The Hard Way Back to Heaven. Karl Dehmelt

it, and Eve sure as hell knows it.” Thom bit the sandwich. Ketchup splattered onto the ground, from the wound on the bread.

      “Let me tell you something, Mike.” Thom swallowed.

      “Some shit you can bury, some of it you can push down, some of it you can run from. Some men run from it their entire lives, trying to go faster and faster or wait ‘til it just falls away from them, as if it’s gonna die. But it can’t die, because it’s a part of you. It’s what made you who you are. So you and Eve are gonna have this conflict, this pain that comes from whatever your mama or daddy did when you were kids, whatever you left back on Wales road in 1970-whenever. Let me tell you, Mike, you can’t outrun parts of yourself. You can’t do it. You can jump states, jump countries, kill people, hell, you can even try to snuff that part of yourself with things like money, or sex, or drugs, or stamp collections, or even stupid shit like smoking a pack of cigs ‘til your lungs fall out, but you will never get enough.”

      Thom folded the wrapper, tossing it aside.

      “The only way to get true happiness in this life, the only way to do it, is through the people you love and those who love you. Look at this shithole,” Thom stood up, gesturing to the house behind him.

      “I don’t have anything special. Yeah, I’ve had a job, and I’ve earned my money well. But I ain’t no millionaire. I don’t have a heaven here at the moment. But I’ve got a kid who I’ve given a good head through hard work. I have the ability to sit here and yell at you when you’re acting like an asshole. I have grandkids from that same son who I spoil completely rotten, and, on top of that, I have the ability to sit down and night and know I ain’t gonna go to bed with a regret for what I have done. I’m sixty, man. You’re forty, forty one? Shit.”

      Thom walked over, and slapped Michael on the back.

      “You ain’t gonna be happy ‘til you get Eve back in your life. That’s your sister, she’s the only one you got.”

      Mike looked up at him, taking in the words slowly, partitioning them as to not overload his senses.

      “I’ve got you, too. You’re close enough to family.”

      Thom grimaced in false pain.

      “Mike, you’re white. I’m black. Nobody would ever believe that you and I are from the same parents, especially when yours are both white as printer paper.”

      Mike thought for a moment.

      “You know who would believe it?”

      Thom sighed, standing at the threshold to the house.

      “Who?”

      Mike stood up, walking inside through the open door.

      “Stevie fucking Wonder.”

      Thom laughed, a deep, hearty sound; a bass well tuned.

      “Now that was just mean. You’re a mean man, Mike. Maybe that’s why Eve left you for California.”

      “Yeah, right.”

      Thom stopped him short of the door, and looked at him straight in the eyes.

      “If you don’t do it for you,” Thom said. “Do it for your kid. He needs to know her.”

      “I know.”

      “Listen to me, let me tell you, as a single parent, there’s one lesson I learned,” Thom stood abreast of Michael, and pointed to the cautious light of the afternoon.

      “To you, he may be the sun, but to those other people out there,” Thom gestured to the hedges and the neighborhood.

      “He’s just some small little star out there in the sky, a million miles away. So you had better make him feel like he’s the only son you’ve got, because he is. And he was given to you as a gift. You almost lost him once. He needs to have every opportunity to succeed. But I know you, Michael.” Thom smiled, the wrapper from the sandwich pressed on Michael’s chest.

      “I know your kid, too. And I’m gonna tell you something. No matter what happens, Alex is gonna be ok. He’s gonna make it.”

      “I’ll make sure he is.” Michael said, iron in his eyes.

      “You’d better, or I’ll haunt your ass. It don’t matter if I’m alive, or dead, or in some retirement home with Alzheimer’s like how my own daddy died, I’ll tape a goddamn sticky note to the wall wherever it is I sleep to remind me. If I forget every other thing in the entire world besides my own family, I will remember to come and kick your ass when I wake up the next morning.”

      Thom developed emphysema in 2004, coupled with a crippling staph infection in 2005 that never healed. Mike remembered coming to meet him at the care facility, watching his old friend wither away from a disease no amount of heart or resolve could overcome. The very lungs with which Thom had spoken inspirational words became his downfall. For the last three months of his life, he was stuck on a ventilator. Michael had been the friend who helped him cleanse himself after using the restroom, who had aided him in dressing himself in return for every thread Thom had sewn into Michael’s life.

      The sound of the ventilator haunts Michael, the pulse of automatic respiration. It had taken the proudest man Michael’s ever seen, the brother beyond all limits of biology, and turned him into nothing but a breath count until he passed. Only the machine remains.

      Michael McGregor stares at Dr. Richard Fost.

      “I’m sorry?” Michael says. Lauren sits in the same chair she used during the previous visit, flanking him. Dr. Fost reads from a chart.

      “The surgery might require for you to be on a ventilator. We’re talking about removing part of a lung here, Mike. It’s a little more risky than the bronchoscopy.”

      “Well,” Michael wets his lips. “At least it isn’t tuberculosis. How do you pronounce it again?”

      “Mycobacterium Avium-Intracellulare infection.” Fost reads the words from the assortment of paper. He holds the results of the bronchoscopy, the initial chest x-ray, and a bevy of other tests as if they are scripture.

      Lauren stares at the floor, her hands folded in her lap. Occasionally, she glances up to meet either Fost or Michael’s eyes. Pieces of advice flit from her mind to her teeth, bouncing off and ricocheting back down her throat.

      “I’ll just call it MAI, to keep things simpler.” Fost continues.

      “Like I said, you have two treatment options. First, we thought it was tuberculosis because the symptoms of MAI and TB are extremely similar. However, there are some major differences between them. Now, while the cells are showing a nearly flawless indication of MAI, we cannot yet rule out other diseases. The only way to be 100% certain would be to go into your lung and remove the mass. That would require the lung biopsy I mentioned earlier, and would require you, potentially, to be on a ventilator. That’s the only surefire way to define your illness. The other option is a salvo of drugs that we can give you to treat this disease.” Fost changes his document order like a coordinator on the sideline of a professional sports game.

      “The only issues with those are that they have some detrimental side effects.”

      “Such as what?” Michael asks.

      “Fatigue, generally. It saps the energy out of you.”

      “How long would I have to take these drugs?”

      Fost sets the clipboard down.

      “Anywhere from twelve to eighteen months.”

      Lauren looks up quickly. “Really?”

      Fost nods.

      “Yes. Again, we will continuously monitor your developments from here if you choose the medicinal route. If you choose the surgery route, which will allow us to reach a concrete conclusion, albeit at a more immediate risk, then it might be different. In the end, it is up to the two of you. Personally, I recommend the surgical