ONE YEAR FROM NOW (short story)
(This short story first appeared in The Minnesota Review)
The room is small and bright like the inside of a hundred-watt light bulb and smells serious and antiseptic like a doctor’s office because that’s what it is. Medical encounters render me helpless. Like a child. Even though I’m forty years old and run my own business, I tremble when the nurse slides the frosted glass window and calls my name. She tells me to get on the scale so she can weigh me—one hundred and ninety-five pounds (Christ, my clothes are heavy)—then guides me down a hall, opens the door and drops my file in a plastic holder screwed to the wood. There’s a plain-colored plant in the corner of the room and two not-so-distinct chairs and an examination table covered with white paper that comes off a roll and covers the table for sanitary purposes and crinkles when you sit on it and is cold if you have your pants off, but I sit in one of the two chairs and look at a Popular Mechanics magazine and wonder who reads this stuff? and wait for the doctor. To prepare myself, I glance over at the table covered with white paper. It probably won’t be necessary for me to remove my pants and sit on the cold white crinkle paper because I’m just peeing too much. That’s what I tell the doctor when he comes in.
“How much is too much?”
“Fifteen to twenty times a day. Even after I go I still feel like I have to go again.”
“Open wide.”
He has me sit on the white crinkle paper after all, but with my pants on, depresses my tongue, feels my throat, looks in my ears, my eyes, up my nose, takes my pulse, my blood pressure, listens to my lungs, my heart, my cough, then has me pee in a cup and give it to the nurse who had weighed me, then feels my throat again.
“Do you know you have a lump here?”
I don’t know anything about a lump. Even when he guides my fingers to the alleged lump in my throat I can’t feel it.
“Here, press harder. Right here. Can you feel it?”
Of course I can’t feel it. I’m not a doctor. My fingers aren’t trained in the sensitive art of finding life-altering physical anomalies hiding in the darkest parts of the human anatomy.
“Is that why I’m peeing too much?”
“No.”
“What’s making me pee so much?”
“Stress maybe. Constricts the bladder. But the lump is what concerns me. We need to find out what it is.”
Two weeks from now I will have my first operation ever.
The room is small and mostly pale green like the center of pistachio Jell-O, with two chairs made of metal near the foot of my bed and no plant, green or otherwise, and one window and a television on a shelf near the ceiling in the corner of the room. Somebody has turned on Family Feud and I wonder who watches this stuff? and the room smells of betadine and bedpans like a hospital room because that’s what it is. The bandage at my throat feels tight making it difficult to breathe, but it isn’t the bandage that’s tight, it’s the swelling from the surgery making me uncomfortable and my stomach throws a solid ball of heat up into my throat and I know I’m about to vomit. The nurse sees me gagging like a cat with a hairball and puts a cold washcloth on the back of my neck and I suddenly feel better. I learn three things during my two-day stay. One, a cold wet washcloth placed on the back of your neck will often suppress the urge to vomit and two, after thyroid surgery, if you do vomit because the washcloth didn’t work, it hurts like hell, and finally, the lump they removed wasn’t benign.
“It was cancer, but we’re pretty sure we got it all. Thyroid cancer is very rare in men and usually only malignant ten percent of the time. But, as you know, there are exceptions. You’ll be all right though.”
The surgeon grabs my foot through the sheet on his way out and toggles it like a three-wood in his golf bag and I’m relieved, I think, and I visit his office a week or so later to have the staples removed and have the incision checked for infection and all looks well and he tells me that I’m lucky we found the cancer when we did before it spread to my lymph glands.
“I was peeing too much.”
“What?”
While the surgeon reads my file and ponders surgical sorts of things, I explain to him why I had visited the doctor in the first place, because I was peeing too much, but the doctor found the lump instead of finding the cause of my perpetual peeing.
“How much was too much?”
“Fifteen, twenty times a day.”
“That’s a lot. How about now?”
“No. I only pee a few times a day now. But the cancer…”
“The cancer wasn’t making you pee like that. Probably stress or something. Come back in six months and we’ll check you again. I think you’ll be fine.”
Four months from now my surgeon, due to frustration with malpractice insurance and HMOs, will leave his practice and become a consultant for McKesson Surgical Supply.
The room is small and vaguely yellow like the inside of a crème brulee, with two windows, draperies, and several plants in the corner, including one passive fern near the cushy chair and couch. I sit on the couch because of movies I’ve seen and know that the doctor always sits in the cushy chair and the patient always sits, or sometimes lies, on the couch. I choose to sit, instead of lie. The couch is cushy, made of leather, and I look at the Psychology Today magazine sitting on the small table to my right and wonder who understands this stuff? The doctor comes in and I explain the surgery, the thyroid cancer, and the lump in my throat that I hadn’t been able to feel and how the surgeon had removed it. Then I explain about my visit to the first doctor.
