The Comedy Writer (24 page)

“Honey, are you up?”

I loved Tiffany right then and, yanking open the door, I embraced her like a soldier.

“I'm so glad you're up,” she said. “I need some popcorn.”

“I have missed you.”

“Henry.”

“Yah?”

“You're hurting me.”

I released her and bolted the door.

I told Tiffany Pittman about the ordeal I had endured, and though she may not have grasped the horror of it (judging from the purple teeth and winey breath floating my way) at least she didn't interrupt. This allowed me to hear it spoken aloud, which was reassuring because I hadn't left anything out and I still sounded right and I was also starting to believe there was a God and He was a good and rational chap or why else would He have delivered this vaginafest to my door at such a dark hour? This had been a frequent concern—God's rationality, His sense of humor. I feared dying and having Him play back snippets of my life where I'd said something terrible, purely in jest, that He'd taken seriously, and I'd have to defend myself, which I knew would be difficult, humor being so subjective (why does Woody Allen only play in New York and L.A.?) and I'd say,
“Hellooo.
It was
a joke,”
but maybe jokes were just a human defense and he'd never understand—I mean, try making a sober German laugh.

Tiffany sat on my bed while I shook the Jiffy Pop and watched the tinfoil unwrinkle.

“Could this be cancer?”

When I peeked out from the kitchenette, she was holding her shirt up with her chin and pointing to a freckle on the rim of her left nipple.

“I've had it ever since I burned my boobs in Palm Springs.”

I turned off the stove and calmly said, “Let's have a feel.”

I reached for the freckle, but Tiffany lifted her chin and the shirt fell back over her breast.

“Cut it out,” she said.

“What?”

“don't fool around with my neighbors'

“I was checking to see if you had cancer, you goofball.”

“How would you know? You're not a doctor.”

“Then why'd you ask?”

Meekly, she said, “I don't know.”

“And, incidentally, I
do
know a thing or two about nipple cancer. My father's a doctor.”

“What kind?”

“Nipple-ologist.”

“You liar. There's no such thing.”

“He's a general practitioner. Come on, let me see those babies.” When she still balked, I said, “Tiff, stop being a prude. I have nipples, too, you know.”

Tiffany Pittman was no prude, and she loved that I would call her one. For once, a guy who thought she was a prude, instead of a pig.

She lifted her eyebrows, then she lifted her shirt.

Fucking unbelievable. Two perfectly shaped nips capping off a pair of scientifically engineered breasts. World-class. Fake, of course, but I'd been won over by fake. They were magical. They were high-tech masterpieces. They were two fat, man-made winners! And they were mine to touch.

I felt a lump of adrenaline in my chest as my hand felt the weight of one. I remembered what my father had told me about it not being the same in a clinical environment. The lying bastard.

“That's not the one,” Tiffany said.

“I just want to compare.”

I released one and cupped the other. What on earth had they done to these nipples? They were an inch long and as hard as my
dick. Her heart was beating in my palm as I looked to the ceiling, once more the attending physician.

“Hmm,” I said.

“What?”

“Shhh.”

I put my ear to the breast—first one ear, then the other, letting my face brush the silky skin in the process. She smelled like a mixture of baby powder and fresh sweat. While my ear fondled one, I breathed in the other.

“What are you doing?”

“Shhh.”

I lifted my head, ran my forefinger across the freckle, letting my thumb brush her tightening areola. Yes, it was bunching up, becoming even more erect. Maybe she wanted it. I looked in her eyes. Nothing. No excitement, no annoyance, nothing. I could feel my underwear stretching out. Soon would appear the telltale dot of wetness. Uh-oh, suddenly her areolas were flattening out like cookies on a baking pan.

It was now or never. I leaned forward and swept my tongue from her collarbone, past the carotid artery speed bump, all the way into her shiny ear.

“Cut it out, Henry.”

She pushed me away and lowered the shirt.

“What?”

“I told you, I don't fool around with my neighbors.”

“I'll move out tomorrow.”

“I don't want you to move out.” She kissed my forehead, headed into the kitchenette. “ 'Cause you always have Jiffy Pop.”

