by Alan Chin
As it turned out, we needed that money. The hospital bill astounded both of us. They charged for every cotton ball, every pill, each drop of morphine. I could have stayed in the penthouse at the Ritz for what they charged. My morphine bill alone could have fed a family of eight in Bangladesh for five years. The half-million dollar insurance settlement would cover the lion’s share, but there was still a sizable price tag left on our shoulders.
For the first time in my life, I realized what a shameful crime the U.S. medical system is for people who can’t afford insurance. The doctors wanted to perform more tests, but how many hundreds of thousands of dollars could I pour into a hope and a prayer, especially since the tournament insurance company refused to pay another dime?
I didn’t see them off. The journey from Florida to San Francisco had been too emotional. Wheeling through those airports, I saw too many looks of pity and curiosity on the passing faces. It sickened me. Reduced to something to be stared at, I felt small and helpless. Once at home, I refused to leave.
Alone, from the new prospective of my chair, I felt overwhelmed by the number of useless things in my apartment—the Gauguin painting, statues of the Buddha, Chinese porcelain, Tibetan carpets, mirrors, plants—all reminders of a past life. I’d always thought that I kept my home monkishly bare, but every direction I gazed, something stared back at me. My thoughts were drawn to objects. I wanted to throw them all out, everything useless. Anything with no function had to go. I longed to turn my home into a Zen master’s cell.
The only thing I could tolerate was Mr. Toa, my orange tabby cat. But any time I sat in my chair, he kept his distance. While I lay in bed or lounged on the couch, he nuzzled me, demanding a scratch behind the ears, but never while I sat in my chair.
Before J.D. Lambert flew to Spain, he delivered a widescreen television and a satellite dish. He set it up himself and demonstrated how the remote worked. The reason he brought it, he explained, was so that I could watch the tournaments. The Tennis Channel broadcasts all the clay court events, including the French Open, and ESPN also covered the French. Both of which, he assured me, this setup had.
I hated it even before he fished it out of the box. I knew the real reason behind it. It would keep me occupied while I sat in my chair, my new Cyclops babysitter. I tried to say no, that I couldn’t accept such a generous gift, but he failed to hear the anger singeing my voice. He said it was no problem, a loan until they returned. His house already had one in every room. They could spare one.
When he clicked it on, the images tumbled out at an alarming speed, flicking from one scene to another to another with each blink of my eye. It was exhausting trying to keep up. After a few minutes, my head began to hurt. He showed me how to surf the channels, stopping a millisecond on each station before deciding it was no good. “Three hundred channels and nothing to watch,” he said, but he didn’t turn it off. He settled for some program where people competed to see who could eat the most disgusting things.
It is incomprehensible how the greatest educational tool invented since language itself could transmit so much trash, all in the name of entertainment. What is so damned entertaining about watching nitwits feasting on banana slugs? I’d heard so much about the dumbing-down of America, and for the first time, I realized what that meant.
As soon as J.D. left, I wheeled to the remote and clicked it off. Of all the things filling my apartment, that television was by far the most useless. But staring at that flat screen, it seemed to wink at me as it went black, and I realized that it held my future. I was a prisoner within these apartment walls. Sooner or later, I would tire of reading books, listening to music, and surfing the web. Boredom would draw me to it, at first just to watch tennis, followed by movies, game shows, and finally the soaps. Yes, once it sucks you in, you live your life through it. I sat glaring at my future, and I felt the urge to vomit.
I spun around to gaze out the windows, opening one to let in the city sounds and smells. I positioned my chair so that I could lean my head out, to get nearer to all that life out there.
Trapped within my cell, I was appalled at the speed of movement I saw below me. Cars jammed the streets, buses zipped up hills packed like sardine cans, pedestrians bumped and shifted and jabbed their way along the crowded sidewalks. They rushed to get as much as they could while they could. Watching them exhausted me even more than the television, but as least they were real.
