The accident tore a grotesque gouge down to the bone in Mark’s arm. He had black eyes. Scrapes and scratches. Cuts and bruises. He left the scene in an ambulance, bloodied and beaten up, and was admitted to Rockville General Hospital.
By now, the hep C had developed into a disease, consuming his liver like salt on ice. Falling within one-fourth of all hep C patients who experience symptoms, Mark, also being one of the percentage points between 5 and 20 who suffer from an actual infection, wound up with advanced cirrhosis, no doubt expedited by the amount of alcohol and drugs he consumed before and after his diagnosis.
With a simple blood test, doctors gauge liver disease status by the percentage the liver functions at any given time. The liver is a miraculous organ, the only one in the human body that can regenerate itself under proper, otherwise healthy conditions. Whereas all other organs scar when damage occurs, the liver replaces any damage with functioning cells. But once liver disease of any kind sets in, that same liver, I recall Mark’s doctor once explaining, becomes like a crumb cake, disintegrating a little bit each day.
Mark was admitted to the hospital after the bus incident, sewed and bandaged up, and released. A few weeks later, my brother Tommy called. Mark was back in the hospital. His liver function was low, under 20 percent, maybe less. After a few days in Rockville General Hospital, Mark’s liver function slipped once again and he was moved to hospice.
The cirrhosis swelled my brother’s face and puffed his cheeks, tightened his skin like a latex glove stretched over a melon. Mark always had these deep, distinctive lines in his face; pockmarks, too, old acne scars. Those were gone now, as he became gaunt as an anorexic, frail as a ninety-year-old man. His stomach had always been bloated—another symptom of the liver not functioning as it should—but now it was so big it looked deformed, his waistline skin taut and stretched, seemingly ready to tear. A terrible situation to witness.
It was spring, the start of a new season. Flowers and fresh air. Blue skies. Birds. The smell of life. But we knew it was over for my forty-seven-year-old big brother. His time was up.
My mother, God bless her (who I deeply love), was there every day, along with my stepfather, himself suffering from prostate cancer. Mom had taken over as legal conservator to Mark’s affairs. She made the decisions. He was her baby. Seeing her during this time, I felt as though she’d been down in a foxhole all our lives with Mark, afraid to stick her head out anymore in fear of being struck by whatever stray tragedy that might whiz by next. I recall her not wanting the doctors to allow Mark to have morphine. “He’s done drugs his whole life.” He’d stopped using heroin many years before this. He was far from sober, but did the best he could. I thought: Man, now is the time when the guy actually needs the drug that had put him here, and she doesn’t want him to have it? Insane. Completely insane.
Then Mom called one day and said, “For now, when you see him, don’t talk about him dying.” She explained that she didn’t want Mark to know how close he was to death.
“I think he realizes.”
Actually, I went to see him one night not long after. He said, “I’m hoping to go home,” he told me. “I’m on the list for a liver. Who knows?” He spoke almost in a whisper, his voice phlegmy and cracking, tired.
Chicago Bear Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton had died of liver disease in 1999. I thought if a Hall of Famer couldn’t get a liver, my brother wasn’t.
At home that night, I made the decision to tell him myself. I would want to know. I was certain there were things he needed to tell his kids before he died. He deserved the opportunity to make that decision. He also needed to see a priest, in case he wanted to confess his sins (which he ultimately did).
He was leaned over to one side in his bed when I arrived, a blanket covering him, shivering. “I’m so cold,” he said. “So cold.” His eyes were opened halfway. His bottom lip drooped, his mouth unable to close. He stared out the window. Meranda was there. She was always there. She had become so close to her dad at the end; it was inspiring to witness the love between them. The two boys, now grown and on their own, spent as much time as they could visiting their dad. They seemed so content, the four of them together. I could feel the forgiveness. It was real, and it energized that room.
“I won’t be leaving here,” Mark told me next time we were able to talk alone. By now, cousins and uncles and aunts and Mark’s friends were visiting—coming to say good-bye, I knew. His best friend, Gary Saccocia, was there, too.
“I’m so sorry, Mark,” I said. It was obvious he had been reevaluating his life and thinking about what he’d do differently, had he been given the chance. I could see in his eyes how sorry he was for everything. “You know, what you need to do is forget about the past. I know it’s on your mind.” He’d told me he wished like hell he could fix the mistakes he’d made. “Forget about all that. You’re sorry for it—I know that, your kids know that. Focus on right now. Today. You’re a good person. You always have been. I love you.”
I called my sons and told them to go see their uncle.
Immediately.
“Take [our daughter] and go visit him now,” I told my wife when I got home that night.
*
TALKING TO JESPERSON BECAME a necessary inconvenience, a chore. He was sucking the life out of me. After that last conversation about his conscience, I went to Mass. As I sat, staring at the life-sized crucifix in back of the altar, a sudden feeling struck me. My stomach turned with an acidic sourness of panic—a feeling similar to when you sense bad news coming, maybe a message about someone you love leaving. A terrible feeling of dread. A colossal regret. All at once. I’d experienced this before, but nowhere near as profound. As my heart raced, I felt an adrenaline rush, a panic attack coming on.
None of this is real, I thought. Jesus and God are two more gods throughout history. It was all a story, passed down, written for those gullible enough to buy into it. When it’s over, that’s it—over. Rotting flesh and earthworms, as Jesperson had said. There was no eternal reward. No pearly gates and soft clouds and family members and happy people wearing robes, smiling and hugging everyone. It was all a damn dream sold by old men with white hair. We were pathetic fools for believing such bombast.
I must have turned pale, because I felt sick to my stomach. I questioned my faith once a day. However, as I continued to accept Jesperson’s calls and became immersed in his life, those moments of question lasted longer, came on more often, and felt more intense.