“I was peeing too much.”
“How much was too much?”
“Fifteen to twenty times a day.”
“Um. Thyroid cancer shouldn’t increase your urinary output.”
“The doctor said it was stress.”
“That caused the thyroid cancer?”
“No, the peeing. Even after I went to the bathroom I still felt like I had to go.”
“Go where?”
“To the bathroom.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
“Which way?”
“Like you have to pee all the time? Do you need to pee right now?”
“No. I went this morning. I’m fine.”
We talk for 59 minutes, mostly about the stress that must have been causing me to pee fifteen to twenty times a day, and my job, and my son, and my wife, and my family, both immediate and extended, and my debt, both real and imagined, my childhood, my dad, my older brother whom I hardly ever see, my hobbies which I lie about because I don’t have any, my eating habits, my age, my dreams, my fears….
“Hour’s up. That’s all for today. Is this same time next week good for you?”
I tell him it is and shake his hand and thank him and he hands me a prescription for pills to help relieve the stress and I take the prescription and shove it in my pocket and thank him again. He tells me that my hobbies are a great asset and that I should make time for them even though I have a busy schedule and then he tells me how important it is to set aside time for myself. I feel guilty over lying about my hobbies especially after he made such a big deal about them. I thank him again and secretly wish for hobbies.
“Take three of those pills every day and if you have any problems with side effects please don’t hesitate to call.”
“Yes. I will…I mean, I won’t.”
Seven months from now I will stop seeing my psychiatrist and take up nine-ball and archery.
The space is narrow and confined and somewhat dark like the inside of a cereal box but I can see blue sky directly above me and white morning clouds lolling past and over there is my green Toyota Camry sitting in the parking lot a hundred yards away. Walls of brick rise on both sides of me like I’m standing between two buildings because that’s where I am. On the pavement at my feet is a stained and wrinkled copy of the Enquirer with a photo of a two-headed frog goat boy(?) on the front page and I ponder the headline that reads “Child of Alien Parents” and wonder who writes this stuff? With my pool cue case in my left hand, my keys jangling in my right, I look over toward the parking lot, at my car sitting among so many others. Although I am still less than a one-minute walk from my Camry and a thirty-five minute drive from home, I picture my neighborhood perfectly, the Ginko tree in Ida Springer’s backyard, Burt’s audacious canary-yellow Hummer down the street, the Johnson’s brand new tan and burgundy metal tool shed and I can’t seem to bring myself to go home or move from between these buildings and for some reason my legs start to quaver and I figure it is because I have not slept in over twenty-four hours. My cell phone vibrates in my pocket and when I answer it my wife asks how I did in the nine-ball tournament.
“Third place.”
“That’s great.”
“It’s only third place.”
“But it’s the first time you won third place. What did you win?”
“Five dollars.”
“You want me to come down and meet you, Marshal?”
“Why?”
“To celebrate.”
“Third place?”
“I can meet you there.”
“Where?”
“Wherever you are. Where are you?”
“Between two buildings.”
One year from now my son will quit college and join an intentional community in Peru, my wife will leave me for a jury wrangler, claiming that I have lost my focus, I will pawn my archery equipment and keep the ticket in my wallet as a reminder that two hobbies at a time is more than I can handle, and my new girlfriend Josie will come to the smoky pool room dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, and a fringed and sequined jacket and sit in the shadows on a hard wooden stool sipping her beer and even though she knows nothing at all about nine-ball, occasionally, while I’m lining up my next shot, she will smile over at me, wink, and shoot me two thumbs up. After a few dates Josie will notice the one-inch scar at the base of my throat and I will tell her about the thyroid cancer, the surgery, and the peeing.
“How much did you go?”
“Fifteen to twenty times a day.”
“I go that much when I drink beer. Did drinking beer give you the cancer?”
“They weren’t related.”
“Who?”
“What do you mean, ‘Who?’”
“You said they weren’t related. Did you mean the doctors? I don’t understand.”
“I meant the peeing and the cancer.”
“Oh. What did the doctor say about drinking beer?”
“I don’t remember.”
For me, Josie will not be a destination, nor has she been the road less traveled. Even so, we will share many stimulating evenings discussing articles from the National Enquirer and watching Family Feud, not to mention the fun we will have building a plain wooden foyer-bench-that-doubles-as-a-storage-chest from plans Josie will come across in Popular Mechanics.
