The Electric Woman_A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts

by Tessa Fontaine

  I have been bit. I have been bit by the snake. I repeat these unbelievable sentences in my head.

  I do not believe that this snake is not poisonous. Sure, I’ve been told she’s not poisonous because she’s a boa, and sure, boas don’t bite, they squeeze. But she bit me.

  I look over to Tommy dramatically, not quite wanting to interrupt his bally but also desperately wanting him to notice. To get ready to catch me as I faint.

  “Today you’re going to see a girl from California eat fire and drink burning gasoline like you or I would drink iced tea,” Tommy tells the growing crowd. “You’ll see the Pain-Proof Man, the Icelandic Giant, and Olga Hess, the Headless Woman,” he says. This is where I’m supposed to be pointing at the corresponding banners. Neither Tommy nor the crowd seem to notice anything amiss, and so, not knowing what else to do, I point to the banners as he ballys, keeping the bloody side of my finger away from the audience as well as I can.

  My finger stings, though after the first thirty seconds, the bleeding only looks impressive when I squeeze the wound, which, when I eye it as I’m waving to a hollering baby in a stroller, does not have two deep fang holes. The snake keeps wrapping her body around me, curving her strong neck toward my face with a kind of coil that looks to me as if she’s readying to attack, so I keep strong-arming her head away from mine. My biceps are already quivering with strain.

  “You got a hold of that snake?” Tommy whispers when his bally pitch is through. It does not look like I have a hold on this snake. I do not have a hold.

  “The snake bit me,” I whisper, trying to keep my smile. The words come out a little garbled, like a ventriloquist. I hear the shake in my notes. I hold my finger up to his face and prepare for him to cry out in horror, but as I eye the injury myself, I realize it appears more like a scrape than a bite. A small scrape.

  “What? This is a first,” he says. We both stare at my finger. It appears, really, that the snake has brushed her teeth against me more than anything else. “Sometimes the snakes scrape against things when they’re getting ready to shed to help them peel away some skin. I guess she wanted help from you. She must like you.”

  “She does not like me,” I say, my eyes filling with a heat I know means they are close to tears. Again.

  “Do you want to put her down? I can take her,” Tommy says, reaching over. I begin to lean toward him, to let the snake get taken from my shoulders. There are bees in my brain, maggots, spiders, a panic of pain and anger. I did not imagine fear would be such a daily hurdle here. I thought the sideshow would be a place to escape it. But here it is. Over and over.

  The snake squeezes on, coiling herself around my body. Tommy’s arms reach out toward me. I want to take a deep breath, move past the fear, and let myself face the actual creature on my shoulders, so much less terrifying, really, than the idea of her. I want to be bold.

  I shake my head meekly toward Tommy and, with as much courage as I can muster, keep the snake half-draped across my shoulders. I smear the tiny bit of blood on my sequined shorts and, not knowing what else to do, smile at the passing marks.

  CAKE

  Two months after the stroke

  December 2010

  Her eyes were still gray.

  She’d been awake for seven weeks. My mom’s eyes opened and closed, her hand squeezed ours or a doctor’s or anyone’s. She had movement in her left leg and left arm and left hand. Nothing on the right side.

  Eye color is determined by the distribution and concentration of melanin. Trauma can create heterochromia, a difference in coloration of the iris, due to excess deposits of iron from too much blood in the eye’s anterior chamber, among other causes. Nobody knew exactly why what was happening, was happening with her eyes. Her brain.

  Two months, and we were desperate to understand how far she had or hadn’t come. How much she would or would not recover. We asked her to read things. Books. Cards. Writing on photos. She looked at them. Sometimes her brow furrowed. Sometimes she placed a finger on the photograph, on the letters. Then she looked away. We didn’t know if she couldn’t read them, or if she just couldn’t express that she could read them, or if she just didn’t want us to talk about any of it because she was so frustrated.

  We asked her to write her name. Nope.

  To draw a picture of a house. Of a circle. Of a person.

