One.5 - If a Body Catch a Body

My father is dying. He called from his home out west. That place he ran to after leaving our family; missing the Gold Rush by a mere 120-years. He said he’d had a cold that he couldn’t rid of. He couldn’t shake this cough. He smokes so what’s so impossible or crazy about a cough?

The doctor told him—Cancer. Lung cancer. Jesus, who in their lives has not heard that word and then felt like they’ve been hit in the gut by a goddamn gorilla or something? The word itself, “cancer” is a disease ridden word. Speaking it almost makes you ill, which is why we have the strange habit of whispering it.

“Did you hear?” And the whispering of, “cancer.” As if whispering it lessens our own chances of getting it. But that’s how powerful this one word is.

My father called me. He’s sounded distant as if we were talking into tin cans with a string between them. It’s a dead echo. His voice sounds contaminated by a lifetime of Almosts that can’t bear to be repeated. He says “cancer,” and my mind wanders off into some mental wilderness where, without a compass or any Boy Scout badges, I’m quickly lost. Moss grows on the north side of a tree—what the hell does that mean? And moss makes me think of cancer; some green, spongy crap that grows on things until it takes over completely. Finally, as I stumble out from my mental wilderness, I hear my dad say something about one lung. That a person can live with one lung. Take out the bad one and leave in the good one. One lung? I can’t even imagine that. Your breathing would be all lopsided. It’s too strange to think about. Can you limp with one lung?

We talk about some other things that we really have no business talking about. He’s got cancer and we’re chit-chatting about The Catcher in the Rye. Really, this is what people do? And I think, ‘Yeah, it’s exactly what we do because we’re all crazy as hell and we’re all afraid of this word and what it means.’ I could call my mother and tell her that I’m seriously considering suicide and before I know what the hell is going on she’d be asking me if I’ve tried those glazed donuts from Kwik Trip. We’re all crazy that way. Especially when it comes to dying. We have funerals and as soon as they’re over we descend to the basement of churches and eat ham sandwiches and Jell-O.

My father and I finally say an awkward goodbye. From his tin can he promises to call as soon as finds out more information. The string gets cut and it’s a slow dying silence that fills me from the inside out and falls heavily over my apartment. I wander aimlessly, picking things up, putting them back down someplace else as if I’m unconsciously redecorating. Finally, I walk over the bookshelf and scan the tattered titles before I find it. The Catcher in the Rye. I sit down in my favorite chair and start reading. It’s my favorite because it’s so wide that I can get in the fetal position. I’m reading, I’m hoping, I’m wishing and I’m thinking that I’m on the edge of some crazy cliff in this giant field of rye but knowing the whole damn time that I’ll never be able to catch and rescue that dying man on the other end of that tin can.