Yondering

by Robert Reginald (ed)

  “Not racin’ this year, ’mano,” Mendez said. “Outta practice.”

  “You gotta be kidding, right?”

  He gazed out the French windows at a group of kids in sabots, tacking inexpertly across Alamitos Bay, sails luffing. The streaks of white sunblock on their faces gave them the look of small-fry Apaches. He’d taken sailing lessons on this bay when he was a boy. He’d been hooked early on the thrill of competing even when he was no good at it.

  “Been workin’ for a livin’. Got me a job out at Rancho.” Mendez laughed. “Nurse’s aide. Gonna be an inspiration to all them new Crips!”

  Rancho Los Amigos, the county’s orthopedic rehab facility where they’d first met. He couldn’t imagine spending time there by choice.

  “Hard to believe, amigo.”

  “Gettin’ married, too. No time for playin’ ’round no more.”

  “Congratulations.”

  He regretted making the call. Sal was a couple of years older than he, same type of injury, but Sal’s accident had been gang related. His had been less dramatic; he’d smacked a motorcycle into a utility pole on a day when he couldn’t blame the weather. Another example of his general failure at everything in those days. The shared frustrations of rehab had brought them together; racing and women had kept the friendship going. They’d been two of a kind, consumers of all the thrills they could find, freed by their chairs from a world of responsibilities. He’d never considered Sal might get married.

  “…bridges the fucked up nerves again, Doc says,” Mendez was saying as Jeff shook his attention loose from the past.

  “What?”

  “Doc Dorseter. He comes maybe coupla times a week, checks out his students.”

  “So?”

  “Don’ you watch TV, ’mano? ‘Schwann cells,’ he calls ’em. Gonna fix us up, one a these days.”

  “That what you want, Sal? You get your legs back, you’ll never race again. You willing to give that up?”

  “Just a race, ’mano.” Mendez sounded puzzled. “Just a fuckin’ race. Chair ain’t no badge of sainthood.”

  There’d be no competition this year. So what? He didn’t need anybody else. He hung up the phone and went out. He put in two hours practice on the track at Cal State before sunset.

  He was finishing his second glass of milk after lunch the next day when the phone rang. He almost didn’t answer it, thinking it was his mother again. She’d already called once today. Didn’t he think Tommy Dorseter’s work could be The Light at the End Of the Tunnel for His Problem? He could almost hear the capitals in her words.

  This time it was Meg Lowenthal. He made a date for dinner, then found clean sheets for the bed just in case he got lucky.

  * * * *

  He settles into his pace with an upwelling sense of robust health and fierce strength, the aching happiness that comes to him from racing. After a race, he feels cleansed of all the strangling difficulties of his life. All the hard decisions fall into place. The chair sets his spirit free.

  The course climbs a small hill, then flattens again. Plum trees line the next block, white petals drift like confetti. Music blares at an intersection, a local combo playing enthusiastically. Women in bright tracksuits cheer. A dog barks. Children on bicycles keep pace along the edge of the course. The scent of fresh-cut lemon teases his nose.

  He feels as if he could race like this forever.

  * * * *

  After three more pleading messages from his mother over the next week—followed by a fax of the L.A. Times articles about Dorseter’s work, marked up carefully so he wouldn’t miss the important parts—Jeff gave in and called Dorseter at UCLA. Couldn’t hurt to see what was on his mind. Maybe they’d swap tall stories about glory days on Cal State’s diamond.

  “Come on out to Rancho and we’ll talk,” Dorseter said, sounding rushed. “I’m there Thursdays, supervising interns. Got a proposition for you.”

  “You got Sal already. I’m not looking for work.” But he could guess what Dorseter wanted to propose, and it wasn’t emptying bedpans.

  Dorseter laughed. “Come anyway, Champ.”

  Waste of time, he told himself. He went out and spent several hours circling the university track until rain splattered in from the ocean, driving him indoors.

  Rancho’s parking lot was wet as he drove up on Thursday. He slid out of the driver’s seat into his folding chair. The van in the next slot had the back door open, and beside it a woman was opening an umbrella over a small girl in a chair. The child grinned when she saw him and held up a hand.

