Do You Look at Your Life

LaVieEnRose

I still don't know why you insisted on coming, I said, shifting in the shitty waiting room chair.

Justin, sitting across from me, glanced up from his magazine as little as possible. Yep, I'm a mystery. The weather was cold but the office was warm, so his coat was off but his blue and black scarf was still loose around his neck, circling the translucent skin at the base of his throat. I could see a bit of the scar on his arm poking out of the sleeve of his t-shirt. He never worries about hiding it.

The GP already said he's sure it's benign. We're gonna walk in there, he's gonna twist my remaining ball around like the wrong end of a Bop-It, I'll get the clean bill of health, we'll go home.

And then you get your trophy for surviving bringing me along with you for all of that, Justin said. He tossed his hair out of his eyes. Brian Kinney, lived through having a supportive partner. An inspiration to us all.

I never said that.

It'll look so nice on our mantle, Justin said idly, and then turned a page in his magazine. We don't even have a mantle. Asshole.

I didn't say you couldn't come, did I?

He laughed. Wow, thank you. You sit with me through eighty million doctor's appointments, but you don't tell me that I can't come to one of yours. I love equal footing.

It's different. You like me coming to yours.

He raised an eyebrow. Hmm, you're right, wherever would I have gotten the impression you didn't want me here?

I rolled my eyes. There was no way to have a rational conversation with him about this right now, not when he was doing everything in his power to hide how worried he was under twelve layers of pissy. Ever since he noticed the lump four days ago, he'd been wound up like a spring, waiting for me to get an appointment with our GP, and now this follow-up surgical consult. I'd balked when he suggested coming, and he'd countered with a pretty cutting, You're right, what possible reason could I have to believe you'd hide having cancer from me? so here he was, taking a day off of work to sit with me and wait for me to get my ball manipulated.

However, it was kind of hot when he got all bossy. And I kind of couldn't stop looking at his throat.

And arguing with him was a pretty decent distraction, which was why I kept pecking at him like a goddamn asshole. Normally when I try to pick on him when I'm in a bad mood he just ignores me, so the fact that he was engaging meant he knew what I was doing and was letting me do it, which...didn't make me less inclined to pick on him, but also wasn't unappreciated.

How's Marie getting by without you? I said.

Better than you would.

Please.

He gave me a look. If I took my eyes off you for a second you'd sprint out the front door. I'd find you on the Tilt-a-Whirl at Coney Island.

You're barely even looking at me, you're so busy pretending to read that magazine.

Fuck you, I'm reading.

Tell me one article you've read, I said, and laughed when he completely blanked. You're so full of shit.

I'm not the one pretending I'd rather be alone, he said.

Justin Taylor pretending, I said, not even knowing what I fucking meant at this point. Perish the thought.

Keep trying it, babe, he said. I'm sure you'll find something that sticks.

The nurse came around the corner and said, “Kinney?”

I reached across and tapped Justin's knee. We're up.

We followed her back to an exam room, I changed into a gown and did all the vital signs and the rundown of my medical history, and Justin sat in the chair in the corner, chewing on his thumbnail and darting his eyes back and forth between my lips and the nurse's. I tried to sign some to keep him from getting too lost, but the nurse was giving me a weird look about it and Justin eventually waved me off and said, It's okay.

It did a lot to soften me to him, though, and maybe all the questions made this all seem a bit less...trivial. After the nurse left I held out my hand to him. He sighed a little and got up and took it, and I tugged him into me and he dropped a kiss on my neck.

You look nice, he said, brushing hair off my forehead.

That's my line.

He shrugged. It's multifunctional. His eyes were so warm. His phone lit up in his pocket—his version of a ring.

You need to get that?

It's just Marie. She can wait.

The doctor came in a minute later and shook my hand, then Justin's. “Abe Krezner,” he said. “Good to meet you.”

“Brian Kinney,” I said. “Justin Taylor. Just Deaf, not unfriendly.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said to Justin, who nodded.

“So your GP didn't seem to think this was anything to worry about, but given your history it's good you're here to make sure. So, without further ado...”

I lay back on the table and Krezner here stuck his hand up my gown, and Justin stood by, arms crossed. I felt, preposterously, weird about Justin seeing this, as if he didn't know my scrotum better than he knew my face.

“That right there?” Krezner said.

“I'll take your word for it.”

“That there is a fluid-filled cyst,” Krezner said, withdrawing his hand and snapping off his gloves.

