The Tumours Made Me Interesting (6 page)

I dismounted the Stotson’s couch and marched through the hole my misguided Heimlich had created.

“Don’t worry about the wall right now, Bruce,” yelled Vince. “We can fix it up later. We have nothing to hide.”

The two began engaging in the masochistic sex games I had clearly interrupted earlier. I picked up the phone to call my mother with the alien sound of their eroticism ringing in my ears. I hoped like hell mum hadn’t been watching the news. If anyone was going to tell her, it needed to be me.

5.

I
had become phobic of my own bowel movements. The morning toilet trip always revealed some new, horrifying physical deterioration. Today it was pink anal foam. I had grown used to blood, mucous and stools of every sort but the foam threw me. How could something so foreign to my own experience form in my body? We live with ourselves for every miserable, waking second and yet, there’s so much about what we experience that we don’t know. Within me was an invasion that I couldn’t see. My outward appearance possessed the eerie calm that heralds the start of a storm. I was beginning to convince myself that I could feel the tumours growing. Ever since I was introduced to them, they had a physical presence. I felt more like an incubator than a person.

I was readying myself for one of the most awkward conversations I was ever likely to have. Thankfully my mother appeared blissfully ignorant when I spoke to her on the phone, which meant that at least it was in my hands. I arranged to deliver her medication and tend to her bed sores. It was a struggle to keep from crying when I heard how excited this made her. Ever since my brother moved to Poland to mock death metal bands, I was all she had. I was about to take that away from her and it was the single most painful aspect of the whole ordeal. The more I tried to kill the thought, the more powerful it grew until it was throbbing like a headache.

I was thinking much more clearly this morning, which was a mixed blessing. I didn’t miss the hangover but I longed for the way it stifled my depressing clarity. With clarity came reality and reality was a bitch. The apartment was abhorrently messy. It was so stereotypically ‘single male’. There was no design aesthetic at all. The only ‘art’ on the walls were faded posters of Olympic steeplechase champions, which I won in a raffle 20 years ago. The only reason I was so insistent about their display was because they were the only things I’d ever won. Clinging to these now seemed profoundly pathetic but I still couldn’t bring myself to remove them. That said, Marina Pluzhnikova was an undeniably handsome woman.

The urge to clean intrigued me. Other than maintaining a basic level of hygiene, I wasn’t much for cleanliness. I appreciated the pleasant atmosphere a clean environment created but as far as my own squalor was concerned, it was enough to occasionally remove rotting food. The tattered yellow carpet was stained with ten years of spillage, which sat beneath modest mountains of general trash. A rich, stale scent permeated everything which, other than being admittedly disgusting, was a constant reminder of home. I guess the broken wall, which now allowed the Stotson’s clear visibility into my environment, made me more self-conscious about my living situation. At the same time, it almost felt as if I were now living with people – somehow I was less alone. I’d caught glimpses of Rhonda going about various domestic duties and it pleased me. After I’d met up with mum, I had a determination to whip my apartment into shape.

I had to stop by the pharmacy on my way to mum’s. I had grown incredibly intimate with the pharmacy environment over the years. I was essentially mum’s designated care giver, ever since dad and Tom went away, and it was an intricate job. Mum’s medical situation was an endlessly complex ordeal, which given the nature of her unusual condition, was understandable. After dad left, she started to deteriorate rapidly and still, 20 years later, no course of treatment had been successful. All this time later, I’m still confused by it. At first it was just a vague sense that her body was changing. Nobody could have predicted the ways and extent in which her body was destined to transform. Her pain was constant during the period I now call the ‘metamorphose’. After the first five years, it grew increasingly apparent that mum’s body was slowly turning into one big arm. After ten years, the transformation into an arm was complete. Since that point, she’d remained bedridden – my mother’s warm, loving head now sat atop a grotesque, hairy, body-sized arm.

We have dedicated a substantial amount of time talking to doctors of all varieties in the hope that we’ll find a solution to my mother’s dilemma. Even knowing how such a malady is possible would provide me with some solace. No documented evidence exists that suggest my mother’s symptoms have been seen before. Doctors love the ambiguity of it all. My mother is a cipher that, if cracked, could lead to a prestigious journal article. I don’t know what passes for fame in the world of medicine, but it’s clear that my mother is viewed as a key in which attaining it might be possible. My mother is subjected to all manner of bizarre tests and medicines. It won’t be long until every medicine currently available will have coursed through her system. One week she’ll be taking heart medication and the next she’ll undergo a treatment for lupus. And with each new change in her chemical landscape, a new set of side effects emerge. These are usually mild, but every now and then, my mother is at the mercy of side effects no living person should have to endure. I encourage this course of action. Intellectually I know that it’s fruitless, but still, I’m always at hand, making sure she’s taking whatever pill is on the menu this week. Each new pill I place on her tongue runs the risk of damage and yet I still place the pill.

There’s only one pharmacy I’ve ever been to. They understand my mother’s situation and know better than to ask invasive questions when I pick up medication. They live in a basement underneath a pornographic bookstore a few minutes from work. Even without a prescription, I get the sense they’d give me anything I asked for. They don’t enjoy substantial patronage, other than the occasional porn connoisseur, so the money I give them is always received gratefully.