  “She has photos of you on her wall, Mr. Brandeis,” the mother said. “You’re her hero.”

  He high-fived the girl’s tiny hand. “Gonna win the next one for you, sweetheart.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  The child giggled. In a good mood now, he wheeled away as raindrops spattered his leather jacket.

  He figured he’d listen to Dorseter to satisfy his mother, put an end to the tearful messages. But he wasn’t interested. What was the big deal about walking, anyway? He’d been quoted in the papers once saying, if God had shown a little imagination, He’d have equipped people with wheels instead of legs. Caused quite a reaction in some quarters with that remark. His mother hadn’t liked the joke either; she took this disabled stuff too seriously. Then he thought of the child and his mood darkened again.

  Dorseter’s office was at the end of a white corridor lined with children’s art, but Dorseter himself wasn’t in it. A nurse indicated Jeff would find the surgeon down the hall in physical therapy, a room he and Sal had referred to in the old days as the “TC,” the Torture Chamber.

  A buzz of noise came from the TC as the door sighed open at his approach. He remembered this place well. A cross between a high school gymnasium and a NASA training facility for astronauts, it contained some of the most fiendishly designed equipment ever to coax damaged body parts to work again. Half a dozen men and women practiced new strategies for old tasks, some moving scarred arms against the resistance of weights and pulleys, some climbing low racks of stairs on crutches, or walking up and down ramps getting used to new prostheses.

  A young guy sitting on a bench at the far end of the room caught his attention. Two male physical therapy aides in white coats lifted him to his feet and propped him upright. Judging by the way the guy’s face scrunched, he wasn’t enjoying it.

  Dorseter was halfway down the TC, talking to a female intern. He glanced up and motioned for Jeff to come over. “Well, what d’you think?”

  Jeff played it cool. “Same old TC.”

  “You said you’d read about my work.”

  “Saw the articles. Not necessarily read. Not my game.”

  Dorseter studied him thoughtfully. “That sounds defensive, Champ. Look: I’ll give it to you straight. Animal results are so good, we’re ready to use this treatment on humans.”

  “Cruel and unusual experiments on humans went out of fashion with the Nazis, Doc.”

  The orthopedic surgeon laughed. “You don’t change, do you?”

  “No. Should I?”

  Dorseter turned serious. “Yes, I think you should. This is revolutionary. We grow the Schwann cells in the lab, then transplant them into the spinal cord. They coax nerve fibers to regenerate. We’ve never found anything like this, Jeff. Severed nerves re-grow. Establish their own blood supply. Even develop protective myelin sheaths.”

  “In a petri dish.”

  “In lab animals.”

  “Don’t look at me. I’m not a guinea pig.”

  Somebody shrieked nearby. Jeff turned to stare. The guy he’d noticed was now doubled over, vomiting—a sour stench. Not uncommon in the TC. An orderly arrived to clean up.

  He had a wrenching memory of the first day they got him out of bed at the hospital after the accident, the nausea that tore through his gut as they hoisted him painfully upright, the despair that flooded through him when he glanced down at legs he couldn’t feel any mor
e. He remembered the clumsiness of that first chair, the energy it took to perform the simplest tasks, the frustration of learning to accept limits. The aching sense of loss. It had taken him a long time to put all that behind him.

  Dorseter said, “I could show you the dogs—”

  “Bizarre, man! Why me? Got to be a lot of other guys salivating for the chance. I’ve got my life together without it.”

  “Have you, Jeff? How long’s it going to last?”

  Across the echoing room, Jeff saw the young man resting alone on a bench, towel pressed to his forehead, looking washed out as if he’d just finished a race. A deep yearning swept through him, but he wasn’t sure for what. The renown of being a star athlete? The thought of walking again? His hands clutched the arm-rests of his chair till he could feel the pulse hammering at his wrists. He let go, expelling tension in a long sighing breath.

  “Later. I’ve got work to do.”

