by Jason Good
Cockroach
The night before Thanksgiving, Silas nestles up, waiting for me to read him a bedtime story.
“What are you doing on your phone?” he asks.
“Texting with BooBoo,” I answer.
“Why?”
“He’s not feeling well.”
“Oh, he’s sick again? And that’s why you’re going there?”
“Well, yes. I mean, he’s been sick this whole time. He was feeling better for a while, but now he’s even sicker.” It’s not easy to explain the concept of remission and relapse to a child.
“Is he going to die?” Silas asks.
“Not really soon, but maybe.”
His eyes well up. “Well, there will still be Mimi,” he says, turning his head away.
“Oh, honey. It’s okay to cry.”
Silas quickly wipes his eyes. “I wasn’t crying.” He scowls at me, an adorable kid version of Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
“Oh, it looked like you were about to,” I say. “It’s okay if you do.”
“Well, I wasn’t. Whatever.” He pauses, collects himself, and asks, “Would you cry if BooBoo died?”
“Of course.”
“Like for two whole days?”
“Well, not two days straight, but I’d cry a lot for a long time. But we don’t need to talk about this right now unless you want to.” It isn’t the right time to explain the grieving process to a six-year-old. In my mind, I’ve already abdicated that responsibility to Lindsay. I have to remember to tell her that.
“Okay,” he says, snapping back into a good mood. When is it exactly that we lose such emotional resilience?
“We still have to read the last chapter of that Secrets of Droon book,” I say.
“Oh yeah! And I have to return it to the library tomorrow so we have to finish it tonight.”
“Okay, then. Chapter ten, ‘A Spell from the Past.’”
A year after being diagnosed, five months after going into remission, and two months after slapping my desk in determination, Dad finally pulled the trigger. Four days before, he had told Stanford he was ready to move forward with the bone marrow transplant. Forty-eight hours after that, his weekly blood test hinted that the drugs had stopped working. A bone marrow biopsy confirmed that the fruits of Dad’s faulty marrow were more bitter than before. His cancer had mutated and progressed to AML (acute myeloid leukemia). The transplant that had been penciled in for December 29 was canceled. The upside? We learned that time is not something to fuck with.
AML was Dad’s original diagnosis, the same that spurred our emergency trip to California the previous year. Dr. Levine recanted a few days later in favor of a softer diagnosis. There was no ambiguity now. Dad’s only option (aside from a “natural death”) was to get the very chemotherapy that Dr. Levine had avoided for fear it would kill him.
On Thanksgiving Day, I flew out alone to California. Dad expressed concern over the boys seeing him in the hospital, as well as exposing them to all the plagues wafting about the halls. Lindsay thought seeing BooBoo might be good for them. She’d recently read that bearing witness to life’s cycle helps kids understand the impermanence of all things, that sickness and death are normal, inevitable, and not to be feared. I thought that instead of teaching the boys this lesson via the terminal illness of their grandfather, perhaps we should ease them into it more slowly by buying them a goldfish. It’s best to teach kids reality in small increments.
Dad took a calculated risk by putting off the transplant. It is a difficult thing to give up, feeling good, even when we know we harbor a dormant disease that might wake up at any moment. Fear and denial fueled his hesitancy, but it also might have been his way of maintaining some control over a situation he knew would one day render him helpless.
The chemotherapy treatment Dad is about to get will drop his white-blood-cell count to zero. Though “targeted,” the drug makes a lot of mistakes. In the process of killing rapidly dividing cancer cells, the rest of the blood cells, even the good ones, will be destroyed as collateral damage. Chemotherapy is a focused idiot.
In the face of this sudden turn, Dad seems calm, something he’s incapable of faking. The tempered rage he expressed at Radio Shack is gone. Maybe this is an example of the real stress he has always sought—the kind that allows him to write off all the trifling stuff.
