Hanks’ Heart. A Sorta Prayer

”Clinically dead?”

”Clinically dead.”

“Okay. So – clinically dead, huh?”

“Yep.”

“But not a lot dead, right? Just a little dead?”

“Yes, just for a few moments.”

Oh jesus fuck.

“You know I’ll be pestering your ass every day until you get back here? I’ll go nuclear with the phone, I’ll be like Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets, coming over to drag Helen Hunt back to work because he cannot function without her.”

“Yeah okay. But please don’t call on the first week, okay? I’ll be out of it, so drugged I probably won’t even know my own name let alone yours.”

“Yeah okay. But after that, man, it’s Phone City, I’ll be like what are you doing, get your ass back to work, I’m dying here!”

“And I’ll be like yeah well so am I!”

We both laugh hard at this.

“And hey, your timing is most excellent, you’ll get to sit through the second season of Stranger Things right away!” I tell him as we browse IMDb’s latest poster art for the Netflix series. “And I’ll bring you the Frasier DVD box set, oh, and King’s whole catalogue, so you won’t be bored!”

“Please don’t!” Hanks hates Frasier. And reading.

I’ve known about Hanks’ heart for almost as long as I’ve known him.

“So, I get to choose between a bio valve, and a metallic one, and while with the bio valve I wouldn’t have to eat any pills, the procedure needs to be repeated every fifteen years, so I don’t know, I’m thinking the metallic one. It’s one thing to have the operation now, when I’m still relatively young and healthy, but think about having it again and again, and I’ll be older and older. But with the metallic valve I’ll be on medication for the rest of my life, and the doctors tell me it’s kind of a big deal. Like, if I take them too seldom, I’ll die, if too often, I’ll die.”

“So it’s like die now, pay later.”

“Exactly. Look at this, this is really something. What is it an homage to?”

“Evil Dead, I think. Didn’t the poster of it have the woman screaming as she was being pulled into the earth, with her hand held upwards?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s it.”

So, what do you say? I’m not even asking for your protection for Hanks, I’m sure his family is all over it, although you will of course protect his heart, right? I’m just asking for a little restraint, a smidgen of tolerance for me, for as long as he needs to stay away. Because I can’t do it. Hanks is my buffer against the world. He always pretends to listen to me yakking about some book I’m reading, or a piece I’m writing, or if I’m fighting with my man, or if I’m hating everyone else at work. Hanks is my touchstone.

He needs to be fine, because when he isn’t there, I’m liable to go mental on the people around me. Without him, we’ll probably end up killing each other with Roberts. And if I’m honest, I’ll probably kill her, because she is a nice and kind person, whereas I am neither nice nor kind. Of course, then I’ll have to off also not only Norton, but Swinton as well, since I know they both read these stories and now know Roberts’ days are numbered. So it will be a blood bath, and all because Hanks won’t be there to take on my ill-advised anger, my random musings, my crappy moods, my hysterical moments.

Although I’m not really sure if I could take Swinton. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but what about the needle? It just may be that Swinton will stitch me to death, and that will be the end of me. I’ll look like Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas. And perhaps I am underestimating Roberts, too. She is a baker, after all, and everyone knows bakers can be ruthless, with their easy access to lethal tools like the whipped cream piping bags and those tiny molds shaped like reindeer and dogs for Christmas cookies. She might go all Sweeney Todd on me and bake me into delicious cakes in her diabolical oven in the basement. So basically Norton is the only one in any real danger here. Of course, my knowledge on Twin Peaks isn’t as top notch as it was, say, five years ago, so, put on the spot with him, playing sudden death on Twin Peaks trivia, the news may not be in my favor.

In my whole life, I have met two people who I can honestly say are good people. Two. The first one was a young woman I knew in high school, Hannah. The second is Hanks. I’m not saying everyone else is totally useless and rotten, not at all, but I have never met anyone other besides these two, their names alliterating in a cool way, because of course they alliterate, it’s my story and everyone knows they are not their real names anyway, who truly seemed to live up to the dictionary description of a good person. I never heard either of these two badmouth another person, ever, or lose their temper, or complain about things the way we, the rest of the world, do, or have any malevolent thoughts whatsoever.

Since you sicced me on Hanks, I have stayed put for ten years, making the poor man suffer through countless hours of my formidable attacks on whatever was on the menu that day. Although I sometimes think of the situation being the other way around, that he really is on some mission from you, much like how Ouiser suspects of M’Lynn in Steel Magnolias. Maybe Hanks was thrown on my path the way we are thrown on each other’s paths in life, some to challenge us, some to marry and have families with, some, like him, to act as the eye of the storm when we are weak and need a friendly face around.

So, a deal? You get his brand-new valve working nicely, making him the second Bionic Man in my life, the first one being my own man, my life partner, M., and make his recovery uneventful and speedy, and I quit swearing? I won’t swear for a year, how about it? I’ll take out the rugs instead of just vacuuming them. I’ll go to the dentist to have that cavity finally fixed. I’ll be nicer to people, well, I’ll try anyway, let’s not get hysterical here. I’ll eat my greens – but then again I always do. I’ll – I’ll walk his dog, I’ll be more patient and kinder to M., I won’t yell at my mother, at least not often, I’ll mend my socks and sew the buttons back on the shirts.

I know it’s not like my wishes count for much here, who am I, just someone Hanks works with. No one, really.

But he’s my friend. And lord knows I don’t have too many of those. Thanks for your time.

(This piece contains segments from the 1986 movie Hannah and Her Sisters, directed by Woody Allen.)