My first day alone could hardly be considered being alone. A stream of people dropped in: friends I hadn’t seen in years and family making the obligatory visit. Carrie Bennett called, and I told her not to come. Too many well-wishers had already brought food, cleaned up after me, kept me company. My mother called, and I told her not to come either. I was still angry at them for signing off with the insurance company.
Our landlord presented me with a stack of articles covering my shooting that he had cut from the New York Times, the L.A. Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and several other publications. Like so many of my visitors, he had that placating smile and cheerful don’t-worry-dear-everything-is-for-the-best façade. It was maddening. I grew sick of being stared at, sympathized with, and babysat. I yearned for Jared, and no substitution would do.
The night before he left, he took me in his arms and made tender love to me. I had not retained much feeling in my groin area, but it didn’t matter. I felt immense pleasure in his lavish caresses, his sensual kisses, his formidable body consuming mine. I held him to me, felt his warmth. He whispered my name in my ear while he made slow love to me. I wept. I craved his love—like I craved the morphine shots and the painkillers that I ate by the handful—and he gave it copiously, long into the night.
That first night alone, he called. We didn’t talk long. He described his flight and his charming hotel, and I listed all the well-wishers who had dropped by. I jokingly asked if he and Spencer were behaving themselves, but we both knew it was no joke; it was already an issue. He assured me that I had no reason to worry, but the issue remained lodged in the back of my mind.
I reminded him not to let any ATP officials handle his urine samples the next day when they tested him. “Make sure,” I told him, “to hand the bottle to the independent testing agents and have Spencer on hand as a witness.” I was less worried about shenanigans after the shooting, thinking that they wouldn’t dare pile that on top of what happened, but you never knew.
When we said our I-love-yous and hung up, the warmth inside me cooled until I felt nothing but unmitigated emptiness. I glanced at the television, tempted to let it lull me for a few hours, but I wheeled away. It may hold my future, I thought, but I’ll resist it for another day.
I slipped Beethoven’s sixth symphony, the Pastoral, into the disk player and listened to Von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. I snatched up the stack of articles covering my shooting, wheeled into the bedroom, curled up between the sheets, and began to read.
“Gay Tennis Coach Gunned Down,” and “Right-wing Christian Zealot Goes on Shooting Rampage” and “Governor Denies Any Prior Knowledge” were on the top of the stack. All the articles provided a comprehensive history of the attacker, Peter Mann, including several comments he shouted to the press that God had ordered him to rid the world of homosexuals, but there was precious little information about me. The focus centered on Mann’s motives, and nobody seemed too concerned about the victim.
To my surprise, after just three days’ coverage, it stopped. The tabloids ran articles for another week about the conversations God had with Peter Mann and how the shooting could herald the beginning of the Second Coming, but even they stopped after a week.
Where were the follow-up articles spotlighting hate crimes and the growing violence against gays? Where were the stinging editorials chastising professional sports for not providing adequate security to protect both athletes and spectators? Where were the quotes from politicians stating we needed more stringent gun laws?
I had always viewed the majority of the media as s
leazeballs who would go to any length to build a grain of sand into Mount Everest, but I began to realize how equally talented they are at transforming important issues into thin air. My life came down to a three-day blip, less than fifteen minutes’ reading time, and the world moved on. I knew, of course, that gay-friendly web sites and gay bloggers were still, after these many weeks, shouting my name and turning me into their poster-boy against hate crimes, but the mainstream media had swept the incident under the rug.
I WOKE several times to down painkillers before drifting back into unconsciousness. But by the time morning’s blush had turned into daylight, I felt myself being shaken. I opened my eyes to find Shar bent over me, her eyes glowing in the light. She unzipped a black leather bag and pulled out a plastic-wrapped syringe and a vial of clear liquid. A smile creased her mouth.
“Mama’s got some candy,” she said with a mischievous tone. “Turn over and I’ll stick you where you need it most.” She held the vial up to the window to check the level and tore the plastic away from the syringe.
I turned onto my stomach and there, on the side of the bed, was Mr. Tao. His tail swished back and forth. He leaned his head to one side, as if he were scrutinizing me.
Shar’s voice went soft. “How did you sleep?”
