The Tumours Made Me Interesting (14 page)

Rhonda had been given the role of nurse. She would tend to the myriad problems that would surely develop and make sure I was kept clean and, as much as possible, comfortable. She also insisted on keeping the apartment clean, which Fiona agreed to.

Vince was named house chef and restraint implementation coordinator. His job was to cook all meals required by the others. But, most importantly, he had to maintain a vigil over me and if at any point I tried to escape or hurt myself, he was required to restrain me until Fiona arrived. Vince’s role intimidated me the most, but he seemed to take on the responsibility happily.

As Belinda’s mother was adamant about being dead, no official role was given to her. It was just asked that she stay out of the way and make herself available wherever possible.

Belinda was given a role befitting her ‘child’ status and was named ‘Games Consultant’. It was her responsibility to keep me occupied and entertained. She was given a Nintendo Entertainment System with a copy of Kid Icarus to aide her efforts.

Arthur’s role was slightly ambiguous. He was the Musical Director and was responsible for providing us all with regular music performances. He was given a penny whistle along with a book on advanced penny whistle technique and instructed to start practicing immediately.

My role was both the simplest and most complex. I simply had to obey everyone else and forget what autonomy was. My 13 years at The Nipple Blamers ensured that autonomy was a foreign notion to me. It was unlikely I’d start craving my own agency any time soon. That aside, I wasn’t looking forward to my continued degradation. Growing the perfect disease struck me as particularly tiring. In many ways, it was more about the tumours sustaining me in order to reach maturity than anything else.

The most problematic aspect of my role in this episode was a contract I had to sign promising I would make no attempt to contact my mother. Failing to abide by this contractual requirement would render it null and void and all care promised would be withdrawn. My life expectancy was estimated at two months, which if reached, would be the longest amount of time I’d gone without seeing my mother. I had to trust that the provided care was adequate or risk losing it completely. It was an uncomfortable notion that I had to suck down cigarette after cigarette to forget. The rationale behind what, at first, struck me as a cruel contractual condition actually concerned safety. Fiona handed me a brochure entitled DON’T KILL YOUR LOVED ONES that outlined several case studies wherein family members of those going through a similar experience to me were rendered unwell and, in some cases, even died as a result of emotional exposure to the diseased. Being that my mother was already in, what was termed, a ‘volatile’ condition, it was possible that exposure to my degradation would be extremely dangerous to her health. So, as hard as it was, I agreed not to contact my mother in any way and, quite worryingly, placed her in the care of Fiona.

We were all set and enthused to begin. Over many hours we developed a group handshake that we promised to start and end each day with as a means of bolstering unity. Arthur sought space back in the ceiling to practice playing his penny whistle. For the next several hours we were destined to hear a mistake-ridden rendition of Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag. Rhonda was already hard at work preparing my bedroom with a palliative aesthetic designed to keep me comfortable. Vince was cooking a vast hyena meat goulash for supper. Meanwhile, Belinda was wrestling with my television, trying to connect the Nintendo. All the while, Belinda’s mother stayed in the background like the ghost I was starting to believe she was.

All my trepidation and anxiety aside, it was bound to be rather interesting.

INTERMISSION

I
’m not sure if I found it difficult to spend my youth looking after my mother. In all honesty, I never really thought about it. It was simply something I did. I’d work at the University until 3pm Monday to Thursday and spend my time outside of that making her as comfortable as I possibly could. It’s interesting… I spent so much time with my mother, but I never really knew that much about her. The nature of my close proximity didn’t make learning about who she was very easy. She was her illness, and all that mattered was whatever her illness dictated. There never seemed like a good moment to probe into the other and learn anything substantial.

Like most people, my teenage years were confusing. I was constantly fighting my encroaching puberty. The changes that began to occur terrified me, and not having anyone to talk to about it, I turned each new pubescent evolution into something deeply sinister. Whenever hair would sprout from anywhere other than my head, I’d burn it off with sunlight and a magnifying glass. I reasoned that pimples were nasty insect bites and made it my goal to capture and kill the insects responsible. I’d conduct military raids on my garden with homemade weaponry in tow, always ready to thwart the non-existent pimple bug. I counteracted my breaking voice by sucking on canisters of helium which I’d steal from the University’s school of science. Rather than seek re-assuring words from my mother, I actively kept my puberty away from her. Given how thoroughly it ravaged my body, I couldn’t bear the thought of inflicting it upon her.

I was trapped inside a body that had started to respond sexually to various ambiguous stimuli, yet I had no real understanding about what sex was. Thanks to the local civic society, this was about to change. When I was fifteen, the civic society offered sex education to everyone in my age group. At the behest of my mother, I attended. Only rather than calling it ‘sex education’, they termed it ‘shame management’. A man whose face was completely obscured by his moustache was brought in from an external shame advocacy group in order to impart his ideology on all of us awkward teens.

