A Variable Darkness: 13 Tales

by John McIlveen

  Melanie slid a hand under his cheek and started to turn her husband’s head, but recoiled when she felt the lack of support. Ricky’s head rolled on his neck, and then settled at an impossible angle almost directly facing the headboard.

  “Oh my God, Ricky! What’s wrong with you?” Melanie backed away, twitching and shaking in disgust.

  “Oh God. Straighten it! Quick!” Ricky cried. Panic built within him as his arms and legs rebelled in little spasms.

  “How? I don’t want to!” Melanie whined.

  “Come on you fucktard! Fix it.”

  “Ricky, don’t be an asshole,” Melanie said. “I think your neck’s broke.”

  “Okay,” he panted. “I’m sorry. I’m just scared. Can you please straighten my head? It’s totally freaking me out.”

  “Me, too, Ricky. You should see it. It’s weird. It’s fucking creepy.”

  Melanie returned to the bed, gingerly reached out, and then retracted her hands as if trying to pet a cobra. She repeated the action three times before quickly nudging Ricky’s head into a somewhat normal position.

  “I’m calling 9-1-1,” she said.

  “Yeah. Do that,” said Ricky. He was wide-eyed and nearly hyperventilating as he watched his wife rush through the bedroom doorway to retrieve her cell phone. She returned in less than a minute with the phone pressed to her ear.

  “Yeah. He can’t move his head at all. Yeah. Just his arms and legs a tiny bit. Yeah. Just his head. It moved really weird.” Melanie quivered at the memory. “Okay, I won’t move him any more. No, I don’t think he’s in pain. Wait. I’ll put you on speakerphone. No? Oh, okay. They’re on their way. Good.”

  Melanie ended the call and put the phone on the nightstand. “What happened to you, Ricky?”

  “I don’t know. I just fucking woke up this way.”

  “It’s probably those ten pounds you gained putting pressure on your spine.” Melanie pulled the covers down to expose Ricky’s back.

  “I weigh a hundred-ninety. That’s hardly obese for six feet tall,” Ricky rebutted, though in truth he had recently breached two hundred.

  “Just sayin’, is all. Your back looks okay.” She ran her hand down his back and again pulled back uncertainly. “Wait… Ricky. How come you don’t have any of those bumpy things going down your back?”

  “What bumpy things?”

  “You know… like your backbone bumps.”

  Melanie poked along her husband’s spine and felt only sponginess and the blunt ends of his ribs where they should have connected to a spinal column.

  “Oh my God! I mean it, Ricky. You ain’t got no backbone.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” he spat. “That’s not possible!”

  “I don’t know, Ricky. There ain’t no bones there,” Melanie insisted. “It’s like some kind of miracle or something.”

  “A miracle! How is this a miracle?” Ricky barked.

  “What would you call it, then?”

  Ricky simmered in place until they heard the sound of a diesel engine, followed by a squeak of brakes in the driveway.

  “That must be them,” said Melanie.

  She darted through the doorway, returning after a few moments leading a cop and two heavy-footed EMTs lugging bags, gear, and cases into the bedroom.

  “I’m sure his backbone’s still there,” the cop was saying to Melanie. “Those don’t just disappear overnight.”

  “Yeah. I hear what you’re saying,” Melanie replied. “But I’m totally serious. I think his is gone!” She pronounced the last word goo-wan.

  Ricky recognized two of them. The cop’s name was Danny LaCroix—Ricky had worked with him for the last ten or so years… not directly, but on the same squad—and one of the EMTs was a pretty but severe-looking woman named Shelly something-or-other. The second EMT, a young man who didn’t look old enough to shave, Ricky had never seen before.

  Danny LaCroix squatted beside the bed with the customary palliative cop smile pasted to his face. Ricky recognized the smile because he had used it many times himself. It scared the shit out of him.

  “Hey, Ricky. What’s going on?” asked Danny LaCroix.

  “I can’t move most of my body—just my extremities.”

  “Let’s have a look,” Shelly what’s-her-name said. She pulled on a pair of gloves, grasped one of Ricky’s hands, and told him to squeeze. He did.

