The Tumours Made Me Interesting (8 page)

Arthur extended his hand toward mine. It felt like a dead fish, which made me hungry. “Do you live on the floor above?”

He laughed nervously and took a sip from his tea. “Not exactly… we share a floor, you and I.”

“We what?”

“I don’t quite know how to tell you this… it’s been a long time coming I suppose. I… live in your ceiling.”

I slapped my face, determined to believe it was a dream. All the slapping achieved was the urge to cry.

“How can you live up there?” I asked with a finger point.

“It’s an odd story… I’m an Oxford man. I immigrated to your fine country 40-odd years ago. I was chasing a particularly lovely woman called Beef.”

“Beef?”

“Yes indeed. I’ve never fallen for a woman who wasn’t called Beef. It is firmly ensconced in my heritage. My parents would be most dismayed were I to find love outside of this name. Anyway, I followed Beef to this country and we pursued a romance of sorts. The romance was awkward and short-lived, thanks in part, to her complete loathing of me. I was too pigheaded to stop my pursuit, even after my face became nothing more than a mace-induced blister. The new fellow she started seeing just about knocked my pig head off. He didn’t take too kindly to my increasingly desperate advances and gave me a solid beating that sent me to hospital. Well, I was discharged some months later and found I had no place to go. I became a low-cost escort for a brief while but made very little money and my pimp had me incarcerated. The injustice of it was staggering! Myself and some of my fellow inmates devised a rollicking escape plot that involved seducing the warden at the jail ball. Long story short, I managed to escape and found myself on the run. I needed a place to lay low. At the time, this was an abandoned apartment block and I figured it would be a suitable place to buy some time. As it turns out, I purchased an awful lot of time. So much time that I’m still here.”

Listening to Arthur’s story, I found myself strangely drawn to him. He seemed like a nice individual and rather than creeped out, it made me feel comfortable to know that I had been sharing my home with him for so long. “How long have you been here… in the ceiling?”

“About 30 years.”

The shock knocked me backward and I began to cough until sprays of blood coloured the wall beside me.

“Good god, man! Are you alright?” asked Arthur before sipping once more at his tea.

“I’ll be fine,” I replied, having grown accustomed to my own decay. “How can you live in a ceiling for 30 years?” My composure was coming back but my throat burned like hell.

“Would you like to come on up and have a look?”

“Yes, I believe I would.”

I had to borrow a ladder from the Stotson’s, which filled Rhonda with an odd glee. I’d never been in my ceiling before – never really saw the point. For most of us, especially those dwelling in apartment blocks, the ceiling is just something that separates you from the apartment above.

I followed Arthur’s slow ascent of the ladder, paying attention to the rigidity of his joints. He still had a dainty grip on his cup of tea, which he sipped from every few rungs. I had to give his bony arse a little push to help him into the ceiling.

As I emerged into Arthur’s cramped home, my mouth fell in astonishment. The available height couldn’t have been more than two feet, but what he’d done within the confines of his environment was a marvel. An ornate carpet stretched out beneath us. A series of low wattage lamps peppered the space with delicate light the colour of which reminded me of an old map. A wall of bookcases, three shelves high, were crammed with leather bound monographs about the nature of subtlety. Plump, dignified cushions artistically mapped the ground.

“Follow me to the tea area,” said Arthur. I watched as he rolled, cup of tea in tow, toward a wooden chest. The way he rolled was amazing. It was as if he were compelled by an invisible momentum. I adopted an army crawl that stole my breath like a noose.

“Join me for a cup of Earl Grey,” he said when we arrived at the chest.

We were both rolled on our sides, our heads on a cushion, facing each other like late-night lovers. The tea he handed me smelled and looked like dishwater and tasted far worse. I couldn’t bring myself to appear rude and spit it out, nor could I bring myself to swallow the foul brew so I instead, I dribbled it down my chin.

“How is it?” asked Arthur.

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a tea man.”

“Normally, sir, I’d slap someone for speaking ill of the Earl, but as I am an unpaid lodger residing in your domicile, I’ll let it pass. Tell me… what’s with the blood you were coughing before? It looked quite unpleasant.”

I gulped down a mouthful of rotten Earl Grey spit and felt the burn in my throat intensify. “I’m not well. I have cancer.” My responses had become so workman-like

Arthur’s eyes began to well with creamy tears. “Oh dear. That’s no good at all. Wait here would you.”

He rolled toward a small cabinet and fondled about inside for a while. He returned with a photo in hand, which he passed to me. A strikingly unattractive woman with a pinprick mouth stared vacantly. “Who’s this?”

“That’s my Beef,” replied Arthur, wiping at the encroaching tears. “From what I understand, she died of cancer some 15 years ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. What sort of cancer did she have?”

“All of them.”

“All of them?”

“Yes. Every single one. She was a rich, cancerous gumbo.”

I didn’t have the energy to question the validity of Arthur’s claim. It didn’t mater. Watching this old man gently weep tugged at my heart and made me think of my mother. Would this be her in a few years? Trapped within her bed, pining after her son. It was a painful thought. A thought I wanted to vanquish.

“Would you like something to eat?” asked Arthur, his eyes now drier than day old cake.

“Yeah, that would actually be nice.”

Once again he rolled away and when he returned it was with several squares of carpet sample under his arm. “Take your pick,” he implored.

