Bloom was nicknamed Putz by the rest of his golfing teammates when he played golf, referring to his poor putting game, but he felt more like a Klutz when he helped at the shop. This was because he’d dropped trays of tea and desserts on his way to serving a customer on more than one occasion. His aunt usually laughed it off and just called him “clumsy.” However, he knew that she must be concerned about the impression it would leave on her customers. She loved him enough to overlook it, knowing he meant well. She also realized how it would look to her customers if she fired her nephew who also happened to be a Rabbi. He often used the time after working in her shop on Sundays to meet Carol in his home in Flagstaff for their love trysts. This turned out to be easy, since Carol’s husband Jules usually stopped by the shop during the early afternoon while Neil was still there and bought a few biscuits and some ice cream to take home to Carol, thereby confirming to himself where the Rabbi had been.
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The crime rate in Sedona was typically low, with murder and property crime well below national averages. Yet, not everything in Sedona was as delightful as it appeared. After all, two of the four golfing amigos had become victims of violent crime just recently and one more had escaped injury when shots had missed him.
A rounded curtain encircled Jack’s bed, separating both patients in the room. He had asked Jimmy to pull the curtain over a bit so that he could watch television without disturbing his roommate, which Jimmy did before he left the room. Suddenly, Jack heard a voice come from the other bed behind the curtain.
“What are you in for, pal?” asked the voice in the bed next to him.
“I was shot by someone with a gun. I hope if I turn on the TV it won’t disturb you,” he replied.
“No, the TV won’t bother me. Who shot you?” the neighboring bedfellow asked. “By the way, my name is Phil...Phil Heldegard.”
“Hi, Phil, my name is Jack Green. I have no idea who it was, but I was told that they shot two bullets at me and luckily only one hit me.”
“Are you with the Mafia or something like that?” asked Phil.
“Shit no. Even if I had been with the Mafia, do you really think I would admit it to you?”
“Good point! Well, you’ve got nothing to lose by telling me.”
“What brings you in here, Phil?”
“I’m here for a glioblastoma,” Phil responded, trying to sound courageous.
“What’s that?” Jack inquired.
“It’s a fucking brain tumor. The same that Senator John McCain and President Joe Biden’s son had, which killed them both. McCain ran for president once, you know.”
“Does that mean that you’re going to die?” Green asked stupidly.
“You bet your ass, probably within the next six months or sooner if I’m lucky. I was told that anyone with this kind of brain tumor faced a definite death penalty. We all die sooner or later. My usual preference has always been later. But now, I’m so old that I’ve outlived my wife and friends and have no other worthwhile family members. I’m alone, and any acquaintances I do have left are married and refuse to include a single man to join their get-togethers, card games, or even shuffleboard, especially if you have cancer. Now, my preference is the sooner the better,” Phil now sounded more alert than earlier.
“Didn’t they offer you surgery, chemotherapy or radiation?” Jack asked.
Phil thought, This guy hasn’t gotten any smarter.“Of course, they did, and I turned them all down. I asked my doctors if any of these procedures would keep me alive. Their answer made me want to hurt someone badly. They told me, ‘No, but you may last a number of months longer.’ None of those treatments would guarantee my survival but would likely have left me with no quality of life. I made the easy choice that I not permit any chemo, radiation, or further surgeries. In other words, no additional loss of hair, no vomiting four times a day, and no other negative side effects. I chose quality of life. If you consider just lying here in bed as quality. I expect next month they’ll give me hospice care. That just means they’ll try and keep me comfortable until my final steps up to St. Peter, if he’ll take me in. I also made sure they don’t try and resuscitate me.”
“Do you have any family Phil? I haven’t seen anyone visit you since I’ve been here,” said Jack.
“I’m a seventy-eight-year-old widower and all I have left is a brother-in-law who’s an asshole, and four stepchildren; each of ’em are adult SOBs now and just waiting for their share of the inheritance. Boy, are they gonna be surprised. After taking care of my wife for her last seven years with Alzheimer’s, it broke me financially. After my death, they’ll be able to split my entire fortune of $3500. All four of them will have to split that amount equally. I just wish I could see their faces when they find out what the shares of their inheritance will be, and maybe if there is an after-life, I will,” Phil said with a roaring laugh.
Nurse Jimmy walked into Green’s room and checked the drip bags hanging from a T-bar, with various tubes of fluids such as plasma and a morphine drip. He then cleared the entrance tubes with saline coming from the syringe, all of which flowed into him through an IV in his left arm.
As he lay there awake, Jimmy planted two items in Jack’s hand: a call button to call the nurse’s station and a remote control for the television. On the right side of the bed, the nurse placed a small button that he could press if he felt he needed more morphine for the pain. “Thanks, Jimmy,” he said.
