Arnesto Modesto: The World's Most Ineffectual Time Traveler

by Darren Johnson

  “I promise... No, wait, I think my great aunt Gladys had it. But I don’t.”

  “I know. I’m sure you don’t,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’m paranoid about that sort of thing. Still, I would consider it a huge favor if you got checked out. Just to rule it out.”

  She hadn’t seen him like this. He seemed… serious about something. “Fine,” she said, pushing him off.

  The next day, she pleasantly surprised him by telling him she had made an appointment for late the following week. It was the earliest they could get her in.

  The following Thursday, when she got home from work, she had a sheepish grin. “I have something for you,” she said, handing him a CD.

  Arnesto looked at the disk, which had the date and Rochel’s initials scribbled on it. “You didn’t!”

  “My X-ray. Clear, like my breasts. No cancer.”

  “How did you…?” He started to ask as he inserted the CD into his computer.

  “Please, you’re the only person I’ve met more anal-retentive than me. I knew you’d want to see it.”

  “Uh huh.” He was fixated on the image as if it was artwork. He looked for tumors but gave up. Even if there had been something there, he lacked the skills to find it.

  “You’re not going to find anything. And you could at least turn around and face me to let me rub it in,” she taunted.

  He ejected the disk and turned to face her, smiling wide. Holding his arms out to his sides, he gave her a quick chin-up nod and said, “Come at me, bro!”

  She ignored him. “Actually, it wasn’t all good. Dr. Kim told me to tell you she appreciated you being proactive. She said more of her patients would be alive if they had reacted this way, and you did the right thing. Oh, and to keep on top of it.”

  “I’m so sorry you had to tell me that,” he said. “I know it had to be tough. Now give me a hug.”

  She walked over and embraced him, resting her head against his chest. “You scared me, you big jerk.”

  “Good! I kind of like you and want to keep you around, and that fear might just keep you alive.”

  Double Down

  Doctor's Office

  Silicon Valley, California

  Thursday, December 4, 2008

  11:40 a.m.

  “...adjuvant chemotherapy possibly followed by radiation therapy after that,” Dr. Ganesh said. She was the consummate professional, the right combination of confidence and competence. She was not afraid to speak her mind, yet had a superb bedside manner. She was definitely someone you wanted on your side in a fight against cancer. What did she say that one time? Oh, right, “I’m going to make your cancer my bitch.”

  Arnesto almost smiled at the thought but stopped himself. Now would not be the time to look amused. Rochel might not see it, sitting next to him clutching his hand, but Dr. Ganesh would from behind her desk. She missed nothing, and he didn’t want to give her the false impression that he was aloof. That said, he was only half listening to their conversation. He had heard all this before and besides, if he got his way, it would all be moot. He had to wait until it was his turn.

  At last, there was a lull in the conversation. “Arnesto, how do you feel about all this?” Dr. Ganesh asked. “Do you have any questions?”

  “Bilateral mastectomy,” he said with enough conviction that one might have thought he was solving the final puzzle on a game show. Rochel, at least, was taken aback. It was harder to tell with Dr. Ganesh.

  “You… you want to have them chop off my breasts?! We’re not nearly at that stage, are we, Doctor?”

  “Like I said, we caught this very early,” Dr. Ganesh said, turning toward Rochel then back toward Arnesto. “While a double mastectomy is an option, it would be overkill at this point. We should save that option until—”

  “Forgive me, Doctor, I know I lack your medical expertise, and I value your opinion more than you know, but I want to... nuke this thing. I want to hit this cancer so hard, all memory of it is erased from existence.”

  “Arnesto, what’s gotten into you?” Rochel asked.

  He ignored her. “Survival rate’s like ninety percent, she wouldn’t need radiation, and it would all be over and done with, right?”

  Dr. Ganesh nodded. “Sometimes radiation is still needed afterward, but probably not in this case, if you decide to go this route.” She wasn’t putting up much of an objection but wasn’t in complete agreement either.

