Commencement - 4. Like Father, Like Son

“I can’t believe you did that to yourself,” mom sighed on the day when I’d sat down at the kitchen table without a shirt on. “I thought you had to have a parent’s permission before you could do that to yourself.”

“Nope. Sixteen is the limit,” I replied.

“Seriously, go put a shirt on. I don’t want to see that while I’m trying to eat breakfast.”

“It’s just a nipple, mom,” I replied. “Everybody has them.”

“Yes, but not everybody does… that… to them.”

“It’s just a piercing.”

“It’s disgusting!”

“Did it hurt?”

Both mom and I stopped our argument. I couldn’t believe that of all the responses that he could possibly have that the vanilla douche would ask me that. I mean, I expected him to join my mother in the condemnation, not to ask me something normal.

“Nah. It was just a pinch. Brett was the wimp who cried like a little girl before they even did it.”

David chuckled and went back to his newspaper. But mom turned a new shade of red.

“You got it pierced with Brett?”

“Yeah. You think I could afford to pay for it myself?”

“That’s not the point!” mom exclaimed. “I thought I’d made my feelings clear about you two doing… things… together.”

“What things, mother? You mean sex? Because we did that too after we had it done. It was really good too.”

“Oh my god!” mom cried. “I thought we had finally gotten through to you!”

“Yeah, about that... I don’t think the attempted brainwashing worked. Turns out that I’m not a very happy guy when I’m pretending to be straight.”

“Is that all you can think about is yourself?”

“No, this is the first time in a very long time that I’m finally thinking about myself and not about you and your reputation. I’m not willing to pretend to be something I’m not anymore, mother. I love Brett. I’m not going to pretend that’s not true so that you can play make-believe with a bunch of hypocrites who would cast you aside in a heartbeat for something as stupid as having a son like me!”

“I have never asked you to be something you’re not!”

“Yeah, you just think I’m going through a phase and that I’ll get over this thing I’ve got for Brett! I think three years is a little more than a phase!”

“I don’t know where all this hatred is coming from. I don’t want you riding to school with that boy anymore.”

At just that moment Brett beeped the horn in our driveway.

“Perfect timing!” I said. I pulled on a shirt, gathered my bookbag, and headed for the door. “See you later!” I quickly got into Brett’s car and we took off down the road together.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“Perfectly. Oh, she was pissed. I don’t think she likes you anymore,” I laughed.

“Well, no mother likes their son-in-law,” Brett replied. “Did you tell her about the sex?”

“Of course! What kind of son do you take me for?”

It felt so good to finally confront my mother. It was Brett’s idea to just show up at the breakfast table without a shirt and let her discover for herself that I’d had my nipple pierced. The reaction was exactly what we’d expected, hoped for actually. We had talked about doing the whole nipple thing before dad died, but never seriously. I’d just felt like doing something shocking and bold and Brett went along with it. I’d heard the best place to get something like that done was at a tattoo place, so that’s where we did it. The people there were really nice. No, Brett didn’t really cry when they did it to him, but he was way more scared than I was. He really hates pain.

School was going great! I really liked being a senior. While my classmates were just as uninterested in my life as ever, I found that younger classes not only knew my name but even kind of respected me. It was weird. I’d be walking through the halls and some random kid would say hi to me. Maybe it was the rock star hair, or that I stood at an inch over six feet tall? I was easy to spot in a crowd because of my unique look.

At gym class, there was no hiding what Brett and I had done when we changed clothes in the locker room, since we had to take our shirts off and everything. I was expecting to get picked on because of it, but just like I’d experienced with David, there were more questions about the pain than anything else.

Unfortunately, it was that gym class that ended up fucking up the rest of my life.

We were running sprints. We’d start at one end of the gym, run out to the top of the basketball key, then back to the foul line, then out to the mid-court line, then back, then to the far key line, then back, then to the other foul line at the other end of the gym, and then back. It was as tedious as it sounds. Running was one of the few things in gym class that I did well, so I was looking forward to my turn. Everything went well. I had one of the top times for the boys, though Dustin blew everyone away of course. It was after the race that everything went to shit. I noticed that my peripheral vision started to get fuzzy and kind of green. Then my ears started to sound like I was under a pool of water. Everything turned bright white and blurry. And then I woke up with a bunch of kids and the gym teacher looking down at me.

“You all right Roberts?” Mr. Williams, the gym teacher asked me.

“Yeah… What happened?”

“You fainted, son. Reilly! Rush! Take him to the nurse’s office, will you? Everybody else, two laps around the court.”