  “That seems fine,” she said. “So, you can’t move your head at all?”

  “No. Well, minimally. Not enough to turn my head.”

  Shelly probed Ricky’s back and muttered something under her breath. He didn’t hear what she said, but he did manage to catch the shocked look she and Danny LaCroix exchanged in his periphery, and her faint shake of the head.

  “What?” Ricky demanded. “I have a backbone, right?”

  “Hey. Whatever’s going on, I’m sure it’s minor,” Danny said, trying to reassure him. “We’ll have you right in no time.”

  The EMT cautiously lifted and then lowered Ricky’s head. Twenty minutes later, Ricky was securely bound to a backboard and heading for Lawrence General Hospital.

  Ricky was admitted immediately, only to wait an eternity for X-rays, and then another before being transferred to a private room. Doctors, specialists, technicians, nurses, and, for all Ricky knew, ice cream vendors, filed through the doorway to see the peculiar new patient. An endless progression of pinching, probing, and limb manipulation was followed by even more of the same. Ricky wanted to scream, and he would have run away if he could. After another infinite wait, an MRI, and a CAT scan, they returned him to his room and instructed him to wait for a consult… as if he had a choice.

  Melanie sat on a pleather chair to the left of his bed, staring blankly out the window toward the Lawrence Mill district. She was conflicted and avoided looking at Ricky, even when he was addressing her.

  “Did you hear anything last night?” Ricky asked.

  She didn’t respond.

  “Melanie!” he said, louder.

  “Huh?” she answered, but she still avoided looking at him.

  “Did you hear anything last night?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know… like someone in the house?”

  “No. You know me, Ricky. I would have said something if I had. I slept right through until I got up.”

  “It’s no wonder, you and your fucking sleeping pills.”

  “Don’t give me no shit, Ricky. You didn’t wake up either, and it’s your spine that got took.” She risked a quick glance and returned her gaze to the window. “Anyway, I wouldn’t need sleeping pills if you didn’t snore like it was fucking D-Day or something.”

  They wallowed in their uncomfortable silence for forty minutes until Doctor Leiderman returned carrying two X-ray prints. He was a short but sturdy man in his late fifties, with a graying beard and a receding hairline capped with a dark blue yarmulke. Doctor Leiderman clipped the X-rays to a lightbox mounted on the wall. From his angle, strapped to the hospital bed, Ricky could clearly see the prints and that the unmistakable stack of vertebrae was not present.

  “To the point, Mr. Briggs,” Doctor Leiderman said. “We are baffled. It’s unprecedented. No one here has ever heard of this kind of thing. We’ve searched high and low and there is nothing that compares to this in any records… not in any database or even online.”

  Ricky felt reality tilt and his vision took on a purple hue as he fought to stay conscious. “There has to be an explanation. Spines don’t just dissolve.”

  “Not only that…” said Doctor Leiderman. He pointed to the upper back on the X-ray image and ran his finger down along the spinal valley. “…But if they did, there would be evidence of a dissolved spine—a residue in your bloodstream. You have no history of spinal damage. There are no traumatic markings anywhere on your body. In fact—and even more perplexing—your nervous system is still completely intact and undamaged. It’s mystifying. Normally, many of the gluteal, tibial, and posterio
r nerves thread through dorsal foramina—these are skeletal holes in the lower lumbar and pelvic region. To remove this part of the spinal base you would have to deconstruct the sacrum. This is not easy. It would entail hours of intense and precise surgery.”

  “So, what are you saying?” Ricky asked. “Aliens took my spine while I was sleeping?”

  Doctor Leiderman offered a sympathetic glance and shrugged. “Extraordinary occurrence seems as good an explanation as any we can offer. We’ve had chiropractors, osteopathic physicians, physiatrists, and surgeons here. No one has answers or even speculations… at least for the time being.”

  “So what’s his prognosis?” Melanie asked, pinning Doctor Leiderman with doleful brown eyes. “Is he gonna stay like… like this?”

