You Should Be Famous for All You’ve Been Through

Bangkok. Even now, all these years later, you remember its ribbony klongs, how everything was connected to everything else not by roads but by water. You floated in a longtail steered by a skinny local named Nong through villages of bungalows balanced impossibly on stilts. The water carried everything—dead birds, dead dogs, drowned buffalos, flip flops, prescription bottles, reed rooftops, soggy letters with faded script, whole islands of water hyacinths all stuck together. Whiffs of cooked rice drifted through the air; the scent of incense, jasmine, lemongrass soups, overripe fruits, roasted meats. Monks chanted from the temples; roosters screamed. Children splashing naked cried out—Hello, hello!—as you glided by. You thought, What a wonder to still be alive!

That was at the beginning of your time in the war. You were in the 25^th Infantry Division, stationed on the border, dressed in camouflage, holding a gun nearly the size of you. The sun, the heat, the paddies that sometimes gleamed like gold. You paced back and forth all day through colorless clouds of chemicals, slapping mosquitoes and sucking on pieces of a tropical chocolate bar, your mind fixed on the Big Mac and ice-cold Coca-Cola you’d have if you ever made it home. Other days, you wriggled your way through spider holes in the earth without any idea of who or what would be waiting inside. Your eyes got accustomed to things in the dark. You could count to two hundred without any air and still squiggle out grinning. Rubberman, your buddies called you.

When a booby trap tripped, you squeezed shut your eyes and were borne outside yourself. You knew you were about to die, and you wanted to be brave, but all you could do was whimper and wait. Afterwards, when you told about it, the whole thing felt like pieces from a jumbled film, which made it seem untrue, but yet it was true. It was the truest thing you’d ever known.

You were dragged on a rain poncho across a dark rice paddy and while you were being stitched back together in the makeshift hospital tent, half your platoon was blown to bits. You felt as if everything was your fault and with no one around to know about it, you crawled up in a ball and cried yourself to sleep.

When the war was over, there was no place in particular to go, so you went back to your mother in your hometown outside of Detroit. Somehow you had done it, you had kept yourself alive. There was nothing more to bear, nothing left to fight; for days, you felt a strange emptiness inside. You began to fill yourself with books and films; you taught others what you knew about numbers; you found a woman to love. Every Sunday, you shone your shoes and dressed in your best suit and sat in the front row at church. You looked everywhere for joy and meaning in the world, most often in the faces of the cathedral’s stone saints.

And all the while, those musty clouds you’d thought nothing of, gathering like a storm inside you. One cold December day, the doctor told you of the tumors, at least a half dozen of them. There’s a small chance with treatment, he said, looking you straight in the eyes without blinking. Small chance.

A sudden swell of helplessness came over you as if you were in a deep spider hole. You couldn’t catch your breath; you couldn’t see which way to go. In the backseat of the taxi, your wife held your hand and both of you wept while snow swirled outside, covering the city.

How does your story go? What happens to you next?

~

You open your eyes and find your favorite nurse still beside you; she’s been here this whole time. Only a little longer, she smiles. You’re doing so well. You should be famous for all you’ve been through.

In the reflection of her glasses, you can see yourself. You’ve no more hair left; the gown hangs so loosely on you now. Dear Christ Lord, you’ve barely enough strength anymore to walk the dog to the end of the street (sometimes you cheat and walk her in the parking garage). Yet still . . . you’re here! You decide this must be what the doctor meant; this must be the small chance. Yes, of course it is. Your wife is in the waiting room; your daughter and son are at the condo. Tonight, you’ll put on your suit, and you’ll all go to dinner at the swanky seafood place, though you’ll barely be able to touch a thing. Not even halfway through, you’ll look forward to coming home, sleeping with the dog curled beside you.

You close your eyes and slip back into a daydream where tumors grow inside someone else. You’re a young man again, a headful of shaggy hair, an enormous appetite. All the holes you crawl into are full of stars. In your boots and dog tags and fatigues, you’re a giant walking across the surface of the world, pacing back and forth upon a field of light. You’re mightier than the war, outside of time. You’ll never die. There’s no beginning, no end. You keep gazing out, nowhere, everywhere. You whisper to whatever’s coming—I’m here, still here. I’m ready for you. You are keeping guard over the whole world. And nobody knows but the boy leading his buffalo across the line of the horizon; he waves at you through the distance, your only witness.

for Uncle Al