"Come on, big guy, wake up." Jack Boomer looked down at his shrunken penis and willed it to rise. It was the first time in his life he didn’t wake up with a hard on—an extraordinary fact, especially since Jack just turned 93. "Your dick is always the first thing up in the morning," his second wife often said. She also used to make goochee goo noises and play hide and seek with it. "Look at that precious little thing. I think it just smiled at me! What a precious little boy you are! What a precious little boy you are! . . . It’s like a penis, only smaller."
Fucking bitch. So he had a small dick, at least it always worked. Most of his friends never had an erection after Apollo XIII, while he banged secretaries well into his eighties. "Viagra’s for pussies," he muttered.
To him, his limp dick was ultimate proof of his imminent demise. The same day the Cubs clinched the Central, he discovered he had four weeks to live. The cancer was already in his liver then. Now, four and a half weeks later, every day was a miracle. Today was October 20th—his birthday—but he didn’t care about that. He just needed to hold on eight more days. He had been a week late coming in; he didn’t want to be a day early going out.
How could this be happening? Why now? He needed to talk to Harry. It was the only way to remain sane. He pressed the little button and waited for the morphine to take him to sweet oblivion.
"What the fuck you want now?"
"Same thing I always want. More time."
"Why? You’re in agony. You got a limp noodle. Just let go."
"I need to see them win it. I want to see the city in flames."
"And I want to bang the Queen Mum."
"You’ve got connections."
"Fuck connections. This isn’t the Tribune Company. Things don’t work that way up here. There’s only one fucking connection worth having, and He’s a fucking Yankee fan."
"I knew it."
Gyp hated her grandfather almost as much as she hated the Cubs. But she hated hospitals most of all. Five times. Five fucking times in the last year she had found herself at St. Elizabeth’s. Two times they treated her for a drug overdose, and three times they pumped her stomach. ("Use a gun," Daniel had told her. "They can’t pump your stomach for bullets.") Now here she was again—this time, under her own power. But she had to go. She needed the money, or Tsang was going to kill her. She wanted to die, but on her own terms.
From the hallway, the old fuck really didn’t look much different than when she’d seen him at her mother’s funeral six years earlier. He certainly didn’t appear to be on the verge of death. His breaths were deep and steady, and his eyes opened the second she stepped in the room.
He recognized her immediately, and spoke as if they saw each other every week.
"Hi Gyp," he said in a barely audible whisper. "Come to see your grandpa off?" This was the first time she’d seen him sober, and the first time he got her name right on the first try. She looked at his morphine drip with a bit of envy.
"Hi grandpa. I just found out you were here. How you feel?"
"They made it. They finally fucking made it."
"I know. I know. Isn’t it great? Gyp moved into the seat next to her grandfather and took his hand. "Grandpa, I’m in trouble. I need your help."
Jack Boomer closed his eyes and began clicking the little button. A stupid grin crept across his face.