Poster Boy (6 page)

“Will you get me more water?” Maggie held up her glass.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Cancer's not all bad,” she said.

“What?”

“You're bringing me water.” She snickered and turned back to her cutting. “Like you're my slave now.”

“And you're still a nerdy brat.” I smiled, too, then noticed my camera on her dresser. She'd borrowed it to take progressive pictures of her rotting rice.

I picked it up, turned it on.

“Hey, Maggot.” She lifted her face and smiled big and ugly, showing her teeth. The tooth to the right of her big tooth was chipped from when I tripped her and she fell and knocked it on the coffee table, about four years back. I thought it was funny back then.

I took her picture. Wondered how many more of her there'd be to take.

Downstairs I told Mom that Maggie seemed amazingly chill about the whole thing.

She shook her head.

“Well, she can't really know what it means. Not at her age. I'll go see if she wants a snack.”

“Uh, she didn't take those pills. Said they were too big.”

“Okay. Maybe I'll mix it in with juice.”

That taste would be impossible to hide, I thought, but didn't say anything. I got myself a bowl of cereal and went downstairs. I wanted to load some tunes onto my iPod but Maggie's words,
for every action a reaction
, kept skipping through my head.

That first doctor said something about environmental causes, didn't he? I mean, what if Mom's turmeric stuff did get rid of the tumors but the shit that caused them in the first place was still around? Then Maggie would just keep growing new ones, wouldn't she?

That was logical, I thought, proud for thinking like a scientist for once. If you've got lung cancer, you stop smoking as well as getting radiation and stuff. And not to be selfish about it, but whatever Maggie was exposed to, I was, too. And Mom and Dad.

I went into Google and typed in the words:
Rhabdomyosarcoma, Causes.

7
Rhaby

There were a frickin' million sites to navigate. I decided to stick to legitimate-sounding ones — American Cancer Society, Cancer Prevention Coalition, Mount Sinai Pediatric Hospital — skimmed the scientific treatise shit, then cut and pasted stuff that made sense to me into a file named Rhaby. I imagined I was a detective digging for clues, and that if I dug deep enough I just might find the answer, meaning the cause.

I mean, why Maggie and not me or one of her friends?

I came across a list of “known and suspect” carcinogens by the American Cancer Society. It was a mile long.

70,000 synthetic chemicals are in production today. Many are suspected to cause cancer or other health effects, but only 600 have been adequately tested. Even fewer have been tested for how they react with other chemicals.

What the hell were all these chemicals for? 70,000? There were only 365 days in a year.

Rhabdomyosarcoma affects four out of every million children. The disease has been linked to exposure to dioxins, PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), vinyl chloride, benzene, asbestos, and others.

Okay, so maybe one of these chemicals had found its way into our house in some serious way? I'd do a process of elimination. I'd start with Dioxins and then work my way to Other.

Dioxins are extremely poisonous and known to cause nervous disorders, skin diseases, cancer and birth defects.

Burning garbage created dioxins, I found out, specifically the burning of plastics. Then why was garbage thrown out in plastic bags?

Dioxins from incinerated garbage are carried for hundreds of miles on tiny specks of fly ash landing on farmland and ingested by livestock.

It said that dioxins were fat soluble, so the main contact with them was eating beef and dairy products. Maggie was a serious carnivore. Loved burgers and steak, put melted cheese on everything. I was more of a chicken man. So maybe it was her diet.

Note: Cut out beef and dairy.

Chicken and pork have the third and fourth highest levels of dioxin contamination just below beef and dairy products.

Oh… Note: Eat fish.

Dioxin levels in fish are 100,000 times that of the surrounding environment.

Okay, forget it. Become vegetarian.

Chlorine based pesticides and herbicides sprayed on fruits and vegetables can contain dioxins.

God, was nothing safe to eat?

Note: Wash and peel stuff.

The bleaching of paper products at pulp and paper mills produces dioxins and products contaminated with dioxins.

