Happy Birthday to Me

by Brian Rowe

  Welch.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. I didn’t really want to, at first. He was sitting in a chair, grabbing for the stripper, snapping his fingers together, bopping his head up and down to disco music.

  The stripper was turned away from me, but Welch was looking just to the left of where I was standing. I imagined he was occupied by all that chapped, wrinkly skin in front of him, but I couldn’t risk him seeing me.

  I had to do this quick.

  I grabbed my phone and opened the camera application. I turned the volume down and started snapping as many pictures as I could.

  Some of the photos were dark, but the bright colors of the room gave me nearly a dozen photographs of Welch, clearly identifiable in each, cheering on a semi-nude, unquestionably repulsive Friday night stripper.

  Before I left the room, I filmed thirty seconds of video, too.

  I’ll see you on Monday, Coach.

  12. Thirty-Eight

  “What are you doing in here, Martin? I thought I made myself perfectly clear last week.”

  “I know you did.”

  “And you look even older,” Coach Welch said, sitting with a far more relaxed demeanor than the wild one he displayed on Friday night. “Seriously, Martin. You need to see a doctor or something.”

  He wasn’t lying. Over the weekend my face continued to change in subtle ways, with little bags forming under my eyes, and hair starting to thin at the top of my head. My mom didn’t say much to me over the weekend, and my coward father barely showed his face around the house. I had been doing research all weekend trying to find some sort of drugs, herbs, or vitamins that might help; I had come up with nothing.

  “You’re right,” I said with sarcasm. “Maybe I should see a doctor.”

  “What do you want? Make it quick.”

  “It’s simple, Coach. I’m here because I want you to put me back on the team.”

  He laughed and started perusing the local newspaper. “That’s never gonna happen. I made myself perfectly clear on Friday, Martin. Nothing you say to me will get me to change my mind.”

  “Really? There’s nothing I can do, Coach? I mean, if you just gave me one more chance—”

  “My decision is final!” Welch shouted, bringing his right fist down against his cluttered desk. “I can’t make it any clearer for you, Martin! Get out of my office! NOW!”

  I didn’t budge. Instead, I smiled. “All right, Coach. I wanted to ask you nicely.”

  He laughed. “What are you gonna do? Run to the principal crying? I have final say on who stays and who goes when it comes to this team.”

  I tossed six enlarged digital photos on his desk. I had uploaded the best of the twenty-six photos I took Friday night to my Mac computer, photo-shopping them and enhancing the brightness and clarity so that the male slime ball front and center could be easily identified.

  “What are these?” he asked.

  “Oh, just some pictures I took of you the other night,” I said. “What was the girl’s name? Ginger? Candy? Destiny?”

  Welch analyzed each picture one by one, gross little beads of sweat starting to roll down his gargantuan forehead.

  “Now I have two sets of copies of these photos in two different places,” I continued. “The digital files are on my computer at home, and they’re also on the phone I took the pictures with. I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but something tells me you wouldn’t want these photos to be distributed to every student and teacher and school administrator at CRHS, now would you?”

  He cracked his knuckles and rearranged himself in his chair. I awaited a brutal punch to the face.

  But he just sat there and started tapping his fingers against the desk. “You’re good, Martin.” He smiled maliciously, as if he thought I had just won the battle but had yet to win the war. “You know I’m never gonna let you play. You’re gonna be sitting on the sidelines in every game.”

  I stood still, towering over him. “I’ll make sure that won’t happen.”

  He leaned forward and replaced his smile with a menacing scowl. “Martin, we are closer to State than ever before. This is the best the team has done in six years. I’m not about to let some aging, disease-ridden blackmailer take a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity away from me and my team—”

  “Our team,” I corrected him.

  He sighed and crossed his arms, sweat now trickling down his hairy armpits. “Just stay out of my way, Martin. I mean it.”

  I smiled. I didn’t mind tuning out his threats. “So I’m back on?”

  “Practice is at three.”

  “Thanks, Coach.”

  I stepped forward to grab the enlarged photos, but before I could, Welch started tearing them up.

  I walked out of the room, a joyous rhythm to every step, as I turned around one last time to see Welch stuff the ripped photos into an overflowing trash can at the side of his desk.

  ---

  When I arrived home I found my dog Cinder, who looked pooped out from a hard day of lying around the house, sitting at the top of the steps that led to my parents’ bedroom. I set my backpack down on the living room floor and crawled up the seven steps on my hands and knees. By the time I reached the top, Cinder was already on her back, ready more than ever for a belly scratch.

  “Rough day?”

  As I started scratching her smooth belly, I turned to my left to hear an argument coming from my parents’ bedroom. It was muffled at first, but I could hear it more clearly when I pressed my ear up against the crack in the closed door.

  “We have to do something!” my father shouted. “He’s turning into a goddamn monster right in front of our eyes and we’re doing nothing about it!”

  “What do you want me to do about it, honey?” my mother asked. “He is on such shaky ground, I feel that if we press anything on him, he’s going to run away or, even worse—”

  “Don’t even say it, Shari.”

