Jeff Lee Manthos | Author

Touchdown

I have cancer. I can't remember when I first uttered what would become a mantra of self-realization. It was an exercise in self-convincing. At a stop light: I have cancer. At dinner: I have cancer. While reading the paper: I have cancer. While shaving: I have cancer. IhavecancerIhavecancerIhavecancer. I was saying it to myself two hundred times a day. Then I would try believing it.

Being back on safe and familiar ground after the trip to Planet Chemo gave me time to settle into the reality of being a cancer survivor. The treatments had been worse than the symptoms, it was hard to identify the lymphoma since it had been, to me, nothing more than a nasty lump at the base of my neck and lab results from microscopic examinations of cells. But chemo rammed home the truth—cancer had become the defining feature of my life on Earth.

I'm going to die. Well of course I'm going to die; I'm not made out of titanium. It's one thing to contemplate my own death philosophically—and I have a degree in philosophy as evidence that I have—and a wholly different exercise to confront death as it's squirming inside me, vying for dominance of my every waking moment, seeking to end those very "waking moments." Cancer will try to kill its host, even though that means it will eventually die too. And "host" isn't a very good word because it's not an invader like malaria; it's my own stem cells gone haywire. I could ask, "Why is my own body trying to kill me?" but my energy is better spent on questions like, "How am I going to fight it?"

Life has become a meditation on when I'm going to die. And how I'm going to live. It's that last part that gets me up in the mornings.

I finally reached the age where a rite of passage in western life took place. I was given a bolt-action, JC Higgins model .22 caliber rifle, magazine fed and complete with a 4 power scope. It was a major landmark in my ascent to manhood, and I was ecstatic. The rifle felt heavy, the blued steel reflecting a solidness to breach and barrel. This was serious business. Paper targets, concentric circles of black and white, were my first targets.

I read Dad's war manuals on how to shoot, the pocket-sized volumes complete with pictures in faded sepia tones, mostly of men with guns. One photo was of a strong, masculine hand squeezing a tube of toothpaste, illustrating how not to jerk or mash the tube, but rather confidently "squeeze." That is how you pulled the trigger on a weapon, squeeze, not jerk. One page contained a grainy photo of an Imperial Japanese soldier carrying a big bolt-action combat rifle tipped with a long bayonet, charging the camera. The caption read "Maybe his uniform doesn't fit as well as yours, his rifle may be obsolete, but he is as determined as you to kill his enemy. Don't underestimate him." I started at the picture and looked back with a determined scowl; I wouldn't take my enemies lightly, no sir. I would learn how to squeeze the trigger just so, keeping the barrel steady and not jerking it off target, whatever that target may be. I had just turned twelve.

The .22 didn't kick at all when fired, and the weight became a reassuring heft as I stalked the land. I was armed and able to affect the world around me in a newly profound way. I progressed from paper targets nailed to a fencepost to live animals.

Gophers were worth a nickel a piece bounty from Dad. I became an efficient shot, squeezing the trigger and always aiming for the head. It upset me to see the small brown furry rodents flopping around in the dirt so I tried to kill with one shot, making the end quick and easing any suffering, theirs or mine. There were huge complexes where gophers had built entire towns, real communities, and I would pick them off one by one. Timing was crucial. The gophers would stand up on their haunches taking turns to look for eagles, coyotes, danger of any kind, looking for any threat to the extended family burrowed below. A quick chirp, a warning flick of the tail, and they would scurry back below into their safe tunnels. But the lookouts could not beat a .22 Long Rifle slug. Occasionally I would find a blood trail leading down into a burrow, and sense the panic and fear hiding below me, the tiny heart pumping out the last of what little blood their small bodies held. I learned they had brains, bones, body heat. My nickels piled up as Dad's pride grew. His son was learning the song.