  The doctor weighed his answer before saying, “Unless another event of a similar inexplicable magnitude occurs, I don’t see any chance of correction or improvement. You, Mr. Briggs, will most assuredly need to start therapy on your musculature to keep your extremities functioning and to avoid the atrophy that will assuredly occur without exercise. Your skeletal structure has no central support without your spinal column, and your body becomes like a… well…”

  “A gummy worm?” Melanie offered.

  “Well… uh… yes,” agreed Doctor Leiderman. “A gummy worm.”

  “So, I’m going to live the rest of my life as a fucking vegetable, pissing and shitting myself?” Ricky’s eyes brimmed as he awaited the doctor’s reply. He could feel his wife’s eyes on him as he unsuccessfully willed the tears not to fall.

  “Vegetable is a harsh term —and not entirely accurate. I’m sure you will be fitted with some form of support system that will secure your back and your head and will allow you to sit and perform minor and moderate arm and leg movements. As for your bodily functions… you are not quadriplegic or even paraplegic, Mr. Briggs. Your nervous system is still functional and so are your abdominal muscles, therefore soiling yourself is optional. Not soiling yourself is optional, as well… with assistance.”

  “It all sounds hopeless,” Ricky moaned.

  “Never say hopeless, Mister Briggs,” said Doctor Leiderman. “Who knows what technology will bring us? As for now, we will be sending you to Mass General, where they are better equipped to deal with spinal situations. Some of the world’s best doctors and specialists are there to help you, so do not give up hope. Not yet.”

  Thursday

  Ricky had arrived at Mass General late the previous evening and checked into the orthopedics ward angry and defiant, insulting the attendants and making undeliverable threats. Dr. Chan, the head of the ward, quickly tired of Ricky’s tirade, gave him a shot that knocked him out until the next morning.

  He awoke early Thursday to the sound of the 6 a.m. shift change and an incessant itching along his spine. He was flat on his back, fastened to the bed by cloth straps to prevent him from toppling. His upper torso was slightly raised and a cervical collar held his head to reduce the possibility of damage to the unprotected nerves of his spinal cord. He was staring at the ceiling, which seemed miles away in the dim glow from the hallway, and at that moment the full brunt of his truth hit him and left him gasping for breath. If things didn’t change—which it seemed they wouldn’t—everything he would see for the remainder of his life would not be up to him, but to the whim of whoever moved him or positioned him. If they wanted to sit him facing the corner, they could… and there was squat he could do about it.

  Goddammit, his back itched!

  He tried to maneuver his arm between his back and the mattress, but the resistance was too much. He was absolutely helpless and dependent—an infant. Yet, even infants had backbones.

  Ricky was just able to see Melanie sleeping on a rollaway cot the hospital had set up for her on the window side of his room. He felt indignant. He wanted to yell at her—demand of her—How in the hell can you lie there sleeping while I’m stuck here like a wad of dough and itching like a bad case of poison oak? He bit his words back, which was uncommon for him.

  She slept on her belly, her face turned toward his bed and her arms hugging a balled-up pillow beneath her head. Her pouting lips were slightly parted and a swath of honey-colored hair partly covered her cheek. The diffused lighting softened her, imparting a childlike purity to her features, and Ricky perceived her in a way he hadn’t for… well, possibly years.

  My god, she’s beautiful, he thought. When did I stop noticing?

  As if sensing his scrutiny, Melanie opened her eyes and pinned him with soft cocoa irises. She held his gaze, though she was still hazy with sleep’s spell and the innocence of the newly awoken.

  Those were the eyes that had captured him so many years earlier, when they had met. He would have leapt through flaming hoops to gain approval in those eyes, but once he had gained it, it seemed the reward wasn’t so valuable any longer. Of course, there would no longer be hoop jumping… or jumping of any variety.

  But they were the same eyes. What had changed?

  He thought of how those eyes had regarded him at first: with love, desire, hope, and lust—even in the not-so-distant past. Ricky knew he was moderately handsome, but he wasn’t Ryan Gosling and he’d been no Prince Charming in their fourteen years together. He was nice enough in the beginning, but as time wore on, he became increasingly angry, self-righteous, and arrogant. Any love, desire, or lust he had received in, say, the past six years had been gifts from Melanie. He hadn’t deserved it, yet he felt it was his entitlement. The understanding that he may never experience it again was an excruciating gash to his soul. He would no longer be looked upon with desire, but instead with sympathy and possibly disgust.

