If I Could Play...

For years, I have theorized that the swiftest, most profound way to know someone is to hear the music they listen to and know what each song means to them, or how it makes them feel to listen to it. Then a few months ago, I concocted a personality theory based on team sports. I figured it would be insightful to know what position a person would play in the major team sports (at least in the United States of Advertising), no matter their height, weight, or general lack of athleticism in real life, along with their reasons for why they would play that position. For brownie points, I thought it would be further insightful to list what players at that position said person would wish to emulate.

So here I go with mine:

Football: Middle Linebacker
Of all the positions in American football to pick—quarterback, running back, cornerback, safety, and the ever-glamorous placekicker—why did I pick MLB? Because I would rather smack people instead of be the hittee. “Lay the wood” on somebody as they say. Or "smoke" or “light” a guy up. I’d pick middle linebacker over free safety because I would also want to direct the defense. Be the defensive general on the field. Now that the NFL has become more of a pass-oriented league, middle linebackers have to be even more adept than ever at quickly reading offensive alignments in order to help direct the D. If my 5’7, 170ish pound self could morph into a 6’1, 240 pound beast (the same exact height and weight of Ray Lewis and his league-wide heir apparent, Patrick Willis), I would relish all those responsibilities.

Favorite Middle Linebackers:
· Mike Singletary (I remember being a kid, watching the ’85 Bears destroy the Steve Grogan-led Patriots. This was before I officially loved football, but I loved Singletary. Those bulging, intense eyes that could hold a candle to the Eye of Sauron. The way he flew at the ball handler, play after play after play after play. He was physically gifted, intelligent, but most importantly: prepared. And his sheer intensity was palpable through a television screen. Can you imagine how it must have been on the gridiron to be on the opposing side of the ball?)
· Ray Lewis (Other than the Bears ’85 defense, the 2000 Super Bowl-winning Baltimore Ravens defense was the most staunch and devastating defense I ever saw. And this was the man who led them.)
· Patrick Willis



Soccer: Midfielder
Futbol was the only sport I played growing up; I played for ten years. Throughout those years, I typically played fullback or midfield, with a few stints as goalie (horrible!) and forward (pretty horrible, too). I was never a great player; respectable at best. But if I could play one position again—and supremely—no question I would play midfield.

Back when I played, I loved playing midfield because of its very position on the field—el centro. Playing midfield was great because I got to run around a lot. That made me happy—and still does. (It took me 33 years to realize that I am like one of those hyperactive dogs you’re warned about adopting from a pound, the one that needs to be taken out to run around a lot in order to expend their boundless energy. That’s me.) Plus, being a midfielder was cool because it was a medley of defense and offense; I dug that variety. After being a fullback for years, after being burned a number of times on goals, I found comfort in playing midfield because you rarely earned such outright blame for giving up a goal, or missing one (as strikers do).

If I could play midfield again, I would not want to be an attacking midfielder like the great Maradona, Zinedine Zidane, or Gheorghe Hagi. I would rather be The Set-up Man, The Grand Conductor instead of The Finisher. Now on the rare occasions I watch futbol (usually only for the World Cup, because otherwise it would be another commitment to get invested in any of those great soccer leagues throughout the world; I already have a video game addiction I am trying to quell), I find myself oohing and wowing over a great pass just as much or more than an individual play of dribbling poetry and brilliance to notch a score. I love the great midfielders who set up shots on goal, or goals for their teammates. They’re like magicians de la cancha, chess masters incarnate.

My favorite such midfielders:
· Carlos Valderrama (Not only did he have the baddest fucking hair in futbol, but he was a master of the soccer field. Just check out the YouTube video below)
· Roberto Carlos (I loved Roberto Carlos because he was a short motherfucker who played with the best. And his free kicks were stunning. Like cannon shots, man.)
· Xavi Hernandez (The center piece of the great Spanish teams of recent years.)



