by Joe Cassilly
As they filed through the door, each one stopped to pat me on the back and thank me for a great party. “Hey guy,” said Joe, “I couldn’t have planned a better bachelor party.” Sunday, I pulled around by the dumpster and threw all the cans out of the trunk, emptied the water out of the cooler, picked peanuts out of every part of my car, and felt happy.
28
The Ultimate Humiliation
Monday evening, Joe and I cleaned out his locker and the drawers beside his bed. We packed everything in Joe’s car. The next morning, Joe rolled over to my bed before I had gotten an aide to help me get dressed.
“Jake.” He grasped my wrist. “I’m the hell out of here.”
“Aren’t you gonna stick around for breakfast?”
“Nope. I’m gonna pull into the first town in North Carolina and have breakfast there.”
“Good luck. I might drive down one day and see if I can look you up.”
“Yeah. I’ll get some of my daddy’s corn whiskey and we’ll get blind drunk. So long.”
He was pushing down the aisle and I called after him, “Hey. Kiss the bride for me.” Joe waved his hand over his head but did not look back.
That morning, a different group of students was in the therapy room. Flo brought this beautiful dark-haired woman with creamy, tanned skin over to work with me. She introduced herself and flashed a smile that made me shudder. As she stretched my hand, I could not stop staring at her. Then, she knelt on the mat and lifted my leg and brought it up and out to the side. She had done this twice when suddenly she dropped my leg back on the mat. She quickly stood up from the mat and the smile became a look of disgust as she looked at her hands and stockings. I struggled to find out what was wrong. My pants were soaked and there was a puddle of urine around me on the mat. I pulled up my pant leg and found that the drainage hose at the bottom of the leg bag had pulled off and the bag had emptied. “Oh shit!” I said loudly enough to bring the room to a brief hush.
Flo started over and then returned to a cart of towels and brought over a stack. She gave a couple to the student and piled the rest around me to soak up the urine. Flo looked at the dampness on the student’s stockings and told her to go home and change. A couple of other students were trying to suppress smiles. As she started to walk out, I said, “I’m really, really sorry.”
“It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault,” she said, and her smile returned, for a second. Flo laid towels on the cushion in my chair and helped me back into it. I pushed into the hall and toward the ward, leaving a trail of drips behind me.
“I can’t believe this crap,” I muttered as I pushed. “I piss on the most beautiful woman in this whole hospital in front of a room full of patients and staff.” I pushed to the nurses’ station just as Miss Adams came out into the hall. She looked down at the soaked pants and heaved a sigh.
“Scott, boy, are you having problems?”
I wanted to scream, “What the fuck does it look like?” but I remembered that she was on my side so I just said, “Yeah.”
“Well go on back by your bed and I’ll have an aide come clean you up.” I pushed back to the bed and Lavassuer came down the aisle with a cart with two basins of water and spread one of the rubber sheets they used on the gurney for shower morning on my bed. Then, he pulled the curtains around the bed. The aide pulled on a pair of gloves, helped me up onto the bed, and helped me take off the wet clothes. Everything had to come off. I sat up and took the washcloth and started rinsing off while the aide went to fix the drainage bag.
When he returned, he showed me that he had taped the hose on so that it would not come off again. Lavassuer reached under the cart and lifted out clean clothes. I laid a towel across my groin and laid back. The aide moved to the foot of the bed and started pulling on clean socks. It had been six months that I had lain naked while strangers worked on me and it had not gotten any less embarrassing. I tilted my head so that I was looking out of the window. I watched the wind push little wisps of clouds along in front of a brilliant sky. I could feel my legs being moved as the aide struggled with the elastic stockings, first the left leg, then the right.
Then, I was aware that the aide had moved up beside me. I could feel my left leg being moved as the aide fastened the straps of the drainage bag around my leg. Next, I knew he would attach the catheter to the leg bag and tell me to finish getting dressed. I kept watching the free clouds. I thought of that beautiful student holding onto me, moving my crippled body and, suddenly, the look on her face. The aide did not say anything. What the hell was wrong? I looked back to see what the hold up was.
