Bryan is a documentary film buff. Any old doc’ll do, but he is quite partial to the whistle-blowing variety. The ones that shine a spotlight on some invisible underground wickedness going on under our noses every day. Not familiar? Here's a typical storyline.
Open on a scene of squeaky, struggling puppies who are being ripped from their mother's teats for some financial reason. The smart ones are shipped in egg crates to a dank and drafty warehouse to pull around cargo too heavy for them, the slow ones have their brains tugged out through their nostrils and served at extravagant banquets to McDonald's executives. Not evil enough for you? Wal-Mart executives, then. Bwa ha ha ha ha!
"What do you mean you don't want to watch it?" Bryan cries as I recoil into the back of the couch. "I picked this out special for tonight!"
Please don't misunderstand. It's not that a girl doesn't appreciate being romanced in such lavish and disgusting ways. Also, I care about The Man's disregard for things like little puppies and their brains. It's just impossible to watch and even more impossible to imagine a world without those crispy little fries, or...you know...come on. Wal-Mart.
"Do you have something else in mind?" he asks. And I do, and it is What Not To Wear, and he doesn't think so. So as the last puppy looks into the camera and spells out "help" with its quivering tail, we settle on a decent jazz station and a conversation about anything but puppies or french fries.
It is not surprising, I suppose, considering the similarity of his musical tastes. Bryan enjoys a good wallow in songs about people dying of loneliness, crushing regret, anorexia, poverty. Among his favorite hits are I Just Shot John Lennon by The Cranberries, Harry Chapin’s notorious downer Cat's in The Cradle, and the foot-stompin' good time that is The Rape of the World by Tracy Chapman. This makes his aversion to country music unexplainable. He never hears the stuff, so I need to tell him what the rest of the world knows so well - nobody suffers like a country star. He does not know the misery on which he is missing out. Why, Charlie Rich alone could turn him from a non-drinker into a sobbing alcoholic in one night. Here, hook up my Pod, scroll to Patsy Cline, and copy off She’s Got You. Have a lump-throated blast.
He tries. Making a difference is important in this world, and nobody knows it better than Bryan. He boycotts McDonald’s unless I hand him a free-sandwich coupon, would buy a hybrid car if he were a rich guy, and may occasionally watch The Tonight Show but would like to hear Jay admit he’s not as funny as Dave – just once. A work in progress. I am one too.
I so am that I must confess, for all the weight Bryan heaps onto his own shoulders, I am the worrywart in this relationship. My grandparents were the first to point out that I'm a "fuss budget," this being their nickname for me when I was very young. I hated it. (To their amusement, I would predictably stomp my small foot and demand they take it back. I also had no idea what it meant.) But right they were. It's who I am. Seriously, I sit down with my budget every month and factor in the fuss. Got worries on your own mind? If you find you just can’t leave them all behind, listen to me, okay? It’s because that DeBarge is full of crap, and forgetting about them takes a little more than the beat of the rhythm of the night. (Although I do recommend a dose of The Beach Boys. Sometimes all it takes to soothe the savage beast is a moment of Brian Wilson cooing, “Don’t worry, baby. Everything will turn out alright.” Strange but true.)
But if you are not looking for help, worry your heart out. It’s easy – as per the aforementioned films, planet earth serves up plenty to fuss over. Just close your eyes and point right now to anything you love to eat, wear, watch, or sit near, and there is a study going on at this moment to prove that it causes cancer, wrinkles, or cancerous wrinkles.
I have what I would call a very low grade of hypochondria. (And it scares the crap out of me - I hear people die from it.) Bryan’s preoccupation with health extends only to this occasional feeling he’s had since he was little that one of his eyes will pop out, and he has to put his hand over it to keep it in. Not the old myth that if your eyes were open when you sneezed they would fly out. Just this sensation he gets, he says about once a month, that his eyelid is folding in behind the eyeball instead of lying on top of it, and seconds count, get that hand up there or it's Socket City. (I chuckled, then pondered, then thanked him kindly for the chance to add "Bryan's eyes falling out" to my ever-expanding list of irrational fears.) Beyond this, however, the man believes himself indomitable, a fortress of antibacterialism, able to leap tall viruses in a single shot of Pepto-Bismol. “I’m sure it’s fine” is his catch phrase for everything from the sniffles to being engulfed in flames. I told him once I will see to it that “I was sure it was fine” is etched on his gravestone when the time comes.