Dad does have something going for him that he didn’t last November. Should he achieve another remission, a donor is waiting for him. Paul will join us for that part of the journey, like SP did when we went to Italy. Paul isn’t as enthusiastic as SP was to accompany us, but for some reason, the universe thinks that Mom, Dad, and I need company when making big changes. Maybe it has a sense of humor or thinks the three of us are too tightly woven and in need of alternate perspectives. My guess is that it’s just payback for all of our wisecracks about yoga and oolong tea. I imagine Lindsay would agree. It’s karma.
The situation is different for me, too. I feel no panic this time. After absorbing the right hook of Dad’s mortality, this jab leaves me merely stunned. My focus of late has been on my immediate family and our future—a future with or without Dad. I didn’t consciously choose this shift. I don’t have that kind of control over my thoughts. Instead, the gray matter in my brain has been slowly turning to mortar, and access to my emotions seems blocked by a brick wall: still there, but in the background, lingering in the crevices of my mind like bad credit. I’m told that turning off like this is a form of coping.
The patient coordinator has vouchers for Mom and me. “You can take these down to the cafeteria for your Thanksgiving dinner,” he says, handing us pieces of paper with pictures of turkeys wearing pilgrim hats.
His name is Keith, big guy, high voice, probably an ex-football player. I call him “Big Keith,” but not to his face.
At home in the tundra, Lindsay and the boys are together with their cousins, aunt, uncle, grandmother, and everyone else I’m related to by marriage. I’m glad I can be with Mom and Dad, and the weather is gorgeous—about sixty degrees warmer—but I wish we could all be together in Minneapolis instead. Lindsay tells me my brother-in-law said a prayer for us at the table. He comes from a good Christian family, the kind that doesn’t judge us pagans too harshly. When I tell Dad, he smiles and says, “Well, it can’t hurt.”
On our way down to the mess hall, Mom and I pass packs of cackling nurses and residents, each of them holding a brown Styrofoam box of holiday slop. I feel like we’re extras in an episode of some hospital show, mere foils for the comedic repartee of the witty, wacky staff.
Mom and I didn’t know the hospital would be providing meals, so the night before went to Whole Foods to get turkey, mashed potatoes, and all the other fixin’s. We planned on heating them up using the microwave at the nurses’ station outside Dad’s room. He requested that we bring oyster stuffing, saying, “Like my mom used to make.” It’s a putrid, squishy culinary miasma that might have been invented by an alcoholic railroad tycoon wearing a monocle and top hat. Mom and I rolled our eyes.
At Whole Foods, we realized we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and opted to hit the hot food bar before taking a number at the “Thanksgiving Deli.” It was late, around 8 PM, and the seating area looked like a bus station: napkins strewn on the floor, the faint smell of rotten milk, students nearby hunched over cheap laptops. We found a dry table, sat down, and ate in silence. Chicken wings and macaroni and cheese for me; a broccoli-and-red-onion medley for Mom. Neither of us had the energy to discuss it, but we were practicing for life without Dad. It was pleasant—soothing, even—but not as fun.
In Dad’s pale blue cell, the three of us struggle to make enough room for our meals on his rolling table/desk. On the side of it, there’s a retractable mirror operated by a button that reads “release vanity.” Since Dad’s ass is visible almost constantly, releasing vanity seems like a good idea. It doesn’t matter how tightly one ties the bottom strings of a hospital gown, they’re designed for checking out a pat
ient’s backside as they shuffle by.
We move the iPad, laptop, and germ mask over to the small counter by the sink next to the closet. Dad sits on the side of his bed, an IV in his chest with a catheter threaded down next to his heart. The body’s built-in pump is the most effective way to deliver the nasty stuff through the bloodstream. Dad hasn’t figured out how to navigate all his cords, wires, and tubes yet.
“Jesus, do you think they could have me hooked up to more shit here?” he says.
