The Other Side

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So I’m nineteen years old and I have cancer and I may not see twenty and even if I do there’s no way to know if I’ll make it to twenty-one.

 

It really sucks, as Brian would say, and as he probably does say when he doesn’t think I can hear.

 

I was diagnosed when I was nineteen. I had started my second year of college and it was going pretty well—after the shit with Stockwell and getting fired from the internship at Vanguard had finally settled down and Brian got his job back and I was reinstated.

 

Weird, isn’t it? I mean, at the time getting kicked out of school for six months and Brian being out of work and broke seemed like it was about a crappy as it could get—aside from the fact that we were together again and solid—that was fucking great, but then the other shoe kind of dropped and here we are in deep shit.

 

You know that old quote from John Lennon? The one about how life is what happens when you’re making other plans?

 

Well, that’s pretty much what happened and it pretty much bites.

 

It started with this kind of thing on my wrist. I thought it was nothing, just a strain or something and it didn’t even hurt or anything, but it was there and it didn’t go away and then it started getting bigger. I’d gotten this cough, too, one that I couldn’t shake, but I’m always getting colds so that was no big shit.

 

So Brian made me go to the fucking doctor when he noticed the lump and the doctor made me go to another doctor for more tests and that doctor was the one who let me know that she suspected that there might be a problem and we needed another test and that was the one—almost a month after the whole Goddamned thing started, that was the one that let us know that we had a problem.

 

I almost said that I have a problem, but Brian made it clear from day one that he wasn’t going to do let me do this alone—like I fucking wanted to, asshole—and so we had a problem.

 

My Mom assumed that she would be the one to deal with all the crap, but—fuck me—she has Molly and her new job and the condo and all of that. And she wouldn’t have been as good at this as Brian is, she’d already done her thing in hospitals after the bashing and I saw what it did to her.

 

No way that I’d let her go around that block again so the ball dropped in Brian’s court.

 

You know, I really fell shitty about that. I mean, here I am going along being this cute, smart piece of ass and Brian and I were getting along great and things were finally good and he was back to work and Vance was off his back and then this gets dumped up his ass.

 

I tried to get him to let me do this, to not take on the big brother/guard dog/caretaker role but like Michael said—you might as well try to stop Starbucks. It wasn’t like I wanted to do this alone or anything, I just really didn’t want to be a burden to Brian.

 

That sounds so fucking heroic or something, but I really felt that way. I mean, he’s had enough crap in his life; it wasn’t like he needed me to add to the pile.

 

Christ, it was like after all the shit his life was finally, finally going along OK—he had his job back and Gus is doing great, Michael had started to live his own life enough so that Brian didn’t have to keep pulling his nuts out of the fire every two minutes, Debbie was off his case, his mother, well, OK, she was still a fucking nightmare, but she was off his case after he told her to fuck off and we were, we were just so Goddamned good together.

 

We were solid and happy and knew that what we had might not be the stuff of fiftieth anniversaries or anything, but it was still pretty frigging good. He even almost came out and said that he loved me once. He did, honest to shit and I know he thinks of me as his boyfriend and I still love him.

 

You know, that’s another thing.

 

OK, I’d been saying since like the minute that I met him that I was in love with him and I guess that I thought that I was, but when I look back at that—yeah, I know, all of two years—I know that I had this big fat crush on him and that I’d built him up to my idea of a perfect gay guy and what I wanted to be someday when I grew up. He was—is—smart and strong and handsome and tough and talented and confident and everyone wants him.

 

But then I started to clue into he fact that, yes, he was all those things. Mostly.

 

It’s not even all that hard to figure out. When you spend the first fifteen or so years of your life with people telling you what a worthless piece of shit you are, that no one wants you, that they were waiting for the day you’d walk out and not bother coming back and then they back up the emotional and mental abuse with beatings—well, you get the picture.

 

It was the confidence that was the sham and he’s really one of the most frightened people I know. It’s a big cover up because he’s scared to death that someone will figure out that he thinks that it’s just a matter of time before someone discovers that it’s all an act and the funny thing is that he knows that I have but he still lets me hang around.

 

Somehow he’s OK with me knowing.

 

That was when I understood that he loves me.

 

Well anyway.

 

I was talking about how I have this fucking cancer and how it sucks and how I didn’t want to dump it on Brian until I realized that not only was he the only person I thought I could stand to have around me now, but that he wanted to help.

 

I mean he really wanted to help. He wanted to be there for me and to run interference with the fucking insurance companies and the hospital and the family He wanted to make sure that I was warm enough and that I ate—when I could and he wanted to be the one to hold me at night and when I was puking ten times a day.

 

When his Dad was dying from cancer Brian didn’t give two shits.

 

No, that’s not true. He cared a lot, he just couldn’t deal with it, neither of them could, so he stayed away until he got the call that it was all over.

 

With me he still may not be able to deal, but he’s going to give it a Hell of a shot.

 

Fuck me—that’s wrong. Whether he’s able to deal or not, he’s going to do it. He’s decided that we’re in this together, or as together it can be when only one of us is sick anyway, and come Hell or high water, he’ll do it.

 

You know? I guess that I sort of thought in the back of my mind, that if something like this happened it would be the obvious, that Brian would end up with AIDS, but like John Lennon said…

 

So I’ve got this fucking cancer inside of me and everyone is trying to tell me that they’ll do everything they can to take care of it, that the chemo and the radiation and the surgery and all that shit will be a bitch but the implication is that at the end of everything I’ll be just as right as rain and a poster boy for the miracle of modern medicine.

 

Right.

 

I’m sick; I’m not a fuckin idiot.

 

I can surf the net as well as anyone can and I know the survival rate for what I have and it’s pretty crappy. I know that there’s a good chance that I’m going to lose and I’m scared out of my mind.

