The Brink of Destruction

Cancer is a fucking bitch.

Little kids should be running around outside on skateboards or playing soccer or something. To have to spend days, weeks, even months in a hospital room, with all kinds of people poking you with needles and giving you medicine and sticking you in machines just sucks right out loud. But on my first day of volunteering, I was finding out real fast these kids were braver--and tougher--than I ever thought of being.

The rec room was as bright and cheerful as the staff could possibly have made it, with murals of a forest, a beach, a playground and a zoo on the walls. There were video games, musical instruments, movies, CD's--everything a kid could wish for. Except freedom.

As I sat in the big recliner, watching the nurses shepherding in the tiniest and the ones who needed wheelchairs, I wanted to pull every one of them onto my lap and just love them. Their little bodies were so thin, and many had lost their hair to the ravages of chemo, but even so, there were smiles on some of the faces that would tear at your heart.

Music was the easiest way to start, and so I took all ten of my thumbs and hacked away at my guitar. Their voices were faint at first, but as they began to get into the spirit, I started to hear laughter.

We were doing a second runthrough of "The Green Grass Grows" when one of the nurses slipped into the room and touched the arm of one of the little boys sitting near the back. She whispered something into his ear, and I saw a pout pull his lips into a bow. He shook his head, and she whispered again, putting her arm around him to comfort him.

Above the music, I could hear his voice--"No! Don't wanna! Wanna sing!" The nurse bent, and gently scooped him into her arms, and as she held him against her, he began to cry, and then to scream. His egg-sized fists flailed against her shoulders, and his feet, clad in droopy white socks, drummed on her thighs. Even under attack, I could hear her crooning to him, soothing and reassuring him as best she could as she carried him out through the door.

A few of the other children who were nearest me kept on singing, but many of the older ones who were sitting closer to the boy had stopped, and their dark-rimmed, haunted eyes followed him out of sight. When they turned back to me, the joy was gone.

The hour was over so quickly, and after we finished, some of the kids came up and gave me hugs and kisses, a few of them through surgical masks covering their faces.

"Are you coming back, Miss Genny?" they asked, their heads already nodding the "yes" they hoped to hear.

"Oh, you betcha! I can't wait to see you again! Next time, what if I bring my friend, Bongo?"

The puppet had gone everywhere with me for the last ten years, and I couldn't just let him sit at home while I went off to school!

"Who's Bongo?" asked a girl of no more than five, who had a few agonizing wisps of gorgeous red hair left.

"He's my chimpanzee, and he LOVES bananas! Do you think we can find any bananas for him?" I was scanning their eyes, trying so hard to make a connection, to let them know how much I wanted to help them.

"YEAH!" they shouted in unison, and the rec therapist standing at the back smiled at their enthusiasm.

"Well, then, you come back next Saturday, and I'll make sure he's real hungry for--" I raised my eyebrows with a dramatic pause.

"BANANAS!!!" they shrieked, dissolving into giggles. By now, the nurses and therapist were gathering them into little groups to take them back to their rooms, and I waved and smiled at them, fighting back the tears that were blurring my vision.

"Thank you so much for coming," said the therapist, who had stayed behind after the children left. "It's hard sometimes to get visitors to come in because they can't stand to see the suffering these little ones go through. But you can see how much it means to them." She had a really kind, motherly smile, and reminded me of Kathy Bates.

"I can understand how they might have a hard time. The first few minutes, it was kind of..."

"Shocking?"

"I don't mean it to sound as if they're awful to look at."

"But if you have even a shred of compassion and love in your heart, then it is a shock to see such tiny kids bearing all that they have to, isn't it?"

I was fighting my trembling chin. "What was that boy crying about, when the nurse came to get him?"

She sighed heavily. "He was going downstairs for a bone marrow tap. It's a pretty painful procedure, and the kids really hate it. We try not to interrupt them when they're having fun, but he's had some pretty low red counts lately, and the doctor wanted him seen right away."

"What is that like?"

