Head Games

by Thomas B Cavanagh

  “Mornin’,” I said.

  “Morning.” Jennifer went around the table and grabbed a mug from the cabinet. She poured a cup of coffee and stirred in some milk and sugar. I said nothing as she sat at the table and sipped. But she noticed me watching her.

  “What?” she said.

  “Nothin’.”

  “I drink coffee all the time, y’know.”

  “Okay.”

  “Lots of kids do. All my friends.”

  “Good.”

  “There’s no age limit on coffee, like alcohol.”

  “Yeah.”

  We sat silently for a moment, just a coupla pals hooked on the bean, sipping our joe.

  “Does your mom know you drink coffee?” I said.

  I caught her in midsip. She froze, looking up at me over the rim of her mug. I had my answer. I smiled. She smiled back.

  There was a knock at the front door that startled me. The wall clock said 7:12 a.m.

  Jennifer and I exchanged a look. From the expressions on our faces, neither of us was expecting anyone. I thought about grabbing my Glock, but didn’t want to spook Jennifer again. I pushed up from the table and peeked through the door peephole.

  I groaned to myself and wondered if I could get away with pretending we weren’t home. There was another loud knock, followed by a muffled voice calling, “Hello?!” I opened the door.

  “Hi, Wayne,” I said.

  Jennifer’s stepfather stood on the mat holding a toiletry bag. His face twitched into an awkward smile. He was as handsome as I remembered, tan and athletic, wearing a crisply pressed white shirt and a dark silk tie.

  “Hi, Mike. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “Nah,” I said, stepping aside so he could enter.

  “Wayne!” Jennifer exclaimed, immediately putting her coffee cup on the table and pretending it wasn’t hers. Wayne’s eyes darted over the scene. Two cups of coffee. A fifteen-year-old girl. He looked at me with a question in his eyes. There may have been an accusation and a judgment in there, too.

  “You want some coffee, Wayne?” I said, closing the door. “Just made a fresh pot.”

  “Uh, no. Thanks.”

  “Well, if it’s not my famous coffee, what brings you by at seven in the morning?”

  He held up the toiletry bag. “Some stuff for Jennifer.” He handed it to her. “Your mom found some vitamins and makeup and stuff you left at home. She asked me to drop it by on my way to the hospital. We wanted to make sure you had it before we left.”

  “Thanks,” Jennifer said.

  “Left?” I said.

  “Becky and I are taking a few days at our place up north. Didn’t she tell you?”

  I shook my head. “Must’ve slipped her mind.”

  “Well, she’s been under a lot of stress. You know. With everything.”

  “Yeah.” I almost smiled. I was supposed to feel sorry for Becky because of the strain my terminal cancer has put on her. That pretty much summed up our marriage. “You want some breakfast? Cheerios?”

  Wayne offered a polite smile. “Thanks anyway.”

  “I’ll put this away,” Jennifer said, and took the bag into her room.

  “How you feeling?” Wayne said as soon as we were alone. I saw his eyes take in my shabby apartment. He was cool, didn’t change his expression, but I knew that somewhere inside he winced.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Headaches?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “You still seeing Joe Tanner?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s good. You could do a lot worse.”

  “He seems okay,” I said.

  “Has he figured out a treatment plan yet?”

  “Still working on it,” I said as Jennifer came back into the kitchen.

  “Sure you can’t stay?” she said to Wayne. “I’ll make you some eggs.”

  “Thanks, kiddo, but I’m late for work.”

  I escorted him to the door and locked it behind him. I occurred to me that my daughter had never offered to make me eggs. This morning I had been promoted to the position of adult with whom she can share her secret coffee habit, but I had a long way to go before I reached the exalted status of Saint Wayne. It pissed me off.

  Sure, I knew my problems with Jennifer were my own doing, but it pissed me off, all the same.

  “Get dressed,” I said.

  “What?” Jennifer said.

  “Get dressed. We’re going out for breakfast. Then I have plans for us this morning.”

