Orgonomicon by Boris D. Schleinkofer Page A

aware, he might have noticed that the
boy was protecting him .
    The next day, Manny was wakened by his
ex-wife kicking his feet; it was not a pleasant way to wake up, and
she wasn't being sweet with her words, either. He was going to get
his ass up off her couch and then drive her down to the doctor's
office. It was weird to be in the old car again. He hadn't felt
okay letting her just take it when she'd kicked him out, but what
could he do? He'd put all the work into it and paid for all the gas
and the insurance but the title was in her name—therefore it was
her car. He'd drive her around like a chauffeur and be happy he got
the chance to do so. It was starting off to be a day of
tongue-swallowing.
    There had been no breakfast. After kicking
him awake, she'd let him shower and get dressed and then it was off
to her appointment. It was more than he needed, certainly more than
she owed him, which was nothing. Now he was getting the chance to
pay off some of his debt to her.
    Whatever. That was a white rabbit best not
followed.
     
    Manny took the directions she gave him and
didn't press her as to why she needed the appointment; he tried
once asking her where they were going but she'd shut him up pretty
quick and firm and he'd taken the hint. It was certainly about time
he'd gotten something right.
    She couldn't bring herself to tell him that
she was being checked for cancer, that there was the very real
possibility that she was going to die soon. Death had been on her
mind a lot, lately; it wasn't something she felt comfortable
sharing with anyone, least of all him. She was trying to get him
further out of her life, not deeper in. But then she'd seen him
with the boy, and she felt the love the boy felt for his father and
remembered a little of what she'd seen in him, and the uncertainty
of life and death became even more real still to her, and then she
wasn't so sure at all what she wanted to do about him. The itch on
her leg had gotten worse, was spreading. Everything was falling
apart.
    When she'd first gone in, it had been to have
her irregular periods examined. The doctor had taken a look at her
insides, and then a second, and then scheduled her a couple
appointments with different specialists. Then the strange moles had
shown up, scattered over her body but mostly on the skin over
swollen lymph nodes, and she'd started to get really scared.
    They couldn't figure out what was wrong with
her; one doctor speculated about complications from ovarian cancer
and that had been the last straw for her. She hadn't been speaking
with Manny for months but maybe it was time. They'd biopsied
several of the moles, a painful coring-out process that left behind
big, weeping holes that took forever to heal. It was the perfect
metaphor, she thought, for the rest of her life and it's awful
process of removal. She was afraid they'd just keep cutting her
away, like Swiss cheese, until there was nothing left of her and
she died. Death hung always over her.
    She scratched absentmindedly at the crusty
patch near her ankle; it had been bothering her for weeks and
hadn't responded to anything she'd put on it. She'd tried aloe vera
gel, arnica and aluminum stearate, zinc oxide and hydrocortisone,
flaxseed oil and coconut—nothing did any good, it just wouldn't
heal, remaining scabbed over and irritated and red. She tried to be
careful about not picking the scabs off, but after a while all the
itching at it would inevitably pull the corner up somewhere and
drive her nuts with the need to scratch. It was absolutely
crazy-making.
    She picked at the oozing, reddened skin and
felt something tickling her fingertip, something thin and questing
that slid up under her fingernail. She shrieked involuntarily and
pulled her hand quickly back, pulling away with it a six-inch
length of blue thread that clung to the wound as it tore out from
under her skin. She screamed, and then promptly put it out of her
mind, just as she was supposed to.
     
    Scott couldn't