Rock, Meet Window

by Jason Good

  “Nice shot, bud! Hey, do you remember what I told you about Boo-Boo getting new blood?” I ask. I mean stem cells, but I never explained the details of Dad’s transplant to him. Mostly because I’m incapable.

  “Yes. Is he getting it?” Silas aims the cannon again.

  “He is.”

  “Darn!” He misses. “So, his brother’s blood will make him not sick anymore?”

  “He’s not getting it from his brother.”

  “Why not?”

  “They decided he’s too old.”

  “Ugh!” He misses again. “Daddy, can you do it?” We switch controllers, and I aim up.

  “You hit it!” he shouts. “Who’s he getting it from, then?

  “The blood? From someone he doesn’t know.”

  “And he’s getting it right now?” Silas asks.

  “No, not for a few weeks.”

  “So he’ll get it while we’re there?”

  “No. We’re going there tomorrow, you doofus. You know that. Here, do you want to do the last one?” We switch controllers again.

  He hits the ship, and it starts to sink. We jump in the rowboat and start making our way over. I’m nervous. We have to get there before it becomes submerged or . . .

  Lindsay walks in. “Hey, guys.”

  “Hi,” we respond, still cyber-rowing.

  “Remember, Silas,” she says, “you’re only allowed to play Wii for thirty minutes on weekdays.”

  “Oh, he knows,” I say, staring at the screen. “I have the timer going. There’s still ten more minutes.”

  “Great.” She tries to make eye contact with Silas. “You have homework to do after this.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles. I kick his foot. He sits up straight and looks his mother in the eye. “Okay, Mommy.”

  When she walks out, Silas glances over at me.

  I wink at him. “Let’s just keep going until we finish the level.”

  “But what about the timer?”

  “It’s close enough.”

  He smiles and turns his attention back to the game. “So when is BooBoo going to get better?”

  “If it works, six months.”

  “But he’s not going to die?”

  “We still don’t know.”

  “Daddy! We can use the girl to jump on top of that thing.”

  “The sea monster?”

  “Yeah!”

  After the boys fall asleep, Lindsay and I do our postmortem for the day.

  “I really want to stick by this half an hour of Wii on weekdays thing,” she says. “I just read an article saying that kids should only look at screens for a maximum of one hour a day.”

  “And he’s allowed to watch one half-hour TV show after school, right?” I ask.

  “Yes. Wait, how do you not know that?”

  “I do. I’m encouraging you to do the math.”

  “Right. Just don’t let it be more than thirty minutes of Wii. I hate screens. Kids should be outside all the time like I was at his age.”

  “I stare at screens for probably 90 percent of the time I’m awake, and there’s another 5 percent of the day that I spend searching for my phone. And look how I’m turning out.”

  She laughs. “Are you packed yet?”

  “No. All our devices are charged, though.”

  “Both iPads?”

  “Yup.”

  “Okay, good.”

  On March 31, we flew from Minneapolis to San Francisco. On the plane ride, Silas and I split the cracked pepper turkey sandwich. Across the aisle, Lindsay and Arlo share a fruit and cheese plate. The kids are calm. Silas watches The Incredibles on one iPad; Arlo, Peter Rabbit on the other. I play Guitar Hero on my phone, and Lindsay is deep into Temple Run on hers.

  We don’t know if this trip is going to be a good-bye for Dad and his grandsons, Lindsay, and me. His chances are only 50/50 that the transplant will cure him, but I feel differently than I did last November. And so does he. We all do. After Dad’s first remission, I believed that as long as he made it to the transplant, he would go all the way. Perhaps I’m merely breaking our journey into manageable chunks, and this is nothing more than the sensation one has after taking a beautiful piss during a road-trip pit stop. We are at a juncture—somewhere above Barstow, on the edge of the desert, but at least we’re pointed in the direction of Las Vegas.

  The salvage chemotherapy that was unlikely to work, worked. The roulette wheel spun until we bit our fingers raw, but when it stopped, the croupier shoved a big stack of chips in front of Dad and said, “Congratulations, sir. If you wish to continue playing, please take these over to the high-stakes tables.”

