by Marie Marini
Some nights I would sleep on the couch. I would miss that view and those sunrises when we had to leave this place behind but I made the most of it.
It must have been hard for him; I can’t imagine just ending up paralyzed one day. But he should have been more grateful that he had me to take care of him. He would yell all kinds of stuff at me. Well, try to yell. He couldn’t really get enough air to yell. He called me “a cheap dirty whore”, “psycho bitch”, “ignorant country cunt”. He told me I didn’t know who he was. Then he would get really nice to me and be really sweet. He tried to convince me to call 911 and just leave him there for someone else to find. Said he could pay me millions. He almost had me convinced, but I couldn’t leave him. He didn’t understand. I had fallen in love with him. And our sex life was amazing!
I had led a privileged life. I had never been hungry. I had never experienced true fear. I knew there were crazy people out there masquerading as normal human beings. I would sit on my couch in the safety of my untouchable world and feast on the horrific details of what these monsters had done. I watched “Live PD” and “Cops” all the time. “60 Minutes” was another good one full of horror stories of all these unstable motherfuckers posing as normal, sane, law-abiding citizens. I couldn’t get enough details of the asshole who slaughtered kids at school or young adults at a nightclub. The suicide bombers, the terrorists who drive a vehicle into pedestrians like bowling pins. We all wanted to understand what made them do those things. We wanted to be assured that we would recognize it in others and it would never happen to us.
She left me tied to the ironing board.
I have never felt so afraid or so alone. I couldn’t move my body. My head was taped down and I was scared to move my head anyway. I couldn’t get a lung full of air to yell for help, God knows I tried. My cell phone was in the pocket of my pants, they were still lying in the doorway of the bedroom, the waistline laying open like a laughing toothless mouth, ridiculing me. The phone may as well have been in Alaska. Even if it floated over to me on a magical fucking cloud I couldn’t lift a finger to dial a number.
I don’t know how long I lay there before I heard her come back in. There was still this tiny little bird of hope buoying me up that she brought help. She had Walmart bags full of stuff. Oh my God, she had adult diapers. The shame, the embarrassment and the realization that she was right, I was going to need them, all hit me like a tsunami. For three days I begged, I cried, I refused food and water. There was so little I had control over, so little I could do. She raped me repeatedly. She used her hands or her mouth to manipulate me then she would climb on top of me. I was scared that she was doing more damage to my spine but she couldn’t hear me. She started an IV and told me she would keep me alive despite my stubbornness.
On the fourth day, she came in with a stretcher and tears of relief slipped out of my eyes trickling towards my ears. Until I realized there was no one else on the other end of the stretcher. I was trying to get answers, but she wasn’t hearing my questions. My voice was so weak and quiet. Inside I was SCREAMING.
She was happy and chatty, yacking away about how she was going to take care of me. We would be happy together. I was so confused. I was certain the trauma was scrambling my brain. She didn’t really believe she could take me somewhere and we would live happily ever after? She lifted one side of the ironing board on to the stretcher and then the other. She took a bottle of pills from her pocket and shook a few into her palm. I was terrified that any movement could dislodge my already broken neck and kill me. She put three pills in my mouth and poured water in while holding my nose to force me to swallow.
“It’s just a little sedative silly, for your own comfort. I don’t know why everything has to be so hard with you.” She complained as she cleaned up the spilled water after checking my mouth to make sure I swallowed the pills. She strapped me down, put a blanket over me and off we went towards the elevator.
This might be my only opportunity. Please God let someone, anyone come in to or out of the building. I knew it was a slim chance, most of the apartments were still empty.
I don’t know if anyone can truly understand the true meaning of helplessness. You have to taste it to understand. The bitter taste of metal from the blood released from biting your cheek just so you have one little FUCKING THING you can do.
