Now I'm Done (I of II)

I’m ill, but I don’t know with what, and I wait. The chairs are blue, bright blue. The nurse calls my name and I stand up. “Right this way,” she says, and I go with her to a small room down the hall. I sit where the nurse can check me out and she does. She writes it all down. “The doc will be right with you,” she says, then she leaves. Some time goes by, then the doc comes in.

“Hi, pal,” he says. “What’s wrong?”

“Hi, doc,” I say. “I don’t know. I just don’t feel good.”

He looks at me.

“Hmmm,” he says. “And you don’t look so good.”

“I know, doc, I know,” I say. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Well, you’re pale,” he says. “Take off your shirt. Let’s see if I can find out what you’ve got.”

So I take off my shirt. He hears me breathe. He feels the glands in my neck and then he holds my tongue down with a stick so he can look deep in my throat. He holds a small light in his hand, and he shines it in my eyes, first the right, then the left. He steps back and makes a few notes on my chart.

“Work got you down?” he asks.

“Could be, but I don’t think it’s just that.”

“Well, how are things at home? You got a gal?”

“We split up,” I say. “But I don’t think it’s that.”

“Hmm,” he says. “We’ll have to do some blood tests.”

He sends me to the lab on the third floor. I sign my name on a sheet and wait like I did at the doc’s. A girl comes to the door and calls me. I go with her in a small room and sit down on a chair. She bends my arm to find a vein. Her thick black hair smells nice, and her shirt is cut low so I can see the soft, smooth top halves of her big round breasts. She sticks my arm and I watch my dark red blood ooze in the tube. She marks my name on a piece of white tape, puts it on the tube and then she leaves. I watch her bounce as she walks off. If I felt good, I would flirt with her, I would tell her how good she looks, and then, if she smiled or said thank you, I would ask her out. But I don’t feel good.

I go home and warm up last night’s soup on a low flame. I eat out of the steel pan and then I lie down on the couch and take a nap. I dream I am with a girl, not the girl at the lab, this one’s thin and she has long blond hair, and I stroke her arm, then her wet lips kiss me. I take off her shirt and touch her breasts. They are not the big round breasts of the girl at the lab, but they are nice. She breathes hard. I run my hand up her leg and lift her dress. I touch the hair on her mound, I feel her wet sex, she sighs, then I wake up.

I go for a walk down the street, past the shops and then back home. I’m beat. I go to bed and sleep, then wake up, then sleep some more, then wake up. It’s been like this for some time. My wife said she could not take my nerves. No sleep gave me bad nerves, I think.

It’s the next day, and I am at work, at my desk, as a sports scribe for the town rag: news this day, fish wrap the next. I do not have much to do, and that’s good, ’cause I could not do much, I’m too thrashed. I call a high school hoops coach. I write down what he says. I hang up. I spin a yarn on the hoops team, the kids, the coach. I put it in the "hold" file so it will be in the rag soon, but not the next day. I go home and sleep, then wake up, then eat, then sleep some more. Like I said, I know I’m ill, but I don’t know what I have. Yet.

Two days go by and on the third day the nurse calls as soon as the sun comes up. She says the doc wants to see me. That does not sound good, does it? It does not sound good at all. Oh well. I have to know, I guess.

I go see the doc and he tells me: “I have bad news.”

“That’s what I thought,” I say.

He says that there are white blood cells and red blood cells. That, I knew. But I have more white blood cells than I should. Way more. That, I did not know. He says I should have come last May or June. But now, in March, it’s too late. Way too late.

He says he could try drugs on me, but he doubts they’d help. He says he could try to nuke me, zap me, what have you, but he says it may be too late for that, too. I should have come last year, he says. Then he just looks at me and shrugs.

“How long do I have, doc?” I ask him.

“Two months,” he says. “Six months. I don’t know. Not much more than that, though.”

This is a shock, of course.

They say you get mad, then you try to say it’s not true. Then you try to make a deal with God – you say “If you let me live, I will be good,” or “if you can cure me, I’ll be a new man,” things like that. Then you’re sad and you grieve, then you know it’s true and you work with it. But I can tell you now that I did it all at the same time, from the start, and I did not move from one stage to the next, I just do it all, all of it, all the time, I’m mad, I’m sad, I try to make a deal, I grieve, I give up, I take it the best I can, all of it, all the time.

I go home. I should have gone to the doc, like he said, last year. Oh well. What was that rhyme? “... Nor all your tears wash out one word of it.” I hate to let go, but I have no choice. I’m done here, soon.

