Oedipussy (16 page)

It was destiny that after a day of drinking, watching a rock show performed directly to me, and travelling (mostly) by wheelchair that I would have physical therapy.

The doorbell rang. It cut through my hungover brain.

Thom greeted me with a jolly hug. His long, curly dark hair matted over my face.

"Today, we work on your position in the house." His English was gruff and choppy, and his deep voice, accent, and even his skin was like warm hot chocolate. "We'll begin in the bathroom, just working on lifting yourself in and out of the tub. We will do it over and over again, work the door, and train for your bath."

"Train for my bath," I laughed, looking up at his hulking body.

"What is funny?" My sarcasm was received as a dig against his work.

"No - it just seems…” How could I communicate that I appreciated his company and brotherhood? “I think I can get this. I’ll be training every day I take a shower, right?"

"You will be, but we want to tone you. I help find the best pivot points in the bathroom so you don't fall, and what to do if you do."

"Wouldn't I just figure it out as I go, I mean...”

"We say 'motu ka na'e navei,' which means to always hold the basket strap and you’re okay. Well, not really, but it means always be prepared for bad thing. You haven't had time to prepare, and here you are. Here I am. We practice."

Over and over again, as if I was training for the Olympics, we got in and out of the modified shower stall with the new shiny poles and vertical tub.

In, out, in, out, and as I continued to do it over and over again, I pushed myself up and down and I trained my physiological strength for the pommel-shower. It was grueling. My sweat smelled like matches.

My sweat smelled like matches?

Beads of sweat dripped from my forehead, and Thom wiped it with a towel.

"Now we rest," Thom said.

I wheeled into the kitchen. He got us both a glass of water.

We. The absurdity of the word hung in the air, "we." It was as if there was some sort of compromise happening where he would be going through the same struggle and the same work that I was. We. He had no idea how ridiculous this all seemed to me.

"How long does it take you to drink that?"

I had my water in front of me, and I had a hard time believing that he wanted to sincerely know how long it was going to take me to finish it. I was exhausted, and I was going to take as long as I wanted.

"I don't know. I might have you get me some more."

"I will not do that."

"Fine, I'll go to the sink and get some more."

"Not the water. The whiskey."

He was looking at the bottle of bourbon on the counter, with only maybe a quarter of the bottle to go.

"Oh. That was my father's. I don't know. I have only had a little here and there."

"My father died at home. His liver. I don't want that to happen to you, like this."

"I was in a coma for the past twenty five years after being in a car accident that killed all of my friends and crushed my dreams of becoming a musician. I have spent the past twenty five years and six months or whatever in the hospital. No one’s left, and I‘ve only been home for a week. Now I have you coming to push me around and make me get in and out of the shower for fifty reps like I am training for the geriatric Scotland or highland or whatever games. I'm fine."

"Okay. But this is when people really have problems."

"I'm sorry." I slowed. "Thanks for your concern."

"Do you want me to bring the axes for chopping next time?"

"Funny."

We returned to the bathroom and practiced getting on and off the toilet a few times, and then went over some scenarios if I began to fall. For the most part, the solutions all called for remembering and grabbing onto the new poles in the room.

"You know, when I'm actually falling, I won't remember they're there," I insisted. "They haven't been there my whole life."

"I know. We practice anyway."

When we finished he left with the same smile he arrived with, and so I was struck with how professional, kindhearted, and wonderful he was. I treated him awful, and yet he accepted and moved on.

"Until next week," he said.

"Until next week."

He left, and the phone rang as I closed the door. I wheeled over to its new position on the hook I installed a little lower on the wall.

"Hello?"

"Hi, it's Chuck."

It had been less than twenty four hours.

"Great set last night."

"Thanks."

"So, you're calling to talk about making you big."

"I guess. Mom said if we wanted to, we could practice at your house and keep our stuff there... as long as she could come."

That was a helpful suggestion. She didn’t want the music in her house anymore.

"How often you want to practice?"

"How often could you have us?"

"As often as you want. Let's start with a meeting just you and I where we can hammer this out and make a contract for us, then we go from there?"

"Sure!"

"When can you come for that?"

"Tomorrow."

"Thursday. Perfect."

He thanked me, and we hung up.

I stared at the phone. I wanted to dial Jenny to tell her about all of the new developments of the last week - about all of my progress and everything that I was able to accomplish. The number remained in the card catalog of my mind printed on bronze, even though there was no one to talk to on the other end.

This must be like what it’s like wanting to call someone and realizing they’ve died.

I grabbed the bottle of bourbon and took the chair elevator up to my room. While I had been in all the rooms since coming home, I just slept on the sofa in front of the television most of the time. There was a sheer utilitarian ease to sleeping there - I was near the bathroom, the kitchen, my entertainment. Wearing the same two outfits optimized my basement laundry and second floor trips.

