For the past nine months, I’ve been getting treatment for a bulging disc I sustained at work. Every six weeks or so, I head over to a dingy office in downtown Brooklyn where I sit in a crowded waiting room for an average of an hour, though sometimes up to two and a half hours. Eventually, I’m ushered to a patient room, where I wait some more, before Terry, a physicians assistant, slightly frazzled and smelling of cigarettes finally strolls in. 

“So, will it heal?”

“It’s like a cigarette burn, you know? You take a cigarette and put it out on your arm. It’ll hurt real bad, but eventually, it’ll get better. But you’ll always have that scar that may hurt a bit.”

*

You’re right leg is a lot weaker than your left leg. That’s because of nerve compression.”

“I noticed that when I was biking—that it became suddenly much harder.”

“Bro, for me, when I had my injury it was the same. I’m really big into Kah-Rah-Tay, you know? And I’m breaking boards no problem, bro. Just smashing them. Well, after my injury, I tried breaking a board and couldn’t even come close. Fucked up my foot when I tried.”

*

“So, Dave, you work in film, right?”

“Yeah. I’m a producer.”

“So, when you say producer, what does that mean? Are you like Martin Scorcese?”

“Not really, no. He’s a director. And I work on small corporate videos.  

*

“David Michael!” [walks into the room with chart] “David Michael Michaels!”

“Hey.”

“Ha! David Michael Michaels! 

“…” 

“You ever see Blades of Glory?”

“Nope.”

“Ah, you gotta see it, bro.  It’s a Will Ferrell figure skating movie. Fucking funny movie. I’m a big Will Ferrell fan. Love those movies. Anyway, Blades of Glory, the guy’s got a name like you. Chazz Michael Michaels. You gotta see it.”

*

“So, am I going to get better?”

“Tough to say, bro. How old are you?”

“I’m thirty.”

“Yeah, I mean you look at pro athletes, bro.” [Scrawls very rudimentary curve on some paper.] They peak around 26, 27. Then they start to get slower. They don’t recover from injuries so fast. So, here’s the peak, and here’s you. You’re past your prime, so, might just have to get used to your new body.”

*

“How’s the back, bro?”

“It’s ok. It was great a week ago. My wife and I took a belated honeymoon and spent a week on the beach and it felt great.”

“Yeah, bro! I bet it did. And then how’d it feel when you got back to New York? Worse, I bet?”

“Yeah, it took a few days and then everything felt worse.”

“I hear ya, bro, I hear ya. There’s something about the heat, man. Like most mechanical devices, our bodies do better when they’re warm.You start up your car in the cold, you gotta warm it up first. You turn on your computer, it takes a minute to warm up before you can use it. You’re gonna exercise, you warm up first. Yeah, bro, mechanical devices just do better when they’re warm.”

*

“But congratulations on your marriage, bro. How long you been with your lady?”

“Let’s see….I should know this off the top of my head. I guess it’s been three and a half years.”

“She older? Younger?”

“She’s three years younger.”

“Nice, bro! I got eight years on my lady.”

“Wow…

“How long have you been married?”

“Almost ten years now. Jesus. Yeah, almost ten years. But I’ve known her for over twenty years.”
“…”

“So, growing up, I used to go to my best friend’s house and hangout, cuz his parents were like the cool parents, you know. Like, they wouldn’t care if we smoked pot or drank in the basement. And his little brother had a best friend and they’d out too, and someone his best friend would bring his little sister. So I was like 20, 21 and she was like 13.”

“Ah…”

“Yeah, ha, but didn’t nothing happen then. We started hanging out like ten years later or something. I saw her at a party and we started talking after that. We were both in med school—she’s a vet—and we started talking about the diseases humans and animals get, and all the anatomy. It’s crazy, bro. It’s all the same!

“Wow.”

“Yeah, bro. I saw her brother then, and he was like ‘Are you fucking my sister?’ “And I was like nah, bro.’ And then night we got drunk together and, well, now she’s my wife. Anyway, let’s see how your back’s movin today.”

And this is the consolation — that the world
doesn’t end, that the world one day
opens up into something better, and then we
one day open up into something far better.

Maybe like this: one morning you finally wake
to a light you recognize as the light you’ve wanted
every morning that has come before. And the air
itself has some light thing in it that you’ve always

hoped the air might have. And One is there
to welcome you whose face you’ve looked for during all
the best and worst times of your life. He takes you to himself
and holds you close until you fully wake.

And it seems you’ve only just awakened, but you turn
and there we are, the rest of us, arriving just behind you.

We’ll go the rest of the way together.

-Scott Cairns

It’s been three years, almost exactly, since I saw Brett. I was passing through Wheaton and stopped by to have a beer with him and give a talk to one of his classes. In that class, reflecting on my time at Wheaton, I told the students two things: I made wonderful friends, and I had a wonderful education in the English department, which taught me to read, write, and think very carefully about what it means to be human. 

Of course, Brett was both a great friend and a great teacher. Though, I actually never took a class with him. We met in the English department somehow—Brett heading out of his office flustered, arms filled with papers, and pausing to introduce himself to me as I sat waiting for some other professor—and again at the church we both attended. I don’t quite know why, but he was very generous and kind to me when I was an undergrad. I remember him seeking me out to suggest we go book shopping. “Bring along your poetry. We’ll grab dinner and chat.” So one rainy evening, after he took me to his favorite store, Half Price Books, we sat at Chipotle as he made read through and made comments on my very shitty poems. 

Brett was generous. Maybe too generous for his own good—he took on so many commitments and made time for so many students, that I suspect his own writing suffered. 

Still, he was prolific, and when he had essays and poems to spare, he let me publish some of his work in a little web magazine I started after college. Our friendship grew, and when I was in Wheaton, we’d get together for a beer at Muldoons along with John Wilson and Alan Jacobs.  I always felt like someone’s kid brother, somehow getting invited to hang out with the older boys. A touch nervous, but mostly excited to be in the company of people who wanted to talk books. 

I moved to New York a few years ago, and while we kept in touch here and there, I didn’t make it back to Wheaton for over a year. When I finally did, this past February to give a talk at the English department, Brett giving his own talk somewhere. I worried I might not see him again. 

I knew about the cancer by then, and I was frustrated that I couldn’t get back to Wheaton just to grab a beer at Muldoons. I felt as though I had really nothing to offer him. I wrote to him, but it was slow-going for him to write back:

Sorry for the delay; I have very numb hands these days (chemo side effect, geez) and so my emailing has become laborious and snail-like, amid all the typos (or more than usual, I should say!)

I realized that the only thing I could do was to construct what Milosz calls the “velvet bridge.” 

So every Sunday night for the past year, at the church where I serve as a Sacristan, I waited for the congregants to leave. Then, after locking the doors but before turning off the lights, I walked over to a small shrine to Cardinal Newman—the text to “Lead Kindly Light” set next to a copy of Millais’s portrait of Newman—and I knelt and asked the Blessed Newman to pray for Brett. 

This week, when I kneel, I’ll be asking them both to pray for me. 

I have spent only three days here so far,
and have been gut-sick the entire time,
but I’ve managed to write three poems
I think I can live with, poems about living
and the other option. I hope I can live
with them. Besieged by adversities, I give
Praise to Somebody for sweet verse’s
irresistible remedies, and so much more.
What more can an invalid ask for?
A fourth poem, you ask? Well, here it is.
At least let’s praise art’s ancient deities.
While Euripides staged tragedies in Athens,
raging reminders of our sad entanglements,
these Pan-foot gods were making merry,
cavorting in their floral dances, alive forever,
plagueless in the wide fields of Arcady.

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