by Michael Finley
Copyright © 2001 by Michael Finley

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A Master of the Wired World?

I just got my author's copies of a new book from Financial Times Management (London), MASTERS OF THE WIRED WORLD: Cyberspace Speaks Out.

What's remarkable is that this collection of manifestos about the new age a'dawning contains proclamations by Tony Blair, Al Gore, Charles Handy, Nicholas Negroponte, Arthur C. Clarke, Alvin Toffler ... and me.

To order, click here. Discounted price is $18.87 from Amazon.

The Book of Bitching

Before Rachel comes back to be with me, a nurse comes upon me sobbing cross-legged on the bed, and sits with me for perhaps ten minutes. I won't remember the entire conversation, but I will remember resenting at first that she thinks she can talk me out of my grief. Her name was Carrie, and she asks me to say exactly what is tearing me up.

"I feel like I've let everyone down," I say, a rope of snot hanging from my chin.

"How did you do that?"

"Don't you know my diagnosis? I have a brain tumor."

"So? Maybe it's nothing."

"That's what they told my stepdad. Doctors led him down the primrose path. I think it's what they do. I have no confidence in doctors. My sister died getting teeth pulled."

"Your chart says Tim Rumsey is your doctor. I know him, and he's great. You don't like Dr. Rumsey?"

"Tim's a good guy," I concede.

"Well, there you go, then. What doctors don't you like?"

"I -- I really don't know any other doctors all that well." I was irritated with the radiologist who laid the tumor trip on me, but I could see how vexed he was at missing it the first time. I make mistakes. I know how frustrating it can be, professionally. I can relate to how embarrassing it must be to screw up on something this important.

"OK, then it's not the doctors. What's really on your mind?"

"My family." Just saying the word gets me blubbering full boil again. I feel I'm plunging them into something terrible. I can't bear to do this to them"

Carrie doesn't argue with me about that. She holds my hand for maybe five minutes, and tells me that when I actually see them, it won't be as bad as I'm picturing, even if my condition is as bad as I think it is. It never is, she says.

She asks me if I want her to sit with me until Rachel shows up. I look at her, and realize it isn't an act with her. She doesn't know me from Adam, but she is willing to spend time with me to get me through the wait. It strikes me that that is a tremendous service, and just knowing she is willing to do it makes it unnecessary. So I let her go.

"Is there anything I can get you" she asks. "A drink? A little dessert?"

I ask if she could scrounge up a pen and some paper.

I am settling in now with the new reality. Harry is asleep beside me, but his TV blares on. The fluids inside my head are still gurgling from the angiogram, but I'm already healing. I must be, because my hand is busy scribbling down my impressions and thoughts about the hospital ward.

After a few notes about the room and the day, I begin composing a compendium of the things that are bothering me -- fears for my family, fears about suffering, the terrible anger that this is happening to me. The canonity of the list would be my strength -- this can’t be happening, because it's just too fucking much like something out of the Book of Job. Suffering succotash!

Here are the complaints I jotted down that night in the hospital, which I have lovingly polished. They are like a baker's dozen of supercomplaints, each one subsuming a handful of subcomplaints. The whining was the healing; even while I was getting into the feelings, I was standing outside them, making notes to myself:

Pain. Here is something you sense only dimly now, but you know will become sharper and more real as time passes: pain. Dying has to hurt. And pain changes everything. People who think they can stand up to torture are idiots. They say they can do great things with pain medications nowadays. Why do they say that? You complain about the suffering that is in store for you, and how you would like to forego it, like Jesus weeping blood in Gethsemane. You think about the other people you have known who have gotten this diagnosis, people you loved, and the terrible things that befell them. About the triple gauntlet of poison, radiation, and surgery you must pass through, and the deficits you face afterwards, and the pain of recovery, and the vast stretches of time it takes before you die. You complain about losing your sight, about the headaches, about the strange symptoms that overtook you, like double vision, and the heavy feeling in your body that you drag around all day, because of the drugs. And the heavy feeling in your mind, that keeps you from being who you are.

Injustice. It is infernally unfair that other people don't have tumors in their heads and you do. The people on the TV don't have tumors. You complain picturing all the moments life could have been normal, that aren’t going to be. Like a bulldozer of crazy tissue, the tumor will edge them all off the page, just like it's edging you off yours. You complain for everyone else that was ever in these shoes -- for the loneliness they must all feel, and the fear, and the grief. You feel a terrible anger stirring inside you, resentment of others, hatred of their comfort. You’re like that genie who promised for the first thousand years of imprisonment in the bottle to reward whoever freed you -- but then too much time passed and you became bitter and vowed to blow whoever liberates you away.

