by Nan Cuba
After he pulled the car over, he reached toward me.
“Saul,” I said, jerking away. “Please. I don’t love you anymore.”
He leaned on the wheel, burying his face in his arms.
CHAPTER 17
1969
THE REHAB HOSPITAL: cellblock rooms off endless shiny hallways, averted eyes, limp bodies in wheelchairs, on gurneys; moaning, repeated shouting of a name (Betsy, Betsy, Betsy...goddammit, Betsy), an odor of Pine-Sol, lime Jell-O, piss. These impressions are clear now, but their implications didn’t register then. I believed Sam dutifully inhabited this inferno, but only temporarily, that he would endure rigors of rehab then somehow be transported home where his life would be altered, of course, but because he was Sam, it would resume normal definitions, that his mangled body, like Antonín Cervenka’s, would be transformed. Sam would become the exemplary paraplegic.
I sat next to his bed, which was one of twelve in the room, a scene straight off a World War II movie set. “Goddamn nurse won’t come turn me,” he said, his face already thinner, his lips chapped, crust at the corners. “Sores will cover my ass. They don’t give a fuck.”
I scampered toward the doorway, frightened by his language, his mood, the place. “Should I go get her?” Now I was sure that his accident had been my fault. His appeal for help that day in the restaurant had carried larger implications, suggestions I’d been too self-absorbed to notice.
“No. Won’t do any good.” He flinched, shifted his beefy shoulders. “Smell anything? I think I’ve gone and crapped again. You smell it?”
I shook my head, not knowing then about the rubber pants he probably was wearing, his urethral catheter, his loss of bowel control, fear of infection.
“Can’t use a toilet, and they won’t fucking tell me if I ever will again.” His eyes reddened; he exhaled, slowly. “A goddamn eunuch.”
I didn’t allow myself to think about his bowel/sex connection. Anthropology was my reference point. “I’m sure they know what they’re doing. They’ll teach you. It’ll be like learning a new language.”
His hand slid under the covers. “Smell anything?”
“What you need is a road trip. Can you leave to get something to eat?”
He stared, his arm making a tunnel in the sheets. “It’s funny, going off the ramp—can’t remember. But I had some french fries—salty, greasy so a little came off on your fingers, and cut skinny, you know, so they crunched. If I had some now, I’d lick the goddamn sack.”
“Want to? I’ll take you.”
He laughed. The sheet quivered, bulging below his waist. “How about that—a fucking boner. Hey, Betsy,” he shouted, “supper’s ready.” He laughed. “Come and get it.”
“Sam, don’t,” I said.
His arms slapped the top of the covers. He turned his back, reached for a glass of water, sipped. “There’s only one thing scares me,” he said, staring ahead again. “That’s falling. I’m lying here, flopped like a goddamn channel cat, and all I think about is rolling off this fucking bed.” He shoved the glass back onto the table. “Pitiful. Nothing but a shit-faced organism. Protoplasm on a plate.”
“No wonder,” I said, panicked, “it’s this place. You’ll be all right once you get home.”
“I’m not leaving,” he said, frowning. “And I’ll slug anybody who tries to make me.”
My mother told me to answer the phone. Sam now lived with Terezie in an apartment one block from my parents, and every couple of weekends I drove the half-hour from Baylor so I could visit him. Sometimes we’d go out to eat, and once at a pub just across the county line, he’d insisted that we dance. “’Scuse me, sugar. Make way for the gimp,” he shouted, and people stumbled, clearing a space. A lousy band was playing—a horn, two guitars, drums, a singer who thought he was Bobby Darin. He wasn’t. Sam requested “Do You Wanna Dance?” and at first, the guy thought it was a bad joke. It was, but the group honked the tune anyway. Sam jimmied his wheels back and forth to the rhythm while I swayed. We even did the hand jive. Yanking on the pushrim, he’d twirled his chair, and a woman at a nearby table had clapped.
I expected the call to be from Terezie. She’d already talked earlier to my mother, wanting to know if Sam was at the house. Apparently, he’d been gone overnight again, and she couldn’t find him anywhere. This morning while she railed, my mother had made excuses for him, then gradually grew peeved, her chin the familiar rubber patch. Now two hours later, she shrugged, handing me the phone.