I absentmindedly reached for a square of shag, which seemed to make Arthur happy. He settled for a red square of flatweave and gnawed on it like a weaning baby. “You eat carpet?” I asked.

He finished his mouthful before responding. “It’s a surprisingly nourishing culinary delight. Who would assume that something so delightfully tasty could nourish one’s body so? You’re going to eat yours, I hope? Someone in your condition should eat.”

His face was full of anticipatory earnestness and so, not wishing to disappoint, I nibbled on the corner, wishing like hell that I wasn’t about to swallow.

“Is this all you eat?”

“It’s my primary food source, yes. Occasionally a wayward moth or millipede will venture into my domain. I make quick work of those little blighters,” he said with a rub of his stomach and a purple-tongued lick of his lips.

7.

I
’d been running my impending meeting with Fiona over and over in my head since leaving Arthur’s ‘house’. What could she possibly have to offer that improved my situation? She was a mere end of life counselor, nothing more. Why the hell did I need counseling anyway? It seemed to me the ones most in need are those the dying leave behind. Mum’s the one who’d need to pick up my post-life pieces. Would Fiona be there for her? I couldn’t shake the damaging image of my mother, trapped on her bed, no one coming to her aide. Her big arm wasting away. Her face turning sallow and dry. My stomach responded poorly to the image, twisting itself so tight I thought I’d never breathe again. I felt the presence of my tumours, like they were inflating, growing larger with each passing second, consuming me. I just wanted my mum to be okay. She didn’t deserve this. But then again… who truly deserves tragedy?

I was feeling far too grim to drive to the meeting so I caught the bus. Somehow the sick and diseased are always drawn to the bus. I didn’t feel out of place among my fellow commuters. Some of them made me feel downright healthy. A man with tubing jutting from his throat sat beside me. Pink sludge would occasionally spit from the tube and glop down his already heavily stained shirt. He glanced at me with apologetic, pupil-devoid eyes. The sludge smelled like a teenage boy’s bedroom and I wanted to run, but everywhere I looked were more wretched souls. And old lady with a bird impaled in the side of her face sat sobbing in the adjacent seat. The poor bird kicked its legs slightly, suggesting life was too cruel to let it die. The lady whimpered pathetically with each kick, letting those around her know the bird was eating the inside of her face. A child in front coughed broken glass into his brother’s sleeping face. A naked lady pressed her bleeding breasts against a window, screaming about ‘the burning’. I plugged my ears with freezing fingers and willed the journey to end. This bus was a travelling circus of hopelessness and I was just another attraction.

My meeting with Fiona was to take place at a restaurant called ‘Truman’s Basket’. It resided on one of those trendy, foodie streets that I never bothered visiting. Each place had a ‘funky’ name that faded into a blur of banality due to sheer volume. Each try-hard eatery swarmed with middle class boredom and lifeless ‘cool’. My desire to meet with Fiona waned with each passing café.

I couldn’t escape the sensation that people were recognising me, and I swear one person even pointed straight at me. Clearly the coverage the evening news gave my cancer had turned me into something akin to a celebrity. I’m not the sort of person that gets noticed and the attention upset me. I consoled myself with the knowledge I’d be a nobody in a few days. At the same time, I was strangely dreading the loss of my meager grain of recognition. People had become famous for far less.

‘Truman’s Basket’ sat nestled between two restaurants of similar name and style. I walked past it several times before it registered. I didn’t want to go in. The thick scent of coffee beans wafted around the entrance. Inside was populated with the expected crowd of suited working drones and identically individual University students. I wanted to waltz up to these students, direct their attention toward the depressed workers and say, ‘welcome to your future!”. 

An overly pierced waitress approached me and asked me if I needed a seat. I mentioned Fiona, was told there was a booking and led toward a small table in the far corner.

The woman waiting at the table had short red hair and a porcelain face. A faint smile contorted her lips. She was attractive in a profound way. My cock was flooding with blood and I had to take my seat fast to hide it. She reached out a delicate, manicure-tipped hand, which I greeted with my pale, sweaty one. She retrieved a packet of cigarettes from her handbag and placed it on the table.

“Would you like one?” she asked.

I stared at them. I hadn’t smoked in over ten years but that desire never really goes away. I wanted to suck one down bad. “I’m pretty sure we’re not allowed to smoke inside,” I replied, primarily as an excuse to ignore my own destructive craving.

“It’s fine,” she said with a slow wave of the hand. “I know the owner. Please, have one…”

She pushed the packet closer toward me and it was impossible to refuse. If I was going to die anyway, what hurt would a cigarette do? I swooped up the pack, shook one out and flipped it toward my mouth where it sat, dormant, waiting for flame. Fiona clicked open a Zippo lighter and waved it over the cigarette tip. I sucked hard, watching the tip glow with glorious orange light. The smoke flooded my lungs and sent my brain into a joyous spin. My body went limp and a goofy grin formed on my face. The beautiful fragility that rides the fine line between sickness and bliss occupied my blood.

“Thank you,” I said in a drawn out tone. “I forgot how nice these bastards are.”

“Have as many as you like. Take the pack. You look like you need them more than me.”

A strange rhubarb aftertaste began to form in my mouth.

“These don’t taste like the cigarettes I used to smoke,” I said.

“Let’s just say you won’t find these in your local supermarket. This is my special little recipe.”

I stared at the packet before me. It was a black cardboard box devoid of information.