DARKENED WINGS

Chapter 25

"Mele Kalikimaka"

MY EYES OPENED LEISURELY AT 7:00 A.M.

I LOOKED AROUND, ACCLIMATING MYSELF. WAS I REALLY IN A HOSPITAL? AND HAD I ACTUALLY ALLOWED PART OF MY BODY TO BE SURGICALLY DETATCHED? I REACHED DOWN TO CHECK AND ENCOUNTERED NOTHING BUT EMPTY SPACE. NO PITTED THIGH TO SUDDENLY GO INTO SPASM AND NO QUAKING NERVE ENDINGS TO DRIVE ME OUT OF MY MIND WITH PAIN. NO VICODIN IN MY FIST READY TO TAME THE SAVAGE BEAST. JUST A TRUNCATED LUMP OF FLESH WHERE THERE ONCE RESIDED A LEG.

I TOOK A DEEP BREATH THROUGH MY NOSE AND LET IT OUT MY MOUTH. SLOW AND EASY. AND AGAIN. I TURNED MY HEAD TO THE WALL, BUT THE TEARS DIDN'T COME. MAYBE THINGS WERE LOOKING UP.

MY EYES WANDERED ACROSS THE ROOM TO THE BUNK BENEATH THE WINDOWS. SOMETIMES THE MAN OVER THERE MADE ME SMILE JUST BY BEING HIMSELF. THIS MORNING HE WAS CURLED UP LIKE A LITTLE BEAR, ALL IN A BALL ON HIS RIGHT SIDE, LEFT ARM DANGLING OVER THE EDGE OF THE BED, PJ BOTTOMS SCRUNCHED UP PAST HIS KNEES. HIS RIGHT HAND WAS NESTLED DOWN NEAR HIS CROTCH, GENTLY RUBBING. I FOUND MYSELF CAUGHT SOMEWHERE BETWEEN A SENSE OF SURPRISED EMBARRASSMENT AND PRURIENT CURIOSITY.

A LITTLE KID HAVING A NOCTURNAL ACCIDENT, MAYBE. OR ELSE A HORNY TEENAGER HUMPING IN HIS DREAMS. THE SIGHT MADE ME SMILE. AND THEN LAUGH OUT LOUD …

… WHICH MADE HIM JOLT AWAKE AND SQUINT OVER AT ME. BY THAT TIME I HAD CEASED LAUGHING. THE BODY MOVEMENT AND VIBRATION HAD MADE MY STUMP HURT AND MY HIP ACHE WITH AN ODD FEROCITY THAT RIVALED THE OLD PAIN IN MY THIGH.

"DAMMIT MAN, STOP THAT!"

"STOP WHAT?"

WHEN AN ADULT HONESTLY DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT ANOTHER ADULT FINDS SO FUNNY ABOUT HIM WHILE HE'S GETTING BOMBARDED WITH SARDONIC LAUGHTER, HE NEEDS TO ASK A FEW DIRECT QUESTIONS. NO?

"SCRATCHING YOUR BALLS!" I GROWLED.

"OH … WAS I?"

I CRINGE WHEN A MAN HIS AGE IS SO THOROUGHLY AND INNOCENTLY … CLUELESS!

The breakfast cart was on its way. I heard it trundle out of the elevator and begin to approach from beyond the nurses' station. Morning reports were still being made and two or three phones were ringing at once.

Oblivious to it all the P.A. system was playing:

"God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay …"

"Oh for …"

"Olla, Senor Doc … Merry Chrees-tmas! And you too, L'il Doc." The little Hispanic lady with the too-long apron stopped her cart and removed the lids from the two breakfast trays. Her taller companion lifted both trays; placed them on my rolling bed table.

"Mele Kalikimaka!" I said, making the effort to be accommodating.

The two of them stared at me as though I'd cursed at them.

"It's Hawaiian for 'Merry Christmas'," I explained.

They said: "Oh. Gracias," and continued doing what they were doing.

Across the room, Kent Calloway adjusted his P.J. bottoms and hurried over to remove the towels from against my sides and raise the head of my bed. I was achy and uncomfortable and I wished the rest of the crap they'd stuck into me was gone. I took the pulse ox off my finger and tossed it to the foot of the bed. The monitor started to wail. All that was left now was the cardiac monitor, but I knew I would catch royal hell if I removed that myself.

Kent gave me the evil eye and strode over to turn the monitor off before the entire squad of waiting baby sitters converged on this room to see what the hell was going on.

The breakfast cart was just being moved out the door when Hazel stuck her head around the corner. "Sorry, I got hung up this morning. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," we said at the same time, and around mouthfuls of hash browns.

"I need to go to the head soon," I told her.

Immediately she pushed away the table and cleared the area so I could get to the wheelchair. All I had left was my coffee, and I finished it in one colossal gulp. "Always at your service, sir," she teased with a bow.