“Hello,” I said.
“Is this Sarah?” a woman said, husky as a blues singer.
“Yes.”
“Just a minute.”
Then Sam said, “Sar, I need a favor.”
Since my mother was watching, I pretended it was somebody else. “Sure. What’s up?”
“I’m with someone. Can you drive your car down the block and meet us? I need you to take me home.”
“No problem. See you there,” I said, hanging up. Here we go again, I thought, nervous, relieved. Sam was bouncing back.
“Who was that?” my mother said, her glare a scalpel.
“Someone from high school. You never knew her. We’re going to meet for a Coke.” I grabbed my purse, pulled out my keys. “I won’t be long, about an hour, I guess.”
A block away, Sam sat in a red Triumph convertible with a girl it turned out I did remember. Petite, with black, unratted hair, she’d had a comic’s wit, Elizabeth Taylor eyebrows, and an unforced smile. Not seductive, more like Natalie Wood. When a group of us stood together, she looked like the grown-up. Weeks before graduation, someone convinced her to play Mrs. Waters in Tom Jones. In one scene, she and Tom stood behind a screen while we heard smacking, moaning, groans. When they appeared, we saw lipstick dotting Tom’s face, and we cheered. Unfazed, Mrs. Waters shaded her eyes from the stage lights and gazed into the audience, studying us.
“Hey, Sarah,” she cooed, gorgeous now, coltish, oestrual.
“Hi,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“Just two friends getting reacquainted.” She rubbed Sam’s back, her hand dainty, her fingers probing. “I always had a crush on your brother.” She leaned into his neck, whispering, “Call me when you’re in Dallas, okay? I’ll fit you in.” He put his arm around her. “A freebee.” She kissed him. “For old times.”
Sam opened his door, pushed his wheelchair out of the back seat, unfolded it, and positioned it next to him in the street. He shifted himself onto the green leather seat, clanked the footrests into place, positioned his legs, then rolled himself to my car and repeated the same steps in reverse. While I crammed the folded chair behind him, the girl sped down our street, her radio’s decibel-level cranking.
“How’s it going?” Sam said, grinning, his eyes unfocused, floaty.
“What was that?”
“What?” He blinked, putty-faced. That wasn’t sage I smelled.
“Terezie called Mom.” Why did I enjoy saying that? Me, the tattletale. Pathetic.
He smiled, slowly nodding. “Then I guess you’d better get me home.”
When I turned into his driveway, our mother stood with Terezie at the apartment door. They crossed their arms, a phalanx.
“Sar, what did you tell Mom?” he said.
“That a friend wanted to meet me for a Coke.” How stupid, I now thought. Of course, she knew. What a mess.
The women glared. Terezie crushed wads of her bathrobe in both fists.
Sam opened his car door and reached for his chair. He propped the contraption open on the pavement next to his seat. “It’s okay, Sar,” he said. “I’d better take it from here.”
CHAPTER 18
1970
THERE WAS A TIME when I researched paraplegia. The primary cause: accidents. The largest group: young, virile males. One minute, invincible; the next, numb in a hospital bed. An alien force transforms your body and leaves you inside, trapped. An irritable nurse wipes your ass. You’re told what you can and, especially, what you cannot do.
But no one talks about sex.
Along with your leg and genital spasms, you get erections, usually when you’d rather not. They can, however, be convenient for lovemaking. A little rubbing of the inner thigh, the penis, the scrotum, and presto. The only thing missing is any sexual urge or sensation. For that reason, you’re inventive with your fingers, your tongue. During coitus, you probably watch in order to have a sense of participation. Your orgasm, if you’re lucky enough to have one, is a combination of leg and genital spasms, sweat, a sensation of warmth, an ill-defined mental relief. One man claimed he passed out for ten seconds.
One Friday in late August, nine months after the accident, Sam told Terezie he didn’t want to go to water therapy, and he asked me to go with him instead. I’d come to Nugent the night before, according to my mother’s instructions, to help prepare a family Sunday feast. Sam phoned after Terezie had left. My mother irritably agreed to shop for groceries alone. “He’d better switch his appointment to Saturdays. He’s lucky I made you come two days early.”
