The Year of Living Nervously

I’m half asleep when my parents walk into the room, but they do not turn on the light. My parents hardly ever come into my room, alone or together. They stand there for a moment, silhouetted in the doorway. They both sit down on my bed, which is very uncomfortable for all three of us because I’m sleeping on a Castro convertible, one of those narrow pullout sofa-type beds popularized in the ’50s and ’60s by a television commercial featuring a pixie-like eight-year-old girl in a nightgown who effortlessly flings open the contraption, a feat that caused permanent disc and hernia damage to scores of burly grown men who gallantly attempted the same act at home.

My mind races. This is it, I say to myself, my parents are getting a divorce, and I try to think who I want to live with. My father is lenient and easy-going but my mother is a terrific cook. My father never makes me wear a sweater or gloves or, God forbid, the dreaded rubbers (a.k.a. galoshes) when it rains, but my mother let it slip that our house and two cars are registered in her name, a shrewd business decision made by my dad in case of lawsuits and the like but a decision that, nonetheless, gives my mother the edge.

I’m trying to make a choice and let down one of my parents easily when my mother’s voice cuts through with, Your brother has leukemia. I know right away they’re talking about my almost two-year-old brother because of his low-grade fever that never seems to go away. The fever that, it turns out, a host of doctors initially misdiagnosed; instead of investigating they placated my parents with a wave and a prescription.

I know I’m supposed to react, to say something, and I think of those shows I watch on TV like Marcus Welby M.D. where Doctor Welby tells a patient they have some terrible disease and they scream Nooo! Nooo! and carry on, but all I can think about is the past week’s episode where Doctor Welby told Cloris Leachman that her teenage daughter had a venereal disease and didn’t know who gave it to her and there was this dramatic music and a close-up of Cloris’s face and she screamed Nooo! Nooo! But this isn’t the same kind of thing at all.

Do you have any questions? my parents ask me, and I don’t, which isn’t true, but I don’t want to talk, not right then. You can cry if you want to, says my mother, but that’s something I really don’t feel like doing, and my mother feels my cheek in the dark to double-check. And then they leave me alone on my Castro convertible.

I’m in gym class the next day, three weeks into ninth grade, and we’re playing softball and I’m in my usual position which is far out in right field. So far out in fact, that there isn’t any possibility that I will ever come in contact with the ball.

I think about what my parents have told me the night before and I start to get into this metaphysical thing in my head about life and how short it is and that nothing really matters much and that everything I’ve been worrying about like being a geek and not having any friends means squat compared to my brother having leukemia, so I lie down on the cement because hey, I’m so far out in right field, who’s going to care? I close my eyes, careful not to stare directly into the sun so I won’t go blind, when the shadow of Mr. Ratner appears above me, like God has decided to show himself in the form of an angry gym teacher.

Just what do you think you’re doing? he asks, his face all flushed.

Getting a tan, I answer, and the minute I say it, the moment those words fly out of my mouth, I know I’ve made a big mistake.

Get up! he commands, and I stand, and he leans into me. Are you retarded? he asks.

No, I’m not retarded, I say.

Don’t you have any school pride? he asks. Don’t you have any school spirit? Don’t you care about your team? Don’t you know that they’re depending on you?

Depending on me? I think. Oh, so that’s why my team put me so far out in right field I’m practically off school grounds, which is interesting because we’re always lectured by the principal that we should never, ever step off school grounds and here I am, so far off school grounds I’m practically in another school zone.

Would you rather spend gym class in the library, is that what you’d like? Have me write you a pass to sit in the library? Mr. Rather snarls.

Now this is clearly a trick question because of course I’d rather spend gym class in the library, but I know that I can’t tell Mr. Ratner that, so I look at him and think what an idiot he is and how he will spend countless gym class hours yelling about team spirit. A few years later Mr. Ratner will develop a debilitating genetic disease and die before his fortieth birthday, but, of course, I do not know this at the time, so I bow my head like I’m all sorry and stuff and mumble, No.

Let’s play ball! bellows Mr. Ratner, satisfied that I have come to my senses.

My freshman year begins and so do my brother’s cancer treatments at one of the largest hospitals in the city. His prognosis is not good, but I do not know how bad it really is at the time. My brother’s pediatrician had referred my parents to a specialist for what they assumed was another in a series of frustrating appointments to solve the mystery of his stubborn fever. They were ushered into a large conference room with several doctors, all in white coats, sitting around a rectangle conference table. There they were given
the news.

We have a program for children with this disease.

We put them in remission, which lasts about a year.

We give them radiation and chemotherapy.

Your son will be dead in two years.

One of the doctors attempts to comfort my mother.

You’re still young enough to have another child, he says.

My mother is forty-four.

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