  Could she nod? No. Sometimes she moved her lips or eyebrows like she was trying to talk but had forgotten which part of her face made the sound come out.

  Could her tongue go to one side or the other to mean different things?

  What if she held objects to express different wishes? What if she picked up this cup for no, this stuffed bear for yes?

  What if we use an iPad, a laptop, flash cards? What if she does?

  For weeks, then months, we try this. We try everything. The professionals try everything. All the tricks.

  “Oh, she’s had a stroke?” I hear from neighbors, acquaintances. “That’s terrible. My uncle had a stroke and had to be in the hospital for almost a month before he was up and walking and talking again. I’m sure she’ll recover soon.”

  It has been two months, and she has not recovered. The doctors keep telling us that she will not recover. Davy spends all his time at the hospital trying to get her to recover.

  Will he find a way to get her to communicate? Yes, he says he is certain. He is goddamned positive.

  Can she move her hand so that her thumb points down for no, points up for yes?

  Davy sits beside her bed. “Cutie,” he says. “We want to help you communicate, so we know what you need and want. Okay?” he asks.

  She is looking right into his eyes.

  “I’m going to help you make a fist,” he says. He gently bends the fingers on her left hand in, straightens her thumb so it sticks up. She is making a thumbs-up.

  “Great, that’s so great,” he says, smiling hugely at her and then looking over his shoulder at my brother and me, making sure we are witnessing the beauty. “When your thumb is up like this, it means yes, okay?”

  “Na na,” she says.

  “Great,” he says. “Okay, relax your hand.” He unfolds her fingers, kisses them, and sets them down on the bed. “Let’s practice. Is your name Teresa?” he says. She raises her hand. I stop breathing.

  She flexes her fingers, relaxes them. Holds her hand in the air for three seconds. Every muscle in my body is tensed. My brother is chewing on his thumb.

  She clears her throat. Extends her pointer finger. Sets her hand back on the bed. She looks at Davy. Her eyebrows are tensed and furrowed, there are lines across her forehead that signal distress, lines we have come to know too well.

  “No problem, honey. Let’s try again,” he says softly and slowly. “Is your name Teresa?”

  She raises her hand quickly.

  “Good,” he says. “Now see if you can make a fist.”

  She makes a fist.

  “Yes,” he says, talking quicker now, “and now stick your thumb up,” he says. She moves a few of the fingers on her hand, looks at it, looks at him, looks at it. She thinks about it. Stares and stares. Wiggles a few fingers. And then she sticks up her thumb.

  “Yes, yes, yes!” we all three yell, my brother and I jumping up and down, Davy clapping. My mom is beaming, this tender smile that stretches from the midline of her face across the left side, her eyes jumping back and forth among the three of us, watching our joy.

  Davy jumps up and grabs the physical therapist as she is passing. “Come see, come see!” he says, pulling her into the room.

  “Teresa,” Davy says. She has set her hand back on the bed. “Am I your husband?”

  She is still smiling at him.

  “Am I your husband?” he asks.

  “Na na na,” she says.

  “Can you give me a thumbs-up to answer the question, honey?” he asks.

  “Na na,” she says. Her hand remains on the bed.

  “Remember the thumbs-up you just did? She just di
d one,” he says. “Can you do that again, to show Linda?” he asks. She is looking at him. She knows he wants something. “Right here, with this hand,” he says, tapping her hand on the bed.

  She picks her hand up, holds her arm out straight from her body. She knows we want something from her. Insurance will only pay for therapy—physical, occupational, speech—if the patient makes continual, measurable progress. We need progress. We are desperate.

  She sticks her tongue out in concentration. Licks her lips. All our starving eyes, staring.

  “Am I your husband? Thumbs-up or thumbs-down?”

  Her arm is still out straight. She bends her wrist and her flat hand folds ninety degrees down. The lines crease her forehead again and she is staring at us as if she knows this isn’t what will please us.

