Bunny and Shark (9 page)

Day ten dead

(In which Bunny walks for the first

time without a foot.)

H
AVING COME
to count on being in this blue room indefinitely, you hadn't foreseen what might come after: the loss of euphoria and the petering out of the drug supply, the image of the snake drying up within its own curled form. But worse, your lost foot as the dark outcome of some fitful and flawed plan carried out by the bastard.

Because the shark hadn't worked out, hadn't killed you the first time. Not that the bastard could know that. The paranoia of coming off drugs brings a cascade of questions. How can one man have power over creatures of the ocean? How did he know you'd tumble down into the sea that morning at dawn?

For what seems like days you've been resting, simply taken care of. No need to figure things out. Your foot wrapped up in impermanent injury, which you would sort out once you felt better. Once you were on your feet again.

You look up from an hour of staring at the palms, waiting for the snake to return with its message, and the young man appears. Your first impulse is to cry. He greets you like an old friend, not his lover.

“How you doin'?” You notice how his accent has shifted. How he carries his weight differently, his body more relaxed and in tune with the surroundings. You smell his skin as he leans over to adjust the sheet, a rich mix of clean sweat and soap. Everyone washes so often here, you've noticed.

“I feel like I'm nowhere. Or in somebody else's dream.”

“Well that's good, I guess. No harm in floating for awhile. Lettin' it sink in, what happened to you. Do you understand it?”

“You mean, that I'm lucky I wasn't all eaten up?” You can't manage to smile so the young man is beaming on your behalf.

“Well everyone is considering you're special because of that, yeah. And that it was your foot that got taken. Here that means something.”

From the abstraction of your talk with the young man, which is a comfort to you, to the material, grim reality: a foot, gone. It hits you again – it hits you because the phantom foot has reared up again, angled as it is in a furious clamp of pain.

“What could it possibly
mean
,” you say, shaky and trembling, on the verge of tears. The young man puts a hand on your shoulder and you want more than anything to shrivel up so you're tiny enough to fit within that hand. “There is nothing
meaningful
about an accident that severs a body.” Your words coming out tinged with venom even though you'd love to believe him. You'd love to return to the time when you thought the dolphins had chosen you, when you thought the sea was your ally and would never cause you harm.

“Well, they're sayin' it's a form of crossing over. But without having to go all the way. That you're supposed to stay in this world but now have access to some other place.”

You have no idea what he could be talking about. “Hmmm,” you mumble, noncommittal. If only you could get up and talk to him properly. His look is sympathetic, it pains you to not be able to get better from that look. But you don't want his pity. And you can't help him to help you. So you prefer to be alone and, acknowledging your shooing hand, he nods on his way out, and you put your head in your palms and let yourself cry hard.

/ / /

You are encouraged by the women, in particular Thule, to get up and move around with a crutch. So you take it from them, though wonder why they don't give you two. Why not a pair? They watch expectantly. As you become vertical, their hands dart out at you with each uncertain jerk of your body. For the first time in days you face the other side of the room. The back wall is covered in wallpaper of a Miami sunset. Two crooked palm trees in silhouette seem to be leaning out towards the pink ocean, as if their roots might give. Drips from the ceiling have stained the paper, and the corners pull away from the wall, showing gaps of blue paint behind it. You fix your eye on the ball of orange sun in the distant Miami scene – the place you were supposed to swim to, but didn't – as the white bulb, the egg of your bandage, swings violently, throwing you off balance. You slow down to reel it in, to make it lurch less.

“Fuck it,” you whisper, grabbing at random the hands that flap and lunge at your sides, trying to catch you. Their touch is light, their hold not altogether there, and they pull away, wanting to help you to find your own way. Verbal reassurances fly up around you and drift into the other rooms of the blue house. Through snatches of conversation you hear about “a foot that will come.”

Whispered: “magic” and “lady.” Then put together: “lady-magic.”

“You just have to keep up your shape and your muscles,” Thule is saying, as you hop a little, “so when the foot comes, you'll be ready to walk with the grace of a lady deserving like yourself. With your head high.” Finally you lean on a young girl who, unlike the other women, is willing to take your weight.

