DARKENED WINGS

Chapter 10

"RX – Honesty"

MY PHONE CHIRPED INSISTENTLY AT 7:00 P. M. I KNEW IT WAS HIM. COULD SOMETHING BE WRONG? MY HEAD FELT FUZZY AND SO DID MY MOUTH. THE ROOM WAS DARK AS THE INSIDE OF MY SOCK, AND I WAS HUNGRY AS A BEAR. I SPOKE IN AN UNTELLIGABLE SLUR: A FEW RASPY WORDS THAT MADE ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE TO ME, AND PROBABLY LESS TO HIM.

"CAN YOU COME OVER?" HE ASKED, AND HIS TONE SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ME. I SAID: "ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?" AND HE SAID: "YEAH …" BUT HIS VOICE WAS SHAKY. HE WAS TERRIFIED ABOUT SOMETHING. I SAID: "I'LL BE THERE AS SOON AS I CAN, OKAY?" HE ANSWERED: "YEAH, OKAY, BUT BRING US SOME GRUB AND DON'T HAVE A HEART ATTACK OVER WHAT YOU SEE WHEN YOU WALK IN." I SAID: "WHA-A-T?" BUT HE'D ALREADY RUNG OFF.

I CALLED DOWN TO THE DINING ROOM AND PLACED AN ORDER FOR LEAN HAMBURGERS WITH ONIONS, TOMATOES, AND LETTUCE; ONION RINGS, AND TWO SERVINGS OF CINNAMON-CHUNK APPLESAUCE TO BE DELIVERED TO HIS PLACE IN A HALF HOUR. OH YEAH … AND TWO UNSWEETENED ICE TEAS. WITH LEMON. I THREW ON MY COAT AND HURRIED DOWN THE STEPS TO THE LOBBY, AND OUT ACROSS THE STREET …

I banged on his front door, wondering whether he was in any shape to answer. But I heard his voice from inside: "It's open."

I turned the latch and walked into his living room. He was wearing old PJ bottoms and an older tee-shirt. Seated in a lightweight wheelchair, right leg rest elevated, bad foot still bare, and no shoe on the other one. It startled me for a moment, and I thought he might have injured himself. He held up both hands, palms out in a restraining gesture. "I'm okay," he said. "But right now I'm too damn shaky to try to walk. Ed Thoreau called me about five o'clock. The surgery is set up for tomorrow morning at eleven, and I need to be there by seven. Could you … ?"

"Yes. Of course. But why such short notice?"

He smiled sardonically. "Christmas holidays and staff vacations. You know. It's the only time he could get his entire team together until after the first of the year, and he says it won't wait that long. He doesn't want to risk deep vein thrombosis or any of the other hundred stupid complications that might screw things up. Neither do I. My last couple of scans have been … iffy, to say the least."

"Then it's best we get on with it," I agreed.

"'We?'"

"Yeah. We! As in … you… and me. I'm here. You're here. Neither of us is going anywhere. 'You and me!'"

His eyes were like darkened pools of misery and his voice was thick as library paste when he finally answered: " Thanks …"

I nodded; deeply affected by his pain. "Don't mention it."

He paused briefly. Heaved a shaky sigh. Looked up at me, gauging sincerity.

"I'm not leaving you tonight," I said. "It's as simple as that. Besides, I've ordered supper in, like you asked. Hamburgers, onion rings, Cinnamon-Chunky."

"Healthy stuff, huh?"

"Mostly, except for the rings."

"Are you starting to babysit me already?"

"Not in your wildest dreams!"

"Okay. Just checking."

That was when a polite knock came to his door.

I didn't ask. Just answered it. Took the food … which smelled wonderful. Paid for it. Slipped the kid a tip. Reclosed the door. He was sitting in the wheelchair glaring at me with a look of thunderclouds across his brow. His motions were changing like the seasons, only faster.

I ignored him for a moment, and then quirked a 'oneupmanship' smile. "Forgive me, father, for I have sinned."

He guffawed. And the gray clouds lifted.

We ate in his living room. I helped him get settled more comfortably in the wheelchair and placed a couch pillow beneath his knee. I knew he was a bit skittish with me touching him, but he refrained from snarky comments. I looked for and found a big metal pizza pan in the kitchen, which we placed between us. We ate our supper from there.

He cleaned his plate except for some of the rings. We sipped at the tea and regarded each other with shielded speculation. His hands were still shaking, but he'd relaxed somewhat since I arrived.

He was the first to speak.

"I did think about you over the years, you know. Wondered whether you were still in Jersey with the kiddies, or whether you might have branched out and tried to make something of yourself. Since you're here, I guess that you have. Branched out, I mean. I also wondered if you ever met wife number four. Guess not, since you're here … alone. And I'm answering all my own questions, aren't I?"

