ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching

Book Two, Chapter 97: More About Brother Joe

My brother Joe’s brotherhood is a collection of guys who bought and maintain a house — their clubhouse — stocking its kitchen with beer and snacks, and furnishing its rooms with comfortable sofas, TVs, and a pool table. Joe is vice president of this informal fraternity.

One day a brotherhood friend telephoned Joe, and Rich answered: “What’s the latest on Jose?” this man asked Rich.

It turns out Joe’s been bleeding from the rectum for a year and told himself it was either a spastic colon or hemorrhoids until one of his friends at the brotherhood was diagnosed with colon cancer and talked about his symptoms. That’s when Joe, for the first time in decades, saw a doctor. Then Joe asked Rich to drive him to the hospital for a colonoscopy. He still didn’t tell Rich what was going on, but one night Joe opened up to Joshua.

“Jose’s not what he appears to be,” Joshua told me later. “He’s a sensitivo masquerading as a loud-mouthed redneck. He’s scared to get close to people. He was burned by the divorce. He’s still hurting from that, but he hides it.”

I call Joe. “What’s going on?” I ask.

“Colon cancer, a tumor three inches up my rectum. It’s near the prostate.”

“What do your doctors say?”

“I have a urologist and a surgeon.”

“Who’s your urologist?”

Joe tells me, and I gasp. His urologist is part of the three-doctor practice that treated — mistreated — Ernie. Not the defendant in our wrongful-death lawsuit but one of his partners. Ernie called them The Three Stooges.

Later I tell Joshua of this.

“With Jose, it’s all about timing,” Joshua says. “You can’t press him. You can’t tell him what to do. He listens to me. Let me talk to him.”