Chapter 14
"Cops 'n' Robbers"
TODAY I'M GRITTING MY TEETH, DOING LEG EXERCISES AND HATING IT. IT'S HARD, BUT I CAN'T QUIT. I'D MUCH RATHER DISCONTINUE THE STRUGGLE AND THE SWEAT AND THE PAIN. I WOULD LIKE TO STRETCH OUT ON THE BED, TRY TO RELAX AND JUST IMMERSE MYSELF IN THE NEW ORLEANS BLUES THAT ROLLS OUT IN SPIRITED WAVES FROM THE BIG OLD RADIO …
BUT I CAN'T!
PROCRASTINATION HAS BEEN A PROBLEM FOR ME EVER SINCE THE INFARCTION, AND NOBODY KNEW IT EXCEPT ME. THE "ANTICIPATION-OF-PAIN" WAS MORE DAUNTING THAN I HAD EVER IMAGINED, AND I HAD TO FIGHT IT CONSTANTLY.
THERE WAS A TIME WHEN I HAUNTED THE HALLS OF THE HOSPITAL IN NEW JERSEY, MY CALLUSED HAND IN A DEATH GRIP ON THE HANDLE OF THE FLAME CANE, MY LEG SHOOTING SPARKS AND MY SHOULDER ACHING WITH THE AGONY OF TAKING UP THE SLACK. I WAS ALWAYS RUNNING AFTER SOMETHING, HUNTING SOME ELUSIVE CLUE; MY BRAIN STRESSED BY THE INADEQUATE BODY THAT CARRIED IT, AND ALWAYS STRAINING FOR ANSWERS TO ANOTHER MEDICAL MYSTERY.
I WAS OBSESSED WITH PROVING I WAS NOT A CRIPPLE; THAT I COULD CARRY MY OWN WEIGHT, AND I COULD STILL NAVIGATE UNDER MY OWN STEAM. I GLOWERED AND GLARED AND DARED ANYONE TO OFFER ASSISTANCE IN ANY WAY. I WAS GREGORY HOUSE AND I WAS FINE!
UNTIL I WASN'T.
WHEN I THREW AWAY MY TENURE AT PPTH, I THREW ALL THAT RESOLVE AWAY WITH IT. I LET THE PAIN RULE ME, AND NOW I'M PAYING FOR IT. THAT'S WHY I'M USING TWO CANES INSTEAD OF ONE. THE LOSS OF MY REGULAR CANE WAS A FORTUNATE ACCIDENT … ANOTHER FACT KNOWN ONLY TO ME.
I'M NOT AN ADDICT. NEVER WAS. I NEEDED POWERFUL MEDS TO HOLD OFF THE PAIN OF THE MISSING MUSCLE AND TRUNCATED NERVE ENDINGS SO I COULD DO MY JOB. AS I SAID OVER AND OVER AGAIN: "THE DRUGS DON'T MAKE ME HIGH … THEY MAKE ME NEUTRAL." BUT I MIGHT AS WELL HAVE BEEN TALKING TO A BRICK WALL FOR ALL THE GOOD IT DID.
LOOKING BACK AT SOME OF THE BLISTERING INSULTS I'VE THROWN AT MY PATIENTS FOR WHINING ABOUT PAIN, I REALIZE I'M THE WORST OF THE OFFENDERS. WHEN I YELL AT THEM ABOUT 'SUCKING IT UP', I'M REALLY YELLING AT MYSELF FOR ALLOWING MY PHYSICAL PAIN TO RULE ME. BUT IT WAS ALL ABOUT THE DENIAL …
I'VE EXPERIENCED TOO MUCH PAIN FOR TOO LONG, AND I AM WEARY OF IT.
Damn the foot extensions! They'll be the death of me. Sitting in a straight-back chair in my bare feet with a towel folded lengthwise beneath the ball of my right foot is no fun. I have to pull up on the towel with both hands and count to ten so my heel remains on the floor and the ball of my foot lifts at least an inch. My Achilles tendon screams in protest and I bite down on my lip. I grunt with effort, because the absence of a quadriceps means I can't do this normally the way everybody else can do it. My foot splays flat on the floor like a dead fish. I have to do twenty of these things, rest for sixty seconds and then do twenty more. Three sets. When I finish, my leg feels like I've just run the Boston Marathon, and my foot feels like it's been run through with harp strings.