But now what? I mean, ’til then? Should I get one last blow job? I could get one of those rags from the rack in front of the store down the street and call one of those girls in the ads. I could go to her place and have her kneel at my feet while I sit on her couch. She would run her red lips up and down my stiff cock, while I can still get it up. Soon, I’ll be too sick. Will a blow job make me feel good? One last time? I don’t know. But it might be worth a try.

Or I could go to Tom’s Bar on South Street and try my luck with the girls there. I could pick up a girl at a bar for the last time. I could buy her a drink, look deep in her eyes and tell her how good she looks and bring her back to my place. I could slide my hand on the curve of her breast, I could run my mouth up her thighs, I could touch her pink clit with the tip of my tongue, she would breathe hard, she would moan, I would make her come, she would scream, Oh! Oh! Oh! She would love it, I think, don’t you? I would climb on top of her and then I would put my cock in her and fuck her and come in her. I would love it, too,

I think, for that one last time. Then, when I’m done with that, there would be no more.

And then should I go out for one last good meal? What could I have? Should I go to that French place, Le Bec Fin? I went there last year and had the foie gras, then the raie au beurre noire with a glass of fine white wine. Le Bec Fin would be a good choice, I think.

But wait: I’ve heard there’s this tea you can drink. Would that cure me? The doc made it seem like it’s too late. But just to make sure, I pick up the phone and call and ask him if I should try this tea. He says: Sure, go for it, guy, try the tea. What have you got to lose? But I can tell from the way he says it the tea will not do what I’d want it to, which is make this stop.

“There’s no hope, is there?” I ask him.

“Not much,” he says. “There’s not much hope.”

I tell him thanks and I hang up.

If I pick up a girl, should I tell her I’ll die soon? No, that would scare her. I won’t tell her. She’d think I have AIDS and then she’d be mad. And you know, this would not be to talk, this would be for sex, one last fuck.

To talk, I’d want to be with my friends. I’d like to smoke a joint with my friends, one last time. We’d get stoned and I’d tell them that I’ll die soon. Two of them, I think, or three of them, will be mad. They’ll say: Why don’t you try to find a cure? You could beat this if you try, they’d say. They won’t get it. But the rest of them will get it. They’ll know it’s too late and it’s good not to take the drugs and get nuked if you don’t want to, it’s good to just let go, if that’s what you want. They’ll want to know what made me ill. They’ll ask me what I have that will kill me. I’ll tell them. I can’t write it here, though. It’s a big word and I want to write these last thoughts with just small words, no big words.

When a man knows he’ll die soon, what does he want, and what does he do? Does he want one last blow job? Does he go pay for it? Or does he say no, that would not be right for me. Does he want to pick up a girl at a bar and take her home to make love one last time? Does he do it, or does he say no, that would not be right for her, or for me. Does he want one last walk up the hill, for the view of the clouds as they turn pink, then red, then blue when the sun goes down on the trees? Does he go up the hill, or does he just stay home and sit and think of how it would be? Does a sax guy want to wail on one last jam? If he could, what would that jam sound like? Would that be the best horn riff of all time? Or would he not play out of fear he could not play what he wants to play? What would that feel like? You have one last chance, and you can’t do it. That would not feel good. Does an ink-stained wretch like me want to write one last tale? Does he do it, or would he not, out of fear he would not say what he needs to say? You know, there are times when there are no words for what you feel. There are times when words can’t do what you want them to.

This is not a new tale, it’s an old one, it’s been told in books and on film. So the point is to tell it my own way, to make it mine, just for me. So I chose to write it like this, with just small words, no big words. I think the small words are best here, while the big words would just get in the way. Each word I picked for this last tale has just one pulse, just one beat, like each beat of my heart – whoomp, whoomp, whoomp – this heart that will soon beat its last. Each beat sends my blood all through me, to my hands, to my eyes, to my brain. Soon, there will be one last beat and no more, and I’ll be done, I’ll be dead. And when I put the last dot after the last word in this tale, my last tale, that will mean it’s done, and now it is, and I am, too. Now I’m done, now, here, with this last dot, right here.

Now I'm Gone (II of II)

And now that life I led, it’s done. My heart beat its last beat. My lungs breathed their last breath. My mouth spoke its last word. Now I’ve just got these shards of thoughts that I send to you with these last words as my brain shuts down. Can you hear me? Are you there? Or am I too far now, too far from you, too far for these words to reach you?

I rise, I float, I rise, I float.

What will become of that skin that held this soul?

Ice? To be thawed years from now when they can cure what killed me? I did not choose that. There are folks who do it, though. Some just freeze their heads, so their brains can be brought back to life. Wow. I would not want that. This is the way to do it; to just let go.

