Free Balls by Julian Tepper, Julian

Henry.
    Then I’ll do it Monday, he said, in a whisper.
    What did you decide about the prosthetic?
    I’m going to take one.
    Dahl said, I think that’s the right decision.
    The doctor started to explain the operation. He told Henry he’d be put to sleep with an anesthetic. They’d go through the lining of the stomach into the scrotum and remove the testicle. At most only one night would be spent in the hospital, but in all likelihood he could leave the same day.
    Will there be someone to take you home from the hospital?
    My girlfriend, Paula.
    Dahl told him it was hospital policy that he be released into someone’s care, but also there’d be some physical discomfort and he’d need help getting around at first. In the case of a surgery like this, some responded better than others. The doctor at the hospital would suggest Henry have his CT-scans administered when he awoke from the operation, and if he were feeling well enough, he should do it then so they could have all of the critical information about the spread of the cancer as soon as possible. In addition to this, however, there was the matter of his sperm.
    Henry’s lips turned out and his bloodshot eyes averted to the sky.
    We’ll need to have a sample put away tomorrow.
    Tomorrow?
    Henry, you never know what’ll happen during an operation like this. So, we need to get some sperm in a bank.
    And that happens tomorrow?
    Or, if you like, you can overnight your semen to their offices.
    Overnight it? Really?
    So you’ll do it at the bank?
    I guess I will.
    By the time Henry was off with Dahl, the party had arrived outside the Carlyle Hotel. The Mills’ suggested a round of drinks at Bemelman’s. Henry agreed. But as soon as he walked in the door he regretted it, for there was Andy Powell seated at the piano at the center of the room, dressed in a black tuxedo, playing After You’ve Gone . He had a vibrant look, a real glow. Henry knew him from around the clubs. But he couldn’t stand Powell, or his playing. He thought it lacked feel, heart, love, knowledge, instinct. He struck notes which didn’t balance order with disorder or reconcile past with present and future. His meanings, they were too straight, missed the curves, the bumps, hadn’t the sense of failure about them or the propinquity to the abyss, the void, which was necessary for not only true greatness, but even moderate goodness. And he looks like an asshole, too. That grin, shit-eating. Henry would like to wipe it off his face. So the Carlyle gig was better than Henry’s at the Beekman. So what. Henry didn’t care. He was a songwriter. That’s what he did. The Beekman was a way of earning money, he wouldn’t do it forever. As it were, though, he should call his boss, Edgar Diaz and tell him he’d have to take some time off from work.
    They sat down in a booth. A round of martinis were ordered. The darkened room was almost at capacity, the lights, soft bursts of gold along the walls. Paula and Marcel sunk into private conversation. Powell was onto Ain’t Misbehavin’. Denise, swaying side to side, told Henry she loved this song, it reminded her of dancing with her father as a child. Henry, who played it most nights at the Beekman—and did a much better rendition than Powell ever could—said, Well that’s great, Denise. Please, excuse me a moment.
    Henry went to stand out on Madison. The sun was still strong in the sky. He stared long at his phone. That he felt anxious about making this call struck him as odd. What was the feeling about, anyway? He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was sick. Perhaps dying. Anyway, he and Edgar Diaz got on well together. (If he wasn’t his boss, he might even call him a friend.) It was one and a half years ago that Henry had tried out for the job and Edgar had hired Henry on the spot. He’d even called him the one . (Nobody had ever called Henry that.) For eighteen