Your heart leaps as you pass through the gateway in the mud wall; so sharp is the contrast, that you may stand with one foot in an arid wilderness and the other in a shadowy, flowery paradise. —Gertrude Bell, Persian Pictures A sixty-nine-year-old body is still beautiful. It refuses any covering. A nurse is standing by the bed when we walk in. The nurse attempts to drape the genitals of the man on the bed with the edge of the sheet. But the hand of the man on the bed plucks the sheet away. I’m afraid modesty is out the window, the nurse says. There are two large windows. There are three chairs for visitors, comfortable chairs; there is a foldout sofa for a spouse—that would be Peter, Luther’s partner of thirty years, more than thirty years. Peter called two days ago. He said it was time. So Jimmy and I drove to Las Vegas on Holy Thursday. Luther has been Jimmy’s friend for more than forty years.
