“Oh, Prair,” Macie laughed. “You’ve got balls, I’ve gotta say that about you. You’ve really got some balls.”
“I got eggs, Mace, but they’re big shiny brass ones and know what they want, and how to get it.”
“Well, whatever you’ve got, you amaze me,” Macie replied, shaking her head with wonder. “I can barely get a gorgeous brunette to say hello, or go on a lunch date for chrissakes, and you, you just decide you’re gonna spend a weekend with one. Do you even know this chick?”
“Nope. And, come on, is that reeeeally necessary?” Prairie’s face was a mixture of mischief and sincerity. “I mean, I slept with a friend of hers—that’s usually enough.”
“Oh my god.” Gwen feigned fainting. “Someone needs to check this girl’s testosterone levels.”
“Shaddup… you guys’re just jealous.”
“Damn right!” Macie proclaimed. “I want whatever you’ve got, Prair. Even if I have to take shots to get it.”
“Oh, for sures, me too.” Gwen giggled, nudging Barbie.
“Not me… I’d stick with abject loneliness if I had to. I love you, Prair, but I’d rather wait for somebody special. I’d be afraid that by the time Mrs. Right came along,” Barbie winked at Gwen, “I’d be too jaded to recognize her.”
“Well, I’m willing to take that chance,” Prairie said with confidence. “What I’m not willing to do is pass up a gorgeous brunette and a whole weekend of unbridle sexual pleasure hoping that someday Mrs. Right shows up on my doorstep. It just doesn’t work that way. Hasn’t for me, anyway. I don’t even know if there’s such a person as a Mrs. Right. Anyway, that said, I gotta get ready. The night is aging fast!”
As Prairie exited the room, she was followed by a chorus of commentary.
“You’re such a cad.”
“Thank god I’m your roommate and not one of those unsuspecting chicks at the bar.”
“She’s terrible.”
“Bad.”
“Yeah, well, I’d trade just one of her weekends with all of mine any day of the week.”
“Yeah.”
“Yep. No doubt.”
The room was suddenly silent as each of Prairie’s roommates contemplated Prairie’s life compared to theirs.
EIGHT
Battles
8.1—Government Issue
Dear Mother and Papa,
I got your postcard from Tunisia before I left Goodfellow, but I didn’t write back because I wasn’t sure you’d still be there. I noticed the postmark was already weeks old. Anyway, I was also pretty busy getting ready for the trip back here. I basically just wanted to write and let you know that I finally made it out here. The trip itself wasn’t that great, but it’s not real easy traveling in a wheelchair. I slept most of the way, which I tend to do anyway. It’s because of the painkillers I take. I’m glad you’re not going to cut your trip short to come home after all. I’m doing just fine and I’ll just be busy all the time with the physical therapy—I probably wouldn’t have time to spend with you, anyway. I guess the goal is to get me walking again, though there seems to be some doubt as to whether I’ll be doing that anytime soon—if ever. I can’t imagine walking again, but all I can do is try, I guess. I considered your offer of staying at the house, but I’ll be in therapy three times a day so it didn’t seem fair to ask Xavien to spend his days loading, unloading and driving me back and forth. I also don’t want to freak Izzy out over all this—you know how she can get sometimes. I wouldn’t be able to get up and down the the stairs anyway, so I’ll just be here at the Vets Hospital for the next three or four months, maybe more, depending on how things go. If you’re planning on extending your trip as you mentioned was a possibility, I’ll probably be back in Texas by the time you get back, so I guess I’ll see you when I see you. Hope you’re having fun.
Love, Mary-Mackenna
✏
Em carefully re-read the letter she had just written in a shaky scrawl—the unfortunate effects of her pain medicine—then crumpled it up and threw it with all the strength she could muster. The crumpled letter floated anemically through the air, landing softly in the middle of the linoleum floor.
“What a load of horse crap,” she muttered, then laid her head back on the stack of government issue pillows, closing her eyes to keep her bleak surroundings out.
