Swim - Chapter Two

In Chapter Two of Swim, Kerry learns more about his disease and we learn more about his family, particularly his sometimes strained relationship with his parents. A relationship put under even more pressure by his diagnosis and his family's reaction to it.



Dr. Patterson, Kerry’s new oncologist, slid a three inch thick sheaf of papers across the desk to Kerry and Tabby. “The news,” he said, “is not what we would have hoped for.” He stood and affixed an x-ray to the light screen on the wall. He pointed to dark spots, blobs, blurs, rocks beneath the water on the screen, tapping each spot in turn. “Lungs. Lymph nodes. Around the heart.” He nodded to Kerry. “You’re officially in Stage Three.”

“What does that mean?” Tabby asked. She pulled the papers in front of her and held a Bic stic pen at the ready. She didn’t need the pen; she would remember everything Patterson said. The pen was for taking the copious notes Stephen would require later to understand everything that was going on. After twenty-five years of marriage, Tabby had learned that even her recollection of things wasn’t enough to satisfy the analytical nature of her husband.

Kerry sat still in his chair, staring at the lighted-look at his insides , trying to differentiate between normal and not, lung and tumor, the black nothingness of the film and the black somethingness of the shit trying to kill him.

Patterson sat back down, tapped one finger on the topmost sheet he’d handed them. Frequently Asked Questions – Testicular Cancer and You. Kerry looked down at the sheet. His life reduced to a FAQ. Cancer reduced to nothing more than some computer virus Ellis had accidentally downloaded to Kerry’s computer with his latest porn video. System crash. Hit control-alt-delete to reboot.

If it were only that simple.

“There’s three stages to testicular cancer,” Patterson said. He was an older man. Salt and pepper hair, heavy on the pepper, barely more than stubble goatee, a pair of thin-rimmed glasses that slid down his nose as he spoke. He punctuated every sentence by sliding them back up the bridge. “Stage three is, obviously, the most serious. What it means, essentially, is that the cancer has metastasized.”

“Metast – what?” Tabby asked, pen hovering over paper.

“Moved,” Kerry replied, glancing back at the x-ray. “We learned about it in Senior year Health. It means its moved.”

“Exactly,” Patterson nodded, middle finger of his left hand sticking his glasses back up between his eyes. “In your case, the disease has spread to those areas I mentioned.”

Lungs. Lymph nodes. Heart.

“The major concern for us is that all this metastasizing, moving, makes it harder for treatment. Sometimes chemo isn’t enough.”

“It lowers his chances as well, doesn’t it?” Tabby always was one for the practical.

Patterson nodded again, leaning across the desk and running his own pen across that top sheet, bracketing a section of statistics. “Stage One patients have the best survival rates,” he said. “Almost 99%.” He smiled at the number. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that we haven’t gotten better at beating this.” He slid the pen further through the paragraph. “Stage Two survival rates are also high, typically over 90%.”

“And Stage Three?” Kerry was still staring at the x-ray. Right then, he wished for Superman’s x-ray vision, so he could see through his skin, into the flowing blood, to find the cancer sailing along on cellular rafts and hemoglobin canoes, so he could turn those x-rays on it, burn it out of his body forever.

“Stage Three varies,” Patterson said. “Typically, as high as 80%. As low as 50%. It depends on where the disease has spread and how aggressive it is.” He settled back into his chair. “Your specific disease has been moderately aggressive and, unfortunately, has reached the area surrounding your heart. Fortunately, it hasn’t permeated your bones or reached your brain. That gives us good reason to be optimistic.”

Tabby ran her hand across the page, tracing the lines of words and numbers that explained her son’s chances at not dying. “I understand that you can’t give us an exact figure,” she said. “But could you give us an estimate? Odds?”

Patterson studied Kerry’s x-ray for a long moment. “I don’t ever like to get too specific until we’ve had a chance to get in there, see what the surgery reveals. But… if I had to put a number on it. I’d say 70%.” He slapped a hand down on the desk and grinned at Kerry. “I’d make you at least a ten point favorite, son.”

Kerry nodded back, smiled slightly. Kept that positive attitude up. A ten point favorite. Hell, a good surgery and maybe they could bump it up, make it two touchdowns at least. Kerry imagined Bill Belicheck in the gallery during the surgery, yelling in plays, sending in substitutions. “What the hell, Patterson? Who taught you how to suture? Brady, get in there.” That’d do it, right? Let Tom Brady lead them all on the two-minute-chemotherapy-offense. No need for last second field goals here. This puppy’d be in the bank by the fourth quarter.

