by Rob Harrell
Linda looks over at me with her eyebrows up and holds out a hand in surrender. “Okay. Whoa . . . I’m sorry, Ross. We’re all learning as we go here, but clearly I hit a nerve. I know you’re upset about Abby moving too. It’s a lot to take. I’m . . . I’m really sorry, honey.”
I pull my backpack into my lap and glare out the rain-streaked window.
“Linda, can you not call me honey?”
Four minutes later, I stalk into the lobby of the radiation center and brush the water out of my hair. I feel like my head is full of bees.
“Hey, hey! Dime Slot! How are we today?”
Jerry’s in his usual spot, smiling and lifting his coffee at me. I don’t know how to react. I feel like a raw nerve. I’m hardly in the mood to socialize. I stand still and take a few deep breaths. When I feel like I can function again, I walk over to the couches.
“Hi, Jerry.”
He looks me up and down. “You look like dookie, son.” He chuckles, which leads to a few phlegmy coughs.
I sit a couple of couches away. “Yeah, I’m just . . .”
Jerry nods. “That’s cool. I get it.” He picks up his magazine.
I flop back against the couch and close my eyes.
There’s no music playing today. The only sounds are the rain and the occasional page turn from Jerry. He seems like he’s into his article. I glance over at the reception desk, but nobody’s manning it this aternoon. I look back as Jerry licks a big finger and turns another page.
“Seemed like a pretty good head of steam you had, comin’ in here.” He doesn’t look up.
I feel my shoulders loosen. “Sorry.”
Without moving his head, he looks over at me. “You don’t need to apologize to me.”
I take off my hat and run a hand through my hair—and see a small clump fall to the carpet.
I should pick it up, but I don’t. “It just . . . It’s just a lot.”
“Oh, sure.” Jerry sets down his magazine and shifts in his seat. “I had one doozie of a snit last week. Over a cold bowl of broccoli cheddar soup, of all things. Marilyn still isn’t real happy with me.”
I nod. “My hair. It’s falling out. I don’t know. I mean, I have the hat—it hides it—so it shouldn’t even matter.”
Jerry nods. “Oh. It matters. Matters plenty. That’s a tough thing.” He runs a big hand over his bald head. “Lost mine a long time ago, but that was different.”
I’m really tired. Like, my bones feel tired.
“What day you on, Ross?”
“I have sixteen treatments left.” I look sideways at him. “But who’s counting.”
He gives a one-puff laugh. Nods for a while.
“This . . .” He waves a hand around at the waiting room. “All of it . . . it’s a big thing, Ross. Especially at your age.” Jerry grunts a bit as he gets up and heads to the coffee station for a refill. “You’re supposed to be out playin’ ball and chasin’ the young ladies.”
Now I laugh. “I’m not much of a lady chaser. At least I’m not very good at it.”
“But you get what I mean.” He pours half a cup and comes over to the chair closest to me. “This isn’t normal, what you’re doing. What we’re doing. It’s weird.”
I let my head drop back and talk to the ceiling. “Jerry? Can I tell you how sick I am of being different? I hate it! You have no idea what I’d give to be normal. Like, a normal kid with a normal hatless head, and a goopless eye, and a normal life, and friends who aren’t moving away and . . . and hair and . . .” I taper off, realizing I’m whining.
“Why?”
I tip my head and look at him like he’s lost his marbles. “You’re asking why I wish I didn’t have cancer?”
Jerry scratches at some silver stubble on his cheek. “No. No, I definitely understand that part. But you talk about ‘normal’ a lot. What’s so great about being normal?”
I stare back. “Because it’s . . . normal. I don’t know. Normal is normal. Why is ‘good’ good? Why is ‘tasty’ tasty? Normal’s just the thing you shoot for.”
Jerry scoots forward. Rubs his palms together. “See, that’s where I think you’re wrong.” He pulls a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wipes his nose. Blows it. “I don’t think normal is a goal. At least not a worthy one.”
Oh no. I feel a lecture coming on. I look at the electric doors for Frank.
“What if everyone was completely normal, Ross? Have you ever thought of that? It’d be really boring, if you ask me.”
