“Okay, but I just read—”
“Did you go on the Internet?”
“Yes.”
“Which sites?”
“Mayo Clinic and the University of Washington.”
“Okay, so those are pretty good sites. Let me look at them.”
I listened to my doctor type.
“Okay, those are accurate,” he said.
“What do you mean by accurate?” I asked. “I mean, the whole pressure on the brain thing, that sounds like hydrocephalus.”
“Well, there were some irregularities in your MRI that were the burr holes from your surgery and there seems to be some scarring and perhaps you had an old concussion, but other than that, it all looks fine.”
“But what about me going deaf? Can’t these tumors make you lose hearing?”
“Yes, but only if they’re located near an auditory nerve. And your tumor is not.”
“Can this tumor cause pressure on my brain?”
“It could, but yours is too small for that.”
“So, I’m supposed to trust you on the tumor thing when you can’t figure out the hearing thing?”
“The MRI revealed the meningioma, but that’s just an image. There is no physical correlation between your deafness and the tumor. Do the twenty-day treatment of prednisone and the audiologist and I will examine your ear, and your hearing. Then, if there’s no improvement, we’ll figure out other ways of treating you.”
“But you won’t be treating the tumor?”
“Like I said, we’ll scan you again in six to nine months—”
“You said six before.”
“Okay, in six months we’ll take another MRI, and if it has grown significantly — or has changed shape or location or anything dramatic — then we’ll talk about treatment options. But if you look on the Internet, and I know you’re going to spend a lot of time obsessing on this — as you should — I’ll tell you what you’ll find. About 5 percent of the population has these things and they live their whole lives with these undetected meningiomas. And they can become quite large — without any side effects — and are only found at autopsies conducted for other causes of death. And even when these kinds of tumors become invasive or dangerous they are still rarely fatal. And your tumor, even if it grows fairly quickly, will not likely become an issue for many years, decades. So that’s what I can tell you right now. How are you feeling?”
“Freaked and fucked.”
I wanted to feel reassured, but I had a brain tumor. How does one feel any optimism about being diagnosed with a brain tumor? Even if that brain tumor is neither cancerous nor interested in crushing one’s brain?
14. Drugstore Indian
In Bartell’s Drugs, I gave the pharmacist my prescription for prednisone.
“Is this your first fill with us?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “And it won’t be the last.”
I felt like an ass, but she looked bored.
“It’ll take thirty minutes,” she said, “more or less. We’ll page you over the speakers.”
I don’t think I’d ever felt weaker, or more vulnerable, or more absurd. I was the weak antelope in the herd — yeah, the mangy fucker with the big limp and a sign that read, “Eat me! I’m a gimp!”
So, for thirty minutes, I walked through the store and found myself shoving more and more useful shit into my shopping basket, as if I were filling my casket with the things I’d need in the afterlife. I grabbed toothpaste, a Swiss Army knife, moisturizer, mouthwash, non-stick Band-Aids, antacid, protein bars, and extra razor blades. I grabbed pen and paper. And I also grabbed an ice scraper and sunscreen. Who can predict what weather awaits us in Heaven?
This random shopping made me feel better for a few minutes but then I stopped and walked to the toy aisle. My boys needed gifts: Lego cars or something, for a lift, a shot of capitalistic joy. But the selection of proper toys is art and science. I have been wrong as often as right and heard the sad song of a disappointed son.
Shit, if I died, I knew my sons would survive, even thrive, because of their graceful mother.
I thought of my father’s life: he was just six when his father was killed in World War II. Then his mother, ill with tuberculosis, died a few months later. Six years old, my father was cratered. In most ways, he never stopped being six. There was no religion, no magic tricks, and no song or dance that helped my father.
Jesus, I needed a drink of water, so I found the fountain and drank and drank until the pharmacist called my name.
“Have you taken these before?” she asked.
“No,” I said, “but they’re going to kick my ass, aren’t they?”
That made the pharmacist smile, so I felt sadly and briefly worthwhile. But another customer, some nosy hag, said, “You’ve got a lot of sleepless nights ahead of you.”
I was shocked. I stammered, glared at her, and said, “Miss, how is this any of your business? Please, just fuck all the way off, okay?”
She had no idea what to say, so she just turned and walked away and I pulled out my credit card and paid far too much for my goddamn steroids, and forgot to bring the toys home to my boys.
15. Exit Interview for My Father
• True or False?: when a reservation-raised Native American dies of alcoholism it should be considered death by natural causes.
• Do you understand the term
wanderlust,
and if you do, can you please tell us, in twenty-five words or less, what place gave you wanderlust the most?
• Did you, when drunk, ever get behind the tattered wheel of a ’76 Ford three-speed van and somehow drive your family one thousand miles on an empty tank of gas?
• Is it true that the only literary term that has any real meaning in the Native American world is
road movie
?
• During the last road movie you saw, how many times did the characters ask, “Are we there yet?”
• How many times, during any of your road trips, did your children ask, “Are we there yet?”
• In twenty-five words or less, please define
there
.
• Sir, in your thirty-nine years as a parent, you broke your children’s hearts, collectively and individually, 612 times and you did this without ever striking any human being in anger. Does this absence of physical violence make you a better man than you might otherwise have been?
• Without using the words
man
or
good,
can you please define what it means to be a good man?
• Do you think you will see angels before you die? Do you think angels will come to escort you to Heaven? As the angels are carrying you to Heaven, how many times will you ask, “Are we there yet?”
• Your son distinctly remembers stopping once or twice a month at that grocery store in Freeman, Washington, where you would buy him a red-white-and-blue Rocket Popsicle and purchase for yourself a pickled pig foot. Your son distinctly remembers the feet still had their toenails and little tufts of pig fur. Could this be true? Did you actually eat such horrendous food?
• Your son has often made the joke that you were the only Indian of your generation who went to Catholic school on purpose. This is, of course, a tasteless joke that makes light of the forced incarceration and subsequent physical, spiritual, cultural, and sexual abuse of tens of thousands of Native American children in Catholic and Protestant boarding schools. In consideration of your son’s questionable judgment in telling jokes, do you think there should be any moral limits placed on comedy?
• Your oldest son and your two daughters, all over thirty-six years of age, still live in your house. Do you think this is a lovely expression of tribal culture? Or is it a symptom of extreme familial codependence? Or is it both things at the same time?