Moving Forward in Reverse (19 page)

22

Despite the whirlwind that had become my life, there were still
those moments when I wasn’t propelled forward by the next task at hand, when I
wasn’t distracted by things beyond me, the between-the-scenes moments when I
was stationary and The Fog rolled in.

Mondays were sheer torture. With no training following the weekend
soccer matches to give me an excuse to flee to the TESC campus, I was left
predominantly alone with only my thoughts (and Bogart) for company. For a
diversion from the despondency of my mind, I would try to fill the daylight
hours with the errand-running I had no time for during the unremitting, six-day
work week. The benefit to this strategy was that it kept me constantly in
motion, racing from one destination to the next with little time for idling and
introspection. The drawback: my errands themselves rarely offered the
distraction from reality I so desperately craved.

~~~

$150 per month, divided by four if I shop once a week leaves me
with . . . $37 and some change to spend on each trip to the grocery store.
Of course, some things I
won’t need to buy every week. . .

I looked into my shopping cart and skimmed my eyes over the
assortment of Albertson’s brand products and various packaged, frozen, and
canned foods lying within. Could I survive off of one-hundred and fifty bucks a
month?

I’ll have to.

With a languorous sigh, I began shuffling my goods from cart to
conveyor belt, mentally calculating my total as I made the transfers. How close
I was to my weekly budget amount reminded me of a contest on
The Price Is
Right.

The cashier was a bland-faced man drifting into middle age one
fewer hair at a time who had clearly given up on striking a rapport with his
customers long ago. Without even glancing in my direction, he filed the
groceries from the conveyor over the scanner and ultimately to the other side
of the cash register in one smooth, monotonous motion. I listened to the
chronic pings of items being tallied in the register.  They ticked past
like the hands of a clock –
there goes another dollar; oops, that one was at
least a buck fifty; three dollars gone.
My wallet aged with each toll, it’s
worth depreciating item by item.

I was so absorbed in the strain of my newly diminished purchasing
power that I didn’t even notice them pull up behind me. On some level I must
have been aware of them, or at least of the presence of more groceries on the
counter, but I was living in two worlds by then: the one inside my head and the
external one that operated around me. They occupied space solely in the latter
– at least initially.

‘Mom,’ I heard a  boy’s puerile voice say from behind me. I
registered the sound, but not the words. Not until he asked his mother, ‘What’s
wrong with that man’s hands?’

My ears had become hyper-attuned to such words and phrases. ‘That
man’, ‘man’s hands’, ‘hands’: All were triggers for immediate uncontrolled
response. I felt my shoulders tense, the muscles bunching together as if in
preparation for a physical blow. I tried to inconspicuously rotate a few more
degrees to place the mother and son directly to my back.

‘Shhhh,’ his mother hissed. I could tell by the direction and flow
of her voice that she had bent over her son, causing her words to aim for the
floor. Naturally, they then rebounded off the polished tile surface and
reverberated deep within my eardrums.

‘Don’t stare,’ she scolded.

I tried not to wince outwardly. A cautious glance at the cashier
told me he was still oblivious to the people filling his line, including me.
Thank
goodness!

I shuffled as hastily as possible to the register so I could pay
and escape the suddenly oppressive air in the store. (
Was it this stifling
before?
) The stolid cashier droned the four numbers of my total. I could
feel the bagger watching me and sensed the mother trying to covertly peer
around my back for a glimpse of ‘that man’s
hands.’

It was starting again: The Freak Show. ‘Come one, come all! See
The Man with No Hands! Right here, in your local grocery store!’

My only respite from the humiliation was the distracted cashier
who stood immobile with his eyes staring vacantly ahead; abeyant as if paused
by some distant remote control. He, at least, had yet to become aware of the
opening of the main act. I fumbled the bills I needed out of my wallet and
presented the requisite color-coded papers over the counter to him.

He raised his right hand, lifting it sluggishly towards my
proffered food stamps as if he were playing in slow motion. His eyes indolently
followed in the same direction, drifting blindly from some spot over my left shoulder
down the length of my arm, to the hand that held the stamps, finally reaching
their destination in the same moment as his fingers began to close around the
edge of the bills.

In that split second – or, perhaps it was a full second
considering how slothful his movements were – before he took the coupons in his
hand and relieved me of their existence, something changed. His eyes began to
clear, zeroing in on the exchange that was about to happen like a photographer
focusing his camera lens.

‘Ah, man,’ he said, his vowels drawn out almost to the verge of
song and prodigal with pity. I followed his line of sight downwards and saw
what he saw: four ten-dollar value food stamps awkwardly pinched between the
first two fingers and thumb of a rubber-covered mechanical hand.

Everything inside me stopped. It was as if that hidden observer
who had paused the cashier inexplicably turned his invisible remote on me: I
couldn’t move; couldn’t breathe; couldn’t bring myself to send the signal to
the myo to release the food stamps. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

I can’t do this anymore.
The thought cleaved through my suddenly stagnant mind.
I can’t.
Do this. Anymore.

I had involuntarily become the epitome of misfortune, the
embodiment of adversity, and the ultimate engenderer of other’s pity. They
were, it would seem, titles given without the opportunity to be disclaimed.
Ultimately, the moment had come when I could no longer bear their burden alone.

I need help.

~~~

That night I made a tall glass of chocolate milk and sat down on
my single barstool with the Olympia phone book on the kitchen counter between
my elbows. I sipped my dessert – the most expensive indulgence I allowed myself
– while eyeing the book over the rim of the glass. I didn’t want to do it. Even
knowing it was necessary and the only feasible option left to me, I dreaded
what the act of opening to the yellow pages and flipping to Psychologist would
mean.

