Happy Birthday to Me

by Brian Rowe

  Happy Birthday to Me (Birthday Trilogy, Book 1)

  by

  Brian Rowe

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2011 by Brian Rowe

  http://brianrowebooks.com

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  1. Eighty

  The nightmare was real.

  My face was covered with sweat. My legs were killing me, and my back felt like someone had run it down with a semi truck.

  Worst of all, I really had to pee.

  My name is Cameron Martin. It’s Monday, May thirty-first.

  And I’m eighty years old.

  But I’m not really eighty. Just a few weeks ago, I was your typical high school senior, worried about basketball practice and prom dates, worried about when I could kiss my girlfriend next and when that acceptance letter to Yale would be arriving in the mail.

  Now, here I am, a real senior in every sense of the word, sprawled out on a cold hospital bed, completely alone, wondering when this horrific pain will come to a bitter end.

  What happened to me is something extraordinary. I’ve only recently discovered what caused my disease. I can’t really believe it. I don’t know if I ever will.

  But it happened. Even though I look eighty on the outside, I’m still just a seventeen-year-old kid on the inside. I’m days away from my high school graduation, an event that was to promise the beginning of the rest of my life.

  Instead, I’m facing the countdown to my imminent death.

  And no one can help me.

  Not even her.

  I leaned over on my right side and pushed the call button. I wanted to just start going in the sheets, but I knew that the smell would be inconceivable, not to mention, gross.

  My nurse arrived a minute later. Her name was Tanya, and she looked like my mom, only a foot shorter, and with blonde hair instead of black. She tiptoed up to me hesitantly, as if she assumed I had fallen asleep again.

  “Mr. Martin?”

  I turned toward her and tried to smile. “Yes. Hello.”

  “How may I help you?”

  “It’s… uhh… it’s my…”

  “Yes?”

  “I have to pee.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Let me get you a urinal. One moment.” She departed the room.

  I leaned my head back against the two pillows, knowing full well I could get up and make it to the bathroom if I wanted to, but also knowing that I needed to save my energy for my mission later tonight.

  She’s counting on me, after all.

  I started rubbing my hands together. My skin felt like the crinkled-up binder paper I still had stuffed in my locker.

  “I’m back,” Tanya said, an exaggerated smile on her face, as if the device in her hand was supposed to be a Christmas present. “Now I’m gonna need you to sit up. Can you do that for me?”

  I nodded as she put her arms out to lift me up. While my bones had become as fragile as a snowflake, I thankfully still had the endurance of a young athlete.

  “There you go. All right. Now I’m gonna slip this between your legs, and I want you to go whenever you’re ready, OK?”

  The nurse acted irrationally calm as she slipped the cold, plastic object around my sensitive private area, but it might’ve been more helpful if she had some sort of urination phobia. She didn’t leave. She just kept standing there.

  I gripped the urinal and closed my eyes. I still felt like I had to go. But now I had an audience. And she wasn’t looking away.

  I bit down on my bottom lip. “Sorry. Should just be another second.”

  “Don’t worry, honey, it’ll come,” she said with a laugh. “Performance anxiety is totally natural.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to her nosy assessment of my genitalia. I just nodded and looked away, pretending she wasn’t there. I tried to picture a stream of some kind, a river, a beaver dam. Finally, it came.

  “Thanks,” I said after I finished.

  “You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can get you?”

  “Just one more thing,” I said, even though part of me didn’t want to see my nasty reflection ever again.

  “Yes?”

  “Could you bring me a mirror?”

  Tanya gave me a disheartening nod and walked out of the room without a verbal response. She returned seconds later with a small, round mirror that looked like a mini-sized tennis racket.

  “Let me know if you need anything else,” she said, but she exited the room before a response was possible.

  I tilted the mirror toward my face, but I closed my eyes before I could see myself, not wanting to open them, not wanting to lay eyes on the horrific monster that was a shade of my formal self. I took a few deep, satisfying breaths and swallowed some saliva.

  Finally, I opened my eyes.

  Just weeks ago, I was considered by friends, girlfriends, and waitresses to have one of the cutest faces this side of the Nevada border. My hair had been wavy and dark brown, my basketball training had turned my stomach into a six-pack of perfection, and my dimples—boyish as they were—had finally started to grow on me.

  But now I was looking into the face of death. The face I saw before me—well, it wasn’t mine. There were traces of me there, especially in the squinty hazel eyes. But my hair had fallen out, my soft skin had turned to rough, crusty plaster, and my lips, once full and dark red, were now two pencil-thin lines of sorrow.

  Yesterday, I was seventy-nine. Tomorrow, I’ll be eighty-one.

  Since late March, I have been aging a whole year of my life with each passing day. I try not to think too much about my impending doom, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that soon I’d be gone forever.

  I had my whole life ahead of me, and I thought I had time.

  It’s all but run out.

  “All right, Mr. Martin,” Tanya said, returning to the room to remove the mirror from my hands. She started tucking me in, like I was back to being a helpless three-year-old. “It’s getting dark outside. It’s time you get some sleep.”

