Previously, in Cycling Through a Storm One: Cycling Through a Storm Two: A House, a Boy, a Girl, a Car, a Dock, a Boat, a Hug Three: Starting Sequence Four: Yacht Race Five: Save the Hat! Six: Squid's Bar Seven: Sailors & Fishermen
When they got to the house, Stewie’s wife Bev was already sleeping.
“You got what you need for the morning?” Stewie asked.
Vic nodded. “Bob won’t need me at the shop ‘til later, so I’ll have some time to find Sequoia and get the bike.”
“Take my Schwinn, if you need one to ride.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t lose it!”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You know where the rum is.” Stewie nodded toward a kitchen cabinet.
“Yes, yes I do.”
“You’ll want some. The Maxhole’s insomnia has been bad.”
Stewie called Maxwell, Bev’s obese and somewhat Siamese cat, “The Maxhole.” Maxwell was borderline nocturnal, but Bev believed he had feline insomnia. She said it was only a problem when he didn’t get enough exercise before bedtime.
In the basement, Vic put all his clothes into the washing machine, and then showered. Bev kept a robe for Vic in the basement bathroom. Upstairs, Vic found a laser pointer in an old porcelain beer stein on the kitchen counter. Maxwell chased and pounced tirelessly at the red laser dot, but Vic worried it must be frustrating for the cat. When he held the dot still so Max could easily catch it, there was nothing to catch, no there there.
“What else have we got to play with?” Vic asked, pulling cabinets open, starting where the rum was.
Max sprang easily to the counter, watched Vic pour a rum and diet. Then he reached up from his haunches the way cats do and leaned precariously forward, swishing a paw at the cabinet above the sink.
“Is this the one?” Vic asked. He pulled the cabinet open to reveal a stash of cat toys.
Max sat at attention, front legs straight, ears erect. One staccato purr.
Vic chose a riding crop with lengths of neon yarn at the business end. Slowly he drew it from the cabinet.
Maxwell waited stone-still, watched the toy emerge inch by inch. His tail’s tip twitched. Max pounced at the first sight of neon. He caught the yarn with both paws, and caught his shoulder on the open cupboard. Frantically he twisted, falling backward over the double sink. He landed straddling the divider between basins.
Vic laughed. “Smooth, buddy.”
Max’s reply was roughly three parts meow and one part purr. With cat-like confidence he high-stepped the basin divider to the countertop.
Imagining what a cat might drag between litter box and countertop, Vic twitched the crop to capture Maxwell’s attention, then swished it to the floor. Max bounded down and gamely chased the toy in circles.
Bev claimed Maxwell would get bored after a few minutes of play, but as long as Vic swished and twitched the crop, Maxwell stalked and pounced. Vic poured another rum and diet. When he heard the washing machine’s buzzer, he rested the toy on the counter and went to transfer the load. When he returned, Maxwell was batting ice cubes across the floor.
“Maxhole.”
After mopping up the spilled drink and pouring a new one, Vic selected a different toy, a whip of plush fabric affixed on an acrylic grip. He sat on the floor, his back against a cabinet, and whipped the fabric in tight circles. Maxwell flew at the toy and his legs instantly went sideways where the spilled drink had been. He thumped hard against the wall. “Mrrrroooww!” he gargled.
Vic laughed. “Serves you right.” He flipped the cat toy away.
Max pulled himself up, licked his bottom.
“So, Max, what should I do?”
Max stepped onto Vic’s thighs, turned in a circle, plopped down.
“Buddy, I need someone to talk to. Someone who won’t blab.” He rested a hand on the cat’s back, his fingers gently massaging between feline shoulder blades.
Max purred.
“It’s just another polyp, right? I mean, not the mother of all polyps, like the surgeon called that other one, before. But still, it was too big to scrape out during the colonoscopy, and some polyps can spawn, I guess, or spew spores like a mushroom or whatever divergent polyps do.”
Max mewed.
