Everything Changes

masses, eat with the classes,” Bill says. “Don’t lead with your chin,” Bill says. “Measure twice, cut once,” Bill says. “Sell yourself, then your product,” Bill says. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” Bill says.
    Bill would be significantly more convincing if he weren’t the oldest executive in middle management by at least ten years. He carries with him the smell of stale coffee and bad aftershave, and wears the haggard expression of a man struggling under the weight of his own mediocrity. He is a career middleman, and a stark reminder that I have to get the hell out of here before I become him.
    “I see from your Open Order Report that you’re shipping the Nike signage,” he says, drying his hands painstakingly with a paper towel.
    “That’s right,” I say. Bill might as well stay in the restroom, because he’s going to shit a brick when he finds out what’s going on with the Nike order.
    “What’s that, hot-stamped acrylic?”
    “Silk-screened.”
    “Ah,” he says, nodding sagely. Bill knows from silk-screening, the nod says.
    “Congratulations, Zack,” he says, grabbing another towel. “Reeling in Nike was a major coup. I’d watch that one carefully.” He looks into the mirror and all but pulls out a compass and protractor to align his necktie.
    “Thanks,” I say, desperate for him to leave so that I can pee in private. The pink, virgin skin peeking out from underneath his deteriorating scalp is making me think of chemo and radiation, and the word “cancer” floats ominously across an LCD display in my brain.
    Bill finally leaves me in an aphorismic cloud. He cautions me to stay on top of it. You have to crawl before you walk. You can never have too many caring eyes. And finally, stepping out of the men’s room, he lobs back one of his favorites: You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.
    I dash into a stall, unzipping as I go. My urine stream has returned to its customary vibrant yellow, and watching it, I feel my hopes soar, as I detect no traces of the faint rust coloring from this morning. I feel a smile forming in the corners of my mouth, and a great bubble of relief rises up in my chest as I zip up my fly. This morning was just a fluke, a mild physiological burp, and nothing more. But then, as I lean in to flush, my eye is caught by a tiny splash of color floating in the bowl, a red liquid nucleus with tentacles that swirl and fade into the dominating field of translucent yellow. Damn.
    Washing my hands, I find myself wondering what a tumor actually looks like.
    I spend the next hour scouring medical Web sites, searching for possible answers. The presence of blood in the urine is called hematuria. It may be caused by an injury to the urinary tract or by the passing of kidney stones, but my lack of pain seems to rule out those possibilities in favor of various vascular diseases, kidney ailments, tumors, and of course bladder cancer. My phone rings. I ignore it.
    I retrieve my doctor’s number from my PalmPilot and call his office. He’s with a patient, I’m told by the receptionist. Would I care to hold? I would. I am treated to the Muzak version of the Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday.”
Ruby red,
I think, and we’re back to the blood in my toilet.
    “Hello, Zachary,” Dr. Cleeman says. “How are you?”
    In no mood to exchange pleasantries is how I am, so I dive right in and tell him. He asks me a few questions. Has it ever happened before? About how much blood? Was there any pain? He puts me on hold for a minute and comes back with the number and address of a urologist.
    “Dr. Laurence Sanderson. He’s on Park Avenue. Go see him as soon as you can.”
    “Do you think it’s something serious?”
    “Probably nothing,” he says with less conviction than I’d like. “But you need to get it checked out. Tell Dr. Sanderson that I said he should see you today, okay?”
    I hang up and quickly call the urologist. His receptionist grudgingly squeezes me in for a lunchtime appointment. “You might have to wait a little,” she warns me in a clipped Russian accent before hanging up.

Chapter 5
    Dr. Sanderson has salt-and-pepper hair, an impeccably trimmed beard, and sharp eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles. He looks exactly like what you would want your doctor to look like, except that at thirty-two years old, you don’t want your doctor to look like anything, really, because you shouldn’t need a goddamn doctor,