The stack of paper in my printer suddenly looked evil. We had tons of bleached paper products in the house. Toilet paper, Kleenex, napkins, paper towels, books, magazines. But we didn't eat those things. Dad and Mom used white coffee filters in the coffee machine but Maggie didn't drink coffee. Kleenex went up your nose and toilet paper went, well… whatever, it couldn't be good for you.

Note: Buy unbleached paper products.

I moved on to PAHs.

In Canada alone, fourteen million kilograms of carcinogens are released into the air every year from car exhaust and the burning of municipal waste.

What the… I thought cars were just a CO2 problem. I looked it up.

Car exhaust contains three types of carcinogens: PAHs, benzene and formaldehyde.

Why the hell didn't anybody talk about that? Wasn't last year's Run for the Cure at our school sponsored by some car company?

Note: Maggie's room was at the front of the house above the garage. Don't start car in garage. Park on the street.

Burning wood creates dangerous PAHs.

Dad often made a fire in the evening — just last night, in fact — and Maggie loved to read sprawled in front it.

Note: Don't use fireplace.

I thought I'd probably covered it, but just in case went onto the next suspect chemical: vinyl chloride.

Plastic PVC pipes manufactured before 1977 can leach vinyl chloride into your water.

Our pipes, which I'd seen in the storage room and under the kitchen sink, were made of black plastic. I'd ask Dad about it.

The breakdown of chlorinated chemicals in drinking water can form vinyl chloride.

So then the pipes didn't even matter.

“Dinner time,” Mom called from the top of the stairs.

I lifted my head from the screen. Man… this was more complicated than I thought.

* * *

Mom had made one of Maggie's favorite dinners: spareribs, mashed potatoes and peas, ice cream sundaes for dessert. To keep up Maggie's spirits, I guess. She'd even lit candles and used cloth napkins like she did for special occasions, only it was just another Wednesday night.

I couldn't help wondering what the serving of dioxins was in this meal. Spareribs were like fifty percent fat, there was milk in the potatoes, and the potatoes themselves were no doubt grown with pesticides as were the peas.

I suddenly wasn't hungry.

I watched Maggie chew a rib clean to the bone.

“Sasha's birthday's next weekend,” she told Mom, picking up another. “A skating party, back to her place for dinner — hot chocolate and hot dogs — then a sleepover.”

“Are you sure you're up for it?” asked Mom.

“I'm not missing it.”

“I didn't mean — ”

“I'm not as sore since I started taking the pills.”

She sank her teeth into a second fat-filled rib. I tried not watch.

“We're going to do the Ouiji board. Have a séance,” she said through a mouthful of pig fat.

“Hot dogs cause cancer,” I blurted, unable to say what I was really thinking because it would ruin Mom's fancy dinner. I couldn't remember what it was in hot dogs, but my grade five teacher used to check our lunches for ham or baloney, which also had it. She made us all afraid of our sandwiches.

“They contain nitrites and nitrates,” said Maggie, one step ahead of me as usual.

“I think it's all right once in a while,” said Dad, smiling at her.

“I'll just have one,” she said reasonably.

I didn't say anything, just ate my potatoes and peas. I couldn't eat the ribs. Dad and Maggie chatted about Mars and Venus being visible in the sky starting in a couple of weeks.

I thought of Natalie's sweet sixteenth and how I'd be losing my V-card under Mars and Venus. That sounded all right.

“Are you going to eat those?” Maggie was pointing to my plate.

“Uh, no.”

“Can I?”

“Sure.” I passed her my plate, then felt all messed and guilty watching her scrape it onto hers.

Maggie didn't have room for the sundae and left the table to do homework. As soon as she was gone, Dad's cheeriness vanished and Mom sighed and ran her hand through her hair.

“I bought smaller capsules today to reduce the size of the turmeric pills. And I got a book out of the library that claims flax oil and cottage cheese works wonders for every kind and at every stage of — ”

“You know,” I interrupted, “a lot of cancers are caused by chemicals in the environment. I've been reading stuff on the net on Maggie's type. It kind of makes sense that she can't get better if she's still being exposed to what made her sick in the first place.”