I sniff and fidget.
He goes on. “But different! That’s another matter. Different moves the needle. Different is where the good stuff happens. There’s strength in different.”
I scratch at my forehead and lower my eyelids at him. “So, I should be glad my cancer makes me different? I’m missing your point.”
“Nah.” He sits back. Waves it away with his big hand. “And I’m not sure what my point is, either. Look at me trying to be the magical old man who dispenses wisdom like he’s some kinda . . . I don’t know.”
He shifts around in his seat. “My dad . . . he was a hard guy. Practical. He . . . So I was pretty good at trumpet. Thought I could be a pro. Chet Baker, Louis Armstrong, all that, but he . . .” He looks uncomfortable talking about this but goes on. “‘But, son, that’s not what people do. Normal people.’ He drilled that into me, and I . . . I stopped playing. Sold appliances ’cause that’s what . . .” He stops, lost in thought. “I was good. I mean, really good, but he . . . I think about that all the time.”
He tapers off. Shakes his head and laughs. “Sorry about that. Went off on a tangent there, didn’t I? Not sure what my trumpet dreams have to do with your situation, but . . .” He smiles. “This is what happens when you get old.”
I give him a weak smile. “No. I think I get what you’re saying. I mean, kind of. Maybe.”
He laughs. “Never mind. Eat your vegetables and stay in school. Anything else is just me talkin’ outta my neck.”
He picks up his magazine and crosses his legs, and I notice for the first time that he’s wearing bright blue SpongeBob SquarePants socks.
I grab a Coke, go over to the window, and sip it while I stare out at the cold drizzle.
I can’t believe I yelled at Linda like that.
23
UGH
After my treatment, on the way to Abby’s, I apologize to Linda. She waves it off like nothing happened—“No worries!”—and takes me by Dagwood’s for a cookies ’n’ cream milkshake. Milkshake Therapy, she calls it. Sometimes she’s pretty okay.
When I show up, Abby’s parents are on their living room couch, looking at houses for sale in Minneapolis on a laptop.
We have a brief, awkward conversation about them moving—both of them look at me with sad eyes and tell me it really is an opportunity they can’t turn down—until Abby pulls at my elbow and we head for the basement. The TV is on, and Abby’s been watching the old movie Plan 9 from Outer Space, her math homework spread out on the carpet in front of the couch.
“Is it hard?” I ask. “I haven’t even looked at it yet, today was so crazy.” I think about the look on Sarah’s face in the cafeteria and groan.
Abby plops down on the couch and pulls her legs up, stretching her black T-shirt over them. “It’s fine. You’ll manage.” She looks over. “There’s a new meme. Do you want to see it?”
I sigh. Already? “I really don’t think I do. What is it?”
“You, but bald.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I can . . . I don’t need that today.” I look at her, but her eyes are on the TV. I start to go on, but she shushes me. Gives me a look. On the TV, Vampira is walking through thick fog. We’ve seen this thing a dozen times. It’s a cheesy old black-and-white movie, complete with super fake UFOs hanging from strings.
“What’s with you?”
Abby pulls her eyes away, looking irritated. “What do you mean, what’s with me? I’m trying to watch this.” Then she’s back to the movi
e.
We sit watching for a while in silence. At one point I go to the basement fridge, but it’s pretty much empty. There’s tension in the air, like electricity.
Finally, the movie ends, and Abby turns off the TV. After a few long moments, she turns and makes a face at me. “Sorry. I’m kind of freaking out.” She sighs and closes her eyes. “Like a freak.”
I nod for a second, and I know it’s stupid and petty before it’s even out of my mouth, but I say, “Oh, is your hair falling out too?”
The reaction is immediate. Abby’s smile vanishes, and the temperature in the room drops.
“No, Ross.” She stares. “It isn’t.”
“Oh. Interesting.” I start picking at the sole of my Converse. “And did you humiliate yourself in front of the entire school today?”
Her stare is a glare now. “No, Ross. I didn’t.”
“Okay. Yeah. Well, I did.”
