Can he hear? Does he know what's happening? Did he know, when he closed his eyes last night, that they would not open again?
      The nurse this morning, seeing him like this -- unconscious, breathing so shallowly -- said he had just a few hours to live. But his pupils responded to a flashlight; he's not in a coma -- he may be somewhat aware.
      The oxygen tube stretches across his mouth; he could never tolerate the way it felt in his nose. He needs to tilt his head back to take in air, and that's the only movement he makes, uttering a faint moan with each breath.
      Is he fighting to break through to consciousness? Nöel didn't like those drugs; he complained they were "commandeering." But when the dosage was reduced, he gasped for air and demanded more medication. Last night his morphine dosage was upped to 3 milligrams an hour, not enough to render a healthy person unconscious, but apparently enough to put this very sick man over the edge.
      He's wearing his glasses, although his eyes remain closed.
      Told that Nöel has but a few hours to live, his friends start arriving this afternoon. Steven Ames, the loyal buddy for 25 years, drives up from Old Lyme, Conn. Steven, with a ponytail dangling to the middle of his back, a fluid and resonant voice, has probably been the only constant in Nöel's life -- Nöel, who has persevered at no job or romance for more than a few years.
      Nöel could always count on Steven to tell it like it is. It must be comforting, now, to hear Steven's rich voice fill the room.
      Nöel's girlfriend returns, after spending the afternoon at work. She pauses at the door, fearing what she will find, and, seeing him alive, goes to his side. She moistens his mouth with a tiny sponge and exclaims that he moved his lips, begs him for another sign of awareness. She loves him terribly.
      He always said she was "in denial" about his death, but perhaps something else was at work, too. When everyone else was quietly bowing to the inevitable, she became the raging spokesperson for life, the one who saw death coming and cried, "Make it stop!" -- the one who would not accept something that was, truly, unacceptable. Perhaps this man who took a scientific view of his own dying appreciated -- needed -- her grief.
      Now she stands up and scratches his calf, in a spot that she said used to itch so badly. She notices that his belly is bloated. A hospice worker, contacted by phone, says that his kidneys have probably failed, and recommends disconnecting the water that has been dripping through the tube into his stomach. "I can't do it," his girlfriend says. Steven turns off the water drip.
      No more water. Nöel never asked for the water to stop. Without it -- as everyone knows but no one says -- he cannot live much longer.
      It is Steven's birthday. Nöel told Steven two weeks ago that he would stick around for the occasion. Rita Senna, the nursing assistant, has brought a birthday cake, and everyone sings "Happy Birthday."
      "This is exactly what Nöel would have wanted," Steven says of the moment of gaiety.
      "He must have heard us sing," Rita says.
      Soon Hospice Nurse Bobby Rhodes arrives, expressing surprise at finding Nöel alive. She discovers that the bloating was caused by a problem with the catheter, and drains off a huge amount of urine. But no one restores the water drip.
      Except for the rhythmic tilting of his head as he draws each breath, Nöel does not move. Rita takes his hand, but it has no grasp; even his crabbed fingers have now relaxed. A camera clicks, and he lifts his left eyebrow just a trace -- a remnant of that skeptical expression he used to make.
      Does he need something? Is he comfortable?
      Nöel's girlfriend goes into a back room -- the room that before his bed was moved had been his bedroom -- shuts the door, and proceeds to sob raucously.
      A knock at the door. Pizza delivery.

hen Bob and Debra Zuck arrive. Bob has not seen Nöel very much since Bob got the flu a month ago and had to stop his nightly trips to put Nöel to bed. He had done it for months -- happy at first to be of help -- but it took a toll on his family.
      Deb takes Nöel's hand and cries. "There will always be a big place for you in our hearts," she tells him.
      Bob's square, honest face remains calm as he goes to Nöel's side. He has spoken of his mixed feelings about this friend, someone he recently called "a mystery man."
      About two years ago, Nöel came to the Zucks' farm, in Lincoln, looking for herbs to buy. He immediately took a liking to Bob and Deb, and their two daughters. "Within about twenty-four hours," Bob said a couple of weeks ago, "he told us he was going to get to know us very well. Those were his exact words. . . .
      "He felt there was some kind of cosmic attraction to us," Bob said. "It was part of being kind of like an orphan. He was always looking to be part of a family. He needed to be adored by people."
      Soon Nöel was always at the farm, helping to build things, chatting with the customers -- chatting, sometimes, too much. He helped put up a greenhouse, and painted zillions of little signs for the plants. Nöel and Bob looked so much alike that people mistook them for brothers.
      "He was incredibly helpful to us," Bob said. "He kind of drove us nuts, too. He was too engaging."
      Now Bob sits next to Nöel and says something softly. Bob's face is hard to read.

nother short knock, and Reid Mendenhall comes in.

      Reid met Nöel in 1981 when news reports about the design of the Vietnam War Memorial sparked a flareup of Nöel's nightmares and flashbacks. Nöel showed up at a veterans' service center in Somerville, Mass., and Reid was among several fellow Vietnam veterans who stayed with him for four hours until he stopped screaming and crying. Nöel would later say that this encounter took a huge load off his chest, and in the ensuing years the nightmares became infrequent.
      Reid, though, still stares warily through the haunted dark eyes of a man who never returned from that bloody jungle. He served in the same company as Nöel, but Reid arrived in Vietnam a couple of months after an injury had sent Nöel home. The coincidence would cement their bond, a bond that became so deep and rare that both men said others -- civilians -- could never fathom it.
      "I love him like a brother," Reid would say. "I know him and trust him. He knows me and trusts me." And when Nöel came to need someone to get him out of bed every morning, Nöel did not ask for help, and Reid did not think twice about driving 630 miles a week to do the job.
      Another knock at the door. It's Nick Voulgaris.
      Nick looks no older than 25 -- young to be facing something like this -- and he doesn't know most of the people here. He shyly takes one of the chairs jammed near the door. Nick was working in a computer store two years ago when Nöel showed up to buy his Mac, and Nöel set about befriending him. Nöel, who was already sick by then, took him out to lunch, then to dinner.
      Nöel knew how to make friends, that's for sure -- a skill that has served him well in his final months. He was an expert schmoozer; he loved to spin tales, not always worrying if the truth got twisted in the process. And he loved to listen, too: fixing his blue eyes in an expression of intense interest, he would ask you a question about yourself, and you would answer.
      "Women always loved Nöel. He gives you total attention; you don't get that much. It's pretty compelling." That's what Fran Ross, an old girlfriend, said about him when she came to visit last month. Fran, who lived with Nöel for two years in the '80s, is here tonight, too; she drove down from Boston with her husband, Phil. She kneels by the bed, talking to Nöel for several minutes. He faces her, eyes closed, mouth open, tilting his head to take breath after breath.
      "It's hard," she says, "to hear him moan and not talk."
      The statement -- what about the statement? Nöel had prepared, in his mind, a statement to make before he died -- "something profound," he promised. What did he want to say? Is he trying to say it now?
      Dear God, I hope he is comfortable.
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