Cars

Like most things in this life, the drama starts somewhere unexpected. Amber and I had been walking around town and stopped to investigate the window of a closing shop. (It was never clear what they sold, so their closing is no real surprise.) I hear a honk behind me. As we are not in the street, and thus are infracting no traffic laws, I do not feel the need to turn. Charming though I find this town, Red Hook is peppered with assholes in rusty pick-up trucks, confederate flags waving from cargo beds, who like nothing more than to honk at pedestrians while screaming indecipherable slurs. On this very walk, some teens in a minivan screamed "Butthole," so the precedent was not even dusty. It's best not to encourage them with attention.

I turn anyway and see a neon lemon-lime car waiting for the light to turn. I do not know car makes or models, but this is sleek and sexy. Within, I see my mechanic, or at least the assistant manager of the shop, whom I mostly trust not to fleece me too badly. Beside him is a woman I have not met. I remember him telling me that he was getting a new car and so gesture to signal how much I like it. When most people get a new car, they mean something durable and conventional, meant to last a chunk of their future.

This guy has honked at me before, always in a friendly way. He is permitted to startle me from murder podcasts.

He rolls down the window. "Oh, you haven't seen the car before?" He then raises his hand, on which is a gold band. "I got married, too."

I look at the woman, who smiles. "You are a lucky woman! He is quite the catch."

"I know it."

The mechanic, still smiling, nods. "Yeah." He pauses a few second. "I have cancer. I tried to text you a while ago."

What does one say to that? "Oh. Wow."

I don't know what he means by "tried to text." We only exchanged numbers when I was about to get rid of my old car, because he thought he had someone who wanted to buy it. Did he not have it in him to tell me via text or did my phone not receive it? I try not to ignore texts, but "I have cancer" is one I will answer no matter who sends it. Though it is curious that he would want to tell me. I thought about inviting him to my anniversary party in July, but I didn't have the courage for it. Otherwise, I only see him when my car is having issues (or when he honks at me while driving). I try not to see him, when possible, as our visits together tend to cost me a couple hundred dollars.

The light changes. "Come by the shop," he says, then drives away.

I turn to Amber. "That was a rollercoaster. It was like a game of Fuck, Marry, Kill."

I call the shop the next day to see if he is in. I do not want to go to this shop to talk about cancer, not with a guy who has always been so fun and lively, but you don't tell someone at a stoplight that you have cancer without wanting to follow-up. How could I deny him this?

Maybe it is one of those less severe cancers, I hope. Something you mention on the street to shock people, but not the sort that will remove one's hair, then vitality. You don't want a melanoma, but you stand a good chance of getting over that without too much struggle. Brain, lungs, guts, and the like are all ticking bombs.

I am given the standard greeting over the phone. I ask if he is working. The man on the phone says he went home with stomach issues (a clue?), but that he was taking over the mechanic duties for today. He asks why I was calling, and I stumble in saying he knows why, but maybe he doesn't. If I had a cancer diagnosis, I might not be as forthcoming to my co-workers as I would be to an associate on a street corner. I don't want to say too much then, and say I was checking up on him.

I text him as the next best thing. The reply comes instantly. We exchange a few messages, all while I use my cats as a sounding board for what is appropriate in this conversation and how I ought to proceed. (The cats are not helpful, as my questions do not pertain to food.) I want details from him, but it is rude to ask them. I do anyway because I need to know exactly how sympathetic I am. It is an awkward thing to be crossing my fingers, hoping he has a malignant and easily excised mole.

He gives me a three-word phrase that I immediately google, expecting that he assumes I would. It is tumors in his intestines. To the extent we have a relationship, it is one of not bullshitting the other. I don't want to feed him some sunny lines, nor do I want to quote statistics at him, particularly not ones I learned a matter of seconds ago, ones I am sure he knows by heart at this point.

The most optimistic links says that, depending on when it was caught and how it is treated, he stands around a 74% chance of being around in five years. It is better than a coin toss, but I would spend my days trying not to focus on that 26%.

The least optimistic, if the cancer had time to settle in, drops the survival to around 20%. It is a slow-growing cancer, though. It gives one a lot of warning before it is too late.

The doctors and he did not catch it early. They would see after surgery what his prognosis was. Surgery alone is a heady prospect, but it is not as though the tumors are going to retreat on their own. Amber, though she specializes in animals, pronounces anything to do with the intestines as nasty work. We lost a rat to intestinal issues this month, though medical science is more apt to cure mechanics than rats.

I don't feel the need yet to tell him that I have known several people who had cancer, because it is the people and not the cancer that is past tense. My mother has had at least three friends who died of cancer. I knew Emily's father. My friend Karen. Emily's mother is still alive and vital. I have a coworker who had leukemia before I started working here and he remains hale and hardy. Cancers are not unwinnable, but they are intimidating and unenviable.

I tell this to Melanie, and she offers her theory that cancer destroys one's filters. Why should one not shout out a diagnosis on the street? What is the point of decorum when one's own body has turned enemy? He says that he rushed his marriage after the diagnosis. I would do the same without question.

This story is not mine to tell, but I have been thrust into caring about this man, to push him from friendly to friend. He reached out to me -- albeit at a stoplight on his way to somewhere else -- and I feel inclined to reach back.

Soon in Xenology: Writing. The End of the World. Soulmates.

last watched: End of the F***ing World
reading: Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates