And?” Rustin was at his seat’s edge.
“Look, I don’t really know how —”
“Don’t give me that crap, Herald, you know me! I want the cards on the table! Plain and simple!”
“Aids!”
“Whaat?” Rustin could not believe what his friend just said.
“Yes, positive for Aids.”
“No, it can’t be possible!”
“I’ve already asked them to run the test several times, and it always came out the same.”
“Surely there’s some mistake. You know me more than anyone. I can never have Aids!”
“I know, Rustin. Otherwise I wouldn’t have asked them to run the test many times over. I could never doubt your integrity. Unmarried, a chaste life and you don’t have any history that would expose you to the slightest risk.”
Herald paused and asked, “In any case, could there have been something you may have exposed yourself to?”
Rustin’s mind went blank.
From nowhere there came that lie he said to his would-be assassins: “I have Aids!”
“Herald, it can’t be. It’s just . . .”
“Happening too fast and too soon?” His friend completed his sentence.
“Where did you hear that?” Rustin shuddered at what Herald echoed him saying before.
Herald did not understand where Rustin was coming from.
In the silence that began gathering between them, Rustin once again felt the sensation of a faint icy touch of steel on his forehead.
He now began wishing he had never said that lie.
“But Aids?”
Rustin could only cringe in the armchair and began to weep bitterly.
“God, how could I deserve this for a lie that saved my life?”