“I know, Ross. And I’m genuinely sorry about that. I really am. But right this second—just for one teensy little moment—this isn’t about you.”
I haven’t gotten Truly Angry Face from Abby in a while, but here it is. Her chin is starting to jut out, which means trouble.
“Maybe I need just one second of concern for me. Would that be okay? Could we maybe pencil that in?”
I look away, and she stands up. “Do you realize my whole life is about to change? Everything! I’m being uprooted! Why am I even bothering with homework? It’s not like anything matters. It’s so stupid. I mean, I know you’re dealing with a lot—I can’t imagine—but for God’s sake, Ross! Am I not allowed to have my own—”
Her voice breaks as her mom’s voice comes from the top of the stairs. “You booger butts need a pizza or something?”
Neither of us answers for a few seconds, so her mom tries again. “Bagel Bites?”
“We’re fine, Mom.” Abby goes over and drops into a chair against the wall. Tucks her legs up and wraps her arms around her knees. Starts chewing on her hair like she does. She won’t look at me.
I put my head back and let out a long sigh. “Look, Abby, I’m sorry. I’m just . . .” I take off my hat, revealing my thinning area. “This day has really—”
Abby cuts me off. “No.”
I look up. Abby is staring at the floor.
“Nope. Not tonight, Ross. I just can’t tonight. I’m dealing with my own garbage. Sorry.”
Wow. I slowly put my hat back on, and we sit there without speaking for a minute.
“Gotcha. Real nice.” I stand up. “Selfish much?”
Abby’s eyes flash fire at me. “ME? YOU’RE calling ME selfish? I bend over backward for you, Ross! I’m happy to do it, but WOW! You think I’M the selfish one? Wake up. This whole cancer thing hasn’t been a cakewalk for me either, you know? I mean, Isaac . . . and other kids . . . There are . . .” Then she just runs out of words.
I turn and leave the basement without saying anything else. I feel like I might hurl. Apparently, I can’t go to Abby’s without storming out of the house these days.
When I get home, I go straight to my room and crawl into bed. Part of me knows I was a jerk with Abby, but another part of me is so mad I don’t care.
Does she really think her problems even compare to mine? I mean, I have a life-threatening disease! I could friggin’ die! And the whole Abby-is-moving problem affects me too! On top of all the hair falling out and people thinking I’m gross and feeling like crap and everything! So sorry you have to go to a new school with a fresh start and your cousin’s super popular friends and all. I mean, boo-freakin’-hoo.
My face burns and my dry eye stings and there’s hair all over my pillow and I have a throbbing headache and the simple act of rolling over feels like it would require superhuman levels of strength.
This pity party is in full swing.
Maybe I could switch schools. Surely a dumb story about hairy pizza wouldn’t make its way across town. Would it?
A little later, my dad knocks and sticks his head in. “You okay in here?”
“No.”
He comes in and closes the door behind him. He has a legal pad and a pen in his hand, but comes in and sits at the end of the bed. “Wanna talk about it?”
“No.” I put my head back and close my eyes. “Abby and I got into it.”
“Mmm.” I feel the bed shake a little as he nods his head. “Sorry. But you guys’ll work it out, I’m sure.”
He sits there long enough that I finally open an eye to make sure he’s okay. He’s just looking around at my stuff. My Star Wars Lego sets. I close my eyes again.
“Aren’t I—y’know, since I have cancer—aren’t I supposed to have some big epiphany?”
He sets his pad and pen down. “How do you mean?”
“I mean, on TV, I see people on the Today Show. Shows like that. Talking about how being sick taught them that every day is”—I make quote marks with my fingers—“‘a precious, wonderful gift from above.’ That I should cherish every day and live every moment like it’s my last.”
I look at him when he doesn’t answer right away.
“Yeah. I’ve heard those people. You’re not feeling that?”
I sit up against the headboard and cross my arms. “No. No. I’d say I’m much more in the ‘every day is an endless slog of misery’ camp right now.”
My dad chuckles and runs a hand over his face. “Ahhhhhh.” One more laugh. “I think that’s probably okay, Ross. I’d guess that’s fairly normal. It’s just not gonna get you on the Today Show.”
