Earlier in the day I had run into a man I used to play tennis with, ten years my senior. He was gaunt, with dark blotches on arms and hands, a watery stream in his eyes, vigor missing in his step. He seemed embarrassed to see me, always had been taciturn, never heard him laugh out loud. He mumbled something and slowly limped away. I wondered then, as I wonder now, though it is clearly a relative thing, if I am seen by younger people (by Megan?) as gaunt and eroding. It keeps me tentative.
I am ready. I will place my fingers on her cheek, maybe hold her face in my hands in an offer of loving support. It can be taken as an act of caring, a friendship gesture. I will be protected from misinterpretation.
There are too many “almosts” in my life. This assertive act is aborted before I can start it by the urgent squeal of my phone, attacking my senses, insulting my intent.
“Yes,” I say testily.
The female voice at the other end is distressed. It takes a moment for me to catch the gist. Short, clipped phrases.
“Teddy, it’s Zan. He’s terribly sick. I need your council. Please.”
The dilemma rises, and I feel as if I need to fight a fire and an earthquake at the same time.
“Yes, yes,” I say. “I’ll be there.” I don’t even ask what it is. The tone is clearly disastrous. I am needed.
Megan erases the problem, or at least my perspective of it, reaches out and touches my arm. “Teddy, you have an emergency. I’ll go. We can talk later.”
“Honey,” I say, feeling close to her and miserable at the same time, “you remember Zandor, my old friend. It was Gwen, his wife. She sounded confused. Her words were desperate. This seems to me like a life and death issue.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’ll call you.”
“Yes, of course.”
She doesn’t look happy as I see her to the door.
THIRTY-TWO
I remember back in the ninth grade Mrs. Morales assigned Don Quixote for us to read, and it was long and I was lazy so I drew a picture of his horse instead. Rocinante. I loved its name.
Mrs. Morales gave me an A anyway because I had a “native-like accent.”
She taught us cute little songs that I still recall, like this one about a rooster and a chicken:
Totorio cantaba el gallo
Totorio a la gallina;
Totorio cantaba el gallo
Totorio en la cocina.
Odd how unrelated past events pop in at any time, the bane or the gift of being human. Well, Zandor was in Mrs. Morales’ class with me, so maybe it is not so outrageous a flashback.
As I drive toward his home in the fading light, not able fully to appreciate the remarkable show at the horizon, the disappearing sun creating a kaleidoscope of color, what some writer once labeled a postmodern sunset, seductive, romantic, I wander back and forth between Megan and Zandor, one thought promising, the other disturbing.
The elderly all face an ineluctable truth: that the body parts will begin to wear out. Which ones and how severely has to do with genetics, lifestyle, the vicissitudes of stress and, perhaps most important, how lucky one is in the juxtaposition of all those things.
In one of my classes, I use a video called, “To Live To 120,” about mountain people in Ecuador where one fifth of the village population is over ninety. Of nearly four hundred people, fourteen are over the age of a hundred. When asked why they thought they lived so long, one replied it was some kind of fruit they ate, while another said it was that they hardly consumed any meat. Researchers pinned the reasons on lack of stress, a barter economy without money, few hang-ups about sexual issues, and lots of hard labor chopping wood and climbing in the rugged hills.
One ancient man said, “Tengo ciento-diez-y-nueve anos. Mi esposa tiene noventa-y-nueve anos. Since there were ten years between them, he finished by saying he had married a younger woman.
I wonder sometimes if we forfeit our longevity by our so-called civilized thrust to compete for more—of everything, from money to goods to fast living, to sex and travel and, ultimately, a leisurely lifestyle.
So, here I am, driving to Zandor’s place, to learn which of his parts is beginning to decay, what aspect of his corpus is failing, how serious it is, how long he may still be with us.
It is depressing. As I am sure with most people, it causes instant introspection: if him, why not me, when is my turn, what parts of me will be the first to go? A little guilt, too, that my oldest friend is smitten and here I am, at the same time, toying with the hope of a vibrant new life connection.