Or maybe it’d go to sudden death.

Patterson was talking again, going through the list of treatments and medications with Tabby. “A standard regimen,” he said. “Platinol. VP-16.” Minor side effects possible. “There are, occasionally, some issues with various blood diseases. And his immune system will certainly be compromised. Nausea, obviously. Hair loss.”

Kerry ran a hand through the thin-since-he-was-fifteen layer of dirty blonde atop his head. Hair loss? Pain and impending death weren’t enough? Was there really a need to rush the inevitable?

Tabby was furiously scribbling notes on that same top sheet. Kerry didn’t know why she’d bother. Certainly all this was covered in the FAQ, and that had to be detailed enough for his father. “Anything else?” she asked.

“In some cases,” Patterson said, “there are issues with sterility. The disease itself, combined with the loss of the testicle and the treatment protocol… it’ll be hard to say. Most likely we won’t know anything until months after treatment, and even then…”

“Is there anything he can do about that? In case it does happen?” She tapped her pen against the desk. “I read online last night about freezing sperm. Is that viable?”

Kerry’s eyes widened and he no longer needed that x-ray vision to see his blood. He was quite sure every drop of it was flooding his face. His mother discussing sperm? His sperm?

“That is an option,” Patterson said. “Unfortunately, it would have to be one you would need to pursue rather quickly. With surgery on Monday, he would have to make a deposit this weekend.” The doctor tugged open a drawer, rifled through some pamphlets. “I believe I had some literature on a facility in Utica..”

“No,” Kerry said. His mind still swimming with thoughts of sperm and deposits and his mother. “I’m not going to…” He pictured himself in some tiny cubicle, with nothing but a thin curtain separating Tabby, impatiently clicking her heels on the tile floor, from him, his bottle, and the latest copy of Jugg-Fuckers. “I’ll worry about that later,” he finally said, shaking his head to clear the image. “Let’s get through this, first. No sense putting the cart before the horse, right?”

Tabby stared at him and Kerry wondered if she was getting the same mental picture he had. “Right,” she said, drawing the word out. “That would probably be for the best.” She turned back to Patterson. “Now, about the surgery.”

“The orchiectomy,” Patterson said, as he stood and moved around the desk. He stopped in front of Kerry, a long metal pointer dangling from his hand, aimed at the younger man’s crotch. “It’s a rather simple procedure, really,” he said. “We don’t go in through the scrotum as you might think. First, we make an incision here,” the pointer drew a diagonal line across Kerry’s jeans, just below his waist.

And Kerry’s eyes didn’t see denim and the blunt tip of the pointer. He ‘saw’ soft skin, giving way to the sharp edge of the scalpel, ‘saw’ parting layers of flesh and muscle and gushy-mushy layers of fat slowly splurting open and then blood

and then Tabby was thanking the doctor and leading Kerry down the hall, through the maze of black and white tiled floor to the parking garage and settling him in the front seat, head leaning against the partially opened window.

“You’re going to need to toughen up,” Kerry,” Tabby said as she paid the attendant and pulled the car from the garage. “I know this is a lot to take but… ” She shook her head and turned on the radio. “We’re all going to go through a lot the next few months. And we all need to hold it together. You falling apart at the first sign of difficulty will make it very hard for anyone to be able to give you the kind of support you’re going to need.”

Kerry took in a long, slow breath. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Don’t fall apart. First signs of difficulty. He let his eyes drop to his lap, ‘saw’ the invisible line Patterson had sliced across his groin. And let his eyes fall shut.

Difficulty, he realized, was much like cancer. Worlds easier to ignore if you couldn’t see it.


****


Lunch was less like a meal than the strategic coordination of an invasion. While Kerry sat passively, almost involuntarily working his way through a ham and cheese with too little mayo and too much of the fancy faux-European cheeses his mother enjoyed, Tabby had immediately gone on the offensive. Pulling out a day planner as thick as the kitchen table, she had gone straight to work, addressing the practical implications of Kerry’s illness. Outlining their battle plan.

Kerry had managed, weakly, to put up some resistance to any massive upheaval of their lives. He’d argued, clearly in vain, that treating the situation as normally as possible would probably be the best for his condition. The most conducive, he’d argued, for him, out there on the front line. Helping him to maintain his focus on beating back the disease.

