by Brian Keene
“We boys?” I asked with a grin.
“Yeah boyyyyy, we boys!”
“Night homeboy.”
He giggled. “Night homey.”
I smiled, and gave him another kiss.
“Nighty-night. Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you too, little man. Sleep tight and don't let the bedbugs bite.”
Michelle carried him down the hallway, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator door and paused, letting the draft of cold air wash over me. I pulled out a can of beer and shut the door. The pop of the tab sounded like a gunshot in the silence. My ears rang, and in my head, I heard Michelle asking me again what would happen to her and T. J. if I got really sick. The throbbing in my temples got worse. I put the cold can against my head; letting it numb me until I felt better, then drained it. Cheap beer had never tasted so good.
I grabbed the aspirin bottle from atop the fridge, shook four out into my palm, and washed them down with another can of beer. Down the hall, Michelle was reading T. J. a bedtime story—The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. That had always been my favorite when I was a kid, and now it was T. J.'s favorite too. The only difference was that he had a mother who actually read it to him. I'd had to read mine for myself, under the blankets with a flashlight.
Michelle was a good mother, and a good wife too. I loved her so damn much, and when I saw how T. J. adored her, it made me love her even more. I never cheated on her, not even once. I know that doesn't sound like such a big thing. You're not supposed to cheat on your wife. But trust me; in this town, everybody, and I mean everybody, is banging somebody else. Despite the odds, I never stepped out on her, and I know she didn't fuck around on me either.
I knew that I was going to marry her the first time I saw her, halfway between homeroom and Mr. Shue's eleventh-grade English class. She had long, blond hair, blue eyes, a body that was the bomb—and a smile that seemed to glow. Sounds corny, but fuck—I'm no poet. I only know that there really is love at first sight, because I felt it then. I was living proof.
Or dying proof, I guess.
Of course, she'd hated me at first. She thought I was an immature jackass, and to her credit, she was right. But I persisted. It took me two months just to get her to agree to go out on a date with me. We went to the movies, then to the diner. Afterward we drove up to The Hill in my Toyota (the same car that was repossessed a few years ago when we fell behind on the payments). That was the first time I ever made love. I'm not talking about fucking. I'd had sex with plenty of girls by then. No, this was something different. Neither of us were virgins (in this town, if you don't lose your virginity by the time you're fourteen, you might as well become a priest or a nun) but we were both nervous. I wanted it to be good for her—I mean really good. She didn't orgasm, I think because we were both so self-conscious. I figured that I'd blown it, but she said she didn't care, and sure enough, we went out again the next night. And the night after that. And the night after that. And we never stopped.
Unlike most of our classmates, we didn't get married right out of high school. By the time we'd graduated, I had decided that I wanted to go into the military, college not being an option. For me, going to college would have been like somebody saying, “Hey Tommy, would you like a trip to Mars?” So the military was really the only way to go. Figured I could do four years and get money for college that way. I drove to York and talked to the recruiters, and ended up deciding on the Marines, but two piss tests that showed positive for marijuana later, I was back on the street looking for a job.
When I was young, I'd always sworn that I would never be like my father, that I wouldn't be a slave to that dirty foundry all of my life. Even if my old man hadn't been a total fuck-up, the foundry would still have screwed up our lives. Growing up, John's dad had been really cool, and the foundry still affected their family. His dad had worked seven days a week shift work, and was never home, not even on Christmas Day. He busted his ass for his family, a family that he never got to spend time with, and died of a heart attack three years ago, seven years away from retirement.
I wasn't going to go out like that. I promised myself that I wouldn't. I'd move, go to York or Harrisburg or maybe even Baltimore, and find a real job. Just leave this town and never look back. But Michelle was there, and so was John, and so was everything else I knew. Like most people, I ended up staying. I guess I never really had a choice. I wonder if anybody in this town ever does.
I wonder now if things would have turned out the way they did had I left. The bank robbery and what happened with Benjy and the others. But I guess it doesn't matter. If I had to do it all over again, I'd stay, even knowing what I know now. Michelle was worth it. She and T. J. were worth everything. They were the only two things that mattered.