NBA: Point Guard
Since I’m an average-to-short dude (a dwarf in a Metallica pit; tall in Cambodia), I think I’ve always had an affinity for short NBA players who are ballers on the court. Though I think the Spurs are a perennially boring team, I admire Tony Parker for being a 6’2 tall cat who has made a career of knifing to the basket whilst routinely shooting around 50% from the field. And then there was little 6’0 Allen Iverson who led the league in scoring four times and finished with 24,368 points, good for 19th on the all-time scoring list. Isiah Thomas was a bad motherfucker, too.

But like middle linebacker, like a soccer midfielder, I would love to be a point guard to orchestrate the offense. If I could actually dribble the ball, I would love to be that sleek point guard who pushes his team up the court in transition. I would love to be that guy who calmly calls the play in a half court set, then executes the play—an entry pass, or a driving play to the basket to either finish or pop it out for a three-point shot. I would love to be that player with the no-look pass to a wide open shooter; the guy who, play after play, makes the right decision and places the ball with his teammate in the best position to exploit the defense. On top of this, I’ve been particularly fond of point guards who were two-way stars—a force on offense and defense. In any sport, I have always been most admiring of complete players who could do it all.

Favorite Point Guards:
Oscar Robertson
Jason Kidd (Never a great shooter or scorer but back in his heyday he could do it all.)
Gary Payton (The Glove!)

MLB: Center Fielder
Since this piece is getting long, I’ll cut to the chase like the way these center fielders used to chase down a long fly ball; this is why I would love to play center field (if I could actually make contact with a pitch): I love to run. I love how the best defensive outfielders run with a reckless sense of abandon to grab a fly ball, even if it means crashing into a wall at full speed. I love speedy outfielders who could blaze around the diamond, turning singles or walks into doubles because of their base-stealing prowess. I love how a dangerous base runner can rattle even the most cold-blooded closer in a tight ballgame. (I always think of Red Sox pinch runner Dave Roberts rattling Mariano Rivera in the tide-turning Game 4 of the incredible 2004 ALCS.) And I love outfielders who led off the batting order, batted for a high average and got on base to serve as the catalysts for their offense. Though he wasn’t a center fielder, my favorite baseball player of all-time was Rickey Henderson because he did just this. (#24’s ridiculous 1990 season—.325 average, 28 HR, 65 SB, and a .439 on-base percentage—will forever live on in Nintendo’s R.B.I. Baseball 3.)

Favorite Center Fielders:
Kenny Lofton
Willie Mays
Jim Edmonds

Hockey: Right Wing
I like hockey far more than baseball yet I never watch it. But if I could skate with grace and power and deftly handle a puck with a stick, I would play right wing. In hockey, unlike futbol, I would relish playing the striker position because in hockey a goal-scoring wing can also be a physical force like tough guy Cam Neely. Flying shoulder-first to check a defenseman into the corners must be a constant adrenaline rush. And like football, it seems like hockey games can turn on a huge hit that can charge a team up.

Besides smashing hulking dudes into the glass, I would love to be a wing because oftentimes the speediest skaters play that position. I’ve managed to ice skate a few times. (Emphasis on “managed.”) Though I don’t viscerally know, it must be a rush to soar down the rink at speeds near 27-29 miles per hour. I don’t think I’d ever get tired of that tiny thrill.

Favorite Right Wings:
· Pavel Bure (The Russian Rocket, man. That dude could fly. And shoot. At times, it looked like he operated at a speed that other players couldn’t touch. For whatever reason, I always dug that he played right wing even though he was a lefty. It just made him that much more unusual and extraordinary.)
· Theoren Fleury (The epitome of scrappy motherfucker. A 5’6 powerhouse who scored over 1,000 points in his career. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a thing for love-or-hate-him athletes: players who are villains if they’re pitted up against your team, but players you love when they play for your team. Fleury was one of those dudes.)
· Cam Neely (He was a bad ass. Like the Hines Ward of hockey forwards.)