As we trundled across the parking lot, I was still hopeful. I saw a woman walking towards us, a neighbor. I’d met her before, but couldn’t remember her name. Then it came to me, JANE, yes that was right JANE!! I tried again to yell out. The SCREAMING in my head was getting me nowhere. We veered left as Jane approached and Kris quickly loaded the stretcher into a waiting ambulance. Ambulance equals good guys right? Ambulance means help. Maybe she was taking me to the hospital after all.
She climbed in the back with me and slammed the doors closed. I was starting to feel the effect of the sedatives. I wanted to be awake. I wanted to talk to the doctors. I told Kris that I would tell the doctors it was an accident. I told her it would be okay. She smiled and went fuzzy as I tried so hard to keep my eyes open, to stay awake. She was setting up the IV bag. I remember her telling me it was to make me more comfortable on the drive.
I thought transportation was going to be a problem but some of the good old boys I went to fire school with were really easy to convince to let me borrow the ambulance for a couple of hours. I told them I had this boyfriend who wanted to get laid in an ambulance. It’s so easy to lie, I don’t even have to try.
I drove the ambulance to the apartment complex, took the stretcher upstairs and loaded Darren onto it. I regularly train carrying a 150-pound dummy so it was a breeze. He was already secured to the ironing board. I forced a few Xanax in his mouth and made him swallow them. He tried to spit them out, silly man. It was for his own good.
Since it was a new complex, no-one really knew each other yet and the building wasn’t even full. If I met a neighbor it wouldn’t have been a big deal. There was one woman coming towards the building but all she saw was me loading the stretcher into the ambulance. She wouldn’t remember me. When people see a fire truck or an ambulance, they see the uniform and the lights they never remember the face. I was taking a chance, but a very small one.
I didn’t have time to do much with the trailer, so I knew he would probably be a bit disappointed. I did buy a new bed for us, and there was an old musty sofa I would have to replace or cover or something. There was no Wi-Fi out there in the boonies but I got a tv and I thought we could get movies to watch. It was a good size being a double wide, but the peeling paint and dark colors made it look dingy. I could make it nice if I spent a little more money. Including overtime I could make over $100,000 a year. I lived pretty modestly and my house was free and clear so I had some money in the bank. I had known what it felt like to be poor and that would not happen to me again. I was way too smart for that now.
I took a surgical collar from the ambulance and put that on him. Much better than the Walmart collar. I got him settled in the bed with the nice new sheets I got on sale at Target. They were cotton, baby blue with little white stars on them. The walls had been white at one point but were yellowing. I decided to paint them eggshell white and buy some nice artwork, maybe some seashells or starfish stuff. That was popular right now. I would look in Home Goods for bargains. I had to hurry back with the ambulance before it became a problem for the boys. I wish I could have been there when he woke up.
That first night at the trailer I made him my specialty: Chicken curry. Everyone loves my curry, but not Darren. He didn’t appreciate any of the things I had done for him. He was a spoiled ungrateful little brat. Apparently, curry doesn’t agree with him. He had a diaper on but it wasn’t enough. My nice new clean sheets got SO messed up. That is the stink I woke up to at 6 a.m.
I dragged his stinky ass out of the trailer and hosed him down. He actually started to cry. Unbelievable! I lost my temper a bit.
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bsp; “What are you crying for? Is the water too cold? God damn pussy, you can’t feel it! You’re fucking paralyzed.” I left him lying in the grass to think about his attitude and went back indoors. It was so fucking hot outside and now I had all this work to do to clean up after him. It was all going wrong! I bawled my eyes out while I tried to scrub the sheets. Why was life so unfair? By the time everything was clean again I sat on the musty old couch for a minute and I must have fallen asleep while the clothes dryer clanged away in the other room.
When I woke up I felt better. I had a bit of a headache from all the crying but I felt bad about leaving Darren outside. I went to get him. The mosquitos had made a meal out of him. I apologized over and over. I kissed the mosquito bites and put some cortisone cream on them. I made up the bed, the sheets were still a little damp because the dryer wasn’t the best, but it would help cool him down. I kept forgetting that he couldn’t feel the mosquito bites or the damp sheets.
