Bruce Wagner - Dead Stars

“Yeah. .”

“Are you watching porn?”

“No.”

“You don’t have to lie.”

“I’m not lying.”

“I don’t care if you watch porn.”

“Then why do you ask? If you don’t care why do you ask me if I’m watching it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m horny.”

“Maybe you just like being in my business.”

Pause.

“I just think. . the sooner we move out the better. But I’m going to wait a week. Before. A week before .”

“Wait for what.”

“To ask.”

We Don’t Need Another Hero

Of

all the stars with cancer that Telma reached out to in her campaign to join the cast of Glee , Michael Douglas was the biggest, and the first responder. Another one she heard back from right away was Grant Achatz, the famous chef; he had tongue cancer too. The doctors wanted to cut out the jaw and the tongue but Grant said no because he didn’t want to lose his tastebuds. Grant got chemo and radiation instead. He said the lining of his esophagus shed like a snake & part of the getting-well ritual was peeling the lining out of his throat like smelly clingy cellophane while he choked & vomited. Now, that’s a hero. She liked Grant, & she liked Christina Applegate, & she liked Will Reiser, & she liked the guy from Dexter , & any one of them could have gotten her on the Glee set. But Michael was the only one she had shared her aspirations with.

At night, she read his letter over and over (he handwrote it the same as Telma had, & her mom thought that was such a wonderful way of showing solidarity), wondering when he was going to call to ask her to tea. She already knew what she was going to wear. Her mom said, be patient.

It was Saturday, and she was doing her usual weekend tour at St Ambrose (pediatric oncology, or, as Telma liked to call it, ped-OINK! OINK! OINK! ), going from bed to bed with Sir Vivor, her three-legged English terrier that she got at the shelter, & Bunny, the real-life floppy-eared cocker spaniel that was the official ward mascot, putting kids (& parents) at ease. Telma knew how to make the frightened children laugh, settle their moms’ & dads’ nerves, instill hope. Showing everyone how to pull the courage trigger. She loved her weekend warriorship.

The Bertram & Bonnie Brainard Family Center for Pediatrics was hers : she owned it. But Telma didn’t define or limit herself by ped- oink alone — she had toured/ombudsgirl’d through them all: The Rick & Tina Caruso Family Research & Critical Care, AEG Extended Care (clinical outpatient), The Stewart and Lynda Resnick Pavilion (neuropsychiatric), the Verizon Towers (imaging center), & Twitter House (extended residence for families with kancerkidz undergoing treatment)—& most weekends could be found crisscrossing & cross-pollinating the sprawling campus, faithfully fulfilling her duties exercising authority, not only as the Wizard of Brainard, but the mayor of St Ambrose & all its environs. The cafeteria staff plied her with frozen yogurt; elderly volunteers thrust flowers into her tiny hands; there was even a special place where she could nap, covered by a quilt stitched together with the names of kancerheroes embroidered on every square. The RNs called themselves Telma’s Troopers— most of them were on the 20/20 that featured Telma five years back. Elizabeth Vargas and a camera crew followed the (then) 4 foot titan thru the rooms & corridors of Brainard as she cajoled and consoled, struggling to keep up.

But that was. .

. . a while ago.

Too long, thought Telma.

Time for a comeback.

Anyway — what was good for Telma, was good for kancer.

. .

A nurse told her that Biggie Brainard (pushing 13, real name, Colt Brainard III) (5'3"/165 lbs) happened to be “at hospital” today, and would she like to meet him? (Well, duh.) Biggie’s dad, Bertram Brainard, was an inventor who disappeared from public view after fully endowing construction of the oink-oink building 10 years back.

Now this was going to be really something! Telma had never given much thought to the Brainards, & with this development, was, well, nearly ashamed at having neglected to ever have inquired after her benefactors. Until now, they had no flesh at all, flat and bloodless as the walls of the edifice on which their name was engraved. Telma immediately asked where she might find Mr. Biggie Brainard, & the nurse replied that he happened to be in the basement getting an MRI, or trying to anyway. She explained that he was mortally terrified of the hellaciously noisy apparatus that, to his mind (his mind being the very thing the machine was attempting to observe, record, interpret, & diagnose), swallowed a person prematurely, like an overeager coffin.

Biggie lived with his older brother Brando on a vast estate in Bel-Air. The brother, his de facto guardian, lately noticed that Biggie was having subtle cognitive difficulties, the most pronounced being in the realm of short-term memory. He hadn’t struck his head on anything (as far as anyone knew) & the doctors had already ruled out diabetes. Now, they wanted to take a look at the brain.

All this was transmitted to the Mayor, who of course enjoyed a privileged standing when it came to hospital staff sharing certain confidentialities. Once she got the brainard tumor joke out of her system, she was on her merry way.

She was introduced to Camino (nanny/caregiver) & then Biggie (overweight but not yet morbidly obese, though heading for it) in a doctor’s lounge. The nurses’ s broke in unison when they saw how sweet the two looked together — Telma’s fearless, charismatic, firecracker Laurel to his poignantly fearful, socially awkward, shrinking-violet Hardy. Having been briefed on Biggie’s MRI jitters, she lost no time suggesting they go for yogurt in the “café.”

The nurses shook their heads in respect.

The Mayor was alarmingly proactive.

That’s our girl.

. .

— So did they say if you can have kids?

— Probably. I had surgery but I didn’t have any chemo.

— Radiation?

— Nuh-uh. Christina Applegate had what I had & she had a baby. I met her when we were in Washington. The doctors said one day I might have to have my ovaries taken out but I can still carry. Christina might have to have hers out too.

— What kind of surgery. Did you have.

— A mastectomy.

— Oh. ( Pause ) I saw this little girl on the Ellen show. She’s like four years — old & got it too. Breast cancer.

— She was on Ellen?

— I didn’t see it but my brother sent me a link. He thought it would make a good telemovie.

— She’s from Canada. But she’s not really a survivor.

— I didn’t even think four year old girls had breasts.

— I mean, you have to be kancerfree for at least three years before you can be called a survivor.

— But I mean if you’re still alive after your surgery or your chemo & whatever, doesn’t that make you a survivor?

— Technically . In layman’s terms. But if someone has something cut out & then it never spreads anywhere else — like me, so far — it takes three years before you’re allowed to say you’re kancerfree. The rule is, you have to be kancerfree for three years before you’re allowed to call yourself a survivor, & five years before you’re allowed to say you’re cured.

— Allowed?

— Those are the cancer organization rules , & they’re very strict. You can’t just go and change them. It’s like the Olympics. And that girl won’t know for three years . I mean, I hope she is— a survivor. That would be so rad. She’s already a hero. She’s got swag.