  I turned my head toward the window to see the sun starting to set over Reno’s downtown skyline. In under an hour, it would be pitch black outside.

  As Tanya closed the door behind her, I closed my eyes, not to sleep, but to rest before my little nighttime excursion.

  Besides, sleep was not what I needed. I needed time.

  Time.

  I stayed awake and daydreamed I was seventeen again, when all was right in the world.

  2. Seventeen

  “MARTIN!”

  Oh my God, the voice was so shrill, I almost tripped over my own feet.

  I turned to my left to see Coach Welch marching up to me, his old, faded sneakers squeaking with every step.

  I looked up into the bleachers to see just a few select people watching my never-ending basketball practice. My girlfriend Charisma, sitting in the third row up, was talking a mile a minute on her cell phone.

  “Martin!” The six-foot-six coach towered over me like a Tyrannosaurus rex. He was bulky and bald, and he sported
a thick, graying moustache that an old yearbook photo proved he hadn’t shaved since his college days. His putrid breath hit me from both sides, and I gladly took a step away from him. “Do you want to play next week? Huh? Do you?”

  “Of course, Coach.”

  “Then shape up! You push one of your players to the side again, I’m gonna do a whole lot more than scream at you, do you understand me!”

  When he turned around, I tried not to chuckle. I looked down to see my fellow player Ryan glare at me, his eyes suggesting he wanted to kill me, or, at least, throw a punch toward my groin.

  I kneeled over and put my hands on my knees. “Do you need any help getting up, dearie?”

  “Don’t talk to me,” he said, jumping up to his feet and grabbing the ball. Before I or anyone could stop him, he ran across the court, leapt into the air, and dunked the ball in the hoop.

  Charisma started clapping from the stands. I glared at her, confused.

  She stopped clapping. “Oh, sorry babe!” she shouted from the stands. “I thought that was you!”

  I shook my head and got back into place. There was still another hour to go.

  “We have three days, guys!” Coach Welch was clearly addressing the entire basketball team, but the only person he looked at was me. “I want nothing but your best! NOW MOVE!”

  Sure thing, Coach.

  I grabbed the ball from Ryan and sunk a three-pointer. Charisma gave me a standing ovation.

  ---

  It was late afternoon. Most of the students had gone home for the day. I had just finished practice, and Charisma and I found ourselves walking through the empty halls of the ninety-year-old Caughlin Ranch High School, on our way toward the parking lot. She was on her phone again, holding my hand, but clearly immersed in a world that wasn’t mine.

  It’s all right. More time to just ogle the hottie from head to toe.

  Charisma had been my girlfriend for nearly six months. She was so striking in her overwhelming US Weekly kind of beauty that sometimes I’d forget I was even allowed to hold her hand. She had long, curly blonde hair, a thin figure that didn’t draw attention to itself, and an affinity to wear sunglasses both outdoors and in. She was almost as tall as me, and when she wore her black leather boots, I had to stand on my tippy-toes as not to look like a munchkin. I tried to ask her out during my junior year, but she had gone back to her on-and-off boyfriend Ryan for the umpteenth time. When they finally broke up at the beginning of senior year, I swooped in and didn’t look back.

  “I decided I’m just going to bring the one wig, that black one with the streak of purple,” Charisma said over the phone to one of her girlfriends. “No, I don’t care if you think it’s tacky. I’m doing it. I don’t have to use it if I don’t want to.” Charisma said her good-byes, stuffed the phone in her purse, and turned to me. “It’s so frustrating! I might as well just pay a stranger to take these pictures.”

  “Pictures? For what?”

  She looked like she wanted to strangle me. “For my headshots, stupid! Lahna’s not only an amazing photographer, she knows a big-time producer in Hollywood. I hate dealing with her, but she’s exactly the kind of person I need in my life right now.”

  “But what if the headshots don’t turn out the way you want them?”

  “Babe,” she said, slapping me on my back, as if I had an apple core stuck in my throat I needed to cough out, “it’s me we’re talking about here. I don’t think I’m capable of taking a bad picture. You know that.”

  Charisma was an aspiring actress, the lead of every CRHS play until this year, when she started devoting her time to sending audition tapes to casting directors and talent agents in Los Angeles. I never thought she was serious about this acting thing, but she had already accepted a theatre scholarship to a university in downtown L.A. where, as Charisma put it, “I can devote my time to my craft.”

  I didn’t really care about her craft at this moment. I placed my hands on her waist. I leaned in to her and exhaled a joyful sigh, knowing she wasn’t wearing the boots today.

  I kissed her softly on the lips.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, seemingly disinterested in my gesture.

  “Whatever I want,” I said with a smile, exposing my giant dimples. “Everyone’s gone home. There’s nobody around. Just look.”

  Charisma glanced down the hallway. There was nobody.

  “Uhh, right,” she said. “This hallway isn’t exactly romantic, Cam.”

