"71" // Episode One

You're listening to I Have No Process. I am your host, Nicholas England. This is the first episode of our inaugural season, which we've called 71. Over the next eight episodes, I'm going to tell you some stories and read you some poetry. If you admire what you hear, you can support us by visiting patreon.com slash I Have No Process or check out our Instagram at I Have No Podcast.

This season is produced by Bryce McManus, features music by the Magnetic Vines along with an original score from the Rooftop Revival, and is dedicated to the memory of a woman who went by many names, the most meaningful of which was Mom.

So what happened?

I was sitting at the airport in Seattle near my gate when Mom called. It had been about a week since we shot the breeze. We gabbed for five or ten minutes before she said something odd. You know, I used to love my tits, but now they're really starting to piss me off. Though this caught me off guard, it wasn't really that surprising. She'd had scoliosis forever, degenerative disc disease more recently. She was overweight and busty. She was getting older. She was about to turn 70. It made sense.

Except the discomfort she was experiencing wasn't in her back or in her breasts. It was in her abdomen, where her breasts seemed to be pressing down more heavily than usual. She'd been to the doctor about it. The doctor said to wear a wireless bra. We both chuckled at this, confident it wouldn't solve anything. But she said she'd give it a try and let me know how it goes. I flew to Oklahoma that day to see my good friend Nick.

Yeah, the other Nick. He's a math professor at a university out there. We grew up in San Diego together. We've been close for more than 20 years. It was late February. Baseball was a month away, so naturally we started talking about the Padres. They'd defeated the Dodgers in the playoffs the previous year. Tatis was coming back. Bogaerts was signed. It was the most resoundingly hyped season of our lives. We were number two in the ESPN power rankings. Had the third highest payroll in the MLB.

An owner who was living for the present. We had an insane lineup. A multiple manager of the year winner in Melvin. Forget having the wind at our backs. The Padres were gonna be a goddamn hurricane. Nick and I mulled over the finer points of what we had to look forward to. We debated which off season signing was going to be more impactful. Wacha or Carpenter? I voted Wacha. His signing was a dream scenario for me. But you know, you can't talk about baseball all day every day.

At least not in the off season. So we started to talk about our respective work. Nick's research in advanced theoretical mathematics was complicated to say the least. But I was eager to comprehend the true scope of his efforts. For years, I had admired his intellect as something both exquisite and elusive. Yet I craved his confidence that I might esteem him more honestly. That week, I made him explain his projects to me ad nauseam in his office.

He showed me models of shapes that transcend geometry. I absorbed what I could, though he kept shaking his head every time I begged for further explication. He knew I didn't belong to his world, that it could only really mean so much to me. And he was right. Damn if I could now, one year later, tell you anything about what he does. I'm sure he'd correct the weak summary I've just provided. He'd say, the models aren't models. The shapes aren't shapes. The math isn't math. He's not a professor.

He just works there. He doesn't do research. He's not even a real person. I just made him up. In any case, once I'd sufficiently deluded myself into believing I'd gotten his gist, we started to discuss what I was working on. I'd been reading books about caves in front of him all week, so he was curious. I explained a bit about the novel I was outlining, my first, all the historical and scientific research that goes into something like that.

In this case, the social state of sixth century France, the art of blacksmithing, the transmission of the Arian heresy, the water tables of riparian cave systems, and a whole lot more. I also had a few submissions about which I was waiting to hear back regarding some poetry fellowships and awards.

I didn't have a single publication to my name, nor did I have anything like a fine arts degree, so I wasn't particularly hopeful about winning anything, but I thought it was still worth putting the stuff out there. Well, once we started talking about poetry, I kept thinking about the Padres.

I told Nick about the one piece of sports writing I'd ever envisioned, a series of linked verse comprising every game in a baseball season, following one team about whom you don't read any articles or listen to any podcasts or radio programs, where talking heads lay out what they think the narrative of the season is. No analysis, no myth building. You watch the games and, rather than summarize them, you simply make observations about what happens in those hours.

Be present and articulate a glimpse of that presence. It had to be baseball if, for no other reason, than baseball has the longest season of any of the major American sports. And therefore, each game within that season has the least relative significance over the arc of the whole. Plus with pitching rotations, call-ups and send-downs to and from the minors, the team is never the same day to day. So each game exists more for itself than it does for some cohesive and continuous story.

It'd be fun to do, but I'd never do it, because who has the time? With working, writing, being a house husband to a career woman, making time for friends and family, I can't commit to watching all 162 games in a baseball season. It's ridiculous. So I'd never do it. But it's a nice thought. When I returned home, I was looking forward to hitting my stride like I hadn't in years. My wife and I moved across the country twice during the pandemic. Once, so Alyssa could go to graduate school in Boston.

Once more so we could settle down in Seattle for good. The moves were extremely laborious and expensive. We were both pretty burned out once we started looking at the debt we'd accumulated. Then a friend of mine died of a heart attack. A month later, I lost a beloved uncle. That winter, it felt like the walls were closing in. But grief is not meant to be permanent. Life had to go on. It was time to finish the outline for that novel. Time to get back to the workforce as a peer mentor.

