Makes Your Heart Move
I sit in a chair and it’s uncomfortable because it’s in a doctor’s office. I have no opinion on doctor offices, but the chairs in them always seem to be very uncomfortable. My therapist made me come here.
It has very low arm rests and the cushion is flat. There’s no design, just a greenish-blue cushion. The doctor tells me I’m sick. She says that it’s malignant and in my colon. I don’t feel anything though, except for the chair.
The doctor tells me that my condition is very rare. So rare that only six cases in the US have been recorded. She instructs me where to go from here.
I picture a person named Alex having to tell family and friends, calling them on the phone, over lunch, over coffee. I can see that when Alex tells them there won’t be a reaction at first. Their faces become frozen, their vocal chords tighten. Alex responds to this by saying hey, don’t worry, it’s only butt cancer. It’s really just a whoopee cushion I can’t get rid of. They smile. They don’t get the joke and neither does Alex, but they smile.
They are able to speak again. Alex has broken the spell. Well at least you have a sense of humor about it, they say. And Alex says yeah, that’s always a good thing. And they’ll bring their mug to their mouths but won’t sip anything or they’ll laugh and it’ll fade away as they look at their shoes or the phone will become silent as they wonder how to change the subject without sounding selfish.
I wouldn’t blame them or anything if they did. I’d rather hang up and watch a movie than speak to someone who only tells me bad news because they feel obligated to. I know who the real selfish person in that scenario is.
The doctor asks me if I have any questions, and I think about it. I couldn’t find any so I said no and got out of the chair and left.
***
The chairs in my therapist’s office are usually pretty comfortable, but today they aren’t. I don’t know why though.
He asks how the depression is doing and I tell him that it’s going good. I tell him that he was right. The reason I had stayed in bed not eating, not sleeping, not bathing or peeing or pooping, watching movie after movie for four straight days the week before wasn’t because I was depressed, which I thought, but it turns out it was because I was actually sick with a real illness. He says mono wasn’t it? And I talk about how I like the lighting in his office.
The overhead, fluorescent light is always off and he has about six lamps around the room that make a golden light and make the colors in his office feel safe to be around. His voice gets softer. I ask him if he’s likes to watch movies. Not just as a thing he does, but as a hobby he’s passionate about. He says no.
I decide he doesn’t need to know. I don’t want to be that person. He has to listen to people talk about their problems all day. People who as kids sometimes woke up with their step-dad’s semen on their face. People who were kidnapped and beaten until they went unconscious and miss it. People who can’t shop in grocery stores because they would stay in there for hours rearranging the cans and bags and boxes forever and ever until they got thrown out or something. My problems aren’t as bad so why bother mentioning them. It’s not that big a deal.
I let the guy have an hour of peace for once.
***
My dad calls me like he usually does and asks how I’m doing. I say I’m doing fine. I tell him about the last movie I saw which was Once Upon a Time in the West. I re-watched the first twelve minutes when Mr. Harmonica is introduced about five times before I went on with the rest of the movie. I want to be someone like Mr. Harmonica. A hero and someone that matters. I have this thrill when the train horn blends with his haunting harmonica sound. I am so excited. My heart actually moves whenever I watch a good movie. They are the only things that can do that to my heart.
He says he doesn’t know which movie I’m talking about. I don’t explain it to him and I say that he should watch it and he says okay. It is silent like it usually is and I don’t know what else to say so I mention that I am sick. He says is it depression? And I say no. I tell him it’s malignant and in my colon. That my condition is very rare. So rare that there have only been six recorded cases in the US. I tell him I don’t feel anything though.
He asks me how long did I know this and I said three weeks and he gets mad at me and starts to yell and say how could I not mention this before, that I’m not fine, that I need medical care. He says how could I even sound so calm with news like this, don’t I care. Three weeks already. Am I scared.
I tell him when he says he’s going to drive 1500 miles to see me not to worry. That it’s only butt cancer. How bad could such a funny thing be. It’s like a whoopee cushion I can’t get rid of. He says what does that even mean and I say I don’t know but don’t worry everything’s fine. It’s no big deal. What does it matter.
He asks if I have been taking any medication recently and I say for the cancer? And he says for the depression and I say that I keep forgetting about both.
My dad drives 1500 miles from Austin, Texas to my apartment in California. It takes him two days. He knocks on the door and it takes me ten minutes to get out of bed and the whole time he’s knocking. I open the door and I ask him if he wants to watch a movie. He asks where my pills are. After about an hour we find one bottle under my bed and near the wall and another under some dirty dishes on the floor. We can’t find my depression pills.
He reads the instructions on the ones we did find and he makes me open up my hand and drops the pills in them. He watches as I take them. He does this every day. Makes sure I take my pills.
