23: Voiceless
The first time it happened Damon couldn’t be sure it was blood. He had this coming down with a cold feeling on and off since he returned from LA, and after the concussion it seemed more insistent. He was hoping the whole tissue dependent catastrophe would finally come on, and he could get sick, get over the constant frog in his throat. It was a good thing he wasn’t working.
He’d coughed up what he’d thought was mucus and spat it into the sink. He had the house to himself. Georgia was working late and going home to her place. Taylor had a gig. He’d turned the tap on and washed the sink out before he thought any more about it. But now he wasn’t so sure.
Then it happened again. The night at Moon Blink he lost his shirt, had the lap dance of his life, picked a fight with Georgia and got inked. That time he had the taste of blood in his mouth and coughed the smell of it into a napkin. He was sitting at the bar, waiting for Georgia. A regular bought him a beer and he drank it. It washed the taste of the blood out and stopped him coughing, so he drank another. She didn’t come before they went on, so he drank another and it was nothing then to ask for a fag and dare Angus to make him put it out. The cigarette did a number on his throat, squeezed the frog down a few sizes, the alcohol did a number on his confidence. It wasn’t a lot of blood.
They had fun that night. He was a bad influence. They were all drinking on stage, something they never did. It got a little wild for a suburban bar that catered to regulars who lived locally.
And then Georgia arrived at last and rescued him and got mad with him and tried not to show it too much. But it was in her voice, in the unexpectedly rough commands she gave him, in her desire to make him behave while she staked her claim on him.
They went somewhere new together in the green room that night, testing each other
. Georgia was so incredibly open to him, so uninhibited she might’ve been the one drinking. It was unbelievably hot, nothing in memory to match it and yet they’d not even kissed, he’d barely touched her. He’d wanted to neck Angus for not leaving them alone. And he hadn’t been able to get that mood back dancing with her, and worse, the landscape changed.
He’d stopped drinking and his throat was silk dragged over jagged rocks. Didn’t matter that he might’ve done that to himself, he lost his footing and then he’d lost his mind. If it was blood it was bad. Another drama to put Georgia though and this time it wouldn’t be accidental, this would be a head-on, better to know if she was up to it.
Still, pushing her like that and in front of everyone was madness. It was the drink and the fear and the idea he might lose her because someone else—Hamish—had ruined her for harder times.
But she’d stood up to him, called his bluff, left him sitting on his arse looking like a dumb thug and he could not have loved her more.
And now it’d happened again. Alone in the house after breakfast and this time there was no mistaking it. His throat was bleeding. He couldn’t pretend this wasn’t happening. He made two phone calls: one to cancel the assessment with the seeing-eye dog people, the other for a cab. In the cab on the way to the local doctor’s surgery, he made another call. This one to Lina. Beyond what the GP could do, he needed a specialist and though it wasn’t her field she’d work her network in a way that didn’t expose his issue to the industry. He didn’t need anyone speculating The Voice’s career was over. He carried one strike against him as the ideal employee, he didn’t need another, even if it was only a scare to feed the rumour mill.
There were a dozen reasons your throat could bleed, from shingles to strep. Cough enough you could bleed and crack a rib. It could be the result of trauma. That was the most obvious answer, that this was an effect of the stupidity with the truck. Except his throat had been tight for months now, his voice unreliable. He’d put it down to exhaustion.
Ideal case it was a polyp or a lesion, a singer’s curse. Relatively common, treatable, no great issue so long as the nodes were benign and you had recovery time. He knew a few people who’d had it done. None he trusted to discuss it with. The industry was competitive for a reason. Not even his relative fame could withstand gossip without questions and potential loss of income as a result.
In the surgery he took a seat and waited. He wasn’t a regular, there was a queue and he wasn’t dying, or in danger of bleeding out. He wanted to call Georgia, Taylor, Angus but what did he say anyway? He didn’t know anything yet.
Before he got anywhere near the doc, Lina called. She gave him a serve for not making another appointment with her. She had a name and address for him, he could skip the GP and go straight there without the usual referral.
The specialist was the best, obviously discreet, would cost a bomb over and above health insurance. Damon had heard the name bandied about. Three hours later he had a dose of chemical magic to soothe his throat and appointments for a barrage of specialist tests, from a biopsy to an MRI.
Doc Reithmyer wasn’t saying it was cancer, but she wasn’t saying it wasn’t either.
He went home and waited for Georgia and Taylor. They’d call Angus, Jamie and Sam and he’d tell them what he knew, what they could expect and how he wanted to handle it. He’d talk to his parents and run through the same agenda.
Then he’d have the tests and they’d wait and they’d get through whatever this was together.
He ordered Thai and when they’d all arrived and the food was being dished out he admitted the reason for calling them together had nothing to do with having a beta copy of the Dystopian Conflict game.
Georgia put her hand into his and he held on. He told them what was going on, like he should’ve done with his sight.
“This all happened today?” Taylor stood behind him, massaging his shoulders.
He nodded. “Couldn’t tell you earlier, didn’t know what to say.”
She gripped the back of his neck. “Had nothing to do with you losing it last weekend, nothing to do with that throat chakra ink?”
He shrugged her off. Angus sighed. He felt Georgia’s breath heave beside him and someone put a glass down hard on the table. Resentment curled in his chest. He’d done this the right way and it still wasn’t good enough for them.
Georgia put her hand over the blue ink on his pec, his vague prayer to the cosmos. “You knew about this last week.”
He wanted to shrug her off too, but only until it struck him how much it might help her to know he’d been acting out of fear. They’d talked about it, but he’d let her think it was the drinking that sparked the fight, the ever-present worry people managed him, weren’t real with him, and the desperate need for that not to be part of what they had together.
“I didn’t know. I coughed some junk up that night.” He shrugged again. “It spooked me a little.” He put an arm around her and pulled her closer. “A lot. It spooked me a lot. That’s why I was drinking. It might’ve happened once before. I can’t be sure.”
All she said was, “Oh, Damon,” and he wanted them all to leave so he could hide his frustration and fear in her skin.