You have to walk through the bookstore in order to reach the stairs that lead to the pharmacy. I’ve succumb to pornographic desires on more than one occasion as a result. When you can’t shake the thought of death, sometimes a distraction is in order, so today was a day in which I indulged my carnal desires. I’m not much of a fetishist, but I couldn’t pass up a magazine devoted to ‘wool mouth’ or, ‘the sexual desire to stuff your mouth with wool’. The woman on the cover found a way to blend the ridiculous and the alluring. Lustful eyes, mouth overflowing with red wool. I paid for the magazine, tucked it under my arm and made for the pharmacy.

Lacking natural light and victim to decades of neglect, the pharmacy wasn’t a pleasing environment. It was a perfect accompaniment to the illnesses they specialised in treating. Health posters from the 70s still adorned the walls and spreading damp coloured the low ceiling. Against the far wall sat the counter. As ever, standing proud and round behind the counter was Arthur Pecks, the world’s most socially inept pharmacist.

“Huzzah, Bruce!” said Arthur upon spotting me. He reached out his arm to give my hand a shake. Our hands met, he shook and forgot to let go. Five minutes went by, ten minutes went by – at the 15 minute mark I had to request an end to the shake. With a bumbling apology, he broke the hand lock and grovelled, bowed and curtsied before losing his footing and falling backward into poorly assembled and overly laden shelves. This wasn’t unusual. A long, wooden stick was propped against the counter for this exact purpose. I shoved the stick into the collapse and fished Arthur out. After struggling to his feet, he simply asked, ‘So what’ll it be today, Bruce?”

This month’s prescription called for Sulfasalazine, which was most commonly used in the treatment of Crohns and Colitis. I handed the prescription to Arthur.

“Oh boy! This is a good’n. I used to live on the stuff in 'Nam,” said Arthur.

Knowing full well that Arthur had never fought in Vietnam, I simply smiled politely and took a seat while he prepared my mother’s chemical feast. Listening to Arthur forage around behind the counter had always amused me. He never failed to break or knock something over. He was possibly the clumsiest person I’d ever met. Despite his chronically accident prone tendencies, he always maintained such a positive mood. I was the kind of person who flew into a brief fury at the mildest hiccup. Arthur’s positive attitude was bound to grant him an extended, albeit dangerous, life.

Despite being the only customer in the store, Arthur still found it necessary to announce my name in an officious tone when the prescription was ready. I took the drugs, and against my better judgment, participated in another painfully extended handshake before leaving.

Other than pulling over briefly to masturbate while indulging in ‘wool-mouthed sluts’, I headed straight to my mother's. I spent most of the drive mentally rehearsing the best way to break the cancer news to her. I wondered if perhaps a comical approach would work but ousted that idea when I remembered that laughter made her nose bleed. I had to be upfront. It would be like tearing off a Band-Aid. Just get the critical dialogue out and spend the rest of the time dealing with the aftermath. Whenever my inner coward reared its head, I reminded myself that this was better than her finding out about my death one day without context. It was with this resolve that I lurched up her driveway.

With the assistance of nerves, the pain in my stomach kicked up a few million notches. Vomit climbed my throat like mercury in a thermometer. A flush of diarrhea swam through my bowel, begging for release. I clenched every muscle, shut my eyes and focused on breathing. I don’t know how long I was involved in this for, but when my eyes eventually opened I was feeling somewhat better. Before my body had a chance to turn against me again, I escaped the car and made a beeline for the front door.

My mother’s house was a time capsule. Without the benefit of easy mobility, her home was virtually untouched. A cleaner came by once a week to tackle dust accumulation and remove garbage but that was it. For this reason, her home had a distinct early 80s luster. This environmental stasis filled me with comfort. I always knew what to expect and being reluctant to embrace change, this was superficially a good thing. I could always watch the residual echo of a childhood version of me running through the house. These nostalgic echoes have the strange ability to project abject happiness… no matter how little it rings true.

“Bruce, baby… is that you?” my mother called from the bedroom.

“Yes, mum. I’ll be right there. I have the new meds.”

I took one more deep breath, reaffirmed my resolve and entered her bedroom. Seeing her lying on the bed helplessly threatened my resolve in one quick burst of despair. Tears began to scratch my eyeballs and the careful breathing that helped me reach this point became a lost talent. She flashed a smile warm enough to bake muffins and her eyes beamed as if snatched from a cartoon. I choked at the sight. The reality of my death hadn’t hit as clear as it did in this moment. Mum’s arm/body sprawled over the bed, bruised and twitching occasionally. Who would look after her when I was gone? I was all she had. How could life be so cruel as to take me away from her? For the benefit of us both, I avoided further eye contact as I sat myself down at her bedside.

“Give me a hug, dear,” she requested.

With eyes still averted, I leant down and cradled her head in my arm. “Hi mum,” I mumbled. “How ya been?”

Giving my arm a gentle kiss she began giving me a breakdown of the television she’d seen, the mail she’d received and food she’d consumed. It all flew from her mouth in one unbroken sentence, assailing me with redundant information. The parent/child relationship, especially when the child has entered the world of adulthood, often descends into a series of practiced platitudes. The automatic drive to conduct the relationship without emotional interference enforces itself. I saw my mother multiple times a week and each conversation was a variation on a well-practiced theme. I broke the hug and finally caught her eyes again.