A Little Hope(39)

“Nah,” Ahmed says. “I’m lonely, too.” He hands Damon a beat-up helmet.

“Yeah?”

Ahmed nods. “But I’ll find my queen. I’m not even playing around with princesses anymore. Going right for a queen.”

“She’s out there, man.”

“We’ll see.” Ahmed looks over at him. “Did that bridesmaid, the vet, did she, uh, ever visit or anything?”

“Ginger?” Damon remembers seeing them take a walk together at the wedding. Then she got word her ex-boyfriend died and had to leave. Leave it to Ahmed to fall for her: the best of the best. Smart, sensitive, beautiful. “Good pick, buddy… but I think she’s, um, otherwise engaged.”

“Yeah, she seemed it.” Ahmed looks straight ahead and starts up Red. The engine is loud and confident. “Let’s do this!” he shouts over the noise.

“Right behind you.” Damon turns the key. The green light appears. He puts it in neutral and hits the start button. The engine growls. Ahmed gives him the thumbs-up and rumbles ahead of him, past the house, past the barn.

They zigzag through the grass, crouching over their seats. He feels the energy of the quad, the good wind, the tires as they bounce over the uneven land, and his friend is there, like a fellow soldier on a horse, like they’re in the Crusades or something, riding toward destiny.

“Hell yeah,” Ahmed shouts at the same time Damon hollers, “Yes! Yes!” and they drive and yell like this, their lungs burning, the engines roaring. Small flurries of wet snow start to fall. They stick to Damon’s boots. They glisten on the sides of the vehicle, and he and Ahmed drive and drive, over all this land that is somehow his. Damon wonders how he found himself here, how his train stopped at this good station.





13. The Winter Puzzle




Greg Tyler doesn’t look at himself anymore when he brushes his teeth.

He notices this. He notices a lot of things. That a man’s face needs eyebrows and even eyelashes to look right. That he probably can’t do a pull-up these days (he hasn’t tried). That the day drags by so slowly when you don’t have budget meetings to attend, or board reports to write. That the taste of metal from chemo, even chemo that’s been finished for weeks, ruins everything.

He looks at his wife as she steps into the shower, her blondish hair touching her shoulders, and he envies her healthy skin, the way she can stand so straight, the way the water doesn’t wilt her at all. He squirts out a blob of Colgate original and closes his eyes while he tastes more metal and runs the toothbrush over his molars.

He wonders if he can survive this.

Of course he would have raised his hand and volunteered to take cancer so no one else would have to, and he’s glad Freddie and Addie are spared. That means something somehow, that because he has this, they are spared. Aren’t they? Yes, he thinks so. He always felt the world doled things out this way, like a game of duck, duck, goose. He is glad they won’t feel sick, lose their hair, see the shock on people’s faces. But even still he wishes someone could feel the way he feels for a second, to slip it on like a smock in art class in elementary school, so they’d know what he knows: that there is no God at a time like this, that there is nothing really. That you can’t come this close to seeing darkness without it altering you. He realizes how ineffective it is when someone says, “You’re in my prayers,” or, “Let me know if I can do anything.” You should regard someone who has cancer with silence because it is so heavy, so burdensome, that even when the patient is tough like Greg is, silence is the only thing you should offer. He wishes someone could feel how heavy and cruel this is. Then they could slip it off and shake their heads and say, Oh, Greg. I had no idea.

He blows Freddie a kiss and says goodbye. She must make it a point not to stare at him. She must work on it, because she waves and winks at him, her body glistening with shower water, her hair slicked back, and he slips on his track pants, his Columbia fleece pullover, and heads out the door. The one good thing about all this: it is so easy to get ready. No hair to pat down. No need to shave that often, although sometimes a faint crop of five o’clock shadow creeps across his face like hope.

He wears a ski hat and gloves. It is only one mile to the treatment center, and he uses what strength is left in him—somewhere in some compartment of his body—to walk. Freddie has stopped offering to drive him, knowing he needs to do this. And he can. Damn if he’ll be driven like a junior high kid to band practice. Damn if he’ll not make these legs continue to work for him. He is holding on to his independence because he needs to. Because almost everything else—his work, his ability to be the leader in the house, his energy—has been taken from him. He will walk. He will whip his feet like unruly horses.

He likes his sneakers bouncing on the sidewalk, the hills and slopes of the neighborhood, and then the way he weaves through parking lots like Hamilton’s (where he used to take clients for cocktails) until he gets to the treatment center. Some of the houses have paper hearts in the window and red sparkling lights. There are small mounds of snow every so often from the storm a week ago, but mostly the yards and sidewalks are clear. He notices so much more now that he goes slower, now that he’s not always rushing from the gym to work to a dinner with Alex or clients. On foot he notices everything, and he likes taking it all in. One of the houses has a snow shovel on the front porch propped by the door with a big shaker of ice melt beside it. Seeing this makes him feel weak. He misses shoveling snow. He hopes he can mow the lawn this summer. He is not meant to be a patient.