by Rolli
Like most kids with no friends I’ve had imaginary friends. I used to have a cat and a friendly octopus but now I just have Mrs. Ramshaw. She’s an old lady with swollen legs who I imagine lying in the guest bedroom, which is the next room down from mine. I’ve never really pictured her face, just her swollen legs projecting over the edge of the bed. I guess she’s that tall.
I can’t fall asleep without first thinking of Mrs. Ramshaw in the other room. I think of how old and sick she is, and how her fat legs stick out. It doesn’t make sense but I only feel comfortable and okay if I know she’s there. She doesn’t say anything or do anything, just lies there breathing. My mom takes pink tranquillizers. Mrs. Ramshaw’s legs are my pink tranquillizers. I just think of them sticking out and I drift to sleep.
I guess I try not to think about Mrs. Ramshaw’s face because . . . it might be my face. In the morning, when I wheel past the guest bedroom, I always check. I can’t go by without checking. But I know if I ever really saw Mrs. Ramshaw lying there with my face I’d flop over dead. It’s unhealthy, but . . . That’s always how I imagined I’d die.
Halloween
Every year to help me feel normal, my mom dresses me up as a cat or a lobster, and wheels me around the neighbourhood. She used to put on scarier costumes but I just wasn’t into it. When you open the door and there’s this sad kid kitten sitting there . . . It’s sort of cute and sad, like a puppy with three legs. But when it’s a zombie in a chair, I watch their eyes, they are just genuinely horrified and sorry. They drop the licorice in the pail without smiling. Then slowly shut the door.
Last year I decided I didn’t want to bother anymore, it was too much drama. I can’t even eat hard candy. But my mom said she was worried I might become a shut-in and wrestled me into the lobster suit. She never dresses up as anything, she dresses as a neurotic mother. To express my disgust, I upset the candy pail skull, but then she put a string on the handle and around my back so I couldn’t. So I put up with it. I just pretended to sleep. My hope was that people would think she was abusing me to get candy. Which wasn’t too far from the truth.
Likes
I like Charles Dickens, I like Agatha Christie, I like Arthur Conan Doyle. I don’t like Shakespeare yet but I think that I will. I like Lewis Carroll a lot, thought NOT Sylvie and Bruno. I like some things by Robert Lewis Stevenson, but not the early things. I like Ray Bradbury, but only the early things. There aren’t many children’s things I like. Children’s writers write like they’re desperate to be your friend, and you’re wearing sunglasses that can’t see desperation.
If I find time, I’d like to fall in love with poetry.
Meteors
Usually at night the old man stopped pushing me, but some nights he just kept on going. Looking up at the stars and not really watching where he was going. Sometimes as he was looking up he’d say Sirius or Vega or Polaris. He was actually pretty knowledgeable. I wondered if he’d been an astronomer or something. And why an astronomer would steal a wheelchair kid.
Normally when it got dark, though, he’d stop. He’d wheel me behind a bush or something and lie down beside me. If it was raining — well one time he took his jacket off and draped it over my head like I was a parakeet. I appreciated it but the odour was malevolent.
Only one time did he take me out of my chair and lay me on the ground. I was both nervous and refreshed. Because there were parts of my body, from sitting, that now felt like produce. But when a really strange person who stole you lays you down in the bushes, if you don’t get nervous, you’re demented. He just lay me down, though, and lay down beside me. He didn’t do anything or say anything. Then he pointed up.
It was a meteor shower. I’d never seen one. It was basically streaks of dust. The dust glowed brightly for a bit, then disappeared. There was maybe one meteor every thirty seconds. They would’ve been high in the atmosphere, but it seemed like if you reached out, you could feel the dust on your fingers. I had to stop myself from trying.
After about a half hour, the old man lifted me back into my chair. Then he lay down in the dirt and went to sleep.
It really wasn’t much of a meteor shower. More of a meteor dew.
Pretty much everything is disappointing.
The Sea-Wave VII
It happened.
The sound of thunder, of water. Before I could rise from my bed, it lifted. It was taken, by the wave.
With so much violence, I was thrown. Striking the door of my prison. I cried out, then, rising in water, trying the door. My eye level with the grille. I looked through it, and a man looked through, wildly. Water poured over him, and flowed now, through the grille. He rushed away. I thrust . . . my fingers . . . through the grille. Through it, I could see, dimly, men. Running.
I did not know how fast the water rose. My head touched the stone ceiling. There was nothing, onto which to hold. Only my life. For a moment, only, of more life, I would hold my breath. I would wait, until it reached . . . the scar, on my ear. My final breath, would be the film of air, on the water. I would draw it off, the film, and hold it, holding closed my eyes.
More thunder. The door. It broke open. Crashing against the wall. There was a rushing, a suction. It pulled me deep underwater, through the door. Into the hall.
I struck my head, on the wall. Men were running. I rose, choking. I rose and fell again. I had breathed in water, and burned. As I stood burning, the wave came against me, again, and broke me. I struck the wall again. I was pinned, by water, on stone. It was very nearly to my knees, the water. It was rushing from the door. It was cold, and burning.