Lonnie Busch
The room is small and bright like the inside of a hundred-watt light bulb and smells serious and antiseptic like a doctor’s office because that’s what it is. Medical encounters render me helpless. Like a child. Even though I’m forty years old and run my own business, I tremble when the nurse slides the frosted glass window and calls my name. She tells me to get on the scale so she can weigh me—one hundred and ninety-five pounds (Christ, my clothes are heavy)—then guides me down a hall, opens the door and drops my file in a plastic holder screwed to the wood. There’s a plain-colored plant in the corner of the room and two not-so-distinct chairs and an examination table covered with white paper that comes off a roll and covers the table for sanitary purposes and crinkles when you sit on it and is cold if you have your pants off, but I sit in one of the two chairs and look at a Popular Mechanics magazine and wonder who reads this stuff? and wait for the doctor. To prepare myself, I glance over at the table covered with white paper. It probably won’t be necessary for me to remove my pants and sit on the cold white crinkle paper because I’m just peeing too much. That’s what I tell the doctor when he comes in.
“How much is too much?”
“Fifteen to twenty times a day. Even after I go I still feel like I have to go again.”
“Open wide.”
He has me sit on the white crinkle paper after all, but with my pants on, depresses my tongue, feels my throat, looks in my ears, my eyes, up my nose, takes my pulse, my blood pressure, listens to my lungs, my heart, my cough, then has me pee in a cup and give it to the nurse who had weighed me, then feels my throat again.
“Do you know you have a lump here?”
I don’t know anything about a lump. Even when he guides my fingers to the alleged lump in my throat I can’t feel it.
“Here, press harder. Right here. Can you feel it?”
Of course I can’t feel it. I’m not a doctor. My fingers aren’t trained in the sensitive art of finding life-altering physical anomalies hiding in the darkest parts of the human anatomy.
“Is that why I’m peeing too much?”
“No.”
“What’s making me pee so much?”
“Stress maybe. Constricts the bladder. But the lump is what concerns me. We need to find out what it is.”
Two weeks from now I will have my first operation ever.
The room is small and mostly pale green like the center of pistachio Jell-O, with two chairs made of metal near the foot of my bed and no plant, green or otherwise, and one window and a television on a shelf near the ceiling in the corner of the room. Somebody has turned on Family Feud and I wonder who watches this stuff? and the room smells of betadine and bedpans like a hospital room because that’s what it is. The bandage at my throat feels tight making it difficult to breathe, but it isn’t the bandage that’s tight, it’s the swelling from the surgery making me uncomfortable and my stomach throws a solid ball of heat up into my throat and I know I’m about to vomit. The nurse sees me gagging like a cat with a hairball and puts a cold washcloth on the back of my neck and I suddenly feel better. I learn three things during my two-day stay. One, a cold wet washcloth placed on the back of your neck will often suppress the urge to vomit and two, after thyroid surgery, if you do vomit because the washcloth didn’t work, it hurts like hell, and finally, the lump they removed wasn’t benign.
“It was cancer, but we’re pretty sure we got it all. Thyroid cancer is very rare in men and usually only malignant ten percent of the time. But, as you know, there are exceptions. You’ll be all right though.”
The surgeon grabs my foot through the sheet on his way out and toggles it like a three-wood in his golf bag and I’m relieved, I think, and I visit his office a week or so later to have the staples removed and have the incision checked for infection and all looks well and he tells me that I’m lucky we found the cancer when we did before it spread to my lymph glands.
“I was peeing too much.”
“What?”
While the surgeon reads my file and ponders surgical sorts of things, I explain to him why I had visited the doctor in the first place, because I was peeing too much, but the doctor found the lump instead of finding the cause of my perpetual peeing.
“How much was too much?”
“Fifteen, twenty times a day.”
“That’s a lot. How about now?”
“No. I only pee a few times a day now. But the cancer…”
“The cancer wasn’t making you pee like that. Probably stress or something. Come back in six months and we’ll check you again. I think you’ll be fine.”
Four months from now my surgeon, due to frustration with malpractice insurance and HMOs, will leave his practice and become a consultant for McKesson Surgical Supply.
The room is small and vaguely yellow like the inside of a crème brulee, with two windows, draperies, and several plants in the corner, including one passive fern near the cushy chair and couch. I sit on the couch because of movies I’ve seen and know that the doctor always sits in the cushy chair and the patient always sits, or sometimes lies, on the couch. I choose to sit, instead of lie. The couch is cushy, made of leather, and I look at the Psychology Today magazine sitting on the small table to my right and wonder who understands this stuff? The doctor comes in and I explain the surgery, the thyroid cancer, and the lump in my throat that I hadn’t been able to feel and how the surgeon had removed it. Then I explain about my visit to the first doctor.