There were about forty of us teenage boys (the girls received a different lesson), sitting cross-legged on the youth centre’s gymnasium floor. A mannequin was wheeled out by a man in full chimney sweep regalia. The genital region of the mannequin was obscured by a skull and cross bones. We were then each handed what was called a ‘modesty patch’ that also bore the skull and cross bones image and asked to place it over our own genital region.

For the next 19 hours, we were made to sit through videos of men watching women give birth and listen to doctor impersonators reel off lists of sexual diseases. When we arrived at the topic of our own bodies, the mustachioed man broke down in tears. He informed us that he once succumbed to the temptation of self-pleasure before lowering his trousers and showing us the purported result. Where one would expect to find genitalia, he possessed a rutabaga. He claimed this fate had befallen him because he didn’t understand the importance of shame. Not wanting our wangs to become rutabagas, we were quite keen on heeding his advice. For quite a while afterward, whenever I believed I was under attack by feelings of desire, I had to listen to Rembetika music, which usually killed the desire very quickly.

I never informed my mother about the contents of this class. In my mind, I now understood what sex was and how to fight it. I didn’t have to bother her with it. My sexual knowledge, as far as I understood it, was complete.

Very occasionally, my mother liked to wet her whistle and feel the sweet fuzz of intoxication. I’d hold a cup with a long straw toward her mouth and watch as her demeanor slowly changed in response to the alcohol.

During one of these rare binges, shortly before my 16th birthday, my mother inadvertently let slip an anecdote that I never forgot. Feeling the effects of gravy wine, she apologised to me for contributing to my weaknesses. Apparently the sexual encounter that resulted in my conception was a deeply unsatisfying one. My mother and father had slipped into that robotically scheduled sex life that so many married couples fall victim to. Each Thursday night they would enter into a few minutes of sexual contact out of a sense of marital obligation. The drab mechanics of my father’s biology would ensure just enough blood flow to achieve the rigidity required to successfully insert himself into my mother. My mother, devoid of desire, would accept my father into her passionless body and wait until he left. Rather than swimming, I imagined my father’s sperm fast asleep as they were mechanically ejaculated from his body, floating like dead fish in the seminal fluid. I imagined my mother’s egg completely unprepared for possible insemination. The egg was busy minding its own business and BAM! a sleeping sperm collided with it. I was the result of lifeless sex. My mother told me this. The tears accompanying this admittance were enough to convince me of the reality. I was once the sleeping sperm who violated the egg. With a start like this, did I really have any hope?

I couldn’t look at people the same way after that. In my eyes, people were a manifestation of the events surrounding their conception. I looked upon bright, dynamic individuals as the result of spontaneous, passionate lovemaking. I looked upon those we’d call ‘the damned’ as a bad fuck gone too far. This revelation imbued me with something akin to freedom, only the freedom was more of an excuse… an excuse not to try.

I don’t think my mother ever remembered telling me this. I’m sure if she did it would horrify her. And I don’t blame her for telling me either. How can you blame someone who tells the truth?

The events that shaped me all swim about in a pond called experience. They coexist in this stagnant pond showing great reluctance to leave. These events form a web too intricate to understand or tame. All I am and all I’ll be have its roots in this web and each new development is enslaved to past developments. That is to say, we’re trapped within ourselves. That is to say, I don’t actually respond to the world around me… my past does.

PART TWO

1.

I
sat at my dining table with Vince, Rhonda, Arthur, Belinda and her dead mother playing canasta. We had a deck of cards, but none of us had any idea how to play it. Canasta was just a game I remember hearing reference to in some movie I’d recently seen starring that man who looks and sounds like stairs. We were passing cards to each other in an aimless fashion, glancing at them briefly and passing them to someone else. Occasionally one of us would announce they were the winner and the rest of us would give them a polite clap. Vince took frequent delight in accusing Arthur of cheating, which almost started a fight until Rhonda reminded them that it was impossible to cheat on a game nobody understood.

I stared at the card in my hand – 11 of napkins – and announced myself the winner.

“Looks like your luck is starting to turn around,” said Vince.

“It had to happen sooner or later,” I replied.

“I hate being dead,” said Belinda’s mother.

“I wish I had a lizard,” said Belinda.

Belinda loved watching us interact with each other. She felt like our collective child, which was a nice feeling. Each night she’d help Vince cook us all wedding cake soup and occasionally she’d play Kid Icarus on Nintendo with me. Her mother wouldn’t stop moping about how dead she was, but even this was becoming endearing. We decided to completely tear down the wall that used to separate me from the Stotsons, giving us one large apartment. We all moved around freely and shared our possessions without restraint. We each had something to add to the overall foundation of the household and Fiona’s project. As a unit, we were honed and calibrated.