  “Excuse me, patient here,” Rochel said, waving her hands at Arnesto. “I’m sorry, Doctor, this is a lot to take in.”

  “Not at all. I would like to get moving on this sooner rather than later, but there’s no need to make a decision right now. Take a couple days, discuss it amongst yourselves, and call my office anytime.”

  They thanked her and left. Rochel wouldn’t look at Arnesto as they made the short walk back to the car in silence. They got in the car and put their seatbelts on. Rochel stared straight ahead while Arnesto looked at her for several seconds before finally starting the car and taking them home. When they arrived, she went in and sat on the couch, still in a silent daze. He didn’t know what to do, so he sat down next to her. Again, he got no response when he looked at her, so he did what any man would do in that situation: he reached for the remote.

  “What was that?” she asked, still not looking at him.

  “What?” he asked, setting the remote down.

  She looked disgusted. “What do you mean, ‘What?’ What was all that back there?! I’ve never seen you act like that before.” She was mad.

  “I don’t want you to die.”

  That seemed to reduce her frustration a little. “I don’t intend to die, but I also don’t intend on chopping up my body for no reason.” With that, she was finally able to look at him.

  He turned to her and took her hands in his, but she violently flicked them off. “You are so strong and young and healthy, well, otherwise. But cancer doesn’t care. Cancer don’t give a fuck. Would you risk your life over a one-in-a-hundred chance? What about one-in-a-thousand? No, right? So let’s not give cancer that chance. A bilateral mastectomy is the surest—”

  “Stop calling it that!”

  “Fine, ‘hacking off your pleasure domes’ is the surest, safest way to beat this thing.”

  “Ugh. So you know more than the doctor now.”

  “She’s terrific, an excellent doctor, but... she doesn’t know everything.”

  “And you do.”

  Arnesto had to think about this one for a moment. “No. Of course not.”

  “Finally. That’s the first thing you’ve said all day that sounded like you.” They sat there in silence until she got up. “I’m getting some aspirin, I have a headache,” she said.

  He suddenly grabbed her wrist. “Give me this.”

  “Give you what?!” she said, struggling to pull away.

  “This. The surgery. I’ve never asked you for anything and never will again. I’ll do whatever you want, forever, if you give me this one thing.”

  “Let go!” she said, breaking free and storming into the kitchen.

  He heard her grab her keys and stood up and walked over to her. “I’ll go. You can stay.” They locked eyes. He looked at her, the woman he was in love with, going through one of the worst days of her life, and he had made it worse. She looked at him, the desperate asshole she barely recognized at the moment. He grabbed his keys and left.

  He drove around aimlessly. Had he been a total idiot? He had hoped to overwhelm her; get her to agree while she was still in shock from the news and not able to think clearly. It hadn’t worked, but for all he knew, it wouldn’t have worked any better had he waited a day or two. She was a tough little broad. It was time for Plan B. Whatever that was.

  Eventually, she texted him, explaining how scared and sad she was and how disappointed she was in him. He apologized and told her he would support her and respect her choices, whatever they were.

  Of course, he didn’t mean a word of it.

  H
e gave her a little more time before he returned home with ice cream and her favorite anime on Blu-ray (Rochel’s preferred version of flowers and candy). The tension between them wasn’t gone, but it was lessened.

  The next day, he cautiously broached the subject again. “Have you given any more thought to—”

  “I already made the appointment,” she said to his surprise. “I’m meeting with the surgeon to discuss my lumpectomy.” She stared at him as if she was already bracing for a fight.

  It wouldn’t be enough, not by a long shot. Still, Arnesto wasn’t about to go down that dead end again. He bit his tongue and made his sincerest fake smile. “Okay.”

  This disarmed her a little. “You’ll come with me?”

  “Of course. Hey, let’s go out tonight, someplace nice. Someplace pretentious and overpriced.”