Amazing, then, that I ever talked him into a trip to the doctor that day. What is it with men and doctors? Is it really so hard to admit you need one? Of course to Bryan it's not only hard, it's utterly ridiculous. But he had felt he had something large in his eye for an entire day and night, so away he went. The doctor’s finding was that a fleck of iron had lodged itself in Bryan’s eyeball, and what was more, was beginning to rust. Awash with sympathy pain, I held my eye and screeched as he described in detail the scratch, scratch, scratching of the instrument that removed the speck but left a tiny dent in its place. Then he recalled he had started to notice his eye was bothering him the day before while washing dishes. The metal must have come from a pan he was scraping to remove burnt-on sauce from his batch of chicken wings. The pain passed and I ended with a joke. But he was unamused by the nickname I gave him – “Rusty.” Well, at least I can clean a dish without needing safety goggles.
Our stop at the emergency room was enough to turn anyone against medical science for life. We didn’t know why, but Bryan’s stomach was hurting him so badly he could barely walk. A few hours of gentle nagging and we were on our way to spend the entire night in the depressing abyss of California Hospital, a place too crowded to afford us a room. Ever-so fortunately we had arrived just as EMTs were beginning to pick up folks who were dropping like flies at a rave soaked in alcohol and, now I don’t want to alarm you, but apparently some types of illegal substances as well. Who knew you could encounter such a thing in South Los Angeles on a Saturday night?
At about 1 a.m., noticing my face had faded to green and my fingers were pressed over my eyes, Bryan asked what was wrong. “Oh, nothing. This is my happy place!” I whimpered. What could possibly have been upsetting me? Certainly not the unveiled head injury over there, or the guy lying here with his pants open who has survived some sort of crotch accident. Worse still, the bulletin board announced it would soon be Emergency Nurses’ Week. We were too early to celebrate, and they were giving away hats and everything. So much for ever knowing what the surprise gift was going to be.
Not that it was a total loss. I did get to listen to three security guards argue for thirty minutes about who’s best - 50 Cent, Ice Cube, or G-Unit. There was the empty Trojan wrapper Bryan spotted in the trash can of a staff-only room, and the weird doctor who knew very well that her patient was Bryan, but for some reason looked me square in the eye and told me my white blood cell count was low and my liver may be functioning improperly. At least I think that’s what she said – it was tough to filter out the lively e.r. soundtrack of vomiting and moaning.
I held onto my sense of humor for as long as I could, gripped it with both hands and sunk my nails in deep, but by the time they finally wheeled Bryan off for testing it had slipped away like a greased pig. Being the Mel Brooks fan that I am, I took a deep breath, leaned over the gurney, and whispered, “We’re gonna get that alien out of you. And if it sings and dances, we’ll be the best ones at the circus.” Then he was gone and I went back to the waiting room to seek the company of smelly, wheezy, snoring strangers and their insane children. What luck! There were plenty of each.
Two visits with a physician within two months. Perhaps he’s learning. Lord knows I try. The day he was playing basketball and smashed his fingers into another player’s chest with such force that he and others heard them crack, I begged him to get them checked. He refused. Then, days later, his little finger purpleish and the size of a corndog, I received this text message:
"You'll be happy to know that I'm scheduling an appt with my doc to check out my pinky. It's worrying me a bit. I’m sure it will be fine. I just don't want it to heal weird if I did indeed break it.”
"Weeeellll...listen to this now!” I texted back. “So the ol' girlfriend might not have been so crazy after all, eh?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that. You were right to want me to get it checked out, but it was impossible to know that until after a few days, I think."
"Yeah...how were you to know that jamming your fingers so hard you hear them crunch might be a bad thing?"
No reply. Checkmate.
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