I gave her a dirty look, but didn't respond. I was too achy and my bottom hurt too much. They'd removed my catheter yesterday before my ill-fated trip to the gym, but my privates were still a tad sensitive. I nodded a 'thank you' and pushed upward to be assisted into the wheelchair.

I felt immediately lightheaded and raised both arms in a signal to give me a minute. They waited patiently while I took deep breaths. Finally the room stopped swimming. I gave the go-ahead and found that I was suddenly standing between them, leaning like a tall cement post on both their shoulders. Actually I was standing up straight on a strong, healthy leg that was seriously happy about being given something to do.

I smiled. Then I grinned. Then I laughed out loud.

And I found that they were laughing with me and wondering if I might be losing my mind.

"Now! Please! Gotta go potty!"

I was in the wheelchair and moving. Then I was in the bath and sitting on the 'ivory throne'. All my 'downstairs plumbing' was suddenly working the way it was supposed to.

I mean everything.

Hazel and Kent were both choking and hacking and making a circus of it … until I mentioned the old Bill Cosby LP that described in detail his baby son's first bowel movement. "Ooooh … looky … baby make a poo poo …"

They got very quiet very quickly. And I was able to finish the job and the cleanup on aisle three … all by myself!

In the afternoon I got my trip to the gym.

Hazel and L'il Doc pushed me up within reach of the damn parallel bars. I thrust both arms out and upward and pulled like hell. This time I wasn't scared of anything. Fueled only with determination. The two of them guided me from the side, and I pushed up with every ounce of strength I could gather.

And I was up. Wobbling like a weed on a windy day. Nervous and shaking. All my dangly things hurt like hell. My stump pounded and felt as though everything inside it was ready to bust its way out the bottom. My back was stiff and the right hip refused to function. Contracture? I hoped not.

I stood. Panting. Waiting for the determination to morph into command. Then I began to move. One hop-step at a time. Down the length of the bars. My companions were quiet, not wanting to distract me. And then the strength was there. I could feel the burn of lax muscles as they began to warm up. My breath caught in my throat, but the word "quit" was no longer part of my vocabulary. I pushed upward, and my body, too long in repose, responded. I could feel the heat and pure joy of honest sweat beading on my forehead, wetting my hair and trickling down between my shoulders. This time it was earned!

Old Kyle Calloway was finding his way back.

I turned around very carefully at the end of the bars and slowly teetered in the opposite direction. Hazel and Kent were jumping up and down beside me; hollering, hugging each other and letting their voices echo joyously in the emptiness of the gym. It felt great. In the hall outside, standing in an open doorway, five or six other people watched apprehensively as I completed the return trip. Not like yesterday when an entire therapy group stared in helpless consternation as I panted and snarled and nearly went on my ass. I heard a loud: "Yaaaaay …" before they faded away like little mice, back to their duties.

When they lowered me into the wheelchair again, I was laughing and sweating and bawling and I didn't know which was which. Didn't care. I was exhilarated. "Merry Christmas!" I shouted it at the tops of my lungs. I had never had a merrier Christmas.

That night, the dinner with turkey and all the trimmings took a back seat to the triumphs of the day.

Hazel disconnected the cardiac leads and stowed them away. Removed the ports and threw them in the contaminated waste bag. She pulled the green gown aside and listened to my chest. I asked if I were still alive and she said "yes!" We talked at length about the uphill battle I still had ahead of me. Tomorrow was a work day and Ed Thoreau would be back. We all decided the excrement would really hit the cooling device then.

At 8:00 P.M. Hazel and I changed my bandages again, and there was very little leakage into the extra pads. She gave me a cup with two white pills in it. I took them without question, crumpled the cup and highballed it into the waste can. She withdrew the morphine drip, turned off the canister and hung the tubing on the dolly. "Let's see how you do without it tonight. If your pain ramps up overnight, call me and we'll just reattach. Oh yeah … by the way … I want you to get dressed tomorrow too. I'm sick and tired of seeing you look like an invalid. You're not."

"I need to get clipped up-top the way I'm clipped down below, don't you think?"

"Dammit, Doc, I'm working on it!"

We laughed, and she knew she'd gotten the reaction she was looking for. I nodded, happy as hell to be finished with the rest of the tethers and harnesses and intravenous lines. By 8:30 she was ready to go. "I have the day off tomorrow, but Brandy will be here." Pushing the med pump before her, she paused in the doorway. "Sleep well, Doc. Tomorrow your work really begins. 'Night Kent-Little Doc' … sounds like a Cheyenne Medicine Man. I'll see ya …"

That night I was too psyched to sleep. About 9:00 p.m. the sweet little lunch lady brought us a carafe of coffee and wedges of cherry pie. I called her over to my bed, pulled her shoulders close and planted a kiss on her forehead. I didn't know an Hispanic lady that dark could turn such a bright shade of crimson.

After she left, Kent glared at me from across the room and said under his breath: "You never kiss me like that."

I laughed, a little embarrassed. "If you weren't so damned ugly, I might."

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