On the Bus

Whatever was cut out was sent to a pathologist to see what they can see, and I was at the surgeon’s office to get a report on the results. The surgeon came into the room, and said, among other things, something like: It wasn’t cancer. Don’t tell people it was cancer. If we had known, we might have said to monitor it and not have the surgery.

I wanted to ask more questions, but I would not have gotten better answers in that moment; he seemed like he was in a rush. So that’s that.

Later, I looked up the pathologist’s report, and then had to look up a lot of what was said in the pathologist’s report. About 20% of the time, with thyroid cancer, the tumor lacks whatever it would need to spread, and I was in that 20%. Some decades ago it was called cancer, but that was scaring people, so they changed the diagnosis name to exclude the word cancer. Maybe some years or decades from now, there will be a $3 test to figure out if you’re in that 20% and not do the surgery. (One online source thought this sort of tumor could eventually be a problem, so out it’s gotta go anyway. I think psychologically, knowing I had it would bug me. Maybe this is better.)

What they told me before the surgery was absolutely, unambiguously cancer, was after the surgery no longer cancer. Huh, I thought. I’d already told everyone it was cancer. It seemed like a cancer journey. Now it was a not-cancer journey?

That was May. In June, I had my heart broken into 582 pieces (I'm rounding off) and unrelated, I photographed a story in a rural county (it’s not out yet or I’d link to it) and I was reminded I could tell stories like that. Also in June, I became the same age as when my dad died. I do not have his health problems, but I still feel that number, every day, every thought, every breath. In July, someone I knew in my 20s died suddenly, driving to work. I felt an urgency to work on a story I’ve long had in mind.

I set off just to drive (I went to some very rural places, which I find very calming), to read some rooms (I think that worked well), to read in some rooms (I spent a lot of time in libraries) (I think that worked well) , and to outrun sadness (I do not think that worked well). My love of both public libraries and public transit are linked in both obvious ways and ways I am not sure I fully understand. If nothing else, public transit are more rooms to read. Some people seemed happy to be there. Some seemed like they wanted to be somewhere else. Some were in both groups at once by reading newspapers, which felt very much of a different time and place.

In one city, I stayed in a nice but dated property on the edge of downtown, in a not-so-great area. There was an abandoned restaurant inside; it’s just an empty space now. I wondered about when it was a different time and place. It felt like the hotel was for people who were not doing wonderfully by society’s rules, but had not yet gone off the cliff. The parking lot entrance gate was not closed - “we are too busy for that” said one night clerk - but the parking lot was fenced. My last night there, I was outside in the parking lot, waiting for the moon, when a young man came from the street to inside the

fence. He asked for some water and an ambulance. He was about the age of my young adult children. He was very dirty, with no shirt and no shoes, just some board shorts. I’ve lost so much blood, he said, look at all these wounds, he said, turning around. He had no wounds, no blood on him. I have a heart condition, he said, that is causing me serious problems. MK-75. A heart condition killed my dad, so I spent years thinking I had a heart condition, and I have not heard of MK-75. Look at all these wounds.

I went inside to get him water and to talk to the (different) night clerk, who was checking in someone with a young child. Maybe asking for an ambulance can wait until they are gone, I thought. I don’t think the kid has a physical issue, and this was not my city, and I did not want to make things worse by calling someone who was not trained to deal with this.

I went to the water dispenser in the lobby and got a cup of water, which I took out into the parking lot. Is that just water, the kid said. Yes, I said, it’s just water. He took it, then dumped most of it on his head. What about an ambulance, he said. I will go find out, I said. I went back to the lobby, and the mom and child were gone. I told the night clerk what was up, and he grabbed his phone and came around the desk. The night clerk was about the age of my adult children. I just did a check, he said, and this guy wasn’t there, so he must have just come inside the fence. Yes, I said, he came up to me just now. The night clerk went up to the kid, who was lying down, using a parking tombstone as a pillow. Can you call an ambulance? Yes, said the night clerk, but you’ve got to get outside the gate. Can you help me up? Yes, said the night clerk, putting out his hand. The kid moved outside the gate, and the night clerk called an ambulance. This place is for those who had not yet gone off a cliff. The night clerk turned to me. You can go back inside now, he said. I went towards the lobby, but I did not go inside, until I knew things were okay-ish.

Just outside the lobby were two guys in their 30s. One had been smoking, one had been walking a dog. The guy with the dog had walked by the kid, while he was using the parking tombstone as a pillow, and there was some kind of interaction. The dog walker said to his friend about it: “If you’re going to talk to me that way, deal with this on your own. You got yourself into this, get yourself out.” An ambulance showed up, and I went back inside the hotel. I left in the morning.

I do not like saying “on a gluten free bun” - it sounds bougie to me, it’s often extra, sometimes it does not taste good and I end up thinking that’s on purpose, for daring to ask. This is not a rational response, I know. So, I eat a lot of tacos, that are often on corn tortillas by default. I had sixteen tacos on this trip. I knew on my way home, I would pass near the new Twin Falls In N Out, where I could ask for a protein wrap. No extra charge, and I would not feel judged for asking for it, and it was not a seventeenth taco. I love tacos, but that is lots of tacos already.

Coming down out of mountains I suddenly had cell service and got lots of messages from friends about a mass shooting at the Twin Falls In N Out, and was I in it, was I okay. I did my best to either call people back while driving or text back from every single rest stop. No, I was not in the shooting; Idaho is big and that location is two hours from my house. Almost nobody knew about the trip, or that I was close to Twin Falls.

Even if things had gone smoothly, I’d have arrived in Twin Falls about a half hour after someone made the first call to 911. The day did not go smoothly, and I was about four hours later, late enough to know what was going on, to be texted asking if I was okay, to avoid going down there. I put gas in the car a few miles away and did not eat at that exit. Everyone was somber. Everything felt weird. I don’t live in Twin Falls, and I cannot know what people were going through. Instead, I thought about my 20s, about how in the Los Angeles area I was in an In N Out multiple times a week, about the person I knew back then who just died driving to work. I’ve lost so much blood, the kid said.

I could not outrun the sadness. My phone said I did 98,845 steps on the trip. Do you need at least 100,000 steps to outrun that? Do you need more? How many do you need? Is it a not-cancer journey? I am developing other unidentified but hopefully minor-ish health issues. What are they? Why are they? Is this baked into who I am?

I recently got a newer car. It’s still 20 years old, but that is newer than the 24 year old car I’d been driving. It gets about the same mpg as the old car, but has a smaller tank. You can probably guess what happened next. I ran out of gas eleven miles from a town in Montana. I got lucky, in that it was on a freeway, in sight of a cell tower, daylight, and good weather. It took a truck with gas sent by AAA only about 35 minutes to get there. While I was waiting, someone stopped to see if I needed help. He was about the age of my adult children. He tried to siphon gas out of his tank, but gravity was working against him. He offered to find a tow strap in his truck and tow me to town, and I thanked them for his efforts, but elected to wait for the truck with the gas since it was already on its way, and he left. Is this baked into who we are? I hope so.

Early in the trip, I saw a small sign in a museum next to some art. It was a quote from Picasso that I didn’t know. It said, “Are we to paint what’s on the face, what’s inside the face, or what’s behind it?” A woman in her 80s answered her cell phone while she was moving slowly up the stairs in the museum. She said, I’m on an adventure. I took the bus!