It's not going to be squeaky-clean story. This happened to me once before, just about twelve years ago, now, sitting on my makeshift futon up in the 4th Davis double I shared with Aaron during my "official" senior year at Carleton. He was working at his desk while I rested with my back against the south wall, furiously typing on my laptop (a bulky Toshiba that had been a gift from Dad and Jane during the previous summer).
What I did during the summer of 1990 wasn't exactly a big secret. It wasn't exactly common knowledge, either. Back then, I shared it with more friends and acquaintances than I do today, sometimes talking about my experience late into the night. I was closer to it then. At the same time, I'd wanted to move on. It wasn't that I was bottling anything up, see, it's just that other things seemed more important than dredging through year-old memories.
Which was why it was surprising, a little, to read what I'd let myself write. There must not have been much in the way of a break during my relentless keyboard pounding, because as soon as I'd typed the definitive final punctuation mark, I looked up and saw Aaron with his arm over the back of his chair, eyeing me curiously.
"Shit," he said. "What the hell was that?"
"I dunno," I said, paging up, up, up. "It's about leukemia."
"Wow. I guess."
The thing was laced with expletives. It was raw. I can't remember, now, what I'd even set out to write that afternoon. A tidy little Hemingway-esque memoir, maybe, a clean, well-lit place. It didn't turn out that way at all: it was angry, explosive, a tangible reminder of how close to the bone that particular cut still throbbed.
Present tense: still throbs, at times, when I pick at it too much.
The profanity creeps in, and I am a willing fucking accomplice.
