down.”
“Oh, yeah, you've heard it already.”
On some unspoken level Hollis believed humor was a luxury, an idle pursuit, but something not really suited for a planet which was, for the most part, deadly serious and historically devoid of cheap gags. A topical joke, a clever retort, farcical metaphors, oblique satire — these were modern human constructs, offered by those who, perhaps, dodged reality by enticing others to laugh aloud at their nonsensical utterances. As such, a physical act — an exaggerated facial expression of sadness, anger, fear, or a stumbling pratfall in a restaurant — was a lot funnier to him than a smug touch of verbal irony, because the overwrought gyrations of the body just felt more authentic and, therefore, undeniable. That being the case, he was usually funniest when he wasn't trying to be funny at all.
But it was almost a week following the Gilda's Club meeting — after Debra had awakened from a nap on the couch feeling morose again with no prospect of recovery and, subsequently, Hollis ended up standing within their large walk-in closet, having traced her path from the living room to the bedroom by collecting a trail of her discarded clothing and then depositing the sweatshirt, sweatpants, socks, and panties into the laundry hamper — before he made a deliberate effort to bring much-needed humor to his wife's day. Inside the closet, he could hear water hissing through the pipes concealed between the walls, the metallic grind of hot / cold knobs turning as Debra took a warm shower in the adjacent master bathroom; and, from where he stood, his eyes were drawn to an upper shelf, scanning the row of five life-size Styrofoam busts which stared down at him: the nondescript effigies being exactly alike save for a distinct specialty wig setting each one apart.
His long arms reached over the shelf, his fingers grasped the neck of a bust and — applying slight yet firm pressure on the Styrofoam skin, careful so it wouldn't slip from his hands — lowered it toward him. Now he was face-to-face with the disembodied head of what he perceived to be a woman (white skin, long narrow nose, white and pupilless eyeballs, sporting a blond beehive which towered above her pure white forehead). Soon the bust would be returned, placed back on the shelf among its other well-coifed sisters, but, looking now more akin to Debra, absent of the hair which had signified its uniqueness. He quickly made two round-trips from the closet: searching the drawers of his wife ‘s vanity table for lipstick, browsing her coats and jackets hanging beneath the busts, studying his reflection in the vanity-table mirror, positioning himself just beyond the closet's open door and — upon hearing the shower knobs whine, the water's diminishing hiss — clicking off the closet light.
And so in semidarkness he waited, keeping perfectly still as he listened, monitoring Debra's movements through the thin plaster walls. She rattled the sliding shower doors. He envisioned her feet pressing against the fuzzy green bath mat — right foot first, left foot next — patting herself dry with a towel at the same time. Then she was wiping steam from the mirror prior to briefly running the sink. Then she stepped onto the scale — right foot first, left foot next — weighing herself. At last, she exited the bathroom, wandering slowly into the bedroom, the towel wrapped around her chest (covering her breasts and waist, concealing the scar which served as a bitter reminder). But she didn't go straight to the closet; instead, she crossed the room, heading for the window — where, pushing fingertips against her barren crown, she stared at the backyard, eventually cocking her head, and, from Hollis's vantage point, seemed to shift her gaze to the clear, sharp winter sky.
When she did turn, her stare settled on the closet doorway, except he wasn't certain if she immediately saw him or not. Presently, she eased forward, coming toward him, her eyes narrowing and her brow wrinkling, becoming aware of an obscured form loitering within the dim closet — something tall, imposing, yet barely perceptible. She wasn't sure if she was really seeing something or someone there; she would tell Hollis this later, she would explain that the chemo brain played tricks on her — the hazy, unfocused nature of the condition had produced its share of apparitions in recent weeks, half-glimpsed figures seen at the corners of her eyes which vanished whenever she glanced their way, shadows roaming outside and darting past the curtains, fleeting refractions of indistinct living things (Yes, I've seen them, too, he would wish to reveal but didn't. I've seen them for as long as I can remember, he would want to say but decided otherwise).