  He got lucky. But over the past couple of months, I have stopped hoping. I wouldn’t say I lost it, though. My hope merely rolled under the bed, fell between the sofa cushions, or lodged itself in the junk drawer. It’s somewhere, but I’m no longer looking, because when it left, fear went with it.

  Now, when I imagine Dad dying, I see very specific images, and I can almost feel what it would be like to see those images with my eyes and not just my mind. I prepare for a jolt of panic, but it doesn’t come anymore. My brain has been practicing. Sure, there’s sadness, and something I can only describe as “weirdness,” but unless those emotions are accompanied by “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin or “Skating Away” by Jethro Tull (which, admittedly, I listen to in excess), they’re not overwhelming, and even then, they evaporate quickly under the hot sun of my life with Lindsay and the boys.

  I’m here for them again. Not because I finished something, but rather because that something finished with me. Seeking hope and enduring fear is hard, even brave, but maybe what has gotten me through in the end is finally facing this situation with neither. I’m not sure how one does that, because, for me, it was unwitting. But I do know that you can’t thread a piece of spaghetti through a crazy straw without cooking it first. And then, I imagine it’s not easy.

  The idea that I could control what was happening to Dad, or control how I deal with what is happening to him, to us, seems to have vanished. I thought I was holding on in error, but maybe I was keeping it all close, nurturing it, feeding the parasite of pregrief until it pushed away from the dinner table, wiped its mouth, and asked to borrow sweatpants. I never thought I was feeling appropriately. I was either too sad or not sad enough, too involved or too distant. Everyone works through something like this differently. The problem is, we don’t know in advance exactly what our way might be. Without accurate expectations, experiences will always feel a bit foreign. Perhaps life would be boring if everything went as planned. How California of me.

  After landing in Oakland, the four of us make the same walk we did a year and a half ago. We bought Arlo his own suitcase, to put him on equal luggage footing with his older brother.

  In the BART station, on the same platform where I threw a tantrum over a year ago, Lindsay is the tense parent this time. “Arlo, stop running! The train is coming soon,” she says.

  “Arlo, come over here,” Silas adds, trying to help.

  “That’s the same voice you use when you’re talking to one of our cats,” I tell him.

  I make a kissing sound. “Arlo, do you want a treat?” Silas thinks it’s hilarious.

  When Arlo sees the train approaching, he runs over to us and grabs the handle of his miniature suitcase. Good kitty.

  Mom and Dad don’t meet us at the station this time. The boys complain that their bags are too heavy, so Lindsay carries Arlo’s and I carry Silas’s.

  Mom and Dad answer the door. They couldn’t be happier that we’re all here. In the kitchen, I notice that half of the wine refrigerator has been delegated to various flavors of Ensure.

  While Mom shows Arlo the new box of Play-Doh she bought him, and Lindsay unpacks with Silas, Dad and I sit in the living room.

  On the coffee table, there’s a thick folder with a photograph on the cover displaying people of various ages and ethnicities—all of them smiling. “What to Expe
ct from Your Transplant” it’s titled, in a cheerful font.

  I pick it up and glance at Dad. “Did you read this?”

  “Some of it,” he says.

  “Should I read it?”

  “Nah.”

  I toss it back on the table as if folding a hand of poker. It stays there, unopened, for five days. In the mornings, Lindsay, Mom, Dad, and I use it as a coaster for our coffee. In the afternoons, Mom and Silas play cards on it.

  The boys tromp back into the living room and plop down on the sofa next to BooBoo. Dad puts his arms around them, and squeezes. “Ah, my number one and number two boys.” They smile, and Dad yells, “Hello??? Can I get a picture here?” Lindsay, Mom, and I get in line, and the boys both smile. Dad’s hair has grown back into an adorable little faux-hawk, and he looks like one of those old guys in New York who was never able to give up the punk movement.

  Later, Dad and I take the boys to Marina Park. It is a bit cold, but we all get Popsicles anyway. Silas completes the monkey bars without assistance for the first time, and then he and Arlo climb on the rocky beach as we watch. After a few minutes, our gazes turn to a nice boat tied up to the dock.

