Other Funny Stories About Cancer by Brian Lobel

(In darkness, Brian lights a cigarette and takes a long drag as the lights come up.)

I wish I had AIDS. If I did, though, I’d probably lose all the sympathy I had gained after beating testicular cancer… But think of the story: Cancer survivor turned HIV activist – the solo show nearly writes itself… Cancer survivor turned HIV activist. (Hold up, maybe I should wait until I actually have an HIV test before I go around publicly lamenting my negative status) HIV, after all, has all this baggage surrounding it – like people deserved it, or could have not gotten it, etc etc… and my testicular cancer, well, it didn’t have all that, for sure. At least not when I wrote my first cancer play (oh yeah, this is my second cancer play).

My cancer was pure. Perfect. A writer and privileged-white boys’ wet-dream… Cancer was an adversary who came suddenly, urgently and who reminded its victim and the world that all are vulnerable but who, in the end, proved to be the kind of adversary who didn’t kill us but made us stronger. At least it didn’t kill me, (puts out cigarette) forget the others.

The first cancer play had all the necessary beautiful parts (Brian puts out his cigarette) – diagnosis, chemotherapy, sadness, despair, redemption. I did, however, leave out some of the more uncomfortable parts: hooking up with my then-48-year-old Cuban male lover Rolando during my chemotherapy, coming out to my mother the day I had my right testicle removed, how my cancer was originally misdiagnosed because my shit doctor thought that I was just freaking out over having unprotected oral sex with other men… You probably can’t envision any of those three stories in an after school special about cancer, nor could I, which is presumably why I left them out. Trashy stories about faggotry and STD’s belied my cancer’s purity and distracted people from my inspiring journey to survival. I convinced myself that subtlety and/or tiptoeing around the issues was more artistically powerful than FAGGOT FAGGOT FAGGOT.

But faggotry wasn’t the only thing I cut out. When I wrote the first cancer saga, I also thought it might be inappropriate to include my critique of modern American Judaism because, well, it seemed pretty superfluous next to chemotherapy, hair loss, severe depression, etc etc etc. Was it? I mean, it was happening in my life when I was sick that my racist rabbi was using the pulpit to pray for my healing, and was using the same pulpit to dehumanize Arabs and Palestinians which (as you can tell from my use of the phrase ‘racist rabbi’) was more than just a little uncomfortable for me.

Rabbi Goldfarb - Rabbi Hyman P. Goldfarb of Albany, New York, was always outspoken about how he disapproved of me working for Peace Camp – a program for Palestinian and Israeli youth, which we’ll get to - by saying “Brian, I’m not convinced their leaders even want peace.” In his voice, he always meant to qualify the word “leaders” with condescending quotation marks book-ending both sides of it, thereby showing his disdain for Palestinian “leader”-ship. What a fucking dick…

But when I was writing I thought, “People are uncomfortable with cancer patients being angry, and political, or maybe anything other than just ill” – so I just left that whole section out too. The story was getting too complicated and profane. Keep it simple stupid. Keep it simple stupid. And nice. And inspired. And all about cancer and survivorship. So I cut out the queer sex, I cut out the racist rabbi and I cut out the wet dream story. Oh, the wet dream story! That’s the story about my abdomen and my surgery…

Ok, ok, ok: when I had testicular cancer, it had metastasized to my abdomen and my lungs and I had to have extremely invasive surgery which would leave a huge scar down my belly. Now, in my first cancer play I easily related my shock as I learned that the surgery may leave me unable to ejaculate… What I didn’t say was whether the surgery caused said problem or not. Nor did I share my week-long return to Ann Arbor, Michigan before my surgery with the express purpose to have penetrative vaginal sex with a woman prior to said surgery.

I needed to lose my virginity in a big way, and my only rationale for why it was to be with a woman was that I was only friends with lesbians and wanted to prove myself… Ahhh, the virginity adventure and the wet dream story. I should have told the wet dream story. Do you want to hear it? Good, ‘cause I think I’m going to tell it – it’s not as pure and/or inspirational as my other cancer stories, but stay with me, stay with me. I mean, I already called my rabbi a fucking dick and talked about fallatio wanting AIDS, so if you’re still here, well, I’m sure you can handle what’s to come.