“Not cancer,” I said.

“Not cancer. You're fine.”

Everything's fine, I said to Justin, who looked kind of relieved, but not really, and honestly how much could I really blame him? I turned to Krezner and said, “Would you mind writing it down for him?” Justin cocked his head, trying to see what I was saying, but I just gave him a small smile and said, Hang on.

Krezner checked his pockets, pulled out some brochure, and scribbled on the back of it. He handed it to Justin who read it, looked up at me, and gave me a smile like I'd fucking come up with the polio vaccine or some shit.

He kissed my cheek and handed the brochure back to me. I'm going to go see what Marie wants, okay?

Hop to.

He practically skipped out of the room, and I chuckled and absentmindedly turned the brochure over in my hand. It was for an anticonvulsant, strangely enough.

“Ah, must have grabbed one of my wife's,” Krezner said. “She's a neurologist.”

“Justin takes this one,” I said, handing the brochure back.

“Oh yeah? Epilepsy or bipolar?”

“Epilepsy.”

“Well-controlled?”

“Not exactly.”

He said, “I assume you've considered surgical options.”

I didn't love talking about this without Justin here, but I don't know, I was riding a high of not having cancer. “He's post-traumatic, so they said it's not an option for him. They don't want to go digging around his brain.”

“They've just started trials on a less-invasive method,” he said. “They're doing it up at Mt. Sinai.” He opened his desk and took out a business card and wrote something on the back. “Called the Gerelta method. That's my wife's card. Do some research, give her a call if you'd like to be in the trial.”

“Okay,” I said, studying the card. “Thanks.”

**

I can't really make sense of any of this, Justin said in the office that night, studying his laptop. I mean, clearly it's about lasers. They talk about lasers a lot.

Let me see. I moved in behind him and read over his shoulder for a few sentences. Yeah, this is gibberish. Seemed like everything written about the Gerelta method so far was by neurologists, for neurologists.

He looked up at me. It can't hurt to call Dr. A, right? His neurologist—Dr. Abramowitz, but that's a lot to fingerspell.

I don't see why not.

He scratched the back of his head. You think this could really fix me?

I don't know, Sunshine.

No more seizures, he said, trying to decipher the article again.

I squeezed his shoulders and went back to my desk. Don't get your hopes up too high, okay? I said.

“Sure,” he said vaguely.

**

I had to go back to Pittsburgh the next week to meet with a client who was making noise about jumping ship now that I'd moved to New York and feed him a line of bullshit about how I was still heavily involved even though I wasn't in the state anymore, so I missed Justin's appointment with Dr. A. Luckily, I'm a much more trusting partner than he is, so I didn't worry that he'd lie to me about it afterwards.

He gave me, like, a whole epic to read about it, Justin said over the phone that night. He held up a binder. I'm still working through it.

What's your first impression? I said, from the bed in Mel and Lindz's guestroom. Whatever, easier to see Gus.

Well, there's like a twenty page long list of all the possible risks, so that's kind of intimidating.

They have to have that, I said.

He thinks I'm a candidate, though, he said. He said they'd want to do about a thousand MRIs first but he thinks I'd be approved. He wouldn't go so far as to say he recommended it though, because of the, you know, the twenty page long lists of risks. And said even if I am a candidate, it would still be riskier for me than, you know. Your nice standard epileptic.

What kinds of risks?

He shrugged. Stroke. Death. All the good ones.

Sure.

And there's more risk than regular deep brain stimulation for stuff like personality changes, loss of cognitive function, memory issues.

How have the outcomes been so far?

Mostly positive.

That's pretty vague.

He shrugged. It's still an early trial, he said. And I have a lot more reading to do.

All right, well, get busy.

What do you think I should do? he asked.

I sighed. You know I can't do that.

He stretched. If it were you I'd be bossing you around.

And if I were you I'd listen.

He made a face at me. I'll take pictures of some of these pages in the morning and send them to you and you can take a look, he said.

All right.

**

It came up the next day, at lunch with Michael, because he walked in on me reading through the literature on my laptop. We were at the diner, and he had Ivy with him in a high chair, or at least, in a high chair when Deb wasn't scooping her out to show her off to every single bored fucker who walked in. She was a cute kid, though.

“So what are the odds?” Michael said.

I knew better than to try to beat around the bush. It'd just make this fucking conversation last even longer. “About seventy-percent so far have had positive outcomes,” I said. “So either no seizures or at least fewer.”

