by Rob Rufus
My relatives were extra generous that year.
Nat decided that it was the perfect time to tell our parents he’d be using this cash to get tattoos.
Mom told him he couldn’t.
She demanded that he didn’t.
She commanded him—he would not.
They argued and argued about it. There was nothing she could actually do—he was eighteen now. It was his money. But it was her maternal duty to fucking freak out.
So the birthday party I never wanted ended in a screaming match. Nat finally grabbed the keys to the van and bailed. He didn’t say where he was going.
Mom downed the rest of her wine and went upstairs.
“Jesus,” Paul said, once she was gone. “When your ma gets white-wine drunk, look out.”
Dad walked into the kitchen.
“All right,” he said, clapping his hands, “we ready?”
“For what?”
Dad looked around. “Where’s your brother?”
“Uh, didn’t you hear him and Mom going at it?”
Dad shook his head.
“So Nat left?”
“Yep.”
“Ah well, his loss.” He looked at Paul. “I guess this one is going to have to take your brother’s place tonight.”
“Take his place doing what?” Paul asked.
“Celebrating.”
* * *
Dad did taxes for lots of businesses around Huntington. One of his more lucrative clients was the owner of Southern X-Posure, the only strip club near town. It was outside the city limits, in a renovated Ponderosa Steakhouse off the highway between Barboursville and Milton.
I couldn’t believe we were actually here. The parking lot of the club was packed. I heard the pulse of drum machines before we were even inside.
The door guy knew Dad’s first name. He didn’t charge us a cover. Paul wasn’t even eighteen, but he didn’t check IDs.
Dad handed me a wad of dollar bills.
“Happy birthday, big boy,” he said.
We followed the music inside.
* * *
Truckers and college kids sat hovering over their drinks. The haze of neon and smoke made it hard to see anything except the stage. The walls were completely covered in mirrors.
Dad went to the bar as Paul and I stumbled around, not sure what to do. I watched the girl onstage, I think she was a redhead. Her boobs were spaced too far apart to be real. She spotted me and headed my way.
I was frozen in place.
She smiled and leaned down to me. All it took was her pressing her tits together and snapping her garter for me to hold out the entire wad of cash in my trembling hand.
She took it all.
She winked—Thanks, kid.
“Fucking Christ!” Dad yelled behind me.
He and Paul were at a table near the back. I walked over, embarrassed.
“You don’t ever give a girl all your money!” he said.
Paul laughed.
“I mean—how much am I supposed to give them?”
Dad shrugged and took a drink.
“It depends, but shit, I wouldn’t give that one more than a pity tuck. Maybe some spare change.”
Paul, thinking he was serious, started pulling dimes and quarters from his front pocket. He made it halfway to the stage before Dad dragged him back to the table.
A stripper walked up and sat in my lap.
She was younger than the dancer onstage. Her hair was bleached, the way mine used to be. She had a diamond belly ring that bounced when she moved. Her heels were a hundred inches long.
The weight of her ass pushed down upon me. She spoke from over her shoulder.
“What’s your name, baby?”
“Uh . . . Rob . . .”
“Hi, baby,” she said. “I’m Contagious.”
Dad laughed. Contagious didn’t pay any mind.
She took the hat off my head and put it on. She rubbed my hairless scalp. She didn’t mention the port hanging off my arm. It was too dark for her to see that I was just a ghost.
Contagious asked if I wanted a private dance.
Before I could answer, my dad said yes—I definitely wanted one. He pulled more cash out of his back pocket. He handed it to me. Contagious took my hand and helped me out of my chair.
She was patient with me. She held my hand. I focused on the ass of the woman who led me toward the back of the club.
We came to a dark hallway. Private booths ran down each side.
Contagious led me to the back of the hall. We passed dances in progress. I didn’t make eye contact with the other men. The girls all kept their eyes closed.
Contagious sat me in a stain-covered chair without armrests. She rubbed my head again. Her eyes looked sad for the both of us.
She straddled my waist with her thick legs.
She wrapped her arms around my neck, the way Ali used to do. She leaned in like she wanted to kiss me, but then nuzzled her face in my neck. I felt hot breath on my skin. She leaned back.
Contagious undid her top. I tried to relax. She moved her stomach and tits against my face. They squashed over me like half-empty water balloons. I tried to breathe through the flesh. I smelled cocoa butter, and Wal-Mart perfume.
Above the booth was a single red bulb. It flickered and burnt through the smoke in the air like our own little tired sunset.
SIXTEEN
A Sense of an Ending
1
Nat and I sat in the basement. We talked ink.
We were all stoked about getting tattooed. We decided that our first one should be matching—one big piece that came together when we put our arms side by side, real “Wonder Twins—activate!”–type shit.
I wasn’t allowed to get tattooed, though, not while I was still getting chemo. It was too much toxicity for my body to handle. Nat, however, was good to go.
