Captain Quad

by Sean Costello

  Where the waiting began.

  For Kelly and Sam that first week snailed interminably. Kelly was discharged on the second day following the accident, a circumstance that proved to be more of an inconvenience than anything else. It meant she had to go home to sleep rather than just down the hall to her gloomy semiprivate. More than once during that week she beat the inconvenience by grabbing a few fretful winks on the too-short couch in the waiting room.

  Sam, too, kept restless vigil, slouched in a chair by the wall or standing at the foot of Peter's bed, watching for some sign of life, some small hint of responsiveness. His brother's quadriplegia had by sympathy induced a kind of emotional paralysis in Sam, an inner numbness from which he seemed unable to shake himself free. The truth was impossible to grasp, so Sam's mind simply shoved it away, like snow before a rumbling plow blade. He kept brushing closer to that cold curl of truth, but could never quite bring himself to touch it. He spoke to no one, made eye contact with no one, trusted no one. Peter had been his only friend, the one he'd turned to when the going got tough.

  But now the tough weren't going anywhere. Not ever again.

  Leona turned to Jack for solace: Jack Daniel's. And, curiously enough, to God. A lapsed Catholic who had last glimpsed the inside of a church on the occasion of Sam's first communion, Leona took up worship with a zealot's fervor. Before going to the hospital each morning, a ritual she practiced with at least equal zeal, she plodded up to Saint Joseph's Church on Boland Avenue. A high-spired Gothic cathedral with a mullioned rose window and twin louvered towers, Saint Joseph's boasted the largest parish in the city. And each morning at seven its cool shadow consumed her. At the marble font in the central portal she blessed herself, and at the big wrought-iron candelabrum beneath the north tower balcony she lit a candle in Peter's name. Then, hunched in a pew near the back, she prayed, remembered fragments of legitimate prayer slung feverishly together with nonsense verse of her own creation—or, more precisely, Jack Daniel's.

  Jack in one hand, an unopened missal in the other.

  Nights, too, Jack was her only comfort. A few times in the dark of the living room Sam tried clumsily to console her and thus be consoled himself, but Leona just shrugged him off. Installed on the couch in front of the silent TV, she guzzled and wept and listened to Peter's music on the reel-to-reel. Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." She raised her chin proudly each time the audience broke into exuberant applause. Then she rewound the tape and started over.

  One late night Sam felt a long-dormant rage reaching some kind of fusion point in his chest. He lay there in the stuffy dark of his bedroom and swore that if she rewound that tape just one more time he was going to go out there and toss the whole thing straight through the front fucking window. This emotion, dark and utterly foreign, clotted sickly inside him—but it continued to build. And the third time she rewound the tape after that dark pledge was taken Sam did get up and go out there. But instead of grabbing the recorder, which in his heart he knew housed the last repository of his brother's talent, Sam seized the bottle, shame and disgust suddenly funding his rage. "Give me that thing!" he roared, his face an impossible beet red. "Stop this!" He snared its glass neck—but Leona's grip tightened, bringing into play lightning reflexes Sam had never imagined her possessing, not in this inebriated state, and suddenly they were engaged in a grotesque tug-of-war, Sam grunting on the verge of tears, Leona snarling like a hell-hound. In a freak canceling of opposed forces, the bottle abruptly broke free, its amber contents sloshing stormily. It flipped once, spun through an uneven arc and shattered on the edge of the piano lid.

  Animated by a fury that towered over Sam's, Leona lurched to her feet and struck him a whistling backhand, the jagged claws of her stoneless engagement ring raking Sam's acne-spotted face, bringing blood. Sam reeled back, clutching his cheek, tears of bewilderment stabbing his eyes. Leona brushed past him and wove her way to the piano, her chin jutting out before her like some weird damage detector.

  Prisms of glass and tracking puddles of booze littered the instrument's lid. Volatile liquid dripped to the rug from the Yamaha's polished heel. Leona snatched a doily from a side table, knocking a lamp to the floor, and began gingerly sopping up the mess with it. A gouge embedded with glass marred the lid near its edge, and when Leona spotted it she swung on Sam like a crazy woman, her eyes as red as Sam's face had been only moments before.