“And the other thirty?”

“Either it didn't work at all, or they ended up significantly more disabled, or...”

“They died?”

I shrugged.

“Fuck,” Michael said, covering Ivy's ears. “You can't let him do this.”

I laughed. “Let him?”

“Don't give me that shit,” he said, and I guess he'd given up on covering her ears already. “You know if you told him not to do it he wouldn't do it.”

“Why would I tell him not to do it?”

Michael rolled his eyes and fed Ivy a bite of scrambled egg. “I don't know, maybe so he doesn't die?”

“He could die having a seizure in our apartment,” I said. “I think we've proven that at this point.”

“I thought he was allergic to surgery anyway.”

“He wouldn't have to go under general for this.”

He stared at me. “They keep you awake for brain surgery?”

“Pretty standard.”

“Holy shit.” Michael shook his head. “No way. Fuck it, I'll call him and tell him not to do it if you won't.”

“You're not telling him shit,” I said.

“Could you take that 'his body, his choice' shit down a notch?” Michael said. “It's very nice in theory, we're all very impressed by your independent lives.”

“Fuck you,” I said easily.

“We're talking about life or death here,” he said. “It's okay if you have to, you know, if you have to bend your little rules about letting him live his life if it fucking keeps him alive.”

“There are risks either way,” I said. “If he does this and it goes well, which odds are it would....once he's over that hurdle, he's got a much safer life ahead of him, not to mention he'd just fucking feel better. And he wouldn't have to feel like a burden on me, worry about me taking care of him. He'd be free.”

“Come on.”

“We're talking about the rest of his life, here,” I said. “This isn't going to go away on his own. It's a treatment like this, that's always going to come with a lot of risks, or it's being sick for the rest of his life and everything that comes with that.”

“So, what, you want him to do the surgery?”

I sipped my coffee. “I didn't say that.”

“Right. You're not even going to tell me what you want him to do.”

“You just threatened to call him.”

“Aw, come on.”

“I don't have anything I want him to do,” I said. “I see both sides of this, and it's not my job to come up with a decision.”

“You sure you're not a lawyer?”

“I'm staying neutral,” I said. “I'm Switzerland.”

“You've never been Switzerland in your life.”

I tried feeding Ivy a drop of coffee off my pinky finger and Michael swatted my hand away. “I'm turning over a new leaf,” I said.

“All right, well, if it were you, would you do it?”

“If I were having seizures, would I get in on this trial?”

“Yeah, knowing all the risks.”

Idiot, thinking that was even a question. “In a second,” I said. “Without a doubt.”

”Seriously? You have a kid.”

I shrugged. “I wouldn't be able to drive, or drink, or live my life the way I wanted to. I'd be worn out and sore and headachey all the time, and I don't want someone to take care of me. I'm not doing that shit.”

“Yeah, well, he'd be taking care of you once you turned yourself into a fucking vegetable.”

“Maybe. But this isn't about me.”

“So you're going to let him turn himself into a vegetable.”

“I'm going to let him make a choice about what he's willing to live with and what he's not,” I said.

“You think it's better to risk death than have someone take care of you,” he said. “That's what this really comes down to.”

“For me, yeah. I discovered I wasn't a fan of it during our tryst with cancer.”

“You can't hold that attitude about yourself and think you're not passing something on to him,” Michael said. “How's he supposed to believe you that being sick is nothing to be ashamed of if you act like it's some exception that only applies to him?”

“He believes it,” I said, despite how that question landed in my stomach. Look, my name sign isn't based on the sign for stubborn for nothing.

“So, what, you're going to have him cut himself open because then he'll fit the Kinney M.O. of independence? You can go back to being hands-off, he can go back to your, you know, your mold of what it means to be a man?”

I rolled my eyes.

“If you can't handle being with a sick person, that's your problem to solve, not his,” he said, in all his haughty HIV-partner glory.

I ate a bite of my omelet. “Again,” I said, staring him down. “This isn't about me.”

**

Daphne had started her internship at that point, at New York Pres downtown. I brought her the binder on her lunch break and we had salads and frozen yogurt in the cafeteria.

“Had you heard of this?” I asked her, when she'd had time to leaf through it.

“I'm an ER intern,” she said. “I'm not really anyone's first choice for neurosurgery.”

“Okay, well, what do you think?”

“Seventy percent isn't great,” she said. “A lot of risk there.”

I nodded.

