Why We Came to the City

by Kristopher Jansma

  Though the 1 train was quiet in an early-afternoon sort of way, Jacob transferred to the express 2 train at 96th Street, hoping to move even more swiftly south to Fourteenth Street and the coffee shop that he required to sit in and write this poem. It was the only place he could breathe easily enough to tease it out. The challenge, as always, was to hold this impish idea in his threadbare net until he could get there.

  Jacob’s mind traveled back to a high school biology class where, eighty pounds lighter and half as hairy, he had seen an article in a National Geographic magazine showing an African tribesman extracting a deadly parasitic worm from one of his legs. He grinned with blindingly clean teeth at the camera, as he displayed his affected leg. The onyx flesh was powdered with whitish dust, except for a circle about the size of a quarter that he’d been keeping clean. From a tiny, oozing wound emerged the freeloading worm, thick as a spaghetti strand and, according to the caption, more than four feet long, curled inside the man just beneath the flesh. The only way to extract it was to coax its little exposed wormy tail around a piece of twig. Then at a rate of one quarter-turn per day, the worm could be slowly spooled out of the wound. Any faster than this, and the alarmed worm would break its captured tail off, and the whole thing had to be started over. Between turnings, the twig and its wormy passenger had to be taped down onto the man’s leg so that he could continue to run and hunt and live.

  Disgusted, fourteen-year-old Jacob had been unable to rid his mind of the image and, worse, of the idea. Ten years later he found himself haunted by it nearly every day. For this was what writing poetry had become: a delicate extraction, done in quarter-turns, where the slightest jostling meant starting all over.

  It hadn’t always been that way, Jacob thought, as he slipped out of the 2 train. He hurried now, as he traversed the long white corridor between the 1-2-3 and the Brooklyn-bound L. In high school he’d written like blinking. On the backs of napkins. In textbook margins. On the edges of his desks. On the dividers in the bathroom stalls. On the chalkboards of empty classrooms. He wrote so easily that he hardly minded giving his little quatrains and sonnets away. He imagined them being found someday by younger versions of himself, who would then be inspired to continue the tradition of guerrilla poetry at Moses Maimonides Elementary School.

  In college, he wrote only after four a.m., an hour he’d known intimately. He had to wait until everyone he knew fell asleep—when all excitement was over. With his friends falling down into couches and onto curbs and against the springs of others’ beds, Jacob would scramble up the nearest sturdy tree. It didn’t matter how drunk or how high he’d managed to get. He liked the feel of bark against his palms, the brush of branches on his stubbled cheeks. He liked to imagine that it was his way of tapping into his most primal self—a Paleo-Jacob who still hunted with spears and made fires with flint. But the truer reason was that he’d discovered that the fear of falling was just enough to keep him from going to sleep. More than once his friends had woken up to find him snoring in the embrace of an old oak tree’s roots on the North Quad, having barely made it down before losing consciousness but with a completed poem safe there in the tweed pocket.

  In this city without climbable trees, he’d taken to early rising and writing on boyfriends’ fire escapes. And it was this way, just on the other side of four a.m., that he’d penned his great epic, In the Eye of the Shitstorm, and that, really, had been the beginning of all the trouble.

  Looking back on it all now, Jacob could hardly believe he’d even attempted it. One thousand, nine hundred and thirty-two lines (in honor of the year that All Real Literature had died inside of Hart Crane, when he’d jumped into the Gulf of Mexico) and told in thirty-three sections (one for each year that Walt Whitman had worked on Leaves of Grass). God, Jacob thought, what a pretentious little ass you were. It didn’t matter; he missed the confidence that had permitted it. Missed the fury that had blinded him to all paying of bills, all feeding of self, all sleeping at night until it was finished. It had taken him two weeks, and he’d begun to believe he’d never really recovered.