Now she hesitated in front of the closet, peering ahead, squinting. One arm kept the towel from falling while the other arm stretched for the light switch. But it wasn't her fingers which hit the switch; rather, it was Hollis who cast light on himself, illuminating in an instant what, to his mind, was surely a hysterical vision: a hulking she-beast made even bulkier by a full-length long-hair beaver fur coat — the shawl collar bunched along the neckline, framing Hollis's deliberately dour and absurd face (a thick layer of crimson lipstick shining on his mouth, the beehive wig camouflaging his thinning hair and tilting to one side like the Leaning Tower of Pisa). Except Debra didn't react as he had imagined she would; she didn't start at the looming, ridiculous sight of him and then cackle wildly. Instead, a gasp of true horror escaped her, released at the very second her body jolted as if she had received an electrical shock — her arms reflexively flailing outward, her eyes widening — and the towel dropped away from her body, exposing her pale, vulnerable flesh. Fixing him with an unforgiving glare, her entire body began trembling. “Don't you do that!” she yelled, seething at him as her hands curled into fists. “Don't you ever do that to me!”
“Sorry — I — it isn't — ”
“Damnit, Hollis!”
In a way, it was Hollis who was the more startled of the two, for he had miscalculated badly, and, as such, he was promptly consumed by embarrassment and an increasing shame — as if he, too, were viewing himself like Debra was at that moment: a suddenly confused man stammering near his naked, sick wife, grimacing under a beehive wig, shoulders slumping beneath a fur coat.
“I didn't mean to — I was only trying — ”
She shook her head while bending to retrieve the towel. Then she faced him again, her head shaking less and less, searching his flustered expression.
“I'm sorry,” he said, steadying his voice, wiping the lipstick from his lips with the back of his hand, unintentionally smearing a crooked trail of red across his chin. “I guess I'm just not very funny today.”
And that, for reasons which were completely lost on Hollis, finally moved her to laughter. “Deb —?” Her fingers clicked off the closet light, her hand pulled the closet door shut; her laughter continued for a while elsewhere as he remained standing there alone, frowning at himself in darkness.
9
So another year with cancer passed for Debra; the once bare surface of her head had gradually been replenished, sprouting fine, short gray-blond hair which never grew very thick or long. But the rounds of chemotherapy were already exhausted — various first-line treatments using Taxol and carboplatin, Doxil, topotecan, carboplatin and Gemzar — allowing for just a single clinical trial as the last resort (the wishful belief in hope dwindling into the marginal territory of miracles). And now an early winter has come — arriving without warning like a presentiment of something inexorable, making the backyard desolate — and Lon, as if not to be outdone by Debra, has also fallen ill with cancer, leaving Hollis wanting for his friend's summer companionship, that gruff humor and intoxicated bombast: the continuous derision regarding the clean streets they drove together, the monotonous homes they tenant, or — as was often the case — the other retired men who had regularly patted their shoulders on the golf course greens.
“Metaphorical fascists, most of them,” Lon had said inside the hut, scratching at an earlobe with the rim of an empty Tecate can.
“How so?” Hollis responded.
“Lord, just take a good look at them sometime. Look how they act so damn smug, how they dress almost identically. Reminds me of ham actors all auditioning for the same lousy part.”
Lon sighed with disgust, shaking his head amid the shadows as Hollis said, “What the hell are you talking about? That's how we dress. It's golfing attire, Lon. What else are we supposed to wear?”
Lon's head-shaking transformed into an emphatic nodding. “Exactly,” he said. “That's my point right there. Hand me a beer, would you?”
In a way, they were like a pair of bothersome teenagers last summer, restless and hardly content, rippling still waters — withered adolescents racing their customized golf carts (Lon's black Humdinger, that prized miniaturized Hummer; Hollis's replica ‘57 Chevy, baby blue with canopy top, bucket seats, and coat frame), speeding on cart lanes, driving by parks where the only children they ever saw were attentive retirees strolling
