Moving Forward in Reverse

by Scott Martin

  I thought about fire: cotton would probably burn before rubber; considered a knife to cut the damn thing free, but that would require the angling of a wrist and leave me sockless in a matter of days. Instead, with an unceremonious yank of the cuff of the white tube sock, I peeled the sock down over the top of the prosthetic foot and pulled my own amputated foot out. While somewhat gratifying to do, this strategy still left me with a sock covering the rubber foot. To complete the task, I continued to painstakingly peel the sock over the rubber foot. The sock was off, but now it was inside out. Ugh!

  Next came the remainder of my soaked clothing. I wanted to punch the nearest wall – repeatedly – but a nagging voice at the back of my mind admonished that doing so would likely damage both the wall and the electronic hands, neither of which I could afford to repair at the moment. Quelled and abased by defeat, I first pulled my left amputated arm free, then pinched the disconnected left hand between my knees and pulled the shirt sleeve away from the myoelectric hand, dropping the electronic beast onto the floor. This procedure was then repeated with the right arm.

  By the time I was sufficiently undressed it was all I could do to lie flat on the bed with my eyes closed against the world and wait for the exasperation to dissipate. Occasionally, Bogart would wander over from whatever safe distance he had been waiting out my ordeal, and offer a conciliatory demand to be petted. How simple life would be if only I were Bogart, I reached to turn on the radio in the hopes of soothing my wounded pride with music and realized that, without hands, I had to get up to do it.

  22

  The Yellow Pages

  Despite the whirlwind that had become my life, there were still those moments when I wasn’t propelled forward by the next task at hand, when I wasn’t distracted by things beyond me, the between-the-scenes moments when I was stationary and The Fog rolled in.

