DARKENED WINGS

Chapter 34

"Minor Miracles"

ED THOREAU CAME INTO THE ROOM JUST AS WE WERE WAKING UP. HAZEL WAS WITH HIM, AND SHE WAS CARRYING A SMALL PLASTIC CASE WITH THE 'DHMC' LOGO. WE BOTH KNEW WHAT IT MEANT. HE WAS BEING RELEASED, PROBABLY TOMORROW. THE CASE CONTAINED GIFT STUFF, LIKE POWDER, LOTION, A PACKAGE OF SIX STUMP SOCKS AND A COUPLE OF LONG, WIDE ELASTIC BANDAGES.

Ed and Hazel were here to give Kyle his final going-over in preparation for discharge, and Ed was all business. He had Kyle lie flat on his back and rotate his stump, checking for ease in manipulating his hip joint. After that, they both palpated the half-healed staple area, making sure there would no residual problem in the region of the small cut where the staples had been removed. Kyle admitted to bouts of intermittent phantom pain, which he'd hidden from me … and everybody else, for that matter. Ed was a little put out that his stubborn patient had not said anything, but admitted that his silence hadn't caused any problems.

Hazel pulled on a fresh stump sock , along with a new shrinker.

While they were at it, Ed reached for Kyle's sore wrist and manipulated that also, turning it one way, then the other. He drew the hand back from the joint and then forward toward the underside of his forearm. Kyle hissed and groaned and half jumped off the bed. His wrist was not healed by a long shot, and of course he had been hiding that too.

"What did you do with the heating pad I gave you?" Hazel asked.

"In the drawer of the stand." He sighed dramatically.

When Hazel opened the small drawer, the heating pad was crammed in with the creased medical file and a dozen-or-so silver candy wrappers. Three Musketeers Minis. He was embarrassed. His face turned a delightful shade of pink … along with the purple and blue and green. "Wow!" Hazel growled. "You've developed some very interesting multi-racial characteristics … including Vulcan, it seems ..."

"I'm pretty sure Vulcans like Musketeers Minis too, right Kyle? You must have shared them." Ed was already laughing. "Remind me again … what color is your blood?"

Kyle's face looked like a Miami hurricane. "Don't push it!"

After lunch, Ed and Hazel and Joe Garrett returned. Joe was pushing the wobbly little plastic med cart with the components for the 'electronic-bionic-nanotectronic-stereophonic –whatever' … damned leg. The parts I'd thought were plastic before, I realized now were titanium.

(Maybe dilithium too.)

If a fistful of that stuff could power the Enterprise, then a microscopic grain of it should be able to power a prosthetic leg … and the man who wore it. (I smiled at my own joke.)

I sat down to watch as Ed and Joe quickly assembled the powerful-looking prosthesis and tested the flexibility of knee and ankle. Across the room, Hazel removed one of the elastic bandages from the small gift box and proceeded to wrap Kyle's hand and wrist with it. He tolerated her ministrations, but the look on his face shouted machismo while he craned his neck to see what Joe and Ed were doing. I pretended not to notice and turned my ersatz attention to the comings and goings in the hallway.

Ed Thoreau handed Kyle's crutches to him and assisted him to slide off the bed and stand near the area where Joe Garrett was making final adjustments to the proto-leg. From where I sat, the web of tiny wires, so evident the last time they tried this, were conspicuously absent now.

"There's a foam rubber cushion in the cup to protect your stump." Thoreau was saying. "You know you can't put a lot of weight on it, right?"

Kyle nodded, preoccupied with easing himself into the top section of the leg and balancing himself on his other leg and the crutches at the same time. "Yeah … I get it. Where's the gadget belt and the thingy with the lights on it?"

Joe Garrett laughed. "That stuff went to the same place your dead leg's going; to the bone yard. We did the math and decided that the rigging wires won't work. It all comes down to the fact that this thing has to be a single unit; integrated into the biology of the user's body. You don't need to have to fool with a bundle of wires and try to get used to a new leg at the same time." He reached for and picked up the wide gray band that we had seen before. This one, however, was wider and darker and even more substantial than the last one. The fabric was softer and the component bands more extensive. There was still the red light embedded into its configuration, but it did not protrude from the surface as the last one had. I did not have the haziest idea how the thing might work …

Hazel stood at Kyle's shoulder, ready to grab him if his balance fled. Kyle was fixated on the business at hand, concentrating on maintaining a precarious equilibrium as Ed Thoreau guided his stump tenderly into the prosthetic's deep cup, taking note that the cup's rim came precariously close to Kyle's crotch. "Gonna have to trim off some of that edge," he quipped. "Don't want to cut your balls off!"

