BACK
THE BIOPSY
caroline kepnes
It’s time to confront Harry the janitor, God help me. He
untangles a vacuum cleaner cord. Poor thing. “Excuse me, Harry.”
He looks at me. I smile like a kindergarten teacher. He stares,
uninterested. Everyone else at the bank smiles at me lately. They
know about the cancer. I had a biopsy and I might have skin
cancer. They know it’s their turn to smile.
“Harry, when you close up at night, do you lock my door?”
Stop saying his name. Saying it in every sentence makes it
seem like I think of him as a half-wit.
“I don’t lock anybody’s door.”
“I know, Harry.” Dammit. “But could you lock mine?”
He stares.
“Well, you see,” I say, actively pausing so that I won’t say his
name. “I’m waiting on these biopsy results. They think it might
be cancer.” I look at his face. Nothing.
“Breast cancer?”
“No, Harry. Skin cancer.”
He carries on with his vacuum cleaner cord. Asshole.
I bite my lip. “Anyhow, do you know Jeffrey?”
He smiles, “Beasley. Course. Friendliest guy around. Why?”
Shit. “Well, Harry.” Fuck it. Say it. I am dating a doctor. I am
having a cancer scare. I will be out of here soon. “Jeffrey is
leaving little things on my desk. Koosh balls. Candies.”
“And…”
“And it’s uncomfortable. He’s asked me out.” No response.
“Many times.” No response. I cross my arms. “So he’s very
interested. And it’s starting to scare me.” Liar. It doesn’t scare
me; it revolts me. That someone like him looks at someone like me
and thinks he has a shot is a fact that makes me sit up in bed at
night and contemplate throwing out my entire wardrobe. “I’d
rather not file some restraining order.”
Harry cackles. Bastard. He rolls his eyes. He waves me off.
Then he plugs in the vacuum cleaner. The noise fills the bank.
I am dismissed. The next morning I arrive and find my door
locked. One of Jeffrey’s little koosh balls sits outside the door like
a dead mouse from a desperate housecat trying to impress its
owner. A note reads, “Door locked. Thinking of you! XO Jeffrey." I
walk into my office and leave the lifeless rodent and
accompanying note on the floor. Love makes us cruel. Jeffrey has
been after me for a couple of years now and I’ve always politely
put him off. He’s a non-violent creature, an optimist. But I have a
boyfriend, Dr. Wayne Turnow. I should be a little colder to the
Jeffrey Koosh Balls of the world. I say it to myself all day long. It’
s normal. It’s right. It’s what love is. You build an igloo. Fuck the
world. XO.
“I meant cozy in the warm way.”
“No you didn’t.” I slam the door. No matter what happens
from here this will be the memory of Wayne’s first time in my
apartment. Cozy. A small word. A small world for a small
apartment occupied by a small girl. A condescending z right there
in the middle.
“Alice, really. It’s a compliment.”
“Forget it.”
He takes my arms. “Alice, you’re just nervous. But the results
will come and you’ll see. Everything will be fine.”
“Right.”
He sits down. He makes himself comfortable. He is a child.
“So. Did that Jeffrey guy stop harassing you yet? Because you
could go to Human Resources.”
The way people believe what you tell them is scary. To Wayne,
Jeffrey is a guy who harasses. Jeffrey! Innocent, pathetic, koosh
ball loving Jeffrey. What a fool you are, Wayne, believing a liar
like me. “It’s noth like that, Wayne.”
“You said he won’t leave you alone.”
“I know but he’s….he wears cardigans, you know?”
“Is he still giving you little gifts all day?”
“Wayne, really. It’s fine. Forget it.” I am horrible. I made
Jeffrey out to be a monster. If Jeffrey was standing here and
witnessing this he wouldn’t give me koosh balls anymore. If
Wayne ever laid eyes on Jeffrey he wouldn’t want anything to do
with my cozy apartment. I am a liar. Wayne is a believer. Jeffrey
is a believer. But me, I’m all lies.
Wayne kisses my cheek; it’s what he does when I go away
while we’re sitting together. We’ve barely done more than kiss.
This is the first night we planned to hang out in my apartment.
Surely this means we fuck. I am nervous. The biopsy results
come via the phone, at any moment. Either I’m cancer-free and
we fuck like animals embracing our livelihood or I am cancer-full
and we fuck like the elderly, seizing what we can.
“I’m sorry, Wayne. I’m here.”
“No apologies from you, missy.”