  “Someday,” he says.

  “Someday soon,” I respond. We aren’t even boat people, but if there is a future, it’s wide open. Maybe we’ll have a scotch together, my first in eight years. I imagine we might crank some Vivaldi, slump down in matching white leather chairs, and sip slowly from highball glasses, like a couple of Hollywood antiheroes after spoiling an evil plot.

  When we arrive back in the apartment, Silas parks himself in front of the television in Dad’s den. He knows how to work all the remotes. Arlo wanders off, but soon comes running back to the living room, where the rest of us sit. “Bozo won’t stand up,” he says. I get up to investigate and find that Arlo has put our punching bag out of its misery with a pencil to the groin. Mom tries to fix the hole with duct tape, but Bozo will never fully recover.

  Arlo joins Silas in the den. The boys are tired, and so is Dad. So am I. I feel five years older than I did a year and a half ago. I now use ointments and creams daily. I feel the need to compensate, but since I can’t afford a 1957 Camaro SS, I bought an electronic drum set instead. I put on headphones and play along to Rush, like the character Nick on Freaks and Geeks, except Nick was in high school. Sometimes I smoke my e-cig while playing my e-drums. I’m an e-person now: a cyborg of science fiction’s boring daydreams. I’m settled with who I am, I guess. I’ve demolished and rebuilt temporary housing. I tossed the peach-flavored e-cigs and replaced them with a new brand, with new flavor options. I chose Absolute Tobacco because it’s manly, confident, and unafraid.

  Maybe that mortar I once felt in my brain, and the brick wall it held together, wasn’t there to block anything or to help me cope. Nor was it indicative of avoidance or turning off. Maybe it was a symbol of completion. Or maybe it was never there at all. That therapist was right to encourage me to trust my process. I still believe that not trusting my process is an integral part of my process, but if I can feel assured that self-doubt serves me, maybe I’ll stop questioning it so much.

  I still don’t know how I will react if the transplant doesn’t work and Dad dies. This pregrief stuff doesn’t come with a guarantee, just as pregame tailgating doesn’t guarantee that your favorite team will win or that you won’t spend the first quarter in the bathroom, sick from the three bratwursts you consumed at 9 AM in the parking lot.

  My sons are getting older. Silas is asserting his independence, and Arlo is in an astonishingly cute phase, but I know we can’t keep him there for long. I was fifteen when Dad was my age. I couldn’t understand him then, mostly because I was still a mystery to myself. But I remember what he wore, how he smelled, the rhythm of his snore, how he put his socks on before his pants. When Silas is fifteen, I’ll be fifty-one: an age that can go either way. I’ve seen fit, spritely fifty-somethings, with young men’s eyes, and I’ve seen others with nothing left, who spend all their days searching the hardware store, grimacing, not quite knowing what they’re looking for. Maybe spot cleaner for the fake grass on their back porch? Bungee cords? A chainsaw? Anything to make themselves feel useful.

  The duration of our confluence has lasted longer than Dad and I expected. It might, in fact, have run its natural course (whatever that means). I would undo the circumstances of the last eighteen months if I could, but had Dad not gotten sick—if he had instead dropped suddenly from a rage-induced heart attack at Radio Shack—we might not have been alerted that it was happening. We could have missed the eclipse entirely or found out too late and not had enough time to make our cardboard viewing box.

  On April 20, Dad checked into the Stanford Medical Center for preparatory chemotherapy to kill his white blood cells again. His marrow has had only a month to actualize any nefarious plans, and I almost feel sorry for it. It’s like that moment toward the end of every Disney movie when you sympathize with the villain only to shake it off when you remember all of the terrible things he has done.

  Dad is hooked up to the poison, and his new stem cells are on the way: the seeds of a new beginning. A frozen bag of beige stuff floating thirty thousand feet above the Great Lakes, or over the ocean, or a cornfield. We don’t know where it’s coming from. We only know the donor is a fifty-seven-year-old male. We aren’t permitted to know any other information about him for three years.