“What if I find a new apartment and send you a gross of the stuff?”

Tiffany sat on the counter, placed the charred tinfoil on her lap. I leaned against the windowsill and watched her eat.

4Tiff, you do it with fat lawyers in hallways, you do it with Herb Silverman; why won't you do it with me?”

“Because, for the tenth time,
I don't sleep with my neighbors.”

“That's ridiculous. Silverman's your neighbor. He's right across the street.”

“No,
you re
my neighbor, Henry. A neighbor is someone who lives across the hall or right next door.”

“What if I moved downstairs? That way I wouldn't be your neighbor anymore, but I'd still be close in case you ever wanted to run down and help yourself to some popcorn.”

“Sorry, Henry, but I have a rule: Once a neighbor, always a neighbor.”

“You suck.”

“Henry!”

“Since when have you had so many rules?”

“Honey, relax. If it'll make you feel any better, I think you're adorable.”

“That doesn't make me feel any better. Fucking me silly would make me feel better.”

“I'm not going to fuck you.”

“Come on …” I whined.
“You fucked Herb.”

“Well, I'm not going to fuck him anymore.”

I stomped my foot. “I don't care if you fuck him. I'm willing to give you as much freedom as you want. I just ask that you occasionally include me in your sleep plans. Tell you what, it'll just be this once. We'll do it now, and from here on out we'll just be good neighbors. You can go on doing it with lawyers and Silverman, and I'll be your Jiffy Pop guy. Deal?”

“I don't want to do it with Herbie anymore. He's the worst.”

This perked my interest. “He is? What'd he do?”

“It's what he
didn't
do. He's a lazy bum. He just lies there like some stupid pharaoh. That guy doesn't know the first thing about pleasing a girl.”

“No shit?”

“Put it this way. When we made love,
I had to squeeze my own boobs.”

Despite the hour and the day's anxiety, I howled at this.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“That's the problem with guys with big dicks. They think that's all that matters.”

“I bet,” I said, not so amused now.

She took another handful of popcorn. “So do you think I have cancer?”

“No. My girlfriend used to get the same spots every summer when she went topless.”

“But mine won't go away.”

“So what? It's just a freckle.”

“I didn't know you had a girlfriend. Why would you want to sleep with me if you have a girlfriend?”

“I'll give you two hints, and one of them has a freckle.”

“Henry.”

“Besides, we're sort of in a fight right now.”

“And she has spots on her boobs, too?”

“Tons.”

Tiffany was cheered by this. Then her eyes narrowed.

“Uh-oh. What if we
both
have cancer? It's very common, you know. Everyone in Australia has it.”

“Tiff, you do not have cancer. Amanda had her tits checked, and they came back normal.”

I didn't feel bad telling this white lie. It was making the girl feel better. Then a thought: Jesus, what if it
was
cancer? I could be sending her off with a melanoma that could spread within weeks to her liver, kidneys, brain.

“It doesn't hurt, does it?”

“No.”

“And it hasn't changed color?”

Tiffany lifted her shirt, studied the tiny smudge.

“I don't think so.”

“Then you're okay. If it turns purple, or starts to hurt, or bleeds, or you notice any lumps, get it checked.”

I stared at her breasts and thought what a pity I couldn't suckle them until the sun rose.

Tiffany dropped her shirt and said, “Thank you, Henry. I feel a whole lot better.”

“That's my girl,” I said. I lifted my own shirt. “Look, even I have freckles around my nipples.”

“Hey, yeah!”

When she ran her finger across my chest, a shiver shot up my spine.

“What's this?” she said.

“What?”

“This bump.”

“What bump?”

“Right here, under your nipple.”

The pleasant sensation was replaced by a sick emptiness. I shoved her hand away, felt it for myself. She was wrong, it wasn't a bump. It was a
lump.
Why hadn't I noticed it before? I tried not to
panic. After all, I hadn't noticed the lumps on my balls, either. When I massaged the other nipple, my heart sank. That one was fine. If this was normal, shouldn't I have lumps under both nips, like I did on my balls?

“What's the matter?” she asked.

“You and your tits go. I have to make a phone call.”