  The poem had come after the suicide of his uncle Miles, a man from St. Louis who at forty-five had been able to fix anything motorized or mechanical. He had taken Jacob fishing for the first time when he was a boy out on the Missouri River. He had also been the first gay man Jacob had known. Miles had been thought to be just a happy bachelor by the rest of the Blaumann family. Only Jacob, at eight, had known the truth, after seeing his uncle embracing the shadow of another man behind a boathouse. It was their secret and Jacob had kept it, even after Miles swallowed a pharmaceutical cornucopia in the back of a Dodge Dart parked near the river.

  His poem, In the Eye of the Shitstorm, was about his other great childhood idol, the only other superhero he’d ever believed in: Michael Jordan, hanging himself from the backboard of a basketball net in a Brooklyn schoolyard. The poem dipped in and out of the troubled life of the iconic athlete, circling the legend but never landing. The main character, in fact, wasn’t the great Number Twenty-three at all. Jacob’s “stroke of genius” (according to his editors at the Roebling Press) was beginning the poem just after the paparazzi and police had cleared the court of the body.

  They have, in their thoughtless hurry, left behind the enormous pile of, well, shit that Number Twenty-three left beneath the basket when he’d strung himself up. A nameless janitor is brought in on a Sunday morning to remove the excrement. Most of the thirty-three epic sections, and the 1,932 lines, detailed the life of this nobody, as he makes various attempts to clean the famous man’s fecal matter from the tarmac. He eventually settles on using his hose to steadily wash it all toward a drain on the edge of the court, where the crap begins to spiral in great Coriolis circles, forming a veritable hurricane of shit, the central image of the poem.

  The Mariani Prize committee had particularly loved the “deft handling of pop-cultural allusions” (fearing litigation, Jacob had referred to Jordan throughout only as “Number Twenty-three”) and his “unblinking insight into modern racial discourse” (Jacob had never quite figured out what that meant). Among the other accolades they’d heaped upon the poem were that it was “unabashedly obscene” and that he was “a man’s poet like none since Bukowski”—misguided sentiments that made Jacob retch. Four years later these praises were braided together into the strands of a noose that he’d cinched around his own neck.

  Reading Shitstorm sickened him now. He’d been angry as hell those two weeks when it had poured out of him. At the time he thought it honest, full of pure rage. A mirror held up to the sickness of the world. But as time had passed, he had come to realize that under all the sly references and ballsy profanity, his poem had only one monotonous undertone—the same shrill buzzing that had been in his head that whole week, in the wake of his uncle Miles. Beneath all the rest was only one sound. It went fuck you and fuck you and fuck you and fuck you and fuck you and fuck you. And that was all.

  Jacob tried to shake all this from his head as people poured onto the train at Union Square. The car was crowded, and the swell of Brooklyn-bound bodies began to prick at something inside him. He felt hot and sick and shaky. He felt the worm begin to break, but with his eyes squeezed tight, he thought he might make it. He was so close. Just two quick stops, and he’d be free. He would coax it all out at last.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” came a quaking voice behind him.

  Not now, Jacob begged, keeping his eyes shut tight. But he could smell unwashed skin. He could feel hot breath passing his ear.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to bother you,” the voice continued. “I need some money so that I can get something to eat. I’m really sorry to bother you, but I’m very hungry.”

  It wasn’t the usual affectless mumbling that Jacob and most city residents had adjusted their internal dials to ignore. It wasn’t the drone he’d heard a million times before, on sidewalks and street corners and in subway cars just l
ike this. This man sounded really awful. This man sounded dead already.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I need your help. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I swear to God, I’m really scared, everybody. I really don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  Somehow Jacob felt the ugly twinge in the man’s tone. It wasn’t “I don’t know what I’m going to do to survive” but “I don’t know what I’m going to do next.” It wasn’t desperation to live; it was a fear of knowing the only options he had left. These weren’t the pleadings of a man just trying to make it to tomorrow. They were the quaking last words of a man headed for the nearest bridge unless he got a dollar. But Jacob’s wallet was empty. He didn’t even have a quarter. He’d spent his last ten on a bottle of cheap wine, which he and Pete had barely touched, and which Pete had emptied down the drain last night before sending the bottle shuddering down the trash chute. Jacob winced. If all he’d had were a hundred-dollar bill, he’d have given it to the man just to make him be quiet.