My legs felt like jello when I stood up. I still felt like I was a foot underwater. I tried to remember what I’d had for lunch, and was thankful that at least I hadn’t puked. Brett and Bobby got me to the nurse’s office and Brett sat next to me as we waited for the nurse.

“Reilly, we have to go back to class,” Bobby insisted.

“You can go back without me, Rush,” Brett replied.

“Brett, he’ll be okay,” Bobby said. “Come on, let’s get back to class.”

“You gonna be okay?” Brett asked, unwilling to leave my side.

“Yeah, yeah… I’ll be fine. I just must not have eaten enough at lunch,” I reassured him.

Brett brushed my hair back out of my face and then kissed me on my forehead right in front of Bobby. Then, reluctantly, he went with Bobby back to gym class. After they left, I allowed myself to sink into the chair. I really wasn’t feeling okay at all. I just wanted to lay down. The school nurse pricked my finger and used some kind of little machine to collect a bit of my blood. She took one look at the machine and said she was going to call my mother to come pick me up.

“I’ll be okay,” I insisted. “I just need to rest for a minute.”

“Billy, you need to stay here until your mother gets here,” the nurse insisted. After class ended, Brett reappeared in the nurse’s office, this time bringing me my clothes. I didn’t feel like changing out of my gym clothes, though. I just felt like shit all over, like my arms and legs weighed a ton and I was shivering cold. The nurse had to kick Brett out of the office and send him to his next class. She let me lay down in a darkened room and I don’t know how much time passed until she woke me to tell me my mom was there to pick me up. I gingerly walked down the hall with her to the school’s main office where my mom was waiting for me. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t happy to see her. I sat in a chair near the door while mom and the nurse talked to each other. I didn’t pay any attention. I still felt like I was underwater. I just remember mom looking really worried as the nurse talked to her. It seemed so silly to be making such a fuss just because of a little fainting spell in gym class.

Mom helped me walk to the car. To my surprise, she didn’t drive in the direction of our house. Instead she drove in the direction of the hospital where she worked.

“You could take me home, you know,” I said. “You don’t need to take me back to work with you. I can take care of myself. I just need to rest.”

“I’m not taking you to work, I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“Really? All because I fainted in class?” I asked.

“No, because your blood glucose level was seven hundred fifty,” mom replied.

It was like a hammer hit me right in the face. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked.

“I certainly wish I was,” mom said, her voice betraying her emotions. I knew shit had just gotten real. I knew enough about my dad’s health problems to know that a glucose reading in the seven hundreds wasn’t good. For a normal person that number was supposed to be below a hundred.

Mom pulled some strings and got me in to see our family doctor right away. She took another blood sample and then she asked me a bunch of questions. How much weight had I lost in the last few months? How much water had I been drinking? How had my moods been? What had I been eating, and how much? Did it hurt when I peed? How frequently did I have to go? When all that was done, she laid it out for me.

“Well, we’ll need to run an a1c to confirm, but from everything you’ve told me and from the blood test result I think it’s safe to say you’re diabetic, Billy.”

If I had felt like I was underwater before, suddenly I felt like the water had turned into ice. “I… I’m what?” I asked, my voice sounding like it was coming from outside my body.

“You’re almost certainly diabetic. Most likely type-one, what we used to call juvenile diabetes. From what you told me it sounds like it developed over the spring and summer. That’s why you lost thirty pounds. That’s why you’ve been so irritable and thirsty. An a1c and some other tests will confirm my findings. It’s just a blood test. I don’t see any reason to wait to put you on insulin right away.”

“Wait! I’m not going on insulin! This is crazy! I’m not diabetic! That’s impossible!”

“Billy, I’m sorry. You have every symptom in the book. You’re a textbook case. I’m surprised your mother didn’t notice. Didn’t you tell her you weren’t feeling well?”

“No…” I said. “I didn’t… I guess I hid everything from her. I… I didn’t know…”

It was at that point that everything got blurry. I didn’t care. I let the tears form and roll down my face. I couldn’t believe what was happening. It wasn’t fair. On top of everything else, now this!

“It’s okay to be upset, Billy. I know your father was diabetic. Things have come a long way since then. Do you have any questions for me?”

“I… I just want my mom,” I replied.

The doctor left the room and closed the door. I sat there on the examination table and wiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand. It wasn’t fair! Why was this happening to me? Just when it seemed like I was ready to get on with my life…

The door opened. Mom slipped quietly into the room. I could tell that she’d been crying, but that now she was trying to put on a brave face for me. I was doing the same for her.

“She tell you?” I asked.

“I suspected as much,” mom replied.