Mom and Dad just stared at me. It was probably the most words in a row they'd heard out of me all year.

“Bodies heal if given the chance,” I added, quoting some catchy phrase I'd come across.

Dad, the scientist, smiled what I took to be a patronizing smile. “It's a moot point, Gray, worrying about the cause at this junc — ”

“No, go on, Gray,” said Mom, holding up a hand to shush Dad. “I want to hear what you've found out.”

“Well, dioxins, for example. We get them in our blood from eating meat. But also chicken and pork. Fish, too. So I thought we might consider going vegetarian.” I was waiting for Dad to interrupt me, correct me, but he didn't.

“We could do that,” said Mom. “No harm in that.”

“We could also start buying unbleached paper products which can be contaminated with dioxins.”

“That's a question of parts per million,” said Dad. “Hardly worth worrying about.”

“Still, parts can add up,” said Mom, staring at me. “What else, Gray?”

“Well, chlorinated water can create vinyl chloride which is another chemical indicated in Maggie's cancer. So we might get some sort of filter system.”

“Gray, sweetheart, this is really thoughtful of you,” she cooed and sat up straighter in her chair. “I like these ideas. It'll be healthier for Maggie and for us, too.”

“Also if our pipes were manufactured before 1977 — ”

“It's a little too late to think — ” started Dad.

“It's not too late,” Mom snapped, startling me. “I cannot sit here, Ethan,” — she banged her hands on the table — “and believe there's nothing to do but watch my child get sicker.”

“She's
your
child now?” he said.

Whoa. This was the closest thing I'd seen to my parents having an argument. They'd gone all stiff and alert.

“We can just try and eliminate some stuff,” I said, breaking the silence. “Maybe there's like one thing — ”

“It's never one thing, Gray.” Dad sounded exasperated now.

“I mean, that put her body over the edge. Messed with her immune system.”

Mom turned to face me, her back to Dad. “I'll look into water systems tomorrow, Gray. And I'll go back to the library and get some vegetarian cookbooks.” It was the most hopeful I'd seen her since we got the news, which made me feel good.

“Buying organic stuff would be good since pesticides can contain dioxins,” I added.

“Absolutely,” said Mom.

“And, well, I didn't realize that car exhaust contains so many carcinogens.”

“It would be nice to get all the cars off the road but a little difficult,” said Dad, no longer smiling.

“I was just thinking how Maggie's room is right above the gar — ”

“So we'll park on the street from now on,” said Mom.

She got up and came around to my side of the table, put her hands on my shoulders and kissed the top of my head.

“This is great, Gray. I'll work on finding a cure and you work on finding the cause. Teamwork,” she said, emphasizing the word.

I felt like some kind of hero. Dad gave me a sad smile.

“I don't mean to discourage you, Gray. Or you, Julia,” he said gently. “I just don't want people getting their hopes — ”

“Maybe she shouldn't go to that party,” said Mom.

“Let her go to the party,” said Dad, voice rising. “How many more parties will she — ”

“Don't say it, Ethan. Just don't say it.” Her hands tightened on my shoulders, her nails digging in painfully.

* * *

Davis, Hughie and I walked over to Maggie's middle school to get her homework. She'd stayed home, a bad headache on top of her other aches. Mom thought it might be a side effect of the pain pills.

I thought it might be detox. We hadn't eaten meat for four days.

“You know that new car smell?” I asked.

“I love that smell,” said Davis. “My mother's first husband's kid just bought a new Camaro. White with black interior. It's seriously dice and reeks of that — ”

“I heard,” said Hughie, “that dealers actually spray that smell in cars. To keep them smelling new.”

“I want to get some,” said Davis, excited. “Spray my bedroom, the inside of my pants — ”

“That smell is off-gas and it's carcinogenic. Spraying fragrance on top of it's even worse 'cause they're made of hundreds of chemicals, none of them tested together or — ”

“You're getting really into this,” said Hughie.