My penis was very erect, hard and swollen. Only a few inches of the catheter protruded from the tip. The aide had my penis clasped tightly in his hand and was moving his hand up and down. I stared in shock; I could not believe what I was seeing. With his other hand, the aide was fondling himself. I looked at his face. Lavassuer looked back at me and jerked on my penis harder.
I thought, The son-of-a-bitch is waiting to see if I am going to tell him to stop. I fought the urge to holler and said with as much anger as my voice would contain, “Get your goddamn hands off of me, queer.” As I said this, I struck his arm with the edge of my hand. The aide let go and stepped back, but he kept looking at my erection. I reached around, feeling for the towel. Lavassuer had it draped over his arm. He tossed it to me. I shook it out and covered myself. Then, I rocked from side to side until I got my elbow under me and I could sit up. I leaned forward and put my head between my knees so that he could not see me. For an instant, I felt faint and then thought that I might be sick. What was I going to do?
Several minutes passed. The aide was still standing beside me. Then, I realized that the bastard was waiting to finish dressing me and I had no choice; I had to let this man who had just sexually molested me humiliate me some more. I sat up and fished the end of the catheter out from under the towel and positioned it next to the end of the leg bag. I did not look at the aide, nor did I say anything. The man stepped forward and twisted the catheter onto the bag. The aide then picked up a pair of pants and brought them to the bed. I knocked them from his hand onto the bed. “Get the hell away from me.”
The aide pushed the cart down the aisle. I watched him through an opening in the curtain. I pulled the extra blanket from the foot of the bed and covered up. I lay on the bed.
The entire six months had been designed to dehumanize me, to degrade me, to humiliate me to the point where I would give up. And when it appeared that the events in the therapy room were not enough, some creature in hell had devised this ultimate humiliation. My mind went numb; it would not think. My shoulders began to shake uncontrollably and, buried in hopelessness, I began sobbing. When my emotions were drained, I fell asleep and the dream soon started.
29
The Phone Call, the
Bathroom, and the
Orphanage
I woke in the afternoon. Someone had pulled the curtains open, probably Lavassuer. I shuddered. I thought of lying there and ignoring the world, but, sooner or later, the world would come bother me, so I got dressed. I pushed out to the car and loaded the chair in, but I could not think of anywhere to go. I took the scotch out from under the seat and took a mouthful, swished it around, and swallowed.
I thought about what to do. I wanted to go wash his touch off of me. I wanted revenge. I wanted to tell somebody to fire him. Would they call the cops and have some kind of a trial? My thoughts were all jumbled. I watched the employees leaving as the shift changed. Lavassuer got into a Mustang and drove out. He did not see me. Oh, I wished I had a gun.
I pushed to dinner and sat off alone. I drank some coffee and left the food on the plate. I kept rocking in the chair. I went back outside and bummed a cigarette. People came by, some spoke, I did not answer.
“Hey, Jake,” a guy called. He was from Ben’s end of the ward. He rolled up in an electric wheelchair and bumped into my chair to get my attention. “There’s a phone call for you.” This usual cause for
155 was an irritation, but I could not tell the guy to go back and hang up on whomever. I pushed in to the phone.
“Hello?”
“Jake?” It was Suzie.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t sound like you. You’re not sick, are you?”
“Naw, I’m just tired of this place.”
“Listen, I called to say I can’t come this weekend. I got a call from the lawyer in Illinois. He said that my husband is consenting to the divorce and that they have a hearing scheduled for Thursday. Then, they want to settle on the property. He’s buying my share of the house. I’m sorry about not coming down.”
I did not care. As crappy as things were going, I didn’t want to see anyone just now. “It’s okay,” I said. “Take care of that and it will be one less thing you have to worry about.”