Susie, the physical therapist, was as thick-waisted as she was thick-skinned, a no-nonsense matron leading her troops through each inveterate drill. With the help of two male attendants, Sam and three other men were strapped into canvas floater belts and lowered into the ninety-five degree womb. As I stood next to Sam, his face almost level with mine, his muscled arms treading water, I blocked my conscious memory of his paralysis. We were there because of his disability, but somehow I had my brother back, pre-accident, all to myself.
Susie instructed me to massage his bobbing seaweed feet. “Press here,” she said pointing to his instep, “and bend the toes.” She squeezed and rolled them, each wrist crank an expert latch twist. The yanks sprayed drops, while flowing tracks dribbled down her arms. “He won’t break.” She dropped his foot, plunk. In spite of the chest-high gelatinous water, his skin felt dry, tear-able. Using the heel of my hand, I rubbed the bottom of his foot, a slow, rhythmic kneading, and even though he couldn’t feel it, Sam leaned back, eyes closed. Next, I curled the toes, pressing each one with my thumb, along the curved top, across the flat nail. Then the stretched spaces between, the loops of connecting skin soft as a wrist’s underside. “You asleep?” I asked.
“Mmmm,” he said, turquoise encircling his face. Waves slapped the steps, trickling into a nearby side drain.
“Now stand at his feet,” Susie instructed, “and grab his calves. Lean right up next to him.” His toes, then, rested against my chest. “Massage those calves. I mean give them a real work-out.” While I pressed and squeezed, his feet rubbed my breasts. I felt his legs for muscle, sliding all my weight against the little I found.
“Terezie must have the strongest fingers in town,” I said, working my arms, trying not to notice his feet brushing. Sam’s eyes opened, his glare an impulse he couldn’t resist. “What…?” I said.
From the sidewalk above us, Susie stood, water dripping from her suit and body, creeping across concrete, seeping into pavement. She gave her next order to the whole group. “Stretch the legs open and wrap them around you. Concentrate on the inner thigh muscles.”
“She’s kidding, right?” But each of the other couples was already clutched, their poses straight from a sex manual. “You don’t really want to…” I motioned toward Susie, shaking my head.
Sam smiled.
“Pelton,” Susie barked, “is there a problem?”
“No, I guess not,” I said, tugging at Sam’s ankles, pulling them in slow motion through the buoyant water, wrapping them behind my waist. He lay back, treading, his swiveling palms triggering ripples. I bent and straightened his left knee, never looking at his face. Then the right knee, concentrating on my applied pressure, the necessary positions for my hands, my toes as they gripped the gritty floor. Sunlight shone through condensation on tall windows, rays speckling the surface, white patches bobbing, a symphony of flash. As his leg drifted forward then back again, air pockets bubbling under his trunks, I remembered his fingers straightening the cadaver’s puckered mouth.
“Thanks,” Sam said, resting his palm on my arm.
“Huh?” I said, jumping. “Oh.” I shook my head, bent his left knee.
“Pull my leg around again,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, positioning his feet at my back, trying to be casual.
“I love the water.” He sloshed an oozy handful at my breast. “I wish we could live here.”
“King and queen frog,” I said stupidly.
“Like floating in space. Black.” He grasped my shoulders, closed his eyes. Then, I felt him—the man, not my brother—swelling against my belly. I held onto his arms, and for one intoxicating moment, we stayed clasped like that, together.
“Hey, Sergeant Susie’s watching.” Panicking, I pulled his hands down, reached for his right ankle. I guiltily hoped he’d felt himself becoming aroused, that he’d liked pressing against me.
His eyes popped open. He squeezed my shoulder again. “Listen. Stop.” He grabbed my hands, leaving his fugitive legs undirected, drifting. As he floated backward, his expression crumpled. I caught him then, wrapped his legs around me. His hands rose, and while he rested them on my shoulders, he pulled out of the water. He slid his arms to my back, and he hugged me, rubbing my neck, stroking my hair. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s only me.” He felt strong, solid, and he was wet, smelling of chlorine, sodden canvas.