I don’t like it when men get cute. But if I’m going to marry
him, I have to like it when he gets cute. He picks up a board
game. “Distraction?”
“Maybe.”
“We can play something else.”
“Well I was thinking that we would just talk.”
“We can talk.” He puts the game down. He is too agreeable.
Does he have any wants of his own? He sits in an armchair, away
from me. Doesn’t he know that this is the time for kissing? I dim
the lights. I go to him.
“Oh,” he says, as I sit down on his lap, straddling him.
“Oh,” I say, quietly as he did, kissing his cheek.
“The food’s going to be here any second.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Alice.”
I pull back. He is gay. He has AIDS. He has a wife. Of course
he has a wife. He starts to cry.
“Alice, I didn’t want to say this now. This is your night.”
“Say what?”
“You get your results. We’re waiting for the call. This is your
time. Just please, give me some room.”
“Jeffrey, what is it?” I don’t move. He pushes me off. He does
have wants. He wants me to go away from him.
Gay. Of course. I look out the window. I see my reflection. I
do look like a loan officer. I could never be a doctor’s wife.
“Alice, I have a disease.”
I look at him.
AIDSherpesshinglescancerVDghonnorreahchlymydiaAIDS.
“I have overactive sweat glands.”
“What?”
“I have extra glands and I can’t be with women because I
sweat so much when I get excited and I don’t know how to tell
you because if I don’t tell you and I ruin your couch with my
sweat you’ll be angry but if I do tell you you’ll think I’m weird
and won’t want to be with me anyway. It’s ruined my life.”
The phone rings. The news comes fast. I am cancer-free.
Wayne is elated. I cry. He holds me. He smells like a boys locker
room. The food arrives. We eat burritos and say very little.
After dinner, the wave comes. Wayne was diagnosed as a
teenager. The man is a sweat factory. Every romantic encounter
is a horror story. He gets excited; he gets soaked. He ruins
couches. He smells. He became celibate and terrified of women.
Then one day there was a woman in the hospital, a pretty little
creature so daft she couldn’t work the soda machine. He rescued
her and got her a soda. She was so grateful and kind that his faith
in the fairer sex was restored. Suddenly, for the first time since
high school, he was ready to think about sex. I don’t tell him that
I do know how to work soda machines. I don’t tell him I was
pretending to be daft. I don’t tell him that I would never use the
word ‘daft’ in conversation. Different planets, me and Wayne.
But I’m cancer free and my mind wanders. There isn’t any
suspense anymore and I am the kind of person who really likes
the possibility of danger and death. Wayne is defective. I am
daft. I drink too much.
“You’re going to get the surgery. If they can fix the glands,
you get the surgery. That’s all there is to it.”
“I’ve been saying that for fifteen years.”
“That’s why we met. So you can get the surgery. I’m gonna be
there and we’re gonna make you well.”
He takes my hand. “I love you.”
No you don’t, Wayne. His smile is like cancer; it spreads. I don’
t have cancer. I have Wayne.
Jeffrey Koosh Balls is coming down the hall. I watch him get
closer. My whole body lurches forward. I want him to bring me a
koosh ball. I want him to ask me to join him for a glass of wine.
But he keeps walking. I run to the door.
“Jeffrey! I got my results! I don’t have cancer!” I call out like
a crazy woman.
He doesn’t even look back. He just speaks. “I know. Harry told
me.”
He keeps going. I recede. A few minutes later an email from
Human Resources arrives. Jeffrey Koosh Balls is resigning after
seven years of great work. He will be toasted at a bon voyage
party in the conference tomorrow. Tomorrow is Wayne’s surgery.
I rush down the hall to see Jeffrey Koosh Balls. He’s gone.
“Stop leaving your spring water bottles in the trash.”
I turn. There is Harry and his vacuum cleaner. As I pass by he
mutters, “Bitch.”
“You’re gonna be great, Wayne. You’ll see.”
He just shakes his head. He’s in a hospital gown.
Halfheartedly then, “I love you.”
“I love you too, Wayne.”
I think of my family’s old cat, Boogie. You could tell Boogie to
fuck off you fucking cunt cat and she would purr like crazy if you
said it in the soft, baby talk tone of voice. You could call Boogie a
perfect kitty sweetie but if you said it with a sharp, authoritative
tone, Boogie would stare at you, cold and swipe her tail. People
are the same way. We know as well as Boogie. I shiver. He looks
right at me. Then we’re saved. The doctor is here. It’s a woman
doctor. Oh.