“Jake, tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. Have a good time getting divorced.”
“Okay, take care. Bye-bye.”
“Bye.”
The sound of her receiver hanging up was the echo of a door closing between me and the world, an empty sound. I brushed my teeth and shaved using both hands. Then, I laid in bed. Suzie’s call had cleared the way. I resolved to go home that weekend.
I avoided everyone for the next three days. The anger I felt kept boiling within me. I should report that son-of-a-bitch and have him fired. But then, I thought about an incident that happened just after I arrived at the hospital. An aide had slapped a patient. I hadn’t seen it, but it was the talk all over the wards. Even though it had been witnessed by two other patients, they still had a hearing. There was talk that the patients had been threatened if they testified, that there might be an accident. I could not bring myself to testify to what happened to me.
Then my conscience kicked in, saying, “If you do not report him, he could do that to another patient.” Then, the other thought crowded in. Suppose Lavassuer did not deny what happened. Suppose he admitted it and said that I asked for it or was a willing participant. He could make me out to be a queer. “Forget it,” I told my conscience, “some other patient is going to have to look out for himself.” I was partly to blame. They had treated me like a thing for so long that I had stopped caring. To them, I was the job; it made no difference if I was embarrassed by their pokings and probings. So I just found it easier not to know what they were doing to me. I wondered how it would be at home. I had to think of a way to get revenge.
I woke up very early, before Lavassuer came on duty so that I could get someone else to help me get dressed. I started to identify a list of things that I would need help with when I got home. Was there a way I could do these things myself? I went to the hospital store and bought regular support hose. It took both thumbs to pull them over my toes and then I used my teeth to pull them up. It was weird, but it was one less task I needed to ask someone else for help with.
The first day I wore the socks, my feet and ankles were badly swollen. I would have to prop my feet up whenever I could. I went to meet with a counselor about college. He told me that the VA would pay all of my tuition and expenses for whatever I wanted to study. I also found out that I needed a doctor to prescribe exercise equipment for me and the VA would get it for me.
I had to collect supplies to take home: a catheterization kit, an irrigation kit, rubber gloves, blue hospital pads, and bottles of pills. Friday evening, I loaded everything in the trunk of the LeMans, including everything I did not absolutely need when I came back to the hospital. If this trip home worked, I would not be coming back for long. The next morning, extra early, I was dressed and on my way to the cafeteria down the long hallway with pale gray skies outside. I had the first good breakfast in months with lots of coffee to keep me awake on the road, on the drive north.
I went back to the ward and opened my locker. The only remaining item was my camouflaged jacket, the one from Vietnam with the colored patches on it. It had been cleaned, starched, and pressed. I pulled it on. I had a hard time getting the buttons through those stiff buttonholes, but it got done. I rolled to the car and looked back at the building. I joined my hands. “Oh, God,” I prayed. “This has to work because I can’t come back here to stay.” Then, I was in the car and gone. I doubt that the Apollo astronauts felt any more apprehension of the unknown.
The drive started out great. I had a pile of tapes lying on the passenger seat. When I felt like risking my life, I would change the tape. I held the steering wheel against my left forearm and the hand control in my left hand. I pulled the old tape out of the player, which involved a lot of fumbling and swearing. I put the next tape box between my teeth and flipped it open. Then, I tilted my head forward so the tape slid out into my hand, all at sixty miles per hour. As I went north, I noticed that spring was not as far along as in Richmond, but, every so often, there would be a tree or bush filled with blossoms.
I thought of the irony of the events of Tuesday. The first accident of the drainage hose pulling out had convinced me not to ever leave the hospital. What if that had happened somewhere outside the hospital? What if I had been sitting in school somewhere? But then, the assault had convinced me to get the hell out of the hospital and take my chances with the world.
