Terminal (9 page)

I lifted the lid and the pistols stared back at me in the moonlight, whispering of a means to an end. Robbery. Suicide. Peace. Whatever I wanted, they were more than happy to provide it. They were shiny, happy things, full of promise and release.

Still considering my options, I put the lid back on the box and carried it over to my toolshed. I popped the combination lock and stepped inside, shutting the wooden door behind me. I flicked on the overhead light and a terrified mouse scampered in one of the dark corners. One of my mom’s boyfriends had once given me an Old Milwaukee barroom mirror, and I still had it, hanging on the wall next to my tool bench. I opened the box, pulled out one of the .357s, and lifted it up, staring at my reflection in the mirror.

I placed the cold barrel to my temple. The gun looked big— bigger than on TV. Then I opened my mouth and put it inside, pressing it against the back of my throat, tasting the metallic tang of oil. I gagged. No. There was no way I could do that. No way I could ever pull the trigger and do myself.

Still watching my reflection, I pulled the gun back out and pointed it at the mirror.

“This is a stickup, motherfucker! Put the money in the goddamned bag and nobody gets hurt!”

I smiled. That was a lot easier and a lot better.

I repeated the words again. And again. They became a mantra and I practiced till they were perfect.

Still smiling, I locked up the shed and put the guns back under the seat in the truck. There were a few more things I had to do— just to make sure this was the road I wanted to take. But the words in the mirror stayed in my head. I slipped into the trailer, and lay down next to Michelle.

I had no trouble sleeping after that.

The next morning was Sunday. On Sunday, God may have rested, but I was still dying, and trust me, that was a very fucked-up thing to remember upon waking. I lay there in the bed, disoriented, aware of nothing but the sound of my cells turning bad and ganging up on me. I imagined that I could hear them, scurrying like ants through my body. At least I wasn’t puking— yet. I fumbled on the nightstand for my cigarettes, lit one up, and tried to force the thought from my mind.

I thought about anything else I could, anything that didn’t involve dying. The time Michelle and I played hooky from school and went down to the Baltimore-Washington airport to watch the planes from the observatory. How beautiful she looked on our wedding day. When we moved into the trailer and Michelle and Sherm got into an argument because Sherm scratched the dining room table while he was unloading it, and how John and I laughed when she shut him down with just a look. The day she came home from the doctor and told me that he’d confirmed the home test, and she was indeed pregnant. T. J. being born, and when I first saw him, I thought there was something horribly wrong because his head was cone-shaped. The relief I felt when the doctor explained that it was normal. The first Christmas that T. J. actually opened his own presents, and got excited over them. When John and Sherm and I took him fishing off the dam at Three Mile Island, and how we hadn’t caught any fish but T. J. came home with a stringer full of new curse words. T. J.’s first day at day care, and how he clung and cried and screamed not to go— and how happy and smiling he was when the day was over and he told us how much fun he had.

The first time he said, “I love you, Daddy.” That one, that memory, kept the thoughts of dying out of my head the longest. But it also brought them crashing back in the hardest.

I rolled over onto Michelle’s pillow and breathed in the aroma that she’d left behind. I could still smell her, but not as strongly as I would have been able to a few months before. That realization brought it all back again and soon, her pillow was wet, as was my face.

Eventually, the sounds of cartoons drifted in from the living room, and I heard the hiss of bacon sizzling in the frying pan. I couldn’t smell it no matter how hard I tried. I blew my nose, clearing out the bloody snot, and tried again, but I still couldn’t smell it. I stayed in bed, smoking the cigarette down to the filter and feeling depressed.

At the moment, the best thing in the world I could imagine was to pull the sheets and comforter up over my head, curl into the fetal position, and just lie there, drifting in and out of consciousness until the cancer finally did me in— hopefully while I was sound asleep. I was never one of these people that believed in that chronic depression bullshit, never bought into the psychobabble and self-help books and feel-good pop psychology of people like Dr. Phil and Oprah. Michelle thought that Dr. Phil and Oprah both walked on water and shit gold bricks. I thought they were both assholes. I mean, if the two of them were so goddamn good at dispensing advice on how to control your life, then why couldn’t the fat fucks control their calorie intake? They were phonies— rich people who made their money telling others how to fix their lives, while their own lives were a fucking mess. I’d never taken Prozac, Paxil, or any of the other antidepressants that, according to the disclaimer on the commercials, had common side effects like bleeding from the eyes, fatal nose warts, and spontaneous human combustion. It was all bullshit; just mass-produced medication for phony diseases that existed simply to make the drug companies richer, and I wasn’t buying into it.

Listen up. Are you or a loved one depressed? Well, now there’s good news. Here’s Tommy O’Brien’s plan to cure yourself: Shut the fuck up. That’s all. Shut the fuck up and get on with it. Life’s a bitch, then you die. It’s that simple. Depressed? Shut up and get the fuck over it. Move to fucking Calcutta or Baghdad or Compton, then come back and tell me how bad you have it.

But I was depressed. Depressed and angry. It wasn’t fair. Why should I have to die now? Why did it have to be me? I was too frigging young for this to be happening. But it was, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Part of me wanted to lie there in bed and another part of me wanted to run through the streets, screaming “Fuck you!” to God and the tobacco companies and the foundry and my parents and the government and our president and the rich and this fucking town and everybody in it. I wanted to rage, to let my anger spill out of me. I wanted to smash things, break stuff— just destroy everything in sight and burn it all to the fucking ground and laugh amidst the ashes.

But I didn’t do any of that. I didn’t run into the street. Instead, as the nausea hit, I made the now-familiar morning run from the bed to the bathroom, and I puked. Then I flicked on the exhaust fan so Michelle wouldn’t hear me, puked some more, showered, and puked again. I brushed my teeth and winced. My gums were tender and they started to bleed. The mouthwash burned them too, and I squinted my eyes shut and rode out the pain. After rinsing my mouth and getting dressed, I lit up another smoke and walked down the hall to join my family.

T. J. was sprawled out on the floor again, still wearing his pajamas and picking at a half-soggy bowl of Cheerios with blueberries floating in milk. His eyes never left the screen. It looked like he’d gotten some sun during our visit to the park the day before. Michelle did too. She cracked two eggs and dropped them into the pan. They’d gotten some sun, but I was still as pale as the egg whites.

“Morning, babe.” She pecked my cheek as I leaned into her from behind, smelling her hair and giving her a squeeze.

“Good morning.” I did my best to sound happy and awake. “How’d you sleep?”

“Like a rock,” she purred. “Especially after— well, you know. How about you?”

“Okay, I guess.” I poured myself a mug of coffee. “You guys are up early.”

“Yeah, I promised my mom that we’d go to church with her. She’s been bitching that T. J. and I haven’t been there with her in a few weeks. I think she just likes to show us off to her friends. You want to go along with us?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so, hon. Church gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“You sure it’s not just that you don’t want to spend time with your mother-in-law?”

“Well yeah, now that you mention it. Your mom gives me the heebie-jeebies too.”

“Tommy!”

Laughing, she smacked my ass with the greasy spatula. I yelped in surprise.

“You take that back, Mr. O’Brien.”

“What are the heebie-jeebies?” T. J. piped up.

“It’s a present your grandma gave me,” I told him, and Michelle turned away, snickering. “What ya’ watching, little man?”

“Justice League Adventures. It’s my new favorite cartoon on Sundays.”

“And who’s that big green guy? The Hulk?”

“No, Daddy, that’s Jonn Jonzz, the Martian Manhunter. He’s getting ready to fight Vandal Savage but . . .”

I’d known that, of course. I’d been raised on Marvel and DC. Successfully getting him off the subject of his grandmother’s effect on me, I tuned him out, nodding in the appropriate places and expressing dismay over the character’s plight when required. All the while, I searched for the aspirin. I found them, washed four down with my coffee, and resurfaced for air just as T. J. was finishing up.

“. . . can outrace Superman because Flash is the fastest man on Earth!”

“Cool!” I responded.

Michelle was staring at me. The bacon was draining on a paper-towel-covered plate. The eggs looked just about done.

“What?” I asked.

“How many aspirin did you just take?”

I shrugged.

“I don’t know. Why?”

“How many?”

“Four.”

“Will you please get that prescription filled today? I mean it, Tommy. This is getting ridiculous.”

“It’s Sunday, Michelle. The pharmacy ain’t open on Sunday.”

“Yes it is, and you know it is too. You look like shit, Tommy. Maybe you need to get a second opinion while you’re at it. Whatever you’ve got, it sure as hell isn’t getting any better.”

That’s because it’s growing, I thought. Growing at an alarming rate. In fact, Michelle babe, I’m afraid it’s terminal. And soon, it will be later my niggaz and peace out!

“Okay, okay.” I held up my hands in defeated surrender. “I’ll go get the prescription filled today. This morning in fact.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Good.” She kissed me on the cheek, gave my hand a squeeze, and flipped the eggs onto a plate. “Now come eat.”

I looked at the eggs and bacon and wanted to puke again. I felt the bile rise in my throat, burning me, but I fought the urge down and smiled.

“Looks great.” I licked my lips and sat down at the table.

I almost told her the truth then. The words were on the tip of my tongue. I swallowed them down again, and the taste was bitter.

