August 21, 2007
Get Cancer
Written by Girth McDürchstein on August 21, 2007 5:47 PM
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Cancer Crisis!
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“Girth,” Margo said from the doorway, “come on, we gotta go.”
I rolled over and looked at the bedside clock: 2:30. Visiting hours ended at five, and the hospital was about 45 minutes away in midday traffic.
“Come on, we can wait a little—”
“Get your fat ass out of bed, dammit!” Margo growled. “You kept stalling yesterday and we ended up not going at all. Come on!”
She threw the blanket off me and wrapped her arms around my feet. She started yanking my legs, among other things, and I grasped the head-board. She continued to pull until I felt a weird burning sensation in my thighs. I shrieked like a little girl and finally let go of the bed. Margo grunted as she slammed against wall, rattling the portrait of us wearing matching royal-blue dresses. I fell back and caught my balls on the corner of the mattress. I gasped and reached for my crotch when Margo took advantage of my stunned state. She grabbed me around the torso and dragged me into the living room.
Margo had set an outfit on the coffee table: a pair of Abysmal Crucifix boxer shorts we found in Hong Kong several years back (which features our official logo on the crotch) were folded on top of my pair of crotchless leather pants. Next to that, a faded Redstain Attack! t-shirt and a bandanna.
“Where’s my cowboy hat?” I demanded.
“You left it in France,” she sighed. “Don’t worry—I called the Njord brothers and they’ll get all our stuff and mail it back in the door.”
I put the boxer shorts on, then the pants. “Are you sure this is a good outfit, what with our history?”
Margo flashed her crooked smile. “I want her to see what she can’t have.”
“Fair enough,” I said, wedging myself into the pants.. “Should I put the ring on?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Remember what happened last time?”
“Yeah, that’s a bad idea.”
When I finally got the shirt on, I was greeted with the sight of Margo staring sadly at me. “Look,” I whispered, “it’s only going to be this once. It’s an obligation, not something I want. I’ll see her, wish her well, and that’ll be the end of it. Okay…?”
Margo turned her head slightly, looking at the floor and crossing her arms akimbo.
“Okay?” I repeated.
She turned back and gently slipped her arms around my doughy waist, burying her disproportionately huge head into my sunken chest. I felt hot tears through the thin cotton, so I stroked her hair and whispered, “Don’t worry about it. I’d never cheat on you.”
I felt the all-too-familiar sensation of having my wind knocked out as Margo slammed her fist into my gut. I collapsed onto the floor and curled into the fetal position, gasping for breath and rubbing my pained belly. Margo’s shadow fell over me. For some reason, she looked unhappy. “We’re going to the fucking hospital right now,” she snarled. “We’re going to see the bitch for an hour, then we’re going to leave. Got it?”
I nodded rapidly. She reached her hand down. I clasped it, and she yanked me up. I tried to lean in and kiss her, but she head-butted me in the chin. She pulled an arm around my waist and helped me shuffle down to the hearse.
We drove to Cedars-Sinai in icy silence. I tried to start conversation twice, but each time Margo ignored me, choosing instead to stare out at the tourists on Hollywood Boulevard. I found a place to park on La Cienega, and we walked to the hospital from there. It took more time than it should have to find the oncology wing. When we did, I asked to see Sarah Goss. The desk nurse asked if we were friends or family.
“I’m her sister,” Margo blurted. I glared at her, and she shrugged.
“Go right in,” the nurse said. “Room 20C.”
The overhead fluorescents were off, so all we had was the blob of light trying to break through the heavy brown-and-beige chenille curtains. It streaked around the corners of the window, casting dusty orange bars along the floor and ceiling. Sarah Goss lay in one of the two beds (the other was empty), tubes snaking away from her body to about 100 machines surrounding the bed. They beeped and blooped and made images I didn’t understand and therefore hated.