  Mondays were sheer torture. With no training following the weekend soccer matches to give me an excuse to flee to the TESC campus, I was left predominantly alone with only my thoughts (and Bogart) for company. For a diversion from the despondency of my mind, I would try to fill the daylight hours with the errand-running I had no time for during the unremitting, six-day work week. The benefit to this strategy was that it kept me constantly in motion, racing from one destination to the next with little time for idling and introspection. The drawback: my errands themselves rarely offered the distraction from reality I so desperately craved.

  ~~~

  $150 per month, divided by four if I shop once a week leaves me with . . . $37 and some change to spend on each trip to the grocery store. Of course, some things I won’t need to buy every week. . .

  I looked into my shopping cart and skimmed my eyes over the assortment of Albertson’s brand products and various packaged, frozen, and canned foods lying within. Could I survive off of one-hundred and fifty bucks a month?

  I’ll have to.

  With a languorous sigh, I began shuffling my goods from cart to conveyor belt, mentally calculating my total as I made the transfers. How close I was to my weekly budget amount reminded me of a contest on The Price Is Right.

  The cashier was a bland-faced man drifting into middle age one fewer hair at a time who had clearly given up on striking a rapport with his customers long ago. Without even glancing in my direction, he filed the groceries from the conveyor over the scanner and ultimately to the other side of the cash register in one smooth, monotonous motion. I listened to the chronic pings of items being tallied in the register. They ticked past like the hands of a clock – there goes another dollar; oops, that one was at least a buck fifty; three dollars gone. My wallet aged with each toll, it’s worth depreciating item by item.

  I was so absorbed in the strain of my newly diminished purchasing power that I didn’t even notice them pull up behind me. On some level I must have been aware of them, or at least of the presence of more groceries on the counter, but I was living in two worlds by then: the one inside my head and the external one that operated around me. They occupied space solely in the latter – at least initially.

  ‘Mom,’ I heard a boy’s puerile voice say from behind me. I registered the sound, but not the words. Not until he asked his mother, ‘What’s wrong with that man’s hands?’

  My ears had become hyper-attuned to such words and phrases. ‘That man’, ‘man’s hands’, ‘hands’: All were triggers for immediate uncontrolled response. I felt my shoulders tense, the muscles bunching together as if in preparation for a physical blow. I tried to inconspicuously rotate a few more degrees to place the mother and son directly to my back.

  ‘Shhhh,’ his mother hissed. I could tell by the direction and flow of her voice that she had bent over her son, causing her words to aim for the floor. Naturally, they then rebounded off the polished tile surface and reverberated deep within my eardrums.

  ‘Don’t stare,’ she scolded.

  I tried not to wince outwardly. A cautious glance at the cashier told me he was still oblivious to the people filling his line, including me. Thank goodness!

  I shuffled as hastily as possible to the register so I could pay and escape the suddenly oppressive air in the store. (Was it this stifling before?) The stolid cashier droned the four numbers of my total. I could feel the bagger watching me and sensed the mother trying to covertly peer around my back for a glimpse of ‘that man’s hands.’

  It was starting again: The Freak Show. ‘Come one, come all! See The Man with No Hands! Right here, in your local grocery store!’

  My only respite from the humiliation was the distracted cashier who stood immobile with his eyes staring vacantly ahead; abeyant as if paused by some distant remote control. He, at least, had yet to become aware of the opening of the main act. I fumbled the bills I needed out of my wallet and presented the requisite color-coded papers over the counter to him.

  He raised his right hand, lifting it sluggishly towards my proffered food stamps as if he were playing in slow motion. His eyes indolently followed in the same direction, drifting blindly from some spot over my left shoulder down the length of my arm, to the hand that held the stamps, finally reaching their destination in the same moment as his fingers began to close around the edge of the bills.

  In that split second – or, perhaps it was a full second considering how slothful his movements were – before he took the coupons in his hand and relieved me of their existence, something changed. His eyes began to clear, zeroing in on the exchange that was about to happen like a photographer focusing his camera lens.

  ‘Ah, man,’ he said, his vowels drawn out almost to the verge of song and prodigal with pity. I followed his line of sight downwards and saw what he saw: four ten-dollar value food stamps awkwardly pinched between the first two fingers and thumb of a rubber-covered mechanical hand.

  Everything inside me stopped. It was as if that hidden observer who had paused the cashier inexplicably turned his invisible remote on me: I couldn’t move; couldn’t breathe; couldn’t bring myself to send the signal to the myo to release the food stamps. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

  I can’t do this anymore. The thought cleaved through my suddenly stagnant mind. I can’t. Do this. Anymore.

  I had involuntarily become the epitome of misfortune, the embodiment of adversity, and the ultimate engenderer of other’s pity. They were, it would seem, titles given without the opportunity to be disclaimed. Ultimately, the moment had come when I could no longer bear their burden alone.

  I need help.

  ~~~

  That night I made a tall glass of chocolate milk and sat down on my single barstool with the Olympia phone book on the kitchen counter between my elbows. I sipped my dessert – the most expensive indulgence I allowed myself – while eyeing the book over the rim of the glass. I didn’t want to do it. Even knowing it was necessary and the only feasible option left to me, I dreaded what the act of opening to the yellow pages and flipping to Psychologist would mean.

  That I’ve given up? That I can’t keep it
together?

  No, I mentally berated myself. You can’t think like that. This isn’t giving up; it’s deciding to fight on all fronts. It’s the opposite of giving up.

  I stared at the book over another swig of Nestle Quik.

  You’ve got no choice, man.

