ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching
Book Two, Chapter 98: Brother Joe’s Point of View
Usually Joshua drops me off after our workday at Charles Street, but tonight I go back with him to Rich’s house to talk to my brother Joe in person.
He’s sitting in the TV room on one of its two plaid couches — the far one. A blanket covers his lap. His long, skinny legs jut out beyond his shiny shorts — which he wears inside the house winter or summer. A red knit cap is angled atop his head. He wears the cap winter and summer, too.
I take a seat at the round dining table to the right of the room’s entrance. Joshua sits on the near couch, with Rich.
“What do you know?” I ask Joe.
“The surgeon I’m seeing does breast-cancer surgery and colon surgery. That’s his specialty. I’m having an MRI done, which will give him more information. Then I see the oncologist. I don’t like to submit to these doctors. I don’t like the manipulation. I don’t like the fact that my body’s breaking down on me. I’m sixty-four years old. I’ve never had a big problem. I thought I had a sturdy, German-made body. I don’t really want to undergo the operation. What’s the point? Just for more pain, something else to go wrong a few years from now? Why not die now and spare me all that pain.”
“I don’t want you bailing out yet,” Rich says.
“You have to be around, Jose, for the fun,” Joshua says.
I give Joe the name of the gastroenterologist-surgeon who removed the malignant tumor in Ernie’s intenstine, whic involved cutting out thirteen inches of the sigmoid. “He’s a good one to go to for a second opinion,” I say.
“I’m already confused enough,” Joe says. “I don’t want a second opinion. I’m following the protocol that’s been set up for me.” He stands up. “It’s taken all my courage to do what I’ve done so far . . . and lots of prayers to Our Lady.”
Joe and Joshua are both standing now, talking to each other. Joe doesn’t see me sneak up behind him. I put my arms around him, encircling his chest. I don’t feel the beat of his heart.
“Oh-oh, your mama’s getting sentimental,” Joe says to Joshua. But he doesn’t shrink from my touch. He stands there talking to Joshua while I keep my arms around him. It’s as uncomfotable for me, hugging him, as it is for him to be hugged. But I’m doing it, and he’s letting me. We’re learning. We can practice doing what’s good for us until we accept it, even welcome it.
We’re not wild animals. We can be gentled with love.