His right hand drifted to his knee and he rubbed at it slowly, almost as though using it as a distraction to keep from saying anything more.

"Do you need your meds?" I asked.

He looked at me quickly. His eyes: melting ice cubes with blue highlights. Then he relaxed again

with effort, and straightened. "No, not really. Peripheral neuropathy has settled into my foot and it's annoying. Give it a few minutes and it'll fade."

He looked away for a few seconds before he spoke again. "I screwed myself royally when I stole the experimental vaccine from the local cancer lab. It killed every rat they injected with it, and you know about the tumors that showed up above my knee.

"If I'd had the sense to stay off my feet after the patchwork surgery; used crutches for a couple of weeks. If I hadn't gone running away to Barbados, for crying out loud, my leg wouldn't be turning

into coyote carrion. But I had to get the hell out of there …"

"Hey …" I interrupted him softly. "Like you said to me a while ago: 'it is what it is'. Nothing can change it now. You'll get yourself admitted and have the surgery. And I'll just do what I always do … run around like a chicken with its head cut off."

He smiled at that, and planted his chin firmly on his chest. "You will indeed," he finally said. And that simple statement was loaded with a bare truth that we'd spent too long running away from.

Neither of us could sleep. The night crept on and we were both wide awake. We wouldn't be worth a wooden nickel by morning.

We killed time by catching up.

I told him that my dad had died more than two years before, followed a year later by my brother Danny. Dad's death was a heart attack. At his age, not unexpected.

But Danny … my younger brother … his death was brought on by a life of schizoid behavior and a host of other mental problems that caused felonious activities with a very long list of frightening consequences. He stopped taking his medications and returned to a life on the streets. Then he stole a gun. He went into a garbage-filled back alley downtown, and used it on himself. His viewing was closed-casket and we buried him next to dad and both paternal grandparents. It brought to a close an era of my life filled with uncertainty, guilt and fear for a brother I could never get to know.

I finished by mentioning that I had invested heavily in Twitter when it first opened up, and got lucky. The investment doubled, then tripled, and I accumulated a nice little nest egg. I didn't have to work if I didn't want to … but I liked to keep my hand in. And I had this special friend I needed to catch up with.

He sat in his wheelchair with his head down, hands gripping the armrests. When I finished, he looked up, misty eyed. It was not a picture of him I would ever get used to seeing, and it was upsetting. He had always been a vital, dominant personality; forceful and uncompromising. This person before me was an enigma. All his vital components were muted. The compelling eccentric sat silent and terrified. I wondered what I could possibly do to help him.

Nothing. At least not now.

He looked frightened out of his mind with no idea how to express that fear without exposing his vulnerabilities in all their horrible glory. I could see tension in his neck and in the center of his forehead as he strained with the effort of control. He was going to the hospital to have a very significant part of his physical body taken away and dumped in the trash. He had waged a long and aggressive battle to retain that body part. He had endured years of painful disability and an arthritic shoulder just to keep his body whole. And now the battle was over. If he wanted to go on living, the leg had to be forfeit. At this moment he couldn't face it.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered. " I knew about Danny, and I stayed away. I didn't support you. Why the hell did you come all this way to find me? Why the hell are you here exactly at a time when I need your brand of schmaltz more than ever before? Why?"

"Because it was meant to be," I replied with a smile. "Serendipity, maybe. Not schmaltz. You're

my best friend, that's why. Because you mean more to me than any other human being I've ever known. Don't ask me to explain it, because I can't. Just accept it and let me help." I knelt in front of

his wheelchair and reached for his left hand, not quite touching, but offering the invitation anyway.

He looked at me as though in mortal combat with himself whether he would … or even could … accept any of what I was offering. I saw his fingers twitch slightly, and then his hand rose away from its death grip on the arm rest. Clasping his cold digits lightly in my own, I looked over in an effort to meet his averted gaze. Slowly the wounded blue eyes circled downward and to the left, and he was looking at me full-on; perhaps still afraid of what I might do next. I did not move. The next move was his.

He remained silent, eyes still aimed downward. Finally I wheeled him into his bedroom. Assisted him out of the chair and into the bath. I closed the door to allow him privacy. He said nothing when he returned and sat down on the edge of the bed. I took the crutches and leaned them against the wall nearby.

He hissed quietly when he tried to hoist his legs up to the surface, so I clasped both ankles and assisted them across. He studied my face with a fathomless regard that roiled in the pit of my stomach. "A few months from now," I said casually, "you're going to be doing this by yourself. Just want you to realize … nobody is gonna wait on you forever."

He grunted. "Got it. Loud and clear. Be apprised of the fact that you could still stick around. I mean … to make sure I keep my ass moving. You might want to kick it once in a while. Also, the guys over at the hospital could probably use a Boy Wonder Oncologist … just for scut work …"

I laughed quietly; a controlled and contained exhale of pure relief. It seemed he did not intend to send me packing when my usefulness was over. "I'll keep that idea in mind," I said.