  CHAPTER 9

  I had the two-thousand-calorie, triple-cholesterol platter at Denny’s. I put some extra grape jelly on a buttered biscuit and crammed it into my mouth. The encounter with Wayne had stirred something within me. Anger. Jealousy. Hunger. For the first time in a long while I was truly hungry. And, most surprising of all, Bob backed off on the headache. Maybe it was the food.

  Jennifer picked at her omelet. She had hardly touched it.

  “Whassamatta?” I said, my mouth full of biscuit. “You not hungry?”

  She shrugged. Sipped at her OJ.

  I swallowed the biscuit. Gulped the last of my coffee and gestured at a waitress for a refill. I gazed a moment at Jennifer and took a deep breath.

  “Listen, you probably have some questions…”

  She looked up at me and inhaled sharply, frozen. By her deer-in-headlights expression, I assumed she thought I was talking about sex.

  “Y’know, about my cancer.”

  Her expression softened, but just barely. “I guess,” she said, shrugging.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I dunno…”

  I raised my eyebrows, an attempt at encouragement. That it was okay to ask.

  She shrugged again, pushing a piece of omelet with her fork. “Does it hurt?”

  “No. The cancer doesn’t hurt. Not yet. But I do get pretty bad headaches. See, around the brain is a cushion of fluid.” I gestured an imaginary halo. “As the tumor gets bigger, it takes up more and more room, squeezing the fluid into a smaller and smaller space. As the pressure grows, the headaches get worse.”

  “What happens when there’s no more room?” she said, still looking down at her plate.

  “They can drain some fluid off to relieve pressure. But, really, by the time the tumor is that big—at least with my kind of tumor—headaches will be the least of my problems.”

  “What kind is it? The tumor.” Jennifer put the fork down, but still wasn’t looking at me.

  “There are lots of different types of brain tumors. Some are even harmless. They grade tumors like mine in four levels, with four being the worst. I have what’s called an anaplastic astrocytoma. It grew out of cells called astrocytes. My tumor is a grade three.” I paused, trying see what kind of reaction I was getting. Jennifer’s face was blank. Purposely blank. She was listening but pretending it was no big deal. “The doctors told me I could expect to live for another year or so, maybe more, depending on what the tumor decides to do. Grade threes usually turn into fours, also called gliomas. Once that happens, it usually goes downhill pretty fast. The last couple months will be kinda rough.”

  The waitress refilled my coffee cup and moved on. Jennifer poked the fork back into her eggs. “What do you mean … rough?”

  “When the brain goes, so does your … personality. You can lose muscle control. You forget things. Your mood can change. You can lose the ability to talk. You may not be able to control your behavior at all. I don’t know what’ll happen. So far the most I’ve had are the headaches. But I also had a seizure. I’m on medication, but I expect it’ll only get worse.”

  Jennifer shifted her weight and rotated her glass of juice. Her face puckered a little.

  “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable,” I said. “Just thought you might have some questions. And I want to be completely honest. But we can talk about something else—”

  She looked up at me. “So what are you doing about it?”

  Stopped me
cold.

  “Can’t you, like, take a pill or something?” she said.

  “You mean treatment?”

  “Yeah. Can’t you do anything about it?” Her gaze was direct. Withering.

  “It’s complicated. Surgery is usually the first choice.”

  “So?”

  “So, it’s not so cut-and-dry. Even if they do go in, with a grade three, they almost never get it all out. Which means the tumor grows back. And, it usually comes back at a higher grade. Plus, the tumor’s location is risky.” I pointed at the biopsy scar on the side of my head. “It’s not right at the brain’s surface. They’d have to dig a little to get at it. The surgeon says that not only is there a ninety percent chance they won’t get it all, but there’s a fifty-fifty shot I’ll suffer permanent brain damage either way. I could end up a vegetable.”

  Jennifer was silent for a moment, thinking about what I’d just said. “But what choice do you have?”