I asked.

“I'm sorry,” Dr. Hoffman said. “It's just that I haven't had many men ask for mammograms lately.”

Until that moment, it hadn't occurred to me that he could find this humorous. In the waiting room, I'd thought of the different ways he could give me the news. He might show immediate alarm at feeling the tumor, or contain his emotions long enough to sit me down in his office, or maybe he'd send me to a specialist, have
him
break it to me. Who knows, maybe he'd call my father back in Rhode Island, let him do the diny work. One thing was certain: This one was serious. Guys don't get lumps on their tits for nothing.

Despite the fear I was experiencing—and it was the dull, pukey kind—I also felt redeemed. Maybe if the doctor had taken my earlier complaints more seriously, I'd still be alive now. Well, I was alive, but that was just a technicality. If it was in my balls and tits, then it had probably ricocheted through my entire lymphatic system. Which meant it was most likely into my liver and lungs, too. Jesus Christ, I was riddled with cancer! Oh, no, the heart palpitations! Cancer of the heart, was that possible? I'd never heard of it, but until the night before I'd never heard of male breast cancer.

My father had confirmed it. I'd called him immediately after
discovering the lump. I was embarrassed, so at first I'd kept the conversation to topics my father was interested in—how the job hunt was progressing, the Sox' chances, what the hell I was doing in California. Asking my father for medical advice was always touchy. Except for a rickety golf back, the man hadn't been sick a day in his life and he didn't expect his kids to be. I told him the search for employment was taking longer than expected because I wanted to make the right choice this time, then sucked it up and confessed to holding down a restaurant job. “Good move,” he said surprisingly. “Don't let yourself get in a hole financially.” Just before hanging up, I matter-of-factly popped the question: “Hey, is it possible for men to get breast cancer?” “Why?” “This guy at the restaurant, he says his brother got it. I think he's pulling my leg.” “It's pretty rare, but men do get it.”

What a place to die. Nobody would care about me. The city was rife with victims of violence and AIDS; I'd just be another stat. A stat without friends.

“I never said I wanted a mammogram,” I told Hoffman.

“Yes, you did. You said you wanted me to test you for breast cancer—that's a mammogram.”

“Well, isn't there a more, you know, manly way of testing it?”

The prick was still snickering.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I just don't get this all the time.”

“Yeah, well, do you get many men who have lumps under their nipples?” I said this with a slightly righteous tone.

“Some.”

This wasn't a response I expected. “Really?”

“Take your shirt off.”

As I did so, Dr. Hoffman studied my chart. He seemed interested.
This was good. Maybe he was noticing something peculiar, something that could save my life. He slapped his forehead.

“What?” I quickly said.

“Last time you were in here, I forgot to do a pap smear.”

A cackle now. I forced one corner of my mouth to curl.

“Tm sorry. I'll get serious here. Henry, you recently complained about a testicular problem … ?”

“Yeah.”

“And you also had the cough?”

“Uh-huh.”

The doctor lowered the pages. “Anything else?”

“Well, actually, sometimes I feel sort of a lump in my throat, and occasionally my heart flutters or skips a beat or something, and I've been dizzy a lot, and nauseated more than normal, and sometimes I get these pains in my right side, just below the ribs, that you wouldn't believe.”

The doctor felt my throat, listened to my heart, looked in my ears, hammered my knee. I thought to tell him about the headaches and blood sugar stuff, the occasional dust/hair in my vision, the incessant belching, but I didn't want to interrupt his examination. I sat extra-still while he listened to my ticker, so the crinkly paper on the examining table wouldn't throw him off. The man wore a genuinely concerned look when he wrapped up the blood pressure gauge. He asked me to take a seat in his office. I fought to maintain my composure. I wanted to be brave in front of him. The man had thought I was a wimp before; now he'd find out otherwise. I wondered how Amanda would take the news. Bad, of course, but I wouldn't allow her to be too hard on herself. Maybe I wouldn't tell her. It would be horrific if she had to watch me wasting away. I was
astonished at how clearly I was thinking. I felt more together than Fd been in weeks. At least now I'd know.