  “Oh, so now you’re going to make me get dressed up?” she asked, smiling.

  “You can wear yoga pants for all I care. In fact, I dare you to wear yoga pants.”

  “I’m not wearing yoga pants.”

  “Okay.”

  ***

  That night they had a lovely dinner. Afterward, she agreed to go for a drive with him out into the country where they could park and watch the stars.

  “Are you in a rush to get back?” he asked after a long lull in the conversation.

  “No, why?”

  “I’d like to tell you a quick story.”

  “Ooh, I like stories.”

  “You’re not going to like this one.”

  She didn’t respond right away, so he turned his head to look at her. “Go ahead,” she said, sounding disappointed.

  “Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, they fall in love. It helps they have so much in common. There are some differences, of course. She is, like, half his size”—she snorted at this—“but more than that, she is strong, so much stronger than he could ever be. And then... she gets cancer.

  “Together with the doctors, they fight it with everything they have. Well, it’s mostly her fighting with him cheering her on. But they fight, and they beat the cancer. Or so they think. But then it comes back stronger. No problem, she fights it again, and again she wins. But this time, she’s barely even stepped out of the ring when it comes back again. They throw everything they have at it: chemo, radiation, surgery after surgery. They fight and they fight, and she keeps hanging on until she weighs little more than half what she started with and simply has nothing left with which to defend herself. My god she was strong, though. She never gave up even until the very end.”

  “This is a pretty shitty story,” she said. “What happened to the boy?”

  “He suffers. He doesn’t know how to handle it all — remember, he isn’t strong like her — and he never really gets over her.”

  “Does he stay with her the whole time?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. He tries to take care of her, but he’s not equipped to go through all that by himself. Sometimes they fight over the stupidest little things. Anyway, he spends the rest of his life regretting not having been more patient and taken better care of her.”

  “Good, he sounds like an asshole,” she said.

  He chuckled, but then realized she wasn’t kidding. “Sometimes, he is.”

  “Is that it?”

  “No,” he said, “there’s more. Afterward, her jerk family comes crawling out of the woodwork. They sue to have her buried near them in Jersey.”

  “What?!” Rochel said, disgusted. “They never cared about her when she was alive. Why do they suddenly care now? And she wants to be cremated.”

  “I don’t know. The boy never figured that out.”

  “Well, does he fight?”

  Arnesto sighed. “Yes, he tries. But the medical bills wiped them both out. Besides, for a while, he loses the ability to really care about anything. He puts up a meager fight but soon gives in. Her family is nigh impossible to deal with under the best of circumstances, but in his condition, forget about it.”

  “How’s the funeral?” Aside from the mention of her family, she seemed to be enjoying the tale.

  “Fine. Civil. Do you want to know what her tombstone says?”

  “Yeah, tell me.”

  “It says, ‘Here lies our beloved daughter, Rochel,’ plus the dates of birth and death.”

  “That’s it? That’s… depressing. They even managed to make my death about them. Is there any more?”

  Arnesto shrugged. “That’s all I can… think of. How’d you like it?”

  “I like the part where it was brief.” She smiled, but it quickly faded. “Actually, I could see my family pulling a stunt like that. But it’s all moot because it’s never going to happen.”

  “That’s true. We can keep them out of the loop. It feels a little like sinking to their level, but we will ensure you get cremated this time.”

  “Or I could just, you know, not die.”

  “You’re going to die.”

  “Wow, if this is how you’re going to act throughout my treatment, then I don’t want you there. I may not even want you in my life.”

  “What’s left of it.”

  “Arnesto, stop it! What is wrong with you?! We’re going to fight this thing and get through it. I’m not going to die.”

  “I’m so sorry, but unless we’re more aggressive with the treatment, you are.”

  “You can’t know that!”

  “But I do!”

  “How?! How can you possibly know?!”

  “Because!” he screamed. “I was there!”

