{"id":71603,"date":"2014-05-21T16:30:31","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T20:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=71603"},"modified":"2014-05-24T13:25:45","modified_gmt":"2014-05-24T17:25:45","slug":"chasing-away-the-big-black-bird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/21\/chasing-away-the-big-black-bird\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing Away the Big Black Bird"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Common_Raven_From_The_Crossley_ID_Guide_Eastern_Birds\"<\/a>

Image: Richard Crossley<\/p><\/div>\n

My buddy at work\u2014I call him my buddy, but really he\u2019s just the guy I hate the least\u2014turned to me and asked which would be better: having one testicle or having three. I rolled my eyes and gave him the same answer I gave him every time he asks: three. I\u2019d rather be creepy than a little sad.<\/p>\n

Then one night in the shower I discovered that my left testicle was the size and density of a small Cadbury Creme Egg. The doctor told me my testicle needed to come out immediately; it was malignant as hell. He probably did not actually say the words \u201cmalignant as hell,\u201d but I went into shock almost immediately, and can only reconstruct events based on what happened next.<\/p>\n

Twenty-four hours later, I was entering emergency surgery. The nurse asked if I\u2019d like a prosthetic. \u201cWould I!\u201d I said. \u201cCan I get two?\u201d I was thinking of how awesome would it be to really double down and commit to this joke, surprising my work friend in the men\u2019s room.<\/p>\n

I also have a difficult relationship with my Virginian heritage\u2014it would be perfect if I could have an actual Civil War\u2013era musket ball put in there instead, to literally carry a heavy, awkward, and slowly poisonous reminder of our nation\u2019s tragic past that I only talk openly about with my black friends when I am drunk.<\/p>\n

But none of that happened. As it turned out, I wasn\u2019t going to be creepy. I was going to be sad. <\/p>\n

That first night after the surgery, I lay there in the dark next to my sleeping girlfriend. We met at an art gallery in Washington, DC, two weeks before I moved to New York. She is a forensic accountant, the sort of person who professionally pieces together evidence of systemic white-collar crime one e-mail at a time, except those e-mails are in Mandarin or Spanish. When I periodically complain that our lives are overly scheduled and I\u2019d like to make room for some spontaneity, she says, \u201cWe can be spontaneous on the weekends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now she rolled over in her sleep, clutching the pillow tight. Not me. That tumor snuck up on me when I wasn\u2019t looking, and I\u2019ve got to stay vigilant.<\/p>\n

I thought it was going to be a soft, firm implant\u2014like a miniature breast implant, artificial but at least a little squishy. Instead, it\u2019s a dense silicone wad that pulled like a fishing sinker. I could feel what I imagined to be rough, angular edges on it, like a complicated die for the world\u2019s saddest role-playing game. It hurt, scraping its living neighbor and the inner walls of my scrotum as I rolled over in bed. The doctors told me that my body would eventually encase it in tissue, giving it a more natural feel, but it could have used another trip through the rock polisher. Every jab and scrape was a reminder that something strange had happened\u2014a private, alien footprint that only I could sense.<\/p>\n

My girlfriend said \u201cYou know, we\u2014women in general\u2014never really care that much about the balls anyway. I\u2019m probably not even going to really notice at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

She meant to be helpful and reassuring, but the terror transformed it, twisting her words into \u201cIt\u2019s silly of you to be so sad about losing something so useless in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

The change was much more Freudian than physical. You don\u2019t realize how much deep cultural programming you\u2019ve absorbed about your testicles until you lose one. \u201cHey, don\u2019t cut that guy\u2019s balls off,\u201d takes on a much more significant meaning, as does \u201cman, that guy\u2019s got a lot of balls.\u201d I\u2019ve always tried to live as boldly as possible, but was I just going to be a pretender now?<\/p>\n

I lay back and looked up into the darkness. All my fear, doubt, and terror swirled, soaring like ragged ghosts in a tight circle emanating from my heart. They accelerated, blurring together and forming a black emotional waterspout with its tip in my chest. The other end of the spout bobbed up and down tentatively, then surged upward and opened a dark portal that seeped across the ceiling like a giant stain.<\/p>\n

