I smiled. “And that’s your job, isn’t it. Funding, right.”
He smiled back. “We understand each other.”
I stood. “Well, I appreciate the time you took. If I can return the favor someday, well, I owe you, and you know where my office is.” I smiled and shook their hands.
“I’ll hold you to that some day,” Heisman returned, smiling at me.
I excused myself and left. An escort took me back down to the lobby, at which point I called my office and said I would be back the next morning. From Bethesda I decided to drive home, not to the Washington house but to my real home, with a stop along the way. We drove up to Baltimore and got on the Beltway, and then drove clockwise around the city to York Road, and went up to Tusk Cycles in Cockeysville.
Tusker was talking to a middle-aged couple when I entered the showroom. He nodded to me when he saw me enter, but I waved him off and he never stopped dealing with his customers. We could talk later. I wandered around the showroom, admiring the gleaming machines and marveling at the prices they commanded. I had no desire to ride one, but they were so expensive only rich and retired folks could afford a top end Harley with all the whistles and bells. Unbelievable!
After a few minutes, Tusker came down the aisle and found me. I looked over at him and smiled. “Sell them?”
He smiled back. “Two brand new Softails, plus customization.” He made the universal sign for money, by rubbing his thumb against his fingers.
I just shook my head in amusement. “Did you check to make sure their organ donor cards are filled out?”
Tusker laughed. “Just wait until Charlie wants his license. We’ve already got Bucky clamoring for his.”
I gave an exaggerated shudder. “Let’s talk.”
He nodded and led the way to his office. For all of Tusker’s public persona of the wild and crazy biker, his office was that of a serious businessman, with a computer on his desk, and the appropriate furnishings. There was a reason he had two sales lots and was more than a little profitable. “What’s up?” he asked as we settled into a couple of chairs.
“Well, you know I was planning on seeing if I could find anything better for Carter in D.C., right?”
“Yeah, you mentioned it. Find out anything?”
“Nothing more than you already know. I met with the head of the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute. I told them what was happening and they asked me a few questions, but you guys are basically doing what you’re supposed to do. Hopkins is as good a place as any to take Carter, and you’re doing the right stuff. You aren’t dicking around, you’re starting treatment, you’ve been to a good place for a second opinion.” I shrugged in helplessness. “There are no magic pills. I asked. Chemo is the answer, and it won’t be any fun.”
Tusker sighed. “Thanks, man, I… we… appreciate it. I didn’t think you would find anything else, but I’m glad you looked into it.”
“The one thing they stressed was that this is going to take a lot of time and care. They said to tell you to get everybody involved. It is going to be very stressful on all of you, not just Carter. Tell your family and friends, get them to help. Have you talked to your parents yet? Tessa’s parents?”
He nodded. “We had everybody over for dinner Monday night. Boy, was that fun!”
“Well you know you can count on us, and let your other friends know, too. Carter’s going to take up a lot of time. If Bucky needs a break, have him stay with us, you know we’d love to have him. If you and Tessa need a break, let us and other people help. Let the people here at the shop and at the other place know. Somebody else has been through this and can tell you stuff.”
“I never thought about that, but you’re right. One of my mechanics over at the Honda place lost his mother last year to breast cancer.” He grimaced as he thought about it.
“That’s supposed to be a whole lot tougher than leukemia. The odds are a lot better for Carter, so don’t get too glum,” I told him.
He nodded again. “That it?”
“Yeah, pretty much. I have to head home now and let Marilyn know. When does Carter start his treatment?”
“Friday morning, and then twice a week for six weeks. Come on over to the house on Sunday.”
“Sure. Have Tessa call Marilyn and set it up.”
I stood up and let myself out and went home, to tell Marilyn the news. She agreed with me that it seemed like everything that could be done was being done.
My own experience with cancer was limited, but not reassuring. The Buckman family simply doesn’t get cancer or heart disease or diabetes or any of the other biggies. For us, I think, it’s worse. We all get strokes and Alzheimers. I wondered how my ‘recycling’ had been handled — heart attack or stroke? If it was a heart attack, it was the first!
Marilyn’s family was riddled with cancer. Both Harriet and Big Bob would die from it, and her baby brother Michael would get it several times before dying from it. Harriet had been too far gone by the time she was diagnosed to even receive treatment, but I remembered the hell that Big Bob and Michael went through. Chemotherapy had been hell on Earth for the two men, with all the weight loss, nausea, vomiting, and hair loss you learn about.
I hoped like hell that it would be easier on little Carter, but I seriously doubted that would happen.
1993 rolled on the way it had before, with no real differences from what I remembered. Would I have known differently? Back on the first go I never really noticed some of what was happening, because it didn’t mean anything to me at the time. The bombing of the World Trade Center in New York took on a whole new meaning when I considered what would happen in 2001. Pentium computers came out, with an amazing increase in power and speed over the old 486 models. We promptly replaced the stuff at the office out of my own pocket, not wanting to wait another five years for the government to get around to it. Around the world it seemed like the planet was going to hell in a handbasket, just like before.
Congress-wise, we spent most of 1993 working on the upcoming Contract with America with the Heritage Foundation. I was spending at least one, if not two, days a week over there reviewing progress on all ten items. Like Marty had foreseen, every lobbyist in town was sticking his nose in on things, ‘consulting’ about how to ‘improve’ our legislation. The budget and entitlement reform bills especially promised to be clusterfucks of improvements! It had to be done, but it was like a sausage factory — you really don’t want to see what goes in!
Carter’s chemo proved to be every bit as awful as could be foreseen. That poor little boy spent his ninth birthday puking his guts out after a session of chemo. By then he couldn’t keep hardly any food down, and had lost all his hair. He would puke and cry, puke and cry, but he was a fighter, that’s for sure.
Sometimes it would get too much for his older brother, and we would take him for a weekend. Bucky was a good kid, but it could be incredibly stressful. All of a sudden, Carter became the focus of the whole family. If Bucky wanted to go somewhere or do something, it might not happen, or it might be cancelled, depending on Carter’s condition. It can make a person resentful. Bucky was a good kid, and helped a lot, but it was trying on him. He wasn’t crazy like my brother, but it’s only human to get angry about the attention. He tried to keep it from showing, and would stay with us occasionally to let off some steam by riding with Charlie around the property.
At the end of the six weeks he was off chemotherapy, but would be monitored by weekly visits to his oncologist at Johns Hopkins. A week later, when Carter began feeling better, and could start eating again, Marilyn and I packed the bunch of them into the G-IV and sent them off to Hougomont for a week.