Matt died.

Matt called me from Palm Springs about two hours ago. Apparently, he checked into a hotel with a bottle of wine, a six pack of Ensure, and a couple of barbiturates. (Do they still make those?) He called to say goodbye, and requested I phone his mother in Indianapolis with the address of the hotel so she could make final legal arrangements for his body. Ever since he told me he was poz, I've heard from him less and less. I didn't realize he was actually getting sick.

I wasn't about to fall into a re-enactment of the final scene in Falsettos, so I kept reminding myself to keep things light, even though I had become an unwilling participant in a dramatic death bond connecting a Palm Springs Hotel Room with a NYC Kitchen via cell phones. He told me I could go to his apartment and take whatever I wanted and throw the rest away. He had left this, and further instructions in a will, stored in an envelope, in his sex toy drawer, the contents of which were to be destroyed and/or disbursed at my sole discretion. He didn't mention the sex toy stash in writing, instead, he trusted me to protect his secrets forever, which meant I could never think ill of him once the items in this drawer were revealed. He also left me (in writing) the balance of his BofA account: $329.05.

I told him that I loved him very much. He told me that I was one of the kindest people he had ever known. I wanted to call paramedics to his hotel room so that he might get some help. He didn't know if he made enough money with SAG to qualify for health insurance, and told me he was dying anyway, so ambulance bills would be a redundant waste of money. "My body, My decision," he warned. He'd already been refusing treatment since he found out he was poz 2 months ago. (I began to wonder if he had become a Jehovah's Witness, but I didn't feel like pressing that issue with him. It didn't seem important.) He had just swallowed "a barb with a jug of wine, just like Judy." He said, "I love your voice, Theo. Don't ever stop singing. Sing for me now." Silence. I was finding it hard to even speak. "No come on. Sing something to me," he asked.

I sang Lonely House from Street Scene, and even though he joked he'd be dead before I hit the high note, I kept going. I had to sing every note like it was his last, in case he really didn't make it to the end. All I heard was silence by the time I had finished. Maybe he didn't want to say anything.

Maybe he was dead, but I hung up the phone without ever knowing.