Zombie Roeneck

I am Modern Man, Hear Me Roar

After a long frustrating day, enduring a job that is just about as bad as going to church (in some ways, far more depressing), getting low-balled for a job at a nonprofit that I used to badly, badly, badly want—an escape I have longed for and worked toward for MONTHS—what does this 21st Century motherfucker do? I drank some slim Russians (Caucasians with soy milk), clipped my 6th generation iPod shuffle to my shirt, told my sweetheart I would be listening to some loud music in the kitchen in case she called and I didn’t respond, then proceeded to blast a triple-shot of Slayer’s “Postmortem,” “Raining Blood,” and “Seasons in the Abyss” through my headphones while I stood at our sink and violently headbanged (and I mean violently; think Jason Newsted onstage during the ’89 Damaged Justice tour; Mari tells me she can hear my neck bones popping while I whip my head around; she describes it as “alarming”) as I washed our dishes.



This is what we’ve come to, folks.

This is evolution.

My 33-year-old neck already pulsing with tranquil pain, I couldn’t help but think about what my ancestors used to do to get their aggression out in their times. Maybe kill a woolly mammoth? Beat their ugly kids (that still happens; and of course they don't have to be ugly)? Or maybe my ancestors who were on Noah’s Ark fucked a kangaroo in the ass to release (because we all know every single creature was piled onto that Carnival cruise ship, right? Wink wink.) Or maybe our Neanderthal predecessors went Jackson Pollack with black tar on a bonfire-lit cave wall when they're thinking something Grimlock-like: "She not spread her legs for me. Me destroy!"

Its always been a farce, man.

But I’m still headbanging, fuckers.

However long this dance lasts.

Keeping Your Bike From Getting Nicked!

Humble readers, perhaps you, too, have had a bike or two or few (like me!) stolen. Few things enrage me more, let alone produce homicidal fantasies. Stealing a car is one thing, but—call me biased—stealing a measly bicycle from someone who is committed to endangering their life to use a mode of transportation that is not destroying the planet is supremely fucked, as far as I'm concerned. (Which is why, if I had it my way, bicycle thieves would have their own plain of hell in Dante's Inferno.) Do we really need a commandment to know that stealing is wrong?

After getting one too many bikes taken from me over the years, some completely dim-witted on my part for lack of theft prevention (RIP Rosa) or for leaving them overnight by an East Bay BART station (RIP Rocinante II), others just completely unexpected (RIP Charlene, RIP Rocinante), I went online to look for resources on which bicycle locks work best. The truth is that any lock can be broken. The goal, as bike mechanic extraordinaire Hal Ruzal says in a video posted below, is to lock up your bicycle so that it will take too much time and effort for a thief to steal it.

Here's a surprisingly entertaining video of his to show how to secure your bicycle and its parts:


And here's another:


If you're like me and learned way too late how thieves can use a car jack to bust open a U-lock, seeing is believing:


I hope these videos can be instructive. Hopefully, all that anguish I went through with my stolen bicycles can be prevented for your two-wheeled babies!

Parting Tips:
●If you live in a town like Oakland, use two U-locks, one for each tire. Trust me. (Since I moved to Oakland a year and a half ago, I've come up with a motto that I learned the hard way: Oakland is a two U-lock kind of town. San Francisco's Mission District can be bad for two-wheeled thievery, but fuck, not nearly as bad as Oakland.)

●Don't be stupid like me and leave your bicycle locked late at night outside most East Bay BART stations unless it's a really shitty-looking bike. (In the industry, we call them "clunkers.") After getting Rocinante II stolen outside the Downtown Berkeley station, now I just imagine a ravenous, bicycle-stealing monster that comes lurking out at night for bikes and bicycle parts to gobble, targeting the immediate radius of East Bay BART stations.

●And if you're going to lock any tire to a bicycle rack or street post, lock up the back tire; that way, they're not stealing your rear derailleur, too, which will cost you.

Books, Books, Books!

Halfway through the first month of 2013, I figured it might not be too late to give a recap of my five favorite books read in 2012. If you’re looking for some reading material to cozy up to for the beginning of the 14th Baktun, mayhaps this list will be of help:

Monstress by Lysley Tenorio
Like any great writer, my boy Lysley Tenorio writes with a great deal of reverence for his characters and story matter. For me—and I thought this was amazing (and I am aware that a lot of people nowadays overuse that word)—but each story had at least one sentence, one moment that was profoundly heartfelt which went a long way toward developing a visceral understanding and sympathy for that character and their actions. Never seen a short story collection do that so well. "The Brothers" and "Superassassin" were my favorite stories. I didn't think there was one weak story in this collection. They were all really good to drop-your-jaw astounding. This is one of the best short story collections I have ever read.