After getting turned down by the Marines, I started out bagging groceries, but that didn't last long. Eventually, like it or not, I got a job at the foundry, because it was either that or work part-time at the bowling alley or one of the convenience stores or fast-food joints—or collect unemployment. Michelle and I moved in together, living in a tiny second-floor apartment over the hardware store. Six months later, we got married. Her parents lent us the money for a down payment on the trailer and John and Sherm helped us move in. We bought a big-screen TV we couldn't afford, Michelle got a job at the Minit-Mart, I picked up some extra shifts at the foundry, T. J. came along, we got deeper in debt, the trailer depreciated in value like all trailers do, and everything was right with the world.
Then I got cancer. End of story. Fade to black . . .
I wondered what Michelle's life would have been like if we hadn't hooked up. Would she have gone to New York and become an editor for some big publishing house? Or maybe moved to Philadelphia and opened some bookstore-coffeehouse-type thing? She loved to read, and I know she would have been good at something like that. Instead, she'd settled for T. J. and me; picked this run-down trailer over a fancy apartment looking out over Times Square. She'd chosen us and she'd chosen this town, and I loved her for it.
I heard her in the bedroom, reading. She was just getting to the good part.
“And at that very moment, we heard a loud whack! From outside in the fields came a sickening smack of an axe on a tree. Then we heard the tree fall.”
You need to think of T. J. and me. What would we do if you got really sick?
Heard the tree fall . . .
The pain came barreling back then, crashing through my head so fast that I almost screamed. My stomach churned. I lurched into the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before the convulsions began. I turned on the exhaust fan so that Michelle wouldn't hear me, and collapsed in front of the toilet.
I was choking. I couldn't breathe, and my vision blurred. This wasn't like before. Something pink and black and solid rushed up from inside me and splashed into the bowl, leaving a trail in the water.
What the fuck?
I'd just thrown up a piece of myself.
I knelt in front of the toilet for a very long time and just stared at the debris.
I'd never been more scared in all my life than I was at that moment.
When I came out, after gargling with half a bottle of mouthwash, Michelle was back sitting on the sofa, engrossed in her book.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, I'm fine. Just another headache is all. It'll go away.”
“You were in there for a long time.”
“I had to take a monster shit. You don't want to go in there for at least an hour. Better not light up a cigarette either!”
“Tommy,” she gasped, smiling, “you're horrible!”
“Hey”—I smiled back—“you asked.”
We sat there for a while and she told me about her day. Irritating customers buying lottery tickets and paying for cigarettes in loose pennies and her manager's latest personal crisis and the joke of the day that the potato chip delivery guy had told them. The most boring shit in the world, and usually I tuned it out, but not then. Not
this time. I wanted to listen, wanted to hear it all. Wanted to know every detail. Wanted her to know that I loved her and that I was really interested in what she had to say.
The phone rang, interrupting her story of what happened when the lottery ticket machine broke down. We both looked at it.
“It's probably my mom,” she groaned.
I reached for the phone. “She's going to wake T. J. up, calling this late.”
“I know. I've told her.”
I picked it up on the third ring, and said “Hello?”
There was a pause, followed by an electronic whir, and then a nasal, female voice that I didn't recognize.
“Hello?” I said again.
“Hello, may I please speak with Mr. Thomas O'Brien?”
“Whatever you're selling, we're not interested. Put us on your Do Not Call list.”
“I'm not selling anything, sir.”
“Then why are you calling?”
“Are you Mr. Thomas O'Brien?”
I sighed, exasperated.
“Yes. Now who the hell are you?”
“Mr. O'Brien, I'm calling from Gulf Financial Credit Services, in regards to your Visa account.”
“I don't have a credit card with Gulf Financial.”
“Yes, I know that, sir. We're a collection agency, and we're handling your account on behalf of Visa. Are you aware that your account has exceeded the credit limit and is currently past due?”