“Off and on. Mostly off.”
She held the vial of morphine up to the window with the needle stuck through the rubber stopper. “Did you have your cave dream again?” She drew the plunger back, almost filling the syringe, and thumbed the plunger back to the proper dose.
“I dreamed I was sitting on a beach, watching the sunset as cool waves washed over me. Where the hell did you manage to get morphine?”
“Darling, there is a black market for everything. We have to be careful with this, no more than two shots a day. The reason the doctors didn’t give you a prescription was that you’re already hooked. So, one in the morning to help you out of bed, and one in the evening to help you sleep. During the day, you use the painkillers the doctor prescribed.”
“Hurry up and give me the damned shot.”
“Tell me, what was sitting on the beach like?”
She set the needle on the nightstand and tucked back the blanket and sheet. She smiled when she saw that I slept in the raw. She plucked a bottle of rubbing alcohol from her bag and unscrewed the cap, turning the bottle’s mouth against a cotton ball.
“Like making love, because Jared was the sea. He kept rushing up the sand, covering me, swirling over my skin. I felt his caresses bringing my legs back to life. I can still smell the salt air, feel his mist on my face.”
She patted my bum with the cotton ball and stuck the needle with a flick of her wrist. She pushed the plunger down and pressed the cotton ball over the puncture. A moment later, she capped the needle and dropped it into her bag.
I could already feel the tension in my body letting go.
“I hear they’ve got morphine drops,” I said. “You just squeeze a drop under your tongue when the pain gets bad. Think you can get some of those on the black market? I mean, that way I could take care of myself.”
“Like I said, you’re an addict. You want to get like Jared was with booze?”
“I’m not Jared.”
“No, you’re not. If he’s the sea, then you’re the sand.” She pulled a plastic bottle from her bag and squeezed a puddle of gel onto her palm. “I’m going rub you down with liniment. It’ll help keep you from getting bed sores.” She rubbed her hands together and spread the gel over the ribbons of scar tissue on my back, working her fingers and thumbs into the non-injured flesh and gently, almost lovingly, massaging the scars.
I groaned with every breath. The pain of it brought so much pleasure. She spilled more liniment onto her hands and worked the flesh of my butt cheeks and useless thighs. I began to wonder if she planned to do my front as well, and the thought already had me feeling the warmth of a blush on my face.
“Is the pain still bad, I mean, constantly?” She rotated my left shoulder, beginning to stretch as well as rub.
“The morphine turns the flame down to a simmer, but it never shuts off.”
“Tell me more about the beach. How did Jared feel?” She began to work the right shoulder, digging her thumbs deep into the joints, bringing more pain and, consequently, more pleasure.
“His waves splashed over my legs and crotch, pulling at me when he rushed back out, as though he were trying to consume me.”
“Sounds very sexual.” She wiped her hands on a white towel she pulled from her bag. She arranged the pillows at the headboard, and I hoisted myself to a sitting position.
My face blushed as she pulled the coverings all the way off. But she draped her towel over my groin area before lifting my left leg, moving it this way and that, stretching and massaging.
“That’s a very good sign,” she said, working the leg while seeming not to notice she was mauling a nude man. “Your sexual appetite is returning. That means your mind is recovering from the trauma. In fact, I’m shocked it’s happening so soon.”
“What are you doing now?” I asked, changing the subject because thinking of Jared had begun to have an embarrassing result.
“We need to exercise your leg muscles every day, move and stretch them like this. Also, the muscles in your upper body have become weak. We need to work them as well. I brought some hand weights so you can start building up your upper body again. I’ve written down a workout routine. It’s the old ‘use it or lose it’ number, I’m afraid.”
I nodded.
“Now that your sexual appetite is recuperating, have you and Jared done anything?”
I smiled, which made her laugh.
It was her turn to blush. “Boys are so bad. Your priorities are so off-kilter. You’re aware of that, yes?”
I smiled.
“So tell Mama. Were you able to….”
“It was sensual and loving and I was able to make him happy. On my all-time list of emotional experiences, it rated in the top five.”