He says that the place is disgusting and takes the rest of the week to clean up all of the cups with mold in it on my nightstand and in the other rooms, he vacuums all of the crumbs of sandwiches and potato chips on the floors and throws the candy wrappers on the couch in the garbage after he empties it. He asks how long they’ve been here. He sticks moldy banana in my face and I have to keep my mouth closed and he says look at this. Look at how I’m living. He throws the banana at my chest and it squishes against my shirt and sticks there. He tells me to take off my shirt and I do and he puts it in the washer with other dirty clothes. He never stops complaining and yelling at me about it and I watch Lawrence of Arabia three times. My heart moves whenever Lawrence returns from saving the man stranded in the desert. He means so much to so many people and the camels are running, the sand in the desert is so clean, the music is so loud and powerful, and the people are cheering. I almost cry every time.
***
We get my depression pills and visit the doctor again. The chair is the same one I was in when I was diagnosed. It’s still uncomfortable. My dad asks so many questions that I never think of. What are the symptoms. Is there any way we can fight this. What is the time line. Is chemo an option. What is the illness called again. What caused it. Is there any way he can help. What is there to do. How long will this last.
***
They decide that I’m going to have surgery in a week and take some of it out of my colon and see what that does. The night before the surgery after my dad watches me take my pills we watch Once Upon a Time in the West and my heart doesn’t move when the train comes and the harmonica is being played I don’t feel anything. And I get scared.
My dad says why do I love movies so much? And I say they make my heart move, but they aren’t today. He says are movies the only thing that make me feel that way and I say yes and he says that he thinks that that is a sad thing. He says that there are many many things that can make me feel that way but I don’t believe him because only movies have ever made my heart move like that. He says I need to look more.
***
I lie on a bright table at the hospital. I wear a patient’s gown and my sick butt is showing. I say that if they hear a noise it’s just the whoopee cushion. It’s good that I keep a sense of humor. They are about to take me in and stick an IV in me and I yell for Dad and he comes in and asks what’s wrong and I grab his hand and my ass is in the open and I start to cry and I don’t remember the last time I cried, and I tell him I’m scared and that I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on with me anymore.
He says I’m sorry for what? And I say I don’t know. I’m just really scared right now and I don’t want to die. I don’t want that. And the table is wet near my face and the lights are bright and reflect off the surface of the table and the floor and I can’t get away from it and it makes my eyes hurt. I keep saying with my eyes closed I don’t want to die. He says it’s good that I think that because that means my depression pills are working. It’s a good thing that I’m scared. It’s good that I care. He smiles and says now I’m normal.
I start to throb and tremble and I can picture my ass shaking in the air and I’m still crying and my teeth start to chatter and I say that I don’t like this, I don’t like this feeling, I want to go back to where nothing mattered.
The surgeons have a hard time sticking an IV in me because I’m trembling so much but they get it and I fall asleep.
Movies don’t make my heart move anymore. I don’t feel anything when I watch them and I don’t know what’s wrong with me because I don’t want to watch them anymore. I don’t like being normal.
I dream that I’m watching 2001: A Space Odyssey and I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe and a tree grows out of my mouth. I lie on my couch and the tree gets bigger and bigger and I gag and I can’t breathe. I taste the bark and I can feel the roots grow inside my body. It moves down my throat and into my arms and my heart and my legs and I can’t move because I can’t breathe but I’m not dying. The branches grow and tangle and thicken and people start to bud out from them. They hang on the branches by their necks and I still can’t breathe and one of them looks at me and says this is good for you this is good for you and I can hear breathing from the TV but I can’t see it because the tree in my mouth is in the way and up through the ceiling.
My dad trusts me now to take the pills on my own and I only take them half of the time. I flush them in the toilet so it seems like I’m going through them and my dad won’t notice.
It’s been four weeks and the cancer isn’t slowing down. The surgery didn’t work apparently. I start chemo.
I do it almost every day and now I’m flushing all of my pills and I’m not scared anymore. I watch Seven Samurai and my heart feels warm and alive again. I want to join in their group of samurais. I want to save the day. I watch it two more times.
I am wondering so I cut my wrists because it is the easiest way to try it out. My dad finds me on the floor with blood on the carpet and screams and uses the phone and I’m in the hospital again.
He yells at me and screams and says have you been taking your medication and I say for cancer? And he says for anything. And I say I forgot and he starts to cry and say he’s trying to save my life and I’m trying to end it and why am I so stupid and he slaps me in the face as I lie in the bed that smells like nothing. I don’t feel anything though. I ask him if he wants to watch a movie when we get out and after a few minutes he says okay.
***
My dad watches me take my pills and makes me open my mouth and stick out my tongue. We go to chemotherapy and I sit in a comfortable recliner as it happens. I’m scared again but I’m too tired to shake and it takes seconds for the doctor to stick the IV in me. I become terrified after a little bit and I feel so tired and I start to yell at my dad. I say that it’s his fault for making me feel so scared. I say everything was fine before he came here and he ruins everything because he feels like he has to do something when really I just want to be left alone. I say I don’t want anybody. I was fine, I wasn’t scared. I was fighting death my own way and now he’s made me naked with my bare ass in the air and nothing to fight back with.
