The Walking Man (4 page)

"Apple, huh?" Dr. Bonjour said.

"My hometown," I said.

"Hmmmmmm," Dr. Bonjour said. He did lots of hmmmmmming.

"People that can't move think more," Dr. Bonjour said.

"They do?"

"Yes, they do," he said. "It makes relationships far more complex and interesting but, at times, dangerous."

"I see."

"You have never lived with another quadriplegic before, am I correct?"

"No, I have not lived with another quadriplegic before," I said, matching the doctor's condescending tone.

"You seem quite intelligent," Dr. Bonjour said. "You should find it interesting."

"Hmmmmm," I responded. "Interesting."

On my way back to Room 302, I asked Nurse Judy if Dr. Bonjour's lecture had anything to do with Arthur Slank.

"Dr. Bonjour's lecture had everything to do with Arthur Slank," she admitted, refusing to elaborate.

Even before I became immobile, I was fearless. I'm not sure how it came about, but even as a young boy I figured the only way to live a full life was to be brave. I was the first guy in my class to jump off the Wittacossack Bridge (into the Wittacossack River). I loved mountain biking, the steeper the better. And when I was only ten years old, I kissed Suzy Malone—a year before the rest of the boys in my town. So by my nature, I was not afraid of Arthur Slank and his lighter - at least not initially.

The time-consuming stupidity of Jimmy Something-or-other and my orientation tour left me little time to consider my initial response to Arthur Slank. Consequently, without thoroughly thinking it out, I decided to deploy good cheer to see if I could soften up my new "master" during our second encounter.

As we approached my room, I could hear the evening news. However, the moment I traversed 302's doorway, Arthur's television went blank. At the time, I didn't think much of it; my guess was Nurse Judy had flipped a wall switch.

"Howdy Master, I'mmmmm back!" I said brightly.

Arthur didn't respond. I couldn't see him. But I could feel his stare.

~ ~ ~

Dinner was an all-out effort at Leicester County Hospital. An average quadriplegic took forty minutes to eat a full meal, so it took a small army of people to simultaneously serve everybody dinner at six o'clock, a "LCH" tradition. Every day, including Sundays, help would arrive in buses fifteen minutes before dinner. Each bus contained forty Shyshirites, all volunteers, mostly teenage girls and older women, but there were plenty of men, too. Two hundred people arrived in all, ten percent of Shyshire's entire population. At first I thought the volunteering was the town's way of giving back to its main employer, but I eventually learned it was much more. Shyshirites always did any job that needed to be done, with or without pay.

In addition to the volunteers, the entire kitchen staff participated in feeding us at dinnertime. Nurse Judy told me Chef Royalston and his team considered feeding the physically impaired a chef's highest honor, for in their opinion, nobody was more appreciative of a good meal.

Chef Royalston fed me my first dinner at Leicester County Hospital; it was the best and strangest meal I ever had. I ate in a sitting up position, so I had a decent, albeit narrow, field of view. The meal was served on a wooden tray, not one of those hard plastic cafeteria trays that can double as a one-man toboggan.

Upon arrival, the meal was hidden under a stainless steel dome topped by an ornate brass handle that looked like the point on Kaiser Wilhelm's helmet. There was a wine glass, which was weird considering quadriplegics usually drank through a straw. There was also folded linen and a vase with a single rose, an actual rose, not a plastic rose, not a dyed carnation.

"Chef Royalston, always serves his new diners their first meal," Nurse Judy said. "It's a long-standing tradition."

As Nurse Judy spoke, Chef Royalston back-pedaled toward me, never once providing me with the opportunity to catch a glimpse of his face. He was wearing a headband that I'd seen cyclists wear. It had a small rear view mirror.

"Your meal is here," Chef Royalston said as Nurse Judy exited the room.

"Tonight, we have range fed filet mignon; green beans almondine; a twice-baked potato, Idaho of course; a Canadian Dry Ginger Ale, chilled, no ice, and a 1968 Georges de LaTour Cabernet Sauvignon from my private collection. Shall we begin? Wine first?"

"I guess, Chef," I responded. "I've never had wine before."

"Incredible, very exciting, an unprejudiced palette," Chef Royalston said. "Wonderful!"