  "You fucking brat!" she bellowed. "Are you out of your mind? This is Peter's piano!" The last word was a whine. "Don't you know anything, you shitless little bug?" She resumed her frantic mopping, one finger darting repeatedly to the gouge in the wood, as if to scrub that away, too. "Why don't you just get the hell out? Eh, Sammy? Why the hell don't you?"

  Sam did.

  And found himself back at the hospital.

  FIVE

  They were on the bike, cruising north on Highway 144. The air was sweltering, the sky an eerie metallic blue. . . and any minute now that fucking porcupine was going to waddle up onto the road.

  But this time he'd be ready.

  The spot where the beast would appear was easy enough to pinpoint. The blacktop beyond it was all gouged and slickly wet looking, and in the bush to the right it appeared as if a tornado had chewed out a ravening path.

  But Peter knew better. It was no tornado but a big, beer-filled tractor trailer. It was back there behind them right now, waiting to flatten him—but this time he'd swerve the other way and old porky would just sashay on by, startled but still intact, and he and Kelly would boogie on up to Nell Tait's cottage party, he could feel Kelly's hands on his hips, and afterward they'd cruise back home and catch a few winks, and in the morning they'd be on the road again, free for the summer, off to see the country, make love, plans for the future. . .

  Yep, this time he'd be ready.

  The porcupine waddled out of the ditch, so slowly that Peter had to chuckle inside. This was going to be a cakewalk. Maybe he should just pull over and wait until the witless creature had crossed the road and the truck had blown harmlessly by.

  Slowly. . .

  On the soft shoulder now, its stupid eyes meeting his. Hesitating, about to cut back. . .

  Peter's fingers tightened on the handgrips, preparing to coax the bike into a gentle curve around the doomed beast.

  Lots of time. . .

  But in the last possible instant during which control was still his, an invisible hand seized the handlebars, Fate's hand, freezing the wheel, damning his efforts to guide it.

  The porcupine exploded—

  And in hideous fast forward, the scene played itself out again. . . until the hiss of air brakes became the mechanical puff of a ventilator.

  Peter jerked awake from his coma. He'd been coming up slowly for the past thirty hours, but had shown no outward sign. Now a spasm skipped through him like a stone on still water. His whole body flinched—but the sensation reached only his neck. His eyes fluttered open, his vision fuzzy from the ointment the nurses had placed in them to prevent the drying of his corneas. His head felt as heavy as a wrecking ball, deadweight, and there was something jammed into his mouth, a plastic-tasting tube of some kind, tied in place with a cord around his neck. The cord chafed the corners of his mouth like a riding bit. He couldn't breathe through his nose, and his body. . .

  Where was his body?

  (snap!)

  Peter moaned as the memory flashed back, but no sound came out of him. It was blocked by the tube in his throat. He closed his eyes against the bite of tears and sent a fierce command to his fingers.

  Move!

  Nothing happened.

  Move, damn you!!

  But his fingers remained motionless. He couldn't even be sure if they were there. He tried his toes next. His feet, arms, legs. . .

  Nothing.

  Peter's mouth widened in a silent scream around the tube that now kept him alive. Then he lapsed willingly back toward coma. And beyond.

  And in the years to come, he would have time aplenty
to rue the shrill cry that dragged him back again.

  "He moved!"

  Leona Gardner was on her feet like a spring-loaded toy. She'd been sitting in her usual spot, in a chair by the bedside, stroking Peter's hand, when suddenly his eyes had fluttered open and his mouth had yawned wide. Her purse, which had been cradled in her lap, tumbled with a splat to the floor, spewing its contents under the bed. Her Bible fell with it.

  "He moved!" she shrilled again. "Did you see it?"

  Now Sam was up, too, and Kelly, and the nurses were filing into the room. All of them stood in silent tableau.

  There was a brisk sense of acceleration away from that voice, of dizzying free-fall. The exhilaration was tremendous, and it was only in facing the depths of his descent that Peter understood what was happening. He was tumbling into death's dark warren.

  Fear slowed his fall. Terror stopped it completely.

  And Peter opened his eyes.

  There was a cheek pressed against his, hot and wet, and a boozy waft of breath. . .

  Mom.

