Hold Me Closer Tiny Cancer (Part 3)

After a couple of hours, the technician came over and unhooked me from the IV.  Manuel would be here shortly and I knew better than to try getting up of the couch before he did.

I had managed to walk here under my own power but that was before the latest chemo dose went coursing through my veins.  I knew I couldn't stand, let alone walk without falling over.  I could probably sit up without assistance but why risk it?  I was feeling pretty nauseous and didn't want to move until I absolutely had to.

I turned my attention to the TV screen.  The narrator of a program on Animal Planet talked about how packs of timber wolves were actually doing musk-ox herds a favor by weeding out their sickest and weakest members.

Manuel arrived with a wheelchair to take me back to my room.

As I was wheeled out of the building, the sun was low in the west and most of the protesters had already gone home.  Those who remained were hired by private insurance companies to beef up the head count and join in on the demonstrations.  They were quiet now because there was no one around to lead them in a yell.  Nobody was paying them to instigate.  Since we seemed to have a ceasefire, I thought it wouldn't hurt to give them a friendly wave.  They didn't respond.  Nobody was paying them to wave either.

When we got back to my room, Les was gone.  Gone too were his clothes, suitcase, and the stack of past issues of Maxim he kept on his bedside table.  The bed had been made with fresh, clean sheets. 

My first thought was that Les had died.  People with cancer have been known to do that.  But he seemed fine earlier.  He could have taken a turn for the worse but that doesn't usually happen this fast.  I asked Manuel if he knew what happened.

"I haven't heard a thing," he said.  "Maybe his family came and got him."

"He didn't have any that I know of," I said.

"Friends then."

"None who ever came to see him."

So maybe Les was dead.  It was likely I would never know for sure.  The staff at Monos Borrachos wanted the patients keep a positive outlook so they didn't make it a habit of announcing that one of us had died.

I spent that night in the room alone, queasy from the post-chemo nausea and wondering if I too might quickly die and have all traces of my existence removed within hours.  No, I decided that was never going to happen to me.  Les' problem was that he never had anyone like Heidi to keep his life worth fighting for.  When I finally drifted off, I slept soundly until morning.

During the night, halfway across the country, rage over national healthcare had turned to bloodshed.

I sat in the rec room the next morning and it was all over the news.  A group calling themselves "God's Own Doctors," or "GOD," had launched a midnight raid on a convalescent hospital in Holland, Michigan.  They brutally murdered 27 patients and hospital workers in the attack.  Throats were slashed with scalpels, fatal embolisms were caused by injections from hypodermic needles filled with air, and one elderly man succumbed to an eight-gallon forced enema.

I sat with my eyed glued to the screen, wondering what would possess anyone to do such things.  I waited for the in-depth report where Anderson Cooper explained everything so I could go to bed that night thinking that maybe the world had not lost its collective mind.

That wasn't going to happen or at least I never got the chance to see it.  The Monos Borrachos activities director turned off the television and said she had an important announcement.  Ms. Lydia Smids, who amazed us at the last talent show with a couple of Kenny Loggins songs performed on a Casio keyboard, would be giving an encore performance the following day.

The activities director then tried to put our minds at ease about last night's violence in Michigan.  She told us about the steps being taken to ensure that it would never happen here.  Armed (albeit bulletless) nurses, a precautionary measure when the threat was more hypothetical, were only the beginning.  From this point forward, all visitors would have to pass through a metal detector.  Card keys would be turned off for all employees except for security staff from dusk until dawn.

She called upon us patients to do our part as well.  We were asked to review the code of conduct we agreed to when we were admitted here.  It required us to refrain from stealing from Monos Borrachos, assaulting members of the staff or other patients, and engaging in activities that endanger the lives of ourselves and others.  We were also asked to stay vigilant and report any suspicious people or activity. 

In return, the center planned to hire a martial-arts instructor to teach us how to defend ourselves from anti-healthcare extremists.  Presumably, the thinking was since we were as bald as Shaolin monks, we would have a similar aptitude for kung fu.

A day passed.  I sat in the main lobby waiting for Heidi.  She was running about 45 minutes late, not unusual for her.  I didn't have to wait much longer.  I heard her voice coming from the direction of the newly installed metal detector.  She had set the thing off a number of times and her mood was beginning to sour.  I went to meet her there to see if I keep her from getting too upset.