  “I don’t even want to think it! But I’m scared, Stephen! I’m really, really scared!”

  My heart started beating, and I immediately wanted to kick the door open to voice my opinions. But I knew my intrusion would only add fuel to my dad’s fire.

  “You have no idea the stress I’ve been under these last weeks,” my mom said. “Between just normal everyday stuff, with Kimber, with this house. You know, just trying to act like everything’s normal. I just keep going on like everything is the way it’s supposed to be. Except our only son is just wasting away right in front of us, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. It’s like somebody’s strangling him before my own eyes, and I can do nothing to stop it.”

  My mom kept on ranting, and I didn’t hear my father say much of anything for the next couple of minutes. I knew my disease was taking its toll on my parents. How could it not? But hearing them talk about the devastation my condition was bringing to the family was starting to make me feel sick to my stomach.

  “You need a break, honey, I get it,” my dad said. “I do, too. I was working non-stop before Cameron’s condition, and now, with everything that’s going on, I find myself working even more.”

  “All I ask is for one hour, Stephen. An afternoon. Your lunch break maybe. When the kids are at school?”

  “I don’t really take lunch breaks, you know that.”

  Now I had no idea what they were talking about. Lunch break? For what?

  “It’s been a while, honey,” my mom said.

  “It hasn’t been that long.”

  “I love you so much. I just want—”

  “You want—”

  “I want you to make me feel good.”

  There was only silence for a moment, and then I heard the disgustingly vivid smacking sounds of my parents kissing.

  “Oh, gross,” I said, softly under my breath.

  I glanced at Cinder with a look that suggested I just swallowed my own vomit. She seemed upset at this point that I wasn’t petting her belly like I had originally promised.

  “Ho
w about now?” I heard my dad say.

  “No,” my mom said. “Kimber’s in her room, and Cameron’ll be home any minute. You can’t get away at all this week? Just for a half hour in the middle of the day or something?”

  “I’ll see what I can do—”

  Without warning, my father started charging toward the bedroom door.

  Oh, crap.

  I jumped up, grabbed Cinder from the ground, and tossed her toward the bottom of the steps. I rolled down the staircase like an action movie hero and started rubbing her belly near the front door.

  My dad opened the door and looked down at me, oblivious that I had just been listening to their intimate conversation.

  “Oh. Hi Cameron.”

  “Hi Dad.”

  We didn’t say anything more to each other the rest of the day.

  13. Forty-One

  On Tuesday I finally resumed basketball practice after school, and despite Coach Welch and Ryan both wanting to slaughter me and feed me to a rowdy crowd of filthy pigs, the practices were so grueling I could hardly notice. After Thursday’s practice, I found myself limping toward my house from the driveway like I had just survived the world’s first ever weeklong triathlon.

  I was around forty now. My skin looked more rugged, particularly around my face, and my hips weren’t behaving with the distribution of my fat content the way I would’ve liked them to. While nothing compared to those initial few days of chubbiness, it was becoming more difficult to maintain the slenderness of my teenage body, even though I found myself eating less with each passing day. Just weeks ago I was scarfing down French fries and milkshakes, super-sized. Now my daily food regimen consisted mostly of nutrition shakes, with the occasional non-fat yogurt thrown into the mix.

  But of all the horrors entering my daily life, what scared me most of all was something I hadn’t foreseen happening for at least another week or two.

  A gray hair.

  I noticed it on my way home from practice, still breathing heavily from all my running. I realized I hadn’t taken a good look at myself in days, preferring to stay away from the mirror just as actors do looking at their own movies. I glanced at myself enough in the mornings to make sure my clothing was decent and my face was clean-shaven, but I wasn’t really trying to see myself. I looked into my rearview mirror and saw only the top of my head. I was about to look back at the road when I noticed the gray hair, sitting stiff and proud on the left side. I wanted to pull it out but stopped myself, having read somewhere that pulling a gray hair caused two more to appear, and then two more after that.

  I decided it best not to touch it.

  Who am I kidding? More will come. Lots, lots more will come.

  The front door of the house was locked, so I went in through the garage. Not a single car was inside, so I figured the house was deserted. I walked in and was met only with silence.

  “Mom?”

  I was disappointed. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and I wanted Mom to make me something other than a nutrition shake. A salad, maybe?

  I yawned twice and realized that if I didn’t make it to my bed, I would fall asleep right there on the kitchen floor. I needed a catnap—even if it lasted only ten minutes I would be grateful. I started heading down the hallway toward my bedroom when I heard a faint bark coming from my right.

  First, I thought it was coming from outside. Taking a few steps back, I realized it was coming from my parents’ bedroom.

  “Cinder?”

  I made my way up the steps and opened the door to see my dog shaking.

  “Oh no! Did Mom lock you in here?”

  I picked her up and started carrying her around the room as if the little cockapoo was my first-born child. After a few minutes she finally calmed down, and when I let her go, she jumped up on my parents’ bed and morphed herself into her belly-rubbing position.

  “You want me to rub you, huh? Do you?”