“Well no shit, Sherlock. That's why we haven't been using it.”
“When do you plan on making a payment, Mr. O'Brien?”
“When do you plan on getting a real job?” I countered. “Don't call here again, you bitch!”
I slammed the phone down, and immediately felt better. Fucking around with telemarketers. There's nothing like it in the whole world.
“Who was that?” Michelle asked.
“A bill collector.”
“Which one?”
“The credit card.” I sighed. “Guess they want their money too, just like the insurance company and the phone company.”
“Well, they'll just have to wait. We need to pay the electric company with your next check in two weeks. Like I said before, they sent us a shutoff notice. And don't forget, we're behind on the mortgage.”
“But we need that to pay for the phone. Guess I won't get the medicine after all—and don't start on me about it!”
“But you have to.”
“I don't see how. Jesus, I wish we'd hit the lottery!”
“It's okay, Tommy,” she soothed. “We'll get by. We'll figure something out. We always do. T. J. and I can always count on you.”
She stood up and wrapped her arms around me. When she hugged me, I almost sobbed. Instead, I hugged her back and bit my lip, fighting to keep my emotions in check.
“I love you.”
“I love you too,” I whispered into her ear. “I really do, Michelle. I want you to know that.”
She pulled back, giving me a puzzled look.
“What's wrong, Tommy?”
I shrugged, fighting back the tears.
“I don't know. Long-ass day, is all. Long, long day . . .”
“You're tired. Let's go to bed, baby.”
I nodded. My face was buried in her hair, and it smelled so good. I took a deep breath, inhaling her scent.
Holding hands, we walked down the hall, undressed, and slipped beneath the covers. The cool sheets felt good on my skin. We cuddled in the glow of the television. Within minutes, Michelle was breathing softly, sound asleep. I was always amazed at how easily she could fall asleep. I watched her for a long time, the rise and fall of her breasts, the way her forehead wrinkled up as she dreamed. This was when she was most beautiful.
I smiled, content.
Then I remembered I was dying. The fact popped back into my head from out of nowhere. Most people don't think about dying, especially at the age of twenty-five. The cop walking his beat isn't dwelling on it, even though he knows that there's a chance it could happen to him every night. The drunken driver isn't pondering the ramifications right before he flies through the windshield and becomes a bloody skid mark on the road. For people like that, death happens quickly. It may be there in the back of their head, knowing that it could happen, but they aren't thinking about it at every second.
What about the everyday schmuck? Do they think about dying when they get up in the morning, take their shower, and spill coffee on themselves during their commute? Do they dwell on it while the boss is hollering at them? Fuck no. Of course not. Human beings don't walk around thinking about death because we don't really believe that it's going to happen to us. Sure, we know that it will happen eventually. Maybe sometimes we even stop and consider for a moment that it could be today. But we don't know for sure. We're never one hundred percent positive.
Let me tell you, when you know for sure that it's going to happen, and that it will happen soon, you can't think about anything else. I tried to, though. I tried to change the subject with myself. I thought about our debt, and how much we owed, and I wondered how the hell we'd ever get out of it. Wondered how Michelle and T. J. would survive it after I was dead. Would they be forced into bankruptcy and living on the street? I watched her sleeping and thought about T. J. and the Lorax and the sound of the axe cutting down the last Truffula tree. The very last one. And after it was gone, everything in the Lorax's forest had turned to shit.
I knew I had to do something, but at that point I wasn't sure what.
The volume on the television was turned down low, so it wouldn't wake T. J. up. There was a cop show on, and in it, three guys were robbing a bank.
I fell asleep watching it. It looked pretty easy on TV.
I wondered if it was that easy in real life.
So, let me get this straight. You've got hair on your dick? Not on your balls but on your dick? On the shaft?”
“Yeah.” John took another bite of his bologna sandwich. “Doesn't everybody? You mean that you guys don't?”
Sherm and I arched our eyebrows at each other, and after a second's pause we started howling. I sprayed soda across the lunchroom table, I laughed so hard.