  And contempt?

  He would never again be able to run his hands over Melanie’s body while in the heat of passion or as a soft acknowledgement of her presence. To feel the smoothness of her skin, the rise of her hips, or the heavy swell of her breasts, were all things of the past, and now he felt a powerful yearning he hadn’t felt in years. He thought of the times he could have held her and hadn’t … and he mourned.

  Awareness of time and circumstance set in, and it was clear in Melanie’s expression. She turned her waking eyes from Ricky and he almost cried out.

  Just a while longer… a little more time!

  “Are you okay?” she asked. Although her voice had been hardened by the years, the compassion was still there when you listened—if you took the time to listen.

  Ricky closed his eyes. A part of him wanted to ignore Melanie and the rest of creation and pretend that nothing was wrong. Another part wanted to beg her to hold him and comfort him like a child. To promise—to lie to him—that everything would get better.

  “My back itches,” was all he could muster.

  Melanie pushed her hand beneath him and scratched as well as the position would allow.

  “I don’t want to move you in case I hurt you,” she said. “I’ll do it better when they come to help you go to the bathroom.”

  “It don’t matter,” Ricky mumbled, defeated.

  “Don’t be going all pity-party, Ricky. You’re gonna beat this. You just watch.”

  Ricky turned his head away.

  The remainder of Thursday passed with a continual procession of specialists, much in the same way as Wednesday had. There was a priest, a psychiatrist, a physical therapist, a phlebotomist, and a slew of others digging for answers and offering false assurances. By nine o’clock that night, Ricky was so exhausted he didn’t fall asleep… he plummeted.

  Friday

  Sleep eluded Ricky, just as it had the previous night. He lay in the darkness, his mind whirling without direction, when something triggered his senses. There hadn’t been a noise or a movement, but a feeling, like knowing that it was raining outside without seeing or hearing the rain. Something had changed.

  His bed was slightly elevated, and when he focused his eyes into the shadows, he could just make out a figure sitting in the visitor’s chair near the foot of his bed. How had t
hey gotten there without his noticing?

  Melanie had left for home earlier that evening. The lure of a shower, a change of clothing, and her own bed was just too appealing after spending a night on the visitor’s cot. Had she changed her mind?

  “Melanie?” Ricky asked, hesitantly.

  “Not by a long shot,” the figure replied.

  The familiar voice was deep and eloquent with a mild rasp, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. How did he know that voice? Did it remind him of an actor or a singer? The memory of it taunted him.

  “Who are you?”

  “Who am I?” asked the shadow-man. “Come on, Briggsy. Are you going to lie there and tell me you don’t know who I am?”

  Briggsy had been his nickname in high school. After that, only one person called him by that name, but he was—

  “Mac?” Ricky asked.

  “See that? I knew you remembered me,” said the man.

  His tone was amiable, but Ricky felt an underlying sense of threat, which only increased since the man didn’t move, continuing to sit silently in the shadows.

  Faulkner “Mac” McFall had been Ricky’s partner on the force for nearly four years, until Mac was shot during a drug bust about six months earlier. The bullet had ripped through his larynx and shattered two vertebrae in his neck. The EMTs had responded in top-notch fashion and had managed to save Mac’s life against dire odds, but nothing could be done about his blown-out vertebrae and splintered voice box. The last thing Ricky knew, Mac had been laid up at Whittier Rehab, unable to move or even talk. What made it even more traumatic was that Mac’s mental functions were still one hundred percent, yet he couldn’t communicate beyond blinking his eyes. The fact that he was here in Ricky’s room was nothing short of astounding.

  “You’re better?” Ricky asked. “I thought you were in rehab.”

  “Four months,” said Mac. “You know, a funny thing about rehabs is that when you’re quadriplegic and have no voice, not a whole lot of rehab happens.”

  As Mac spoke, he nodded in his familiar and unique Faulkner McFall way, where his whole upper body seemed to nod in unison with his head, as if promoting his words.