At the end of the hall was a staircase, of stone. Everywhere, men were running. Men . . . were beating, the sealed doors. Terrible, their rhythm, in my ears.
Candles, in their iron stands, were lifting and . . . extinguishing.
Men were running.
There was somewhere, a staircase.
I pulled away from the wave. I somehow . . . escaped it. I felt along the wall. My head in pain. The water reached my knees.
I could see nothing.
Paw-Paw
When Tay-Lin went to India, we looked after her eclectus Paw-Paw.
Mom put the cage in the living room so the bird could observe our dysfunction.
Dad tried coaxing Paw-Paw to talk. She still just squawked after a week but he didn’t give up. I’m not sure . . . I don’t remember him ever spending that much time with me.
Feeding Paw-Paw was my job. Pineapple, strawberries. Grapefruit, she spat back out. We had that in common.
I hadn’t realized I could be nurturing.
One morning between bites of pineapple, Paw-Paw said: “I love you.”
I’d underestimated her.
Paw-Paw cocked her head. She looked at me like she expected a reply.
She’d overestimated me.
“I love you,” she said again.
My parents love me. They used to tell me. I have a good memory.
I don’t know why but I opened the cage and Paw-Paw flew around the living room, shitting everywhere and squawking.
When Mom came out of the kitchen with more fruit, she swore. Paw-Paw kept repeating: “Shit.”
Mom grounded me for a week — a meaningless gesture.
After dinner, Dad went to the living room. Mom gave me sorbet and complained about her depression. “Life is medieval,” she said.
When I wheeled through the living room, after, Dad was feeding Paw-Paw. So I didn’t have to. I went into the elevator.
“I love you,” I heard him say, over and over, as the door closed.
Rose Bush
There’s a rose bush under my window, a dead one, that Mom used to threaten to rip up but forgot about. When I’m upset, I drop things vengefully into it. Hairbrushes, cutlery, artwork. Anything that frustrates me. If my parents have ever seen the crumpled up paper and sweaters sticking out of the rose bus
h, they haven’t made it a part of their conversation.
They enrage me more than anything. I sometimes picture their legs poking out of the rose bush, thrashing for a minute, then going soft. It’s not healthy. But it helps.
X-Rays
People can be tough to figure out. I’ve figured out a lot of people, I’ve got x-rays, but there’s a few you just can’t fathom. They’ve got the lead vest on from the dentist. If you want to be a mystery you can keep your hands exposed and your head. You only have to cover your heart.
It’s strange because I’m not scared of the old man but I’m nervous, I’m unsure of him. I’ve thought about him a lot. I’m the bird looking down at us from a million points of view. And I still don’t get it. I’m a smart kid. But I like the kinds of problems I can solve.
I just don’t get it.
Naked Dad
Mom shook me awake in the night.
“Your father wants to see you.”
The elevator door opened. The living room was full of people. It was like a birthday party only no one was speaking, just sitting there staring at my dad, who was sitting in the middle of the couch, naked. Then everyone stared as Mom wheeled me in front of him like a birthday cake. Before I could close my eyes, Dad jumped up and tried squeezing behind the TV but his butt was too big. He said something to my mom and she picked up the phone and called more and more people.
When our neighbour Macey got there she took one look and called an ambulance, though my mom objected. She didn’t want to make a fuss.
When the ambulance guys came, they convinced Dad to put his shorts back on and go peacefully with them. They kept him in the hospital overnight. When he came home, he seemed fine if slightly dazed.
No one ever mentioned this again.
Creakle
Once to cheer me up my mom bought me an octopus in a wheelchair. Two of its arms were pushing the wheels, four were on the leg rests, and two were raised up in the air like it was a solid thrill to be an octopus in a wheelchair. It was cute but an octopus is basically a monster and this may be the wrong kind of metaphor to hurl at your disabled child.
I named the octopus Creakle because it sounded Dickensian.
I slept with Creakle for a week. Then I dropped him in the rose bush.
For all I know, he’s still there.
School
My school has a zero tolerance policy for bullying.
If you tell someone you’re being bullied, they’re required to look up from their cellphone briefly.
I’ve been hurting for a long time now. When someone hurts you, you become their victim. It’s what you are. Our school is full of victims, usually the brightest, most talented kids. We are the emotionally damaged future. When someone hurts you it knocks a piece out of you until one day you just fall to pieces. It takes a long time. Everyone sees it happen. The teachers see it. I guess it’s easy watching someone else’s kids being eaten, like the maggoty kids on Third World commercials.
It just doesn’t pay to care.
The Sad Kid
You are going to die in this chair.
Thoughts get stuck in my brain like gum.
I don’t think anything negative when I’m reading. I guess that’s why I read so much. I have to keep my brain cells as busy as I can. Or I just wouldn’t be able to live.
I’m not sure if I was born sad or if it’s just because of my life.
I should probably be on drugs.
I Don’t Want to Grow Up
I don’t want to grow up.