“Now you sound like a chick!” She lifted the towel and peeked at my exposed crotch. “Yes, you’ve still got your balls, but you’re not acting like it.” She laid my leg flat on the mattress and lifted the other leg, beginning the same routine. “Can you do me a tremendous favor, darling? Can you repeat what you just said to Connor? If he approached love-making with that attitude, I’d be the happiest woman on the planet.”
“There are some things that can’t be coached. But before this chick mood passes, I’d like to say I’m sorry about the fight we had last fall. I was a total ass. I’m grateful for what you’ve done for Connor and for what you’re doing for me. It’s wonderful having you as a friend.”
“Christ, I’d better finish this up fast before you begin your time of the month.”
SHAR left with a cheerful “Bye” and a fluttering of fingers on her raised hand. I lounged in bed, drifting to sleep. An hour later, I opened my eyes and gazed around the room with no ambition to rise. I was still curled under the covers, watching the late morning light make figures on the wall, when Carrie dropped by. Two other visitors had come and, when I didn’t answer the door, had gone. But Jared had given Carrie a key so that she could check on me.
“Still in bed?” she said. She wore a lavender summer dress that looked cool and comfortable and showed off her honey-colored cleavage.
“Go away.”
“Not until you’ve made me coffee.”
“Throw me my robe and help me into my chair.”
“No way, lazybones. I’ll wait in the kitchen.”
Anger surged through me. But I thought, Who needs her? I put myself into bed, so I can get myself out. And helping me with something so trivial would be just another form of pity, right?
Okay, first the robe, followed by the chair, painkillers, and a razor over my face.
When I wheeled into the kitchen, I expected the coffee to be poured already, but she had not lifted a finger to make it. She sat at the table reading the morn
ing paper. I glanced at the counter. Both the coffee and the pot were out of my reach.
“You smell like a musty bottle of multivitamins gone sour,” she said.
“Pain medications ooze out my pores. I’m beginning to think that that’s why Jared flew out of here so fast—he couldn’t stand the smell. No kidding, I eat them by the handful: morphine, codeine, Percodan, Valium, Darvon. When you think about it, I’m a pharmacy on wheels.”
Her left eyebrow lifted. “And do you always entertain guests wearing a bathrobe?”
“You’re lucky I got up.”
She folded the paper and laid it on the table. “Maybe I should wheel that big screen TV into your bedroom so you can call out for pizza and never leave your bed.”
I struggled to think of a clever retort, but nothing came to mind. I said, “If you want coffee, you’re going to have to make it. I can’t reach anything.”
“What would you do if I weren’t here?”
“I’d still be asleep.”
“Going without only works for so long, then you die.”
“Jared tried to find some domestic help before he left, but there wasn’t enough time.”
She nodded. “Okay, I’ll help you this once.” She reached behind her and brought out a yard-long pole with a large, grey rubber clamp on one end that could be operated by squeezing the handle on the other end. It was modeled after the devices people use to pick up rattlesnakes from a safe distance. She said, “Now you can reach everything in the house.”
My eyes narrowed to slits as I glared at her. But I took the pole and maneuvered to where I could get a grip on the coffee can. I lifted the can off the counter, but it slipped out of the clamp and, the next thing I knew, a mass of coffee grounds cascaded onto my lap.
Carrie laughed, a loud and unladylike sound. Recovering herself, she pointed at my lap and said, “There’s no way I’m cleaning that up, so don’t even ask.”
With a clenched jaw, I wheeled to the coffeemaker, snatched it with the pole clamp, filled the pot with water, dug for a filter in the cabinet drawer, and filled it with grounds that I scooped from the heap on my lap. It took thirty-five minutes before I had it ready to go. While it brewed, I swept up the spilt grounds. Before I served Carrie her coffee, I wheeled into the bedroom and pulled on Levis and a T-shirt. Dressing when your legs don’t move and your body throbs with pain is the hardest task of all. Twice the call for help hung on my lips, but I held back, remembering her unladylike laugh. I would not give her the satisfaction of laughing at me again.