She was alone in a two-tone grey room at the far end of the Veterans Administration hospital nursing home ward, with only five empty beds and a 21” RCA black and white television to keep her company. The television speaker buzzed intermittently, and the horizontal hold didn’t on all of the channels but Channel 13, limiting her viewing pleasure to Captain Kangaroo, Romper Room and cartoons in the morning, the news at noon, five and ten, and old movies throughout the afternoon and evening.
Two sets of long, sealed, horizontal windows facing another wing of the large hospital building provided nothing in the way of scenery and little natural light. Only when the sun was highest in the sky did the room brighten at all; otherwise, throughout most of the day her room was draped in gloomy shadows cast from the ten-story wing directly across from her wing. Her ward was on the third floor of a five-story building, one of five separate wings, all representing different phases of government funding, architectural styles and eras.
Her imprisoned leg was propped up by means of a creaky adjustable hospital bed and two flat pillows borrowed from the other beds. Alongside the bed sat her government-issue wheelchair, parked and ready for her next excursion to wherever her schedule dictated. Whether for physical therapy, orthopedics, her daily outing to the patio to sit with veterans of various wars with every ailment imaginable and unimaginable, or to the bathroom for a bath or simple physical relief, the wheelchair was her sole mode of transportation.
All of this dreary, government issue crap, she thought, when she could have had a private room at Cedars Sinai, the best physical therapy money could buy and every high-tech contraption available. It was hers for the asking, but she would rather die first. Well, screw her parents, she fumed. She’d do just fine on her own. She didn’t need their money or them, for along with it came the control, expectations and obligations.
8.2—Options
“Em, you’ve got to try. I’m doing all your work.”
“It hurts,” Em said flatly, without emotion.
“Of course it hurts,” Prairie soothed. “It’s supposed to hurt. If it didn’t hurt I wouldn’t be doing my job. Jesus.” she complained, “We just can’t keep doing this week after week, Em. It’s already been three weeks and nothing. You’ve essentially achieved a big fat nothing. I’m telling you, if you don’t make progress, I’m gonna get pulled off your case and that’ll be that. You’ll be stuck in that wheelchair for the rest of your life, ‘cause no one else will take your case. I’m the last of the Mohicans.”
Prairie’s short diatribe was met with a stony silence, except for the ‘that’s stupid’ look from Em. It was lunchtime—Prairie’s favorite time to work with Em—and they were alone in the rehabilitation room. They met three times a day, but this was the most productive time, if their sessions could be considered productive at all. For three weeks Em had silently ignored Prairie’s instruction. Her only participation thus far had consisted of allowing Prairie to manually do the physical therapy for her, whether it was on her good limbs to maintain muscle mass, or her injured leg to build strength and flexibility.
Typically, Prairie would work with a patient once a day or, depending on the case, perhaps only two or three times a week. This, however, was a special case with orders coming down from on high that Em Martín was to get high priority. So, for forty-five minutes, three times a day, Em would lay limply while Prairie dutifully attempted to exercise Em’s limbs, frustrating Prairie to no end.
On everyday but this, Prairie maintained the façade of a positive attitude, hoping to inspire Em, while on the inside she simmered with every snub and monosyllabic reply with the knowledge Em was taking time that other patients coul
d have, and should have. Today, however, she could no longer hold her tongue. She was frustrated, and feared she was going to lose the battle if she didn’t stop with the Mary Sunshine act and start raising a little hell.
After three weeks she had yet to make any connection with her patient, and as far as she could tell, there was no improvement at all. Somehow she had to get through to this woman or she would fail, and failure for Prairie was never an option. She stared at Em, laying on the treatment table as if dead, her arms and legs resting lifelessly, her face expressionless, and her gaze fixed on somewhere unknown. Waiting for an answer from Em, Prairie could hear a distant ticking sound from the clock on the far wall, a faint reminder of precious time running out.
“Is that what you want?” Prairie reiterated to Em who remained in a supine position on the treatment table.
Silence.