  I hunched my shoulders. “It’s up to me. I could also choose radiation or chemotherapy, which are mostly used as follow-ups after surgery. They can blast radiation right at the tumor or even surgically implant irradiated wafers. But, really, those just prolong the inevitable. They may slow the tumor down, but they won’t stop it.”

  “So … surgery is your only choice.”

  “No…” I stirred a spoon in my black coffee.

  “What else?”

  I didn’t say anything for a long moment, wondering just how honest I was going to be. It looked like she was about to get the total-honesty package.

  “What else?” she said again.

  “I could do nothing.”

  She furrowed her brow, confused. Then realization dawned and her expression changed into disbelief. “You mean give up?”

  “I mean, let nature take its course.”

  “You mean give up.” This time she said it as a statement.

  “You have to play the cards you’re dealt,” I said, sounding suddenly, inexplicably, like a Kenny Rogers song. “If you’ve got a bad hand, you can bet all you want but you’ll still lose. Best to know when you’re beat and cash out before blowing all your chips.”

  Jennifer stared at me for another few seconds, mouth slightly agape.

  “You’re not even going to try to fight?” she said, her lip curled in disgust.

  This time it was my turn to look down at my plate. How do you explain to a fifteen-year-old—your daughter—that there really wasn’t much worth fighting for? You had burned out at your job five years ago. The cancer was a blessing because it finally gave you an excuse to quit. You’d suffered through two failed marriages and had finally accepted that marriage as an institution just didn’t work for you. You lived in a shitty little apartment that was no better than the one you had in college. You had no investments. No significant savings. No obligations. Parents long dead. No siblings. Your only child didn’t like you very much. The thought of trying to salvage your relationship with her seemed way too hard when you had another thirty years of life to endure. Now that it was down to a few scant months, it just wasn’t worth the effort.

  She wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain it. It would sound like I was wallowing in self-pity, which, admittedly, was pathetic. But I didn’t feel sorry for myself. Honestly. At least I didn’t think so. I just knew who I was and what my life had become. When I thought about it, I realized that Bob had arrived right on time. Some cosmic force—God, the universe, karma—had taken measure of my life and decided that, on balance, I was better off gone. Who was I to argue?

  But Jennifer wouldn’t understand that. I didn’t even think I could express it adequately. Instead of trying, I merely shrugged again and looked down at the table.

  With a small shake of her head, Jennifer turned back to her omelet and took a bite. We were silent for a moment. The sounds of the restaurant seemed incredibly loud. Silverware clinking. A guy coughing. A cell phone ringing. A baby crying. A plate breaking back in the kitchen.

  I punctured a link sausage with my fork and skated it lazily around my plate. I couldn’t bring it to my mouth. Putting down the fork, I pushed the food away. My ravenous appetite had vanished. And I could feel Bob’s coffee break ending as the skull jackhammer went back to work.

  * * *

  Fortunately, I caught George on my cell phone while Jennifer was using the restroom. George had just arrived at the office and swore again that Eli had nothing to do with my new elevator friend. Apparently Eli was concerned and wanted to know more about it. When I asked George if I could bring Jennifer to the office, he told me “no problem.” In fact, he’d even set up something special for me.

  After talking with Holden at the basketball game the previous night, I figured it was time to sit down with the rest of the Boyz. If Holden had received a card from TJ, I was willing to bet my left ear that Ben and Miguel also had. Maybe some Global staffers, too. If I could get a postmark and compare the messages, I might have a general location and deduce some sort of pattern. At least as a starting point.

  I hadn’t yet told Jennifer where we were going. I planned to surprise her. Wayne might have the Lexus, the vacation place in the mountains, the relationship with my daughter, but I could deliver the idols of her youth. If this went well, it was a moment that she would remember the rest of her life. The heroes we have as kids are the most important we’ll ever have. They are the heroes of innocence and wonder and possibility, before life shines the harsh light of reality on us. And them.

  I pulled into Global’s downtown parking garage. Jennifer asked a few questions, which I refused to answer, while we rode the amazingly quiet elevator upward. Realization seeped in for her when we walked into the opulent Global Talent lobby.