  I sat on the bed and gave the dog the gift she wanted. With each additional rub, the happier she became.

  “You love me, don’t you? You’ll love me no matter what I look like, right? No matter how old I get?”

  She didn’t seem to mind who I was as long as I kept rubbing her incessantly from head to toe.

  I lay down on my back and felt my head fall rhythmically against one of the fluffy pillows. I continued to pet my dog, staring up at the ceiling, my eyelids becoming heavier with each breath, and before I knew it, I was asleep.

  ---

  When my eyes opened again, I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It could’ve been two minutes or two hours. I smashed my lips together and swallowed some spit that had been lingering at the edge of my mouth. I turned over on my left side to see Cinder sleeping at the edge of the bed, completely conked out. I smiled.

  I reached my hand out to pet her again when I felt a warm body press against my back. A hand started caressing my chest, and a warm set of lips started kissing my neck.

  “Perfect. You’re right on time.”

  The lips made their way from my neck toward my right cheek. I wanted to jump up and scream, but I felt glued to the bed, like I was suffocating, like I was frozen in some kind of night terror I couldn’t wake up from.

  My mom wore a tight, pink nightdress, with a generous amount of make-up smothered over her face, her black hair up in a 60’s style bun.

  “Stephen,” she said, “I wore the dress you picked out for me.”

  She leaned down and smashed her lips against mine.

  The vomit inched its way up my esophagus before I could try to tame it. As I pushed my way out of my mother’s grasp, I tried to delay it the best I could. I tumbled over the bed toward the floor and jumped right up to my feet, as if her kiss had given me an instant shot of caffeine.

  “Mom?”

  She didn’t say anything at first. Only her jaw dropped. She stared at me for what felt like a full eight hours plus overtime before any syllables escaped her lips.

  “No! Cameron?”

  The vomit rushed into my throat—there was no stopping it. I ran to my parents’ bathroom, barely making it to the toilet. Even though I’d had almost nothing to eat in the last twenty-four hours, an abnormal amount of puke erupted from my mouth that would’ve made any intelligent person think otherwise.

  As the vomiting started calming down, I heard my dad’s voice coming from the bedroom. “Honey, you look great. You weren’t joking, were you?”

  I stood up and wiped my mouth. I felt dizzy. I turned the corner and walked into the bedroom to see my mom with her hands pressed against her dolled-up face, looking completely mortified.

  “Honey,” my dad said, holding her hands in his. “What is it?”

  They both turned toward me when I appeared. My father turned pale.

  “My God,” he said, letting my mother’s hands fall beside him.

  He stepped toward me without changing the stupefied expression on his face.

  “Dad—”

  “Shh,” he said. “Let me look at you.”

  We were looking eye to eye. Dad looked like me. I looked like Dad. We were twins. We were freaks.

  “It’s like staring in a mirror,” my dad said.

  “It’s me,” I said. “It’s Cameron.”

  He just started shaking his head. “This is too much, I tell you. Just too much.”

  He turned around and fled the house, slamming the front door so loud Cinder started barking.

  I continued to just stand there, not wanting to move, watching my mother wipe tears from her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Cam,” she said. “I didn’t know. You look—”

  “I know.” Just like Dad.

  We didn’t say anything for another minute. She finally sat up.

  “So can I make you a grilled cheese or something?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll be hungry for quite some time.”

  14. Forty-Four

  “Cameron… Cameron…”

  I opened my eyes to
see my dad hovering over me, dressed in his purple scrubs, the look in his eyes suggested that I was in serious trouble.

  “Dad?” I asked, sitting up, my head pounding from a lack of sleep. “What is it?”

  “I need you to come with me.”

  “What time is it?”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  He started pulling me out of bed. I resisted. “What are you doing, Dad?”

  “Cameron, you just have to trust me. I know how to make all this go away.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll see.”

  If it hadn’t been so early, I might’ve put up more of a fight. Given that it was still dark outside, I was barely able to form a cohesive sentence.

  As we made our way toward the garage, I finally started waking out of my daze.

  “We’re not going to that clinic in Arizona, are we?”

  “No,” my dad said.

  “Do you promise me?”

  “I promise.”

  The car ride was quick and painless. As he parked the car in his reserved spot, I recognized that we were in the parking lot of his work building.

  “Are we where I think we are?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “You’re not gonna give me lipo again, are you, Dad?”

  “No.”

  “Well then why are we here?”

  He didn’t answer me. He helped me out of the passenger side and led me toward the entryway. We made our way to the elevators and stood in silence all the way up to the seventh floor. I hoped this early morning adventure would lead me to a room where all my friends and family stood with grins on their faces, everyone screaming “APRIL FOOLS!” over and over, and instantly, somehow, through either magic or good will, my disease would just disappear. Unfortunately April first had already passed me by, and I was still just as old, and just as terrified.

  “OK,” he said. “Follow me.”

  The hallway was pitch black. The sun hadn’t appeared yet. I got a glimpse of my father’s watch to see that it was barely 5:15 in the morning.