 

I’m nineteen years old and I don’t want to die.

 

That’s a simple sentence, but it sums the whole thing up.

 

The first thing that happens after you hear that you have cancer is simple—you’re fucking scared out of your mind. I mean waking up in the middle if the night sweating and thinking that you should stay away from people in case they catch it from you or just not knowing how to deal with the reactions you get from everyone. That lasts a while, week or two or three and then—well I can only speak for myself, you sort of dig in and say ‘OK, this is what we’re dealing with. Let’s do it.’

 

So we ended up in New York at Sloan Kettering and it’s like being in a factory—now don’t get me wrong, everyone is professional and good at what they do and even nice, but you know that there are literally thousands of people here, from infants up to geriatrics, and they’re all fighting some form of cancer and some will live and some won’t and then when they’re gone they’ll be replaced by someone else with the same thing and the new people will either live or die and they’ll be replaced—you get the picture.

 

I’m a cog here, the blond kid in treatment room seven down the hall and on the right. I’m the one with the gay lover who’s always around clearing the way for me so that I can just concentrate on what’s happening to me.

 

That’s OK. I don’t care about that. I’m OK with being a cog. It makes it easier in a way, less personal, easier to detach yourself from what’s happening.

 

It hurt when they put the shunt in. It’s in my chest, close to my left clavicle and it really hurt even though they used a local to kill the pain. It’s weird to know that there’s this plug there, this plastic thing that they plug me in with. It’s like this constant reminder that my life is hanging on—what?—hanging on technology, I guess.

 

The shunt doesn’t hurt any more. It’s sort of like when I got my nipple pierced. It hurt like a bitch when it first happened then it hurt a little bit while it was healing then it was just part of me.

 

That’s sort of weird when you think about it.

 

I go to chemo five days a week, three weeks on, one week off. Some days I do radiation, too. The chemo is an IV drip and they put me in this room that has two beds and usually another kid and we just lie there for like six or seven hours feeling like crap and tired and not watching whatever is playing on the TV, then we go back to the House.

 

I sleep a lot.

 

It’s OK there, where we’re staying and I know it saves a huge amount of money, but sometimes I wish I could go somewhere that isn’t about being sick.

 

I think that Brian knows this, at least somewhat, so he’s been trying to get me out to see things in the city on days when I don’t have to be in the hospital. We’ve seen a couple pf plays that I’d mentioned sounded good and he’s taken me to a few museums.

 

I feel strange about all of that, though. I mean, I'm in this fucking wheelchair and I have no Goddamned hair and I look like shit and I feel worse and he’s trying to show me things hat a year ago I’d be thrilled to see and now I’m just trying to keep my fucking eyes open.

 

I hate that it’s like the kid’s dying, so lets get all this shit in under the wire. Get the kid to the museums and the shows and the parks and even a frigging ride in a horse drawn carriage through Central Park one day.

 

I want to just be able to go see stuff without it being like it’s checked off some master list somewhere.

 

I hate that people stare at me.

 

I used to like that, when I was a cute, hot twink and the other half of ‘Brian and…’ Then I didn’t feel like a freak. I hate people feeling fucking sorry for me.

 

I hate that Brian is caught up in this shit when he should be working or going to the clubs or with someone who isn’t a fucking invalid.

 

I want him—happy. I know how lame ass that is, but it’s what I want. I want him with someone he can enjoy and go out to dinner with and then maybe see a movie then come home and make love.

 

I hate that I feel like crap all the time and that my hair has fallen out and I’m a fucking skeleton.

 

I just want to feel like I used to, I want to look like I used to. God, I want those things so much.

 

I hate what this is doing to my Mom.

 

I wish she could meet someone who isn’t an asshole who’ll be good to her and make her smile again like she used to when I was little. I wish I were easier for her to have as a son.

 

I hate having to use a Goddamned wheelchair. Advertise it a little more, why don’t you?

 

Purple? He got a purple wheelchair? What, Emmett picked this out? At least it isn’t painted with a frigging rainbow.

 

I hate not being in Pittsburgh with my friends and not being in school.

 

I miss just hanging out with them and doing normal things. I even miss going to the diner and bussing dishes and getting my ass pinched.

 

I hate that I’m too sick for me and Brian to fuck. Even when he tries to blow me, I can’t get it up because of all the fucking drugs and I don’t have the energy to do anything for him. I can’t even bottom because—because I can’t even take a crap without crying because it hurts so much.

 

And it’s not just the sex I miss. I miss—God, I’m such a lesbian—I miss the closeness. Brian and I pushed the beds together and sleep together, but all we do, pretty much, is sleep. I wish we could—be like we were.

 

I hate that when he goes out for a few hours to see some client Vance wants him to stroke, he has this look of relief on his face. I hate that he needs a break from me—and I know he does. I wish that I could convince him to go somewhere for a week or two so he doesn’t have to deal with all my shit for a while and I know that he won’t and I know that he’ll start to resent it all but that he’ll never leave.

 

I know he’s doing this partly because he wants to and partly out of some sort of obligation from—what? The bashing? Helping me come out? Being healthy himself? I wish he’d step back for his own good, at least once in a while. He turned down a trip Vance wanted him to go on to Santa Fe and when I found out I was really pissed. I wish that he’d do something for himself.

 

I hate being so Goddamned sick.

 

No shit.

 

They told us yesterday that the tests came back and all the crap they’re doing isn’t doing dick and that I’m now stage three. They want to up the treatments, up the chemo and the radiation but the doctors told Brian that they’re afraid that if they do it could kill me.

 

The alternative is to let me die, I guess and I don’t want to die.

 

I’m so fucking sick and I’m so fucking scared and I want to live.

 

I just don’t want to die.

 

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