Lionel Shriver - So Much for That

“I wanted them to say something different,” Shep said glumly. “This mesothelioma thing, it’s incredibly rare. Nobody gets this disease. I didn’t realize how much I was counting on their saying it was all a mistake. When they confirmed the diagnosis, I thought I was going to be sick. Honest, my vision went blurry and black around the edges, as if I was going to faint. Like a girl. Glynis was the one who took it like a man. She’d already resigned herself.”

“This is some hard shit, pal.”

“It’s mainly hard for Glynis. She’s weak, and exhausted, and scared. Alone most of the day, too, so when I come home all I want to do, and should do, is keep her company. No such luck. Like, you think other people will take care of at least the paper-shuffling side, but they don’t. Just to get the second opinion, I had to request the pathology slides. The radiology reports. The ‘tissue blocks.’ The results of every frigging test from each separate hospital department – all in writing. I had to fill out forms giving Glynis’s medical history a dozen separate times. I was up til two a.m. every night. Meanwhile I have to cook. Shop. Show up at work and at least look like I’m doing my job.”

“Yeah, I meant to warn you. I overheard Pogatchnik grumbling about how many personal days you been using up. You’re gonna have to watch the absenteeism.”

“I haven’t had any choice. I lost two solid days wrangling with the World Wellness Group. The hotshots at Columbia are out-of-network, just like that Dr Knox warned me. So I had to beg these HMO people to agree to cover Glynis going to the dream team, which meant talking to a human being. You know, ten different automated menus. Then you’re on hold for forty-five minutes, listening to ‘Greensleeves’ several hundred times. I can’t get it out of my head; it’s driving me crazy. Finally get connected, turns out it’s the wrong department. Back to ‘Go.’ With that open-plan office, I can’t sit on the phone for hours at work unless I’m talking about the fact that, thanks to our expert services, some lady’s boiler just exploded.”

Shep was usually so cool-headed, and Jackson had rarely heard the guy talk so much.

“Anyway,” Shep went on, “I can appeal, but. This provider Pogatchnik has signed onto, they’re real assholes, and so far they’re not budging. Edward Knox has treated one case of mesothelioma in his whole career. As far as World Wellness is concerned, that makes him a mesothelioma whiz. If we go to Columbia, we’ll have to eat forty percent co-insurance.”

“Forty percent of what?”

“Forty percent of a blank check.”

“Jesus. Can you really not use this Knox guy?”

“This isn’t a question of putting up with single-ply toilet paper. If these doctors at Columbia know what they’re doing, then I’ll spring for them. We’re talking about Glynis’s life—”

“ Jim! ” Shep would usually have found the allusion to Dr McCoy’s sanctimonious refrain in Star Trek funny ( We’re talking about human life, Jim! ), but he didn’t even crack a smile.

“I’m not going to buy turkey-burger medical care.”

“At least you’re lucky you got a cushion. Most suckers in your shoes would be putting this crap on their credit cards.”

“It’s a pretty weird version of lucky. But yeah, I am lucky. Shit, I’m rich.”

“Not these days—”

“I’m rich,” Shep cut him off, and Jackson knew this preacher’s son well enough to know that he wasn’t bragging. He felt guilty. Shep may have been a lapsed Presbyterian, but with this deep-down stuff there was only so lapsed you ever got. “You haven’t traveled enough.”

“Well, excuuuse me. I plumb forgot to put in my ten years with the Peace Corps in Malawi.”

“I shouldn’t be talking about money at all. Maybe I’m just getting this out of my system, because in comparison to Glynis … I have no business complaining. You should always remind me of that.”

“I hardly ever heard you complain about anything. I’d recommend you get more practice. It’s not good for a man to take every lump of shit life throws at him lying down.”

“We both take it lying down, Jacks. You just lie down with a mouth.”

“Speaking of which, I came up with a new title for my book,” said Jackson, hoping to lighten the tone. “Ready? FLEECED: How Shrewd Spongers from Vagrants to Vice-Presidents Are Living Off Us Poor Spunkless Sheep .”

A half-smile. “Not bad.”

“I liked the fleeced and sheep thing. You know, keeps up the metaphor.”

“But the ‘spongers’ doesn’t quite fit in. Do you sponge sheep?”

“I’ll work on it.”

“That ‘spunkless.’ Ever notice how almost all your titles have something to do with dicks?”

Jackson shot an uneasy glance at his friend. “As in, having mine cut off? Like, every day? Obviously the experience is central to my thesis.”

“The castration thing is … well used. My favorite of yours is cleaner.”

“Which is?”

“Democracy Is a Joke.”

“Yup. Nice and punchy,” said Jackson with satisfaction. “Good thesis, too. It’s theoretically possible for fifty-one percent of the population to soak the other forty-nine percent for everything they’re worth. This guy in Venezuela, who’s it’s, Howard Chavez or something. That’s how he does it. Really, he just sends the underclass checks. You give the Mooches other people’s money, and then they vote for you.”

“Think you’ll ever write it?”

“Maybe.” Jackson was noncommittal. “But the key is the title. Get that right, and it doesn’t matter what’s inside. You could sell a pile of blank paper called How the Irish Saved Civilization . All those micks are so flattered they’ll pay twenty-five bucks to put it on their coffee tables even if they never read past the copyright page.”

“Maybe that’s the trouble with your titles. PENISES AND PRICKS ,” Shep remembered. “ How We Gutless Weenies Are Being Bilked Dry While the Other Half of the Country Is on the Tit . You couldn’t call that complimentary.”

“The idea is you make your book buyer feel like a little less of a sap because he knows he’s a sap, unlike everybody else, who’re such incredible saps that they don’t even know it.”

“I bet they’d prefer to save civilization.”

“Not my book buyers. They’d rather light it on fire.”

On the way back, Shep put his collar up and huddled into his scarf.

“Anyway. Glynis is scheduled for surgery in just under two weeks.”

Jackson grunted. “Been there. Flicka’s operation for scoliosis was terrifying. Personally, I didn’t want a knife within a mile of my kid’s spinal cord.” He would have to watch himself, always claiming seniority in the medical nightmare department.

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to apologize,” said Shep.

“What the hell for?”

“All you’ve been through with Flicka. I don’t think I’ve been sympathetic enough. I didn’t have a feel for what it must have been like for you guys until I sank up to the neck in the same shit myself. I should have been a lot more understanding.”

“Balls, my buddy. You been plenty sympathetic. And how you supposed to be ‘understanding’ til you understand it?” Still, the exchange was gratifying. Shep hadn’t had any idea, and the truth was he still didn’t.

“Anyway, I’ve heard about people ‘going in for surgery’ my whole life. I never thought about it. Now it seems medieval. Like taking your wife to a slaughterhouse.”

“It really wipes you out. You think the hard part’s going under the knife, but the real hard part’s after. Takes forever. Flicka said she’d lie around and have to think for, like, an hour about whether it’s really worth the trouble to ask her mother to hand her a magazine from the dresser. Not to go get it herself; just to ask for it. It’s like you been taken out back of some bar and had the crap beat out of you.”