Bruce Wagner - Dead Stars

Telma hadn’t been born to any of them and they owed her nothing. They went home at night to their families, the children they’d so carefully raised and kept safe from harm. For a long while, Telma didn’t come home at all. She roamed the peed onk hallways with her dog, spreading good cheer, climbing every mountain, dreaming impossible dreams. She made her nest in that deathstar place, a mutilated pig-tailed Phantom of the Operating rooms, a roving Dora the explorer of strange- and sinister-smelling corridors, of cubbyholes housing exotic, pitiably young inhabitants, each one dying or healing from rarities, each with readymade story & fate, they captivated her because now Telma was one of them, only she was stronger, she was braver, the New Girl , brave new girl in a brave new world.

All these years Gwen had grown to believe she was a reasonably tough mom, a worthy adversary for the cause. Only now had she begun to realize how terribly matched she was, not against the disease but the rampaging medical superheroes, each one more confident than the next of the proposed course of action. What a charade! What a fool she was to be exhorting them from her ringside seat! Why did I embrace the diagnosis so quickly, so deep? How dare I! Would I have just rolled over if they said the same things to me ? If I got double-teamed by vultures who said they needed to cut off my tits & needed to do it FAST or I might die? Would I have been so awed? so cowed & resigned? She didn’t want to think about this anymore because it was too much, she would have to learn some technique, train herself to permanently deepsix what was too shaming, damning, overwhelming, too suicide-baiting. It made her want to die and that was the one thing she could not do, not as long as Telma was alive. There was no use indulging in the repetitive argument, that was a form of madness, searching for balm where there was none, Gwen knew that Phoebe or anyone really would just keep telling her it wasn’t her fault, none of it had been, she was being irrational, that she did what any mother would have (tho she’d always know in her heart that it wasn’t true), if you Googled pediatric onc Telma’s whole team would be on the very first page, they were world-class, they were unimpeachable, they were legendary. There was no use because after a while you become a bore and people rightfully began to shun you, all you had left was your therapist who now was really nothing more than a paid friend, since therapy had gone by the wayside, there could be no therapy for you anymore, you were cooked, you were done, you had graduated, into Hell. She knew people would grow tired of her, and the ones that hadn’t run or disappeared completely would practically stage an intervention asking her begging her to please think about Zoloft or whatever pill it was that would help during this tough time. (Translation: help them by making her less of an insane needy bother.) “This tough time”! After the intervention they’d go home, those repelled soon-to-no-longer-be friends she’d been abusing, home to the kids they guarded even more closely now than before, having had the enlightening experience of coming across the highway accident of Gwen’s cautionary tale, moving slowly by in their vehicles, taking in the guttering flares & mangled metal, their children wide-eyed in the backseat, eyes glued to windows, thank God this did not happen to me—––—well, thought Gwen, at least it isn’t like losing a child to a pool drowning, you turn your back & it’s over, those marriages never survive because the parent who wasn’t home blames the one who was — o thank god Max wasn’t alive! for this! Thank god Max never saw them do this to his baby! At least that was something to be grateful for. And didn’t Eric Clapton’s — didn’t he fall — from a window—––—––— NO! NO NO NO , Gwen HATED when she started doing that, trafficking in others’ grief to benumb herself, hated that more than ANYTHING , it made her feel cruel, astringent, monstrous—––—––—who knew what those same friends & families said in the privacy of their homes… there was probably a whole group of them (in reverie, Gwen doubted if they’d even be aware of their same-held opinions because it just wasn’t the sort of thing to openly gossip about or exchange notes, a kind of primordial superstition would prevent them from giving voice to what happened at the accursed House of Ballendyne, especially when you had kids of your own, it would be pretty near taboo) who murmured/pillowtalked with their spouses in those intimate moments before sleep, I really don’t think I would EVER have let that happen to my child, I don’t care WHO the doctors were, I’d have gone to the ends of the Earth… Then the husband might say in that male way, “That woman was asleep at the FUCKING WHEEL . There is just NO WAY— ” or maybe if he was the husband of one of her dwindling circle of BFFs, maybe for a minute the BFF would rally to Gwen’s defense and say “Hey c’mon now hon that isn’t fair” but the retort would be limply politic because in actuality she would agree with him but couldn’t let on, so she mounted a little technical defense of Gwen, her BFF-to-soon-no-longer-be, because as a mom & still-technical-BFF it was just the karmically correct thing to do. Yet the wife’s minuscule effort would do nothing to obscure the fact that both instinctively knew in their secret husband-wife/mom-dad language (their twins, Telma’s age, asleep two walls away) that “Hey c’mon now hon that isn’t fair” translated to “Of course she was asleep at the fucking wheel, she’s no different than one of those moms who drown their kids in the tub, she’s NUTS, I just can’t say that about my friend because I’m superstitious about bringing energy to it, about something then happening to our own kids,” all of that unspoken, or spoken, but in code, it would be so obvious, the wife’s affirmation of a truth told that she shared but dare not express, also not a rebuke to hubby but a way to say let’s hush now and go to sleep, let’s not call the wrath of anyone’s god, & the husband would cease his banter, he’d shot his macho family-protecting Papa Bear wad, her signal that it’s time to spoon, he’d hold her from behind in solidarity & gratitude that it didn’t happen to them, to their family, holding her in quiet holy gratitude and respect for her loyalty & commendable discretion, that’s just how a great wife and stand-up friend’s supposed to act, & they’d fall asleep like that spooning, husb and wife and unmauled children, whereas Gwen would toss and turn, husbandless, with her deformed Tel——

. .

She xanaxscrolled through the CHANNEL MENU GUIDE: news, news, infomercial, Cheers in Spanish, sports sports sports, House , Kardashian, Kardashian, Hell’s Kitchen . Some anchorperson was offering tips on how to explain political assassination to your kids. Julian Assange was hosting SNL —no. Can it be? Maybe that’s Bill Maher. But why would Bill Maher be hosting SNL?

She scrolled down, down, down…

Michael Douglas and Laurence Fishburne were on Jimmy Kimmel. Everyone was in high antic spirits. Everyone was laughing, everyone was rich, everyone was cancer-free. Jimmy Kimmel kept saying let’s talk about your movie, why don’t you want to talk about your movie, & Michael said I don’t want to talk about it, ain’t even a movie yet, we’re still shooting. Jimmy Kimmel said something & Gwen missed it & Michael’s response was Don’t be an asshole, they bleeped out asshole , & Laurence Fishburne was laughing so hard (he hadn’t said anything the whole time, he just laughed) that Gwen thought he looked stoned off his gourd. The audience was having a blast, they already loved Michael because of his cancer victory, his comic humility about it, his elegant courageousness, the model of how everyone dreamed they’d handle their own diagnosis, they loved that he didn’t drop by the show to sell something. Gwen caught herself thinking, Wouldn’t it be funny if Michael didn’t have cancer too? That would be so nice for Telma, to have a friend that went through the same thing then stopped herself. Trafficking again…