Zandor has been my sometimes annoying, always loyal, ever available, buddy for well over fifty years. I can conjure up a thousand silly moments we shared, from musical to athletic, sexual bravado to yearnings for glory, he the more daring, I the more focused.
Old, I do expect to lose people from my life radar screen, but not Zandor. We are meant to ramble down the lane together to the very lip of oblivion, turn playfully, punch each other on the shoulder, flip a coin to see who gets to go first.
I arrive at his home in that inky kind of first darkness before the eyes are ready for it, when a step can be missed and an elderly person (but not me) can trip and fall. I have always been proud of my balance, my elegant athleticism, able to avoid accidents by adeptness, a quick sidestep, a skillful turn of the wheel.
Lights are everywhere, the house looking like a wrapped holiday present, but there are no other cars in the driveway so the illumination seems gaudy, an unnecessary display. For whom? For me? For the moods of those inside?
Gwen’s face is a Halloween mask, almost unrecognizable, rosy blotches on cheeks and forehead, eyes swollen yet narrow, a desultory energy sagging the skin, the overall impact sallow, grotesque.
I never thought of Gwen as pretty, though one could not imagine a kinder, more welcoming person. The best word to describe her appearance would be gangly, arms a bit too long, slim, tall, hair almost always, as long as I can remember, cropped close and tied in back, eyes small but ever with a smile in them. Now, she looks austere, frightened.
When she sees me, she bursts into tears and falls into my arms. Together, embracing, we move into the vestibule, the house silent and somber, saturated with an air of tragedy. I need to know more.
She puts her finger to her lips, whispers, “I don’t want Zan to hear us,” and steers me into the kitchen.
For a moment nothing is said, then, struggling through sobs that catch at her throat and trigger convulsions, she says, “He’s going to die.”
I wait, then ask, “Gwen, please, start at the beginning. What is going on? What is he going to die from?”
“Cancer. They diagnosed it as carcinoma. He had these rashes. Paid no attention to them. It’s like a skin cancer but deeper, goes into what they call epithelial tissue.”
“Rashes?”
“On his stomach first, then on his upper arm, an eruption. They sometimes can cut it out, but it may have gone too far.”
I am aware of my personal crushing sense of violation, of impending loss, but am so focused on Gwen’s anguish that I dismiss my own. I look for remedies. I wonder about consultation. I question the diagnosis.
“Two doctors have confirmed the illness,” she says in a barely audible tone. “They are considering the treatment, but both have warned me that if left too long, it can penetrate underlying tissue, can migrate to the lungs and other organs. When it does, it can be deadly.”
“Can migrate. Not necessarily will.”
“The doctors are not optimistic. Zan ignored it for too long. There is no cure, only treatment. Sometimes it delays the spread.”
I see her absolute desperation. What can I do for her? “Gwen, Zan is a fighter and an unusual person. If anyone can figure out a way to fight this off…”
“He denies. Doesn’t want to look at it. Says people are making too much of it.”
“I’d like to see him. Is that okay?”
She points and turns away. “He’s in his room upstairs. He’ll be h
appy to see you.”
His room is as bright as the rest of the house, belying the air of distress that hangs like an invisible pesticide. He is lying in his bed, reading. There is a heavy stubble of beard, at his age dirty white in color. Standing in the doorway, I knock.
“Hey, you-old-son-of-a-bitch. Coming to invite me to another sauna event?”
“Coming to check in, see how things are hanging.”
“You’ve been talking to Gwen. She catastrophizes.”
“Oh? Tell it to me straight, then. What’s going on?
“I’ve got some kind of skin problem. Probably too much sun when I was younger.”
“The kind of skin problem you put aloe cream on, or the kind you go to the doctor for?”
“Well, yeah, she talked me into going to the doctor. See, it doesn’t look good. Looks angry, like a science fiction demon scowling up at you.”
“And?”
“The doc says it’s some kind of cancer. I imagine it’s like prostate cancer, can go on for years, doesn’t threaten your life or anything, just an annoyance.”