“John,” I wiped the soda up with a napkin, “how many guys have you seen in porno movies with hair on their fucking dicks?”
He shrugged. “I just figured they shaved, dog. A lot of those guys shave their balls, you know.”
Still howling, Sherm turned to the table behind us.
“Yo, Louis, check this shit out. John's got hair on his dick!”
Louis, who ran the Number Four line, looked perplexed.
“What, you mean like around the balls? Don't we all got that?”
Sherm nodded at John. “Tell 'em.”
Frowning, John's ears began to turn red.
“I've got hair growing up the sides of my dick. It goes about halfway up. I don't see what the big deal is.”
The entire lunchroom exploded in laughter. John's ears turned completely scarlet.
“I'm gonna start calling you Carpet Dick.” Sherm chuckled.
That was pretty much how it went every day. We'd file into the lunchroom at twelve, head back out at twenty-five after—just enough time to take a piss or call home before the bell rang and we had to be back in our work areas. Sometimes we talked about sports; how the Orioles and the Ravens and the Steelers were sucking, or listened to the various NASCAR camps debate the drivers; who'd forced who off the track and whether Ford was better than Chevy. Other times it was swimsuit models and porno starlets, or music, or hunting, or the latest movie, or what happened at the strip joint on the edge of town. In between these topics, we razzed each other constantly because that's what guys do.
I bring this up, not because it's important that my best friend was a mutant with a hairy dick, but because it was the last good time I can honestly remember before things turned to complete shit.
In the last twenty-four hours, I'd been diagnosed with cancer; told that I was dying and that there
wasn't a damn thing anybody could do about it, thrown up a very large and disgusting piece of myself in the toilet, lied to my wife, and learned that the credit card was shut down, the electricity was about to follow, and we couldn't afford to pay for any of it.
But it got worse. It got a lot fucking worse.
The whole day had been progressively bad. I overslept and was almost late for work. I felt like shit. Part of it was depression. It's not every morning that you wake up and remember that you're dying. But that's what I did. I got up, looked at the alarm clock, cursed, shuffled to the bathroom, pissed, and as I was shaking it off, I remembered.
But it wasn't just the depression. My head was killing me. I swallowed four aspirin with my first coffee, and they had no effect. I stopped on the way to work, bought another cup of coffee and some cigarettes, and puked the coffee back up a few minutes later. The cigarettes tasted like dried dog shit, but I smoked them anyway. My coughing fits came in spurts, and each time one struck, my head felt worse. All morning long, I hocked bloody phlegm into black piles of foundry dirt and covered them up with my boot so that nobody would see them.
The heat was bad. By nine in the morning, the temperature inside the foundry usually hovered around ninety-five degrees. That morning was no exception, especially around the furnace and ladle areas, where it was considerably higher. I ran the Number Two line, which was about fifty feet from the furnace. It was scorching in my area. The company provided us with free sports drinks that they kept in big coolers at different areas on the floor. I drank and drank, but it still seemed to sweat right through me. I felt like I had a fever. My mouth tasted funny too—a sickening, sour mixture of sports drink and tobacco and bloody saliva. Sweat ran into my eyes beneath my safety goggles and my skin felt tight and itchy.
The foundry wasn't just hot; it was dirty and loud too. All day long, forklifts rumbled, dumping hoppers full of scrap metal into the furnaces. Every time they backed up, there was a deafening BEEP BEEP BEEP that made my temples throb. People paged each other over the intercom all day long. Each breath brought more dirt into my lungs. When I went home at the end of each day, our shower turned black as I scrubbed the iron particles and grime from my pores. I was never completely clean until the weekend, when I had two extra days to get the grit out of my system. My arms were a crazy quilt of pockmarks, where burning flecks of metal had spattered them over the last five years. I used to watch the old-timers, wondering if they had started like me. Most of them had ugly burn marks that put my little scars to shame. All of them suffered from a terrible, racking cough; what we jokingly referred to as “black lung.” I remember my old man had it, before he ran off with the waitress and did us all the favor of getting killed.