Meiselman had shown up at my Cather lecture unaccompanied; at our lunch he never mentioned friends. The poems in Flinches are as much about loneliness as they are about disappointment. Not that I have any difficulty understanding why, but he must be friendless. How else explain his turning to me, whom he barely knows, to help him out in this crisis?

Better not to get involved, I tell myself. Time to jump this ship on which I never booked passage.

"What time are your chemo sessions?" I hear myself ask.

"From ten to eleven in the morning," he says. 

If I pick him up outside the hospital and drive him over to his apartment on Bell, then allow another twenty minutes or so to get back, I can make the entire trip in under an hour. God knows I waste at least an hour most mornings on the phone with friends or futzing around on the internet. 

I arrange to pick Meiselman up the following Monday in front of St Francis, on the Ridge Avenue side. He is standing there, not far back from the kerb, as I drive up. When he gets into my Honda, I note his colour is drained, his eyes have a slight glint of terror. He pulls the seatbelt around him, sets the seat back, and closes his eyes. 

"Thanks for doing this," he says. "If I had to wait for a cab, I'm not sure I could make it. Mondays are the worst, especially after a week off."

"It's poison, chemo," I say, just to make conversation, "poison meant to counteract the poison of the cancer," which exhausts my knowledge of the subject.

"That's what they say," Meiselman replies. "They also say that a person can die from the chemo." He lets his head turn toward the window.