The Boy In The Basement// h.s AU✅

TBITB|| VI

Chapter Six of 'The Boy In The Basement':

"Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying. (Cancer is also a side effect of dying. Almost everything is, really.) But my mom believed I required treatment, so she took me to see my Regular Doctor Jim, who agreed that I was veritably swimming in a paralyzing and totally clinical depression, and that therefore my meds should be adjusted and also I should attend a weekly Support Group."

Harry read to me as I laid in bed. A single candle was lite on my night stand. Harry had moved my desk chair over to my bed, which was pushed up against the wall, and was reading 'The Fault In Our Stars' to me.

"This Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness. Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of dying." Harry paused and looked at me. I gave him a reassuring smile. He nodded and carried on.

"The Support Group, of course, was depressing as hell. It met every Wednesday in the basement of a stone-walled Episcopal church shaped like a cross. We all sat in a circle right in the middle of the cross, where the two boards would have met, where the heart of Jesus would have been. I noticed this because Patrick, the Support Group Leader and only person over eighteen in the room, talked about the heart of Jesus every freaking meeting, all about how we, as young cancer survivors, were sitting right in Christ's very sacred heart and whatever."

I began wondering what it'd be like to be in this persons shoes. It'd be hard to go every single day, then talk about all that has happened when you had or still have cancer.

"So here's how it went in God's heart: The six or seven or ten of us walked/wheeled in, grazed at a decrepit selection of cookies and lemonade, sat down in the Circle of Trust, and listened to Patrick recount for the thousandth time his depressingly miserable life story—how he had cancer in his balls and they thought he was going to die but he didn't die and now here he is, a full-grown adult in a church basement in the 137th nicest city in America, divorced, addicted to video games, mostly friendless, eking out a meager living by exploiting his cancertastic past, slowly working his way toward a master's degree that will not improve his career prospects, waiting, as we all do, for the sword of Damocles to give him the relief that he escaped lo those many years ago when cancer took both of his nuts but spared what only the most generous soul would call his life."

Harry paused and moved his eyes away from the book and looked at me. I only knew this because I could feel his eyes strained on me. When I looked at him, I wanted to laugh so damn hard. "You can get cancer in you..." He looks down at his groin. "Balls?" He finished and looked back up at me.

I laughed. "Yes you can, actually. It's called testicular cancer." I told Harry. "Yeah, see. Back in the 1700's, we didn't know all of that fancy stuff." Harry grinned and sat back. "Keep reading, Styles." I chuckled.

"AND YOU TOO MIGHT BE SO LUCKY! Then we introduced ourselves: Name. Age. Diagnosis. And how we're doing today. I'm Hazel, I'd say when they'd get to me. Sixteen. Thyroid originally but with an impressive and long-settled satellite colony in my lungs. And I'm doing okay. Once we got around the circle, Patrick always asked if anyone wanted to share. And then began the circle jerk of support: everyone talking about fighting and battling and winning and shrinking and scanning. To be fair to Patrick, he let us talk about dying, too. But most of them weren't dying. Most would live into adulthood, as Patrick had."

"Why are you making me read this book to you? It so depressing!" Harry whined and looked at the book, flipping through the pages. "Um, excuse me if I am wrong but you are the one that suggested reading to me." I said, not bothering to look at him.

You win this time, Alice. Just this time..

"Just this time." I mocked him. Harry chucked and continued reading on.

"(Which meant there was quite a lot of competitiveness about it, with everybody wanting to beat not only cancer itself, but also the other people in the room. Like, I realize that this is irrational, but when they tell you that you have, say, a 20 percent chance of living five years, the math kicks in and you figure that's one in five . . . so you look around and think, as any healthy person would: I gotta outlast four of these bastards.) The only redeeming facet of Support Group was this kid named Isaac, a long-faced, skinny guy with straight blond hair swept over one eye. And his eyes were the problem. He had some fantastically improbable eye cancer. One eye had been cut out when he was a kid, and now he wore the kind of thick glasses that made his eyes (both the real one and the glass one) preternaturally huge, like his whole head was basically just this fake eye and this real eye staring at you."

I began closing my eyes as Harry carried on reading. I was soon drifting off to sleep. I heard the book close, and a candle being burned out. Then, a tingly sensation on my face as I was being pulled to dream land of good and evil.