The last time I saw Scott Childress

Scott Childress called me. He was not really a friend but Scott was a friendly guy and I had gone to a few of his parties...though, Scott was normally more frustrated with my social idiocy, and was at least willing to call me on the carpet about it.

I had worked with him, a summer, at the Arizona Inn. I was a busboy, and he was he Maitre'd. He was okay to work with, but did not want to socialize as he meant to keep up a professional appearance.

So, he called me. He invited me over to his parents house. Which, was a apartment complex with a house on site, and there he brought me into the living room. We sat down to watch "Star Trek".
The Childresses, they had an old style console TV.
What follows is as well as I can remember:

"Well, I have AIDs, I think I got it from that party...you remember, they guy in the trunk? I think he gave it to me.."this Scott said while almost crying.
I said something back. Not enough I am sure. Something like 'I am sorry Scott. I liked you. I thought we might have been friends somehow..."
"Do you want a drink of water?"
I said, 'okay'. He brought me a drink. I took a few sips. He gave me the estimated time of his death.
But after I had drank just a couple of sips really, he said, " I just killed you, James."
"What?"
"I could have given you AIDS...why not? Someone gave it me, on purpose, murdering me. I am leaving...my life is over...and I dont really think that much of you. But I know you are not one of those people who you have been made out to be."
Or, he said something like, "tell me you aren't who they are making you out to be...I dont think you are because I could have drugged that water. Dont you know about the drugs they have now?"
I think that pretty close, but not really the main point.
And he did say for sure that he could have murdered me, that it was all meaningless to him now, and he was bitter, angry, full of rage, cheated. But that he wouldn't because he wasn't a murderer. I guess he wanted to prove to himself and considered me, an obviously oblivious target. Perhaps to wise me up, too.
Scott would think about what you said. You could see him thinking, deeply, mulling it over..and it was charming trait.
Uh, hard to remember how I responded, but I felt I should go. There might have been more conversation, I think I said something really shitty, like, "I am sorry Scott, that you are dying. I dont know what I can say. You had a lot of friends Scott. You were always warm and, honest."
I did not cry. Or feel sad.
I was more worried he had a gun and would shoot me. Silly of me, but I remember thinking that to.
I really did not understand how he could have given me AIDS. I did not understand the power of those date rape drugs then.
As I left, the hard look on his face softened. I stood, in that entry room, other side of cabinets, that room with next to the kitchen, opposite side of the living room.

The back door was there, and I had parked in the back.
I stepped out. He said he wanted me to remember him, what he did at that moment. Not for me I think he said, but that I was a writer and that I might write down someday, his last words.

I thought he said more awful things, that his soul was diminishing so...it was more scarey than heartwarming. But I remember the softening of the look in his eyes.
So, I remembered Scott. I remembered when John Watkins finally contacted me in 2015, I remembered what you wanted me to remember...that you were facing the biggest moment, and that you did not become one of them. One of them that I bet Scott knew I had been cruelly handled by, and that he wanted to say that he didn't.
He made a point to say that he had drugged people, I guess. Something like it wasn't something he hadn't done to others.

But since he had contracted AIDS, was murdered by a nihilist really, from a revenge plot, that he wouldn't then, do that to me.
Scott if you only knew what that means to me now.
So long. Never forget you dude. A little blip of humanity in an otherwise huge panoply of cruelty and viciousness and by people with far less of a reason to vengefully seek cosmic justice on others for no good reason other than a lust to kill and rape.
You weren't one of them Scott. We loved you. He knew it.