He wanted to get his half of the tattoo before he left for tour. We spent tons of time trying to decide on a design. While the two of us discussed tattoos, it was hard for me to keep my eyes from drifting to the map Nat had posted on the basement wall.
It was the United States—torn from a gas station atlas. He had the highways and side routes of their summer tour traced in black—he’d used a felt-tip pen to mark each show city with a bright red star.
I stared at the black-lined highways—27, 35, 64, 77, 99, 138, north, east, south, west—but it all seemed like one long road to me.
I ran my finger down and then left—Cleveland to Indianapolis.
I was going to Indy to meet Dr. Einhorn in less than two weeks. I ran my finger back up to Cleveland—the band was playing there, near the end of the tour. I tried to measure the distance.
My finger moved farther west, dipping through the curves of the road. I traced Highway 70 through Minnesota—toward Highway 40 through Oklahoma—into the Wild West.
I kept going.
Texas bled into the American deserts. I imagined tires crunching over rattlesnake eggs and Indian burial grounds. . . . I kept going.
That fucking road went straight to Hollywood Boulevard.
Nat’s map made those places seem real. Every direction led somewhere, everywhere, anywhere but here.
White lines stretched endlessly through my mind. If you could make it onto that highway, you could make it outta Huntington. As long as my brother came back for me, I could make it out too.
2
Hospital. Cancer ward. Chemotherapy. Round four.
A strip of tape came loose on my hand. I studied it. The drugs moved slowly.
I groaned. I used my free hand to massage my temples. I shut my eyes in one long, pointless wince.
I held out for six more minutes. I felt the drugs bubble up in my guts. Six and a half . . .
I
leaned over the side of my chair and began to vomit.
* * *
Chemo made me just as sick as it always had. That part would never get easier. But at least it was easier for me to focus.
I didn’t whine anymore. I didn’t complain.
There were no more surprises left. I was almost done—in a few days I would trade this hospital for the one in Indiana. Then I would be home. Then I would be back—this was the big one. They would cut this corpse of a tumor out of my fucking body forever.
It was almost July. Nat would be on the road soon, probably the same time I was having surgery. I didn’t mind—he needed to go. They were our songs, and I was ready for people out in the real world to hear them.
By the time Nat was back home, I would be as good as new.
Better, even—I made a vow to exercise even more after the surgery. I wouldn’t be so tired, so I could push myself until I had the strength to play drums again.
That was the goal, the only thing that mattered. I would practice more than ever before—theory, techniques, all the boring shit I used to skip over.
By the time Nat was home, the hair would be back on my head. I was going to dye it black, like his. I was going to get tattooed, like him.
I was going to carry my weight in the band. I was going to pick up the slack.
If I had a few more shots of chemo down the line, so what?
Because after I would be CURED.
Everything would get back on track. It would be better than fucking ever.
* * *
So while the treatments still wrecked my body, they took less of a toll on my heart. I didn’t need to reflect anymore—I just wanted to get it done. Because for the first time in a long time, I had a sense of an ending.
I would get done. I would get out.
From Columbus to Indianapolis. From Indianapolis to home. Then straight back again. Then back again.
And from there . . . the world.
3
“You ever been to Chicago?” I asked the janitor.
“Can’t say I have,” he said.
“What about LA?”
“Nope.”
He mopped the bathroom. I had visions of maps.
“I went all the way to Germany once, though,” he said.
“Damn. Really?”
“Mm-hm, ol’ Deutschland, back when I was in the service. Hell, I probably wasn’t much older than you.”
“Did you dig it?”
He shrugged. “I was stationed outside K-Town—pretty country, but boring. Peacetime and all.”
“Bummer.”
“Went to Hamburg once on leave, though.”
“Was it cool?”
He grinned at me.
“You heard of the red-light district, Youngblood?”
“I think so,” I said, propping myself up in bed.
He whistled.
“Is it like, strip joints?”
He shook his head. His grin went wide.
“They’ll strip—but that ain’t all. I’m talkin’ blocks of nothing but tramps, girls standing in windows in nothing but G-strings.”
“Jesus, really?”
“Well, the lights are more pink than red, now that I think on it. But the G-string part is true. You just walk right up and point—just like a doggie in a window.”
“Whoa.”
He laughed. “Those European women will do things, boy! I spent three months’ pay in one damn night. I start sweating just thinking about it.”
I thought of Ali. I thought of Contagious. My drugged-up mind swirled breasts and thighs and legs and endless bodies, mixing and matching every girl I’d ever seen into one sex-fueled mystery girl of the night, one sacred goddess waiting for me to get better. Waiting somewhere far away from here, out in the heart of the world.
* * *
On the day before the last day, the phone rang in my room. Mom answered—it was Nat. I waved it over to the bed.
“What’s up?” I said weakly.
“Wanted to tell ya I’m going to House of Ink tomorrow night, to get our tattoo,” he said.
“Already?” I asked. I had thought we would go together.