“Sam?” I said, burying my face at his ear. I wanted to ask why he’d been so moody during the months before the accident, to remind him of the fish he’d gutted, his natural enthusiasm for its mysteries, his insistence that I live unafraid, eager to see even the most difficult truth. If I had to do that, why didn’t he? But my questions would hurt him. I didn’t know how to convince him of something he needed—a naïve hope, of course. How could I know what he was thinking?
“Shhh,” he said. “Just hold me.”
He didn’t say anything else until the drive home. “You need to see the ruins of Malinalco near Mexico City,” he told me. “Promise?”
CHAPTER 19
1970
WHEN THE FAMILY GATHERED for lunch, we thanked Sam for requesting our unseasonable menu—beef tender, an early Thanksgiving feast.
Terezie parked their Impala at the end of the front walk, since Sam’s wheelchair couldn’t fit through the back door. Kurt met them as Sam balanced on the armrests then swung himself onto the seat. “Here, I’ll do that,” Kurt said, taking the handles. Terezie positioned Sam’s feet on the footrests. While Kurt bumped him backward up the curb, she locked the car. The chair’s wheels rumbled on the pavement, vibrating Sam’s cheeks. Kurt pulled him up the porch steps, front casters swiveling, Sam’s head pressed against his brother’s chest.
“Where to?” Kurt asked once they’d squeezed through the entrance.
Mesmerized, Hugh stood unmoving in their path.
“Hugh, buddy?” Sam said, reaching out.
Hugh flinched, then shuffled, almost tripping, to the side. Blushing, he covered his mouth.
“Thanks, man,” Sam said, then used the pushrim to help Kurt get him across the carpet to the dining room. His chair fit easily under the round table, where the men joined him, relieved to be eye-to-eye.
“After lunch, we’ll adjust that seat,” my father said, sitting at the next place. He checked the space beside Sam’s thigh. “It’s too narrow. There should be a half-inch between you and the chair.” He sat back, watching the women through the doorway. “Otherwise, it could interfere with your circulation. You don’t want a pressure ulcer.”
Sam inspected his fork then set it down. “Even the smell of Mom’s cooking is fattening,” he mumbled. Nudging my father, he winked and nodded at the kitchen. “You think,” he shouted toward the stove, “they’ll bring us something before we starve to death?”
“You boys,” my mother said as she set a plate of tenderloin before him, “you’re a bottomless pit.”
“You don’t know how much I’ve been
looking forward to this,” Sam said.
In spite of the heat, we ate like jackals, sopping the last drops of gravy with sourdough rolls. Woozy, we secretly longed to stagger to our cars, drive home for a nap. But before we could rise, Sam asked for a second helping.
“There’s plenty,” my mother said, jumping to refill his plate. We slumped in our seats, politely watching our cheerful invalid gorge himself. Clearly, he was better adjusted, I thought.
After lunch, our father floated upstairs, Hugh left to meet friends at a movie, and we women cleaned up the dishes. Once we’d finished, we walked into the living room, where Sam and Kurt debated the hunting abilities of beagles. They waived their arms, taunting each other. “Face it,” Kurt said, standing to go to the bathroom, “you know I’m right.”
“How long you think you’ll have to wait,” Sam said, “before that happens.” We laughed, back in familiar territory, assuaged. He wanted to talk about movies, so we sat, impatient but graciously quiet, we believed, in order to appease him. Terezie dozed and my mind drifted, but he didn’t notice. He described one we hadn’t seen, its plot convoluted, exhausting. Perspiration misted his lip as he shared the final scene about a prisoner waiting to be put to death. “So the guy turns to the priest, says, ‘Hey, it’s okay. I’ve done more than most. There’s nothing I feel like I missed.’”
After that, he described a dream. “I’m walking, more like floating, but I feel my thighs catch whenever I take a step. The way your leg tightens, the flexing.”
Twice before, I’d seen his legs spasm, knocking a foot off the wheelchair pedal. I didn’t learn until later that he suffered spinal pain, had stones in his kidneys and bladder.
“I’m moving down these steps, and it’s a cobblestone street, like in some European country, Italy or Hungary, maybe.”
I pictured him striding through coral light at dusk, two steps at a time down a crowded walkway, Duomo bells ringing, people turning, drawn to his energy, his body, his seductive expression.
