spiral down    

Spiral Down

I scowled as I read the article. The nerve. What did they know? What did they base their opinions on? How dared they. I let my eyes wander down the column of letters from readers, taking in the words one more time.

"How does it feel now, Scott, that you broke up the band? I hope you rot in hell for what you did! You destroyed for your brothers and ruined something so wonderful for all your fans."

The fans... What did I care! What did we care? They were the least important part of our lives. And for some reason, they thought they had the right to be first in line to know, to be told, to be given reasons. Well, there were some things that fans didn't need to know. That newspapers and TV shows didn't have to find out about. Such as the truth.

I ripped the page out of the magazine, tore it in four and started curling it up, slowly and meticulously.

"What's that you're doing?" Bob asked from behind me. I hadn't heard him come through the front door and neither that he'd come over to the chair in which I sat with today's mail.

"Just tearing up some paper."

"Why for?" He tilted his head slightly, giving me a puzzled look.

I shrugged and said: "There are certain things he doesn't need to read."

"Who, Scott?" He asked, his face taking on a softer look upon mentioning his - our - older brothers name.

"Yeah. Just saving him some hurting, that's all."

---

Can any of you take this tray up to Scott? I need to finish the laundry!" Our stepmom's voice sounded through the livingroom from the kitchen.

"I'll do it!" I jumped up and offered, leaving Dave and Bob behind to continue watching the reality TV-show we'd been following the past weeks.

It was such a strange thing to get used to, to be able to actually watch a show at the same time on the same day, every week. Our lives had been so irregular and always on a tight schedule that we'd never had the experience before. Now it appeared as a little adventure just to say something as trivial as 'Yeah, I watch Friends every week.'

I went into the kitchen and grabbed the wooden tray with a simple dinner on it, and two tall glasses. "Hang on," Sheila stopped me, and dropped two capsules next to the glass with water. "Don't forget to make him take those."

"I will."

"Thanks, Clint."

Minutes later, I closed myself into Scott's room, after gently tapping the door. I could hear him padding around in there restlessly, and found him walking back and forth between his bed and his CD rack in his jammies.

"You feeling better?"

"Nah," he replied, his voice sounding so tired, as it always did nowadays. "Getting really bored with the CDs I've been listening to, so I went to get some new ones."

"Why didn't you use the bell?" I nodded to the night stand where a small silver bell stood. He eyed it with hatred, and sat down on his bed, looking up at me.

"I hate that bell," he said. "It's making me a bedridden cripple that can't walk or fetch things on his own. I can walk, Clint. I can still go get things for myself, I don't need help for everything. And until I can't anymore, I will."

"I know." I pictured myself in his place, and decided that as long as it was just walking across his own room to grab a few CDs, it wasn't such a big deal. But I hoped Sheila didn't find out. "Hungry?"

He just looked up at me with desolate eyes.

"C'mon, you gotta eat something."

"I'll throw it back up, what's the point."

"Maybe you won't this time," I tried to console, and pushed his shoulder to force him to lay back down on his bed, and pulled the covers up to his chest. Bringing the tray over, I could see how he already wrinkled his nose from the smell of food.

"...Clint..."

I understood - had seen it too many times now - and shoved the tray away on the nearby table. Instead I grabbed the faithful bucket from the floor and held it up to him so he could bend over it and empty his stomach. I closed my eyes listening to the splashing sounds of the scarce lunch Dave had brought up to him earlier fall into the water at the bottom of the bucket. When the sounds stopped, I opened them again and looked down, patting his back gently, stroking his almost bare skull with tender fingers. "All done?"

He spat a few times, attempting weakly to get the taste out of his mouth, and nodded. "I'm sorry, Clint. Not today."

No, not today. And not yesterday. And not the day before. Everything he ate came right up again. I hated what they did to him, even if it was supposed to help. They made him ill, they killed his resistance, killed his mood, killed his appetite. With every trip to the hospital, he came back paler, thinner, more helpless and with more sunken eyes. And there was nothing we could do but hold up the bucket and touch him, telling him it was gonna be alright.

He fell back, and I went to empty the bucket and refill it with fresh non-smelling water. Returning, I found him busy with trying to tie a knot on a blue scarf he had around his head.

"What are you doing?"

"Putting on a bandana." He said, struggling with the loose ends.

"Why? Are you cold? I can turn up the heat for you."

"Nah, it's not that."

"Then why?" I prodded, sitting down next to his hips.

He tried to smile, but only managed a slight frown. "It's easier to look at me with this on."

"Bullshit, Scott." I reached up and pulled the fabric from his hands, letting my fingers caress the short, downy hairs that grew around his skull. I remembered the day it had started to fall off, and Scott had woken up with a pile of hair around him on the pillow. Slowly he lifted his own hand and placed it over mine. Tears trickled down his cheeks.