Kyle scrunched up his nose, wincing, and leaned forward on the crutches to insinuate himself into Ed Thoreau's face. "You cut my balls off, my friend, and I'll cut off your …."

Snickering, Thoreau and Garrett continued to fit the cup around the stump, turning down the edge and marking the amount of material to be removed for comfort of fit. When they were satisfied, they took up the gray band and circled the top of the prosthesis and the bottom of Kyle's stump. Something began to happen when they drew the ends together and snapped them into place. The red light came on and remained on. We all heard a short series of clicks.

Abruptly Kyle stiffened. His hands tightened on the grips of the crutches: no pause to wince at a stab of pain ghosting up his arm. His eyes widened in shock and surprise. Joe Garrett and Ed Thoreau and Hazel Braddock straightened at his side, grinning like cat burglars. The components they had planted into his femur during the amputation surgery were up and running. Their 'miracle' was now a reality, and so was the six-million-dollar man.

"SHAZAM!" Yelled Joe Garrett.

I was the only one in the room who was still in the dark about what had just happened. The only thing I knew for sure was that Kyle was now "initializing" the movements of his new leg … whatever-the-hell that meant. The look on his abused face was idyllic; his eyes danced with an intellectual's concentrated rapture and a child's sense of wonder.

Ed Thoreau stood with fists planted on hips, grinning like a shark. Next to him, Joe Garrett wiped tears of released tension, success and gratification from his face.

"Kyle … take a step," Joe said, "can you? Remember … no weight. Not yet."

In a dream-like state, Kyle Calloway leaned forward on his crutches. The prosthetic leg whirred and clicked and took a step forward in time. He stopped and looked up. Turned his head and looked in my direction just as I wiped my eyes and nose with the back of my hand.

"Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you! I think this is going to work. I can feel it establishing some kind of connection. It sort-of tickles in my bones, and it's like an idea forming in my brain, bit by bit. It's like a search engine, looking for a place to settle in and spread out. I have to learn to become simpatico and get onto the same wavelength in order for it to work for me. I get it, I think …"

He began to move around the room. Cautiously at first: then reaching out with lengthening strides; the leg whirring in rhythm. Then he was in the hallway, passing the nurses' station with heads coming up and following him. Smiles and applause as he walked past. His adaptation to the smooth mechanical cadence becoming more acute with every step.

I knew he was in love and loving it. His colorful face was, at once, handsome and peaceful. Attentive. Awe-struck. I hadn't seen it that way in many years …

When he came back to the room, his wrist on fire and his stump burning like hell, he collapsed on his bed with shaking body, shaking arms, and gasping with pain and delight.

They removed the miraculous leg carefully and placed it back on the med cart.

Kyle had to put up with the fussing of people concerned for his well-being. We swamped his rapidly swelling wrist with ice paks. A cool cloth swabbed across his forehead. I unbuttoned his cut-offs and pulled them down and away. His stump was quickly laid bare and caressed with a warm cloth and soothing lotion. He put up with it because he was too elated to do anything else than lie there with a stunned look on his face, staring at the ceiling and containing his emotions.

Ed Thoreau and Joe Garrett stood looking down at him, watching Hazel and me slathering him with care as though he were a prized three-year-old race horse that had won the Kentucky Derby. Joe tried to be stern, but it was difficult.

"We have to get this thing ready for you to use on a permanent basis," he said, "and that'll take a while, so you should try to get a handle on it. We know how you feel … well, mostly … but now we have to send it to Guian-Kanu in L.A.

"We're calling it 'The Calloway Leg'. We have to get it registered and patented, and then sent for fabrication before you can use it permanently. Which should give you adequate time for your stump to heal completely."

At this point, Thoreau interrupted. "You use the 'G.I. Joe leg' until that time comes. And never without your crutches! Get it?"

Kyle Calloway, his adrenalin high beginning to fade, winced with the pain in his arm. He nodded silently. Hazel and I stood watching.

"And now, 'Secretariat', you should try to relax and get some rest. Have yourself some hay and oats. I should be pissed off because you've just buggered your wrist enough to set your healing back a week or more. But who the hell can be mad at a minor miracle, eh?"

Kyle was too exhausted to talk. And too exhilarated to do anything but lie there and grin like a heroin addict who has just sniffed a couple lines of smack in a row. He'd felt the removal of the leg almost as though he was having a severe bout of phantom pain. It was already becoming a part of him, and he knew that the best thing about it, an even better one would be coming back.