  Picture It

  Countryside

  Silicon Valley, California

  Friday, December 5, 2008

  Night

  Now he’d done it. After so many years of not telling a soul, other than Pete, he’d blurted it out.

  You know what? It was fine. Keeping her alive was worth the risk. Besides, she might not believe him and end up dumping him. In that case, she wouldn’t be a loose end for long, and he wouldn’t have to slowly watch cancer eat her alive.

  Then again, he hadn’t really confessed anything. She might’ve thought he’d gone insane. He had a crazy idea.

  On the drive home, he stopped and put the car in park.

  “Where are we?” she asked, looking in all directions outside the car. They were on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields. There wasn’t a building, car, or person in sight. “Arnesto, just take me home.”

  He let out a long, deep sigh.

  “Did you hear me? I said take me home, now.”

  “Wait, please. Let me tell you the rest of the story.” He hurried his words, his mind going a mile a minute.

  “You said it was over.”

  “There’s more. The boy goes on living. And living. Finally, many, many years later he finds a way to send his memories back in time. To himself… me.”

  She looked around her seat. “Where is my— give me my phone.”

  “We need to talk about this. Think about it — how else would I know?”

  She held out her hand. “Give me my goddamn phone!” When he didn’t do anything but open his mouth to spew what she assumed was more nonsense, she opened the door and jumped out. She walked twenty feet down the road then stopped. “Where are we?!”

  He calmly got out of the car and approached her. “I brought you here because I need you to hear me out. Please don’t run off. It’s miles back to the main road.”

  “You’re fucking crazy, you know that?!”

  “Please! I can prove it! Mr. Fuffles or Mr. Foofles or something, your imaginary friend as a kid!”

  “Mr. Snuggles,” she said, crossing her arms. She was only vaguely aware of the cold making her shiver. She was too scared for her life.

  “Right, Mr. Snuggles. And his imaginary friend, Mrs., oh what was it, Mrs. Addictive…”

  “Mrs. Attentive.”

  “Right! She was his friend because you didn’t want him to be envious that you ha
d an imaginary friend and he didn’t.”

  “What is your point?!”

  “You never told me about them! You’ve never told anyone about them. Not even your parents because you knew, even as a young girl, they wouldn’t approve.”

  They both stood there, unsure how to proceed. He tried desperately to come up with a better example but was too caught up in the moment.

  “How do you know that if I never told you?” she finally asked.

  “You will. One of our many, wonderful heart-to-hearts when you’re… sick. It’s kind of a deathbed confession sort of thing.”

  “Jesus Christ,” she said, throwing her arms in the air in frustration. “You are so full of shit.”

  “Test me. Ask me anything.”

  “No.”

  “No?!” He was taken aback. “What do you mean, ‘No’? You can ask me anything about the future and you don’t want to?”

  “You can’t know anything about the future because it’s impossible, so there’s no point in asking you any questions. Can we please go now?”

  He nodded and opened her door for her. “Whatever happens, you cannot repeat what I told you. For your own safety.” She got in but shut her door herself in a small display of defiance. He ran around and sat in the driver’s seat. “I can prove it to you. Give me until your appointment.” He started the car but when he went to put the car in reverse, he hesitated.

  “What now?” she asked.

  “Your appointment,” he said, as he started to drive. “I remember it. Tuesday, eleven o’clock with Dr. Hwang, right? We show up fifteen minutes early to fill out forms which takes five minutes. Then we sit there waiting for forty-five minutes or so. There’s a smell in the air which displeases you. Let’s see, what else…”

  “Please stop.”

  “Okay. I’ll shut up now. But you should know it’s his daughter.”

  She couldn’t care less what he was talking about, but on impulse asked, “What?”

  “The picture in his office. You’re going to ask if it’s his granddaughter. Turns out Dr. Hwang looks older than he is. Anyway, it’s no big deal. He’s a nice guy. He laughs it off, but you feel embarrassed.”