Flowers for No One
My daughter’s best friend’s mom just died of breast cancer, one of thousands who pass away annually due to this disease. I didn’t know she had cancer until now. And I don’t know what else to say, except publish this excerpt of a novel written months before I knew.
Excerpt from The King of the Internet:
In the next few days and weeks, Cam tried to see Leesa as much as possible. But she pushed him away. Each time they did meet, she seemed more tired, older, dying inside. They found they had less to say to each other, and Cam’s visits seemed to make Leesa worse. It was like he was holding her back.
She had done what she wanted to do in this life. Let her go, said a voice that seemed to come from inside Cam. That voice was Leesa’s. She was tired. She wanted to go, but felt that people like Cam wanted her to stay.
It was just so crappy to Cam watching someone you thought you loved slowly die. He continued to visit and tell her he loved her, hoping that might help. But Leesa seemed like she wanted to face another chapter of her life. She wanted the pain of this one to end. She wanted to transform.
It happened faster than anyone predicted. One day, Cam and Leesa were talking about something, holding each other. The next day, his knock on her door was answered by Leesa’s mother, whom Cam had met on a previous visit. “Leesa’s gone to Jesus!” she exclaimed. “My baby has gone home!”
Cam kind of expected that news, but when it happened, it shook him up more than he thought. He collapsed in this stranger’s arms, crying, shaking. “I’m sorry,” he kept repeating.
“Boy, don’t be sorry,” Leesa’s mother told him. “You were the best thing that ever happened to her. Even if you weren’t black. She loved you.”
When your parents get old, you can understand them dying, Cam thought from a place somewhere far away. It’s sad, but that’s what happens when you get old. But younger people weren’t supposed to die. How old was Leesa? 42? 44?
Cam didn’t even know. There was so much he didn’t know about her. He felt sheepish and guilty all over.
The seats at Trinity Church in lower Manhattan filled with people from all races and ages. Cam wore the only dark suit he had, standing before those eyes, those sad faces, questioning why he had been asked to say something.
“You are a writer, right? You know just what to say,” Leesa’s mother had told him.
“That’s just it. I don’t know what to say,” he had said. “I can’t make anything of this.” If he sat down for weeks, he couldn’t. How was he supposed to do it on the fly?
But he knew he had to say something. He just couldn’t stand there. Leesa deserved better.
“Leesa…she was an angel,” Cam began. “She saved me from myself. She made me want to be a better person. I remember the look on her face when I or Max − one of my crazy friends, probably my only friend − did something crass, something vulgar. She would smile, but she had this quizzical look like she knew I could do better. But the truth is I, I couldn’t. That was me, a vulgar bastard from Jersey. I don’t know what I did to deserve her.” Some laughed. Most sat in silence like they agreed. He could hear many thinking, Cam, you dirty bastard, you didn’t deserve her.
“I don’t know why this kind of shit happens. I wish I did. It goes beyond saying it’s not fair. Nothing in life is fair. It isn’t supposed to be. If it was, we’d live on Fantasy Island. We’d live in a Robert Zemeckis movie with mostly happy endings and awesome special effects. Stephen King’s works would be ignored but not banned. I hate to ban books.” Cam felt his audience’s attention waning.
“But I digress. It’s hard for me to tell you how good Leesa was. Look at her career. She dealt with people whose lives were wracked by disaster, and she accepted them and worked to make their lives better. She made a difference in people’s lives. I saw that in the faces of the people with whom she worked in the short time I knew her.”
He felt his eyes get red. “I, I remember something she said now during the night she told me about her illness, something that didn’t really register then. She said that there was more to life than all this shit around us. I didn’t dwell on that because I don’t know if I really believe that. But she did. She was positive she was going to a better place…. I hope so. God, I hope so.”
Others talked. A preacher tried to say something comforting. Her mother spoke about taking her to the Brooklyn Bridge when she was young, how she liked to dream big. Others relayed remembrances. All Cam could think of for the rest of the service was that those flowers in front were going to waste. They were dying like everyone and everything else. They were flowers for no one. Leesa was somewhere else, someplace better.
After the service, a lot of people hugged Cam. They shot him concerned looks, especially Greta, Rory, and his kids. Max was about the only one who didn’t act like Cam might be next to go. “This sucks, buddy. It’s more evidence that the good die young,” he stated. “The evil bastards like you and me, we’re going to live forever.”
Cam nodded. He knew his friend was trying to lighten the mood, make him feel better in his own way. But he had no response.
Somehow, Cam eventually ended up in his backyard hoops half-court. He just wanted to shoot baskets, as if that would make things better. At times, he had stayed out there under the large spotlight late at night, shooting jumpers like he was back in high school, trying to recapture a bit of his fading youth. In their younger days, Colin, Mark, and even Angel joined Cam. Damn, they had some competitive games. It was Angel and Cam vs. Colin and Mark. Cam and Angel usually won. One day, Colin and Mark were victorious for three straight games for the first time. That was the last time they played two-on-two. After that, it was Cam out here. Alone, trying to work out something that never made sense.
At some point, Cam slept. But before he could revisit that dream about speeding into the fiery pit, the final scene from Hamilton reverberated through the cobwebs in his mind:
You have no control:
Who lives
Who dies
Who tells your story….
Jackson Thoreau is the author of The King of the Internet.