If you want a taste of his writing, here's a link to read a smidgeon of "Superassassin":

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/10/tenorio.htm

Damascus by Joshua Mohr
So at first I wasn’t hot about his book; it reminded me of Diablo Cody’s Juno which was cutesy but not believable because every damn character in that film seemed too intelligent and smart-alecky and hip that there was little profound differentiation amongst them. Sure, this book is a fantastical idealization of life in the Mission District, but once you accept that story world, it’s quite an enjoyable quick read. And a tremendous novel. I think it was just about perfect (as in I imagine that Mohr executed it close to what he initially imagined it to be). Didn't see any missteps—no extraneous scene, no lines of dialogue or actions that didn't seem true to a character. I loved the playful omniscient narration Mohr created for these tales. I was continually amazed by how emotionally true all of his characters and their actions seemed—and Mohr was mining some emotional material that so many other lesser writers fumble: love, death, war, and art. And he nailed it, through and through. Each of his characters were clearly distinct. The crazy thing about this novel—at least for me—was that I was able to relate with each of his characters.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
This was a re-read but it was still astounding as the first read it years ago, if not even more so. Dunn's novel is definitely a book people will either love or hate. Judging from the Goodreads reviews, the dividing line seems to be whether if you find her characters wholly detestable or not. And I don’t. Far from it. I think it’s an utterly amazing novel full of twists, plot developments, and crazy-ass characters and happenings. Quite possibly the ultimate book centered on sibling rivalries—and what makes this dark novel so astounding is its fantastical carnival setting. Artie is one of literature’s quintessential assholes and Olympia is a perplexing narrator. There are few novels like this one.

If you dig nonfiction as much as I do, you might dig these:

The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr
Karr’s first memoir is often credited for starting the memoir craze that began in the mid 1990s. After devouring this book, I can see why; it’s a shame that most memoirs are not as good as this one. It took me a while to warm to this book but Karr’s narrative voice is so strong—and fitting for her tough, funny, tomboy-ish character. Her book is structured so effectively by beginning and fluttering back from time to time to that mysterious traumatic childhood memory that begins the memoir. An unflinching honest book with its share of hilarity and horrifically dark moments.

Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes and the Fall of Old Mexico by Hugh Thomas
If you’re fascinated by the New World Spanish Conquistadors as much as I am, this is a must read. Though I haven’t read other books that chronicle the fall of the Mexica, I would be willing to bet that this is the definitive book on that topic. A thorough, thorough historical and encompassing chronicle of that epic clash of cultures back in 1519 that forever changed the world.

And honorable mention goes to…

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
A book that was hard to put down at times because I wanted to find out what would happen next.

For the most part, Gold seamlessly wove historical research with the elements of his story. That alone is an impressive feat (though sometimes it could feel like the attention to historical fact was heavy-handed, too obvious, but I rather liked reading all those parts). From the get-go, you feel like you are taken back to San Francisco and Oakland in the early 1900s and never once doubt that what Gold is telling is based on fact. I particularly dug that this story captured the passing of an era (Life Before the Boob Tube) that is so different than the iPhone Present. Like any great story, the novel definitely creates its own world. Reading it is like inhabiting the past (even if you're reading it on a Kindle?) To boot, his characters are strong though the female leads are a bit too similar. Carter the Great is the type of protagonist who is capable of carrying a novel of this length. It’s a wingding of a book!

Changes

Last week, I went to San Francisco General——my old cancer-stompin’ grounds——for a CT scan appointment. When I rolled up to the hospital from 22nd and Potrero, I stared with awe at the new hospital building under construction. It had only been three or four months since the last time I visited. In that short time, seven stories of steel beams had been erected by the historic brick buildings that my mom does not like to see because it brings back “malas memorias.” The exoskeleton of a bridge connecting the old hospital to what will be the new one was fused. As I approached with my bicycle by my side, a huge smile came over me. I snapped a picture to document this unfolding change.

