Boston

I feel like we’re talking about our favorite kinds of bagels, but we are actually talking about ways to rearrange your insides.

“I actually had a good poop earlier if that makes any difference to ya,”

“Well that’s good,”

“That doesn’t really change much, eh? Are you from New York?”

I shake my head and shrug.
“Yeah actually, how did you guess? My accent’s pretty neutral I thought”

“Oh I could tell. Where do you get decent bagels around here?”

“You don’t”

You chuckle easily, we take turns making fun of Atlanta bagel shops.

“Don’t even get me started on the seafood. I miss Boston. Alright Doctor, well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Try your best to take care of this.”

Your voice carries that Boston accent that that steers wide of pronouncing “R” and ends as many words as possible with the sound a shrug would make if a shrug were a sound - “AH”. “Clam Chowdah”. “You Bettah”. And so on. It’s crisp the way the wind is coming in off Boston Harbor.

———————

I unzip your skin, your fat, your muscles, and open your viscera. It’s Christmas Eve-eve. My wife is wrapping presents. I’m opening your belly.

“Ah fuck.”

Across the table, the surgeon looks up for a half second, “Put your hand under his fascia here”

Your abdominal wall is plastered with rough pebbles, where it should be smooth. Cancer, like barnacles clinging to the side of a ship.

“Yeah, same on my side.”

We silently run the loops of your intestines over our hands and reach down into your pelvis. It’s a horrible matted ball down there in the corner where it should be loose, easy, and compliant. It should smoothly move across my finger tips, but this cancer has socked your intestines into a knotted mess, like a hard rubber ball that’s melting and cooling in the corner of your belly over and over again, turning the corners of your belly into a congealed wad.

“Let’s find something we can put together here, how far down on the small bowel can we get?” He wonders aloud.

“Clear off the transverse colon there.”

“Yeah that sits nice”

We start to sew your large intestine to your small intestine, so that food doesn’t get stuck in the malignant traffic jam that has replaced your intestines.

————————————

“Last night was fine, I’m farting, you wouldn’t believe the stench in here you must be farting too,” you chuckle easily. I laugh too.

”How did the food go?”

We trade news like parishioners seeing each other in the grocery store, meals are good, my wife is fine, thank you for asking.

———————————-

Sometimes I imagine you sitting in a Back Bay restaurant enjoying a beer and a deli sandwich, with your wife, complaining about Belichick. I imagine you laughing and relaxing. Maybe that was before. Maybe it’s next month. I hope we got you there.