When Edward Lambert’s alarm clock goes off at six in the morning, he doesn’t have that luxury anymore. He used to hit the snooze button, and roll over to hug his wife and doze. Now when the alarm goes off, Edward stares at the ceiling as the annoying buzz breaks him from sleep, and with a sigh he levers himself from the king sized bed and turns the alarm off. With a grunt he moves the down comforter off himself, his feet cold on the hard wood floor. With a muffled curse he walks from the bed and pulls on a pair of grey sweat pants on over his boxers. From there he makes his way out of the closed bedroom and into the hallway quietly closing the door behind him so as to not disturb his sleeping wife.
Down the long hallway he strides, mumbling to himself and occasionally coughing. At the landing of the second floor he turns and makes his way down the stairs to the first floor. From the bottom of the stairs, he heads to the kitchen where he grabs four different bottles from the refrigerator. Three of those bottles are medication, one of the bottles is a Sam Adams Black. Taking medication with alcohol is not recommended for anyone. Edward doesn’t care.
Edward treats his cancer like he has treated his life, with stubbon pig headedness. Not for him is surgery or radiation treatment. He doesn’t sit in hospitals hooked to machines that beep and fill him with poison. He doesn’t allow radiotherapy, he has no intention of allowing himself to weaken because of the sickness. In his mind, the cure is just as bad as the disease, and as someone who has done his best to maintain peak physical condition for years despite repeated injuries, he does what he knows.
Pills and alcohol.
It is this point when Nick Black, the young videoography student who is currently residing at Edward’s home and recording Edward’s life enters the kitchen. His black hair is spiked and unkempt, the large t-shirt he wears hanging loose on his lanky frame.
“Hey sir.”
Edward grunts a response as he pops the bottle open. He’s not used to anyone else being awake at this time, this is his alone time. Kia sleeps in for a while after he wakes up, and his young son, Drake doesn’t wake up for a while either.
“Hope we didn’t wake you.”
In the time that Nick has been crashing in the spare room, he has shown a deplorable habit of sleeping with as many women as he can. Fat, skinny, short or tall, it makes no difference to Nick.
“No Nick. It’s fine.”
Edward closes the three pill bottles and with a sigh, stands up from his kitchen table and puts the bottles back in the fridge.
“What are you taking?” Nick asks as he points at the three large pills on the table.
Edward closes the fridge and returns to his seat at the table. The first pill he lifts and pops in his mouth followed by a swig of the beer.
“Avastin. It stops the growth of new blood vessels, in effect it chokes the cancer of food.”
The second pill goes the same way. Followed by a longer swig of the beer.
“Eloxatin. Slows the growth of the cancer, it doesn’t reverse what’s already there, but it helps to slow it down from growing larger. This combined with the Avastin basically allows the status quo to remain.
“And the third one? That’s the one that kills the cancer?”
Edward looks across the table at Nick when he pulls up a seat.
“No. It’s Oxycontin, it’s for the pain when I breath, and for the pain that those other two cause. My cancer is to advanced for a cure. The Oxycontin is supposed to make my condition more comfortable. The other two are supposed to give me more time.”
Silence follows as Edward takes the final pill and finishes the beer. With another grunt he stands up and looks at Nick.
“You coming?”
Nick nods his head and stands, following Edward out of the Kitchen, and into the living room where Edward sits down in the leather recliner. From the small table beside the chair Edward produces a pack of Lucky Strike Filters and a lighter, moments later he exhales smoke into the air.
“Wouldn’t it better if you didn’t smoke? I mean, wouldn’t that help?” asks Nick as he seats himself as far away from Edward as the room will allow.
“Nope.”
“Oh.”
“See kid, I’ve been smoking since I was fifteen. My lungs are as black as pitch, except the left one, that one is almost entirely white save right at the entrance. Right there it’s still black, but the white is fighting to close it up. Smoking relaxes the muscles there, and allows more air to flow into the lung. So, you see, if I’m not smoking, or haven’t smoked recently, less air actually enters that lung, which makes it harder for me to breath.”
So saying Edward takes a long draw from the cigarette and exhales with obvious enjoyment.
“Also, I like smoking. So fuck the cancer, I’m gonna keep smoking.”
Nick nods slowly, staring at the dead man across the room from him.