I withdrew a cigarette from the collective packet on the table. My obsession with smoking had spread to the others with gusto. The others followed my lead and withdrew cigarettes of their own. Whatever suggestive narcotic Fiona had laced these with (she admitted they were laced but wouldn’t say with what), made us feel so damn cozy. We tapped our cigarettes together in the interest of camaraderie before inhaling. A thick cloud of smoke wafted overhead and together we contributed to a puddle of phlegm, courtesy of our hacking coughs.

“Is Fiona taking more electroencephalographic readings today?” asked Rhonda.

“Not today,” I replied, "I need a little while to recover from last night’s recording session. That microphone had a fat head and she really had to force it up there.”

Fiona had made several magnetic tape bowel recordings, which she was selling to members of her group. It was unusual listening to my tumours for the first time. They made a warbling sound, which Fiona swore was rudimentary communication. She had an array of microphones, each with different dynamic ranges, which she used. Last night she was interested in the lower frequencies and had to use a large mic. She virtually had to hammer it home like a tent peg.

“Will we get a copy of the recording?” asked Vince. “They’re such intriguing things. Rhonda and I frequently make love to your last one.”

“You don’t say!” replied Arthur. “You two insist on intercourse at the highest decibel level imaginable. I could remove my ears and still find you deafening.”

“Just because you haven’t been laid since the start of the industrial revolution…” quipped Vince.

“Always at each other’s throats,” muttered Rhonda with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “You know you’re welcome to join us at any time, Arthur.”

Those two were always asking the rest of us to participate in their sado-masochistic play. I, personally, wasn’t keen. I wanted Fiona and if I couldn’t have her, I was happy to masturbate. Belinda’s mother, however, occasionally took them up on the offer.

We had developed into quite an interesting family. I loved each and every one of them. They never said it directly and it was difficult for me to admit, but I got the feeling they all looked up to me. When I spoke, they’d fall silent and hang on my every word like monkey bars, no matter how banal they were. The change in my life since meeting Fiona had been extraordinary. For the first time, I actually felt important. My ability to grow tumours was unprecedented. Their ability to appreciate my ability to grow tumours was unexpected. The last month hadn’t always been fun, but the company I was lucky enough to keep made my lower moments more bearable. They all helped keep me on the track that Fiona expected of me.

Under Fiona’s watchful eye, I was taught to guide my tumours toward their own cognisance. True perfection would be reached when they weren’t merely malignant growths mindlessly in response to their diseased surrounds. They had to wake up. After the second week, Fiona became convinced this was starting to happen. Electroencephalographic readings suggested I was being communicated with on a psychic level. Although at that stage it couldn’t be proven this psychic phenomena was a direct attempt by the tumours to communicate with me, it seemed likely. If this was the case, there was no limit to what my tumours would be able to accomplish. It was even hypothesised that they may be capable of existing outside of their human host. There was something deeply satisfying about this thought. Almost as if they would be going back into the world that allowed them to form. At the same time, the thought of losing them was deeply troubling. I wasn’t prepared for it.  

A symbiosis between the tumours and I was definitely forming. They often purred and kicked around in my stomach, but that was easily explained as pure reaction to stimuli. It was the same way a leaf might turn to avoid the sun. But toward the end of the third week, I could hear muttering inside my head that struck me as a rudimentary form of language. I would talk to the tumours and the muttering would fill my brain in reply. Continued readings proved that I was experiencing intensifying levels of psychic activity.

“How’s the diaper?” asked Rhonda as she ground out her cigarette on Vince’s arm.

I felt my backside – there was nothing squishy. “Think I’m good. Thanks.”

“Just let me know when you need a change, hon.”

At Fiona’s insistence, I had been wearing diapers for the last couple of weeks. The mess coming out of me was never pleasant and wildly unpredictable. Rhonda wouldn’t let me change my own diaper. She insisted upon performing this task and always did so without complaint. I must admit, it was nice to feel that regression to babyhood. She would wipe me clean, powder my arse and blow a playful raspberry on my stomach. The sound of the raspberries would make Belinda laugh and the infectious sound of Belinda’s laughter would make the rest of us laugh.

I excused myself and went to my room. Fiona had given me a list of daily exercises aimed at tumour enhancement. Bolstered by the results of the readings, she was convinced they could understand me, so many of the exercises were verbal. I had a mantra I was required to repeat 100 times each day.

I give you the strength to be all you can be.