  “That’s okay,” the therapist says. “I’ve gotta run. I’m so glad to hear you made a thumbs-up. Let’s try it again tomorrow, okay?” she says, but my mom’s mouth stays in a grimace. She is working. She is working so hard.

  “See you all tomorrow,” Linda says, closing the door behind her.

  “What does Linda know?” Davy says. “Anyway, you’ll show her tomorrow. Ugh. Linda.”

  My mom’s brow releases a few of its creases. She sighs out a big huff of air.

  “You ready to try again?” he asks.

  “Na na na na,” she says.

  He will do anything, everything, again and again, to give her a life.

  * * *

  A few days later, Davy and I were sitting in the hospital’s hallway, waiting, while my mom’s blood and brain fluid were being sucked out for more tests. In the two months since her stroke, with each step she took toward healing, another crisis occurred—a head wound infection, more internal bleeding, additional small strokes, another required brain surgery (she’d had six brain surgeries already), septic shock, on and on, so it was impossible to keep track of how many or which steps forward or back we were taking. There was just constant crisis, and her pain.

  The kindest thing, the doctors said, would be to pull the plugs.

  What kind of life will she have now?

  Would she want to live it?

  Would you?

  It is not painful, the hospice workers told us, all of us scrunched in one visiting room, to starve to death. We’ll just cut off her feeding tube. It’s peaceful.

  That seems untrue, I said.

  Well, we give them a lot of morphine, one of them said. And then your body just shuts down. It’s natural. Not unpleasant.

  Not unpleasant?

  Well, the hospice worker said, taking my hand. You know, she said, and smiled a frowny smile that made the pockets of her cheeks stand out like overstuffed strudels.

  The terrible truth was no. I don’t think she’d want to live this life. I wouldn’t.

  Davy and I left the hospice conversation and sat in the waiting area. His back was to the windows overlooking giant trees that might have been hiding mountain lions, anything was possible. It was early evening, and the light was gold and coming in shafts through the window and holding in its arms the ordinary beauty of floating dust particles, and we were both staring at them. It had been two months, only two months, but there was exhaustion to contend with already. There was the turmoil of sustained emergency, which seems like an oxymoron—that emergency could be long-term—but it was, sustained. We were in it. He leaned his head down away from the light and shaded his eyes with one hand. His voice was higher than usual.

  “I don’t think I will be able to go on if Teresa dies,” he said. I nodded. These are the kinds of words we know to use in times like these. Like times like these.

  “I mean, I won’t go on,” he said. His hand still shaded his eyes. He wasn’t using abstraction. This was not the story of the American hero who endures and endures. This was, he thought, the end of his love story. Which was the only story that mattered to him.

  I thought about my brother. I tried to imagine what his life would feel like, at twenty-one, to lose both parents at once. My stomach dropped six floors to the street and my heart was pounding and I felt desperate to run the three hundred miles that moment to my brother’s college and knock the kegs away and gather him up in my arms and grip swords to slice open the guts of anyone who approached.

  I nodded at Davy with total calm, accepting the terms.

  * * *

  It’s her birthday. Seven months after the stroke.

  Davy orders a cake. It must be covered in brown icing, he says. To look like leather. There needs to be a handle on one side of the cake, and little patches of brightly colored frosting made to look like postage stamps. One must say Paris. Another Venice. Germany. In the center, as if written on a luggage tag, ice the words Visualize Travel.

  A sweet idea, we all agreed. My brother, my grandmother, my two aunts, and I heard the cake plan in separate phone conversations in the week or so before her birthday. Sweet to daydream about something like that, like a unicorn.

  My mom was living at an acute rehabilitation hospital. Neighbors, nurses, and other family members came to the party Davy threw for her. They sang. They ate the Visualize Travel cake. I didn’t.