“The bitter marionette. That would be a good character,” I joke. I don’t think Dad hears me, though. He’s staring mutely at his meal: tuna salad on a croissant with a few pieces of melon and a cookie. “Why the hell do I get tuna?” he asks. Mom responds by donating her box. She would only have eaten the salad anyway.
“So, do you think this new chemo will make your hair fall out?” I ask, shoving a hillock of mashed potatoes into my mouth.
Dad runs his fingers through his hair. “This is the diesel stuff, Jace. I imagine it probably will.”
“I read it’s uncommon with cytarabine,” I say.
“The other drug with a ridiculous name is the one that will make me lose it.”
“Right.” For the first time I feel like Dad knows more about his treatment than I do. “You should just shave your head now and start referring to yourself as Heisenberg.”
“Good idea,” he said. “I’ll need a hat, though.”
“Have you puked yet?” I ask.
“Jason, we’re eating.”
“Right, sorry. It’s not bad, is it?”
“Oh, it’s bad. I barely have the energy to stand up.”
“No, I mean the food.”
“Oh, the food. Yes, it’s actually pretty good.”
“The salad and melon are delicious!” Mom adds. Dad and I wink at each other in disbelief that anyone could like melon more than gravy.
A tall nurse with short, spiky blonde hair enters the room. She compliments Dad on his pajama bottoms (he ditched the gown). “I like the frogs on those. Very cute!”
“Thanks. I guess you could say I’m half asleep in frog pajamas.” Dad waits to see if she gets the Tom Robbins reference.
She doesn’t.
“Do you know the author Tom Robbins?” he asks.
“No, I don’t think I do,” she responds, unaccustomed to having this kind of conversation with patients.
“He wrote Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. It became a movie. Sissy Hankshaw? Uma Thurman played her. Big thumbs? Well, he also wrote a book called Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas.”
“Oh, I’ll have to read that, then, won’t I?” She thinks Dad is weird, but she’ll learn to like him soon enough. All the nurses will. Dad’s main goal is to be popular in the hospital. It’s the only part of this he can control.
Dad’s doctors remain cryptic about his prognosis. They don’t want to overpromise and underdeliver. “Yes, this is completely normal. Everything is fine and going according to plan,” they say repeatedly. Often, I wonder if they are paying as close attention as we are.
“Why don’t you get more details from them?” I ask Dad.
“Because they’re busy and have other patients to see. I guess I like being taken care of, but I don’t like being a problem.”
“Jesus. You realize I understand everything now, right?” I ask.
“How so?”
“Your frustration and anxiety. It’s all because you don’t like being a problem.”
“You think?”
“You don’t?”
“I’m not doing a lot of thinking at all these days.”
“Of course,” I respond, a little embarrassed.
After we finish eating, I offer to replace the dog poster hanging on the wall. Dad hates dogs. “Why do people allow animals to live in their homes?” he’s said.
“I could get that Florence cityscape from your kitchen.”
“No, that’s okay,” he says, always the perfect patient. “Maybe I’ll end up liking dogs.”
Because I don’t want to be the kind of person who insists that a hospital room be decorated according to its tenant’s tastes, I let it go.
I can’t do anything physically, or intellectually, to help here. Emotional support is my role, and Mom and Dad can’t stop thanking me. “Jeez, we just don’t know what we would do if you weren’t here with us for all this.” I find it hard to accept that my mere presence is enough. At home with my family, I’d become accustomed to a more hands-on, creative kind of caretaking. The prior month I had to hold Arlo down while a pediatric dentist did a “drill and fill” on one of his molars. I started singing the ABCs to calm him. It was a desperate move, but it seemed to work. When Dr. Charlie (as he referred to himself) joined in, and then so too the hygienist, I became self-conscious and stopped.
Mom and I are quiet driving back from the hospital. There’s no music, no GPS, no singing, no sense of relief. We spent hours sitting by Dad’s side, fidgeting in the uncomfortable visitors’ chairs. I know he will be fine for the evening by himself. Doug, a former student of Dad’s who fell backward into piles of money, brought him a new iPad Air and a Verizon LTE hotspot. The Internet connection is so slow at the hospital that I told Dad he could use the hotspot password like cigarettes in prison: “You know, to get things you need from other patients.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“I don’t know. An extra dinner roll?”
