by Rob Rufus
3
After the show, as the bands and crew were winding down, I remembered the demo I had in my pocket. I walked over to the wall that Fletcher leaned against.
“Hey dude,” I mumbled, “if y’all get bored on your bus, or something, I thought you, like, might wanna check our demo out.”
“This is your band?” he asked, looking at the hand-drawn cover.
“Yeah, I mean, me and my bro. He sings and plays guitar, I play drums. This demo is, like, totally old, though. We’re doing a full-length record in a few months.”
“Right on.”
“Anyway, if you don’t have time to listen to it, it’s cool,” I said. “We’re going to be touring nonstop once our album is done, so maybe you can catch us at a show instead or something. We’re way better live, anyways.”
“Yeah? You doing any shows in LA?”
I nodded yes.
He took a Sharpie off the table and began writing on a napkin.
“Well, look—here’s my cell number and this one is the number to my pad. Give me a shout when you guys are playing, and I’ll try to make it out to one of the shows.”
I snatched the napkin from his hand. I stared at it.
“Seriously?” I said.
“Shit yeah. Fuck, actually, you know Epitaph?”
“Epitaph Records—like, the record label you guys are on?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Their office is downtown. I’m pretty tight with everyone there, so I’ll try to get them to come out and watch you guys play. It couldn’t hurt, and they’ve been pretty much handing out record deals lately.”
I was speechless. Literally. Like, I opened my mouth to thank him, but nothing fucking came out.
He took a swig of his beer. I stood there like a mute.
“Well, dude, I guess I’ll see ya if you make it out.”
TWENTY-SIX
Miracle Child
1
It was Valentine’s Day, again.
I had no idea what to do. Things with Ali and me seemed so different. Things had gotten so fucked up. I wasn’t sure where I stood. Wherever it was, I doubted that there was a label for it.
Does she still want me to take her out?
Should I buy her candy? Flip the bill? Try to screw her in the car?
Should I just leave her alone?
She might have a date with some other boy, a new one I don’t even know about. . . .
I decided to quit being a pussy—just call her, feel it out. . . .
“Happy Valentine’s,” I said when she answered.
“Ha. Thanks. You too.”
“What are you up to?”
“Not much,” she said. “Just got home from school. You?”
“Nothin’ really. You wanna go, like, get some food?”
She laughed. “Duh, I’ve been waiting for you to ask all week.”
* * *
I ran into Mom as I headed out the door.
“Where are you off to?”
“Me and Ali are goin’ to get something to eat.”
“Ooooohhh, you think Cupid will make an appearance?”
“Jesus, Mom.”
She smacked me playfully.
“Before you go, I wanted to ask you about the party again.”
THE PARTY—Fuck. I groaned at the thought.
Mom thought it was finally time to throw a party to celebrate my cancer remission. She’d been pressing me on it for weeks. The idea was okay, in theory . . . but imagining glad-handing a bunch of old classmates and distant relatives—most of whom I’d never even heard from while I was sick—made my skin crawl.
I didn’t wanna relive those memories, anyway. I was moving forward, not back.
But Mom wouldn’t drop it.
“Mammaw Rufus and your uncle Tony are coming to visit next month, and I know they would love to be there—so I thought maybe we could have it then? We can even call it a ‘Fuck Cancer’ party if you want, ha-ha.”
What she wouldn’t ever say was that the party was for her as much as it was for me. The party was for all of them—all of the ones who’d stuck. Didn’t they warrant some celebrating?
I guessed they probably did.
“Okay—fine,” I finally said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Fine. Congratulations, you’ve suckered me into it. We can do whatever you wanna do, as long as you drop it. Can I go now?”
“Okay! Do you need anything? Flowers? Candy?”
“Nah, I think I’d better go unarmed.”
* * *
We hit the same shitty Mexican joint our first date was at. We sat in the back again, and I could tell that Ali felt as awkward as I did—too much déjà vu to go around, I guess. I asked her about school, but she seemed instantly bored with the topic. All our conversations died on the table.
“Hey,” I said, “remember the first time we came here? I was so nervous that all I could talk about was Bon Jovi.”
“Of course I remember. And you couldn’t have been that nervous. I think you’re the first boy who’s gotten lucky with Jovi trivia since 1985.”
I felt my face turn red.
“Have you listened to them lately?” she asked.
“Not really. Have you?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t listened to much music at all, really. I’d always just listen to what you were listening to. Now that you haven’t needed me nursing you, I’ve been missin’ out on a lot of good tunes.”
“Ha-ha. Whatever, Ali. You know I want you nursing me eternally.”
“Pshhh,” she scoffed, “don’t start with that. Just look at you!” She dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. The women in my life were so fucking dramatic. “You’ve done so good, you’ve blown me away—I am so proud of you. I don’t need to take care of my drummer boy anymore.”
“Well, what you should really do is start taking care of yourself.”
She shrugged. “That’s never been my strong suit.”
“I’m serious—don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about your stupid friends, or your parents, or any of that shit—think about what you wanna do.”