It was a struggle, but I got him cleaned up properly, fresh diaper on and back in bed. I apologized again for leaving him outside, but he had to understand how much I had done for him, this was all for him. We had only known each other a few weeks and I spent over $4000 on him. That’s a whole heap of peaches where I’m from.
I tried to tell her curry always gives me the shits. She kept forcing the food into my mouth and I kept trying to spit it out. Between trying not to eat, trying to talk, and the frustration, I could hardly breathe. I was panting and she was shoveling food in. I knew what would happen and it would not be good. I have never been so humiliated. I had to lay in bed in my own shit, to smell it but not be able to feel it. I saw the disgust on her face and then the anger when she woke up. I wanted to die right then.
She was so strong. She dragged me outside and hosed me down. I wouldn’t even treat a dog like that. I was naked lying on my side on a concrete pad on the west side of the trailer. I was staring under the trailer at some old broken beer bottles, overgrown grass, and weeds. Lots of cigarette butts. I tried to count them as a distraction. Counting became a thing for me after that. I counted a lot to try to take my mind somewhere else. I heard her go back into the trailer.
As I counted I realized I wasn’t alone, I saw two eyes looking back at me from under the trailer. I didn’t know if it was a raccoon or a gator. I hoped for the gator. Turned out to be an armadillo. I begged that poor little fucker to get as far away from this place as possible. God knows she might try to cook him up and feed him to me.
When she brought me back in I was sunburnt, and I guess the mosquitos had feasted on my naked ass. I begged her to just dump me somewhere. I offered her millions of dollars. She laughed at me. She apologized over and over and explained how it was my fault. I was an ungrateful brat and needed to consider the consequences of my actions. I missed my dad so much in that moment I cried. She thought it was remorse.
We settled into some sort of routine. It was becoming clear that she would never let me go, that I would die here. She would disappear for hours or even days. The first time she was only gone for a few hours and she came back with my pants and the shirt I was wearing on our date night. I presumed she had been at my apartment. But that was all she brought. No cell phone, no keys, and no other clothes. I realized then, that she wanted it to look like I went out one day and never came back. My family would be frantic.
There was still the apartment to clean, I had to make sure I didn’t leave any trace of me there. Fire and Police are usually pretty friendly. We like to pretend otherwise and rib each other a bit but we do rely on each other for those scary calls. Most cops don’t do well with body fluids and most firefighter medics don’t do well with violent assholes, so it works out. I had a friend who worked in Crime Scene. Angela was a bit of a slut so I didn’t like going out with her alone because I ended up with the friend of whoever she picked up. She was always broke and desperate for a friend. I called her and asked her to meet me after work at The Dubliner in Mizner Park. It was a loud live music Irish bar; lots of rich kids flirting with themselves in the shop windows. God, I hated that place, it just rubbed in my face how far out of my league I was. I would never feel comfortable with this crowd but I had to do this for Darren.
I had her Cosmo on the bar ready for her when she made her entrance, fake kissing me on the cheek. I moved off to a table out front where it was a little quieter. I gave her this whole story about a raccoon family getting stuck in my garage and dying, the smell, the mess yadda yadda yadda. Told her I needed to get my hands on something that will clean just about anything. She told me I needed to get some Scene Clean XP; smells like shit but better than dead. She said, “That stuff will leave nothing behind. Speaking of behind…what do you think of the behind on Mr. Blue Jeans over there?”
I could have screamed at her I was so frustrated. “Angela hey, how do I get some of that stuff? I can pay you if you can get me some, I’m desperate!” I was almost begging; it was verging on pathetic.
“Sure, sure I got you covered,” she said. “It won’t be cheap. You need a license to buy the stuff. But I know some people. $200?”
I knew she was robbing me blind but I was willing to pay her just about anything if I could get it fast. I gave her the money and she handed me her car keys while making eyes at a guy at the bar. She told me she had a gallon in her trunk that the cleanup crew left at a scene. She had been meaning to return it to them. I couldn’t believe she had it in her car the whole time! ARRGHH. It took all my self-control not to knock her drunken slutty ass off her chair.