  "Oh, Peter I'm so glad you're back. I was so afraid, I've been praying. I knew you'd be back, I did."

  He tried lifting an arm to embrace her.

  Nothing.

  He lifted his head instead, coughing as the rigid tip of the tube prodded something deep in his windpipe. Leona drew back a bit, and Peter saw Sam standing on tiptoe behind her. Kelly was there, too, her bruised face beaming with relief.

  Peter tried to speak, but the tube left him mute.

  "He's tryna say something, Sammy," Leona slurred, missing the terror in Peter's eyes. "C'mere. Tryta read his lips."

  Both Sam and Kelly drew nearer. Still smiling, Kelly placed a hand on Peter's forearm—and abruptly withdrew it, a chill skating through her. His skin was cold and dry, abnormally smooth. It was like touching the arm of a dead man.

  They watched Peter's mouth. His chapped lips formed unintelligible syllables, the tube getting in the way. He angled his head to one side, wedging the tube in the corner of his mouth, and tried again.

  "Ke?" Sam said aloud, thrilled as a kid at Christmastime. "Kan? Can't?" He repeated the word to Kelly, who agreed, then looked back at his brother. "Can't. . . moo. . .”

  Can't move.

  Sam's heart fell. So did Kelly's.

  How were they ever going to tell him?

  "That's just for now, Peter," Leona blurted, and Sam felt kicked by the thoughtless cruelty of her lie. He grabbed her arm, but Leona charged right ahead. "Couple of months tops, honey, then you'll be good as new." She beamed, stroking her son's matted hair. "Honestly."

  Peter's eyes welled with relief. . . then doubt seemed to harden their shine. He glanced beseechingly at Sam, then at Kelly, silently begging for confirmation. But neither of them could meet his gaze.

  He looked back at his mother.

  "Good as new, Peter," she cooed. "Wait and see. I'm praying for you, honey. Praying every day."

  In the middle of the week that followed, a balding potbellied physician by the name of Harrison Lowe strolled into Peter's room and informed him that he was going to extubate Peter that morning. A few days prior Peter had learned the meaning of the term and had been looking forward to it ever since. It meant that the tube in his throat would be coming out, and that finally he'd be able to speak. He'd been breathing without the benefit of the ventilator for two days now and felt more than up to the task of carrying on without the tube. Above all else, progress was paramount in his mind. Stated bluntly, he wanted the fuck out of here.

  A couple of months, his mother had told him. True, she'd been drunk at the time, probably had been since the accident, but surely she'd have gotten it right, even drunk as she was? Something as important as that. . .

  Kelly and Sam, both of whom had been practically living at Peter's bedside, had studiously avoided the topic—not that Peter had been very much able to stimulate conversation, what with a tube in his throat and a body that wouldn't budge—and there had been something in Sam's eyes when their mother told Peter the good news—a slap-faced sort of surprise. Shock, maybe? Whatever it was, it had badgered him ever since. And it had joined with an inner voice, a dark doomsayer's voice that plagued him in the trench of the night.

  Wake up, son, that deceitful voice urged. You're a gimp, a veg, a head. You're paralyzed from the neck down.

  And you're going to stay that way forever. . .

  But that was a lie. His own mother had told him so. All he had to do now was sit tight and persevere, just as he'd always done, and before long (couple of months tops) he'd be out of here. Kingston could wait if it had to. He was a prime candidate, as Kelly had said. They'd hold on to his spot for him, surely they would. . .

  As Dr. Lowe and the nurse prepared to remove his tube, Peter suddenly realized what that look on his brother's face had been. It had been shock all right, but happy shock, wordless shock. Both Sam and Kelly had been afraid that his injuries were permanent, and Leona had kept the good news from them until Peter had been awake enough to share in it, too. That was why they had seemed so stunned!

  Peter's neck muscles tightened. The nurse had slipped on a pair of disposable gloves, and now she was leaning over him, reaching for his tube with a suction catheter coiled like a snake in one hand. Reflexively, Peter twisted his head away. . . but her deft fingers slipped the catheter into the tube and began worming it down his neck. She'd done this before, many times, and although Peter knew she was doing it for his own good—"We've got to keep all that mucus from building up down there"—he wanted to slap it out of her hands. It made him hack like hell when it touched—

  A cough scraped its way up Peter's throat like the blade of a rasp, causing a throb in his eyes and a croupy wheeze around the tube in his trachea. Tears bleared his eyes as tenacious yellow mucus streaked up the length of the catheter, mercifully obscuring his view of the nurse's face and the revulsion that momentarily contorted it. She withdrew the catheter slowly, dipped it into a basin of water—then snaked it into him again.