  He swiveled the chair to face the exit. Dorseter put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Something else. Something you should seriously consider.”

  “Give it up, Tommy.”

  “There may not be a ‘later’ for you. You need this chance now. How long’s it been since your accident? Four years? Five?”

  “You’re thinking foot drop, muscle atrophy—”

  “No.”

  Jeff shook his head. “You don’t understand. I don’t have the time. I need another couple of years racing before I even consider something like this.”

  “You don’t have another couple of years!” Dorseter said. “Wait much longer and we won’t be able to reverse the changes in the vertebrae that’re taking place, no matter whether the nerves regenerate or not.”

  He stared at the surgeon’s grim expression. Face the truth, he told himself. This was why he hadn’t come back home sooner, not the French actress. Ever since he’d heard the CNN report, he’d been afraid to be hit with an impossible choice.

  “Think about it.” Dorseter squeezed Jeff’s shoulder. “You could be just the way you were before the accident.”

  “Right,” he said, his eyes stinging. “A straight-C bozo the chicks avoided. A zero on the field. A world-class nothing. Great, man. Fucking great!”

  He wheeled urgently out of the Torture Chamber.

  * * * *

  Breath burns in his throat now. His lungs labor. His chest seems encased in crushing iron. Fingers cramp. Pain knifes his shoulder muscles. Blood roars in his ears. In spite of the headband he wears, sweat pours off his brow and stings his eyes, blinding him.

  The day grows hotter. The breeze fails him. Despair claws at his heart. He’s a fool to put himself through such agony. He doesn’t have to prove anything to anybody.

  In the sweaty fog, he sees dimly a jumble of spectators waving flags—gaunt palm trees—volunteers sprinkling water from garden hoses—pelicans gliding overhead like stone age icons—police cars blocking traffic. Everything passes in a slow-motion, nightmarish blur of silence and pain.

  So many more agonizing miles to go.

  He has hit the Wall.

  * * * *

  Carrie refused his invitation to go out for dinner. He didn’t tell her he’d called Meg Lowenthal first, but she’d turned him down; Maia was on location and Jen hadn’t called back. He hadn’t seen Carrie since the day he’d registered, but he needed to do something to clear his mind. She offered to cook at her place instead. He told her he’d be there at five.

  It’d been a mistake to go out to Rancho, a distraction from the serious training he needed to do. For days after his conversation with Dorseter, he’d tried pouring all his energy into preparing himself for the race, wheeling along the race route for several hours in the gray light of early morning until the swelling rush hour traffic drove him off. But he couldn’t rid himself of Dorseter’s words.

  The phone rang while he was dressing; he let the machine answer. His mother again. Another guilt rap for him to come to his senses, not to be scared, to take advantage of his golden opportunity. To her, his choice seemed clear. But only a fool would trade the future he had in sight for the uncertainties of pain and obscurity that would come with Dorseter’s surgery. If it even worked. How could he make a decision like that?

  He went down to the condo’s garage and found the van.

  Carrie lived alone in an old house she rented, a small guest house behind the larger one on the bluff. All she could afford on her salary, probably. She was a teacher, maybe a librarian, he couldn’t remember. Something unspectacular but socially useful.

  He wheeled up the ramp and rang the doorbell. Across busy Ocean Boulevard, the water churned with white caps. A lone sailboat beat into the stiff wind, rounding the oil island, coming home before darkness fell. He watched for a moment, admiring the unknown sailor’s pluck challenging the weather. Taking risks. Going all out for life no matter what.

  Inside, the house was warm and unpretentious, what he would’ve expected of Carrie. He felt comfortable, as if he’d just taken off a too-heavy winter overcoat. She turned on a lamp; light and shadow quilted the living room. Mozart played softly in the background. A water jug waited on a small oak dining table. Carrie poured him a glass then went into the kitchen, explaining the casserole needed a few more minutes.

  “I heard you went out to Rancho,” she called.

  Dishes rattled and he caught the rich smells of onions, tomatoes, and baking bread.

  “Must everybody get on my case?”