  With one final gulp for courage, I set the glass off to the side and opened the book.

  ~~~

  I leaned my head back against the bland, white wall; felt my spine arch against the waterproof cushion of the chair’s back; and closed my eyes. How many times was I going to find myself in examination rooms just like this one throughout the rest of my life? In the past four years alone I had gone through doctors like a prepubescent girl goes through crushes; cycling in and out and in and out, the issues a constant rotation of hand problems and foot problems. And now emotional problems, too.

  My psychologist had determined that I could benefit from antidepressants, a diagnosis I reluctantly accepted and which led me here, to await the arrival of one Dr. Ellen Parker, M.D. in another sterile square of a room. I had been weighed, measured, documented, and assessed by another Hawaiian-scrubbed nurse after filling out yet another set of forms with the same background information required beneath yet another black-and-white header for yet another clinic. Even the animation and joviality of the nurse whose exuberance reminded me of Kathy but with the saucy confidence of Lindy couldn’t dispel the monotony: height, weight, blood pressure, review of my complaints, then deposit me in this examination room with a picture of a dozen five-year-olds in different color soccer jerseys and shorts, their backs to the camera as they stood in a clustered line peering into the net, to accompany me in my waiting.

  With a sigh, I opened my eyes and turned to pluck a magazine out of the tray beside my seat. Newsweek. An article on the AIDS epidemic in many of the African countries. Not exactly uplifting, but at least it would pull me out of my own interminable woes.

  I was nearing the bottom of the first page when a knock sounded on the door. That was fast, I thought as I carefully flipped the magazine closed and bent to replace it in its rack.

  A woman with a cascade of luscious brown curls swooping across the top of her shoulders strode into the room. She was young – more than young: she seemed to radiate youth. A fetching smile was already painted across her face, making her eyes crinkle endearingly at the corners. Her eyes found me and the smile crept larger, becoming personal: a smile bestowed upon me.

  ‘Hi, Scott. I’m Dr. Parker,’ she said in a smooth, lilting voice carried on self-assurance and aplomb. I stood as she drew nearer, a slender hand extended towards me. I suppressed the flinch that wanted to twist my face. Why, oh why did it have to be a prosthetic hand I offered in return?

  I watched our hands as she wrapped her fingers around the rubber-covered metal. Staring fixedly at the contact of our handshake as I was, I didn’t notice the change in her smile until I looked back up at her face moments later. When our eyes met for the second time, she was grinning at me with a piquant light dancing in her eyes –brilliant brown eyes, I saw then, which shone with the warmth and comfort of a cabin in shadowy woods. My breath caught in my lungs and was released seconds later in a rush of relief. Compassion, intrigue, and companionship, but no superiority or patronization tinged her expression. She peered at me with those dark, open eyes and held my gaze. For a flicker in time, I could almost see myself coming to trust this ingenuous doctor with eyes the color of melted chocolate. Almost.

  ‘So,’ she said as she released the right myo and half-turned to swivel the black stool into position across from me, ‘how can I help you, Scott?’

  I bent back into the rubbery chair and set the myos carefully on my lap. She placed my chart on the desk with equal care, laying it, I realized, in a place where the documents wouldn’t come between us.

  ‘Lately I’ve been having trouble emotionally,’ I began, reciting the same words I’d told my psychologist. ‘’

  It wasn’t saying much, but every word seemed to be pulled from me like blood gushing into a vial. Feeling The Fog roil and swell inside my conscious was bad enough; having to admit to it was like salting a wound.

  ‘Mm-hm.’ She was nodding softly, her eyes unwavering from where they had fixed on mine with utter clarity. I wondered if she even realized her head was bobbing gently up and down like a sunflower in the breeze. Several nods later, she asked gently, ‘Would you say you feel depressed?’

  I swallowed revolt. Depressed? I’m not depressed.

  Am I?

  ‘I’m not sad. Or hopeless or anything. . .’

  The nodding became more assertive. ‘Okay. So not sad or hopeless, but you feel like you’ve been having trouble being yourself?’

  ‘Yes! Exactly.’ I felt myself breathing easier now. I didn’t want to be “depressed”. Depression was heavy and attacked without cause or reason. Depression was intangible and obscure. I could tackle The Fog – at least I knew the form it took and where it came from: my amputations, my illness. Its cause was something outside of me, something more than a chemical imbalance in my brain. I could live with that. I think.

  ‘Would you say you’ve been having trouble with your emotions? And feeling?’

  ‘Yeah, you could say that. I don’t feel much of anything these days. And what I do feel is . . . dulled. It’s like there’s this fog around me all the time and it keeps me from really experiencing life. It’s kind of had to explain. . .’

  Dr. Parker was leaning towards me, those silky brown eyes riveted on my own. She wasn’t patronizing, dismissive, overbearing, or even encouraging, really. She was just calm. Patient. Expectant. As if she knew I would tell her eventually and didn’t care if it took the rest of the day for the words to come out right. She would be here until they did.

  ‘Scott,’ she said and I realized how I enjoyed the way she said my name, the way her mouth parted around the word and the consonants came spilling out as if they had been just waiting to be uttered by her lips. ‘Can you tell me about your illness?’

