“Yo man,” Sherm pointed, “your nose is bleeding and shit.”
“Fuck! Okay, I’ll be right back. Don’t either of you drink my beer.”
I shoved a soggy napkin up my nostrils to stop the flow, got up from the table, and weaved toward the bathroom. Juan caught me, wrapped an arm around my shoulder and slurred out a drunken half-English, half-Spanish apology. I told him that it was okay, peeled him off of me, and waited in line for the bathroom. Eventually, the door banged open and a fat, drunken redneck in a beer-stained flannel shirt stumbled out. I slipped inside, carefully avoiding stepping in the puddle of piss on the floor.
I stared into the mirror and what I saw didn’t look good.
“Son of a bitch…”
I ran some paper towels under the cold water, then wadded them up and held them to my nose. I leaned my head backward, giving me an unobstructed view of the dingy bathroom ceiling. Somebody had managed to scrawl graffiti up there, between the dim lightbulb and the spiderwebs; SUICIDE RUN KICKS ASS and NUKE GUMBY and that popular old standby EVELYN IS A HO, along with the phone number where you could supposedly reach her for a good time.
After a few minutes, the bleeding slowed to a trickle and stopped completely. I cleaned my face and washed my hands, then wiped the droplets of blood from the sink and garbage can. Considering the bathroom’s filthy condition, it was useless, but I did it anyway. The nausea hit me with no warning just as I was finishing. I bolted for the stall and the hot bile erupted, spraying through my fingers, spattering the walls and running down my forearms. Something hard pushed itself up through my throat. I fell to my knees, and the stench from the toilet made me puke more. The bowl was caked with brown and yellow stains and I noticed that I was kneeling in something wet. But what I threw up was even grosser. Unless I was mistaken, I’d just thrown up my own feces. It seemed impossible, but that’s what it looked and smelled like.
Just the sight of it—the very thought—made me puke a third time. There was enough force this time to cause a splash-back effect, and brackish toilet water hit my face, dripping from my nose and eyes and cheeks. I stayed there, heaving and crying and gagging, until there was absolutely nothing left to come up. My stomach cramped and my throat burned, like I’d drunk battery acid. I knew it would only get worse in the days to come. This was only a taste of what the cancer had in store for me.
For the second time since entering the bathroom, I cleaned myself up as best I could. My mouth tasted like shit (literally) and I lit up a smoke to correct the problem. Then I returned to the table. John and Sherm had ordered another round while I was gone, and now I had two beers in front of me. The cold soothed my throat. I made quick work of them both, and signaled Angie for another. She arched her eyebrow in concern, but took the order.
“Coke?” Sherm asked.
“No, another beer.”
“No man, I mean your nose. You been doing coke?”
“I don’t fuck with that shit. You know that. All I do is weed.”
“You sick then?”
“Yeah. I’ve been a little under the weather. Look, it was just a nosebleed, Sherm. It’s no big deal.”
“You should get that shit checked out, dog,” John mused. “I once heard about a guy that bled to death from a nosebleed.”
“That’s just an urban legend.”
“What does that mean?”
“An urban legend? You know, like alligators in the sewer and the hook-handed killer at lover’s lane. Shit like that.”
John looked surprised.
“You mean they made that guy with the hook up?”
I sighed and took a sip of his beer.
“Hey, that one’s mine!”
“Thanks.”
Sherm watched two girls wiggling next to the jukebox. “I still say it’s coke.”
“It’s not coke, dammit!”
“Yo, tell that bullshit to someone else, Tommy.”
“Let’s drop it, okay?”
“Shouldn’t be fucking with that white powder, man. It’ll make your dick shrink.”
“I said it’s not coke, you asshole!”
“Well what is it then?”
“It’s not coke. It’s fucking cancer!”
John choked on his beer. Sherm stared at the girl’s ass a moment longer, then slowly turned to me.
“Say what?”
I lowered my voice. “I’ve got cancer. There, you satisfied now?”
“That shit ain’t funny, Tommy.”
“Do I look like I’m joking, Sherm?”
The words hung in the air, but I was happy to be free of them. I felt lighter somehow. Lighter, but guiltier too. I’d lied to Michelle about it, only to turn around and tell my best friends. In the background, somebody was playing another somebody-done-somebody-wrong song on the jukebox. John sat speechless, looking like someone had punched him in the stomach. Sherm fumbled with his Zippo, lit another cigarette, snapped the lighter shut a little too loudly, and shook his head.
“You’ve got cancer?” he repeated. “Since when?”
“I found out yesterday.”
John set his beer down and shifted away from Sherm’s cigarette smoke.
“Is it from smoking? I bet it is.”
“Maybe. Who knows? I don’t know what it’s from, John. But it’s not good.”
“So what are they going to do?”
“Nothing they can do, according to the doctor.”
Sherm twitched in his seat. “You mean the shit is terminal?”
I nodded.
“That’s fucked,” Sherm whistled, summing everything up. “That is so fucking fucked, then fucked some more.”
John’s mouth worked but no words came out. Angie brought six more beers (in addition to my order, Juan and his friends had repaid the round) and we sipped them quietly. Somebody scratched on the eight ball. His drunken curses and the jeers of those around the table sounded extremely loud. A girl announced to the bar that she was horny. Over on the jukebox, the song had changed again. John Mellencamp was singing that he was born in a small town and that he’d die in a small town. I knew exactly how he felt.
“B—but you can’t have cancer, Tommy,” John finally stammered. “You’re only twenty-five!
Cancer’s what old people get!”
I leaned forward, lowering my voice. “I’ve got it, John. It’s not just old people, man. Babies get cancer, little kids—and guys our age.”
“I bet it was from smoking. It’s got to be, right?”
Sherm exhaled a cloud of smoke toward him and looked at his dwindling cigarette.
“Not to change the subject, but did you guys hear that the state legislature wants to outlaw smoking in bars?”
“Yeah”—I nodded—“but that’s one thing I’m glad I won’t be around to see.”
“Word.” He snuffed the cigarette out in the ashtray. “So how long did they give you? What are we looking at? A year?”
“One month, probably. No more than three.”
“Only a month? Shit…”
“Yeah.”
“Did—did you tell Michelle and T.J. yet?” John asked.
I shook my head. “Can’t, dog. I don’t know how to tell them. T.J.’s just a little kid. He won’t understand this shit. And Michelle…”
The lump in my throat cut off the rest. I drank some beer, washing the emotion down, and leaned back in the chair.
“I can’t tell Michelle. There’s just no way.”
“You’ve got to tell her!”
“Well, when I get home tonight and tell her about losing my job—she’s already stressed, you know? We’re fucking broke and the bill collectors are on our asses again. They keep calling and calling. She doesn’t need this shit on top of everything else.”
“Man, fuck the bill collectors!”
“She doesn’t need the stress right now, John.”
“But you’re going to tell her eventually, right? You’re gonna have to.”