Tabby had slapped his sandwich down on a plate, ignored him more or less completely, and hustled him to the same seat at the table he’d had since he was six. Rescheduling, she maintained, was a necessity. Someone would need to take Kerry to and from chemo and Stephen couldn’t take time off from teaching, not at this point in the semester, not with Spring Break just about to end and final exams to build to. “No,” she argued, “the only logical choice is me. Your grandmother could do it, I suppose, if push came to shove and all. But you know how she is with sickness and there’s taking care of your grandfather and all…”

“We’ll have to do some significant adjusting,” she said, flipping through the daily calendars for the next several weeks. She paused on the coming Monday, orchiectomy day. ‘O-Day’ she jotted in the margin. “Hmmm,” she hummed, tap-tap-tapping her pen against the table top. “Next Monday. Not the best timing, certainly. Busy day at work, you understand,” Kerry was sitting across from her, his father Stephen was leaning against the refrigerator, but she still seemed to be speaking to no one in particular. “Three major accounts,” she went on. “Lunch with the buyers from Buffalo…”

Stephen chimed in from his post by the fridge. “Maybe my mother could-”

Tabby cut him off with a flick of the pen. “I’ll do it,” she said, the tone in her voice suggested finality was the only option. “It will be fine. I’m certain I’ll be able to work something out with my boss. After all, there are seven of us in Account Management and surely one or two of the others can make up for my absence.” She circled the number 5 next to the day of the week on the calendar. “And I can probably make arrangements to go in after hours to deal with any problems that might arise. After all, I’m sure Kerry will be exhausted from the chemo. He’ll probably simply sleep.” She turned to Stephen then. “You should be able to handle a few hours of sleep, right?”

Stephen nodded, quickly, then resumed his almost stoic pose against the refrigerator, hands clasped behind his back in that vague almost ‘at ease’ pose he so frequently assumed when dealing with Tabby and her schedules, plans, and stratagems. He had, so far, taken everything rather well, though even Kerry had to admit there was precious little way to tell the difference between Stephen’s ‘taking it well’ and his ‘dying inside’.

He had said little, though that was also nothing new. Tabby was the aggressive, strategic, action-oriented mind of the family. Stephen tended to approach everything situation as he would a problem in one of the math courses he taught at the Community College. He examined it from every angle, made sure to get all the vital info before drawing any kind of conclusion or making any kind of move. To Stephen, everything in life was worth of scrutiny, careful deliberation, and a well reasoned, logical plan.

Kerry had often wondered exactly how it was that Stephen had ended up with Tabby.

Tabby rolled on with her scheduling, pushing several calendar pages out onto the table in a semi-circle. She was in the midst of outlining a rotating shift schedule for her and Stephen to keep tabs on their son during the night, when Kerry finished his sandwich. It was then, as Tabby debated the merits of three versus four hour shifts, that he decided, for his own piece of mind, he needed to get the hell out of there.

“I’m going back to the dorm,” he said, standing and sliding his chair back with more force than he had intended. He wanted it to seem simple, an easy unforced decision – the less likely for Tabby to challenge it. An emotional outburst complete with slamming chairs would achieve only the opposite effect. Falling apart in the face of difficulty again and all. He dropped his dish in the sink and made for his room down the hall.

Tabby was on her feet and following him in an instant. “What? Now?” she asked as they moved down the hall, Stephen following as well, bringing up the rear of their regimental line.

“Yes, now,” Kerry replied. He reached the door of his room and let his eyes roam, in search of the pair of shoes he’d kicked off when they came home. “I left some stuff there I’m gonna need. And they don’t close the dorms till Sunday morning, anyway. And I’d like to get out, you know, since I won’t be able to after Monday.” He noticed the shoes next to the bed, arranged neatly, side-by-side, toes pointed to the door. Exactly not how he’d left them. He shuffled to the bed and sat down. “And besides, A.J.’s coming over tonight. We’re supposed to hang out before he heads back to NYU.”

A.J. was Kerry’s best friend since diapers. A brighter, more motivated, more talented best friend with a full scholarship ride to New York University, and the never ending admiration of Tabby.

“Anthony is in town?” Tabby asked. “Why hasn’t he stopped by?”