  ~~~

  ‘Hi, Scott, this is Doctor Ellen Parker.’

  Oddly, I felt no surprise at this familiar voice coming across my phone line; her voice felt right, humming into my ear with the slight, mechanical twang of my phone’s speaker. I glanced at the clock on the microwave: 6:00 p.m. A little late for being at the office, perhaps, but not so late that this was necessarily a call from her home.

  ‘I’m calling to see how you’re doing,’ Dr. Parker said.

  An impish smile arched across my lips. No physician calls their patient personally.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I nimbly replied. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Were you able to fill the prescription for antidepressants I ordered for you?’

  A chuckle rumbled in my chest and I had to fight to keep the cocky humor out of my voice. Dr. Ellen Parker was being evasive, a twinge of insecurity quivering behind her words. Well, well, I thought, leaning an arm on the counter and crossing my legs in the barstool. I was going to enjoy this – whatever ”this” was.

  In response to her question I said simply, ‘Yes,’ then let the conversation go dead. I let the silence swelter between us as I dumped full responsibility for the conversation in her lap.

  ‘That’s good.’ Her voice was beginning to fade even more from its initial surge of confidence. I entertained myself by imagining how she had probably mapped out the entire dialogue in her head – editing the grammar to inhuman perfection and playing it out in her mind with coquettish pauses and teasing remarks – and now I was tearing it to pieces by refusing to play along. Whatever she was really after, I was going to make her work for it.

  I thought I heard a huff from her end of the line and realized I may have been chuckling audibly by now. I put my hand over the microphone and listened to her breathing, enjoying the awkwardness of it all to a disproportionate degree.

  It took her a few more leaden seconds to gather the nerve to speak again.

  ‘Actually,’ she sa
id, her voice resuming some of its assertiveness like a ship released to barrel full-steam ahead, ‘I was hoping you’d like to have coffee with me.’

  My jaw went slack. all thoughts of laughter dissipating like a rain puddle after the clouds have cleared. A date? She wants to go on a date? With me? Realizing this lengthy pause was not of my intentional devising, I quickly rearranged my thoughts and managed to quip in response, ‘Sure, but I don’t drink coffee.’

  ‘Great. How about we meet at Starbucks downtown at one o’clock on Sunday?’

  Either she didn’t catch my mention that I didn’t drink coffee or she was choosing to ignore it. Whichever the case may be, I was back to my formal joviality, laughing heartily to myself as I replied, ‘Where is that?’

  ‘Across from Sylvester Park.’

  ‘Okay.’ I was pretty sure I knew where that was.

  ‘Great. See you then.’ This she punctuated with the click of a phone finding its cradle. I lowered my own handset back into its base with more care and shook my head around a buoyant grin. Dr. Ellen Parker wanted to have coffee with me.

  23

  The Tricky Part of Fate

  The streets were damp from the morning’s rains, but by one o’clock the skies had cleared and the tentative sunlight had warmed the December air to a balmy fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Ellen was waiting for me at an outdoor table nestled beneath one of the green awnings which protruded from Starbucks’s roof. She stood when she saw me cutting across the street. A smile unfurled across her face. Looking at her, in plain jeans and a navy Lands’ End jacket, I saw Ellen, just Ellen.