I didn’t even know what to say or do. She had always been such a strong, vibrant, obnoxious woman—seeing her look so pale and gaunt, so lifeless and ravaged with disease, pained me perhaps as much as it did her. When Margo first set sight on her, she gasped and rushed to her. The funny thing about Margo is, she hates me more for leering at Sarah than she hates Sarah for being desirable enough to leer at. They’ve never been friends, but something about this cervical cancer thing has brought them together—chick solidarity or something, I don’t know.
Margo wrapped her hands around Sarah’s bony fingers, and the patient stirred and moaned softly. She opened her eyes and, after acclimating to consciousness, whispered, “Margo?”
“She starts chemo on Thursday,” a voice behind us rumbled.
I whirled around and could barely make out the sight of Owen Autumn sitting in the shadows, hands arched and fingers pressed together, looking typically sinister and fat.
“You mean…she hasn’t started?” I glanced back at that tiny body, puzzled?
“Not yet,” Sarah rasped.
To Owen Autumn I asked, “I told you not to eat off her plate—”
“You son-of-a-bitch!” Owen hollered, leaping from the uncomfortable plastic chair in the corner.
“Suck my big fat dick!” I roared, moving toward him.
“I would, but how would I find it?” He rolled his eyes, and I remembered I was wearing crotchless pants with a huge crucifix over my throbbing johnson.
“Shut up!” was the only comeback I could come up with.
Just before we rumbled, Margo yelled, “Stop it, motherfuckers!” She turned back to Sarah. “How you feeling, hon?”
“I’ve been better,” Sarah chuckled.
“Would it help if I took my top off?” Margo asked.
“Yes,” Owen and I said in unison. We sneered at one another like rabid dogs.
“That’s okay,” Sarah whispered. “I could go for some water, though.”
Margo stood up and shrugged. “The nurse will bring you that.” She went over to a chair near the window and sat.
“Girth,” Sarah whispered. “Come here…”
I knelt next to her bed and gazed into her watery gray eyes. “What is it?”
“Make me a promise,” she said.
“Anything.”
“Forgive me.”
“For what?”
“For…for everything.”
“I don’t know what you—”
“Yes…you do,” she sighed.
I did. I was just trying to be polite.
“Not only will I forgive you,” I said. “I will cure your cancer.”
Sarah rolled her eyes.
“No, seriously,” I said. “I think we’re pretty close. Plus, I heard somewhere an alien with a vaccine crashed somewhere in Mexico.”
“Lotta good that’ll do me,” Sarah said.
“I’m going to fix this!” I yelped, pounding my fists against the side of her bed.
I glanced at Margo, who glared at me like I had just murdered a prostitute and busboy again. “I think it’s time to leave, Girth,” she said.
I glanced at the clock. “But we still have over an hour before—”
“Now!” Margo snapped.
I tongue-kissed Sarah goodbye, then Margo and I ambled back through the halls, searching in vain for an exit.
“What the fuck, bub?” Margo asked when we had reached a safe distance.
“What?”
“An hour ago, you were being a pussy-shit faggot about all this, saying you’d only stay an hour ‘cause you didn’t want to see her and didn’t want to hurt me, and soon as you see her you’re all ‘I’ll find the cure for cancer.’”
“Do you really think—”
“I just want to ask you this,” Margo said. “If I had cancer, would you promise to find a cure?”
“Well, no, but—”
Margo made that little—you men out there know that noise women make, sort of a hitched-up sigh to show they are so appalled all they can do is turn and walk away, which is what Margo did after making the noise.
“Come on!” I shouted after her. “False hope, Margo! I’d never give you false hope! Except that time I overhyped my penis size—”
A nurse came from one of the rooms and gave me an alarmed look. She examined my nearly-visible unit and shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”
“That’s what she said,” I said suavely.
I glanced back at Margo, who disappeared around a corner. “Shit!” I exclaimed, handing the nurse a business card and running after my wife. When I finally caught up with her, gasping for breath and about to die of exhaustion, I grabbed her by the shoulders, pressed her against the wall, and rammed my tongue down her throat. When I absolutely had to exhale, I pulled back and gasped, “You’re the one I love.”
With a bitter look in her eyes, she rubbed me hard and said, “Act like it.”
Then she turned and stomped away.
Women.
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