When I walked up to the fence that gated off the construction site, I felt overcome with joy as I stared up at the building under development. Part of the new foundation is being built over the rotunda where I told my mom I had lymphoma over three years before. It was a strange sensation, as if part of my history was being literally paved over. But in the end, I smiled with wide eyes, amazed to behold all this change. To be alive for it.

Shit I'm Digging: Football!

A few days ago, I joked with my dearling, Mari, that I can feel whole again now that the football season is starting again. Of course, I was being exagerado, but it does round me out in some way. Football's a nice diversion from the overall dire state of our planet and I've always loved looking at football stats ever since I crushed hard on Nintendo's Tecmo Super Bowl when I was a kid, racking up ridiculous season numbers against the computer with the Randall Cunningham-led Philadelphia Eagles. I particularly love this time of the season when everyone is making silly and bold predictions for the season: who will win their respective divisions? Which rookies will have the biggest impact on their teams? Who will win the Super Bowl? I love it all!

So all that said, three teams stand out for me as having the most impressive victories for Week One: the Atlanta Falcons, the Niners, but most especially the Patriots. (I was tempted to include the Cowboys, but I still need to see a week or two out of Rob Ryan's unit to show if their defense is legit with two shutdown corners--or if the Giants simply laid a Super-Bowl-hangover-worthy performance on Week One at home.) Well damn, maybe all that preseason hype about Matt Ryan taking charge of a more high-octane offense is well-founded, huh? His stat line the first week: 23/31 for 299 yards and 3 TDs on the road against what is supposed to be an improved Kansas City defense. Their offense had 31 passes to 23 rush attempts (though K.C. seemed to be stacking the box cuz Turner had a 2.9 yards per attempt average). Julio Jones and Matty Ice seem to be locked on in a way they quite weren't last year, so the Birds can be a surprisingly dangerous team this year. We'll see. Their home opener against the Broncos should be more telling but this was an impressive start.

What can you say about the Niners, they went into Lambeau and imposed their will on the Packers much like the Giants and their vaunted pass rush did in last year's playoffs. Gore ran for over 100 yards and Alex Smith looked chillaxed in the pocket in a hostile road environment. Looks like the Packers are offensively still where they were last year despite the addition of Cedric Benson, which is bad news for them. And it looks the Niners are improved over last year's club. I am curious to see how Smith plays next week at home against the Lions. The biggest improvement over last year's club just might be the brainy Alex Smith having one more year with QB guru Jim Harbaugh and the same offensive system. Depending on how they do next week (I think they're a lock to win given Detroit's shoddy first week performance), that Niners-going-to-the-Super-Bowl hype could be, as Hammer once said, Too Legit to Quit, man.

But damn, the Patriots looked mighty, mighty impressive. Scary impressive: manhandling a playoff contender on the road on both sides of the ball. All-world speed demon Chris Johnson: 11 rushes for 4 fucking yards at home. The Tennessee Titans with their strong offensive line: 1 net yard rushing to 162 by the Patriots. (Grant it, last year's Titans run D was in the bottom third of the league.) With Brady back there, with a good run game, that's downright scary. What's even more frightening to the rest of the league is the Patriots defense allowing 284 total yards on the road to what should be a respectable team. Remember, the Pats D last year gave up the 6th highest amount of yards in NFL history. It's one week, but that unit looks like it might be vastly improved. If their run game is indeed strong and they have a top-15 defense, shit, I'm not sure if anyone can beat them this year.

It's gonna be another fun one!

Memoir Excerpt: 2010: A Strange Odyssey

Here's another excerpt from my memoir...

It was dark outside my bedroom window when my alarm rang. The white figures on my VCR read 6:40. Hideously early for a night owl like me. It was Monday, January 4, 2010. First day of radiation treatment. My appointments for the rest of that week were at 7:30 am. It was the only time slot Pat and Maria—my Patient Advocate and Radiation Therapist—could squeeze me into. They had shown me their morning to afternoon schedule. It was all booked up. Henry Ford would have been proud at the amount of people they were bringing in and out to get zapped.