A giant black bird swooped down through the open portal and landed on my chest. It shuffled forward to put its dark beak into my ear and whispered:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not going to die tonight, but your life will never be the same. You have moved through a doorway, and it\u2019s weird on the other side. You will never relate to other people the same way again. They\u2019re going to try to talk to you, but you\u2019ll never be able to connect. It\u2019s going to be this way for the rest of your life. You\u2019ll get used to feeling lonely, but it will never go away.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be damned if that bird wasn\u2019t right. My girlfriend is a cancer survivor, too. But she went through chemo and radiation, and I didn\u2019t\u2014she didn\u2019t have any body parts chopped off, and I did. Our suffering is more or less the same size, but shaped very differently.<\/p>\n

On the night that we met, I was wearing a fragrant T-shirt with a Pushead illustration of a fetal skeleton inside a bottle on it, while she had on a Christina Hendricks\u2013esque wrap dress in a deep blue that set off a blood-red hair waterfall pouring down her back. I said, \u201cOh, hang on, you\u2019ve got something stuck to your forehead there,\u201d and she replied, \u201cIt\u2019s probably just lint, stuck in the glue for my wig.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d I said, \u201cis that not your real hair?\u201d<\/p>\n

She said, \u201cWell, it grew out of somebody\u2019s real head and I paid a lot of money for it, so I\u2019d say that it\u2019s my real hair now.\u201d That\u2019s how I found out that she was finishing radiation for Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not always that easy to communicate what I\u2019m feeling, or to understand her when she says, \u201cEveryone\u2019s going to die, Jeff. Cancer patients just have more data.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

When other people learn you\u2019ve had cancer, it makes the baggage that rattles around in their skulls fall right out of their mouths. They mean well and they want to comfort you, but the end result is much worse. People think that their favorite thing can cure your cancer, as long as that thing sucks a little bit: \u201cOh, I\u2019m so sorry to hear that! Have you tried yoga? It can prevent all kinds of diseases, and it\u2019s really good for you spiritually, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

A friend from high school sent me a text message\u2014\u201cSrry u hd cancer. U OK? Have U tried wheatgrass juice?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody comes up to me and says, \u201cI\u2019m so sorry to hear about your struggle. Have you tried getting really stoned and watching Pootie Tang<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

I did that like it would cure cancer. It didn\u2019t, but it was very good for me spiritually.<\/p>\n

My girlfriend sleeps so hard that she smiles. While she sleeps sweetly next to me, the black bird comes back. It says, \u201cYou know, you\u2019ve lost a lot of drive and energy. You\u2019ve been skipping Muay Thai a lot lately, and when you do go to sparring class, you just kind of stand there and let people punch you in the guts. What\u2019s going on with that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d I say, \u201cIt just doesn\u2019t seem to matter if I block any particular punch or not. The blows are coming out of nowhere whether or not you\u2019re ready for them, so why fight what\u2019s coming at you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d the bird says with a little smile, \u201cit\u2019s like you\u2019ve been half-neutered or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

If this is all death is\u2014lying in the dark, floating, forever, not warm or cold, just floating\u2014then I could do that. I might as well. At least I wouldn\u2019t have to hear about it from that stupid bird anymore.<\/p>\n

It was CT scan day, a few months after my operation, and I was sitting in a waiting room at Sloan-Kettering, sipping a pinkish fluid meant to saturate my tissues with a contrast dye in order to provide the best possible image. It was mixed with Sunny Delight, in a halfhearted attempt to disguise the taste\u2014instead, it tasted like the sweetened squeezings from an android\u2019s gym shirt.<\/p>\n

A couple entered. The man had hair that was perfectly silver at the temples and an anus-colored suntan, leading his stride with his sternum like the prow of a very expensive yacht. He looked personally responsible for the entire financial crisis. The woman, I could tell, had been gorgeous at one time, with flowing hair like a chocolate river flecked with gold foil. It absorbed the grim fluorescent light in the basement waiting room and excreted it as a honey-colored light. She had two fresh iceberg chunks for eyes, but cancer had ravaged her tanned body into a bathrobe wrapped around a pile of brown clacking antlers. Her breast implants had lost their body-fat camouflage and jutted out like twin thermostats in an old apartment.<\/p>\n