“Em, would you stop with this goddamn zombie act and fucking answer me?” Prairie leaned into Em and gently took her face with one hand, turning Em’s face to hers and demanded, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life in a chair?”
Em wrested her face away from Prairie’s loose grip and said dully, “I don’t care.” She shrugged and turned her face away from Prairie.
“Yeah, so you say.”
More silence.
“Em, please talk to me. Tell me deep down inside you care and that you really want to walk again. Someday. Please tell me you really care and you want to walk, and I will help you.”
“I don’t.” Em’s reply was barely audible.
“You don’t.” Prairie looked around the room and it seemed to distort just for a moment before taking on a crimson hue, and suddenly she felt as if she were going to blow a gasket or faint. Mentally she began to count to ten, but continued counting to twenty for extra measure.
Em remained silent.
Once the room regained its proper shape and color, Prairie continued to try to reason with her stubborn patient. “Well, I do. I care.” Prairie’s tone softened considerably. “Look, most people with your injuries would be walking around with a wooden leg right about now, well, more like a plastic leg, but… that’s not the point. You, you got lucky. You won the jackpot ‘cause you happened to be in the right place at the right time…”
Em interrupted Prairie with venom in her voice. “Oh, right. I’m lucky.” She stared directly at Prairie. “Get lost, Prairie,” she added with a calmness that made the hair stand up on the back of Prairie’s neck, then turned her gaze back to the ceiling.
“Okay,” Prairie conceded, blithely ignoring Em’s directional utterance, “You had a horrible accident, but because you had your accident in a certain place at a certain time, you got the kind of help other people in your situation would give anything for. You got a fucking miracle. If you’d just cooperate a little and pull your head out of your self-pitying ass, in no time at all you’d be able to walk. Em,” Prairie pleaded. “Do you really want to be pushed around the rest of your life? Are you telling me you’re willing to throw an incredible gift away because it hurts? Or because you’re mad that this happened to you?”
Em spoke in an even tone as she continued to stare at the ceiling. “I didn’t ask for this stupid gift. I didn’t ask for any of this. As far as I’m concerned you can let me rot because I don’t care. I don’t care if I have a leg, or a wooden leg, a plastic leg, or no leg. I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re here, or you’re not. Just… just leave me alone.”
“You’re full of shit, Em Martín.” Prairie dismissed Em with a wave of her hand and walked away, heading for the door before she stopped and whirled around. “I don’t know why you’re pulling this martyr crap,” she said as she stood in her tracks. “But from where I stand, that’s all it is. And one day, when you get over yourself—and you will, you will get over yourself someday—you’re going to wake up and decide to get your ass in gear, and guess what? It’ll be too late. Too late. The window of opportunity will have slammed shut on you,” Prairie emphasized, then continued making her case as she made her way back to Em’s side.
“It may be too late already, but if you don’t jump on this and start working hard, and I mean really hard, you’re going to miss any chance you may have left. Use it, or lose it. And then all those surgeries will have been for nothing.” Prairie’s shoulders slumped a little in defeat. “It’ll all have been for nothing.” She shook her head with disappointment.
“So what,” Em answered with a little more gusto.
“Yeah, well, it’s easy to say ‘so what’ while you still have options. Right?” Angered now by Em’s snotty attitude, Prairie strode with purpose a quick twelve steps to Em’s wheelchair and half-dragged, half-rolled it to Em’s side as she spoke. “We’ll see if ‘so what’ rolls so easily off your tongue when your only option is this chair.” With controlled violence she pushed the chair against the rehab bed.
“Go to hell,” Em replied in a tone that was losing its evenness.
“Do you really want to be wheeled around the rest of your life?” Prairie grabbed Em by the shoulders and partially lifted her off the bed. “Do you know what you’re asking for? To be an invalid, pushed around… the rest of your life?”
Em hung limp in Prairie’s grasp, looked right into Prairie’s eyes and waited a beat before saying, “Screw you,” in dead, monotone voice.