I looked down at my shoes. I liked my feet. I didn’t want to lose them.

“I guess you think I deserve this?”

“Oh Billy, no!” mom said. Fresh tears formed in her eyes. She sat on the exam table next to me and put her arms around me, pulling me close to her. “No, that is the furthest thing from my mind. You didn’t do anything to deserve this. Don’t you ever think that, not even for a second. I just wish you would have told me about what was wrong with you.”

“I didn’t want you to worry about me,” I replied. “You’ve been busy.”

“You don’t think I would have dropped everything in a heartbeat to make sure that you were well?”

“You were getting married.”

“Weddings can wait. You are more important than wedding plans.”

I sat there quietly for a minute thinking about what mom had said. “I feel so stupid,” I finally said. “I should have figured out what was wrong with me.”

“You think you feel stupid? I’m a nurse and I lived with your father for all those years. I just thought you were being moody. I can’t believe I missed the signs.”

“Well, I should have said something.”

“How much weight have you lost?”

“I don’t know. Thirty pounds or so?”

Mom groaned. “I knew you looked thinner this morning when you had your shirt off. That feels like a lifetime ago. How could I have missed this?”

“So what happens now?” I asked.

“What happens now is we get your blood sugar under control. Then we teach you how to eat right and exercise and live a more healthy lifestyle. And then we kick this thing in the butt. This is not going to beat you. You are strong, you are stubborn, and you are brave. And you aren’t alone. We’re in this together. I won’t let this beat you. You hear me?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I just… I don’t want to die like dad.”

Mom pulled me back into a hug. “I’m going to tell you something about your father that I never told you before. I love your father, still to this day. I know you think I’ve moved on because I married David. But David will never take your father’s place in my heart. I love David, but your father was one of a kind. No one can ever take his place. But your father made a lot of poor decisions early in his life and he paid for them later. Your father had a very hard life. You only know a little bit of it. There wasn’t a day that you knew him that he wasn’t in pain. You never saw the scars on his back from the abuse his father did to him. He never wanted you to see him without a shirt on. He slept in that old chair of his all those years because even laying down was painful for him. Seeing it in my living room only reminded me the constant pain he went through. That’s why I wanted to get rid of it. That he was able to even function, let alone do the things he did, was a testament to the strength of character he had. He literally willed himself to live as long as he did because he loved us and he loved being your dad. You gave your father a purpose for living that he never had before. He kept going as long as he did out of sheer will and determination, until his body finally gave up on him. And even then, he refused to give up and he kept going until his body simply couldn’t carry his spirit any longer. That spirit is inside of you, Billy. You are your father’s son. You are stronger than you realize.”

“I don’t feel very strong right now,” I replied.

“How many times have I told you that you are the most stubborn person I’ve ever known?”

“All my life.”

Mom smiled. “You know, it takes a lot of will and strength to be even more stubborn than your father.”

I couldn’t help it, I smiled back at her. It was probably the first time in a year that she’d seen me smile. I couldn’t help but notice fresh tears were forming in her eyes.

About that time, the doctor came back into the room.

She explained that she was prescribing two kinds of insulin for me. One was a fast-acting kind to take before meals and one was meant to last all day. She explained that the insulin wasn’t in bottles that had to be kept refrigerated anymore, but in a thing that looked like a pen. You simply screwed on the needle and injected yourself in the belly or arm. After all the tests came back and I had some time to process everything, she recommended that I think about getting an insulin pump. The doctor gave me a prescription for a glucose meter and some test strips. I also had to sit and give what felt like gallons of blood for testing. The doctor told my mom that she would call to confirm the results of the testing in a few days, but that her conclusion was that I should start testing my blood and taking insulin right away.

Mom drove to the pharmacy and got my glucose meter, insulin, and all the supplies I’d need for the rest of my fucking life. God, it sucked. The shock of everything was wearing off by the time I got home, replaced with anger over the whole situation. Mom offered to help me, but by that point I just wanted to be alone. I went to the bathroom and opened up my meter. I quickly figured out how to put the test strip into the meter and then it took like five minutes to finally build up enough courage to stick myself in the finger to draw some blood. I closed my eyes and winced as I pressed the button to stab my right pinkie.

“Ow! Fuck,” I yelped. A tiny drop of my blood appeared on my finger. I grabbed the meter, but I’d wasted so much time that it had shut off. So I pulled out the test strip and pushed it back in. Soon I was able to get the blood into the right place. I looked at the meter:

3… 2… 1… Insufficient blood sample. Please test again.

