“Not a problem,” John said.
“You can put it away now,” Will said, and John did. Will wished he had something stronger than the beer. He started to ask if his mother knew he had done that with the money she gave him, but stopped himself.
They drank in silence until John spoke again.
“How did you handle seeing all those dead bodies over the years?”
“You get used to it,” Will said. “Or you get another job. You try to think about doing your job, finding the bad guy.”
“I gotta go.” John stood up. “I’ll put the bottle downstairs. Want another one?”
“No, I’ll fall asleep. Can’t drink like I once could.”
In a minute, he watched John walk to his car and drive away.
As the quiet returned to the street, Will wondered why John had visited him, had chosen tonight, and had waited for him outside. Why had he put a piece of metal through his penis and felt the need to show it? Will was a man whose training and experience had made him a skeptic, even with his own family, perhaps especially with his own family. But John was no longer a boy and had long ago slipped the influence of his parents. Maybe John merely wanted to see how his stepfather was holding up.
“How are you?” John had asked. That commonplace greeting was always given in the expectation of a simple return: “fine.” The person asking it didn’t really want to know how you were. Will had done the same thing a hundred thousand times in his life before his surgery. Now he dutifully said, “fine,” even if inside he thought, “how much time do you have to hear my answer?”
How was he? His latest MRI scan had shown the area inside his spinal cord where the tumor had chosen to do its damage to be “stable,” the doctor said. That was good news. It meant no new tumor. But the neutrality of the word carried incredible weight. How was he? He couldn’t really feel touch on his belly or trunk below the tumor zone. The same numbness appeared in unpredictable patches on down his legs and feet. Thank god he could feel his right foot to drive a car.
He was usually constipated. His right leg was as strong as before. His left leg could barely make a step; he used the swing of his hip to compensate as he walked. That, and the inside muscles of both legs, which he had developed thanks to time with a kinesio-therapist, endlessly raising and lowing himself, knees pointed inward, with his back held straight against a concrete post. He walked with a cane and some days were better than others. After the activity of today, there would be hell to pay tomorrow. That’s how it went. Every. Step. Is. Hard.