Die Young with Me

by Rob Rufus

  “You’re gonna come with us, right?” I asked.

  Paul stared at the capitol, squinting in an expression between longing and disgust. He just shrugged.

  “Come on, man. You are. You know we need you around.”

  “I’ll go, I’ll go. Just don’t drop dead first.”

  * * *

  We played the setlist from our last YWCA gig. Now it seemed so different—the room was packed with strangers, dancing and pushing each other along with our music. It wasn’t like a hometown show—these people didn’t know us, but they were still feeling us—they were into our shit.

  I hit the drums weakly, struggling for breath—but it didn’t matter. My throat hurt from coughing, but I didn’t care. The crowd gave me their energy, and I gave it right back—we were all gears in one badass rock ’n’ roll machine. It was an incredible show, one of the best I’d ever played.

  Until we got to our fifth song. That’s when I puked all over myself.

  I don’t know what happened, exactly. I was gasping for breath, struggling through the second verse, and then all of a sudden, I started vomiting. I hadn’t been feeling nauseous, or anything. I was confused, but all I could think to do was finish the song.

  So I turned my head to the side and barfed all over my pants and high hat—but I kept on playing.

  After the song ended, I felt super dizzy. Little flashbulbs popped in my vision. Paul rushed onto the stage with water. He rubbed my back and started to ask me if I was okay, but as we looked down at this pile of dark red puke, we both registered that I most definitely was not okay.

  Nat walked back to the drums. He was talking to me, but I couldn’t tell what he was saying. I leaned over my snare drum, dazed and still trying to catch my breath. The look on his face scared me.

  He went to the microphone and said something else. Before I knew it, he’d removed his guitar and he and Paul were walking me through the crowd, into the night and toward the van.

  Nat opened the door and I climbed in the back. I collapsed onto the bench seat. Nat was talking, but I still couldn’t concentrate well enough to make much out. Behind him, I heard yelling.

  Brody had walked out behind us. His bass was still strapped to his neck. He and Paul stood in the parking lot arguing—Brody was pissed that we’d ended the show early.

  My hearing began to fade back in, and I made out the words “small time” and “bullshit” in Brody’s high-pitched voice—before Paul pushed him. Brody stormed back inside.

  More people emptied into the lot. The promoter came outside and walked toward the van. Nat stood in front of the door.

  “Look,” he told the promoter, “I know we ended early—but my bro is fucking sick. We’re done. If anyone’s pissed, tell them to talk to me.”

  “Whoa, easy, easy . . . pissed? Who’s pissed? That was great!”

  Nat looked back at me, confused. The promoter walked to the open door and picked up my limp hand from the seat. He shook it up and down.

  “However you did that, man—it was fucking brilliant!”

  “Huh?” I moaned.

  The promoter laughed.

  “Come on,” he said. “Puking and playing! Playing and puking! Fuck! That was the most punk rock thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  3

  I asked Nat not to say anything about the show once we got home. At this point, what difference would it make? After a day or so I started feeling a lot better. No nausea, no nothing. At least, not until we went out for a family dinner at the nicest restaurant in town, the one I’d tried to pamper Ali at on Valentine’s Day—Red Lobster.

  It was a send-off dinner for Mom—she’d got put on another new work project, and this one would take her to the company’s other refinery in Findlay, Ohio. It was slated to take up to a month to complete. She was leaving town the next day.

  We told our parents about the tour offer. They seemed skeptical, but they didn’t dissuade us from going. I don’t think they ever got tired of seeing us excited about life.

  It was a nice night, and a nice time together, but on the drive home, it happened again.

  Out of nowhere, I started spewing eleven-dollar shrimp all over the fucking backseat. Mom screamed. Dad almost wrecked the car.

  When I was done puking, I put my head in my sweaty hands. I didn’t want to face anyone. I stayed that way until we were home.

  It was the second pair of shoes I had to wash that week.

  * * *

  I had pain again.

  It was different this time—a stabbing pain in my left hip, right below my belly. It made me limp a little, but I was walking pretty slowly those days, anyway. So I tried not to make much of a fuss about it. It wasn’t as severe as the pain in my neck, at least.

  When Mom called me into her bedroom, I thought she was going to ask me about my limp. She didn’t. Her suitcase was packed on the bed. Dad sat in front of the TV in a T-shirt and underwear, polishing his shoes.

  Mom stroked her hand down the side of my hard yellow hair. She tried to meet my eyes, but I looked away, embarrassed.

  “I feel horrible for leaving you this way, I’m a horrible mother.”

  “Jesus Christ, Mom.”

  “Do you remember my doctor—Stephanie Hallbeck?” she asked. “You met her last year, at the Christmas party.”

  I shrugged.

  “Well, I just got off the phone with her. I explained the situation and she fit you in for an appointment, next Tuesday. Your father has agreed to take you.”

  “Mom, I don’t want to go to any more doctors—there’s literally no point.”

  “Tell that to the guys who are gonna have to detail my vomit-filled car tomorrow,” Dad said.

  “Whatever, y’all don’t understand. Those doctors don’t even listen to me.”

  “Stephanie is my doctor—I trust her. Just please let her look you over. She can at least do the tests that the other doctors mentioned.”

  “Maybe she’ll throw in a free Pap smear,” Dad said.

  Mom threw a roll of pantyhose from her suitcase at him. She missed.

  She would be gone before I woke. She asked me to hug her. I rolled my eyes, but I did. She kissed my forehead and said she would be back soon. She told me not to exert myself the way that I had been lately. When she told me she loved me, I felt too embarrassed to say it back.

  4

  The day of my appointment was a good day. I’ll always be thankful for that.

  Normally I wouldn’t have remembered it. That’s how it goes—the days just get away from you, burning like matches in a matchbook, blazing alone and then as one single flame. Melding together until they just burn out.

  So I feel lucky to carry that day. I feel lucky to remember.

  I didn’t need to go to school. I was working on an essay for English about punk rock, but otherwise, my only reason for going was to see Ali. But I wanted to see her. I always wanted to see her.

  So I got up, showered, and tried my best to look cool. I wore a pair of black jeans and my high tops, a white AFI shirt and the thin gray Vans jacket I knew she dug. When Nat saw me come down the stairs with my backpack, he just shook his head.

  “Goin’ today?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, fuck it. Come on.”

  He grabbed his keys.

  * * *

  Spring was finally here. The sunrise lit our horizon like a blue-pink cotton-candy sky. Nat and I rolled down our windows, and the morning smelled like fresh-cut grass. Our neighborhood was shot through with living color.

  Nat walked beside me through the school parking lot and into the front hall. I limped in short, slow strides. My left leg dragged a little. He slowed his pace. Paul offered to carry my backpack, but I told him that I was fine. I had to stop twice before we made it inside.

  Ali smiled when she sa
w me. She looked perfect in her tight green (low-cut) sweater and black choker necklace. She was glad that I was going back to the doctor—I told her it was just going to be a quick checkup.

  “Maybe we can do something afterward?” I asked.

  “I have to work tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you come see me at work? On my smoke break?”

  “Fuck yes, I can,” I said, smiling now.

  A nerdy Filipino kid named David sat beside Ali. He had second-period photography with Paul and was always fiddling with a camera on his desk. That morning, he asked Ali for permission to take our picture.

  “For what?”

  “Just a class assignment,” he said. “We’re learning how to develop black-and-white.”

  She looked over at me. “Sure, why not.”

  I moved to where David had been sitting and scooted the chair right beside her.

  “Guess I’ll finally be able to prove I got a cheerleader to dig me once,” I joked.

  She put her arm around my left shoulder.

  “They’ll believe you, drummer boy. Trust me.”

  We looked toward the camera, laughing together, and held our hands up in mock heavy-metal rock horns.

  That moment is frozen flat, one-dimensional.

  The color of the morning has faded. The day exists only in black-and-white. Me, on that last day with a beautiful girl at my side, smiling her smile for me one last time.

  NINE

  Dead Boys

  1

  Dad had never taken me to the doctor before. Not once. To him, checkups fell under the same category as guidance counselors, shopping, and church—i.e., Shit Your Mother Deals With—so our ride to the hospital felt a bit strange for us both.

  Dr. Hallbeck’s office was in a part of the hospital that I’d never been to before. The move felt like progress. Her waiting room was filled with women wearing suspicious looks.

  When the nurse called my turn, Dad looked over at me.

  “Coming?” I asked.

  “I guess your mother would kick my ass if I didn’t, huh?”

  “Definitely, dude.”

  He put down his magazine and followed me back.

  * * *

  I recognized Dr. Hallbeck once I saw her. Middle-aged, graying hair but still pretty-ish, if not for her glasses (they were even bigger than mine). She was the first doctor who showed any genuine concern—and not just for me. She was alarmed that other doctors in her hospital had been so flippant with my treatment.

  “Your lungs sound horrible,” she said, with her stethoscope pressed against me. “I am going to order that chest X-ray right now. If this is pneumonia, it is a severe case. If the X-ray shows what I think it will, we need to start treating it right away.”

  When we left the exam room, Dad and I both shook her hand.

  “Finally, we’re getting somewhere,” Dad said.

  “Yeah, and it only took them four months.”

  He patted my back and chuckled. We went looking for the X-ray lab.

  * * *

  X-ray was located in the basement of the hospital, with all the other radioactive machines. There were no magazines to read, just a waiting room made of the hard plastic chairs you’d expect to find at the DMV. Everything about it was utilitarian. It was clear that unless patients needed to be on this floor, they weren’t.

  Another nurse called me back. This time I asked Dad to wait.

  * * *

  The radiology lab was dark, and messier than I would have expected.

  There was a long white table in the middle of the room, and a whiteboard in the corner. The tech told me to remove my shirt and glasses and stand against the board. I felt embarrassed to be shirtless in front of her. My chest and shoulders drooped like a melting vanilla ice cream cone. She told me to straighten my back, then to clasp my hands and raise them over my head.

  I could hear the X-ray machine power up. A light shone on my pale stomach. I thought I might feel something, but I didn’t.

  “Breathe in,” the tech said. “Good. Now hold your breath, holllddddd . . .”