Do they mean a prosthetic? Each time it's mentioned, they praise the maker so highly, show such reverence for him – her? – that you wonder if there isn't something more behind all this, perhaps a political motive? All you can do is nod and stare and agree. And wait. Several times a day you look at the bandaged hump but it is rare that you direct emotions of any kind, hope or anger – worst of all, humiliation – towards it. The doses of morphine help, but are infrequent, and you are weary of falling back into any drug-conditioned darkness.

Innocent white bulb, so quiet at the foot of the bed that you coo to it, tell it to shush, say it'll be fine. You feel the sparkling mass of stars taking the exact shape of the missing foot. Shut your eyes, let it tingle itself out, it will. It usually does. Then all, including the green snake who sits at your ear in these times, agree there is nothing there. That the foot has flown away. That it will lead the way.

The young man speaks little when he comes, but you hear him going over things with other family members in the kitchen, and then on the phone with his wife. He came here with his own concerns, private concerns, you remember.

To cheer you up he reminds you of the party on the island.

“You're still coming? Everything is on rush so that you can walk into that party on my arm.” You hold his hand in yours and wonder why he cares so much.

Lastly, he hands you your NAUI card and walks back into the kitchen.

Day eleven dead

(In which Bunny dances.)

G
REAT FANFARE IS PROMISED
the day your new foot is to arrive – the same day the young man has invited his family over for a reunion.

The reunion is an extended family gathering, a celebration for the young man who has come home, finally, to choose his plot of land. You know of these lands: a span of beachfront, ancestral territory once owned by emancipated slaves, lands passed through generations until the entire area gained some quixotic, untouchable status. The law still can't intervene on family leases: they remain intricate, hidden, indecipherable. So the lands stay in family hands, even if, like the young man, the inheritor lived far from the island for decades. What matters is that you were born here. They say the island remembers all of its people, and that whenever a person once tied to the island returns, the island expands, makes more of itself. This time for the young man.

As things stir outside, you feel you begin to occupy a special place within the family.

You are helped into a bath. Thule props your leg onto a wooden chair and insists on washing your hair, at the same time soaping up your back with some scratchy mittens, then pouring hefty buckets of warm water over your head. You blink through the suds, refreshed.

“What about your friends, lady?” Thule says, scrubbing big circles up and down your arms now. “Or family?”

“My friends, well, wouldn't be able to come.” That was clear. That line had been drawn. As for your sisters who live in the States, you don't know why you didn't try to contact them. It'd been so long. You thought you'd try to sort it out first your own way.

“No use calling them now, Thule. Try to get myself used to this new body first. To walking around and being on my own. It's not so bad, is it?”

“Nah, nah, you're gonna be just fine. But I'm not clear on where your home is, is all.” She rinses your hair one last time. “Don't think about that today lady. We're thinking about it though, you should know that. You call me when you want out of this bath.”

You nod to her. Your sisters wouldn't have a clue, is why. How to deal with the bastard or Coke-Bottle. The only solution would be to escape. But to escape at their hands, you couldn't take that: to be a dependent in some bourgeois house full of your nieces and nephews, where you'd have no purpose.

You draw the razor up over your good leg, fast, like you're used to doing it, but take it slowly around the left calf pushing the head of the razor in to get under the bandages. Wash your pits, then your privates.

You come out on the crutch to an army of beautifully adorned women. They seat you and comb the tangles out of your hair, put cream on you, cut and file your nails, get you into a new-looking bra and panties – someone must have bought them for you so you mouth a “thank you” to the group at large. The red silk jumpsuit hangs in the room like the poster of a once-loved celebrity. Obviously that's what you'll be wearing. They've decided. It's been pressed and the ribbons arranged along the leg to make neat thin bows – the last, you find as they pull it on over you, needs to be undone for your bandage hump to pass through. Lots of tsks, and “Never mind, we'll get it on.” They want you to cooperate, to be a good sport. A young girl cuts through the primping hands with the blare of a hairdryer.

“Alright,” you say, “go for it.” She pushes your head forward, to position it upside down, and you feel the sting of metal heat at the base of your neck. Then hairspray and a stiff brush. The grandmother pours thick red Campari into glasses that the granddaughter passes around. You toss your head, your hair now a hot, blonde balloon. The taste of Campari puts you instantly in a good mood. A party mood.

“Ta-da! Now give us those toes!” The pretty young woman, who was so impressed by the shoes in the first place, leans over you, smelling of jasmine perfume. She paints your five toes in a red identical to the silk at your legs. Then your fingernails as well. You shake your head at her beautiful long fingers holding your worn, mottled hands.