I hold the edge of the table in a death grip to do knee bends because the right leg doesn't flex on its own. I have to be careful I don't damage the most recent wound and tear the newer subcutaneous stitches. The ligaments feel like half-cooked spaghetti and my knee is stuck in low gear. I'm waiting for it to loosen and straighten instead of giving me a Charley horse that cramps it up for another minute while I hold my breath and grit my teeth. Normal deep knee bends are beyond me. I attempt some abbreviated ones on my own, hoping that if I can strengthen whatever muscle strands remain near the empty quad location, maybe I can do at least a few. Contracture and inversion are still a worry. I've been experiencing the tightness that tells me it's advancing.
I have not told Hooley.
The Zenith is playing Dixieland now … like every musician is playing a different song, but they all end up together. It's great for getting the old adrenalin going. It's 3:00 p.m. now, and my calf is like a rock. Not quite a Charley horse, but close. I massage it with both hands: up and down, up and down.
I will not take another Vicodin, goddamn it …
My cane is still missing, and I have given up looking for it. I haven't ventured away from the cabin since it did the disappearing act. I'm feeling the effects of 'cabin fever', but don't really trust myself to leave here. My leg is weak from not enough exercises, or too damn sore because I've done too many. I can't win for losing, and it's pissing me off.
I feel the need to be somewhere that, when I look up, the only thing I see is sky! Not mosquito netting or naked lumber …
I'm so sore lately that I have to rely on the fucking arm canes for mobility anyway. I try to force myself to walk like nothing is wrong … wincing and hitching my breath like some soap opera ham … but who am I kidding?
I force myself to do the dishes and put them away. I wipe down the stove, the drain board and the table and put the mustard and ketchup and onions back into the fridge. I ditch one of the arm canes for a while and put away the clean laundry that was sitting by the front door. Hooley takes my laundry to a lady who does it for a living. He finally told me after I nagged him about it.
Anyhow, I mop under the bed and change my sheets … this takes for-fucking-ever. I know better than to ask him to help me with it. He says chores make for excellent physical therapy, but he's full of shit. I know he watches me like a hawk and gauges my rate of recovery by how well I'm able to do things for myself. Sometimes my body aches in places where I didn't even know I had places.
I look over the cabin and pronounce it livable.
I flop down into one of the old recliners and lean back … and immediately my brain takes over the rest of me, reengaging and rearranging priorities. I don't want to think about unfinished business in New Jersey. I'm still wandering around in a frozen-in-time scenario. I know I should reimburse Cuddy for the damage I did to her house. I see and understand everything I ignored by acting the asshole and running away from the unresolved mess I created with my anger and jealousy and cowardice. I should apologize to Wilson and ask his forgiveness.
I keep pushing the thoughts away and ignoring them exactly as I used to when I was still at PPTH. It's getting harder and harder to concentrate on a new life when memories of the old one won't go away. I recall times when I could submerge all other concerns and focus on one subject for hours at a time. It happened whenever I had a difficult case. But now there are no more cases except my own, and I know there are no solutions to that one unless I face reality and pay my dues ...
I can't go crawling to Wilson. He is a proud and intelligent man. He must find the way himself and decide whether he wants to be my friend again. I can't force reconciliation, so I try luring him instead with 'Kyle Calloway'. I've already submitted two articles on Nephrology. It's been a few months, and there has been no response. Either he has not seen the articles, or he has seen them and chooses to ignore them.
I remind myself again and again: "Patience!"
I'm restless. Aching, in mind and body.
When the 'pain bug' crawls beneath my skin, I can't sit still for any length of time. Like now. I gather the arm canes, struggle to my feet and head for the front porch. The toes of my right foot are barely touching the floor. Maybe the damn exercises are screwing it up more. Maybe a short walk outside will give me a chance to place a little more weight on it, even if it hurts like hell …
Somebody found the stool, by the way, that belongs to the rattan chair. Whoever it was knew where it came from and brought it back. I'm surprised it's still in one piece.