  I stayed in Alabama, trying to keep my head above water in school, trying to protest the idea that this birthday might be her last. People told her how good she looked for sixty-five, and in the video I watched of the party, which kept panning back to her in a wheelchair out on a wooden deck, her head is moving around all the time, like there are bugs flitting toward her face that she must escape. Guests lean in low and close to her to express their love, talk twice as loud as normal. She looks at them. Looks away. It is hard to know if she wants to respond but can’t, and feels too frustrated to hold eye contact, or if responding is just one of an infinite set of possible movements, and looking away, to an evergreen’s low branch, is the one she chooses right now. There is no such thing as too much love. But somehow, it is clear that this is too much.

  I watched the video and watched the video. I watched myself not being there, watched her overwhelmed with well wishes. For a while I was going home every few weeks, and then after a while, after the first three months, I went back every couple of months, but it was never enough. Every time I went I thought about dropping out of school to stay with her, because that is what a loving daughter would do, but then I kept not doing it.

  * * *

  A month after her birthday party with the Visualize Travel cake, I came home for a visit and Davy stopped at a travel store on our way home from the rehab facility. “Be right back,” he said to me in the car. He returned clutching maps and travel books on Italy.

  “We’re going to eat pasta and drink wine and look at the fountains,” he said, using the knuckles on his hands to jab at the tears beside his eyes. I think about my mom’s tracheotomy. The sound of the nurses suctioning the phlegm from the quarter-size hole in her throat because she cannot swallow, because she was choking too often on her own saliva.

  “We always wanted to go when we retired,” he said. “If we ever had the money.”

  “Do you have the money?” I asked.

  “We’ll find a way.”

  “What way?”

  “We’re working it out.”

  He didn’t give me any more information and I thought it would be rude to keep asking, thought maybe there wasn’t actually a way, and the plan would fail, and we would all remain home, safe. They’d just had to sell the house. How would there be money for the trip? How would a doctor okay her to travel? How could they decide to leave us behind? None of it seemed possible. But even the far-off, distant, impossible idea of it made me feel like I didn’t fit inside the car anymore, that I couldn’t sit beside him without exploding.

  “Do you really think she’ll be able to travel?” I asked. I tried to keep my voice soft and tender, but there was a knife in it.

  “She wants to.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She’s always wanted to.”

  “
And now?”

  “I asked her. Very clearly. And she very clearly responded yes.”

  “She did not respond yes! She cannot talk! This is so selfish,” I wanted to scream at him. “So dangerous! So dumb! So terrible to take her somewhere far away to die!” I wanted to list all the threads of idiocy and self-obsession that would have concocted this plan, but I stayed quiet. I was afraid of him cutting me out. And I was afraid that it wasn’t just about her. Maybe he needed something, a wish, a dream, to keep him going, too.

  We drove in silence for a few minutes, him wiping his face and neither of us looking at the other. Living in our own private continents across the chasm of the gearshift. Both our hands moved to our wet eyes at the same time and then there was only one of us and a mirror image. Wiping away the evidence. As in the human brain, connection across hemispheres is nearly impossible.

  HAIR INGREDIENTS

  Day 9 of 150

  World of Wonders

  June 2013

  Story goes: a woman became a carnie because she fell in love with a Ferris wheel. She called him Bruce. For seven years they traveled together. Then, in their eighth season, a hurricane hit their carnival and Bruce was destroyed, sent to a junk lot in New Jersey. She followed him there and, after finding his remains, asked him to marry her. They were wed. She’s working at a sandwich shop to save enough money to have Bruce shipped home to her in Florida.

  I am not yet in love with any of the machines but also in love with all the machines. Seeing the half-assembled rides during setup was almost embarrassing, like I was glimpsing them in their underpants, not yet all dazzled up with long stiff arms and flashing lights, blaring the summer’s pop hits. But I like seeing them at night. Powered down. Sleeping.

  * * *

  We’ve just returned back from our first Walmart trip.

  You want to meet a bunch of carnies? Head to Wally World after midnight when the carnival is in town. Hope they’re a little high, jovial. Hope they’re not squaring off in their rivalries, that food jocks stay in cereal while the ride jocks are in canned soups.