  I asked the gorgeous receptionist to ring George. A minute later he appeared and escorted us down the hall, past the celebrity photos on the wall, to the door marked REHEARSAL STUDIO.

  Jennifer’s eyes were wide now. She had to have guessed what was going on but refused to believe it. She looked at me and I tried to stifle my grin. George opened the door and Jennifer’s mouth dropped open.

  “Oh … my … God,” she said, her hands quivering at her sides.

  Just as before, through the glass, I could see the three Boyz rehearsing a set of acrobatic dance moves with a choreographer. I put a hand on Jennifer’s elbow and guided her into the room. Then I positioned her in front of the glass, where she stood with one hand over her mouth, the other trembling, her breath coming in rapid pants.

  George pulled me aside where she couldn’t hear us.

  “She doesn’t know about TJ, does she?” he whispered.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, shaking my head. “I just want her to say hi and maybe get a quick photo while I’m interviewing Ben and Miguel.”

  “Okay,” George said, looking up through the glass wall. “I’ll grab Ben first for you and introduce Jennifer to Holden and Miguel.”

  “Thanks, George. I appreciate it.”

  “Yeah. No sweat.” He slipped into the rehearsal studio.

  I stepped up next to Jennifer. “You okay?”

  “I can’t believe this,” she said, unable to tear her eyes from the glass. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this.” She was still trembling.

  “I’ll just be a few minutes.”

  Finally she turned and looked up at me. Her face was intense, but utterly confused. The question was unsaid but clear: How the hell did you do this?!

  “George is VP of security for the band. We used to work together at OPD.”

  The music stopped and Holden finished singing, stretching out the last note, eyes closed, voice full of emotion. Jennifer was at risk of a genuine old-fashioned swooning.

  I saw George chatting with the three Boyz and the choreographer. They all looked over at us at the same time, and I sensed Jennifer’s spine stiffen next to me. George waved us into the studio.

  “C’mon,” I said, and took Jennifer’s elbow again. I led her into the studi
o, which was much cooler than it looked through the glass. The group was standing in the middle of the blond hardwood floor.

  “Guys, this is Jennifer Garrity,” George said as we approached. “Mike’s daughter. She’s a big fan.”

  To their credit, the Boyz knew how to connect with their fans. Holden, Ben, and Miguel each greeted her and made her feel welcome. Jennifer was borderline apoplectic. She managed a couple of stammering “Hi”’s and avoided any major teenaged embarrassment.

  I handed George my thirty-five-millimeter camera, which, amazingly, I had actually remembered to grab from my apartment before I’d left. He nodded and shook a thumb at a door on the other side of the room.

  Ben gave Jennifer a smile, exchanged a look with me, and headed for the door.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” I said to Jennifer, and followed Ben through the door.

  CHAPTER 10

  It was a combination dressing room/locker room/country club. It was ten times nicer than either of my previous houses and on a whole separate planet from my current apartment. Thick pile carpet, marble vanities, massage table, therapeutic spa, the works. Ben grabbed a Gatorade from a cooler and flopped into a couch along one gilded wall. He mopped his head and neck with a small towel.

  “George said you want to talk about the card,” he said, running his fingers through his dark, curly hair.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Did you get yours yesterday, too?”

  He nodded. Paused. Then shook his head. “I swear I don’t know what goes on between TJ’s ears.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Sure.” Ben pulled himself up. He opened a door that led, presumably, to a private changing area and returned a moment later with an envelope.

  The postmark was Orlando, the west side of town. Not too far from Isleworth. Three days ago. Either TJ was still local, availing himself of the services of the U.S. Postal Service, or someone had mailed these for him. Maybe dear old Mom. I would definitely be back to see Arlene Sommerset very soon. Maybe today.

  I opened the card. This one featured three images in a landscape orientation. To the left was a hairy brown caterpillar. In the center was a cocoon hanging from a branch. On the right was a rainbow-colored butterfly. I opened the card. The text inscription read: