Historical November 1987 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
On the first day he returned to work, John Ramerez began by acting as if nothing were different.
He placed his lunch on the second shelf in the refrigerator in the office lounge, hung up his coat, and was seated at his desk by 8:30.
Because he had been gone for a couple of days, a stack of pink phone messages was waiting for him next to the telephone. Ramerez had already returned calls to two of the suppliers when Mr. Townsend stopped by his desk. “Well, John,” and Mr. Townsend lowered his voice, “what did the doctor say?” It was the question John had been dreading since he had talked to the doctor.
He had practiced how he would answer many times, mostly in his bathroom in front of the mirror.
He glanced down at his desk, the pink phone messages were still there waiting for him, and opened his mouth to answer.
But nothing came out.
He looked at Mr. Townsend, took a deep breath, and then said his well-rehearsed answer. “It was malignant.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth he was afraid that he had said them too softly and that he would have to repeat them so that Mr. Townsend could hear him.
He hoped not.
It was harder saying them aloud than he had thought, and he didn’t want to have to repeat himself. Especially to his boss, Mr. Townsend. “Well, hang in there,” responded Mr. Townsend. John began to say the second part of his well-rehearsed speech, “I may need to…” but before he could finish,’ Mr. Townsend had turned and was walking down the aisle. John was angered that Mr. Townsend hadn’t stayed to listen, but he was also relieved that he didn’t actually have to tell his boss that he was going to be needing some days, maybe weeks, off work while he was having treatment. Perhaps, he thought, he could just write it in a note and give it to Mr. Townsend.
When John next noticed the clock hanging on the office wall it was almost 10:15.
He wondered where the time had gone.
The routing sheets in front of him were completed, and he recognized that they had been done in his handwriting, so obviously he had made the necessary phone calls and obtained the important information.
But he didn’t remember any of it.
It wasn’t quite time for break, but John left his desk and went to the lounge.
It was empty except for a couple of the salesmen, the younger guys, so he sat in a corner by himself.
He put his money in the machine and got a cup of coffee. Normally he wouldn’t have coffee now, he had already had his limit of one for the day, but a wry smile came over his face and he thought “What difference does it make?” For as long as John could remember, he had been conscious about his life style and taking care of himself.
Even as a youngster, friends had chided him about the foods he avoided and exercise program he maintained.
In lighter moments they had words for him: “health nut,” “body fanatic,” and “Mr. Clean Living.” He knew, though, that they envied him, or at least wished they had his willpower.
Besides, he often thought, he’d be there after they were gone, so they could say what they wished for now. John’s mother had been a biology teacher at the junior college.
He was always in- -.e.rested in science and, if his mother was to be believed, never expressed an interest in any foods or activities which were less than healthy. John had never been ill during his entire childhood until, as a high school freshman, he developed a rash over his entire body. John and his mother were both very worried about it, almost neurotic, and went to the doctor immediately.
With a knowing smile the doctor told John that his problem was that he was taking too many showers each day.
While John stopped showering more than twice daily, he kept his ritual of washing his hands between every class on school days and every half hour on weekends. That was almost fifteen years ago. Marriage wasn’t for John because he could never find anyone who would meet his standards. Twice he had been engaged, but he broke off both relationships.
The first time, with Shelia, John was twenty.
The engagement ended when she demanded that they have a regular wedding cake. John felt that this was unhealthy and not fair to his friends, whether or not the friends wanted the cake.
It was a sign, he felt, of an unyielding attitude on her part and that he was better off ending the relationship now than waiting until later.
The second engagement, with Maureen, had been a couple of years ago when John was twenty-nine.
It wasn’t much of an engagement, as engagements go; they had become engaged on the first date, an evening at the theatre when they saw “Evita.” When the actress sang “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” Maureen cried and John was so moved that he told Maureen he loved her.
They became engaged at the restaurant afterwards, over two Caesar’s Salads.
After Shelia returned it, John had kept the ring he had given to her in his car’s glove compartment, so he had it available to give to Maureen.
The engagement ended approximately an hour later when John accompanied Maureen home and saw her apartment.
He was so angry at himself for spending the evening with someone who lived in “filth,” as he put it, that he shook with rage as he walked home from her building.
The last few years had been easy. Deciding that female or, for that matter, male companionship wasn’t for him, John had developed quite a regimen for himself.
He would rise each morning at 5:30 a.m., shower, run six and one-half miles through the neighborhood, return to his apartment for 100 sit-ups, shower, eat a sparse breakfast and bike to work. John’s job wasn’t interesting, he simply had to make sure that suppliers did their jobs, so he spent the day mentally reviewing his morning workout and planning his evening workout.
He would leave work promptly at 4:30 p.m., bike home and shower. Then he would work the weights in his apartment until 5:30, watch the national and local news, and eat vegetables, rice, and honey for dinner.
After an hour or two with a good book, John would do his Canadian exercise routine, this lasted 45 minutes, shower, and go to sleep.
There was a beauty in the orderliness, the synchrony, the design of John’s life.
He had gone to the library and found several books on life expectancy and actuarial tables and taken two vacation days from work to read them. John knew that the typical male who was born when he was, living where he was, and doing what he was could expect to live to be 72.7 years of age.
As John had figured it, his lifestyle and willpower had extended his life expectancy to between 86 and 89 years of age.
Sometimes he would fantasize about the wonderful things which would happen in the world during those last 13.3 to 16.3 years, when all of his peers would be gone and he would be alive to enjoy the world. That’s why he was so alarmed when he noticed the lump in his neck.
At first John tried to pretend that it was a bruise or, even, a muscle pull.
But he knew better.
He avoided going to Dr. Holmes for two days, but became so nervous that he couldn’t function at work.
He had stopped running in the mornings because he didn’t want to leave the bed and look at himself in the mirror.
He would wait until the last minute and spring from bed, dressing in the darkness, and biking to work in a near frenzy.
Once at the office, John would immerse himself in his work, even calling the suppliers that he didn’t like.
In the evenings he would avoid the mirror and pretend that all of this was his imagination.
This lasted two days, and then he visited Dr. Holmes.
The doctor examined him and set an appointment for John to return in eight days. John didn’t remember much of the two visits to the doctor’s office. Neither the first one with the physical and the machines nor the second one where he and the doctor met in the wood paneled office were more than a vague dream.
He did remember Dr. Holmes telling him the results of the biopsy: “Malignant.” One word, a word that always has a capital letter as its accent mark, “Malignant.” John was in a daze when he left the doctor’s office.
He went home and slept, calling in sick for two days, and barely leaving the bed.
He was angry at someone or something for betraying him.
This pact he had made, this agreement about clean living, had been untrue; somewhere John had been deceived.
He didn’t know how or when or by whom, but the wrath he was feeling was directed primarily at his mother. Either through her teachings, which were flawed, or her genes, which were also flawed, she was the reason why.
After telling Mr. Townsend that it was Malignant, John finished work and went home, intending to write the letter about needing time off for treatment. Instead, he wrote a letter resigning his job, saying that he was going back to school. John had no plans to go to school.
The first day that John didn’t go to work was a difficult one.
His life was shattered, and he didn’t know where to turn.
The actuarial tables that John kept by his bed were a lie and he tore the pages into shreds and flushed them down the toilet.
He cried for hours and made two decisions.
First, he called Dr. Holmes and told him that he was moving out of town and wouldn’t take the treatments here, after all.
As he hung up the phone, John allowed himself a small feeling of satisfaction in knowing that he, too, could play the game.
He stopped running and locked his bike in the storage closet in the basement.
He dismantled his weight set and used the space for an aquarium he purchased.
It was a fifty gallon tank, a real giant, and he filled it with a live rattlesnake. John took up smoking and began to eat sweets and chips.
At first, for almost a week, it was all he could do each evening not to gag when he ate the chips and bean dip and drank beer.
After a while, however, John was surprised that the food began to taste good.
He no longer waited until a meal time to eat, but ate throughout the day. John never did enjoy the smoking, but developed a “lung program,” as he called it, which caused him to start by smoking two packs of Camels each day.
He saved the cigarette butts, and each evening tallied them on a pad by his bed.
Since he had quit work, he began to live off the money he had saved.
It was just as well that he had resigned, because in a two week period he had gained over twenty-five pounds and none of his clothes fit him.
He still showered twice each day, but he avoided touching his neck and avoided looking in a mirror.
He called the Deli daily and had all of his food delivered to his apartment.
For four months John continued in this way.
Each day he ate more and smoked more than the previous day.
He did not dress, but remained in a bathrobe and only watched his black and white television.
He stopped opening mail and had his phone disconnected.
Finally, eighteen weeks after he had visited his doctor, John Ramerez’s life ended and he became a tally in the actuarial tables. John Ramerez is gone, a statistical abnormality. Shelia is still alive as is Maureen, although neither of them thinks of John Ramerez. Dr. Holmes is still alive, but he wonders about John Ramerez quite often. Dr. Holmes wishes he knew where Ramerez had gone because he wanted to tell him that the biopsy was in error and that Ramerez’s lump was benign, after all.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, November 1987.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1987_11.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