Change. Your life is going to undergo major immediate changes that you can’t stand back from. Your bankbook is in jeopardy. The things you enjoy doing, you won’t be able to do any more. The things you thought you absolutely needed, you're going to have to postpone. You grieve for the lost opportunities. For the money you could have spent on the kids, or on that dream trip, that will be spent instead on some stupid medical apparatus, or an out-of-town specialist who'll just make things worse. All that money, thrown down the sewer, just so it will take longer to die. You complain because you see yourself losing your job and going on disability, or trying to go back to work but finding you just can’t do it. You complain because you'll be getting phone calls during dinner from realtors and mortuaries. There won’t ever be any rest from those vultures. You complain because you have the wrong insurance plan, and because now your spouse can never quit her job -- because she'll be carrying you.

Blame. A death in the family is like a house without a broom. Everything seems right, but the place will never get swept clean again. You complain for your spouse, who will have to lie in bed beside this thing every night, alert to every weird twitch. You complain because you promised you'd take care of her, and now she's taking care of you. If you had done your job and stayed healthy, she would never have to be this strong.

Guilt. There must have been something you could have done to prevent this tumor. It was caused by your bad habits, your indifference, your neglect. But that boat has sailed, and here you are. You complain because you know there will be times you will act like a bastard to people you love. Because you will feel bad that day, or be impatient, or because the meds have distorted your outlook. Or you just want to hurt someone, because something's hurting you. You complain because you know you'll fail the people you love, and you'll do it a lot.

How dare we throw the lives of those we love into tumult just because our bodies are copping out? You cry for everyone you love, for all they're losing -- a father, a money-earner, a friend. They're going to have to go on without you if you die, or with only a part of you if you become a full-time patient.

You cry for your kids, who you won't be able to teach and impart what you know. To them you'll always be a mystery, someone with a problem, someone who could not control his emotions around them, someone angry, someone frightening. And when you're gone they'll be bitter about it, and it will undermine them their whole lives, and a part of them will blame you for taking a powder.

Diminution. Everyone will know you are disabled now, or doomed, and they'll all be whispering about you. Or maybe they don't even dare to whisper. That's how bad it is. That's how gone you are. You complain about the phone calls you won't want to take, and for the friends you will drive away, because, really, you're already dead, and they've already mourned, and moved on to other cares. You become obsessive when you are sick. You go from being a rich, rounded character with many interests to a narrow person fixated on one thing, staying alive. In time you leave amateur status behind and become a sufferer by profession.

Depression. The idea of losing everything foretells an incomparable slide into grief. The depression is profound, it is a distancing from life. You complain because you feel so heavy now and you doubt you will ever feel light again. You see the idiots cavorting on the TV screen, and the canned laughter goading them on. Could they be less funny? Amusement is such a luxury in this world. Will anything ever amuse you again? You think you will never laugh again.

Horror. This isn't your elbow or your Adam's apple. It's your head. You have no way to retreat from your head when it goes bad on you. There are no mental tricks that can distance you from an assault on your brain. You know this. You have seen it firsthand. The brain is it, it is the thermostat of the self. There is no backup for it. Character will not help you when it goes bad. Upset any corner of it and life becomes king hell. If your memory vanishes, who will you be? If language disappears, will you understand your own thoughts? What if you are in constant agony from migraines -- how philosophical will you be about that? What if every second of every day you are in a spinning torment of dizziness, and all you can do is hide yourself in a darkened room and hold your head and cry? How will God come into your life and give you peace when every second you smell shit, or blood, or vomit? Or you are paralyzed and cannot speak, and everyone gathers around you, and you can understand every word they say, but they don't understand that you understand, so they treat you like celery?

Abandonment. In a single day’s time, you’ve become isolated and alone. Your illness may sit at the center of your universe, but it is on the periphery of everyone else’s. Friendship is fine, but it has limits. How far will your friends stretch to include your problem? Won’t they show concern for a while, then grow bored with your predicament, and finally blame you for obsessing about a problem they don’t have? You cry for the thing you have become, an object of pity, something to be stepped over, and regarded in the rear-view mirror like a run-over animal. Imagine having friends ask you not to stop around so often -- because you upset the kids.

Identity. You cry about yourself, who never deserved to wear a stupid hospital gown, with your butt hanging out the back door. You don't deserve to be treated like some sick person. Don't these people know who you are? You cry for the loss of your self -- that person who suddenly seems so glorious and tender to you, and so gone. How strong and unstoppable you were. How big with laughter, how strong with unknowing. How you will miss that sweet, grand side of you, in the haze and pain you know comes next.

Forsakenness. You complain because you're not a saint, but you're supposed to act like one. God knows you're just crumbling clay, and soon everyone else will know, too. Your haughty demeanor was never more than an act. You won't be able to hide your weakness any more, or your fear. And God -- where is he now, while you're bawling your heart out on this stupid bed? How does God watch over a hospital, like a helpless family member or like a fan at a cockfight? Or was he a million universes away, sleeping off a bad creation?

Terror. You worry about the final moment, when the stroke finally drowns you and your head lights up with pain, like an amusement park ride that is going too fast, and there's no way you can get the people to slow it down, and you grip the rails and you gasp. And what happens then? And how do you get ready for that? And you so young, and so good.

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