The Tumours Made Me Interesting

by Matthew Revert

  She fell silent for a moment, placing the tumour back in her handbag. “There’s always something that can be done.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, you can have an operation in a futile attempt to remove the tumours and any cancerous tissue around the area. After that, you can blast yourself with chemotherapy in an effort to kill the beast that already owns the better part of you. The chemo will further weaken your already ravaged body, but hey, throughout it all you’ll have a false sense of hope that you can share with your mother. Of course the death will only hit her harder, but at least you will have experienced that fleeting false hope. By all means, Bruce… travel down this redundant path. It’s of no concern to me.”

  Her words were too real to ignore. I was stunned into meek silence. My tear ducts vomited down my face. I hunched forward, rocking slightly and starting to sob. I knocked the sparrow hat from the table and heard the contents slide across the floor. My sobbing graduating into wailing. “IT’S ALL OVER!” I yelled, again and again. If I thought my impending death was vivid before, I had just been schooled. Every part of me mourned itself. I was dying. My mother was going to be left alone. There was nothing I could do. There’s this little thing I’ve always done – I’m sure I’m not the only one. I’ve always made it a point to expect and accept the worst. What I learned at this moment, as Fiona stared dominantly at my trembling body, sly smile still unwavering on her face, was that the version of ‘worst’ I’d created was a lie. It had always been a lie. At a deeper level, I always knew my doom-laden predictions would never come to pass. Life is, more often than not a mild disappointment. It’s rarely the catastrophic disappointment we convince ourselves we’re going to accept with cynical stoicism. When the storm really hits, we cower and hide. I didn’t want to die. I wasn’t ready to die.

  “Please, Bruce. Try and calm yourself down,” said Fiona, with all the sympathy of a statue. ‘It’s really not as bad as you think.”

  My head was buried in my hands, gushing tears like an open wound gushes blood. “I don’t want to die,” I snivelled through bubbles of snot. It was here, in the pit of my misery that I felt Fiona’s foot brush my inner thigh. As if on cue, my snot bubbles retreated back into my nostrils and my tears dried up, leaving stinging eyes in their wake. My cock sprang back to life, panting like an excited dog. She ran her foot in delirious circles that drew me away from everything.

  “Has anybody ever told you that you’re a very handsome man, Bruce?”

  I slowly began to raise my head, catching her horrifying, seductive stare. No. I’d never once been told I was handsome, cute, attractive, hot or any other variation. Once a woman at the button market told me I might look decent if I got a haircut and separated my unibrow. But here was an attractive woman, crazy as she may be, who was looking me in the eye and telling me something I’d always dreamed somebody of her calibre would tell me. With everything that had happened, I knew it wasn’t real. I knew it was a fugazi, but it intoxicated me. There’s nothing wrong with choosing to believe the occasional lie.

  For the next hour I sat across from Fiona, her foot slowly working my inner thigh into a stupour. Precum drenched my underwear to such an extent that it blotted my jeans. I let her tell me how special I was. I even let her convince me to hold my tumour. I watched her run her tongue over its surface and I forced myself not to gag. I accepted her fascination. As long as her foot stayed on my thigh, I’d accept anything. I agreed to meet her again, this time at her home. She insinuated the possibility of sex. Her foot moved closer to my crotch whenever mention of her home occurred. I was her slave. She could have told me to bite into my tumour like an apple and I’d have obeyed, oblivious to the cannibalistic nature. If I was going to die, at least I might get to fuck first. But really… it was more than that. Yeah… I would have like to have sex with this woman, but I’d like to have sex with most women. This was more about someone wanting to have sex with me. A part of me was ashamed to respond to such a basic level of seduction, but I had never knowingly been the subject of seduction. The thought that Fiona might actually be willing to let me do this to her gave me a sense of validation. It made me feel important.

  8.