“But. I think he should do it.”

“You do?”

She leaned back in her chair. “Being here day after day...the ER isn't what you'd expect, really. I mean, sure, there are car accidents, GSWs, but so many of them are people with chronic illnesses who are just...they don't have a GP or insurance and they don't know where else to go, and they've reached this breaking point.”

“That's not going to be him,” I said.

“I know it's not. But even then, you see these people who have been dealing with this shit for years, and they all kind of have this same look to them. They lose hope.”

“That's not him,” I said again.

She laced her fingers together. “I know when he lost his hearing, you guys were adamant that it wasn't going to change who he was. That it wouldn't take anything from him. But that's not what's taking something from him. This is. He feels shitty all the time. And you and I...we can't really understand the depths to which that weighs on a person. How fucking angry it makes you. We can see it, but we can't really get it. But you're seeing it happen, and I'm seeing the late stages of it, and if there's hope that that doesn't have to happen to him, I think it's worth the risk.”

I didn't say anything.

“Illness will change you,” she said. “Both of you. It already has. Maybe it doesn't have to anymore.”

“I don't want him to think he needs to fucking cure himself,” I said. “He got a whole community from being Deaf. He has a, you know, a stronger bond with Ben and Hunter and shit now that he's sick. I don't want him to think he needs to be fucking normal just because...”

“It's not about identity,” she said. “It's about what being in pain does to a person. Being Deaf isn't hurting him. But this physical shit...it wrecks you.”

**

“It makes you different,” Ben said to me on the phone. “That doesn't mean worse.”

I waited on the subway platform and didn't say anything. I still couldn't fucking believe I'd called him.

“The idea that illness is inherently bad is something that's perpetuated by an ableist society,” Ben said. “It's a prioritizing of privacy, of somehow tying in self-sufficiency and ability to perform labor as part of what makes someone a valuable person, gives someone a valuable life. It's this idea that, for some reason, a person's ability to provide for himself is more important than the human ability to care about, care for, another person. That health is worth more than goodness."

“But he's in pain,” I said.

“Everyone's in pain,” Ben said. “His is just where people have to look at it, so it makes them uncomfortable.”

“I'm not uncomfortable,” I said.

Ben said, “Living successfully with a chronic illness requires a shift in mindset. And waiting around for a cure isn't part of that mindset.”

“But it's not waiting,” I said. “It's right here. If this is what he wants...”

“And you really don't think he'd be doing it for you?” Ben said.

“No.”

“Well,” he said. “You better be really sure. Stakes are pretty high on this one.”

**

That night, Justin's hand seized up when he was carrying his laptop from the office to the living room, and it dropped and broke into pieces on the ground.

“FUCK!” he yelled.

“Jesus.” I got off the couch and examined the wreckage. You okay?

He wrapped his still-shaking hand up in the bottom of his shirt. I'm fine. Goddamn it. Goddamn it.

It was getting old anyway.

My shit wasn't backed up! Fuck! He kicked the wall.

Easy, Beckham.

This is bullshit! he said. This is such fucking, fucking bullshit!

I knew I shouldn't touch him right then, that it wouldn't do anything but add fuel to the fire. He stuck his one working hand in his hair and paced around in the tiniest circles, and I quietly cleaned up the bones of his laptop.

He finally looked at me, electricity and tears in his eyes.

It's just a laptop, I said.

No, it's not.

I know it's not, I said. But it also is.

I poured him a glass of whiskey, just one shot, because fuck the rules a little bit, and his hand twitched for twenty minutes and left him with a shitty headache afterwards. He went to bed, and I maybe started to freak out. Slightly. It's just that it felt like we were on the precipice of something here and...I went out to the balcony and smoked four cigarettes back to back until I was even more of a jittery mess, and then I followed that up with three shots of Beam for good measure.

Because of course I was not goddamn Switzerland. Are you nuts?

I paced the living room for twenty minutes and then went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea.

He was groggy when I woke him up. “What?”

Drink this, I said, and I probably looked like a fucking crazy person at this point.

“Brian, what?”

I made you this, I said.

**

He read through the binder for the millionth time the next day.

I need a more recent MRI, he said, sitting out on the balcony, where he'd usually have a sketchpad. For them to even consider me. And an EEG.

Okay, I said. We can schedule that.

He closed the binder. You're really not going to tell me what you want me to do?

I don't know what this feels like, I said.

This affects you too. Acting like it doesn't isn't helping anyone.