“It’s like why I still wrestle, even though I could just kick my heels up and relax for what time I have left. I’ve lived my life my way, I figure fuck it, I’m gonna go out the way I want to. It’s why here in half an hour, I’ll go upstairs, puke my guts up because of the pills. Then I’ll come down here, have another beer, and eat a plate of ham, eggs, and hashbrowns. Then I’ll go back upstairs, wake Drake up while Kia gets ready for work, come down here with Drake and Kia, make breakfast for both of them, and see them out the door. After that’s my hour long work out and a hot shower.”
Edward flicks the cigarette causing ash to fall into the ashtray beside him.
“And I’ll do it while smoking.”
He takes another long draw from the cigarette.
“And fuck anyone who tells me to stop.”
Nick nods his head as Edward continues.
“I smoke because I can, because I want to. It’s the same reason I fight. It’s the same reason that I don’t go for the chemo or radiation treatment. It’s my life, it’s my decision.”
“But it’s going to fucking kill you!” Edward stares at Nick as he speaks. “Don’t you fucking get it? The way you live, the violence, the smoking and drinking, it’s going to fucking kill you!”
Edward shrugs.
“Life’ll kill you Nick. The minute you are born you start dying. Some die younger than others, some older, but we all die. I’m 38 and a bastard. I hurt people for a living, and because I can. You will never understand what watching other peoples pain does for me. Hearing their screams and knowing that right then I have the power of a god.”
Edward takes a final draw from the cigarette and grinds it out beside him.
“Look at me kid. I’m 38 and pretty much friendless. Sure I have people who cheer my name when they see me walk across a stage, but for the most part, I live a solitary life. I’m married and have a son, but other than them, I’m alone. My foster brother moved to Canada and is working in television up there. My oldest friend is about a hair away from being crippled, and lives in Florida.”
“My best friend was a guy named Damien Siobhan. He died in 2002. He overdosed two days after my birthday. Cocaine.”
Edward smiles a bit and pulls another cigarette from the pack beside him.
“He went by the name Jeff Boyardee for years, so long in fact that nobody ever called him Damien. We all called him Jeffro. I don’t know why we called him Jeffro, he hated that name with a passion. I remember when I would call him that, he would yell at me with his fucked up accent. He would say “My name isn’t Jeffro you fucking ignorant redneck!””
Edward takes a draw from the cigarette and exhales slowly.
“Should I get the camera for this?”
Edward shakes his head.
“This isn’t something for posterity kid. This is just me wanting to reminisce for bit before I go puke my guts up.”
Edward flicks ash from the cigarette and stares at it for a moment.
“He would yell, and cuss, and make a huge fucking issue of the fact that our clique called him Jeffro. He got all pissy and upset, and he fucking hated it, and we all laughed and laughed, and kept right on calling him Jeffro. The two of us were closer than anyone else I’ve ever worked with. Hiro was my friend for years, and Alan Frost was the guy who taught me to wrestle, but Jeffro was my best friend. When we both broke into this business we would drink all night, go wrestle the next day and go right back to drinking. There were a few years where that was my life Nick. Drinking and fighting.”
Edward takes another draw from the cigarette and smiles.
“Jeff was an odd guy. He was prone to introspection, thoughtful of others, he made friends with almost everyone he met, and yet he was utterly fucking insane. He broke into the wrestling gig about a year before I did, and he earned his stripes working with some of the people I eventually worked with. He was another one of my breed of wrestlers, brutal, violent, and willing to go to any lengths to tear someone a new asshole. Hell Nick, if you track the people who I associated with that had similar styles and mentalities to mine you would find a list of borderline sociopaths and near psychotics.”
Edward grinds the cigarette in the ashtray beside the other one.
“And yes, to be utterly honest I would fit somewhere in that list, probably in the psychopath column.”
He shrugs.
“I don’t apologize for who I am, or what I’ve done. I am who I am.”
Nick nods.
“I think I get that.”
“Like I was saying, Jeff an I were close. We were about as close as you can be without being related. He was about the same height as I am, and about the same weight. Hell, we would sit in airports or hotels and just drink from when the sun went down, to when the sun came up. We would do nothing but drink and shoot the shit, and drink some more.”
Edward stands up from the chair and sighs.
“He eventually traded his drinking for cocaine. It fucking killed him just as surely as the cancer is going to get me eventually. Jeff was my best friend, I loved him like a brother, and I miss him every single fucking day.”
With a nod of finality Edward walks to the stairs and turns as he leaves the room.
“Now, if you will excuse me Nick, I have to go fucking puke.”