*Thanks, stranger …*
I sit down wearily at the edge of the porch, both feet on the first step. There is a stiff breeze blowing. The bushes around the cabin scrape the boards along both sides. It sounds like sandpaper doing some vigorous scrubbing. Music drifts out from the radio, filling the cabin and spilling out the door to tickle my senses.
Bert Kaempfert: "The Moon is Making Eyes". Another favorite of my Mom's …
I'm daydreaming … envisioning another storm … coming to blow me away like the stool to the rattan chair … back to New Jersey. Will someone find me there? Will they bring me back to life?
Suddenly I'm sitting up. Listening. Sounds of metal on metal, coming from around the corner where the tanks stand against the back of the cabin. Was there a water carrier out there refilling the tank? The guy with the diesel truck said they alternated every other month. Hardly seemed possible. I had not heard the roar of an engine or the loud hum of a hose unreeling. It's also too late in the day. Those guys operate in the wee small hours, when the sun isn't even up yet.
I stiffen and lean further over the front steps, turning on my own personal RADAR. It's quiet, except, of course, for the sounds of the ocean and the breeze wafting inland. I hear the hum of voices, blowing in this direction from down closer to Amos's place. This cabin is fairly isolated, so what the hell had I heard that made all my neck hairs scramble to attention?
Thirty seconds later there comes another faint clank and a few seconds of metallic scraping that I might have missed entirely, had I not had both ears tuned to red alert. I move down another step and steady the arm canes under me. I ease clumsily to my feet and make the last transition from bottom step to ground.
Whoever or whatever is out back this time, certainly has no business there. I had learned very early on that it is so boring this far up the beach that no kid in his right mind would come up here looking for adventure. This is the last cabin for a mile or so … absolutely nothing worth exploring except beach and more beach.
So, then what?
I think the stiffness of my pose, sort of like an old hunting dog, is more a mixture of curiosity and alarm than anything to do with steadfastness of heart. I stand frozen. The clanking starts again, accompanied by sounds like someone who searches for something and cannot find it. Like the sounds of desperation being muted on purpose.
*What the hell?*
Moving cautiously, I maneuver carefully to the edge of the porch and peer around the bushes toward the area where the tanks and generator are located. I see nothing.
*PAUSE*
The bushes shield me completely from anyone messing around the tanks. I take another step and I'm almost into the open. Still nothing. The clanking and scraping stop abruptly. Coincidentally, so does the beach noise and the breeze. All is quiet except for the distant voices and the slap of waves on the shore.
Now what? Some animal digging around out there?
I step into the open. Nope. Animals don't dig with tools made of metal, and I hear metal scraping …
There's nothing to see. No wild animals, no kids banging around with sticks or baseball bats, and no electrical malfunctions making weird scraping noises at the generator or the tanks. Nothing there gives me any indication of machinery doing anything except what it had been put there to do.
I move forward, still tense and alert, placing the arm canes where they will not become tangled up in trailing vines. The tips must not dig into the ground where they might throw me off balance by sliding over a stone or a chunk of buried debris left over from the storm.
Past the corner of the big generator I close in on the crawlspace between the water and fuel tanks. In my head I have the illusion of plates and saucers crashing out of a cupboard, every step a disaster in the making. In reality, I make no sound at all, even with my limping and shuffling and heavy breathing. I approach the narrow passageway where maintenance men enter to check connections and electrical hookups that keep this unique cabin operational.
Too late, I hear again the scraping of metal that alerted me minutes before and sent me to investigate what was causing it.
I stop in my tracks and turn around slowly to press my back against the front of the water tank. I take a deep breath and bend forward to peer around the corner into the crawl space. In the deep recess of the opening, I see the dark shadow of someone on hands and knees, yanking and pulling at an object that refuses to yield and give up its entrenchment.
Too late I realize also that my own shadow has completely blocked off any source of light for the person doing the digging. He is wearing dirty tan chinos. His head is down and his butt is up in the air. He is yanking for all he's worth. When my shadow blocks his view, he struggles upright against the side of the water tank, which responds with a hollow 'BONG-G-G …' that makes me jump in alarm.