“With a shiv in it?”
“Sure, why not?”
When Mom and I arrive back at the penthouse, Dad’s absence is heavy. It feels strange in here. Empty. Until this moment, I hadn’t realized how much space Dad takes up—his presence, consciousness, and girth of personality fills this place. We don’t mention it, but the idea that he might never return weighs on us. Mom sits in her chair, and I lie down on the sofa, both of us staring at our iPads.
“Have you read Lolita?” I ask.
“The one about the little girl and the adult man?”
“Yeah. Can I read you the first two paragraphs?”
“Sure.” Mom loves being read to.
Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. . . .
“Incredible, right?”
“Yuppers,” she says, distracted. If Dad were here, I imagine him having a bigger reaction. “Jesus Christ. Who the hell writes like that?!” he’d say, shaking his head in disbelief that anything could be so good. Maybe what we are missing is enthusiasm.
I try a little harder to engage Mom. “Did I send you that article about Dorothy Parker stealing Nabokov’s story and publishing a piece in the New Yorker?”
“Oh yes, you did. I’d forgotten. I think she was on her way down at that point. I just can’t believe she kept the same title.”
“I know. I think it was a deniability thing. Like, ‘Hey, if I were going to steal something, don’t you think I’d be smart enough to at least change the title and the name of the main character?’”
“Oh, you’re probably right.” Mom still seems disinterested. I picked the wrong time to pretend like everything is normal.
“Okay, I’m heading off to bed. I’m pooped,” she says.
“Yeah, long day. See you in the morning. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” She smiles. “We’ll get through this.”
“I know.”
I stay on the sofa and continue to read Lolita, imagining how Dad might react to some of the passages. Soon after Mom turns out her light, I receive a text message from Dad.
Dad
The nurse just gave me morphine. This is going to be good, isn’t it?
Jason
Why do you need morphine?
Dad
She asked if I was in any pain, and I said, “Does existential pain count?”
Jason
Hilarious. And she gave it to you?
Dad
Well, I had a bit of a back spasm too.
; Jason
So jealous. Was it IV?
Dad
Yeah, buddy. Already feeling it.
I search YouTube for the Louis CK bit about opiate suppositories. It’s one of my favorites. Nearly a year has passed since I’ve performed stand-up, and I am finally able to enjoy comedy again as a fan. In the clip, Louis tells Conan O’Brien how difficult it was for him to put the opium up his ass, but how amazing it felt when he finally found the courage.
I text the link to Dad, but don’t hear anything back for a few minutes.
Jason
Did you get that link?
Dad
Yes. Lifting so hard I’m faking.
Jason
WHAT?
Dad
Sorry laughing using Siri for tests. Texts I mean. Fuck you Siri.
Jason
Oh, good. I thought you were so high that you couldn’t type.
Dad
I can’t. Why do you think I used it description with? Man, this is some good shit.
Dad is hammered, and I couldn’t be more pleased about it. He’s certainty earned some sweet opiate relief. I’m also pleased to see that Siri now understands curse words better than she does verbs. Maybe the slurred speech helps somehow.
Thirty years ago, I remember Dad being in a similar state. His doctor had prescribed him Vicodin for a kidney stone. He was upstairs, and kept calling for me from his bed, like a Victorian aristocrat after a fainting spell. I was uninterested in stopping whatever inane thing eleven-year-olds do on weekend afternoons at home. He kept calling, his voice getting weaker and weaker. Finally, I approached the top of the stairs, peered into Mom and Dad’s bedroom, and saw him lying there in his underwear, his face covered in Bag Balm, a boutique version of Vaseline—that thick, greasy, clear jelly crap no one should ever use.
“Dad?” I said.
