Gambler 500

[Martin Hash]

My son, Heath, and his best friend, Jesse, were drinking Fireball shots when Jesse quietly signaled for Heath to come in the other room. He was coughing, and when he took his hand away, there was blood.
“Jesus, Jesse!” Heath exclaimed. “What's wrong with you?”
“I don't know,” Jesse replied. “It's been going on for 6 months, and it's getting worse.”
“What does Aly say?” Heath asked if Jesse's wife thought.
“She doesn't know,” Jesse sheepishly replied.
“Well, she's going to know now because we're going to the hospital.”
It wasn't good news; how could it be, coughing up blood? Jesse had smoked for many years, and even though he stopped a decade ago, he had throat cancer: Stage 3, not lethal yet, and treatable with Chemo and radiation; if you can call somebody with throat cancer lucky, Jesse was lucky.

Jesse never had a lot of hair to begin with, so the bald look was nothing new, but he was a drinker's drinker, so no alcohol was a bummer. He couldn't eat, so doctors put a tube in his stomach for a liquid diet. Jesse tried to put some Fireball through the tube but that didn't go well, so he stayed off the booze; however, he got a killer Medical Marijuana prescription, and insurance paid for it. He gave me one of the THC tabs to try and I was high for 48 hours but I'm pretty sure throat cancer ain't worth it. Other than the obvious, the other troubling aspects to Jesse's deteriorating health was he was to be Best Man at Heath's wedding.
“What about your cancer,” people asked Jesse.
“Weddings don't care about cancer,” Jesse told them.
“I'm doing a 'Weekend at Bernie's' if Jesse dies,” Heath told everyone, but there were more important implications, namely, The Gambler 500.

The Gambler 500 “race” is a fratboy's wetdream: you have to buy a car for less than $500 and drive it 500 miles through unmarked logging roads where maps and GPS don't work. You can spend as much money as you want on your $500 car after you buy it, and people certainly do; there are a lot of $500 cars with $5000 worth of upgrades at that race. For example, Jesse put “lambo” (Lamborghini) doors all round on the old 1988 Subaru him and Heath went halvsies on. When people saw the doors, and the amazing amount of work it took to put them on, they asked “Don't you have cancer?”
“Lambo doors don't care about cancer,” Jess told them.

Lambo Doors s.jpg

Heath & Jesse and been doing the Gambler 500 for several years already, but they still had to prepare, and it was just before the wedding. Jesse was busy every single night in his garage preparing the car. His neighbor came over to see what all the banging was about: “I thought you had cancer?” he asked.
“Gambler 500s don't care about cancer,” Jesse told him.

Muscular Jesse is now wimp Jesse but there's no trace of cancer. Him and Heath finished the Gambler 500 race in their fastest time ever; Jesse was able to give a gravelly Best Man speech at Heath's wedding; and he even downed a shot of Fireball.
“I thought you had cancer?” someone seeing him with the Fireball asked.
“No I don't,” Jesse corrected them. “Cancer is for people who care.”

Heath, Jessie & Helio.JPG

[StCapps]

Take that throat cancer. Woop woop.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Good man.