I'm not acting like it doesn't affect me, Jesus. I'm acting like whatever you decide...I'm going to fucking be here, okay?

He nodded a little.

And that doesn't expire, I said. You wake up in the morning and I'm going to fucking be here.

Well, unless I die from having my brain laser-zapped, he said. Don't stuff my corpse and keep it in the bed or anything.

We'll see.

He sighed. I just don't want to be harder for you that I have to be.

You're not some...function happening to me, I said. You're a person.

Thanks, John Locke.

Anytime.

I want to know what you think, he said. I need help deciding. I need help.

I think there are pluses and minuses to—

Bullshit, he said. I know you have an opinion. You always have an opinion.

I lit a cigarette and looked out over the water.

“Brian, look at me,” he said.

I didn't.

“Light me one,” he said, after a minute, so I turned back around and lit a cigarette and handed it to him. He smoked and looked pissed off and beautiful.

I know you're scared of a bad outcome from the surgery, he said. And I know you're scared of a lifetime of taking care of me. I just don't know which one you're more scared of.

Right at that moment I wanted to fucking kill him, I wanted to walk out that door and never look back, fuck what I had just said, because fuck that little shit for not knowing me better after all this time, fuck him for sitting there thinking he didn't know, fuck him for not understanding the million reasons I couldn't put what I wanted onto him right then, the least but not non-existent of which was that I was a fucking coward.

Whatever I decide, I'm putting you at risk, I said. You get that, right?

So you just decide nothing. You put the choice entirely on me so if it turns out we chose wrong, it's my fault, not yours.

Goddamn it, Justin.

We are partners, he said. You're not acting like my partner.

I'm going to be here! I said, yelling it out loud too. I told you, no matter what fucking happens, I'm going to be here, Christ, what the fuck more can you ask from me? What the fuck more is there that I haven't given you? What the fuck, what the fuck, how much more can you drag out of me, Sunshine? What the fuck do you think there is left of me?

And years from now, what's going to be left of you? he asked. When you've been playing fucking nursemaid half your fucking life—it's not all bringing me cups of tea in bed, Brian—

You think I of all goddamn people don't fucking know—

—because I didn't do the surgery or—

—stayed by your bed for goddamn days hearing you scream while they changed your fucking bandages—

—or drinking your liver to death because I did and fucking died on the table, you think you're going to be in better shape than you are now?

I don't love you that much, I said to him. This little narrative is cute and all, but you don't rip me apart the way you want to.

You're an asshole, he said, packing up the binder, stamping out the cigarette, standing up. Fine. You want me to decide this without you, I will.

Good, I said, as he went inside.

But he didn't leave the apartment this time, just the balcony. He didn't walk out.

“I'm losing my touch,” I said softly, turning back to the water.

**

Justin spent the day on the phone, calling his mother, calling Ben, calling Daphne, calling his neurologist. I spent the day orbiting him in the apartment, pointedly ignoring him and even more pointedly not leaving, because fuck him and his contradictory simultaneous high expectations and assuredness that everything will go as badly as it possibly could.

Where the fuck could he have picked up that little trait, we wonder.

“I didn't mean for this to be your life,” he said to me, after dark.

Me neither, I said. I was supposed to be dead before I was thirty-five.

He just looked at me.

So...okay? I said. Cut it out. I'm not the one saving people around here.

You could have been with some healthy version of me, I said.

Where is he, is he around? I don't see him anywhere.

I just mean—

Don't get this fucking surgery if it's to save me from something. I don't marry martyrs.

Just tell me what to do, he said miserably.

I came over to the couch and cupped his chin in my hand.

Grow up, I said.

**

He stood in the doorway of our room while I lay on the bed.

“Most of them want me to do it,” he said.

I put my book down and nodded.

They say seventy-percent is good, and even some of the thirty-percent...it just doesn't work, so I wouldn't be any different from where I am now. So most of them think I should do it. They wouldn't want to live like this, how I am now. They don't want me to live like this.

Okay, I said.

He took a deep breath. I don't want to do the surgery, and I'm sure.

You're sure.

He came and sat down on the bed next to me. I'm sure.

Oh thank God, I said, and I swear I didn't mean to, and he gave a startled kind of laugh and pulled me into his arms.

He kissed my forehead, still holding me. “I guess you're stuck with me like this,” he said.

“Thank God,” I whispered against his collarbone. “Thank God, thank God.”