Mr. Positive is Ill, Part Three

Notebook Recollections

September 15, Sunday. 6 p.m.

It is verified factual that Carl Benston – Mr. Positive – has had seven months of stage four esophagus cancer and six months of “no more cancer chemo.” So, it was awfully good to see him this lovely fall Sunday out in front of his St. Clair house at his umbrella table. 

“How are you?” I asked.

“Good,” he answered. “A little tired. It’s too hot out to cut grass, 88.”

I asked when he last mowed.

“A week ago. The grass doesn’t grow, but mine does.”

I suggested we motor over to the McDonald’s drive-through.

Carl got a medium Diet Coke, a medium vanilla cone and a nine-piece chicken nugget. (I got a one-piece nugget and ice water).

Then we went for a windows-down West 7th ride. I asked Carl to please turn off his headlight.

“Schmidt’s looks good,” I said as we passed the magnificent but closed brewery.

Carl said, “yes, but not enough people.”

I asked about his best friend Karen.

Carl said she was tired, too.

“Sick?” I asked.

“She has a good doctor. Dr. Micah. He has a white Tesla.”

I had talked to Karen myself a few days previous.

Golden Chow Mein Mary told Laurel Severson who told Karen that other customers had seen Carl walking around outside the restaurant asking “How to get home.”

Carl was a direction-savant. Karen had never witnessed him confused about the points on a compass.

“I think he was just asking for a ride home,” Karen told me.

Meanwhile, back to Carl and my ride, we reached the end of 7th. I turned around in the Post Office parking lot and headed back east on 7th. 

Karen told me that, now that the chemo was going so good and Carl was doing well cancer-wise, his insurance wouldn’t cover his hundred-thousand dollar treatment.

I probably yelled.

“They denied coverage,” Karen said.

“Mother of pearl!” I remember saying.

“Bridgeview fixed it,” Karen said. “A little slip-up.”

In real-time, I asked Carl if he’d been to Golden Chow Mein recently.

“Always,” he said.

“You walk there?” I asked.

“The cab driver, Tex, takes me. Free.”

Tex, doing his good deeds.

“I give him two cream wontons,” Carl said.

Karen had spared Carl any of the discussion about insurance.

“It’s all OK now,” Karen had told me.

Well, Carl is certainly hale and hearty.

Just then, we were passing the beautiful Two Rivers Community Health Building. Our former clinic.

Carl asked, “why did you move from there?”

I let that question pass from my right ear straight through my left and out the driver’s side window into the cool, West 7th night air. Then I sped away from it.

“How about our Vikings?” I offered. “And those Twins.”

“Vikings good,” Carl said. “The Minnesota Twins pretty good.”

It was time to leave West 7th now. I turned north and sped up Ramsey Hill.

“Let’s go to the fair,” I said. 

“It’s gone,” Carl said. “21 days ago.”

“I know, that’s why we’re going there.”

Carl sat up straight and turned his headlight back on.

“Just keep the light on your side.”

In a slice of urban woods at the top of Ramsey Hill, two older street folks with packs on their backs slipped into the trees.

I noticed Carl noticing them.

“What do you think they’re doing?” I asked.

“They’re hiding.”