"Well, they give him a shot of Novocaine, which helps a little, but then they use a large needle, about the size of a knitting needle, to go into his hipbone and take out a marrow sample. There's really no way to numb the bone, so...." She held her hands out helplessly, clearly feeling a deep empathy for him. "We do all we can to make it as easy as possible, but some of these procedures are, quite truthfully, brutal."

I didn't expect the sob that tore from my throat, or the understanding hug that somehow made it even worse. It wasn't me who needed comforting, and I had nothing to cry about for myself. But these kids, they deserved an ocean of tears, a lifetime of hugs, a king's ransom of happiness.

Instead what they got was cancer.

*************************

I knew someone was home--I could hear the music. That's probably why they couldn't hear me knocking. Thumbing the doorbell again, I wondered if it would be better to go around and bang on the windows. Just when I was about to give up, Billie opened the door, dressed in sweats and a flannel shirt.

"Hey, come on in," he said, pulling me into a bear hug. "I was just about to call you!"

"Yeah, I thought you might be home by now." I held out the pan of brownies I'd made for him to cheer him up. "By the way, be careful with those."

"Yeah, Mike'll eat 'em if I let him see them," he chuckled.

"No, I mean seriously, be careful. Like don't eat them before you have to drive."

"Wha--OHHhhhh!" he exclaimed, as it dawned on him what I was trying to tell him. "Yeah, I'll definitely watch out for those bad boys!" His eyes twinkled devilishly in anticipation. He set them inside the oven and closed the door.

"Since we never bake anything, they'll be safer there than anywhere," he grinned. "How was your visit with the kids?"

"Wow...they are just amazing. I think I got more out of it than they did. It blows me away how the nurses find the strength to go up there every day and see the things they do. It made me realize how incredibly lucky I am."

He was quiet for a second while he took drinks for us out of the fridge. "Yeah," he sighed, "it's no fun watching someone fight cancer. Of all the shitty things in the world, that's the worst one to me. It took my dad away from us, and I'll never stop hating it."

"I'm so sorry, Billie. I can't even imagine how hard it must have been for a ten year old boy to see his father go through that. It was hard for me today, and I'd never even met the children before."

He leaned against the counter, sipping his root beer. "You did a good thing, Gen. I wish I had the guts to do something like that, but I'm not sure I could handle it. Bad memories, you know?" Brushing the thought away, he chugged the last of his soda. He tossed his can into the recycling bin and took my hand. I followed him into his room and we stretched out on his bed, facing each other on the pillow so we could talk.

"So, any good news from your hearing?" I asked, crossing my fingers.

"Well, it could have been a lot worse, I guess. The guy had some cuts and bruises, but nothing major. My lawyer told me if he'd really wanted to make trouble, I could have been looking at ten years for sending him to the hospital."

"Ten years? You've got to be kidding me!" I couldn't believe how unfair this whole thing was, or that a decade of Billie's life could have been wasted because of that moron.

"I think he backed down because he knew you could have pressed charges against him, and you didn't. So in a weird way, I guess I have to thank you for handling it the way you did, even if it pissed me off at the time."

"Billie, I had no idea it was going to come back to haunt you like this, or I would have had his ass arrested the same night. If I had, none of this would be happening." I felt so awful that all this was because of my stupid need to avoid conflict.

"Gen, the good thing is this really isn't a big deal, no matter how it turns out. Three months, if that's what it ends up being, isn't forever. I'll miss you like hell, but it's no worse than summer vacation."

"That's not what I'd call a vacation!" I protested.

"You know what I mean. Look, for you, I know this would be serious. You've got school to think about, and your family. I don't have as much to lose. I'm a musician, and nobody cares if I beat the hell out of some guy. In fact, it kinda helps my image." He laughed ironically, but I could tell he was trying to make the best of a terrible situation.

"I care. I don't want this to happen to you." I put my arms around him and laid my head on his shoulder. "You protected me from him, and I want to help you so much. I just don't know how."

I felt his lips on top of my head. "You're helping me just being here with me right now. It's gonna be okay, Genny, wait and see."

It has to be, I thought. I couldn't bear the thought of him locked up again.