  I tightened my grip on her left hand. “Well, come on then. I know just the place.”

  I worried that the door to the library would be locked, but it wasn’t. To my surprise, not only was it wide open, but there were a dozen students or more poring over their homework inside. I turned to my right to see Mrs. Gordon, the frightening librarian, hovering over a stack of books near her office and making notes on a little white pad.

  I pulled Charisma to the left side of the library, making my way past a row of computers to find a bookshelf in the back where nobody could see us.

  Charisma licked her lips and smiled at me, finally recognizing what I wanted the two of us to do. She pushed me up against the bookshelf and wrapped her arms around me.

  “I still don’t think this is very romantic, mister,” she whispered.

  “I know,” I whispered back. “But still. Doesn’t it make you feel dangerous?”

  I started kissing her more passionately, and she actually kissed me back this time. My head started falling back in between some books. Looking up I could see loose pages of Homer’s The Odyssey falling to the floor.

  Charisma rubbed her thumbs against my abs and started pulling my shirt off. I glanced around the corner to see only empty chairs, no students.

  “OK,” I said.

  I pulled the shirt off and started kissing Charisma’s cheeks. She emitted a moan quiet enough to turn me on even more, but loud enough for me to worry someone might hear us.

  “This is so wrong,” she said.

  “I know.” I kissed her again, this time on her neck.

  “But remember, Cameron,” she said, slapping my chin playfully, “I’m not gonna have sex with you until you become a man.”

  I glared at her. She was still adamant about it.

  Even though I was seventeen years old, I still hadn’t grown any facial hair. I got the occasional hair on the bottom of my chin, but nothing more. Everything else about me cried manly man. My body was in perfect shape, and the top of my head and the majority of my armpits had more hair than I knew what to do with. But my face still looked as smooth as a newborn baby’s tushy.

  “Just you wait,” I said. “Any day I’m gonna wake up with facial hair, and you won’t know what hit you.”

  “You grow some facial hair for me, dimple boy,” she said, leaning into me and grasping my sides as if she were looking for love handles, “I’m yours. And I mean, all yours.”

  “Yeah? Well I’m gonna hold you to that—”

  “What in God’s name is going on over here?”

  My arms shot up into the air, knocking The Odyssey, The Iliad, and fifteen other classic literature books toward the floor.

  “Mrs. Gordon!” I shouted. “Hello!”

  She scowled at me like a rabid dog whose sleep had just been interrupted. “Don’t you dare try to exchange pleasantries with me you wretched little nothing!” Then she turned to Charisma. “You should be ashamed of yourself! Get out of here before I throw you in detention!”

  The librarian had clearly made the decision that I, not Charisma, would be the one receiving the criminal lashing. Charisma glanced at me, more than a little embarrassed, before rushing out of the library without even attempting to talk Mrs. Gordon into letting us both leave unscathed.

  I could see two freshman geeks staring at me and my tanned stomach from around the bookshelf, their jaws dropped. I imagined this had been the most excitement they’d seen all week.

  I bent over to pick up my t-shirt, but Mrs. Gordo
n dug her sharp fingernails into my left ear before I could grab it. I started screaming in pain, but she didn’t care. She walked with purpose, marching with great speed, as if she had a marathon to train for. Half a dozen students glanced up from their books to smile with glee at the popular kid who was finally getting his due punishment.

  “My office! Now!”

  As if I had a choice, she let go of my ear and pushed me into her claustrophobic four-by-four space, one barely big enough to fit a desk, lamp, and fake plants. She slammed the door behind her.

  “Take a seat,” she said.

  Slouching in the tiny chair, which felt like something more appropriate for the beach than an office, I looked small and incompetent.

  Mrs. Gordon, on the other hand, sat down in her higher chair and towered over me like a judge in a courthouse. She didn’t look at me for a moment. I took the time to analyze the elderly hag’s features.

  Bets had been placed, but still nobody really knew how old Mrs. Gordon was. Some thought she was as young as fifty, with the worst genes in the world. Others thought she was closing in on eighty, only appearing as decent as she did because she never stepped foot in daylight. She had short gray hair and wore tight, matronly business suits with only the blandest of colors. In addition, a massively large pair of black-framed glasses covered most of her sad, pale face. I imagined there had to be more youthful and attractive high school librarians somewhere. But not in Reno, Nevada. And definitely not at Caughlin Ranch High.

  “Mr. Martin,” she began, “I have been watching you for some time now. From the minute you walked into this school four years ago, you’ve been nothing but trouble. And the saddest part of the matter is that, for all the headaches you bring me on a weekly basis, you don’t even read. I imagine the closest thing to a novel you’ve read is your coach’s self-published handbook. You’re too busy playing sports and finding new places to fool around with your lady friend to take one single second to try to—I don’t know—expand your mind?”

  “Please,” I interrupted. “I can explain everything.”

  “I’ve never liked you, Mr. Martin,” she continued, ignoring my comment. “Never have. Never will.”