"I can't stand to see my reflection in a mirror. I look like shit. I look like a fuckin' ghost."

"It's not that bad. And your hair will grow back."

"Yeah," he snorted. "For how long this time?"

"You gotta hang in there, you can't lose hope now. You're gonna make it."

He remained silent, the only answer being sobs and sniffs as more tears ran down and spotted the bedsheets.

---

It was so akward to be only five for breakfast. At any meal, for that matter. Scott was never strong enough to come down and join us, and the smells would have made him sick anyway.

"Doctor Garret called," Dad spoke up, as he shoved his finished plate away. "He had good news."

"Yeah?" Dave perked up, and Bob stopped chewing.

"What'd he have to say about the cat scan?" I questioned, not standing the beating around the bush.

"The cancer has grown - but not spread - yet. They're pretty positive that they'll be able to remove all of it this time." He said, drying his fingers on the napkin.

"So he'll be fine again?" Daves voice had raised two notes higher.

"He might be. They can't promise anything. Even if they're able to remove all of it, they can't guarantee that there's nothing left anywhere else, it could have spread to his lungs, or down to his legs or testicles, and it's not developed enough yet for them to see it."

"So he'll go into remission again?" I asked, tapping an impatient finger against the underside of the table to keep myself from putting too much faith in Dads words. They were better news than we'd heard in a long time.

"Yes." Dad said, finishing his juice.

"But what if it does come back?" I insisted.

"Then he'll have to have chemotherapy again, and they might try to operate once more."

"Just keep repeating that?"

"Yes."

"Until he can't fight any more?"

"Clint..."

I stood up and quickly left, biting my lip against the tears. I walked down the corridor to his room, entered without bothering to knock. I knew he was sleeping.

"You have to make it." I whispered low, curling up in his comfy chair that he used to sit and write poetry in, in his secret notebooks and diaries. I wondered if I'd ever be able to bring myself to read them, if he did die from us. "You can't die. They have to be able to take it out of you..."

After drying my tears, I stepped over to his bed and kneeled, pulling down the covers so far that I could reach the hem of his pajama shirt and tug it upward. I swallowed hard as the rough purple lines came into view, adorned with little black stitches along the whole length of them. "All of it, this time..." I muttered, and clung to the hope that everything would be alright.

I knew he couldn't fight any more. Ever since the routine health check in May he'd started to fade. The last tour had gone by in a haze. He'd still been active then, still himself, even if he had to take drugs for the pain in his stomach where that monster sat and ate away at his cells. Only two days after we'd played the last venue, he underwent his first chemotherapy treatment. Then the surgery.

He'd been proclaimed well then, but they'd tried to stop our overwhelming joy with warnings that remission didn't mean complete healing. That there was a risk. But we didn't listen. We embarked into a new start, Dave contemplated University, me and Bob agreed to give the new band a try. Scott... He just enjoyed life, now that he'd gotten a new chance at it. He spent his days with his friends, his family and his girlfriend. He laughed and smiled. He lived.

That's why it was such a shock when seven months later he started to clutch his stomach in sudden pain again. Just like he'd done the spring before. Then the entire rollercoaster started anew, and the hair that had started to look normal again fell off one more time. It wasn't over yet. The question was if it'd ever be over?

I pulled his shirt down, and lifted the covers up over him again. The drugs ensured him deep sleep, so I wasn't afraid he'd wake up. I caught myself wishing the girl who'd written that angry letter had seen him right then, the way I saw him. That angelic face, so pale it was almost a new pure hue of white, with the sunken eyes and bloodless lips. The thin, drained body, barely creating a lump under the covers. The four thin sticks, excuses for legs and arms as they were weakened and frail from a long fight. The gloominess in his stare when he fell into thoughts. The helplessness when he was so sick from the poison they kept giving him, that he couldn't hold down his food. The tears that just kept falling and falling down his cheeks.

But in the end, it didn't really matter, did it? The world we'd known, the music, the fans, the shows... What did it really matter when something like this could happen at any time, and tare it all apart? It didn't matter if every single fan knew, it didn't matter if they all took back their bad mouthing and accusations, their anger. It didn't matter what anyone thought of him, nothing they could do would heal him. Changing their views wouldn't help him, or us.

Gently I took the earplugs out of his ears, and stopped the Discman from spinning. He wasn't listening anyway. I grimaced as I took the CD out. How fitting. I remembered the lyrics, fragments of verses and refrains floating through my head.

"All I know
Time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away
It's so unreal"


"Things aren't the way they were before
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then"


"I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
I had to fall
And lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter"


No, in the end it didn't even matter what anyone thought, it didn't matter how talented and how famous he'd been, as long as he'd just pull through.

In due time, everyone would know - one way or the other.