“I was peeing too much.”
“How much was too much?”
“Fifteen to twenty times a day.”
“Um. Thyroid cancer shouldn’t increase your urinary output.”
“The doctor said it was stress.”
“That caused the thyroid cancer?”
“No, the peeing. Even after I went to the bathroom I still felt like I had to go.”
“Go where?”
“To the bathroom.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
“Which way?”
“Like you have to pee all the time? Do you need to pee right now?”
“No. I went this morning. I’m fine.”
We talk for 59 minutes, mostly about the stress that must have been causing me to pee fifteen to twenty times a day, and my job, and my son, and my wife, and my family, both immediate and extended, and my debt, both real and imagined, my childhood, my dad, my older brother whom I hardly ever see, my hobbies which I lie about because I don’t have any, my eating habits, my age, my dreams, my fears….
“Hour’s up. That’s all for today. Is this same time next week good for you?”
I tell him it is and shake his hand and thank him and he hands me a prescription for pills to help relieve the stress and I take the prescription and shove it in my pocket and thank him again. He tells me that my hobbies are a great asset and that I should make time for them even though I have a busy schedule and then he tells me how important it is to set aside time for myself. I feel guilty over lying about my hobbies especially after he made such a big deal about them. I thank him again and secretly wish for hobbies.
“Take three of those pills every day and if you have any problems with side effects please don’t hesitate to call.”
“Yes. I will…I mean, I won’t.”
Seven months from now I will stop seeing my psychiatrist and take up nine-ball and archery.
The space is narrow and confined and somewhat dark like the inside of a cereal box but I can see blue sky directly above me and white morning clouds lolling past and over there is my green Toyota Camry sitting in the parking lot a hundred yards away. Walls of brick rise on both sides of me like I’m standing between two buildings because that’s where I am. On the pavement at my feet is a stained and wrinkled copy of the Enquirer with a photo of a two-headed frog goat boy(?) on the front page and I ponder the headline that reads “Child of Alien Parents” and wonder who writes this stuff? With my pool cue case in my left hand, my keys jangling in my right, I look over toward the parking lot, at my car sitting among so many others. Although I am still less than a one-minute walk from my Camry and a thirty-five minute drive from home, I picture my neighborhood perfectly, the Ginko tree in Ida Springer’s backyard, Burt’s audacious canary-yellow Hummer down the street, the Johnson’s brand new tan and burgundy metal tool shed and I can’t seem to bring myself to go home or move from between these buildings and for some reason my legs start to quaver and I figure it is because I have not slept in over twenty-four hours. My cell phone vibrates in my pocket and when I answer it my wife asks how I did in the nine-ball tournament.
“Third place.”
“That’s great.”
“It’s only third place.”
“But it’s the first time you won third place. What did you win?”
“Five dollars.”
“You want me to come down and meet you, Marshal?”
“Why?”
“To celebrate.”
“Third place?”
“I can meet you there.”
“Where?”
“Wherever you are. Where are you?”
“Between two buildings.”
One year from now my son will quit college and join an intentional community in Peru, my wife will leave me for a jury wrangler, claiming that I have lost my focus, I will pawn my archery equipment and keep the ticket in my wallet as a reminder that two hobbies at a time is more than I can handle, and my new girlfriend Josie will come to the smoky pool room dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, and a fringed and sequined jacket and sit in the shadows on a hard wooden stool sipping her beer and even though she knows nothing at all about nine-ball, occasionally, while I’m lining up my next shot, she will smile over at me, wink, and shoot me two thumbs up. After a few dates Josie will notice the one-inch scar at the base of my throat and I will tell her about the thyroid cancer, the surgery, and the peeing.
“How much did you go?”
“Fifteen to twenty times a day.”
“I go that much when I drink beer. Did drinking beer give you the cancer?”
“They weren’t related.”
“Who?”
“What do you mean, ‘Who?’”
“You said they weren’t related. Did you mean the doctors? I don’t understand.”
“I meant the peeing and the cancer.”
“Oh. What did the doctor say about drinking beer?”
“I don’t remember.”
For me, Josie will not be a destination, nor has she been the road less traveled. Even so, we will share many stimulating evenings discussing articles from the National Enquirer and watching Family Feud, not to mention the fun we will have building a plain wooden foyer-bench-that-doubles-as-a-storage-chest from plans Josie will come across in Popular Mechanics.
Lonnie Busch
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Jeannie wrote: "Great piece. I was halfway through before I figured out it was fiction. Like a carriage return on a manual typewriter, the way you took us to another place was brilliant."
Thanks, Jeannie!
Like a carriage return on a manual typewriter, the way you took us to another place was brilliant.