He says that what I’m going through is normal and I say fuck normal and I call him a parasite and just as bad as the cancer. And the water in his eyes makes them look bigger and he uses them to look at his watch and he says it’s time. He reaches into his bag and pulls out my pills and makes me take them and I open my mouth and stick out my tongue.
He says that he thinks I knew that Mom was dead before anyone else. That when I popped out I didn’t cry or scream or anything. I was already in mourning. Maybe I knew she had died because when she did I was still attached to her he says. I didn’t cry.
He tells me that when I was six months old I made up for it by crying all of the time. The only way to stop me from crying was to put me in a buggy and drive me around inside a grocery store. He remembers he spent nine hours in the grocery store every week. He remembers where everything was by heart.
I say beans? And he says aisle six next to the soups near the bottom. I say taco seasoning? And he says aisle two, right near the end of the aisle and up top.
I say I was a weird kid and he says now I’m a weird adult and I say sorry you have to take care of me.
And he says it’s okay.
***
The medication makes my legs not work. I can’t walk straight and I wobble everywhere. It hurts sometimes. I call for my dad when I need to use the restroom and he picks me up from the couch and walks me there and I pull down my pants as he sets me down.
I wake up in the middle of the night and I hurt all over. My dad runs in and asks what’s the matter and I say nothing, I’m just scared. He asks me if it was a nightmare and I say I forgot and he says do you want to watch a movie? And I say I don’t. I say I don’t want to die and he says me too and that he’s glad I don’t.
The doctor gives me two more months to live and I tell my dad I don’t want the pills anymore and he says he isn’t sure. And I promise him I will be different and he says as long as I still take my depression pills for him and I say okay.
We throw away all of my left over pills and a month goes by we are watching a lot of my favorite movies but my heart isn’t moving anymore and I feel scared and anxious.
He sees me trembling and says am I scared again? And I say yes, it’s worse today than yesterday and he asks me if I feel anything else and I say no. He wants to know if I want to go to Death Valley tonight and I say why and he says I’ll see. I put on a jacket and we drive an hour and a half and when we get there the sun is setting. He helps me out of the car and we go out in the middle and he sets out a blanket on the sand and he lays me down and I look up. The sun is gone now and I see a ton of stars and I say that there are more stars than normal and he says it’s because the light pollution in this area is so low that we can see more. We sit without talking for a half hour and I ask why he wants to bring me here and he says just wait so I wait. He tells me go to sleep which is easy to do I am so tired. He wakes me up and says look up and I look up and there is this huge dense band of stars in the middle of the sky. And I ask what is that? And he says the Milky Way. That we are looking at it straight-on like a Frisbee and that’s why that part of the sky is so dense with stars. I can see everything around me. I see the small mountains on the horizon and I see that the stars aren’t just white, but some are blue and purple and it makes the sky colorful. It’s so bright and soft and it feels safe. I can see the Milky Way moving from left to right in the sky and I realize that this is the only thing that I will ever see that will look bigger than the earth. It’s so big that I start to actually see the earth rotating. I can feel it too under my body and I start to feel it inside me and it makes my heart move so much. I feel like I am part of the earth and looking at the Milky Way up in the sky making the earth look so small makes me feel so big and I feel important and I don’t want to die. I watch it all night and my dad doesn’t say a word. The sky gets brighter and brighter as the sun gets closer to the horizon, but I can still see the Milky Way and I can still feel like I am the earth and the when the sun finally shares the sky with the Milky Way, I can’t see it anymore, but I know it’s still there in the sky and it makes me feel so safe and I don’t want to die and my heart is moving more than it ever has before.
I can feel the earth move wherever I go now and it makes me feel so big and meaningful. I wonder if this is what Mr. Harmonica or Lawrence or the samurai feel like.
I’m not scared anymore.
I know this isn't the most productive piece of feedback, but this is awesome. I can't see anything that would warrant changing.
ReplyDeleteRhythm is perfect here, Paul. The relationship between the father and the narrator is beautiful--you can sense the dad's frustration (shaking the moldy banana) and also just how concerned he is (searching around for the pills, reading all of the instructions). The detail about the narrator crying all the time at six months old and the dad, desperate, pushing him around in the buggy was perfectly realistic. The narrator's constant references to movies show how he's trying to find something to make him feel--and that works so well.
ReplyDeleteMy only real feedback is that I never believed the narrator was dying of cancer. I think that you're trying to convey his emotionlessness, part of his depression. . . but he's so affectless about the cancer and he's not that way about his depression. He actually cares about the fact that he's depressed; I feel his struggle over it. He wants to change.
I got that from his dad, too--that his dad was more concerned about his son's depression than that his son was dying of a rare cancer. And this isn't believable. I actually wonder if you need the cancer . . . I think it would be just as interesting if we saw the character battling depression only, his dad trying to save him from himself.
At any rate, Matt is right--it's awesome. This doesn't have the humor I loved in your other stories, but it doesn't need it. I felt much closer/attached to the character here.