I sat up. Though I felt cold and tempted to lay longer in bed—that fuzzy-warm siren—I had to cycle three miles over to UCSF. While I stared at the time on the VCR, six fucking forty in the morning, a part of me felt incredulous that this was happening. Cancerlicious-déjà vu is what it was: like the morning of my first chemotherapy infusion. Me? Radiation treatment? Really?

But this time, I didn’t feel angry.

Fuck it, what can I do?

By then, I knew I had lymphoma for nine months. During that time, I carried that deathly presence everywhere I went. And so, a level of complete acceptance had long since settled. But just as importantly, I believed I had weathered the worst of this drawn-out struggle for my life. As far as my treatments, it was home-stretch time. And I had every intention of closing strong.

With my blue sweatpants, gray hoodie, and bicycle helmet on, I walked down the dark stairwell with my bicycle, Blue, held above my shoulder. I rolled down 22nd Street to hang a left on Valencia. The streets were empty other than a few joggers and people walking about. It was a smidge chilly. I considered turning back home for a thicker sweater but I had been everywhere with that hoodie, which my first serious girlfriend had given to me nine years before. I had traveled through Western Europe, South America, Cuba, the Yucatan Peninsula, Thailand and Cambodia with it. Together, we would endure radiation treatment, too. I pedaled on, figuring I would warm up during the twenty-minute ride to Mt. Zion.
Blue and I rode down 18th Street past Mission High (the school Maya Angelou and Carlos Santana attended), past the tennis courts at Dolores Park. The hipster-magnet-of-a-park was a desolate mound of gray that early in the morning. Then we pedaled up Sanchez to cross Market Street, which overlooked the city’s skyscrapers. Once I zigzagged through the Lower Haight, I cycled up one last hill that took me past verdant Alamo Square. At the top of the hill, I panted and flashed my I-made-it-I-made-it grin! before I zipped down to Mt. Zion.

When I took the elevator to the hospital basement, wiping sweat from my face, I felt proud of myself. My dad had offered to lend me his Toyota Rav so I could drive myself to the hospital throughout treatment. My sister Mariana and her husband had offered to take me to and from the hospital. I thanked them but declined their offers. In a suburban town like Fremont, my dad needed a car to get around. And I didn’t want to hassle Mariana that early in the morning. It was tempting to borrow my dad’s SUV, but I wanted to push myself. Man up. In my heart, I believed the rides to and from the hospital would nourish me. Strengthen my resolve. Build my resilience. After reading Norman Cousins’ Anatomy of an Illness the year before, I knew how vital the mind and one’s convictions were in the healing process. As long as the treatment did not fatigue me, I was determined to cycle to my appointments. The hard part would be waking up on time.

The moment I opened the door into the men’s locker room, I saw the adorable old man with bushy white eyebrows and Buddy Holly glasses I had seen the week before. He sat on the cupboard bench where the gowns were kept. He looked to be in his late sixties.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning to you, too,” I said, opening a locker to put my backpack in.

“They’re going to have me on chemo for an entire week. Did you have chemo?”

“Yeah, I finished.”

“How much did they give you?”

“Six cycles,” I said, keeping our conversation to our Cancer World jargon.

“What kind of cancer do you have?”

“Hodgkin lymphoma.”

He didn’t nod or have a knowing look in his eyes.

“It’s a rare one. A blood cancer,” I said.

He asked if it was similar to leukemia. I told him I wasn’t sure. Then he stood and walked over to me.

“Well, take care of yourself,” he said, opening his arms.

“You too,” I said, hugging him back. My neck and upper back were damp with sweat, which is why I almost apologized to him when he put a hand on my neck. Once we let go, he opened the door to let himself out. We were smiling, grateful for this unanticipated early morning affection from a fellow cancer fighter.

“I’ll see you around,” he said, as if we were boarding an all-expenses-paid flight to Maui.

“Take care, man.”