Home Life of the Victorians
My aunty gave me a book called Home Life of the Victorians. It was 100+ colour plates of Victorians doing Victorian things like playing the harpsichord and smiling gaily. They seemed pretty happy despite TB.
I tried picturing myself sitting next to the Victorians but every time one of the smiling ladies got up quickly and wheeled me out of the frame. Then went back to her needlework.
The book was a nice thought and probably expensive.
I dropped it in the rose bush.
Run
When I opened my eyes, the old man was leaning on a tree. He was sitting with his knees up, leaning, with his arms around it and his head against it, hugging it.
He was crying. He was quiet, but he was crying. There was a dark line running down the bark.
The old man looked a hundred. He looked like a kid.
If god had decided to wake up and stuck a hand in me and I stood up, I wouldn’t’ve run. I would’ve stepped out of my chair, gone over to the old man, crouched down and hugged him. I wouldn’t’ve said anything. But I’d’ve hugged him for a long time.
Then I would’ve run.
The Sea-Wave VIII
I was then . . . in the ocean. Water flowed over me. It seemed — yet it was not a wave. It was a fold, only. It was not even, the ocean. It was . . .
I lay in confusion. In a quiet room. The white sheet lay next to me. My bed was the ocean. There were other beds, like other small oceans, and men in them. They were so close together, the beds, end to end, along two walls of a long room. Few men could have passed between them.
A door. At one end of the room. For so long I watched it, not even thinking. It was difficult, thinking. So I rested. And looked again. I looked, only there was no door. There was only . . . a shadow.
And then a woman came in, like a wave. Her uniform, white. Her skin. She held something.
She approached one man. She bent over him. I could hear, something. Some gentle tone.
She moved on. The next, and the next man. One man screamed. He lifted his arms. In an instant, he was calm, again. And said nothing.
She was so close, now. This bright woman. Turning sideways, she sidled between the beds. As white, it seemed, and as thin, as a ream of paper.
And she was above me. Her face . . . was strange. Unsmiling. She held a syringe. She lifted my arm. It was so pale, and thin, I did not think it was my arm. It was some other man’s. She lifted water. I had the strength of water. I did not resist. I did not even feel the syringe.
Then the room was moving. The man next to me, was now . . . above me. His bed was above me, and above me again. When I moved my head, the beds went with it. The walls did not stop them. They remained in the air . . . then disappeared.
She passed my bed again, the woman. She moved toward the door. The door was still open, yet . . . There was a pile of men, before it. They had lain down, one on another, to stop her. To block her way. They lay completely still. They did not even seem to be breathe.
She moved closer, the woman. She approached the door and the men, not slowing. She moved through them. Then closed the door.
I lay back in the ocean.
I could hear the ocean.
Every Day
Every day is a somewhat new day.
Macey
Our one neighbour Macey is super-Christian. She squeezes through keyholes. I don’t think Mom even likes her, but you can’t tell someone who wears a shawl to go away.
When Macey mentions Jesus, she can’t stop. Like the kid in Grade 10 who says “fuck” uncontrollably. If Mom tries to distract her by talking about dish detergent or her new moustache trimmer, Macey will say something like “Jesus had a moustache,” with a dreaming look in her eyes like she’s remembering her dead husband.
When Mom leaves the room to get coffee or use the bathroom, I’m terrified. Macey usually ignores me but when we’re alone she talks to me in a strange quiet voice, like she’s trying to hypnotize someone who’s sleeping. She always says more or less the same thing: that Jesus loves us all or that no matter how badly off we think we are there’s always millions of people who are worse off and if we could all just rejoice in that and love Jesus we’d be so happy.
I thought about this and tried doing it but picturing millions of suffering kids didn’t boost my mood a bit. Neither did a dying
guy pinned to a stick.
Only one thing did make me happier: imagining Macey on an adjacent cross with blood gushing out of her hands and feet.
I’m not worried about going to hell. I’ve lived there a long time already.
Music
I used to feel emotion all the time. I wasn’t quite happy, but I didn’t realize how unhappy I was. Once you understand that, you just can’t go back. You can try, but you can’t go back.
When I hear music . . . I can listen to music for hours sometimes and nothing happens. But then I’ll wake up in the night, I sleep with my radio on, and I’ll hear a song that wakes me up again.
It’s amazing. Like remembering my name. Everything is so clear and so real again. It’s like I can breathe again. It’s just the best feeling. I wonder, Do other people feel like that all the time?
When I wake up, it’s gone.
Red Hands
The old man has red hands. The outsides of his hands are red from the sun but his palms are even redder and cooked-looking. At first I wondered why but then I realized he’s stopping a lot to pull out the weeds that keep choking up my wheels and it’s wrecking his hands. There’s streaks of green on them and brown dots that are probably blood. There’s a guy named Gerry who my dad says was an ordinary working guy until his brain came out. We saw him at the mall. He paced a lot and occasionally started laughing insanely and rubbing his face. His face and his hands were red and raw. My dad asked him how he was and he just laughed and rubbed his face off. Then his mom took him to the bathroom. Then my mom took me to the bathroom and I threw up.