  I invited Arthur to join me for dinner. I had to coax him out of the ceiling like a cat from under a bed, eventually dragging him out by one wrinkled leg. If anyone needed company, it was him. He needed to eat something that wasn’t a carpet sample, and truth be told, I needed someone to talk to. The residual effect of my meeting with Fiona, although bizarre, had me thinking I was a bit special. My tumour was pretty fucking round after all. I wanted to say these things to Arthur but he was too busy squinting at the bright lounge room light and swatting invisible insects he believed were on his clothes.

  “You’ve really hermitised yourself up there, haven’t you?” I said, pointing my fork toward the roof.

  He poked at the spaghetti bolognaise on his plate, clearly unsure what to make of food so overtly edible. “I’ve never viewed myself as a hermit,” he said. “Yes, I’ve grown somewhat accustomed to my life in your ceiling, but I am rarely alone. I would always hear you plodding about down here. Pottering away and watching your television. Some nights I’d listen as you sobbed wretchedly into your pillow. Although you were unaware of my existence, I’ve always felt that I’ve known you.”

  To think of Arthur up there, listening to me crying at night was an embarrassment I couldn’t process. A man who sobs into his pillow is rarely in want of an audience. I tried to shake it off. He was here before me after all. “Why didn’t you ever think to introduce yourself?” I asked earnestly.

  “Let me ask you this, Bruce. Let’s say I had ventured into your quarters – how would you have felt knowing you had an ‘interloper’?

  Rather than answer his question, I reached into my pocket and withdrew a cigarette. I placed it between my lips and sucked at it, enjoying the faint taste of unburned tobacco.

  “You don’t smoke,” said Arthur, disappointment colouring his voice.

  “Used to smoke like a campfire. Gave it up at the bequest of my mother.”

  “So why start up again? Such a profoundly filthy vice.”

  “Because they make me feel good,” I replied in defense. “Because I’m dying anyway so why the hell not?”

  “Oh yeah… the cancer… so I guess you haven’t managed to beat that yet, huh?”

  I swiped at the plates on the table in a rage, sending them crashing through the window with a tail of bolognaise sauce in its wake. “Beat it? Since yesterday? I don’t know, Arthur… let me check.” I punched my stomach and fell to my knees. My whole body filled up with shakes and I felt my pants fill with warm sludge.

  Arthur leapt to his feet in a panic. “Holy heck! Is there anything I can do, Bruce? Preferably something that enables me to keep distance from the stench escaping your pant area.”

  I pointed toward the cigarette in my mouth. “Light… light…” I wheezed.

  “I’m on it!” declared Arthur.

  I could hear him clambering around, breaking my possessions. I didn’t care. I just wanted to feel little tornados of smoke wreak havoc in my lungs and absorb into my body. Why didn’t I buy a lighter on my way home?

  Arthur returned with a piece of kitchen drawer which he snapped over his knee. He started to frenetically rub the two pieces of wood together.

  “You hang tight, Bruce. I was a scout. I can start a fire with anything. Once I set the Liberty Bell on fire by throwing a blanket over it.”

  It wasn’t long before a spiral of smoke floated toward my nostrils. Arthur was getting excited and hooting like an owl. The rubbed piece of drawer was starting to glow with heat.

  “Would you like me to light it for you?” he asked in between hoots.

  I nodded with all the strength my neck allowed. Arthur started jabbing at my face with the piece of drawer. The first jab burned a hole through my cheek. I wailed in pain, almost dropping the cigarette. He regrouped and went in for another
go. This jab seared through my forehead and knocked against my skull. I could feel the skin around my poke holes bubbling.

  “This isn’t going well,” said Arthur.

  I nodded but maintained a healthy level of gesticulation that urged him to get the fucker lit. The next poke kissed the cigarette tip and I sucked like a thirsty rat. The smoke didn’t just enter me, it became me. The tumours were so proud. They were pairing up and dancing to the sound of the churning fluids in my body. If I had to live with them inside me, it made sense to please them. Fiona was right – my tumours were so special. I was special for having grown them.

  I felt Arthur’s hands slide beneath my armpits and raise me from the carpet. I was dragged toward the couch and placed gently down. My pants were being tugged down in reluctant jerks. “What are you doing?” I slurred.

  “Have to get you cleaned up. You’re a mess.”