That I’ve given up? That I can’t keep it together?

No,
I mentally berated myself.
You can’t think like that. This
isn’t giving up; it’s deciding to fight on all fronts. It’s the opposite of
giving up.

I stared at the book over another swig of Nestle Quik.

You’ve got no choice, man.

With one final gulp for courage, I set the glass off to the side
and opened the book.

~~~

I leaned my head back against the bland, white wall; felt my spine
arch against the waterproof cushion of the chair’s back; and closed my eyes.
How many times was I going to find myself in examination rooms just like this
one throughout the rest of my life? In the past four years alone I had gone
through doctors like a prepubescent girl goes through crushes; cycling in and
out and in and out, the issues a constant rotation of hand problems and foot
problems. And now emotional problems, too.

My psychologist had determined that I could benefit from
antidepressants, a diagnosis I reluctantly accepted and which led me here, to
await the arrival of one Dr. Ellen Parker, M.D. in another sterile square of a
room. I had been weighed, measured, documented, and assessed by another
Hawaiian-scrubbed nurse after filling out yet another set of forms with the
same background information required beneath yet another black-and-white header
for yet another clinic. Even the animation and joviality of the nurse whose
exuberance reminded me of Kathy but with the saucy confidence of Lindy couldn’t
dispel the monotony: height, weight, blood pressure, review of my complaints,
then deposit me in this examination room with a picture of a dozen five-year-olds
in different color soccer jerseys and shorts, their backs to the camera as they
stood in a clustered line peering into the net, to accompany me in my waiting.

With a sigh, I opened my eyes and turned to pluck a magazine out
of the tray beside my seat.
Newsweek
. An article on the AIDS epidemic in
many of the African countries. Not exactly uplifting, but at least it would
pull me out of my own interminable woes.

I was nearing the bottom of the first page when a knock sounded on
the door.
That was fast,
I thought as I carefully flipped the magazine
closed and bent to replace it in its rack.

A woman with a cascade of luscious brown curls swooping across the
top of her shoulders strode into the room. She was young – more than young: she
seemed to radiate youth. A fetching smile was already painted across her face,
making her eyes crinkle endearingly at the corners. Her eyes found me and the
smile crept larger, becoming personal: a smile bestowed upon me.

‘Hi, Scott. I’m Dr. Parker,’ she said in a smooth, lilting voice
carried on self-assurance and aplomb. I stood as she drew nearer, a slender
hand extended towards me. I suppressed the flinch that wanted to twist my face.
Why, oh why did it have to be a prosthetic hand I offered in return?

I watched our hands as she wrapped her fingers around the
rubber-covered metal. Staring fixedly at the contact of our handshake as I was,
I didn’t notice the change in her smile until I looked back up at her face
moments later. When our eyes met for the second time, she was grinning at me
with a piquant light dancing in her eyes –brilliant brown eyes, I saw then,
which shone with the warmth and comfort of a cabin in shadowy woods. My breath
caught in my lungs and was released seconds later in a rush of relief. Compassion,
intrigue, and companionship, but no superiority or patronization tinged her
expression. She peered at me with those dark, open eyes and held my gaze. For a
flicker in time, I could almost see myself coming to trust this ingenuous
doctor with eyes the color of melted chocolate. Almost.

‘So,’ she said as she released the right myo and half-turned to
swivel the black stool into position across from me, ‘how can I help you,
Scott?’

I bent back into the rubbery chair and set the myos carefully on
my lap. She placed my chart on the desk with equal care, laying it, I realized,
in a place where the documents wouldn’t come between us.

‘Lately I’ve been having trouble emotionally,’ I began, reciting
the same words I’d told my psychologist. ‘’

It wasn’t saying much, but every word seemed to be pulled from me
like blood gushing into a vial. Feeling The Fog roil and swell inside my
conscious was bad enough; having to admit to it was like salting a wound.

‘Mm-hm.’ She was nodding softly, her eyes unwavering from where they
had fixed on mine with utter clarity. I wondered if she even realized her head
was bobbing gently up and down like a sunflower in the breeze. Several nods
later, she asked gently, ‘Would you say you feel depressed?’

I swallowed revolt.
Depressed? I’m not depressed.

Am I?

‘I’m not
sad.
Or hopeless or anything. . .’

The nodding became more assertive. ‘Okay. So not sad or hopeless,
but you feel like you’ve been having trouble being yourself?’

‘Yes! Exactly.’ I felt myself breathing easier now. I didn’t want
to be “depressed”. Depression was heavy and attacked without cause or reason.
Depression was intangible and obscure. I could tackle The Fog – at least I knew
the form it took and where it came from: my amputations, my illness. Its cause
was something outside of me, something more than a chemical imbalance in my
brain. I could live with that.
I think.

‘Would you say you’ve been having trouble with your emotions? And
feeling?’

‘Yeah, you could say that. I don’t feel much of anything these
days. And what I do feel is . . . dulled. It’s like there’s this fog around me
all the time and it keeps me from really experiencing life. It’s kind of had to
explain. . .’

Dr. Parker was leaning towards me, those silky brown eyes riveted
on my own. She wasn’t patronizing, dismissive, overbearing, or even
encouraging, really. She was just calm. Patient. Expectant. As if she knew I
would tell her eventually and didn’t care if it took the rest of the day for
the words to come out right. She would be here until they did.

‘Scott,’ she said and I realized how I enjoyed the way she said my
name, the way her mouth parted around the word and the consonants came spilling
out as if they had been just waiting to be uttered by her lips. ‘Can you tell
me about your illness?’

~~~