They sat and she nestled into his chest. He fell asleep immediately with his head back and his mouth wide open.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know,\u201d she said, poking him awake, \u201cyou might not be so tired if you weren\u2019t out until all hours doing drugs with God knows how many other women.\u201d<\/p>\n

He harrumphed. \u201cWe discussed my habits very early in this relationship \u2026 I don\u2019t think I should have to explain myself any further than that. I\u2019m here to support you now, and that\u2019s what\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour habits have other habits, you know,\u201d she hissed. \u201cYou\u2019ve got another nasty habit of not respecting my space, too. Like when I was at the apartment in Italy last month. You know I can\u2019t think for myself when you\u2019re around, and when I go there I need to be alone. But what do you do? You show up the very next day with all your friends and wreck my space, and the next thing you know, we\u2019re all just doing blow and skiing like we always do. It never changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

He drew himself up, pushing her back, and said, \u201cI\u2019m really getting tired of all these accusations. I have never done a single<\/em> thing I didn\u2019t tell you I was going to do, and after all\u201d\u2014he paused to add a noble inflection to his voice\u2014\u201dI am here now to support you while you \u2026 fight cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, good news, buddy, you\u2019re free of that chore. Because we\u2019re done\u2014get out of my life, goodbye!\u201d She turned and stomped out, slamming a door behind her.<\/p>\n

As all this unfolded, at least four nurses appeared in the waiting room, pretending to peruse their clipboards. Now, another nurse shoved the woman back into the waiting room: \u201cWe\u2019re not ready for you in here yet, honey. Just sit with your boyfriend until we call you.\u201d<\/p>\n

They sat there across from each other, seething through their nostrils.<\/p>\n

And me, I just felt amazing. My heart soared. I had a touch of cancer, I\u2019m short one testicle. But these people have money poisoning, and that shaves the buds off your heart\u2019s tongue and it can\u2019t taste excitement the same way that it used to. All you can do is rub cocaine and designer handbags and smoked salmon all over yourself, just to feel like you\u2019re doing anything special anymore.<\/p>\n

I ran up to the sidewalk as soon as the appointment was over, feeling the sun on my face for the first time that summer. I called my girlfriend at work, the same woman I\u2019d been complaining to every day about feeling so lonely and alienated. She answered, and I said, \u201cOh my God, you are not going to believe the breakup that I just saw in the CT scan waiting room.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTry me,\u201d she replied, \u201cyou see some great<\/em> stuff in there. Let me shut my office door real quick and I want you to tell me all about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then, for just a little while, that big black bird flew away.<\/p>\n

Jeff Simmermon is a writer, storyteller, and standup comedian in Brooklyn. He has appeared on <\/em>This American Life and won The Moth’s New York GrandSLAM in March with a version of this story<\/a>. He produces and performs in \u201cAnd I Am Not Lying<\/a>,\u201d a show featuring stand-up, storytelling, and burlesque, at UCB East. Follow him on Twitter @jeffsimmermon<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My buddy at work\u2014I call him my buddy, but really he\u2019s just the guy I hate the least\u2014turned to me and asked which would be better: having one testicle or having three. I rolled my eyes and gave him the same answer I gave him every time he asks: three. I\u2019d rather be creepy than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":698,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4393],"tags":[8314,13999,14001,14000,10919,13998,8922],"class_list":["post-71603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person","tag-balls","tag-doctors-offices","tag-implants","tag-nightmares","tag-surgery","tag-testicular-cancer","tag-wealth"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nChasing Away the Big Black Bird by Jeff Simmermon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"May 21, 2014 \u2013 My buddy at work\u2014I call him my buddy, but really he\u2019s just the guy I hate the least\u2014turned to me and asked which would be better: having one testicle or\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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