Kerry shrugged then bent to retrieve one brown loafer from the floor. “He just got in last night,” he said. “He was on break this week and he had an internship interview in North Carolina. He’s heading back on Sunday so we were gonna hang tonight.”

Tabby nodded and Kerry could just barely see Stephen in the hallway over her shoulder. His shadow on the wall had more visual presence.

“Are you sure this is wise?” she asked. She’d stopped in the doorway, keeping her distance both physically and in her gaze, her eyes hummingbirding their way around, darting back and forth across the door, out into the hallway, covering the carpeted feet between her and her son. She always did that, always scanned ahead, always searched out the oncoming obstacles, the possibilities for ambush. “Do you really think you should be going out in your condition?”

Kerry paused halfway through unlacing the shoe. “I’m sick, Mom,” he said. “Staying here and staring at the ceiling all night isn’t going to change that.” Truth be told, he didn’t imagine he’d be in much mood to do anything other than sit in his dorm room and stare at the ceiling. But it would be that ceiling, not this one.

Tabby shifted slightly, but remained in the doorway, one foot lingering in the relative safety of the hallway. “Are you going to tell him?” she asked, her eyes still dancing, tangoing their way around Kerry, zigging and zagging across his face, back up, up and up and up, past where his hairline soon wouldn’t be, then back down like a shot, down to his chin, then nose, cheek, a cross hatching pattern of avoidance. “About the cancer, I mean. Are you going to tell Anthony?”

The room seemed to freeze, molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide stilled in mid-movement, stalled in their breathe in-breathe out exchange. Kerry locked in place, one still laced shoe now half on, foot mashing down the leather heel. Tabby was frozen in the door, fingers gripping the wood of the frame, lips parted, barely, still closed enough to hold the invisible string tied to the word, looped round the ‘r’, holding it, gravity working on it, fighting the helium force of it, making it linger, balloon up slowly, bobbing through the space as it slowly filled it. Drifting. Hanging. Floating slowly from mother to son.

Cancer.

Kerry nodded slowly, breaking the spell, the physical movement like a pin to the balloon, rushing the air back into the room, refilling his mother’s lungs. He concentrated his own eyes on his feet, on slowly squeezing his foot into the shoe, working against the heel, wriggling his toes in without undoing the laces, afraid to undo anything at this point. He didn’t need to look at Tabby, he knew the pattern by heart now, the way her eyes drifted in his presence, as natural and as out of her control as her own breathing.

Tabby stepped back, second foot joining the first in the hallway, her body shifting back to totally block Stephen from view. “Fine,” she said, the tight, clipped sound of the word indicating it was anything but. “We have dinner at your grandparents’ tomorrow night.” Saturday night family dinner was a tradition dating back to before Kerry was born. “We’ll tell them then. Seven o’clock. Don’t be late.” She turned and moved across the hall, the door to hers and Stephen’s bedroom slowly shutting behind her.

Kerry finished shoving his foot into the shoe, quickly pulled the other one on as well. He stood and glanced at his father, still in the hall, leaning ‘at ease’ against the wall. He saw so little of himself in Stephen, so little of his own rounded face in the stern, angular looks of his father. Kerry had always wondered what happened to his father’s features in the transfer from father to son. Everything about Kerry was round, soft, Play-doh malleable. Nothing like the thin, perpetual state of ‘sunken in’ his father existed in. It seemed almost as if Stephen’s body had turned on him, absorbed everything that came into before it could add to his outsides, then become so hungry that it started to feast on itself, pulling bones, blood, and skin into a far-too-tight to be natural fit.

Maybe, Kerry reasoned , that was what had happened in the womb. Tabby’s genetics had overpowered Stephen’s, her DNA had omnivorously devoured his, eaten his chromosomes whole and spat out the carcasses, still hungry and looking for a snack.

Kerry moved toward the door, head down, wishing for anything but an ‘encounter’ with his father. Stephen stepped in front of him, stiffly, knees locking in place, one arm crookedly coming out from behind his back.

Kerry looked up. “Dad?”

Stephen’s arm hung there, between them, long enough that Kerry wondered if it hadn’t locked in place, before Stephen finally let it drop. “See you tomorrow,” he said. He moved toward the door to his own bedroom, his hand hovering near the door, as if he intended to knock. “Don’t be late,” he said and then, apparently deciding against the knocking idea, slipped through the door.

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