*What the hell?*
My visitor sees me standing there like an eclipse of the sun. He could have stood up, rushed forward and pushed me over with an outstretched finger. But he hesitates a second too long.
"Who the hell are you and what are you doing under there?" I'm pissed off now, and annoyed at the intrusion, and using the "Gregory House voice".
Bad idea.
The guy is startled out of his mind. He tries to leap to his feet and whirl to face me, but there is no room to maneuver and I hear the side of his head ricochet again, this time off the side of the fuel tank. The package that had been jammed between his hands slips away and falls back into the hole he had been digging in order to draw it out. I have images of a hard-cover book wrapped tightly in tin foil.
A cold shiver is running down my back, but I step closer, effectively blocking his view as my height fills the entire opening between the tanks. I figure he can't see the damn arm canes, so he might think I'm someone who can present a threat. He can't get out of there quickly, even if he wants to, and I take the opportunity to yell at him again.
"Get the fuck out of there, asshole!" (Stupid thing to say …)
As he straightens, I see a gun come up and level in my direction. *A GUN?!* All my senses freeze with electric spikes of panic, and my brain is telling me to run … run … get out of there!
But I can't. It is physically impossible. I can't move that fast.
He's yelling at me. "You're dead, you nosy son-of-a-beetch!" The gun goes off.
I jerk my head out of the way at the same instant, and the glare of sun hits him directly in the face, spoiling his aim.
This gives me the time I need to duck back around the corner of the tank and out of the line of fire. But now I hear him coming after me, no doubt with the gun aimed and cocked. I drop one of the arm canes in the scramble to recover my balance, but I switch the one remaining from left hand to right, catching myself just in time to keep from biting the dust. I grab at the side of the fuel tank and hang on, suddenly realizing that my mistake just gave my visitor enough time to recover his balance and charge me like an angry water buffalo.
He breaks out into the sunlight and I recognize him as one of the four Latino guys that had been at Amos's place the night before the storm. But this one isn't the one with the mole on his face. This one is bigger and louder and meaner. In his beefy hand he holds a pistol the size of a meat cleaver. How and where he'd concealed it I have no idea, and it looks like even the question is academic.
I am dead where I stand!
I try to jump backward to avoid him as he gathers momentum and charges at me with head down and pistol up. His finger is on the trigger, and I'm trying not to piss my pants. My treacherous leg buckles beneath me and I go down like a ton of bricks on my side in the briars and the weeds and the stones and the sand. How I manage to hold onto the remaining arm cane with my right hand, I'll never know, but I did, and the shaft of it helps me break my fall.
By the time my visitor aims and fires that goddamn cannon, the bullet goes whizzing past between my head and my shoulder, and he's out of there, running and stumbling in the scattered debris, zigging and zagging toward the beach.
At the edge of my so-called back yard, he turns like the asshole he is and fires two more shots in my direction over his shoulder. But I'm helpless on the ground on my side. My leg is useless and on fire, and I'm only half conscious. Both shots sail out over the roof of the cabin and zing into the palmetto trees on the other side.
This pisses me off …
Without even a conscious thought, I tighten my grip on the remaining arm cane and lob the damned thing overhand in the asshole's direction. The pain in my shoulder feels like a wire, snapped red-hot, and I grab at it with my left hand. I know I have screwed something up in there, big time.
I can't move. I roll over like a hollow log with my shoulder screaming and my leg screaming, and just wallow there, the entire side of my face buried in the sand … panting and sobbing. I have never felt so injured or humiliated in my life … or so helpless …
The bastard had gotten away.
The next thing I know, I awaken stretched out in a hospital bed that has to be in the free clinic in Holetown. Everything is sterile and white and squeaky clean. My leg is in traction, my ankle is in a fiberglass splint and my right arm is strapped to my side. I am on Cloud Nine, sort of. There's an IV in my arm, pumping me full of joy juice, and I'm as happy as a piss-ant in a bag of jelly beans.
Beside me, Hooley and Amos and Packy and the two old coots from the Tiki Bar are standing at the foot of my bed staring at me.
I stared back.
*Oh, for crying out loud!*
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