  I wanted to fight against the indignity but I didn’t have the strength. He was wiping at my arse with a moist towelette.

  “I don’t know what on earth your bowel has evacuated, but it’s pink!” He edged closer. “And it appears to contain whispy veins.”

  I remained silent, resolved to my immediate fate. Arthur kept wiping, only stopping when a knock at my door startled him. He dropped the towelette and moved to answer it. “What are you doing?” I whispered. “Don’t answer the fucking door. I’m not wearing pants.”

  Maybe I wasn’t producing sound because he slung that door open like I didn’t exist. I tried to ball up my body in an effort to hide my shame. A small pony tailed girl wearing a white summer dress skipped inside. She was holding shattered bits of plate in her cupped hands.

  “Excuse me, mister,” she lisped. “You dropped some plates out of your window. Thought you might want them back.”

  Arthur patted the child on the head. “Isn’t she adorable?” he said.

  “The plates are broke. I can fix it for you but I’ll need some thread.”

  “Who taught you how to stitch plates together?” asked Arthur.

  “My mother. She taught me how to do everything.”

  “Where is your mother?”

  She slunk her head forward. “She’s gone.”

  “What happened?” I managed to say.

  “Plate killed her.”

  I sat up straight, almost like the past 10 minutes hadn’t happened. “Which plate?”

  She held up her hands and showed me the broken bits of window-tossed plate. “The one that fell through your window, mister.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Belinda Garbo Mayfair.”

  “Belinda… I killed your mother.”

  She started to giggle. “You big silly! You’re not a plate.”

  I massaged my temples, trying to assimilate what was happening. “No, Belinda. I’m not a plate. However, I was the one who threw the plate. Therefore, I killed your mother.”

  She dropped the shards and stared at me with doe eyes. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to do, Mister. That was my only mother. She was going to buy me a lizard.”

  “I don’t suppose you have a cigarette lighter handy?” I asked, trying to ignore the fact I was a murderer.

  Belinda touched her pointer finger against her chin and began to scratch like she had the pox. Soon another finger and another had joined the first and she raked them liberally across her pale little face, leaving red trails of pressure behind. Then her eyes lit up and she raised her hands to the ceiling.

  “I think I know where you can find a lighter, Mister,” she finally said.

  “Where?”

  “Look in my hair. Before my mother died, she said most things were in my hair.”

  I tried to ignore the mention of Belinda’s dead mother as I foraged about her pony tails. It was like a magician’s suitcase. I kept retrieving items that no hair should contain. I found a stuffed parrot, a foam comma, a guide to fjords, bread and finally, a lighter! At this point, I could have wasted brainpower wondering how and why any of this was happening. Instead I lit another cigarette, fell back on the couch and tried to clear my mind.

  “So I guess we need to call the police,” I said.

  Belinda sat next to me with her head mashed against my arm and asked, “Why do you want to call the police?”

  “I killed your mother. I think they’ll wanna know.”

  “Please, Bruce,” implored Arthur, his hands clutching at my leg. “Don’t inform the police. I’m an unlawful tenant in your home. They might ask questions.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that. Somehow I think they’ll be more interested in the corpse outside.”

  I shook my leg free of Arthur’s desperate hands and patted Belinda on the head. I was walking toward the phone, contemplating prison when I heard someone yelling Belinda’s name just outside. I turned with a start to face the sound. It grew louder and was soon accompanied by heavy, resonant footsteps. I could hear whoever it was fall against my landing. I scrunched my face in agitation and, very cautiously, opened the door. Standing before me was a stern looking woman with blood drizzling down her face. She was wobbling about on unstable feet and trying to flash me a courteous smile.

  “Excuse me,” she warbled. “I’m looking for my daughter. I saw her run into this building.”

  “Mummy!” yelled Belinda. She brushed past me and embraced her mother.

  ‘You’re not dead,” I said, feeling my body melt as it filled with relief.

  “What do you mean ‘dead’?” the woman asked with bug eyes.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. Your daughter here said you’d been killed. Why don’t you come in so I can take a look at that head wound?”

