All My Favourite Colours

Three weeks passed and I visited Mikey, and Frank, almost every day. The weird radiotherapy thing they had Mikey on seemed to be working incredibly well and the nurses were all incredibly optimistic. Well maybe that was because the only nurse I spoke to was Ray, “He’s doing excellently Gerard!” he’d exclaim whenever I met him in a hallway. I was taking a piss in the bathrooms when he came in with a patient who looked seriously sick. Still he’d smile at me and tell me how great Mikey is.
One day when I came in Mikey was napping for the whole time I was there so I spent the entire time talking to just Frank.
“How are you doing?” I’d said.
“Same as usual.”
“Have they got you in the same treatment as Mikey?”
“Different branches of cancer man. I wish they did though, your brother seems to be doing like great, considering his body is trying to kill him…”
And that was pretty much all we talked about in terms of cancer. I didn’t want to pry into Frank’s business and looked like he wasn’t about to hand it out.
We talked about music a lot. It was our common ground. Also I loved the way his face lit up when he talked about his old guitars and his collection of misfits albums. “Aww man I used to have them all on vinyl! Then this dude found out some private shit and broke ‘em. Didn’t stop me liking him… Snapped them right in half! All of them. I was so pissed off. Couldn’t do anything about it though, it was eighth grade…”
My mind was alert. He said “him”. Frank had liked a guy. Trying to control my delight I kept trying to casually bring up my sexuality. I failed and went home trying to figure out ways to say “I like guys too Frank. ‘Cause we’re both guys who like guys why don’t we fuck?”
I failed to like flirt at all with Frank in the three and a half weeks I spent visiting Mikey. One day after a really long week I come in to see a very happy Mikey talking to an always very happy Ray.
I waited patiently in my corner until Ray had gone. The other bed was empty.
As Ray closed the door I raise my eyebrows at Mikey.
“Nurse Toro says that I’m well enough to go home for most of the week!” He squeals.
I smile widely and hug my little brother, “Mikey that’s great!”
“Yea! I only have to come in for the radiotherapy like twice a week! Gerard the cancer is going away!”
We embrace and giggle for a while. When we break apart the doors open and Frank is wheeled in limp and paler than normal. The nurses lift him onto the bed and look him up to a load of wires.
Mikey’s face goes as serious as ever and he watches the nurses leave. “Frank was in for surgery today. They think now that he has something called “Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer” and that they’d been treating him wrongly all that time. He went in at like midnight last night. He’s pretty fucking sick, Gee.”
I stay silent, looking over at the small fragile frame in the bed across from Mikey’s. I wish for the first time that I’d asked him how he really was.

I go to collect Mikey from the hospital on Saturday morning. Ray is standing in the entrance waiting with him when I get there. I really wish I could go to his room and say hi to Frank, see how he’s doing now.
“Mikey,you need to take one of these every three hours,” Ray says handing Mikey a tub of red pills, “one of these a day,” another tub this time blue pills, “And these every night before bed,” two tubs of white pills in different shapes.
“Yea sure thing,” Mikey says taking them from Ray.
“It’s very important that you call if you have any questions at all. We’ll call to arrange your next radiotherapy session sometime in the coming week,” Ray says to both of us.
“Thank you for everything Nurse Toro,” Mikey says smiling.
I send Mikey out to my car and wait back to ask Ray about Frank.
“Aw man, I can’t give away patient info… Well I can tell you that the surgery might have worked a little less brilliantly than we hoped…” he pauses for a while. He’s not smiling anymore. “He won’t be discharged for a while anyway so if you want you can visit him some time?”
I nod furiously. I never really thought of visiting Frank alone.
“Anyway I have to work, I’ll see ya Gerard!” Smiling again.
“See ya Ray.”
Mikey was waiting in the car for me. I walked back slowly processing my thoughts. Frank was seriously ill. Frank doesn’t seem to be getting better. Honestly it seems like they’re not sure what is wrong with him.
“I got a text from mom,” Mikey says the second I open the car door, “She’s coming down to take us out to dinner to celebrate the fact that I’m not dying. Well those weren’t her exact words but it’s practically what she meant.”
“She never thought you were dying, Mikey,” I sigh.
“Yea she did. That’s why she couldn’t bear to visit me.”
“Okay Mikey, I don’t believe you but okay.”
“Something up Gee?” he asks detecting my sullen tone.
I nod, sigh and nod again. “I’m kinda worried about Frank. I mean they don’t know what it is that’s killing him…”
“Oh.”
We’re silent then for a while. Finally Mikey says, “I think that they will find out what’s wrong with him soon and then you guys can be gay lovers.”
I laugh at Mikey’s optimism even though none of us truly believe that.

Dinner with our mom was nice. She arrived Saturday night and took us out Sunday. The best bit was she was paying. I’ve been extremely broke thanks to all the gas money and trying to pay some hospital bills the insurance wouldn’t cover. To the hospital and back was a good eleven dollars’ worth in gas.
We ate out at this fancy French place and Mikey told mom about the treatment and the hospital.
“I’m glad you’re getting better sweetie,” she says patting Mikey’s hand and then went back to her soup. Donna Way was not a woman of many words.
The bill settled we returned to my house where I ended up on the couch. I had to give the house’s two beds to the sick dude and the old woman.
That night my dreams were of Frank. Not sexual or romantic at all. Instead I dreamt he was bleeding all over, everywhere he had a tattoo that I knew about. He kept whimpering for me to save him but I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do. He told me in his dying breath to play misfits at his funeral and to bury him in all his favourite colours.

Notes