“Fine, maybe that’s inappropriate use of inclusive language. But cancerous and malignant just drip stigma, don’t they? Anyhow—it gets worse. They did take an adjacent polyp out. Divergent-adjacent? I dunno. Whatevs. So Gopu, my oncologist—”
“Meooo?”
“What? Yeah that’s really his nickname. Short for Gopukumar.”
Max made a flutey sound, more meow than purr.
“Yeah, funny I guess. I would have guessed Kumar, but I’m an ignorant white guy. But, a colorectal cancer doctor named Gopu?” Vic giggled and Maxwell shifted, batted a paw at the air. “Get out, huh?”
Max curled onto Vic’s lap again, and Vic stroked his back until he resumed purring.
“So the rogue-adjacent polyp went to pathology, and Gopu ordered a CT scan to look for cancer cells outside the colon.”
Maxwell hopped from Vic’s lap, meowed once over his shoulder, sauntered into the living room and hopped onto the couch. A pillow and two folded blankets were stacked at one end of the couch. Max stepped onto the blankets and curled up against the pillow.
Vic sat beside the cat, rested his feet on the coffee table. Maxwell lifted his head, stretched his neck straight for Vic to scratch. Vic worked a finger beneath Max’s collar. “Yeah, right there, huh?”
Max purred loudly.
“So where were we?”
“Mrow.”
“Right. So my appointment today with Gopu was about test results.”
“Mrow?”
“The CT scan and the polyp pathology—follow along, dude!”
“Mrow.”
Vic resumed scratching under Max’s collar and Max resumed purring.
“Whatever.” Vic reached for his drink. “So, it’s back. The little adjacent polyp had the same kind of malignant tumor in its squishy center as the one I had three years ago, and the CT scan showed nasty cells on a lymph node.”
Max moved to Vic’s lap, kneaded his paws below Vic’s ribs.
“Other side, but yeah, you’ve got the idea.”
“Mrow?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, there are options. One is Surgery: Cut out a bunch of lymph nodes and a section of colon where that divergent polyp is lurking, growing, spewing its divergent cancer spores or whatever the hell it’s doing there.”
Max tamped a circle on Vic’s thighs, then curled himself down, rubbed his paws on his eyes, curled them under his chin.
“Yeah, getting all that out of me would be good, but surgery is hard. If they slice more of my colon out, well, that’s inconvenient.”
Max made the mew-purr sound.
“And I’d need time to recover before starting chemotherapy. The clock’s kinda ticking, and I’m a little short on colon already. If they could just go ahead and fix this without taking any more of my colon … yeah, that’d be great.” Vic tapped the side of his thumb on the rim of his glass.
Max purred loudly.
“Gopu says chemotherapy regardless, so option two is skipping surgery for now: Go right to chemo.”
Max was purring in his sleep.
“Gopu says chemotherapy is essential. It’s just a matter of whether to do it before the surgery or after.”
Max stretched and nearly rolled off Vic’s lap. Vic caught him, hefted him back into place.
“Hoping chemo alone will eradicate all the cancer might be making a big bet on a roll of the dice.”
Max stretched again, nearly toppled off again, caught himself and yipped like a chubby kitten.
“Yeah, I know, ‘hope is not a plan.’”
Max rubbed his eyes with his furry paw fists.
“Right! Surgery scares me, too. I was strong going into it before. I won’t be as strong this time.”
“Mrow.”
Deep breath.
Max stood, returned to kneading Vic’s thighs and lifted his tail straight up, wiped it across Vic’s face.
Vic pursed his lips, twisted his face away. He considered the ice cubes like citrus wedges floating in the glass. He gave Maxwell’s tail a flick.
Max twisted around to swing one paw in the vicinity of the flick and in so doing slid off Vic’s thighs, crashed to the carpet in a writhing thud.
“Sorry, pal.”
Maxwell stood, shook his head before hopping up again, placed his paws on Vic’s chest, then nosed at his chin.
Vic tilted his head back, rubbed Maxwell’s spine. “Last time I didn’t even think it was a big deal. I was bubble-wrapped in blissful ignorance.”
Maxwell adjusted himself on Vic’s chest, his chin on Vic’s shoulder, his paws at either side of Vic’s neck.
“They don’t give you all the gory details. They give the information they think you’re ready for. They slowly reveal the onion’s layers.” Vic tipped the last of his drink to his mouth, massaged Max’s head. “Asleep again,” he whispered. Vic stood, carefully cradling the big cat to his chest like a sleeping baby. He arranged Max gently on the folded blankets, then took his glass to the kitchen, freshened it with ice cubes. He looked at the rum bottle, returned it to the cabinet, topped the glass up with water. In a drawer Vic found a charging cable for his phone. He left the phone to charge overnight on the countertop, then shut off the kitchen lights.
He sat beside Max again, careful not to wake him. He took a big gulp of water, rubbed softly between Max’s shoulder blades. “Max, there’s a third option: What if I do nothing?
Sue’s right—I’m caught in the denial phase, Vic thought.
“That’s all I got,” he said to Max. He waited several moments, had another gulp of water. He observed the gentle rise and fall of the sleeping cat’s tummy. “Your turn to talk, Max.” He sipped more water, then nudged Maxwell’s shoulder. “Wake up, buddy.” He nudged the cat again. “I guess I don’t just need a good listener. I need a confidential sounding board.”
Maxwell shifted, got partway up on his front legs. He locked eyes with Vic. Then he licked a paw, rubbed his face.
“I’m not some spaghetti-brained anti-vaxer!” Vic protested. “I mean, this isn’t just some divergent virus we’re talking about, it’s fucking cancer! Surviving cancer doesn’t boost your immunity—it doesn’t work that way! It’s the opposite!” He tried to rub Max again behind the ears but Max twisted around, gripped Vic’s finger between his teeth.
Vic relaxed his hand, didn’t pull it away. “I’m sorry, buddy. I got a little worked up there.”
Max released Vic’s finger, then dropped off the couch and sat with his back to Vic.
“I could get a second opinion.” Vic took another gulp of water. “But what would I even ask? Fact: The tests show cancer.”
Maxwell remained still.
“Did you know, colon cancer is typically slow-growing? People in their eighties often opt not to treat it and then live to die of something else.”
Maxwell remained still.
“I’m not in my eighties. But it’s been three years, and I feel like I’m just getting to where I can do most of the things I could before. Yesterday I damn-near rode my bike to the top of Chilkoot Hill. I used to climb it all the time, but not since chemotherapy. Doing chemo now is just letting them knock me back down. And this time, maybe completely down.”
Max stood, jumped to Vic again, pressed his nose to Vic’s chin, paws on shoulders, tummy on chest. Purrrrr.
Vic felt his chin tighten. “Thank you, Max. You are a real Maxhole, but buddy, you know I love you. You’re one cool cat.”
Vic fluffed the pillow and curled onto his side under a blanket. Maxwell kneaded at Vic’s waist, then found the open triangle of cushion behind Vic’s knees. He tramped a couple of circles there before curling up and purring. Loudly. Like a percolator. Maxwell was short for Maxwell House. The percolation of Maxwell’s purring soothed Vic. He slept soundly. He woke to pee once, of course. Maxwell was gone. Vic was drifting into sleep again when he felt whiskers and cat breath on his face. Vic blinked, moonlight reflecting in a cat’s eye. Maxwell tapped a paw on Vic’s cheek, tapped again.
“Can’t sleep, huh dude?” Vic propped himself up, lifted the cat from its armpits and deposited him behind his knees where he’d been sleeping before. He reached back to scratch under Max’s chin, behind his ears for a few seconds. Max purred and settled in. Vic adjusted his pillow and slept again. He half-woke in the early dawn when Maxwell was walking, balancing and pacing on Vic’s side from his shoulder to his knee. Vic dozed a while longer, then woke fully with the realization the sun had risen and Maxwell was humping his thigh.
Next: CTAS 9 - Schwinn Continental
I like your use of Max the quirky cat as a sounding board. Clever method of exposition.
One of your best. Are you an expatriate writer now. Like Hemingway?