  The woman started to shake and whimper. She placed a hand on each of Belinda’s shoulders. “What do you mean ‘killed’, dear?” she asked.

  “The plate hit you in the face, mummy. You died.”

  Her shaking intensified and she pushed by me, seeking someplace to lie down. I guided her toward the couch where she fell with a fart.

  “I can’t be dead,” she cried. “I was going to buy my daughter a lizard.”

  “Umm… I don’t think you’re dead. Maybe just a little concussed.”

  Her eyes widened and her fists balled. “Are you calling my daughter a liar?”

  “Why would you call me a liar, Mister?” Belinda asked.

  “No, no, no… I wasn’t doing anything of the sort. I was merely suggesting that your obvious mobility and vocal capabilities might suggest you were still alive.”

  I felt like I’d just accused an overweight person of being pregnant. Both Belinda and her mother were crying and it was clear to me that nothing I could say would resolve the issue. I looked toward Arthur, hoping to receive support but he just shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t want to be dead,” said the woman.

  “I don’t want you to be dead either, mummy,” replied Belinda.

  The woman stood up and glared at me. Her eyes reminded me of my grade 2 teacher, Ms Heinz. Ms Heinz would make me eat crayons whenever I didn’t wet myself like the rest of the children in her class. The way she stared had me stuffing crayons down my throat without a second thought. I simply had to obey them. As this bleeding woman stared at me now, I knew instinctively that I was about to agree with whatever she said and if she insisted upon her death, I would believe it.

  “My daughter is NOT a liar, sir! If she says I’m dead then, unfortunately, I am. And please, for the love of all things remotely decent, put on some pants!”

  I glanced down at my exposed genitalia and then toward Belinda. I felt like such a dirty pervert. I don’t even like seeing myself naked, yet here I was, pantless in front of a child. My inner thighs were stained with anal leakage and my pubes were clogged with cigarette ash. I made a dash for the bedroom, looking for something (anything!) to cover me. The first thing I found was a placemat I’d been gifted from a work colleague at a Christmas function. I stapled it into place and marched back into the lounge
room.

  Arthur approached me and ushered me back into the bedroom.

  “I was thinking,” he whispered, “considering you were somewhat responsible for this poor woman’s death, she and her daughter could stay with you for a while.”

  “You do know she’s not actually dead, right?” I said.

  “Absolute nonsense! I understand you must be experiencing some guilt over these events, but that little girl has such honest eyes. I can assure you that we have ourselves a dead woman in there and we have to do the right thing.”

  I popped another cigarette and rejoined my new arrivals.

  “So, do you two wanna stay here tonight?” I asked with resignation.

  Belinda beamed a smile so white I squinted. Her mother nodded in a solemn kind of way that continued to pump me with guilt.

  “I will gladly accept your offer, sir. However, I would request indefinite residence. I’m no longer alive, so my presence is moot. My daughter on the other hand, needs to be cared for. She doesn’t eat much and she self-maintains, so it will be very little stress upon you personally.”

  I watched this woman’s animated body and considered her request. I inhaled the remaining half of my cigarette in one suck and felt vomit exit with my exhale. Arthur stared at me with pleading in his eyes. He really wanted this to happen. Maybe he had the hots for the mother. Belinda kept beaming that smile until her whole face glowed.

  “Why the hell not! I’ll go see if the Stotson’s have any spare blankets and mattresses”.

  The three cheered as I ducked through the wall hole. I felt so needed. I felt so important. I felt so fucking ill.

  9.

  A cold sensation on my abdomen plucked me from sleep. I kept my eyes stubbornly shut, determined to ignore the encroaching day. The cold sensation kept shifting. Something was being pressed against me. The blankets had been tugged away and my whole body was seizing up in the cold. My eyes clamped shut even tighter. I refused to allow my day to begin. I felt something brush against my skin. Little tickle demons burrowed inside me and started pulling on my laughter strings. Mustn’t laugh, I thought, even as my lips started curling into a grin. The demons kept burrowing, tweaking my nerve endings. The laughter flew out of me like an exorcised phantasm.