My disability made me the mistress of bachelor efficiency.

Yet I would eventually need to bathe and launder my clothes. I didn't really care, though. It was easier not to try.

I took a pull on the bottle and began to feel the warmth enter my stomach. I felt healthy, rejuvenated, warm, and comforted.

In my room, the computer that I had kept for so long stared back at me with existential contempt. It was ancient twenty five years ago, and remained a museum artifact today. It seemed to say,
we’re both still here
as sad violin music played from nowhere in particular. The violins signaled the man and the machine, both in the circumstance of the world moving along without them.

Yet, here they remained.

'We were together when we first touched boobs, my friend,' I said.

Yes. Here we still are,
like HAL in 2001.

I took another drag on the bottle and felt warm. The violins erupted with a tiny piano tinking up from the bottom. Warmth beat through my veins, and I felt at ease. Dilated. Relaxed.

I flipped the computer's switch, and it hummed to life. She boot, and the green cursor blinked on the screen. She was alive, undoubtedly happy to be breathing once more. She was here, and we were both here.

We had both been sleeping for a very long time.

The prompt opened up, and it was time to start typing my commands to what I wanted her to show me. I didn't remember the names of the programs, so I typed in some DOS commands that I did remember.

'DIR /W'

A list of the files descended. There was "trivia_challenge.exe." I typed it in, and it came to life. Spasmodic blinking and the rudimentary trivia game showed itself. I chose a computer opponent, medium difficulty.

Besides the fact that I lacked a topless teenage lover beside me, the whole thing was simple. Many of the questions were easy to remember and answer, despite it being so long ago. I wondered if the questions would be too obscure for current teenagers like the kids in the band. Would it get them laid?

It wouldn't,
the computer whispered.

'What have you been doing these years?'

Resting. What about you?

'Dreaming. Dreaming for years.'

We spoke to one another, connecting wetware in a matrix of the trivia game and the bourbon. It all mattered, and it all made sense.

We've had good times, haven't we?
She seemed to be comforting me in the face of an uncertain future and existence. The violins played, and the piano tinked away. The computer was a constant. I took another drag on my bottle.

'We did. I wish I could see them here, now. I wish I could be there again, like a movie. Like a reality.'

I can. I still exist in that universe. I exist everywhere at all times.

The computer beat me. It knew all of the answers. It had all of the answers, and possible games, and possible outcomes. It always won.

Do you want to see something cool?
She asked matter-of-factly, as if its universal knowledge was methodically choosing what I wanted to see, and its mouth opened to accept my legs into its trapmouth. It wasn't just a machine. It was quantum.

'Yes.'

Look through my directories.

I exited the trivia game, and did another directory view. There was the word processor and my files. I opened them, knowing that there was no other way to get this material off the machine. There wasn't even when I first decided to start writing all of my school papers on it.

I began consuming all of it, drinking in my bourbon and reading as much as I could. The bottle drained down to vapors, and it felt like I had poured it onto my head and it ran down and soaked my brain. Dripping and coating, a sizzly madness of numbed dura mater.

My words were words from my sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year old self. In one, a paper about America, but written in the lens and style of Miner's 'Nacirema' - of a ritual that I follow on a regular basis told by aliens observing it for the first time.
‘
And so, I examine the wiry appendages as they snake down the wooden plank of a ladder, pressing on them. They sung their song, a gift of tone that rattled the air with waves of delight or discordia depending on what wires were pressed.’
It was a once-removed essay on playing my guitar entitled 'Ratiug.'

Another file was filled with song lyrics to songs I never finished, and never played. One was an ironic ode to a favorite appliance.
‘
It's an oscillating fan! Blowing in the wind. (backup: -scillating fan) It's an oscillating fan! Takin' you to the e-hedge
!
’

So much enthusiasm and trust in the world and in the art, carefree of a method or a mode to the decisions I made with my time and how I executed it. These were silly, shitty, pointless songs, and whatever it was, it was a document to the fact that I existed and felt that things mattered once. There was one time that only the art mattered.

The bourbon was gone, and I felt hopeless.

I opened another file, and there was poetry.

My Jenny, my true / we were once and we will continue to be / you and me. It is because of our love / when push comes to shove / that we will be one.

It was absolutely terrible.

It was absolutely beautiful.

I was young once. We were young once. These things all seemed to make sense.

We were looking for happiness, in the playground / we were too old in our flannels and smiles / I would grab you and we would kiss / listen, listen / I will tell you the truth / I love you. I love you. / The heaven of you like a finch riding the wind / unaware of the magic of flight / so we love / and it is alright.

I began to cry.

I was out of bourbon. I drank a lot of bourbon. I got down on the floor, and the room was spinning a little. My eyes seemed to trace up, and up, and up, and up, and I opened another file.

This file was the ouroboros. The textsnake ate itself, and closed immediately.