Flames? I thought that’s what I’d have done with my skin and bones. But I’m a Jew, and Jews don’t do that. I did not know that ’til last month when I knew I was ill and I checked. So what is left of me will go in the ground. In a box. That is what is done in my faith.

I rise, I float, I rise, I float. What now?

Will there be that light that I have heard of? Not yet, I don’t see it.

I think back.

Are these my last thoughts, as I leave this world?

I was a boy. There were more boys with me, in a room. We played with toys. Cars, boats. Paints – with our hands. And there were girls, too. We sang songs. Then there was school. We will learn to read, they said one day. I was scared that I would not learn. But I learned. It was not that hard. Whew.

I lived in New York. Then we moved, me and mom and dad. To L.A. I had to change the way I did things. Kids made fun of me for the way I talked. And dressed. They wore jeans. I wore dress slacks. I tried to fit in, I changed what I wore, I tried to talk like them. After a time, I fit in. Kind of.

There were boys with me, then, too. We played sports. And then girls. I fell in love for the first time. Jill. Was that her name? I think that was her name. She had short brown hair and wore nice clothes to school. A white blouse. A blue skirt. She did not know I loved her. At least I don’t think so. Where is she? Will I see her? No, that is all gone.

With each thought, each of these last thoughts, I feel each thing fade. Each face, each thing, fades, fades, fades. Then it’s gone.

I grew up. I learned to drive. I fell in love once more, and she did not know, like the first girl, that first time. And then I fell in love one more time. That time, she knew. We went to be and kissed and touched and licked and sucked and fucked. I loved her. I thought she loved me. Did she? For a time, sure. Some time later I knew she did not love me. Then I was sad, so sad I cried. Then I moved on, as they say you do. It’s true, you move on.

I smoked pot with friends. I got a first job, then a new job, then a third job, then a fourth. I worked and I made a few bucks. I smoked more pot. I was still in high school. I played in a band. The band broke up. Then more school, where I took a class, then two, then three and four, and learned how to write news. I smoked more pot.

I float, I rise, I float, I rise.

The things I think of, these last thoughts, they fade and go, then they’re gone.

I left L.A. and lived in the U.K. for a year. I went to France, and Spain and Rome and Greece, too, then back to France. I learned French there and got a job where I wrote news. I stayed a few years and came back to L.A. where I got a job and lived that life I led, the one that’s gone now.

There were good days. There were films, there were books. Good meals, fine wine. I went to the beach. I fell in love and then fell in love again. As I think back on each face, she fades, she fades, then she’s gone. Gone for the last time.

There were bad days, too. We’ve all had those. Then there were real bad days: when I got sick and I knew it was the end.

I rise, I float, I rise, I float.

What now? What next? It is what we all want to know, right? When you breathe your last breath, what then?

Will there be the flames of hell? I don’t think so. A warm glow in the clouds? I don’t know.

Ah, the clouds, the clouds. Big white clouds stretched out on the sky. They hold rain. The rain falls in the cold and it’s snow, it’s ice.

The snow falls, white flakes blow in the wind. The snow lands and stays on the ground in piles and it turns all the streets white. Pure. It makes things look pure.

Flames, too. They kill germs. They make things pure, too. Odd, huh, that flames and ice both make things pure.

Are these my last thoughts, of flames and ice and how they make things pure?

I float, I rise, I float, I rise.

The world fades, not just faces and things, but now the whole world, all things, each thing. Am I gone now? Is this the end? Where is the end? Wait … is that the light I see? Can I feel it? I don’t know. You’d think I would know, right? That light that they say is there, at the end. If you saw it, you would know. At least I think you would.

These last words I think, these last short words – this time, too, I made them short words, words with one sound, one beat, my last fight with words – I leave them now, too. They fade. Now there will be no more words, long or short, one beat or two. No more thoughts, no more words. No more. It’s the end.

I float, I rise, I float, I rise. But now there is no I, no me. And that’s when the light shines.

The last sparks of my brain light up and then fade and I’m gone.

Is it cold here? Is it hot? Flames? Ice? I can’t tell. All that I could feel, heat, warmth, cool, all that is gone.

Will my soul now join all the souls in the light? Will I come back?

We can’t know. We will not know. But we will go. We all go. There’s no way not to go. I wish there were.

I lived and loved. I loved life. I loved the beach. I loved the sky and the clouds. I loved films and books and the sounds of horns and strings and drums. I did not want life to end. I did not want to go. But I went. I had to go. It was my time.

I float, I rise, I float I rise.

Is that the light?

The light is there. Or is it? Is it just a dream, just a thing you see when your brain shuts down?

No, I think it is there. I think I see it.

And so now it’s the end.

And now I’m gone.