Soon time to take a trip to Hawaii with Alyssa's family. It was time to feel good again. And then mom called. Remember those wireless bras? They hadn't done shit. And her pain was only getting worse. She'd just contacted her doctor's office to see about getting some tests done. All they said was, I'm sorry, Janet. Your doctor isn't in right now. To which she replied, you got any other doctors hanging around the office today? Well, yes.

Okay, then I want one of those doctors to do some tests on me. She was already on her way in. Said she'd keep me informed. A few hours later, she rang me back. She was in her driveway where they had just called her. Janet, you have to go to the hospital right away. Something irregular popped up on your EKG. She was going with Penny, her best friend who lived around the corner. I'll call you as soon as I have the test results, but it's going to be a while. Okay, I said. I'll be waiting.

I went for a long walk with Alyssa. I hadn't told her that something malevolent was brewing. She wanted to talk more about the novel. Alyssa has relished being married to a writer. She's happiest when our evening digests include all the developments of story and character that occurred throughout the day.

We'd had a bunch of walks like that over the winter, hiking out in the misty forests, discussing the naming traditions of the Merovingians or the fetid theology of St. Augustine, or just what it means for a human being to be pushed to their absolute limit. We felt really connected during those conversations. That day, waiting on a call back from Mom, that was the last walk of its kind all year. Once we got home, Mom texted me. She was ready to talk. I was nervous, but not too nervous.

I was sure it was serious. I was thinking breast cancer, a mournful and life-changing experience, but not necessarily a fatal one. I know many women who have survived their bouts with it, multiple family members in just the past year. I thought, Mom's going to tell me she has breast cancer, and I'm going to comfort her. It'll be a tough road, but she'll be okay. If nothing else, she'll know the family is behind her, that I'm behind her, and she shall want for nothing.

Thus psyched for breast cancer, or some equivalent malady, I called. Mom was very calm, very composed, though nearly inaudible tremors echoed underneath her words. She'd had several scans done, and they had found some spots on her liver and on her pancreas. My mind was immediately a wordless space, because I knew right then and there she was dead. And to this day, I believe she knew it, too. In the subsequent weeks, people heard a multitude of variations on Mom's prognosis.

Some of her friends thought she'd get through it just fine. Others thought she had 18 months or so, enough to fit in a comprehensive slate of goodbyes. The most realistic hoped she could hang on till the holidays. Whatever they heard, they heard it from Mom. And depending on what mood you caught her in that day, and how responsible she felt for the soothing of your concerns, the character of the news was devastatingly flexible.

Just the same, I believe that she and I both understood, in that moment, what was about to happen. She may have forgotten, from time to time, throughout the difficulty of the coming weeks, but she knew what the stakes were on day zero. Her fucking pancreas. Of all the cancers known to the human body, pancreatic had struck fear into my heart like none other from the time I was a teenager. Something about the way it killed Bill Hicks and Satoshi Kon and so many other great artists.

Slain at the height of their power. Out of nowhere. The tape of Marcus Aurelius sped up. Here today, gone tomorrow. The darkness was covering her pancreas. It felt like an insult. Punitive. Personal. Mom and I talked it out. If it was cancer, they wouldn't be able to tell just from imaging where it began. Regardless, the liver and pancreas are technically remote from one another, meaning the cancer had already metastasized. That's the final stage. Stage four. Chance of survival.

Something like three percent. Which is to say, none at all. We couldn't be certain about anything until a biopsy was done. They'd put her on a wait list. For the time being, she wanted to keep her concerns within the family. No need to tell the world until there's something definitive to tell. As soon as we got off the phone, I sat Alyssa down and told her that I was going to need her more than I'd ever needed her before. She wept and wept, while my mind rattled about in its brittle little cage.

The next few weeks were agonizing. Every day I talked to Mom, and every day I urged her to call every hospital within a day's drive to see about getting a biopsy done sooner. If she didn't have cancer, then my ringing the alarm bell could be seen as histrionic in retrospect. But if she had cancer, we might be counting our remaining time together in weeks. And many mountains would have to be moved within that fragile window. We needed that biopsy ASAP.

She called around, but she didn't get seen for a while. In the meantime, I called anyone we had travel plans with. Don't book any tickets yet. Keep this to yourself, but I'm waiting to hear back if my mom is dying. We heard the story of a cancer scare from someone in Alyssa's family. Scans, which had displayed a pervasive and insidious darkness, turned out to be nothing more than a series of strange and benign confusions. This person had every reason to believe they were going to die.

Turns out, they were totally fine. Maybe mom would be the same. I was almost open-minded. My spirit was thirsty for a miracle. I just knew we weren't getting one. A couple of weeks later, she had the biopsy. The doctor who harvested the sample knew there was no point in dissembling. I'm so sorry, Janet, he said. He'd seen it all before. He knew what he was looking at. When I heard about his response, I was grateful to him. No bullshit, no capricious flirting with hope.