“Yeah, tomorrow is the only time they can fit me in before tour.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Dad is actually on a plane to Columbus right now, so he can ride with y’all to Indy. He told me he wouldn’t mention it to Mom—so you don’t either. Paul and Tyson are going down to the shop with me. Ali too, maybe.”
* * *
“Can I get tattooed?” I asked.
Stacey and Dr. Ranalli were in my room, the way they always were before I was discharged. My question made them laugh. Dad and Mom were both there. It didn’t make them laugh.
We had a long drive through Indiana ahead of us.
“I expected questions relating to your vacation from chemo, but that’s a new one,” Dr. Ranalli said.
“All the chemo will be outta my system, right? So am I allowed to get tattooed before I come back? Is it safe?”
“Say he isn’t allowed,” Mom said.
Dr. Ranalli cleared his throat.
“Let me put it this way—from a medical standpoint, getting tattooed should be safe. From any other standpoint, you’re on your own.”
4
Indiana is eighty-six percent corn. Seriously—just miles and miles of fucking corn. Fields of corn lined the highway, budding around us like some golden dream. The sunshine reflected off the cornstalks. The world was a beautiful glare.
The map was one thing. This was something else. I was farther west than I had ever been. The changes in the landscape rocked me. The tug of freedom pulled at my heart.
I passed out sometime before we neared the city. The chemo cocktail still sloshed through my bloodstream.
I awoke as Dad drove slowly through the campus of Indiana University, looking for the hospital. I saw a group of girls in short red shorts. I waved.
The hospital was on the next block. It was the biggest hospital I’d been to yet—not a small-town hospital, not a children’s hospital—a big-city hospital. The ceiling of the atrium must have stretched twenty stories high.
The wheelchairs had long wicker backs. They looked like luxury rocking chairs. When you admire the quality of wheelchairs, I thought, you know your priorities are fucked.
We found the elevators—going up.
Dr. Einhorn’s office was on the fifth floor. His waiting room was filled with nothing but Lance Armstrong stuff—books, bracelets, pamphlets, photos—my parents seemed impressed.
We waited a half hour. I started feeling sick. I walked off to find a bathroom to puke in.
The walk turned into a panicked run.
I found a men’s room just in time. I was through the door like gangbusters, and I rushed blindly into the first metallic stall, lurched forward, and let go. If there was someone inside it, I could apologize later.
* * *
I don’t know how long I was in there.
When I eventually heard Dad calling for me, I didn’t even realize I’d fallen asleep in the stall.
* * *
Dad rousted me up and led me to the exam room. By that point it was one of my least embarrassing episodes.
Two men in white lab coats were there. One was looking at my X-rays. The other one was speaking with Mom—he introduced himself to me as Larry Einhorn.
“So this is the musician I’ve heard so much about,” he said. “I was telling your mother that Dr. Ranalli has done nothing but sing your praises.”
“I could say the same to you,” I said.
Dr. Einhorn was even shorter than me. Crooked wire spectacles were balanced on his nose. He was a non-creepy Woody Allen.
He looked nothing like I thought he would
, but exactly like I thought he should—he just straight-up looked like a genius.
The other man was Dr. Redding—the surgeon. He was handsome, about my parents’ age. He shook hands harder than I’d have liked.
Dr. Einhorn and Mom discussed the highs and lows of my treatment. He brought up some late-onset issues I needed to stay cognizant of. I had a hard time focusing—a conversation that would have once horrified me now sounded like nothing but small talk.
But it wasn’t long before he got to the surgery.
“As you know,” Dr. Einhorn said, “due to the size and progressed state of the mass at the time of Robert’s diagnosis, Dr. Ranalli and I felt that a combination of both chemotherapy and surgical procedure would yield the best results. I’m especially pleased with the way Robert has responded to the therapy—his cancer markers are continuously down, and the mass has shrunk significantly. I can thankfully say it seems we’ve made the right decisions.”
The room nodded in agreement.
“Dr. Redding and his team will be performing the operation. He is our top man here at IU, and has done similar procedures before.”
Dr. Redding stepped forward.
“The mass seems to be isolated in the front of the chest cavity, directly in front of the right lung,” he said. “As Larry just mentioned, the mass has shrunk significantly since the original diagnosis. I will do a frontal incision, so I can make sure the remaining mass is not wrapped around the tissue of the lung—if it is, there’s a chance we may have to remove a small section of the lung, or perhaps an entire lobe. All that is unlikely. Less than a five percent chance, but there is only so much we can tell from the X-rays. I can’t be positive until I get in there.”
* * *
We drove back the same day and didn’t make it home until one in the morning. I’d taken a double dose of promethazine—one of my nausea pills—to help me sleep. I got out of the car groggy and exhausted.
I walked up to the house. I wanted to take another pill, get in my bed, and sleep for a million hours.
I wasn’t in bed for more than ten minutes before Nat woke me up.
He switched on my desk lamp. I moaned.
“Shut up, dude. I’m trying not to wake up Mom. She thinks I’m already asleep.”
“So did I,” I said, annoyed.