“Oh.” Wan smile. You'll be game, of course you will, but more and more you sense their togetherness, their belonging. That you are a temporary occasion, an accessory added to the excitement of having the extended family brought together into this jungle, their Elysium, a place of perpetual day. You hear chattering as a host of people surround the house, lighting paper lanterns and putting up string lights. The family resists how dark the jungle truly is, throwing light into every corner, each room radiating fluorescence and exposing the festive hues of the buffet: stewed meat, cabbage salads with vinegar dressing, deep-fried shrimp, tangy sauces, sweet alcohols, and Coke. Pursing your cherry-tinted lips you almost feel good. Really good.

When everyone has gathered inside the house, Thule, the young man and the doctor come to get you. You hear their happiness in the jaunt of their movements, how they bump about the tiny house. The jumpsuit flutters red around you as you enter with your crutch, the hands of your friends on your shoulders. The red distracts all eyes from the white bulb that hangs below you. Or they are polite enough not to look. A few people clap in anticipation directed at your other, whole foot, wearing the strappy silver Versace heel.

“We're thrilled to have you as our guest,” the young man whispers. They seat you in a big La-Z-Boy against the wall. First there are drinks and a round of cheers. You feel the alcohol going quickly to your head. The room is full of enormous smiles, arms clasping other arms, laughing conversations and sudden whoops of glee. After awhile you find yourself alone with brightly clad buttocks as your global view. Then everyone drifts away from the area of the coffee table and is standing, conversing, feeling the music as it brings on a dance party. No one has talked to you beyond the initial flourish, to say hello or to ask how you've been feeling. What more could they say?

Food streams in from the hatchbacks parked out front and is served in gushes, on overflowing plates. The more they refill your plate, the deeper the La-Z-Boy draws you into its taut brown acrylic folds. The young man comes to you, saying, “You gotta try the ribs, the mashed potatoes, the jellied lobster.” Licking his lips and looking skyward, far from you, he says, “It's been so long.” Slapping his hand on his leg. “What do you say! Isn't this a party?”

You nod, mouth full of creamy potato. Before you can swallow, the young man is gone. He's left before you can ask him things you've been wondering about: how his wife is, how his land claim is coming along. Couldn't you both laugh now about the night you so recently spent together? You wanted to reassure him that you weren't attached and had no intentions of tying him to you now that you are . . . crippled. You shake your head and shiver, pushing the thought out.

You drift into a reverie that is as simple as staring at wallpaper. It has no content other than overlapping palm leaves blowing in a falling night, lanterns speckling the leaves with green, pink, red and blue.

Through a lacy yellow curtain that separates your room from the bright kitchen, you see Thule has gotten lost in the bliss of Campari. And you see a table full of rum, Jack Daniels and other bottles. Ordinarily you'd be right there with her, but you can't imagine hobbling past the curtain, or having a free hand to rest on the shoulders of people that block the way. Everyone is in motion. Couples are dancing. A woman is dipped Lindy-Hop style. Men and women are doubling over from jokes.

As the music gets louder you feel a twinge of desire mixed with panic. You too once loved to dance. You say thank you to the young girl who remembers you sitting there, who brings you drink after drink, who bends down to stroke your foot and admire your shoe. The absence causes a pang, and yet, the alcohol makes you think it isn't true. “It isn't true,” you say out loud and the girl's eyes flash wide. When she runs off, inspired, returning an instant later with the young man, you see how the family and their guests share that look. How a light goes on inside of them, creating a brilliance that is collective, propelling them towards each other – to drink, to laugh, to encircle one another in their arms, to drift off contented and alone, casually stumbling down the steps to smoke in the cool of the twilit jungle.

Already, from afar, you've watched him talking intensely with other men, one pointing at an opened map. Your longing, in part, is to be him, to have a wide circle of family and community that believes you deserve a chunk of this island land. You are aware of so many of these plots just sitting here for decades with the wind blowing though them. The young man is smiling, his face animated with the prospects before him.