The car ate up the miles. In two hours, I was passed Washington, but it took a lot of effort and I was tired. The strain of holding the hand control in the same position had made my left arm sore and my shoulder ache. Maybe if I got out and stretched and had a coffee, I could stay awake long enough to get home. I pulled off the highway into a shopping center. I unloaded the chair and started pushing into a fast food place when I realized there was no ramp up the curb. I called out to a guy crossing the parking lot who was heading for the door. “Hey. Excuse me! Hey, could you give me a hand up on the sidewalk?” He turned his head away from me and quickened his pace. He strode over the curb and, in a second, was through the door.
“I don’t believe that guy,” said a woman’s voice from behind me. She had a young boy in her arms and was leading a girl by the hand. “Can I help you?”
“Well I appreciate the offer, but it looks like you have a handful already.”
She sat the children on the curb and turned to me. “Okay, now what?”
“Just grab the handles in the back and when I pop a wheelie, roll the front wheels onto the curb and lift the back.” It worked like a charm. Thank you, God, I thought. I turned to wait for her. She picked up the little boy and struggled to help the little girl to her feet. “Would you like to ride on my lap?” I asked the girl. She walked to the front of the chair and put out her arms for me to pick her up. I did not have the muscles in my back to lift her from there. “Sweetheart, climb up on my feet.” She held on to my pant legs and climbed onto the toes of my boots. I braced my elbows on the chair arms for leverage and reached under her arms and lifted. I brought her up so that she was kneeling on my thighs. She threw her arms around my neck, gave me a hug, and said, “Daddy.” I smiled and, just as quickly, swallowed a lump in my throat. I didn’t realize how much I needed that hug.
The woman explained that her husband was in the Air Force at Andrews Air Force Base, but was away on a flight. “When he is not around, she calls everybody Daddy.” I turned the girl around and sat her on my lap. The woman held the door and I pushed through. At the counter, she offered to carry my food on their tray and asked if I would like to sit with them.
When they sat the food on the counter, I gave the server a twenty-dollar bill. “This is for everything.”
“What are you doing?” she protested. “You don’t have to do that.”
“You did not have to stop outside to help me, but you did what you could. Let me do what I can do.” We went to a table and I slid the little girl into the booth. “I gotta run to the bathroom, be right back,” I said. I noticed when I pulled the little girl up that the leg bag was getting full. I headed to the rear of the restaurant for a door with a gingerbread man on it.
I hit the door with the to
es of my boots and pushed it in. The tension of the spring that closed the door pushed me back at first, but I managed to get it open. As I pushed through, it kept closing on me and steering me into the wall. Later, I would think of this trip to the bathroom while watching a nature film of a fly going into a Venus flytrap, a plant that traps poor insects who think they can get out once they have gone in.
I pushed through a narrow short hall to a second door and pushed through that. Good thing I had gotten the narrowest wheelchair as it just barely fit into the stall. Unfortunately, I got no privacy as the wheelchair held the stall door open. I waited for a man at the sink to finish washing his hands and leave before I pulled the drainage hose from inside my boot. I checked the new tape that had been used to fasten it to the bag to make sure it was not working its way loose.
I pushed to the sink. My knees would not go under the sink so I sat with my side to it. I tried to turn on the faucet. It had a spring-loaded glass knob on it. I could not turn it with one hand. I grabbed it between the palms of both hands. The knob was wet from previous users and my hands slipped. I wiped my palms on my pant legs and gripped harder and turned harder. Suddenly, I was successful. Water gushed into the sink and ricocheted in a spray all over me. I wiped my face on my sleeve.
“Enough hand washing,” I muttered. I pushed to the paper towel dispenser. It was about five feet up on the wall. Some clever attendant, not wishing to have to re-stock the dispenser until next year, had crammed the towels in so that they bulged from the bottom. I reached over my head and pried with my thumb to get an edge loose. When the edge came out, I reached up with both arms to catch it between my palms. The towel got wet and ripped. It ripped again. By now, the water had evaporated from my skin. “Enough hand drying.”