“You know,” she said, “lately I’ve been thinking, maybe I want to work in medicine. Not as a doctor, but maybe a nurse, or maybe I could work with kids. I just wanna, like, help people.”
“A professional worrier.”
She laughed. “Basically. We both know I’m good at that.”
We sat there, just looking at each other.
“I think I need a cigarette,” she finally said. She grabbed her purse from the chair beside her. “I know, I know—I am quitting. Eventually.”
I raised my hands. “No judgment, Nurse Wilhelm.”
“Smart-ass,” she said. But she smiled. “I’ll be right back.”
She walked past the other tables. I watched her pass families and couples and waiters. None of them looked her way.
How do they not notice her? How can they not stare?
How is that even possible?
I sat there alone, listening to the radio coming from the bar. I waited for a song that I knew would never play.
2
We had almost done it—our tour was almost totally booked.
Every city, every date—one way or another, we were making it work. If no clubs would book us, we found DIY halls like the Y and the VFW. If no DIY promoters wanted us, we found punk kids with basements and absentee parents (thanks to the Internet, it wasn’t that hard).
With the recording sessions for our new album starting in just a few weeks, it felt like the stars were actually lining up. Once we got out to California and played for those record label fat cats, we were going to blow them away.
“Yo, big boy,” Dad yelled from the top of the basement stairs.
“Yeah?�
�� I turned the stereo down. “What’s up?”
Dad walked halfway down and leaned over the railing.
“Come up here for a minute.”
“Why?”
“I got you a little ‘congratulations’ gift,” he said. “I wanted to wait and give it to you at the party Saturday, but your brother said if I do it in front of everyone you’ll get embarrassed.”
“Shit, Dad, you didn’t need to do that. What is it?”
“Get your lazy ass upstairs and see for yourself. Meet me in the backyard. Nat has it stashed in the garage.”
* * *
“Remember, this isn’t as much a gift as it is a project,” Dad said. “Now that you aren’t lying in bed all day, you need something to do with your time. A man has got to stay busy.”
“I mean, that’s cool, but . . . I don’t know if I have time for a project. We’re about to do the new record, and Mom said that school might even let me come back for the last few months of the semester. I don’t think I’ll have time for a bunch of extra work.”
“Trust me,” he said, “it’s not that kind of work.”
We walked through the yard and into the alley. The garage door was open.
Nat stood silhouetted against it.
The car.
It was the car from the lot in Ohio. It was the cherry-red convertible. It was the raised Avenger tires. It was the ’68 Mustang. It was the Springsteen song.
It was the car!
“No way. Nofuckingway!” I yelled.
The two of them started clapping.
I walked into the garage, totally stunned. I ran my hand against the paint. It was warm.
“It’s still a piece-of-shit car,” Dad said, “but you loved it so much and, screw it. I only have two kids.”
“This is so not a piece-of-shit car,” I said again.
Nat laughed. “Actually, it kinda is. It broke down about eight times on the way home. Took like three hours. But I gotta say, this thing is rock ’n’ roll as hell.”
“I don’t know if I can take this.”
They both ignored me.
“She needs a new carb, and new rear brakes,” Dad said. “She’s been leaking fluid, but I can’t tell what. Still has the original engine, though—an old two-eighty-nine.”
I had no idea what any of that meant.
“We’ll have your uncle Tony look at it after the party,” he said. “He’ll be able to help fix it up, maybe.”
“Can I drive it?” I asked.
“If it’ll start.”
Nat climbed into the backseat. Dad took shotgun. I grabbed the steering wheel nervously. I’d never been inside anything like this before.
I turned the key. The engine clickclickclickclicked, but then nothing. I looked over at Dad.
“Pump the gas a few times,” he said. “But don’t flood the engine. And be careful with the steering, it’s different than the van.”
I turned the key again.
This time, the motor turned over—the noise was so loud that my ears popped. It ROARED to life! Smoke shot out of the exhaust pipes, filling the garage.
The engine growled while the car rumbled in place, shaking like an untamed animal. I could feel those shakes in my bones. I shifted into reverse and hit the gas too hard. The car shot into the alley. I turned the wheel and slammed on the brakes. Dad jerked into the dash.
The engine died.
“Jesus,” Nat yelled.
“This is awesome!” I said. I turned the ignition again.
The car came back to life. I floored it down the alleyway. Smoke clouds followed us into the street.
The smell of oil came through the floor. I clicked on the radio, but I could barely hear it above the engine.
The speedometer trembled in place. Dad said it was broken. I had no clue how fast I was going . . . only that I wanted to go faster.
Faster! Forward! Faster! Forward! The words lit up in dashboard green.
I gripped the wheel harder and pushed the accelerator down.
3
Look, I wish the story wrapped up right there. Me on a cancer-free joyride in the car of my dreams, the sun shining on a horizon holding a record deal, a tour, and a kick-ass party surrounded by all my friends and family. I can almost see the photo from that pretend moment. All of us standing in the front yard, my bitchin’ Mustang next to us in the driveway. And we’re all smiling, waving at the camera. Yeah, that would have been great. It would have been fucking touching, even.
