We Sat Upon the Couch

I met Raphael on a dating website when I was in my early 20’s. It claimed to be a dating app, but we all knew what we were seeking: a quick fuck to escape the pain of existence.

I was young and nervous and we talked for a while before we agreed to meet. I had not met a lot of people online.

“We don’t have to do anything the first time, but I would really like to meet you.”

So I showed up at his small studio apartment built into the backside of someone else’s home and knocked on the wood of the screen door where the mesh screen was peeling.

“Come in and have a seat on the couch,” I heard a voice call from inside. The orange velvet couch in question sagged in the middle and had a throw blanket with hunting dogs draped over the back. I sat and pulled a hard round pillow into my chest.

“Would you like a glass of water?”

Raphael’s smile was genuine and immediately disarming. I smiled and nodded, my gratitude appearing to be for the water, but actually because of an extension in the moment to compose myself. I shifted uncomfortably, leaning back, then forward. I put an arm on the back of the couch and then back to the pillow clutched on my chest.

He returned and sat next to me on the couch, a bible’s length between our shoulders, and we sipped our water quietly.

I rubbed my finger on a section of couch where the cushion was pushing out from a small tear.

“If we are going to have sex, I should tell you that I am HIV positive,” he said, “but if you want to chat first, I understand.”

“Yeah, do you mind if we chat a bit?” I said, hoping to hide the alarm on my face. I had never met someone that was HIV positive and my poor educational upbringing (in a highly religious setting) forced me to scream internally:

Why didn’t he tell me before I arrived? Am I obligated to have sex? Can I catch it from the water? Can I catch it from his breath?

Two hours went by before I realized how long we had sat there talking. He volunteered at a local homeless shelter between his part time job teaching youth dance courses. We bonded over foreign films, fish tanks, and our abilities to fall asleep anywhere.

“Time really flies, doesn’t it?” I said as I checked my wristwatch and got up to leave.

We stood and hugged and within that embrace he asked, “Can I kiss you before you leave?”

“Oh, um, yes,” I said.

He leaned in and pressed his warm lips against mine.

We exchanged phone numbers and I left. I was sick to my stomach, my brain wouldn’t shut up that I had just let someone with HIV kiss me. It didn’t matter that he was so nice and the connection we had. I really liked him.

He invited me over again before the week was over, but I told him I was very busy with work. He invited me again the next week, but I told him that I wasn’t feeling well. We continued to chat and he continued to invite me over, but I had an excuse every time.

“Who are you chatting with,” my best friend asked me one day as I was deep in text with Raphael.

“Oh, Raphael Frisk, we’ve been chatting for about six months,” I said.

“You should be careful with that guy. I heard he has HIV.”

Those words stung. I don’t know why I it upset me, but it did. Raphael was nothing but nice and upfront with me. How dare my best friend denigrate him to a diagnosis?

Wasn’t that what I was doing? Shouldn’t I be better than that?

I accepted the next invite Raphael sent me and, despite still being nervous, I showed up at his house and we sat upon his beaten up orange velvet couch. He had the throw draped over his legs and sat against the far arm.

“I just got over a cold, so I am not going to get too close.”

So we chatted on each end of the worn couch. I traced lines in the weathered stains.

“Want to watch a movie?”

“Yeah, what did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking The Science of Sleep, since you said you’ve never seen, I rented it from Blockbuster.”

“That sounds great!”

I finished the movie and found him asleep on the other end of the couch. I turned off the television and pulled the blanket over him and left quietly.

My life started picking up some speed and by the next time Raphael invited me over my excuses were no longer made up, “I can’t make that weekend, I have a family reunion” or “I have to work late that day.”

But we did hang out again, every so often, and always on that beat up orange velvet couch. We never did get physically intimte, but we would chat into late evening and then I would leave. Each time I grew more and more comfortable with my friend.

“I got a fish tank, can you come help me set it up?”

There I was, on his beat up orange couch, pulling tubes and pouring gravel. Until he had a working fish tank.

“What kind of fish are you going to get?”

“Well, my friend got me the tank, but I don’t have car to get to go to a pet store.”

“What kind of fish would you like?”

“I want to get one of those really pretty betta fish because they look like little dancers.”

On my way home from work the next day I stopped at a local pet store and found a beautiful white betta with brilliant blue streaks. I purchased the fish and some food and took it directly to Raphael’s house.

Raphael hugged me, “he’s beautiful. You didn’t have to do that.”

“I can’t stay, but I didn’t want you to have an empty tank for long,” I said.

I left Raphael sitting on his couch staring at his new friend.

One day, Raphael stopped responding. I was confused and worried, but we had gone weeks without talking before. It was nearly a month before I got a message.

“Sorry I haven’t responded. I’m in Pteetneet Regional recovering from cancer. I can finally have visitors today, if you would like to come see me.”

I skipped class and rushed to the hospital where my friend was asleep in a hospital bed. I sat on the end of the bed and wiggled his foot.

“Hey,” he said groggily.

“I’m not sure where to sit without your old orange couch,” I said.

We laughed together and I held his hand.

Raphael spent one more month in the hospital before he was allowed to go home and I was there with him on the first day he arrived.

“What happened to your bed?”

“I started sleeping on the couch and figured if I wasn’t going to use the bed then it should go to someone that needed it more,” he wouldn’t explain any further.

I saw Raphael at least once a week after that. We would watch movies together or make dinner. He was often sick from the experimental treatments they would give him and I would dab his forehead during the fevers and wipe throw up from his chin. He fell asleep more often before I left and I would always pull the throw blanket over him before ducking out the door.

One day I stopped by and no one answered the door. I pulled back the broken section of the screen and popped the lock open like he had taught me.

The little studio apartment was empty. No worn orange couch, no Raphael.

“Where are you my friend,” I sent via text.

“I’ve moved, here is my new address,” he responded quickly.

I arrived at the new address, confused to find that it was a hospice, and inside my friend’s room was a familiar worn old orange velvet couch with a sag in the middle. We sat on the couch and talked.

“Do you have a tape recorder,” Raphael asked me.

“Yes,” I’d bought a digital recorder for transcribing interviews for a class.

“I thought you’d told me that. Can you come back next week and record my life story?”

I returned as planned the following week. Raphael told me a story of lifelong abuse, abandonment, fear, sickness, loneliness and sadness. I recorded every moment, tears in both our eyes, and we hugged tightly and kissed goodbye.

I spent a week transcribing the sadesst interview I'd ever heard with a new and educated insight on the life of my friend. I made a copy of the interview on a CD and printed out the transcripts; I packed them both in a simple manila envelope and returned to the hospice center.

But Raphael was gone. His room was empty.

“He passed away peacefully in his sleep last night,” the nurse said.

“Can I see him?”

“He was cremated. He’s gone.”

“Who came for him?”

“The city collected him,” the nurse said.

“He didn’t have any other visitors? No one came?”

“I didn’t think he had anyone. I guess you were the only visitor I've ever seen here,” said the nurse.

I left the hospice and as I walked to my car I noticed something behind the facility’s dumpsters. It was the arm of a worn old orange velvet couch.

I sat down on the old worn orange velvet couch, discarded behind the dumpster, and I cried for the loss of a love that I never quite understood.