In the dimly lit radiation room, I hopped up on the treatment table. Pat and Maria locked the mask to the table. It was clamped down over my face so that my eyelashes bent against the mask whenever I blinked. They confirmed that the X-marks on the part of the mask that covered my shoulders were aligned with the green lasers that shot from both sides of the room like laser pointers. After tying me down with my arms pinned to the sides, Maria gave me a horn to hold in my right hand. It was like a clown horn (nyuck nyuck!)

“Use it in case you need anything,” Maria said.

“Okay,” I murmured, barely able to open my mouth.

After they raised me toward the ceiling, beneath that curious looking part of the machine that hung over the treatment table, Pat and Maria turned to leave.

“We’ll be next door in case you need anything, okay,” Pat said. “You’re doing great.”

The lights went off. I heard the door shut.

Once the room became completely dark, I could see a soft white light emitting from the part of the machine that hung over me. It was about two feet away. The light came through a rectangular piece of glass with markings on it that looked like quadrants for measurement. It made me think of a periscope. Since the machine didn’t look like a pointy laser out of a sci-fi movie or a James Bond flick, it was difficult to imagine that contraption as the one that would zap my chest. But once I saw that light penetrating through that periscope-like opening, once I saw that square opening of light narrow then widen, it was clear that is where I would get a stream of subatomic particles shot at me.

The machine slowly rotated to my left. I was befuddled and mesmerized. It reminded me of the languid, poetic movements of the spaceships in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. That’s probably why I began to hear Strauss’ “The Blue Danube” play in my head.

Once it rotated out of my peripheral vision, I heard the machine make a buzzing sound as though there was a loud hair clipper behind me. The buzzing lasted for about five seconds. Oh, I must have just been zapped!

Then I heard the humming sound of the machine as it gently rotated back in front of me. All the while, the lilting Strauss score in my head became louder while I observed this strange beauty. I was trying to distract myself from the weirdness of it all.

When the machine stopped, produced that buzzzzzzzzzzzzz sound again, I focused on the chest area by my tumor. I swore I could feel something—a sliver of heat—as though a magnified beam of sunlight had shot through the room to shine upon it. I am not sure if that sensation was simply in my head. But while I got zapped, I imagined a searing laser beam sawing through the cavernous tumor that Mr. Hodgkins and his minions made as their lair. I imagined boulders breaking off, crashing down as they scattered in disarray.

Weeks later, Maria would explain to me that the machine had zapped me with radioactive particles from the back and the front. If it were done twice from a single position, it would have done more damage to my internals.

The buzzing stopped. The door opened. The fluorescent lights flicked on as Pat and Maria walked over to my side. Maria began to unfasten the mask.

“Okay, you’re done,” she said. “Let me lower you down, though.”

“I’m done?”

“That’s it.”

Once I was lowered, I swung my legs over to hop down on the floor. Maria was putting my mask up on top of a steel-shelving unit against the side of the room. I had never really noticed it before. There were three levels of shelves about ten feet in length. The top shelf was crammed with masks—about ten to fifteen of them. They all had large X marks taped onto numerous spots: the neck. Chest. Lungs. Head. Like my mask, they each had a long piece of masking tape placed over the upper torso. It had their name and identifying medical record numbers written on them with a black marker. The middle shelf held other wire-mesh maskings. Those were shaped to cover other parts of the human body such as the lower back or the upper thighs.

All those names taking up those other schedule slots suddenly felt more real.

It was sobering to see all those masks.


* * * * * * *
After Pat walked me back to the dressing room area, I went to the bathroom to pee. When I stepped to the sink to wash my hands, I discovered a curious sight reflected back at me in the mirror. My face—forehead, nose, and cheeks—looked like they were covered in fish scales. The mask had made creases all over my face.

“Man,” I said, chortling to myself. I was perversely tickled that I had physical evidence of just how tight that mask was clamped down on me. I took out my cell and snapped a pic of my scaly-looking face.

The sky was a swirl of lavender when I began to cycle home. The sun was lifting above the skyscrapers in the distance. I smiled, marveling at this early morning beauteousness I rarely saw, this unexpected gift I had been graced with.

One down, nineteen to go! I thought when I rolled up to my home. Six miles down, 114 more to go.