Then, mouth downturned when he gets close to you. “Oh my dear,” he says, taking the drink from your hand and setting it down, lifting you forward so you feel his strength but also a slight unsteadiness in him. You want to trust him, to go fast into his arms and into the heat of the dancers. You forgive him for ignoring you for so long. As he lifts you off the La-Z-Boy, you feel a film of sweat that has made the jumpsuit stick to your back, and a gust of cool air sweeping against it. You put your entire weight onto the thin silver heel. Be a red flame cutting through the crowd, you think. At first you feel weightless and tingly. But your inner workings, your body's memory of itself, hasn't yet realized there is a major part missing. And the young man moves too fast, you have to remind him of your crutch, which makes him laugh so that he overcompensates. Finally he pushes you both through the throng, not as though floating like the others, but in some geriatric oscillation.

The young man enjoys the attention. The golden boy returned but now with the cumbersome flare of distress at his side. You feel him forgetting you as he plays hero, all teeth and glistening skin.

“Now we dance,” he says, as neither question nor statement.

You nod, searching his eyes to see if he's truly still with you. But the crowd has conspired to approve of the young man's gesture to make the limbless woman dance. He takes you in his arms with careless ferocity and no one but the young girl notices the crutch drop to the floor. Cheers and more drinks poured. Your name, his name are chanted. He asks that you trust him completely: he will hold you tight and safe.

At times, you turn easily on the instep of the slim leather sole. Your right leg is still strong, a steadfast partner to the other leg which is loose and floaty, a trail of red ribbons leading down to nothing. He spins you gently, then more wildly as the crowd makes way. He acts sensitive, as if aware that you might get tired; he supports you, becoming the fallen crutch for the side of your body that's off-sync with itself and the room. From time to time he lifts you right off the floor, but the more he does this, the more he isn't looking into your eyes. His eyes glaze over, closing completely to feel the pulse of the music. Until someone changes the tune and the speakers blare out something he recognizes that sends a wave of thrill through him. A song from his childhood? His eyes are awake and seeing again, but in a way that makes him seem suddenly possessed by you – and you see how he looks right through you.

The crowd squeezes back in on your show. Their heat is electric. Each one of them is overtaken by the rhythm, and the voice of a woman that is languid, driving towards something guttural. From the corner of your eye you see the young girl standing guard, holding your crutch.

She is staring at you, brow furrowed, still as a pin, her supernatural eyes locked on yours, as if knowing that if she acts as a focal point you won't fall. Unable to hold her eyes any longer, you feel the swell of the family reunion lift you up, and the silver shoe lose the ground. He is gone. You have been passed to other hands, nudged along, so that you understand that each one wants a turn with you. Gentle, mostly smooth, first you are in the hands of those you recognize: Thule, then the doctor, who winks as he holds you, then the grandmother, who is surprisingly strong. Each time, your left arm is thrown around their arms, and your body hoisted in a small lift. But as you are relayed toward the kitchen, the crowd becomes younger, more raucous, less cautious. You feel the same mixture of trust and anxiety that you did with the dolphins, except this time in reverse order; the longer you float in this sea of bodies, the less nurtured and the more afraid you become.

A young woman misses her hold on you and you stumble into the arms of a drunk man in a suit. He wants to make a show of it. Roughly grabbed, you feel your foot skid away, and you lurch forward, caught just in time by the young man who turns up and disappears just as quickly. Your balance leaves you for good as you heave to the side. Instincts tell you you will catch yourself, you always have before, but you fall onto nothing, no foot, empty space wafting around the hump and the flutter of red lines. You slip further into the slow-motion pulse of the room as you crash to the floor, the young girl's hand just missing yours – she's been running towards you – and the last thing you feel is her touch instead of pain.

“Oh, my dear!” The second time you hear this tonight. The young girl gone, the doctor now peering at you. His large warm hand is holding yours at the wrist, trying to read your heart. You notice the music has stopped. The light has gone sickly yellow. The room smells caged and sweetly sour. Foreheads are mopped with handkerchiefs amid the din of concern.

Invisible muscular arms raise you to standing. Half of your dress has turned a wet brown, it clings to your thigh. The young girl puts her thin arm around your waist and positions the crutch so you can finally lean on something that isn't someone, an object that will stand still under you. Your stump aches as you hobble your way back to the safety of the La-Z-Boy. There is talk of having “left it too late now.” Some members of the reunion speak of going home. Thule's protesting voice: “But the other foot!” A squabbling as the young girl dabs at your thigh with a damp dishcloth, then takes the clean side and presses it against your temples. You feel a fever coming on. You drink water, hear apologies, promises about a foot on its way this very minute.