He would turn out to be the most responsible doctor mom worked with. Oh, and it wasn't liver cancer. It was pancreatic. She could be dead in 14 months or 14 days, but nothing could be done to save her life. Pretty quickly, it was time to start informing our society. I spent more time on the phone than I did sleeping. Hours on end, friend after friend, patiently explaining that mom was preparing to die. I didn't have a nervous breakdown. My mind was resilient enough to handle the blow.

But my body said, if you're not going to fall apart, then I'll do it for you. I started having chest pain, heart pain, started collapsing, lightheaded, dizzy spells. I thought I was going to have a heart attack at one point. Alyssa had to monitor me for half an hour to see if she should call an ambulance. I went to the doctor to have an EKG of my own, but it didn't show anything alarming. I decided to spend less time on the phone anyway. The family made plans to rally to mom's side.

My father, my brother, his wife, Alyssa and me. Our parents divorced when I was in high school and Max was in college, but they were still close friends and they'd made a promise that they would tend to each other if anything like this ever happened. Mom was surprised that I meant to honor my own vow that I'd take care of her in her final days. She didn't want to assume, you know, I had my own life, blah, blah, blah.

She teared up when I told her I was getting ready to book a ticket with no return trip. However long she had, I was going to be there. I just knew I needed to take care of myself while I did it. I would surely benefit from some novel means by which to decompress, and I needed some way to be engaged with the world beyond me and her. If writing the novel was the main thing I had going for me, that would happen only whenever I could make it happen.

And if there was always something else to do or someone else in need, I'd never get to it. I needed something that had appointments, something that was fixed, something other people could predict and respect and work around. Naturally, I had just the thing, didn't I? I called Nick's dad, Mark, who's been a great friend and mentor to me over the years.

I told him I had some news to share and a favor to ask, and I was going to do it in that order, knowing there'd be no way he could deny the favor if he reckoned the news. Okay, he laughed. My mom has pancreatic cancer. Fuck, he blurted. What's the favor? I want you to help get me set up with an MLB login so I can watch the Padres as often as possible while I'm out there with her. Mark was flabbergasted. Are you kidding? Your mom doesn't have to be sick for me to do that.

I'd do it in a heartbeat. I want to talk about the Padres with you. With this, the course was set. A hundred and sixty-two games, a hundred and sixty-two poems. I'd write about the games when I watched the games, and when I couldn't, because some pressing business compelled me elsewhere, then I'd write about that. A baseball team and a dying mom. Two things that seemed to have nothing to do with each other. What might I discover therein beside?

Game one.

Game one. Rocky's seven. Padres two. March 30th, 2023. A rain delay in the chaparral. Winter's grief unyielding. Snell on the mound. Daza at the plate. My first breath of spring. A well-placed strike. The rain renews as Snell lets one through, then stops when the Padres answer. Months of anticipation. One inning of baseball. A standstill. We watch as groundskeepers pour dry earth on wet. Yard after yard, raked in slow hurry under the blue-dark sky.

The art of pitching lies in correcting your mistakes, seeking redemption by regaining control. Snell puts two on in the third, but three strikeouts later earns his atonement. Peavy visits the broadcasting booth. Wistful. Fraternal. Brimming with love's sweet yesterdays. "To have this level of expectation is a privilege." In a game of quiet tension, our interest lies in false notes and missteps. A hit is a pitcher's blunder. A whiff is a batter's. Nothing happens. Nothing changes.

Until fallibility is punished. Snell trembles in the fifth, and the Rockies take crowbars to the ribs of his replacements. Game 2. Rockies 4. Padres 1. March 31, 2023. My attention arrives to a third-inning deficit. The Padres romp about in chalky neon, glitz of a retro pastiche. The Rockies stand stoic in garments of granite, Lacedaemonian and workmanlike. The quiet ones carry the day. Game 3. Rockies 4. Padres 8. April 1, 2023. Five years ago, today, I fell in love with my wife.

I am not watching baseball. Game 4. Rockies 1. Padres 3. April 2, 2023. In those ten seconds between each take, as the pitcher glares and calculates, breathe out Joshu's "Mu." Game 5. Diamondbacks 4. Padres 5. April 3, 2023. Grisham's mustache drapes over his lips as though it had been groomed and dusted among the caballeros, still outstanding in their daguerreotypes, long rifles of a new West. Game 6. Diamondbacks 8. Padres 6.

April 4, 2023. In a split second, Machado calls time and the umpire calls him out. They argue, but only one of them has the power to kill Archimedes. Machado's day is done. His replacement conjures vengeance with an arrow through the sun. Is this cause for celebration amidst another losing effort? Game 7. Padres 6. Brave 7. April 6, 2023. I almost miss my flight, lingering at home, watching the game, ensuring I am present when the Padres lose.

I do miss the at-bat that walks it off, suddenly preoccupied with packing toiletries, books, the odd pair of socks left drying on the rack. My wife drives me to the airport in the rain, holding my hand, this one-way fare. The tumors populating my mother's organs are metastatic. The legion scouring her liver, roved from the pancreas. Her excess-drag thrombosis hovers like a spider's web in her portal vein. Death immutable.

I jettisoned every extricable thing without a thought, affirmed an ancient pledge that I would undertake her care until the end.