“So, your take on it is that you have an inconvenient skin cancer that can be treated, but isn’t lethal.”
“Yeah.”
I stare at him, aware that he is full of shit; he gets away with that kind of hogwash with a lot of people, but not with me. I see in his eyes a desperation, anguish that cannot be disguised by a brusque manner or dismissive language.
I ponder our history together. Could I have demanded he put on more sunscreen when we played tennis? Could I have insisted on more of something? How does one know when a condition that finishes us off will accumulate enough lethal cells to make its grand entrance?
I stare at him hard, until I see him look away, tears forming.
“Oh, Zan,” I say, and slide onto the bed, encircling his body with my arms, holding him hard against me in a way I can’t recall ever doing in our fifty plus years together. Thoughts careen through me, how men rarely embrace, how love can be as intense between men as between women, or between women and men.
I do love this man, with all his hyperbole, his brassiness, the under-developed listening skills, the unwillingness to face his crisis head-on. “Oh, Zan,” is all I can say.
THIRTY-THREE
At the clinic, when they take blood to determine the PSA or sugar levels, I have whimsically wondered––surely a commentary on my weirdness––how absurd it would be to walk around all day with that pesky needle in my arm. Wouldn’t that cause a fuss, shake people up. Unpleasant to say the least, a burden, for sure.
Zandor’s cancer diagnosis is like a needle in my body that never gets removed. I know it isn’t about me, but I can only view the world through my own lenses.
I have read that a fighting attitude can raise the body antioxidants, what some medical person called the “Killer T” cells that combat infection. I hope with all my being that Zandor’s belligerence will work in a similar way. He puts on a remarkable front, a haughty view that this thing that has attacked him is an inconvenience in his life that he will backhand away, into some misty other-world, and simply get on with his routine. I am terrified because I know it doesn’t work that way.
In my classes the next few days, I am morose, physically deflated. The students notice. Megan approaches me when the others leave.
“What is it, Ted? The phone call? Your friend?”
I’m not sure I want her in on this anguish, generous of me in one sense, but selfish of me in that it would underscore my age, my own increasing vulnerability to decay.
“Yes, it’s Zandor. He is quite ill. It could be deadly.”
She pauses for a long moment, perusing my face. “Ted, is there anything I can do? If not for him, for you?”
I want to say, ‘Of course, you can spend time with me, talk it out, touch me, love me.’ What I do say deflects, keeps her at a distance. “Thank you for caring, Megan. I don’t think anyone can do anything. His wife is a basket case. I will be trying to shore her up.”
“What about you? Who will shore you up?”
“I’m…okay.”
“You’ve been teaching us to be sensitive, to read other people’s feelings. You don’t seem okay to me.”
Her statement makes me smile. Remarkable student, in her first semester and already applying what she is learning to her own life, to see through camouflage, pick out and recognize pain. I have often wondered if those sensitivities are imbedded, come from childhood, perhaps not even teachable.
“Yes, well when a best friend is given a life and death ultimatum it hits very close to home. I’m not sick, but in some ways, I feel as if his illness belongs to me, some eerie responsibility for it, as if I could have headed it off. I know that isn’t the case, but the burden hangs on me.”
“I know. I can see. A light seems to have gone out of you—at least for now.”
“No one knows Zan the way I do, not even his wife. He has a sweet, whimsical side to him despite the bravado. Did you ever hear of a person who deliberately drops pennies in parking lots, face up, so people will find them and have ‘lucky’ days? I want to shake him, challenge his hands-up, no-help-needed, ‘I’m fine,’ phony stance, and at the same time I feel like grabbing onto him, holding him close, keeping him from slipping away.” I stop, aware that I am confused. “He is,” I mumble, “a difficult man to help.”
Megan looks at me with a tilted head and bare smile. “So are you, Teddy.”
“I’m not…”
She interrupts. “Not in the same way as your friend, not dismissive of illness, but in your insistence on going it alone. Life, I mean. You don’t need anyone. You can handle things. Another person would just get in the way, would muck up your routine. That makes you a most difficult man to help.”