  When Peter's coughing subsided, the doctor stepped jauntily forward. His blue eyes gleamed around pinpoint pupils.

  "Good!" he said brightly. "That's what we like to see! Okay, now. . .” He grasped the end of the tube between forefinger and thumb. "Deep breath—"

  And before Peter could blink, the tube was dragged up and out, snagging on his teeth before vanishing from his sight line. He heard it thunk unceremoniously into a bedside wastebasket.

  "There," said Dr. Lowe, apparently pleased with himself. "How does that feel? Better, hmm?"

  Peter tried to say yes, to thank him, but all that came out was a dry croak of air. He nodded instead.

  "The hoarseness will go away," Dr. Lowe promised. "Give it a day or two. For now you can whisper—"

  And for a bitter moment that dark voice heckled once again: Wow, man, just think of it! You can whisper! Top athlete, musical prodigy, Ontario scholar, soon-to-be jet pilot, and all you can do is whisper.

  "—and before you know it you'll be talking a blue streak."

  Then the guy—and that was exactly how Peter viewed him in this woeful moment of mute communication, as an ordinary guy caught in a shitty situation—seemed to read the unspoken question that reeled behind Peter's eyes. . .

  And he was gone, a jovial "See you tomorrow" all that was left to ring in Peter's ears.

  The spasms began in earnest during his third week in the ICU. He'd suffered a few of them already, mild ones, quivery little starts that stole through his body or shimmied his legs. Spinal shock, they told him it was—although Leona kept insisting these movements were a sign of Peter's imminent recovery—the body's predictable reaction to spinal cord injury. From the shelves of his shoulders to the soles of his feet his muscles were totally flaccid—no tone, no reflexes. But when the spasms came, their force was Herculean, at times seeming vigorous enough to snap his spine all over again. On top of all this, he got frequent spontaneous erections (whose presence he couldn
't feel, and this embarrassed him repeatedly), his blood pressure took regular nosedives, leaving him faint whenever they sat him up, and his heart knocked along at an all-time low of thirty-eight beats per minute. His bladder was distended almost constantly, necessitating the full-time placement of a catheter, and sometimes, it became downright difficult to breathe.

  One early morning, with Sam's and Kelly's help—Leona, thank God, had been absent—two nurses and an intern hoisted him out of bed and propped him up in a chair. Much ceremony surrounded this process—apparently it represented a big step forward. To Peter, however, being hauled about bodily was one of the most humiliating experiences he'd ever endured, right up there with having a student nurse pad into his room to give him a sponge bath and find his pecker standing stupidly at attention, a yellow bladder catheter waggling obscenely from its tip. The feeling of helplessness, of utter dependency, was huge, and in its shadow Peter could barely contain his despair. Only his mother's promise kept the outbursts at bay.

  (couple of months tops, honey)

  He was going to get better.

  Shortly after he was plunked in the chair, a spasm like a mortar blast almost slammed him onto the floor. His arms jerked up and his legs jackknifed violently, sending the food Kelly had been spooning into him all over the chair, the floor, and Kelly herself. A second spasm took him an instant later, and this time Peter gave voice to his pain. The tears came as they lifted him back into bed, scalding, humiliating tears, and in a tantrum totally out of character for Peter Gardner he ordered everyone out of his room—Sam, Kelly, the lot of them.

  When they had gone, he wept in the miserable silence.

  SIX

  For Kelly Wheeler that first summer passed like a debilitating disease, moment by painful moment, sometimes threatening to kill but most times just laying her flat. In spite of her parents' protests, she canceled her position at Queen's University in Kingston, where she'd been among the first accepted into the honors phys ed program. And although she would later reapply and be reaccepted, on that drizzly morning in August when she called the registrar's office to relinquish her slot, the future she had grimly decided upon had a different face entirely.