He nodded his head over and over again as he was given instructions and admonishments … which I knew he probably wouldn't remember until he came down from this natural high and got his pain under control. And then he would have to put up with a couple extra hours of renewed pain in his arm.

"Don't let this idiot get too carried away," Thoreau said. "He still has a hell of a lot of work to do if he ever expects to walk normally again. Keep an eye on his hand. It's going to hurt. I'll probably see you before the two of you are ready to leave tomorrow."

I nodded once, and then they were gone. I was too pole-axed to even say 'thank you' …

Hazel and I leaned over him as he rid himself of the ice paks and stared at his hand in annoyance. He was coming down from the euphoric discovery that he would soon walk, pain-free, into a brand-new life. We stood back as he sat up again and moved to the edge of the bed. We all looked at each other, still a little speechless. A little dazed. He rubbed at his hand and grinned up at us.

Pete and Ray, his physical therapists from the gym, stopped by together to say goodbye and good luck, and the admonishment that he get up on his feet and 'go like hell!' That earned them hugs from him, and no end of young-man embarrassment; being embraced by a dude in his underwear. And two witnesses, no less. He had a good laugh when they left, and then collapsed back onto the bed.

Hazel and I straightened our boy wonder … (ha ha … who's the 'boy wonder' now?) and pulled up the sheet. He was still in his skivvies … would he ever get used to wearing pants again without someone yanking them off him?

Hazel left soon after, and he dozed until suppertime when Paloma and Alex brought in our food with the usual aplomb and set it on the rolling table by Kyle's bed. When we told them we were leaving the next day, they greeted the news with mixed emotions: sorry to see us go, but happy that Kyle was well enough to go back to the real world without pain, and with confidence that he would walk again with an artificial limb. (We did not explain that there was so much more to it than that.)

Kyle kissed Paloma on the forehead, as he was wont to do with all mature women of his acquaintance. And we both shook hands heartily with Alex … except Alex refrained from touching Kyle's rebandaged hand. Instead, they butted fists, which probably hurt even more.

Supper was fried chicken, and we gobbled it like the pigs we were. We would both miss this hospital's marvelous cuisine.

In the evening I pulled together all the clothing and personal accoutrements we had accumulated over his week-plus stay. Fortunately it all fit into the large suitcase I'd brought there initially. Most of it I had rotated back and forth between the washer and dryer and here, so it wasn't like we'd need a moving van to get everything out. His blue backpack accommodated all his little stuff, including the mini-Snickers and what was left of the Three Musketeers and the idle Game Boy. He hadn't used the beard trimmer either … and you could certainly tell.

By bedtime, we were ready to go.

By lights-out we were 'sawing logs', as Kyle would say.

We were both waiting in the darkened wings until we were ready to come onstage and recite our lines. We weren't sure yet just how the drama would play out …

We left DHMC on a bright, sunny winter's day in January. One of the hospital's utility vans would deliver Kyle's wheelchair the following day. The bug was fairly roomy for such a small car, but with me in a parka behind the wheel, and Kyle in the old pea coat and holding his crutches in the passenger seat; the big suitcase in the back seat, and the blue backpack in the luggage compartment up front, we were a little crammed.

Hazel and Ed and Joe and Brandy were out front to see us off. Of course. Ed Thoreau was still shouting orders as I put the car in 'drive' and pulled away. We waved and were off.

Did we want to stop by the Watson Inn to see Lily and the gang? Of course we did. It was too soon after breakfast to eat a full meal, but we were grandly escorted to the dining room where this saga all started, and had coffee and hot buttered cornbread with the staff. Kyle was greeted like royalty by his friends there … all exclaiming over his bruised face and bandaged wrist … and we spent almost an hour getting reacquainted with everyone.

Kyle promised Jake and Joey that he would soon be ready to beat their socks off in a game of poker. They even invited me to join …

Then we went home.

"Do you, by any chance, have a housekeeper?" I asked, just out of curiosity as I held open his front door for him to make it inside. "It's awfully neat for a guy on crutches …"

"Sort of," he admitted. "Lily comes over here every Saturday morning. And I go over to the Inn. She cleans for me and I peel vegetables for her. Works out great."

I loved that answer. So … him!

"Where did you get the key chain that your mail box key is on?"

He looked at me with raised brows and a smirk. "Guess."

"Cameron."

"Good guess. Any more dumb-ass questions?"

"Just one. You want a beer?

"I found a six-pak in your fridge."

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