“Oh.” Shocked at the lack of emotion displayed by her patient and stinging from the not-so-subtle slap, Prairie gently released her grip and backed away from her. “Okay.” Suddenly lost, she looked around the room, searching for something, someone to help her figure this whole thing out, but there was nothing and no one. Em continued to lay lifelessly on the treatment table, which made Prairie furious. That was it. She was finished.
“Well, obviously the intelligence level of this conversation has deteriorated considerably, so… I think we’ll just call it a day, shall we?” Prairie waited for some sort of acknowledgement but was once again met with utter silence. Her anger flared as she silently debated for just a moment before making her decision. She pulled Em’s wheelchair over and lined it up perpendicular next to the bed.
“Since you’re so smart and you love your chair so much… I’ll just let you figure out how to get back to your room.” With that, Prairie walked with purpose toward the exit, stopped at the doorway, turned to Em and said, “This afternoon’s session is hereby cancelled. I’ll see you tomorrow. So.” There was no response from her uncooperative patient. “Fine. Wallow away,” Prairie spat the words out as she quickly turned and disappeared into the hallway.
NINE
Evil Lurks
9.1—Richard Treadway
Richard Treadway crumpled up his brown lunch bag and looked at his watch—twelve-thirty. Swiveling himself around on the concrete picnic bench to observe the comings and goings from the hospital rather than his fellow luncheoners, Treadway leaned back against the edge of the table, his long legs stretched out in front of him, and pondered his options. His pants rode up past his ankles, exposing dingy white rumpled socks—a slightly darker shade than his uniform. Leaning back with a little more pressure, the hard edge of the tabletop pressed into his spine, giving him a strangely pleasant sensation.
Having finished his lunch early, Treadway pondered whether he should relax and enjoy the sunshine, or give Rehab a quick sweep before the one o’clocks started streaming in. He might even catch a glimpse of that Ortho patient before she finished her mid-day rehab session. He removed his heavy-rimmed black plastic glasses and studied the lenses just for a moment in search of the possible smudge blurring his vision ever so slightly in the left eye. Finding nothing of consequence, he smoothed down the white medical tape that secured the broken temple and returned the eyeglasses to his face.
With mild interest, he watched an elderly volunteer from the VFW emerge from the hospital pushing a double-amputee in his wheelchair through the electronic door and out into the sunshine. The patient motioned the volunteer toward the picnic area. Tread
way nonchalantly turned his face away as they passed by. It was one of those days when the weather made him want to be anywhere else but work—one he might even consider playing hooky for—but he couldn’t get her off of his mind.
Though the temperature was a pleasant seventy degrees, Treadway’s forehead and the back of his neck suddenly began to sweat. He ran his bony fingers through ragged-cut hair in a futile attempt to keep the straight, lifeless strands away from his face and in place, but to no avail—they simply fell forward and back into his eyes.
With the Rehab patient crowding his thoughts, Treadway glanced at his watch, then made a quick, sweeping view of the area. He grabbed the crumpled remains of his lunch, sprang to his feet, and with a quick pace, headed to Rehab with high hopes.
9.2—Little Turtle
Prairie picked at the cold leftovers, still in the Tupperware container, with the phone cradled between her ear and shoulder as she spoke to her roommate Gwen Love.
“Oh, I’m not too worried. At the most, she’ll only have been on her own for about thirty minutes before lunch is over. I certainly wouldn’t have left her during our evening session. No way.”
“I don’t know, Prair,” Gwen fiddled with the coiled cord of her telephone receiver as she doodled on her notepad. “Aren’t you afraid she’ll hurt herself or something? What if she falls off the bed trying to get into her wheelchair?”
“Oh, great. Thanks, Gwen, you’re really a comfort!” Prairie teased. “Remind me why I called again?”
“You know damn well why you called, Prairie. You’re having a bad day, you’re eating lunch, alone in your office, and there’s no one there to comfort you. You needed to talk to someone about the horrible thing you just did to your poor, helpless, patient.”
Prairie Fire Page 14