  “Please,” the man begged, “I swear to God I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  The doors opened at Third Avenue and Jacob moved toward the platform—it wasn’t his stop, but he didn’t care. He’d walk across the state to get away. As he got out onto the platform, he heard the doors closing behind him, and momentarily seized by some perverse imp, he turned to get a look at the man. His dark skin was powdered with some strange white grime. Jacob looked into his eyes. The worm snapped. The train pulled away from the station and left Jacob there. The lump in his throat had sunk deep down into his guts now, and he was sure it was never coming out.

  4

  The call had come just after lunch, thank God, as Irene knew there’d have been no keeping Sara from joining her for the appointment if she’d known about it. The gallery was closed for two weeks heading into the holidays, and so Irene had been wandering around the Village, getting lost in the nexus of Bleecker and Christopher Streets and Sixth and Seventh Avenues, ostensibly doing some holiday shopping. She’d already found nice leather boots for Sara, though Irene wasn’t going to tell her they had been purchased at the Pleasure Chest. At her favorite vintage store, Mel’s Secondhand Shop, she found, for George, a thermos with Einstein’s face on it that said REALITY IS MERELY AN ILLUSION, so that his coffee would stay warm on his way out to the observatory. She thought about William when she saw a scarf like the one Bob Dylan wore on the cover of Blonde on Blonde that she could see him in, that is, if she ever actually did see him again.

  Sara had gone on and on about William at lunch, and about fate and how seeing him again after so long meant that it was. Fate. Irene said she preferred to make her own fate, but secretly she was glad that, in this case, the forces of fate, via Sara, would certainly throw her back into his path again soon. So she got the scarf and had them wrap it. Heart beating heavier then, she went to the back where they had a lot of old books and found an illustrated book of Italian fairy tales for Jacob. They’d first met in an Italian class that she’d been sitting in on and that he’d failed spectacularly.

  It was just after this, having wandered into a pet shop down the street, that the woman called from Dr. Atoosa Zarrani’s office at Mount Sinai Hospital to say that the results were in and the doctor could see her that afternoon to go over them.

  “Unless you’re busy? Are you at the zoo? In this cold?”

  “Oh no,” Irene had answered. “I’m in a pet shop. I was thinking about buying a bird.”

  The woman had laughed. “Birds can be a lot of work. I have two sulfur-crested cockatoos at home.”

  “Is that a good kind?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend them to a beginner.”

  “It’s just that I have this beautiful bird cage,” Irene confessed. “It was there when I moved into my apartment. I guess the last tenant left it behind. Anyway I just keep my jewelry and things in it, but sometimes I think to myself—I don’t know, maybe I’d like having a pet.”

  “Well,” the woman had said, “you think about it. And if you need some time, I’m sure we can find you an appointment tomorrow.”

  Irene had taken this as a good sign. Surely if there was something wrong, the woman would have orders to get her there pronto. Plus, the woman wouldn’t be telling her to buy a bird if she thought she was dying. That’d be irresponsible. So nothing to worry about.

  And that was how Irene came to find herself, a few hours later, sitting in a little room at Mount Sinai Hospital with bare walls and a table bolted to the floor. Her shopping bags were at her feet, and she tried to keep the one with the purple silhouette of a dominatrix with a cracking whip facing the wall. To kill time, she flipped through the book of Italian fairy tales and thought happily about what type of bird she might get, until she looked up to see a tall Persian woman in a lab coat coming into the room.

  “Richmond? Irene?”

  They shook hands, and the doctor sat down and began leafing through the report she was carrying. Irene recognized the jagged, illegible signature of Dr. Von Hatter at Park Avenue Pathology, where she’d gone for the biopsy. Irene noticed the clear, commanding letters beneath it: DR. ATOOSA ZARRANI. Not. Messing. Around.