I found the jug in her trunk just as she described, I also found a plastic bag to put it in so the security cameras wouldn’t see what I had. Just in case. I rushed back to the bar and slipped her car keys into her pocketbook while she sat at the bar then got myself out of there as quickly as I could. I still had so much to do. As soon as I wiped down EVERY surface in the apartment I could get back to Darren. I even put the stuff in a bucket of water and washed the floors with it. There was no surface in that apartment that wasn’t wiped down with Scene Clean XP.
Our relationship had a bit of a bumpy start, but I really thought we could have something special. He was my first real relationship, my first love, and my first orgasm. We settled into a routine, but it was really hard work. Darren started to get a little movement in his upper arms. He could bend his elbows and had some sensation in his shoulders and biceps. I didn’t know much about spinal cord injury or long-term nursing care so I had a lot of research to do. I still had to do everything for him. I had to feed him, bathe him, change his diaper, brush his teeth…every freakin thing! I told him stories while I did these things, I really opened up to him. Once in a while, I would see that little lopsided smile I loved so much. I told him about how my mom died in childbirth with me, so I never knew her, only from an old photo dad kept on top of the TV. Every night I kissed the photo goodnight and told her I was sorry for killing her, that I should have been the one to die like Dad said. Dad said when I was old enough, and he would let me know when that was, I would have to take care of Mom’s duties.
I knew Darren was falling in love with me. I saw tears in his eyes sometimes when I told him my stories. It wasn’t anything to be sad about, but Darren is a big softy and he loved me so much.
Darren could talk but most times he didn’t. We would just watch tv or a movie. I had all the Disney movies, but Cinderella was my favorite. We watched that one a lot. His breathing was still shallow so conversations were a bit stilted. Always would be from now on, but I didn’t mind. I kind of liked the quiet. He kept telling me he was in horrible pain. I couldn’t understand how that could be if he couldn’t feel anything below the neck.
I started doing research when I was at the station, I found out that sometimes paraplegics would suffer from nerve pain and even strong painkillers up to morphine weren’t always effective. I explained it to him and told him that I couldn’t get morphine but that whatever painkiller I gav
e him, he needed to accept that it might not take the pain away and there is nothing that I or God could do about that. Turns out Darren wasn’t Catholic.
So I taught him about the suffering of Jesus.
He really was lucky he had me to explain all these things to him, he was kind of dumb. I know he didn’t really understand religion, but I had to try, otherwise, he was going to hell. The only way to the Father is through the Son and if you don’t know Jesus you go to hell. It was simple really. Dad told me that we were Catholic, but we stopped going to church when Mom died. So Dad taught me about Jesus and God and stuff himself. Dad would get really angry at God sometimes and that scared me. Other times he would just look at the picture of Jesus and cry. I told Darren about these things and tried to explain God to him so I could save his soul. Tricia and Keith were Christians but not Catholic. They used to talk about God and blessings but they never went to church. The first time I was ever in church was at Tricia’s funeral. It was loud and cold and echoed everywhere. I didn’t like it. I would stick to the God my Dad taught me about. A vengeful God who would judge and punish the weak. That made more sense to me. I hadn’t been weak in a long time and never would be again. God loves us but he was like the Dad and we were like kids who got in trouble sometimes. There are consequences. You had to pay the piper was what my Dad always said. I did the best I could to explain it to Darren in a way he could understand.
I decided to just put a slipcover on the old sofa. I sprayed it really good with Febreze and put the new cover on. I got some paint from Home Depot in West Palm Beach. I didn’t do any supply shopping near my work, my house or the little love shack and never the same store two or three times in a row. You need to make sure no-one pays attention to you or to what you buy. That was a lesson my brother Sam taught me when we were kids. But back then we weren’t buying, we were stealing.