This is all wrong. The doctor was supposed to be a man. This
woman doctor, she is my age, with tawny hair and clogs. I fumble
my words, immediately aware of how I bungled science courses
in college, courses this woman doctor clearly aced. There is no
ring on her finger. I sit down. I cough too much. I am the
outsider, smaller by the second. Wayne and the woman doctor
are on the inside. She will cut him open and he will let her and I
will go away. The woman doctor leaves. I sit, winded.
“She seems young,” I say.
“Oh, she’s terrific,” he says. “She’s one of the best.”
I nod.
Three weeks after the surgery, two days after our first fuck,
Wayne tells me that he needs some time on his own. He puts his
hand on mine, his dry hand, and says I should do something nice
for myself. I nod. The end.
I buy Harry the janitor a case of Corona for his birthday. He
leaves it outside my locked door with a note. “I am an alcoholic.”
I bring home the beers home and suck them all down like a
truck driver. Summer comes. I lay in the sun for hours. I wear no
sun block. I burn. I invite cancer. I imagine a skin cancer so
strong that it comes on the inside, burning my skin from the
inside out. I sleep with no top sheet. Anything hurts my skin. I
imagine the cancer coming all at once.
The cancer doesn’t come. Time passes. The invitation for Dr.
Wayne Turnow and Dr. Hazel Harmon’s wedding comes. The sun
goes away. I buy Harry a case of O’Douls for Christmas. He leaves
me a note: “Got em.” I dream about cancer. Had I been
cancerous, Wayne would have fallen in love with me. Had I been
cancerous, Jeffrey Koosh Balls would have given me more koosh
balls. Had I been cancerous, I would have been lavished with
cards and trinkets from everyone at the bank. Had I been
cancerous, I would have become a survivor. Instead, I just live.
Drunk, I knock over a vase. Bang. Who cares? Collapse on the
floor. Dial quickly. 411. As if it’s 911. “Brighton, please. Beasley.
Jeffrey Beasley.” Connect me. Now. Now. Ring. Ring again. His
voice.
“Hello.”
“Jeffrey. It’s Alice.” Silence. “From the bank.”
“Hello.”
Think of an old TV show where a woman calls a man who
carried a torch for her and he picks up even though she had been
cruel. “I was thinking, Jeffrey. Why don’t we get that glass of
wine? I mean, we never did go out. We always said we would.
You gave me all those koosh balls, you were so nice to me. I was
mean. But I’m not mean anymore. I think you’re wonderful,
Jeffrey.”
Silence.
“Jeffrey?”
“What.”
I remember who he is. Jeffrey Beasley is a weirdo, a man who
purchases koosh balls. He’s probably sitting alone at his kitchen
table, the way normal people in apartments never do. Then, a
voice in the background, a woman; Jeffrey isn’t alone. He
whispers, low, snide, “Goodbye, Alice.” Worse than fuck you,
Alice.
In the morning, I bring doughnuts to the bank. Everyone at
the bank is happy. Harry eats three of them.
“You have a little frosting on your lip,” I say.
He smiles. “Thanks. I’m not so good since the liver cancer.
Tough fight, the liver cancer.”
“I had no idea, I’m sorry.”
“No need for that. I’m beating the shit out of it. Doc says it’s
because I’m hungry. Gotta be hungry to beat the big C.”
“When were you diagnosed?”
“Few years back. Remission. Back again. Remission.
Everybody’s got something.”
“I guess so.”
He reaches into the cooler of water bottles. “You want?”
“No,” I say. “I’m like a camel. I drink a gallon every morning
and carry it all day long.”
He cackles. I watch him take a swig. “What’s so funny,
Harry?”
“I just can’t imagine.”
“Imagine what?”
“How exhausting it must be to lie all the time.”
“I don’t lie.” I think of my cat Boogie, the way she heard the
sound of the words, not the words. My tail is up. I hiss.
“You don’t drink a lot of water in the morning. You drink two
bottles and you don’t finish them and you drink them in the
afternoon. And you throw them away half full. Or you leave them
on your desk. So why are you lying and saying you’re a camel?”
I turn away. He laughs, hard. He pats my head, ruffles my
hair. “You’re alright,” he says. “It gets better, you know.”
We’re the only two people in the world, young me and old
Harry the alcoholic janitor. It gets better, it does. It gets better
right away. It spreads, fast. I smile. I might even cry. “Thanks,
Harry.”
He reaches over for the vacuum cleaner and winks. “The
name’s Barry, kiddo.”
(c) 2008 by Caroline Kepnes