  “You came by yourself?” the doctor said, looking around as if someone were hiding.

  Irene looked around too, as if she couldn’t remember, then shrugged. Why didn’t the doctor just get on with it? She felt sick. That couldn’t be a good sign.

  “Usually people bring a friend, or a family member.”

  Irene nodded as if taking this under advisement for next time. She searched the doctor’s large dark eyes for some clue as to what she knew that Irene did not.

  Dr. Zarrani smiled and then laughed a little to herself. “This morning a woman brought her doorman—a little Hungarian gentleman with red epaulets and a hat.”

  Irene smiled, feeling almost at ease, just as Dr. Zarrani cleared her throat and said, “Ms. Richmond, you have cancer.”

  Irene looked down quietly. She reached across herself and adjusted the sleeve of her shirt. Her first complete thought was that she shouldn’t get a bird after all.

  Eventually she said, “Well, shit.”

  Dr. Zarrani continued in a calm and even tone. “The biopsy revealed that the lump under your eye is a malignant osteosarcoma, which is the most common form of primary bone cancer. Tumors in the arm are most likely, but they can also present in the legs and skull. We’ll have to do a more thorough scan to be sure that this is the only tumor, but it’s small, and we’re optimistic that this hasn’t metastasized yet. Of course we’ll need to do more testing to be sure. Very likely a CT and a bone scan, probably an MRI of your head and neck.”

  Irene felt dizzy. “Where did it come from?” she asked. Then she rolled her eyes and said, “Wow, sorry. That’s a pretty stupid question, right?”

  Dr. Zarrani shook her head, a little dark hair falling in front of her eyes before she quickly brushed it back. “Not at all. Some cancers do have known causes, although you’re correct that we don’t know for sure what causes this type. There have been a lot of studies. We don’t know if it has a genetic component. Environmental causes are possible. We’ve looked at fluoridation in the water, dietary factors, dyes, preservatives, too much red meat, exposure to radiation, pesticides, BPA in plastics, artificial sweeteners, certain types of viruses, high tension wires, using cell phones . . .”

  “And nothing?”

  “Nothing conclusive.”

  Irene looked away at the blank wall. She wanted to just climb into it and disappear.

  “The long-term survival rate for osteosarcoma is fairly high. Sixty-eight percent.”

  “Sixty-eight percent doesn’t sound fairly high.”

  “Sixty-eight percent isn’t bad. And you’re lucky in a sense. Because you’re so young.”

  Irene took a deep breath and shifted her gaze to the floor now. It, too, offered nothing.
“See, now to me that seems distinctly unlucky.”

  Dr. Zarrani smiled a little. “Sixty-eight percent is taken across the board, over all cases. Including very young children whose immune systems aren’t anywhere near strong enough to handle the treatment. Osteosarcoma affects children quite often, actually. Again, we don’t know why. And then there are the elderly, who generally don’t have the strength to pull through either. What I’m saying is, because you’re young and otherwise healthy, if we take this thing head on and act quickly, your chances are going to be very good.”

  A weight that Irene hadn’t quite noticed suddenly seemed to lift from her shoulders, even as the knotting in her stomach got worse. She leaned forward as if she were at a board meeting—arms bent at the elbows, fingers pressed together.

  “So what do we do?”

  “A team of specialists will review your case.”

  “Oh, but I like you,” Irene said, smiling crookedly. Was she really flirting with this woman who was telling her that she was maybe dying? Used to being confused, Irene was completely bewildered now.

  Dr. Zarrani seemed about to say something but stopped herself before it came out. “I’ll be head of your team, but you’ll need a plastic surgeon, a chemotherapist, a radiologist—”

  “Radiation?” Irene said, touching her eye.

  “It helps to kill the tumor. Though this is delicate because radiation will likely permanently affect your vision in the eye, because the tumor is so close.”