It’s just, that’s not what happened.
* * *
The car stalled out three more times before Dad made me drive it home. I could feel the engine struggling, chugging and coughing along in the same way that I did. I backed into the garage slowly, trying not to nick the paint.
Mom must have heard us arrive (the whole fucking neighborhood probably heard us arrive) as she was standing outside, waiting for us.
“Mom!” I yelled. “Look at it!”
She smiled weakly. “It’s cool, all right. Pretty awesome.”
“Mom, it’s amazing,” I said, my excitement blinding me to what was coming. “You have to take a ride! Seriously.”
A sigh passed her lips. She looked at my dad. “Columbus just called. They need us to drive up tomorrow—can you take off work and come with me?”
My stomach instantly tensed. I was listening now.
“What?” I asked. “My next appointment isn’t for three weeks.”
“They want you to come in anyway,” Mom said.
“But why?”
“I don’t know, honey.”
“Bullshit,” I snapped. “What is it? Tell me. It can’t be good news—if it was something like that Pennywise show, they woulda said.”
“But that doesn’t mean it’s something bad,” Dad said. “It’s illegal for them to discuss medical stuff on the phone, that’s all. That’s the only reason they asked us to come up. It’s probably nothing.”
Nat was standing in the garage, looking at the three of us and not sure what to say.
I moaned and let the air out of my sail. I leaned on the hood of my getaway car. Although I knew the engine was dead, I swear I felt shaking beneath my hands.
4
Talk from the radio filled the silence between us. Dad and Mom sat up front, faking interest about a news story, trying to seem relaxed.
Something was up. I had no clue what I was walking into, and it made me nervous as hell.
Did they have a new machine to scan me with? Was there another horrible test to run? What if I needed another surgery? I hadn’t worried about my health in so long—now I felt like I’d been kidding myself.
Why the hell did they call me back to this place?
* * *
We were the only ones in the oncology clinic. It was early, and most of the nurses were just now showing up for their shifts. I sat there waiting for my name to be called, dumbly praying that it wouldn’t be.
“Robert Rufus?”
My parents stood up and walked toward the nurse. I stayed plastered in my chair. I didn’t want to hear whatever they had to say to me. I wanted to be left alone.
Mom motioned me over. I sat stubbornly. She pointed sternly at the ground—finally, like a meek dog, I obeyed.
* * *
We waited.
You wait in a room just to wait in a room, I remembered saying.
It didn’t seem so clever anymore. I sat on the edge of the exam table, kicking my feet nervously.
There was a tap on the door.
Dr. Ranalli and Stacey walked in. Stacey wore a tight red turtleneck sweater. She looked good. But Dr. Ranalli looked just plain exhausted. He rolled the stool from the counter and sat down with a groan.
“Okay,” he said, trying to sound upbeat, “so—we noti
ced something strange on Robert’s last PET scan. What looks like a recurrence seems to have developed in your right calf and in your left hip.”
I looked at my leg. I looked at my side.
“What does that mean?” Mom asked. “A recurrence? Are you saying he has to get more chemotherapy?”
“I can’t say exactly what it means,” he said. “We need to schedule some biopsies. But the markers in his blood count have increased too—first negligibly, but now, well, the fact that the PET scan registered this, after an entire year of treatments and surgery, is extremely concerning to me. Not hopeless—but concerning. The fact that it’s recurred in new areas of the body suggests that the disease is even more thoroughly progressed.”
“More progressed than Stage Four cancer?” Mom asked.
Dr. Ranalli cleared his throat.
“There is a new chemo cocktail that’s showed promising signs in Japan recently, although we’ve never used that combination of drugs here before. The treatment entails lower doses, over a much longer period of time, as well as radiation therapy.”
We all just sat there.
“But you’ve never tried it before,” Dad said. “So what if this new treatment doesn’t work? What’s our plan B here? Surgery?”
“No,” Dr. Ranalli said, “not surgery. We should be able to gauge the effectiveness of the therapy around the third session.”
“If it isn’t effective,” Stacey interrupted, looking at me, “we have other medications that will keep you comfortable.”
Her words took up the entire room.
“Comfortable—what does that even mean?” I said. “Like, that’s it? Like, some fucking Japanese drugs don’t work, and now I’m going to fucking die? I don’t want to be comfortable! No one wants to be fucking comfortable!”
I felt my heart racing wildly. I grabbed my knee.
“The cancer came back in my leg? Cut my fucking leg off! I don’t care! But don’t fucking tell me you can make me comfortable. Don’t tell me that, man. Please.”
Mom clasped her hand over her mouth.
Dr. Ranalli leaned closer to me. He laid his hand on my knee, as if to steady me.
“Rob, look, I know this is bad news,” he said, “believe me, I know. But you’ve got to remember that your situation isn’t hopeless. You still have a chance. For a guy like you, a chance is all you need.”