Later, sitting in the car, in the parking lot, watching the rain come down, I turn on the engine so I can use the windshield wipers once, twice and even a third time before turning the engine off again. With both hands on the steering wheel, I watch two women scurry to their car, holding up their hands against the rain.
I mean, I have done all the right things. When I am out walking and have to spit, I’ll wait, hold it, until there is a sliver of grass, a batch of weeds, anything like a bush, and then spit. I always park between the white lines, and if one tire strays too far left or right, I back up and do it again, and all the while my wife, rolling her eyes, saying but not saying, “Really?” And how about that time I just happened to have a plastic bag under the backseat and seeing what that fellow did, he and his poodle, and as the two of them uncaringly disappeared around the corner, I grabbed that plastic bag to scoop the poop. But there’s more. Every now and again, I’ll stop to see what some homeless person is all about, the way they are sprawled out across the sidewalk, shopping bags full of who knows what, their faces a dirty sunburnt, but never mind, because I am stopping to see what they need, and of course, what they need I can’t help them with, not really, but stopping to open my wallet and handing them a ten-dollar bill must count for something. Or, how about all those times after washing the dishes, how I’d peek at the almost invisible groove between stove and cabinet, that slot of wood and porcelain that nobody bothers to see, let alone clean, I sponge clean. How about that? Not to mention all those times I said, “Hello, how are you?” when I didn’t mean it, not once, none of it was heart-felt. But there you have it: doing my duty, doing what had to be done. Doesn’t that count for something?
So when he motioned for me to have a seat and I did and he asked me how I was and I said fine, he opened up my chart—flipping through his notes, lab reports, two ex-rays, one EKG—before gently shutting the chart, saying with a sigh, “You know, it doesn’t look good” and me asking, “What does that mean?’ and he, again, looking down into my chart, reflipping through pages, a casual glance at the EKG numbers, before answering, “ I am afraid it’s malignant,” and of course I wait a moment before asking if there’s another word for that, and for a third time he looks down at my chart, then at the rain tapping on the window, then at the pink eraser on his pencil, before saying, “Yes, unfortunately, there is another word for it.” And so, in the end, he is forced to say the word cancer. I nod, but all of this back and forth has made me tired, almost weary, and just when I was getting ready to leave, thinking that’s that, what else is there to say, he goes on, “There are stages to this, you know.” I nod like I know all about stages but finally say, “How many?” and he says about four, and when I wait for him to say more but he doesn’t I ask, ”What stage am I?” and he says, “You’re at the top stage,” and I have to ask is that a good top or a bad top? And he says, “Unfortunately, it’s a bad top.” I think about this for a moment. “How many stages did you say?”
“Four, five. if you count the last stage.”
“That last stage, what’s that all about?” And of course, he just looks at me. I want to say, but don’t, that none of this is fair, is it? But then I change my mind and do say, “Not fair.” He says nothing. So I say, “I mean, after all I’ve done to make things right, this cancer surprise is unfair, don’t you think?” As a doctor he has to say yes. Meanwhile, the rain is at the window like it wants to come in. Before I leave, he stands to shake my hand like he’s never done before, saying, “Let me see you in a couple of weeks.”
When I say, “Ok,” it doesn’t sound like nearly enough but all this talk of stages has made me tired.
With both hands knuckle-white on the steering wheel, I start the car and drive off into the Saturday rainy morning, never mind using the windshield wipers.
Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash.