“We’ve got to get ready for church,” Michelle said. “Come on, T. J., turn that thing off and go get dressed.”

“Five more minutes,” he negotiated. “It’s almost over.”

“Now,” Michelle countered, “or no ice cream after church. Besides, you’ve seen this one already.”

“I never get to do anything . . .”

Begrudgingly, he stomped down the hall to his bedroom. Michelle followed along behind him, arguing. As soon as they were gone, I got up, dumped the food into the garbage can, covered it up with paper towels, then changed bags. By the time they were finished, I was washing the dishes and Michelle was none the wiser.

T. J. was wearing his tan Osh Kosh and fraying old sweater, and it reminded me of my nightmare. I shivered, despite the scalding dishwater, as I recalled those cancerous tentacles wrapping around him.

“How was breakfast?” Michelle asked.

“Great.” I smiled. “Bacon was crispy, just the way I like it. Eggs were great too. Thanks for making it.”

“Must have been. You wolfed it down quick enough.”

I nodded and forced another smile.

“Okay, we’ve got to jet. We’re late and Mom’s going to have a fit. Will you be here when we get back?”

“I promised John I’d help him change his timing belt, then I’ll pick up the prescription. Should be home by two or three at the latest.”

“Okay. Sounds good.” She gave me another quick kiss, and I hugged T. J. and told him to have fun. Michelle made a fuss about me getting soapsuds all over his clothes, and T. J. giggled. Then she ushered him out the door.

I stood at the kitchen window and watched them walk down the sidewalk together, hand in hand.

I cried. I cried for a long time and used a dishrag to dry both my hands and my face.

Then it was off to the bathroom again for another battle with my stomach. This time, it came out both ends, and there was blood in both my vomit and my stool. After about twenty minutes, when I felt like an empty, dried-out bag of skin, I stood up and got on with the business of dying.

* * *

The truck didn’t want to start right away. It felt about as healthy as I did. When I finally got it running, I stopped at the big supermarket on Carlisle Street with the pharmacy inside. I had lied to Michelle about my plans. There was nothing wrong with John’s timing belt, and in fact, I didn’t even plan on seeing him all day. The last thing I wanted to do was spend the day hanging out with John and Sherm. There were other things that I needed to take care of instead.

I had a To Do list for the day . . .

I walked through the produce section, past the paperback rack and the aisles for bottled soda, potato chips, and pet supplies before I found the pharmacy. There was a big guy behind the counter, dressed in a white lab coat with a name tag that said CASEY. He looked more like a club bouncer than a pharmacist.

“Good morning.” He grinned. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a prescription that I need to get filled. Wasn’t sure you’d be open today, to tell you the truth.”

“Yep, we’re open on Sundays. That’s why I’m stuck here today instead of at home watching the game. People get sick seven days a week. Let’s take a look at your prescription.”

I handed him the crumpled-up piece of white paper. He unfolded it, smoothed out the wrinkles, and carefully deciphered the doctor’s handwriting.

“Hmmm, eighty milligrams of OxyContin, to be taken twice daily. Not a problem. Should be about fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“Okay.”

“I just need to see your insurance card, and I’ll also need your date of birth.”

I looked down at my feet. “I don’t have any insurance.”

“That’s okay. Lots of people in this town don’t have health insurance.” His voice was still friendly, but his smile had drooped a few notches. “Will you be paying by cash, credit, or debit card?”

“Um, none of them right now,” I said. “I was just wondering if you could tell me how much it was going to be. That way I know how much to set aside for next week.”

He paused, studying me. “Well, eighty milligrams per day, taken twice daily— that comes to six hundred and fifty dollars per month.”

My mouth dropped open.

“Jesus fucking Christ! Six hundred and fifty bucks? You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“You’re lucky, pal. Just be glad that your doctor didn’t put you on one hundred and sixty milligrams. That would be even more expensive. On the street, they call OxyContin the poor man’s heroin, but there’s nothing poor about it.”

“What do you mean, ‘on the street’?”

“OxyContin, if taken properly, is released slowly into the body. It’s a time-release capsule. But drug addicts circumvent the time release by crushing the pills and inhaling or injecting the powder. It gives them a heroin-like high, supposedly. The cops blame it for part of the rise in crime across the country here lately. Between that, and the fact that there’s no generic version, the prices stay high.”

“Well, this is bullshit, man. I can’t afford this.”

His smile completely vanished.

“Look, buddy, I don’t set the prices. If that’s not affordable for you, then talk to your doctor. There are generic versions of other painkillers that he can prescribe.”

“How cheap would they be?”

He shrugged. “Anywhere from three to five hundred a month.”