Your success is my success.

I give my life so that yours may flourish.

You make me interesting.

This mantra was repeated passionately. I had to believe the words when I said them. I had to inhale deeply on a cigarette after each repetition. Fiona had taught me how to absorb most of the smoke into my body, which allowed my disease to process more of the nutrients. The second mantra was a little ambiguous to me:

I am your daddy.

I carried you.

Learn to forget me.

Run to mummy.

I massaged my stomach with firm fingers while saying this mantra. The tumours bucked and kicked against me. It was invigorating. If I concentrated enough, I could hear them, and not just out loud. I could hear them directly within my brain too – disembodied whispers muttering over each other. I couldn’t determine any recognisable language, but I could sense their tone. They were excited. I knew in my heart that this wasn’t pure response. My tumours were becoming all they were destined to be.

In my bedside drawer was a jar of radiation suppositories. This was also a gift from Fiona and I had to insert ten each day. My bowel sucked them up, and the tumours devoured them like ravenous animals.

This regime took a lot out of me. Even at the height of health I wasn’t endowed with stamina so now, with the complete disintegration of my body, I was constantly fatigued. Fiona was accommodating when it came to my requirements and it wasn’t uncommon for her to perform her procedures whilst I slept. All I had to do was remind myself that this wasn’t about me, personally, it was about what I grew inside.

I was making us both a lot of money by allowing Fiona to sell homemade merchandise dedicated to my tumours. She owned a website that boasted a network of over 700,000 illness enthusiasts all over the world. DVDs of my interior were made available and sold in the tens of thousands. Amongst this community, I was an idol. I received fan mail daily from men, women and children who pined to make contact before I died. Artistic representations of my tumours were common and a few of them were even fridge worthy. The managing editor of a magazine called ‘Oncophiliacs Monthly’ was in negotiations with Fiona to have me on their next cover. There were even whispers that an independent film based on my illness was in the pipelines. I was told that living long enough to see this film onscreen was unlikely.

It was a lot to take in. I can honestly say that I loved the attention – thrived on it. No other period in my life had instilled me with such a sense of self-worth. I’d lived more in the last month than I ever did in the decades leading up to it. I was finally something.

The gentle knock on my bedroom door roused me from rest. I was lathered in pink sweat with a quail gnawing on my armpit. I brushed the quail to one side and, through a fit of coughing up what looked like mashed grapes, slurred, “Come in”.

Belinda emerged through my door and tip toed toward me. “Is that a bird?” she asked, pointing at the quail.

I nodded with a smile.

“Can I keep it, Bruce? Pleeeeaaaasssee…”

I nodded again. “It’s all yours kiddo.”

She clapped her hands and scooped the quail up with delight.

“What are you going to do with it?”

She stroked her chin and glanced upward. Her hair performed a spindly dance that left it a frightful mess. “I know!” she yelled. “I’m going to teach it to swim.”

I chuckled and wheezed. “Sounds like a hell of a plan. Did you want me for something?”

She was already nursing the quail in her gentle arms when her eyes bulged in recollection. “Oh yeah! There’s a man here to see you. His name’s Jerry. I don’t know what to do about it. Fiona said you weren’t supposed to have any visitors, but everyone’s playing Kid Icarus and no one is paying attention.”

The name Jerry didn’t mean anything to me at first. I massaged my temples, trying to recollect if I knew a Jerry. The temple rubbing turned into a dumb slap.
Jerry! From work! Shit… I hadn’t seen him since… the night at the bar. The night with… tent girl.
I hadn’t thought about tent girl either… not since everything started.

“Send him in,” I said.

Belinda skipped out, quail in hand, boundless excitement – the promise of life. I was nervous. The last time Jerry saw me, I was making an arse out of myself at the Tent Bar. Why was he here? In the past month, I hadn’t really interacted with anyone from my pre-Fiona life.

A tooting sound came toward my room. Jerry slid by in a body stocking, wrapped in tinsel. “Brucey!” he screamed. “How ya bin, ya sick fuck?”

We both stared at my emaciated body and burst into laughter.

“You seem chipper,” he said with delight. “What happened to the downer we all know and love?”

“I tell you, Jerry. This cancer is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. It turns out this is what I’m good at.”

He sat at my bedside and rubbed my leg in an unwelcome way. “I tell ya, Brucey… we’re all good at something. You’re lucky you found out what it was before you died.”

He held up his hand for a high five, which I tried to return, but succeeded only in falling out of the bed and hitting my head on the floor. While trying to help me up, Jerry stepped on my face and slipped backward, falling through the bedroom wall and bursting a pipe. Water gushed into the apartment. While nursing our recently acquired injuries, we rolled around laughing.