In an eerie way, she nails me, pins my old, uncommitted ass to the floor, her words a searchlight into my thoughts and feelings. I am stirred. I want to shout out, “Rescue me from myself! Show me the way! Guide me out of my seventy-year-old obsessions.” And, most significantly, I want to say with fervor, “Make me young again!” None of these has the remotest chance of escaping my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly, “to be difficult. At the moment, I’m infected with grief. Perhaps I can get to a better place.”
I am aware that my reply does not address her issue, and realize that she, in her deep sensitivity, is also aware of it.
She chooses not to confront, honoring the current painful agenda, as she says, “Please, Teddy, don’t apologize. I want to be more mindful of your feelings right now. If you need anything at all from me, I’m available.” She stops, then adds in a voice and with words that melt my heart, “I will be here in a minute if you call, any time, day or night. I feel very close to you.”
“Squamous-cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer,” Gwen says to me over the phone. “Two hundred thousand cases a year. If treated early, it is eminently curable. Ignored, it can go into the tissues and eventually metastasize. You know Zan. He thinks he is impervious, immortal, immune from the usual vagaries of humankind. So, naturally, he let the skin eruptions go. I would tell him they didn’t look good, and he would laugh, put on some cream, and tell me to wear a hat when I do my gardening.”
“Close the barn door after the horse is out, kind of humor,” I say, but I’m not sure where to go next. Is there a timetable? Do the doctors give him some numerical percentage—like a fifty-fifty chance, or what?
She seems to anticipate my questions. “One doctor said the tests show cancer cells in the liver. The second doctor told us it had migrated to the pancreas. In either case, the prognosis is poor.” Her voice catches in a sob.
I wait, then say, “Okay, Gwen. You don’t need to describe it all to me. I’ll be over later this evening. Tell Zan I’m coming.”
“Thank you, Ted,” she manages to say.
“I love the both of you,” I reply, aware that those words are not spoken nearly enough to people we care about.
Most elderly people have dutifully gone about to simplify their lives. When younger, our daily agendas are like an activities-onion with too many overlapping layers stifling us with excessive commitments. I see this with clients who come in for therapy, diagnosed as suffering from anxiety disorder. Often, I will use the image of the onion with them, wondering which parts they can peel off, how they can lighten their loads.
Here I am, considered elderly by outside world standards (regardless of how I like to think of myself), yet with a profoundly complex life, pressures coming from my teaching, my therapy work, my critically ill friend, and my silly fixation on a woman, twenty-five years my junior. Why am I not able to heed my own advice? What would I eliminate?
There is an arboretum on my campus, used by science classes as a horticultural lab, but also a haven for faculty and students, to sit in shady comfort, commune with natural flora, find at least temporary relief from the excesses so many of us endure. I don’t know who designed it, but the ambience is hypnotic, colors ranging from the gaudy reds of Hibiscus and Bottlebrush, to the cool blues of Lilies of the Nile and Delphiniums, to the sunny Marigolds and African Daisies, to other exotic specimens whose names I can’t recall, all overarched by the soft, soothing greens of Fruitless Mulberry and Modesto Ash leaves. It is, in all, a forested wonder, and for me a soporific.
I lie on a wooden slat bench, my jacket under my head, eyes closed in surrender to the pull of solitude. I ponder my life situation, some parts of which I feel helpless to influence, others within my scope, though I know I lack either the courage or the insight to confront them.
We are, as far as we know, the only species that can ponder our own mortality. I see a good and a bad in that. Other animals seem far more aware of their surrounding environments than humans. Forest creatures know when they are hungry, know when they have eaten enough, are rarely if ever obese. They smell, hear, see, are instantly alert to danger, and no one needs to tell them to run, climb or hide. On the opposite side, they cannot plan their day or week, contemplate the meaning of their lives, allow in advance for inclement weather, or in an aesthetic way, appreciate the very nature in which they live.
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