  I’ll be visiting Dad when he gets out of the hospital. We decided I don’t need to come for the transplant. He emails me a cute little calendar the nurses made for him. Written in the April 20 box is “Transplant” and “Happy Birthday!!!”

  I email him back. “Wow, and it’s on your birthday! How amazing is that?”

  “No, my birthday is on the twenty-fourth,” he writes.

  I didn’t know that transplant day is referred to as the patient’s birthday. Apparently, I also don’t know the date of my father’s actual birthday. I know it’s somewhere in the 20-somethings of April. I’m a good son. I’m just not good with dates. I know Mom’s birthday is somewhere between May 12 and May 16. They never made me feel guilty for not knowing and I don’t do anything unless badgered. Lindsay’s birthday is March 22.

  Dad

  They just told me my blood type will change after the transplant.

  Jason

  That’s weird. Makes sense though now that I think about it. Does that technically change your ethnicity to that of the donor?

  Dad

  Hadn’t thought of that.

  Jason

  If the guy is Native American, maybe you can start raking in some sweet casino money.

  Dad

  Depends on which tribe he’s in.

  Jason

  Ha.

  Dad

  I won’t have any immunities either and will have to be revaccinated for everything. MMR, Polio, etc.

  Jason

  Also weird. Do you go to a pediatrician for those?

  Dad

  No, they do them here.

  Jason

  I was kidding.

  Dad

  I know.

  Jason

  What if they make you autistic?

  Dad

  I’ll take it.

  Jason

  Holy shit. Read this thing I just found on the web: “The preserving agent used when freezing the donor’s stem cells causes many of these side effects. You might have a strong taste of garlic or creamed corn in your mouth.”

  Dad

  Now I’m hungry.

  Jason

  Haha. That’s a liberal definition of side effect. Whoa, ever more bizarre. From the same site: “Your body will also smell like this. The smell may bother those around you, but you might not even notice it. The smell, along with the taste, may last for a few days, but slowly fades away. Often having cut up oranges in the room will offset the odor.”

  After 25 minutes, Dad responded:

  Dad

  I feel like this is going to work. />
  Jason

  Me too.

  One summer day when I was eleven, Mom, Dad, and I had plans to go to the zoo. For the previous three weeks, however, I had been pilfering quarters from Dad’s change bowl and burying them in Mom’s flower bed next to the front porch (perhaps this was overly cautious). That morning, I’d decided to dig up my treasure and head to the Electric Animal and Screen Door—a video arcade located on the meager downtown strip in Delaware. It was filled with twenty-somethings gambling on games of Joust, Q*bert, and Frogger, their lighted cigarettes balancing on the edge, burning brown lines into the plastic casings. Dad had forbidden me from going there, but it was seedy, and that made me want to go all the more. So I did, every weekend, and always under the ruse of going for a bike ride. Mom and Dad must have thought I was becoming such a wholesome boy, tootling around for hours on my turd-colored Schwinn. With little money of my own, I normally watched the older guys play, but on this morning, I had a couple pounds of dirty quarters stuffed in the pockets of my corduroy shorts.

  When I arrived at 10 AM, there was a tear in space-time. Instead of watching others, I played the games now. At around 1 PM, while abusing the joystick of Dig Dug, I was startled by an aggressive tap on my shoulder. I whipped around to find Dad standing behind me. His face was red, hair slick from anger sweat. I immediately started crying—not out of fear (though there was some of that)—but more out of guilt. I wanted a do-over, to stay home and watch TV in the morning and enjoy the zoo as a family later.

  Dad pulled me out by my elbow, picked up my bike, threw it in the back of our Plymouth Volaré, and drove us home in silence. On the front porch, I wiped the tear residue from my cheeks as Mom and Dad leered at me. “So all these bike rides—every single goddamn one of them—you were really going to that arcade?” Dad asked. Mom frowned at me.

  “No!” I lied. “Only some of them. And I only ever watched. I mean, until today.”

  “I don’t care what you did there. I didn’t say you weren’t allowed to play video games. I said you weren’t allowed to go to that rancid place.”

  “I didn’t know that!” I said, sensing an easy way out.