“Son of a bitch!” I grumbled. I did everything over again and finally got a reading. It was still over seven hundred. Mom had warned me not to use too much insulin right away, but to gradually bring the number down. I set my fast acting insulin to give me ten units. That wasn’t nearly enough, but it would be a start. I opened the box of pen needles and figured out how to screw the needle onto the pen. Then I pulled the cap off the needle. But I didn’t see a needle.

“Maybe it injects the needle into me when I press the button like the jabber thing did to my finger?” I wondered.

I pressed the pen against my belly. Nothing happened. I closed my eyes and prepared for a sting. Then I pressed the button on the pen. Insulin sprayed all over the place.

“Aw fuck!” I cried, more out of humiliation than anything else. I looked at the needle again. “There’s a cap under the cap?” I scowled. I pulled off the little cap and exposed a tiny little needle. Fuck, I was going to have to stab myself. I reset the pen to ten units. I brought the needle close to my belly. I knew I was going to have to inject myself. I was going to need to do this at least twice every day for the rest of my life. I closed my eyes tightly and gently pressed the needle against my skin.

I couldn’t do it. Three times I tried and failed to stab myself with that tiny, sharp little needle. I held my breath. Tears began to burn in my eyes. I was going to have to do it eventually or I was going to die. Finally, I pushed the needle with enough firmness to sink into the flesh of my belly. It stung, but it didn’t hurt. I exhaled and pressed the button on the pen, sending the life-saving insulin into my body. I finally built up enough courage to look down at my belly to see the injection site. I’d really done it. I knew that it was just the first of what was sure to become thousands of little life-saving stabs that I would have to give myself every day for the rest of my life. I pulled out the needle, unscrewed it from the pen and threw the needle into an empty mouthwash container so that the sharp needle wouldn’t stab anyone if it poked through a garbage bag. I stared at the diabetic boy in the mirror looking back at me.

“This sucks,” I sighed.

I asked mom if I could borrow the car for a while. She was nervous because I had just injected myself with insulin for the first time and we didn’t know what it would do to me, but I told her I wouldn’t be long. I told her I just wanted to be alone for a few minutes. Once I left I drove up the hill and just a little way out of town. I turned into a beautiful field. The leaves were only just beginning to turn different autumn shades. I parked the car next to a tree and got out. I walked a short distance from the car to a nearby tree that I’d walked to many times in the last year. I could have made that walk blindfolded. I looked down at the familiar words on the tombstone I’d seen so many times before.

E. GEORGE ROBERTS

1951-2003

I’d visited that cemetery so many times and cried tears of grief and loss. I’d spoken so wistfully, with such reverence for my father who I missed with every molecule of my being. His death had shattered me. I’d built his legend in my mind. I wished so much for him to be alive, to be able to hear his voice one more time. To feel his hands with life in them, instead of the cold dead flesh I’d felt the day we put him in the ground. I stood there for what seemed like days. I felt the words surge up from my belly and spew out of my mouth like vomit.

“You did this to me, you son of a bitch,” I growled. “You fucking did this to me.”

I scowled at that lifeless rock that represented my father’s life. “You gave me your fucking disease! Shit! All the times I wanted to be just like you, and now I am! And you don’t even have the fucking courtesy to be alive to fucking see what you did to me!”

I wiped the tears from my face. But this time, they were not the tears of sorrow with which I’d so often watered that ground, but tears of anger and self-pity. “You treated your fucking life like it was all about you! You wasted so many years on bullshit and booze and fucking Salem cigarettes! Half your fucking life up in smoke, and for what? So you could die rather than face me now! And I’ve wasted a year of my fucking life feeling sorry for you! I’ve been such a fucking idiot! I’m not the one who died, you are! And you know what? You deserved it! You threw your life away and what did it get you? What did you leave me with? Nothing but a fucking disease and a name that doesn’t mean shit in this fucking town!”

I reared back and kicked that tombstone as hard as I could with the heel of my foot, because I wouldn’t want to break a toe on someone who had cursed me with his death sentence. I knelt down next to my father’s grave.

“I hate you so much right now. You don’t even have the decency to be alive for me to tell you how fucking pissed I am right now. I watched this fucking disease kill you. Do you understand how fucking scared I am? No… You don’t. Because you’re dead.”

I stood up.

“But I’m not. And I’m not going to let this fucking disease kill me like it did to you.”

I turned away and walked with a new sense of determination to the car. I wasn’t going to let what was wrong with my body determine my fate. My dad had reacted to the news of his diagnosis by destroying himself for half his life. I was going to do the opposite. I was going to turn my life around, stop feeling sorry for myself, and kick diabetes in the fucking ass.