  “Sorry. Sal was just excited for you.”

  Mozart wrapped it up. In the silence he heard the slow tick of an antique clock somewhere in the house. He gazed through the window at the tiny back yard. Miniature orange and lemon trees made splashes of color along a battered redwood fence. A large tortoiseshell cat slumbered next to a pot of scarlet geraniums. Tomato plants heavy with winter fruit, pots of chrysanthemums and cactus crowded on benches and shelves for easy reach from her wheelchair.

  She came back into the room and refilled his water glass. “That’s Gertie,” she said, nodding at the cat.

  “Never understood what people see in cats.”

  “She’s my best friend.”

  “Kind of lonely with only a cat in your cheering section, isn’t it?”

  She gazed at him, something in the blue eyes he’d never seen before, maybe anger at his remark. “I don’t know, Champ. Is it?”

  He stared out the window, avoiding her gaze. But he couldn’t avoid this. And maybe she was the only one he could talk to, the only person with no stake in what he did or didn’t do.

  “Would you do it, Carrie?”

  “I’ve used a chair since I was fourteen. I’m not a good candidate like you.”

  “But if you could?”

  “I read about a blind man once,” she said. “They restored his sight somehow. But then he took to wearing dark glasses indoors.”

  “You figure I’m scared?”

  “Not of the surgery, no.”

  “I don’t think I could live without racing.”

  She said lightly, “If you’re not the champ, you’re nobody?”

  He regretted the cheering section remark. But she was right. No point in arguing; she saw clear through his pretenses.

  “Maybe it won’t work on humans.”

  She folded napkins and set them in place before answering. “There are never any real guarantees in life, Jeff. Things happen.”

  “Why would I want to take the risk? I’ve got it good now.”

  “I remember a poem that meant a lot to me in my blackest moments. ‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep’.”

  “Robert Frost.” He was mildly surprised to dredge up even one name from his mediocre undergraduate performance. “‘And miles to go before I sleep’.”

  “The promises were to myself,” she said.

  A bittersweet memory from childhood flooded over him: A picnic in El Dorado Park by a lake speckled with ducks—Running barefoot over fragrant sum
mer grass—A flop-eared dog barking excitedly beside him. There’d been endless possibilities to his world back then and infinite time. Pain lanced through his stomach. It had seemed so simple before Dorseter interfered. Now all the alternatives looked wrong.

  “Only promise I make is to be the champ.”

  “Maybe there’s more than one race.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Maybe that’s the possibility you’re afraid of.”

  “Let it go, Carrie,” he said.

  When the casserole was ready, they sat stiffly at table together, forking pieces of meat, making awkward stabs at conversation, avoiding the one topic on both their minds.

  He excused himself soon after and went home.

  * * * *

  And then all at once the fog lifts from his eyes. His body—a magical machine itself—floods with power, at one with the chair that has turned into an elfin carriage. He soars, weightless, free, over the wall that once threatened to defeat him. This is what he lives for.

  Nothing can stop him, not even Time itself. He is an eagle breaking out from a cage and leaping up into silky vastness of sky.

  Exhilarated, he yells. Wind carries his voice away as he sweeps down the course on invisible wings. Crowds, trees, birds, ocean—all fall away.

  He could go on forever.

  He is invincible.

  He has reached the Race Mind.

  * * * *

  He dreamed of Carrie’s cat and woke in a tangle of sweaty sheets. Jerking upright, he reached for the phone. In the darkness, he punched out Dorseter’s home number.

  The phone rang several times before the surgeon picked it up.

  Dorseter sounded groggy with sleep. “Jeff? D’you know what time it is?”

  “Two A.M. I got questions.”

  “Can’t they wait till morning?”

  “You came looking for me, remember? First question. Why me?”

  Dorseter let out a deep sigh. “You need this, Champ. I’m doing you a favor—”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Okay. Try this. You’re high profile.”

  “Got it. A photo-op for the Nobel committee.” He wasn’t surprised. That was life too. You gave and you got back. “Next question. Gotta be risks. Give ’em to me.”