  The machine made a soft sound. She told me I could drop my hands and gave me a minute to catch my breath. Then she told me to turn to my right side and repeat. Then the left side—and that was it. I was done.

  “That was fast,” Dad said when I returned to the waiting room. “How’d it go?”

  “Fine, I guess. They told me to come out here and wait.”

  “Well, big boy—let’s wait.”

  * * *

  We sat there for hours.

  Other patients came down periodically, sitting near us until they were called back for this scan or that one. We never saw them afterward. I wondered if they’d forgotten about us. I wondered if we should just leave.

  I stood up and headed down the hall to try to figure out what the holdup was. The entire floor seemed deserted. I held on to the wall and panted down to the corner of the hallway.

  I saw an old man outside one of the rooms. He was lying flat in a hospital bed, covered in a thin white sheet. He wasn’t moving. A nurse must have sat him there, the way you would an empty grocery cart. Behind the double doors, machines growled.

  I left the man and walked slowly back.

  “Any luck?” Dad asked. I sat down beside him and wheezed.

  “Nope . . . you . . . ?”

  “A few nurses walked by. I stopped them, but they wouldn’t talk. All they said was we need to keep waiting.”

  “But we’ve been here all day.”

  “I know, I know,” he said, leaning back into his chair. He’d removed his blazer, and the collar around his neck was now open.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, two nurses walked past us. Dad waved them down. Hesitantly, they stopped. He approached them. When he spoke, they didn’t meet his eyes.

  “The name is Rufus. We had an X-ray done hours ago. I just wanted to see if we can get out of here, or . . .”

  I noticed one of the nurses, the younger one, staring at me.

  Our eyes met—then all of a sudden, her lip trembled. She looked like she was crying. She took off down the hall. Dad looked at the other nurse.

  “We are truly sorry for the wait,” she said flatly, ignoring the other nurse’s outburst. “The doctor will be with you in just a moment. Please do not leave until you have seen the doctor.”

  “Sure. Thanks,” Dad mumbled, the color draining from his face.

  He walked back over and sat down.

  “Weird, man,” I said.

  He didn’t answer me.

  He just stared at the door of the X-ray lab.

  * * *

  A few moments later, the same nurse motioned us toward the lab.

  We followed her into the X-ray lab, and then through a side door into a room with control panels and computer monitors. Then she ushered us into a room beyond the room.

  It was clear that this room was not intended to receive guests. It was cluttered with papers, X-ray film, and coffee cups. A large desk ran along the far wall—a man sat behind it. The stacks of paper on the desk nearly hid him from view. He pushed a few folders out of his way.

  He introduced himself as Dr. Houston, the hospital’s chief radiologist. We sat across from him, anxious. Why were we back here? I waited for some kind of news. My leg was twitching.

  “We reviewed your X-rays. Now, initially we were looking for signs of pneumonia. What we found was . . . different.”

  Dr. Houston clicked a button, and the far wall lit up like a bug zapper.

  X-rays of what must have been my body were stuck to the lit-up wall. I looked inside myself—I saw a dark shadow in the middle of my body.

  Dr. Houston was still talking. “What we seemed to have found is some sort of mass in th
e middle of the chest cavity. This explains the shortness of breath, and the coughing as well.”

  “Mass?” I said. “What does that even mean?”

  Dr. Houston massaged his temples.

  “Well, we won’t know until we’ve done more tests. But from what I see here, and considering your age and speaking freely, my initial reaction would be that it may be a form of lymphoma.”

  Dad moved to the edge of his chair.

  “Speak fucking English,” he snapped.

  Dr. Houston cleared his throat.

  “I shouldn’t make any assumptions until we run more tests.”

  “Lymphoma?” I said. “Is that, like, leukemia?”

  “Sort of. The two diseases are often paired.”

  “Wait,” Dad interrupted. “Are you saying this is cancer?”

  Dr. Houston didn’t answer. He just sighed and stared at his desk, as if he were searching for words in all that clutter.

  Cancer?

  “Is this—mass—inside of me like a tumor or something?”

  The doctor rubbed his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. Then he looked me square in the eye.

  “We don’t know, Robert. But we will find out—fast. You are very lucky you got this X-ray. Your lungs look on the verge of collapsing.”

  “Does my son have cancer?” Dad said. His voice was on edge.

  I’d never heard him sound that way. Nervous. Scared.

  “Mr. Rufus . . .” Sigh. Pause. “I am sorry. Yes, lymphoma is a type of cancer that is common in children and young adults. As you see from the X-rays this mass is localized to . . .”

  His words drifted farther away from me.

  They continued to talk, Dr. Houston pointing at X-rays. I felt weightless—I was sinking in on myself. I felt blank. I thought of all those machines outside, the white noise of their engines—blank and empty—calling to me. I sat there expressionless. I slipped into the hum.

  2

  They didn’t want me to leave the hospital, but there was no real reason for me to stay—it was almost eight now, and most of the staff was already gone. So they finally told us to meet back at Dr. Hallbeck’s office first thing in the morning, so she could take us to Oncology.

  I didn’t care, either way. I existed on a calm plain of shock. I had the night to “get things in order,” as if that was an obvious process.