"Jesus Christ," she said to the short, stone-faced woman in the security uniform.  "Does this place moonlight as an airport?"

Heidi pulled the silver bracelets off her wrists and dumped them with the jewelry already sitting in a plastic tray.  I didn't recognize most of the stuff.  She must have bought it recently.  A little retail therapy.

"I'm not trying to smuggle in a gun, for God's sake," she continued.  "Come on, now why would I want to waste bullets on a bunch of people who are probably going to die anyway?  Oh Richard, there you are.  Would you mind telling this lesbian that I am not a terrorist?"

"My wife is not a terrorist," I said.

The guard shrugged and waved her through.  Heidi kissed me on the cheek and then dabbed her lips with a Wet Nap.  As we crossed the lobby, she gave a broad sweep with her arm at the window overlooking the parking lot.

"Roger insisted on staying in the car so we could have some time together.  Isn't he just a dear?" she said.

I looked out and saw Roger in the driver's seat of a parked BMW, his hands not budging from the ten and two o'clock positions of the steering wheel like he was still a teenager in driver's ed class.  Funny, but I seemed to recall him driving a Honda Civic.  I thought for a moment that this car could be a rental but then remembered that the "N2CUGRZ" vanity plate was definitely his.

"Before I forget, you need to call the principal at Tyler's school," she said.

We walked into one of the meeting rooms.  It had two chairs, a small table, and a framed poster, a sunset with an affirmation in calligraphy, bolted to the wall.  An energy-efficient fluorescent light flickered from the ceiling.

"Did he get suspended again?" I asked.

"Expelled."

I asked if I could argue that he was once again acting in self-defense.  Not this time.  Tyler had tackled a smaller boy, pantsed him, and proceeded to see how many fingers he could fit in the kid's anus.

The answer was four, but only two without drawing blood.

"I know," Heidi suggested.  "You can play the cancer card.  Just tell them that you illness is exacting a terrible toll on Tyler's childhood.  Sounds plausible, doesn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose it does."

You see, what would you do without me?  Now then, I went over the books and it looks like we need to liquidate some of our home equity until you get back on your feet.  So be a dear and sign this application for a second mortgage."

"Well, if you think it's necessary," I said.

"Absolutely.  I went over my calculations several times and I only plan on taking out the bare minimum to keep the household afloat."

It must have been a real emergency because the bare minimum came close to every bit of equity we had.  I signed the application and handed it back to her.

"Thank you, now I really must scoot," she said.

"Can't you stay a little longer?"

"Oh sweetheart, I can't.  Roger said that if I didn't make it back to the car within twenty minutes, he was going to start riding the horn.  He is such the impetuous one."

"When will I get to see you again?"

"Richard, I just don't know.  My life has been so hectic lately.  In fact, I don't know if we can do our weekly talks on the phone either.  You can write me though.  Yes, I'd like that."

"Heidi?"

"Yes, Richard."

"I love you."

"Yeah."

And she was gone.

I sat there for a few minutes and then started back toward the rec room.  Ms. Lydia Smids' performance was already and I could hear the chorus of "Danny's Song" pour out from her Casio.  I didn't much care to be entertained right then so I turned and headed for a side door that led out to the garbage bins.  Ms. Smids dedicated the next song to the talent show's first runner up, who gave us her last tap dance before having her leg amputated below the knee.  It was a few bars into "Footloose" when the door swung closed behind me.

It was peaceful out there, blissfully cut off from the protesters by the main building.  I saw an orderly I didn't recognize, probably a new guy.  He was banging a pack of cigarettes against the heel of his palm.  Smoking was not allowed for either of us but for the first time in years, I really wanted one.

I asked him if I could bum a smoke and he said OK.  He reached into his pocket, I thought for a lighter, but he pulled out a wallet, flipped it open, and showed me a badge.

"Monos Borrachos security," he said.  "Please come with me."

He led me away from the main building, toward the windowless one with "RCU" in block letters on the wall.  I wasn't sure if I had ever actually seen anyone go into that building before.  I was quite sure I had never seen anyone come out.