When I doused the light and prepared to let him alone to get whatever sleep he could before daylight, I heard the sheets rustle as his head turned in my direction.

"Stay," he said simply.

I gulped and hesitated a moment. I did not want to appear too eager. Slowly I walked around to the opposite side of the bed and sat down. The ambient glow from the window cast a pattern of light and shadow across his face that made the moisture in his eyes gleam like tiny diamonds. "Are you all right?" I knew I shouldn't have said it the moment it passed my lips.

"I'm fine!" He snapped, and the old persona was back in an instant.

We said, simultaneously: "I shouldn't have said that …" And we laughed and shook our heads.

I leaned against the headboard with a pillow behind my back and cradled him against my side. I let him talk because he needed to. I could feel the pent-up tension in his body and I knew he had a need to release it and still keep a tight lid on for appearance's sake.

"My mom died about two years ago too," he whispered. As he continued to speak, he clung to my hand with both of his own. His grip was astonishingly strong. I pretended it didn't hurt. "Also a heart attack, like your dad. I'd just talked to her on the phone the day before. She knew I wasn't well, and why, and how I'd got that way. She called me about once a week to ask how I was doing. I always told her I was fine; under a doctor's care and taking meds for the leg problem.

"I don't know which of us was the bigger liar: me for feeding her such a line of crap, or her for pretending to believe me.

"Mom and I finally made our peace. After she married Thomas Bell, there was a new tranquility that settled over her like a breath of fresh air. I didn't avoid her anymore because she was obviously happy and he had a lot to do with it. I had to readjust my way of thinking a lot during that time.

"It was Thomas who called me from the hospital. They'd rushed her there by ambulance, but it was too late. My mother also had an infarction, but she was too old and her heart was too weak. She didn't survive it.

"My first thoughts were full of anger and regret. If I'd been there, I might have saved her. That's an arrogant thing to say, isn't it? But that's how I felt: like it was my failure!

"At her funeral I cried real tears; the first tears I'd shed since I was a kid. I can't tell you how many times I wished you were by my side. I was in a wheelchair then too … this one in fact. Already driving the old beater using hand controls. So I couldn't have saved her even if I was there. I finally made my peace with Thomas Bell. He still thought he was my real dad, and I never told him different. Actually … he turned out to be a pretty decent guy.

"Now Thomas is gone too. About a year ago. I think he grieved himself to death. I inherited both their estates, which were considerable. Hell, I could buy half of New Hampshire if I had a mind to.

"Instead, I decided to see if I could bring my sorry ass back to life. I finally got up on crutches and ended up here. Stayed at the Inn and came to Dartmouth-Hitchcock to nose around … see what they had. Found out it was high-tech and well managed. 'State-of-the-art' so they say. I ran into Ed Thoreau while I was wandering around. We had coffee and he asked what-all my leg problem entailed. While we were talking, I realized who he was. Damndest thing: he recognized my grizzled puss too, and he didn't care. He said he could probably use some of that shitload of tangled information that was junked up inside my head. Ed's almost as genteel as I am.

"Anyhow, I introduced myself as 'Dr. Calloway', and that's what they've called me ever since. They helped me decide what to do about the leg, and now it's time to shit or get off the pot. I'm scared out of my mind.

"I bought this apartment building. Converted it to handicap. There are four units and they're all occupied. Guess I'll have to move out if I learn to walk okay on a fake leg."

Tears were tracking down my face as he finished speaking; his words sometimes slurred, sometimes hitching from deep in his throat. Gradually he relaxed his grip on my hands, and the blood sang in my veins as it hurried to resupply what had been constricted during his long verbal panic attack.

We sat silently for a long time, each of us caught up in old memories. Thinking of everything we had missed out on during this long and painful separation.

It was getting late, and tomorrow was going to be one of the most traumatic days either of us had ever experienced.

For a long time it was very quiet in his little apartment. Both of us together again, but also truly alone. There was only one barrier still to be breached.

At last I couldn't stand it any longer.

He would not be caught dead initiating the next move, so it was up to me. I reached slowly behind him while he watched me; wary but silent. My arm worked its way carefully between his rigid back and the headboard of the bed as I drew my body into closer proximity with his own. There was some resistance at first, but then he relaxed by degrees and let it happen.

In the middle of that tense night I settled down until I was fully in line beside him. I drew up the covers and held him close to me with his face buried in the crook of my shoulder and his body hiccoughing with quiet sobs.

He was grieving for the part of him that would soon be missing.

And I?

Silently and secretly, I was giving thanks to … whatever … for the prickly treasure I held in my arms.

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