I sit staring off for a minute. “I mean, I don’t get an epiphany?”
He smiles. “Well. Not yet, I guess. Maybe it’s coming. Bubbling up from way down in your toes.”
I knock my head against the headboard a couple times, lightly. “Great.”
He sits there a while longer, waiting to see if there’s more. Eventually he grabs his pad and thumps it against my leg. “Okay. I have a ton of stuff I’ve gotta work through. Don’t be too hard on yourself, okay?”
I nod.
He gets up. Turns as he’s about to leave the room. “Any word from Isaac?”
I just look at him and give him the smallest perceptible shake of my head.
He nods a bit. “That’s disappointing.” Then he closes the door softly behind him.
I vaguely remember slogging down the stairs to eat a fourth of my dinner at some point. (Tuna and noodles, yay.) Then it’s back to my room for more ceiling staring.
The next morning, it’s not hard to convince my dad and Linda that I don’t feel up for school—I barely need to move my lips to tell them. All energy and will to live has fled the building.
They’re both concerned, but my dad is in charge of two big meetings about the insurance case that he can’t miss. Linda says she can move some things around and work from home, and I hear her puttering around downstairs throughout the day. She drops in with snacks a few times, but I’m not hungry.
“Hey, Ross. I know you’re miserable right now, but it’ll get better, okay?”
I grunt into my pillow as she comes in and rubs my back. She sits on the edge of the bed for a bit. Smooths my hair in the back. Eventually I fake some deep breaths like I’m falling asleep, and she quietly leaves. When I finally roll over, I find two fun-sized Butterfingers—my favorite—next to the pillow. I eat them, joylessly, but appreciate the gesture.
I stay in bed. At one point I pull out my mom’s leather sketchbook and draw a little imaginary landscape like she used to do. I grab one of her other old sketch journals and flip through some of her drawings and wonder if they were some of the last ones she did. What was she feeling when she did them? There’s one really beautiful one of a creek and some trees, with pencil lines so light they look like they could float away. Like she did.
I may not remember her as well as my dad does, but I miss her in my bones.
At one point I lay the guitar beside me and lightly brush its strings, but for the most part, I just lie there
until that afternoon, when I have no choice.
It’s time for another treatment.
24
MORE GREAT NEWS
The waiting room is empty. I’m slumped over sideways, zoned out on a couch, when Frank comes into the lobby.
“Hey. You ready?”
I notice his lack of Frankness right away. I wonder if this depression thing is going around. Like the flu. Heaving myself out of bed felt like lifting a two-thousand-pound bag of wet sand.
“Yeah.” I push myself up and follow him through the doors. Even Frank’s walk is slower than normal, so I have to ask. “What’s up?”
Frank looks over. “Ah, we just found out Jerry’s in the ER. Got sick really fast last night. He had a really bad night and morning. Sounds like it’s pneumonia.” He holds the door to the treatment room for me. “Marilyn—his wife—called to let us know he wouldn’t be in.”
I’m alarmed. Maybe even stunned a little. “But I talked with him yesterday. He seemed fine. I mean, he was coughing a lot, but he always does.”
Callie, sitting at the controls, spins around in her chair and gives me a smile as she gets up. “I’m sure he’ll be okay. We just like the old guy, you know? And pneumonia at his age isn’t . . .”
We all stand awkwardly, with our hands on our hips. Then Frank shakes it off.
“He’ll be fine. I’ve told that guy twenty times that if he dies, I’ll kill him.” He leans in for a closer look at the red, flaky skin around my eye. “Yeesh. Are you keeping the goo on there? It’s looking angry.”
I stick my jacket and cowboy hat in the locker in slow motion. “Trust me. I eat, sleep, and breathe goo.”
Minutes later, I’m lying on the gurney wondering if this day could get worse when Callie steps up. She leans over me as she locks my mask into place. “You okay?”
I take a second to answer her. “That . . . is a really complicated question.”
She laughs. “Yeah. You’re in the thick of this now. I noticed you’re losing hair.” She leans in for a closer look. “The eyebrow’s starting to go too.”