Matthew Revert - The Tumours Made Me Interesting

“I’m going to make you some soup, dude. Soup fixes everything… except for too much soup.”

As Jerry walked into the kitchen, I felt lonely. I fondled my empty cigarette packet, wishing it would replenish itself. I should have thought to bring more with me. The sound of breaking dishes wafted from the kitchen like a tendril, reminding me that I was still here. The tumours were growing hungry for nicotine and attention. I stroked my belly, willing them to be calm. They responded to my request, giving me the illusion of control. The tumours had killed a man. I was terrified and proud. They were clearly as powerful as I was told they were. I really was that special. My only regret was that I’d now lost one of them. When the tumour forced its way from my body, it was like a child running away from home. I missed him. I was always going to miss him.

By the time Jerry had returned with soup, daylight was breaking through the windows.

“Sorry that took so long. I’ve never made soup before.”

He dragged a card table from the corner of his room and placed the soup before me. It had the consistency of mashed potato and was garnished with whole persimmons.

“What sort of soup is this?” I asked.

“It’s supposed to be tomato, but I didn’t have any of the ingredients.”

He shovelled a heaped spoonful into his mouth and started to chew. His eyes watered into pink scabs and he let the muck fall from his mouth back into the bowl. It landed with a wet splat.

“Seriously, dude, don’t eat that fucking soup,” he warned. “It’s an affront to nature.”

I was more than happy to heed his warning. It smelled like neglected cat litter. My desire for a cigarette was beating at my skull with increasing anger. I needed to get home and replenish my supplies. Then I had to see my mother. If I was smart about it, there was no reason Fiona would find out. And even if she suspected it, it was unlikely she would be able to prove it. Mum had to know her son was good at something. I wanted her to be proud of me before I died. I had never been able to give her the gift of pride.

The sun was out in full force now. Jerry’s apartment didn’t look quite right in daylight. It had the grime you associate with noir back alleys and Tom Waits songs. The bed I was on smelled like what I imagined sex to smell like and empty liquor bottles slept on the carpet with blurry Z’s floating from their necks. What really hit me was the sense of loneliness. This wasn’t how I imagined Jerry to live. I had always envisioned a swinging bachelor pad circa 1963 with smooth jazz moving through egg-shaped speakers.

Jerry was lost in thought with what looked like a tear beading on his eye. His legs were nervously shaking with unconscious abandon. My instinct was to look away and deny ever having seen it. He was tired and had yawned or maybe he had allergies, but he sure as fuck wasn’t crying… surely…

“Are you okay?” I found myself asking.

Jerry looked at me and snapped out of his introspection.

“I’m cool as love for a whore, dude,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say. I gave a polite smile and nodded my head to music that didn’t exist. We remained still and watched the dust dance in the sunlight.

“It’s just… you were talking about your mother…” continued Jerry.

“Yeah?”

“Well… you should go and fucking see her, man.”

His head collapsed into waiting hands and his whole body began to shake with the eruption of dormant tears. My head kept motioning to look away but I forced myself to look. I needed to see this. He wouldn’t let me see his face, perhaps out of fear or maybe due to shame.

“What happened to your mother?” I asked.

He looked up. I could see how wet and swollen with pity his eyes had become. His mouth kept opening as if to speak, but nothing came out. I stood up and sat beside him and very gently, as if about to touch a snake, I placed my hand on his shoulder. His shoulder felt foreign and infused with dangerous electricity. I wanted to pull my hand away, but something inside wouldn’t allow this.

“You can… umm… talk to me if you want,” I said.

As these words left my mouth, I wanted to snatch them back, but Jerry’s ear had already swallowed them.

“Yeah… she died a bunch of years back,” he said eventually. “We didn’t really talk much.”

If emotional terrain could be imagined as a pirate map, the area Jerry and I were currently in would read ‘Here Be Monsters’. I was terrified, but I pressed on.

“How did she die?”

“She got trapped in a photograph.”

I scratched my head, clearly unprepared for this response

“It was my fucking dad’s fault,” he continued. Permission to finally speak had been granted. “He got this stupid piece of shit camera from one of those roadside fruit stands you see when you’re driving in the middle of nowhere. It was this orange, plastic fucker. It looked like a toy. It took this film they don’t make any more and there was only one roll available for my dad to use. So he’s excited like some stupid fucking kid and he comes home with this thing. I remember him gathering us all up in the kitchen and he placed the camera smack in the middle of the table. I’m staring at it and thinking, who gives a shit? and my mother and sister are just as underwhelmed. Dad was always doing shit like this, though: picking up some worthless piece of crap and acting like he’d just found the holy fucking grail. He didn’t care that it was junk. He never did. He makes a big show of loading the film and bragging about the photos he was going to take of us. Me and sis weren’t letting him snap us with the stupid fucking thing so he ropes mum in on it. She never refused him, no matter how fucking stupid his ideas were. Later that night, he had her posing in the kitchen dressed as a dromedary camel. I was watching from the sidelines, pissed off at dad for roping mum in and pissed off at mum for letting dad do it to her. So he aims this piece of shit at her, tells her to smile and say ‘cheese’ and BANG! He takes the photo and she disappears! To fuck it up even more, he drops the camera in shock and it smashes on the ground. The film inside is damaged and he goes to every camera store in the fucking country to try and get it developed. It’s no good… she’s gone and we never see her again.”

Jerry grew silent again as I tried to process his story.

“She was literally gone in a flash, dude,” he added.

“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted. “That’s really fucked up.”

“Yeah… it is. And to make it worse, I never spoke to my mother. I was 16 and way too fucking cool for that sort of shit. I spent all my time getting drunk and stoned, avoiding my mother like she had a contagious disease. So, yeah,… go see your mother, dude. Shit… it’s just as important for her to be there at the end of your life as it is for you.”

I nodded in complete agreement. I removed my hand from Jerry’s shoulder and felt the residual warmth fade away. It was a melancholy sensation.

“There’s something else I should probably tell you, dude,” continued Jerry with an element of caution.

“What’s that?”

“It’s about that fucking tent girl you were banging on about…”

“Yes?”

“So… the two of you never did anything… there was no coital tango.”

I rubbed at my tired eyes, not sure if I wanted to keep listening.

“You didn’t even suck her tit, man,” he said.

“Then what the hell happened?”

“So you were acting like one rowdy fucker and you’d chucked all over the floor. You should’a seen it, man… you were driving people out of there like a bomb threat. So this tent chick starts dragging you into the kitchen, just to get you away from everyone. Then she tells me that if I don’t get your sorry arse outta there, she’s calling the cops… so that’s what I did.”