To avoid my gaze, the chef stood behind my head as he fed me. First, he waved the wine glass under my nose.

"You like the smell?" he asked.

"Smells good," I said.

"Take a small sip," Chef Royalston said as a glass straw entered my mouth.

"Wow. That is something. I can taste ten different flavors."

"Awesome! Please describe them."

"Funny, I can taste oak, licorice, pepper and a hint of cherry."

"Fantastic," Chef Royalston remarked. "It is my distinct pleasure to serve you, young man. You are a connoisseur in the making."

~ ~ ~

My first evening alone with Arthur Slank was uneventful. It was spent mainly in silence, punctuated by the sound of Arthur's BIC lighter being ignited every fifteen minutes. We never exchanged a word, which was good because the silence provided me with time to assess my new home and develop a strategy for dealing with my crazy roommate.

Regarding Leicester County Hospital: prior to my arrival, I'd resigned myself to being neglected because I figured no amount of money could ever buy real care. I guessed I'd live another five, or maybe ten years before catching a common cold and choking to death on a ball of phlegm, probably while my nurses played dominoes. When Jimmy Something-or-other dropped me off, I'd firmly expected to encounter a conspiracy of laziness but instead found workers competing to excel. There was little doubt in my mind that I was receiving the best possible care. And to say the least, I was thrilled.

Regarding my roommate: I wasn't surprised at encountering anger to some extent, knowing first hand that quadriplegia does not induce a sunny disposition in any sane man. However, I hadn't foreseen the likes of Arthur Slank.

Arthur Slank was nothing but mean; his anger was relentless and bottomless. I wasn't a shrink, but I knew there was something more than quadriplegia driving his disposition, and I suspected self-loathing. My immediate plans were to absorb Arthur Slank's attacks while gathering information about his past, hoping it would somehow enable me to constrain his vitriol and force him to give up on his effort to break me.

As I anticipated, on day two of my stay at Leicester County Hospital Arthur Slank formally initiated our war. I woke at sunrise when beams from the rising sun hit the walking man and split into waves of primary colors, speckling Room 302's bright white walls with spectacular patterns of blues, greens, yellows and reds. The fascinating display caused me to momentarily contemplate the nature of light, but then, Arthur's television set came to life.

The year was 1979; I'd heard of a TV remote control but had never seen one—and the term VHS was foreign to me. Arthur's TV sat on top of our room's sole dresser and within my narrow range of vision. It was a nineteen-inch Zenith that had all the latest features, including automatic color adjustment and stereo sound. Atop the television was a black box. It had a couple of small blinking lights and it made a variety of mechanical noises, primarily clicks followed by whizzes. I soon learned the device was called a videotape player. It was Arthur Slank's weapon of choice.

Arthur's assault began when the words "Coming Soon" appeared on his TV screen. The graphic was immediately followed by a loud voiceover "Coming Soon! From MGM Studios, the complete works of Tom and Jerry!"

I knew Arthur was up to no good, but I played it straight hoping to illicit a response of some sort.

"Good morning, Master, what’s happening?" I asked.

Nothing.

I must admit the first time I viewed Arthur's
Tom and Jerry
video I laughed, at times hysterically, as the indefatigable and forever hungry cat, Tom, quickly recovered from being diced-up or blown to bits, so he could continue his relentless pursuit of the uncatchable mouse, Jerry. My favorite scene was when Jerry stuck Tom's tail in a waffle iron causing his face to turn bright red.

The Very Best of Tom and Jerry: Volume One
featured six cartoons, short films produced in the 1940s and 1950s for display in theatres prior to a main feature. The shorts ran about eight to ten minutes each. So you could watch the entire videotape in less than an hour. Several of the cartoons had won Oscars.

Having never seen videotape before, I assumed that, once started, like a movie film, a tedious rewind procedure would be required before another viewing could occur. I soon found out the opposite was true, for upon completion of the sixth Tom and Jerry short, the VHS player automatically rewound and then replayed the videotape from the beginning. I later learned this replay process was called an infinite loop.

Without saying a word, on the first day of our
Tom and Jerry
marathon, before Nurse Judy had even arrived for the day shift, Arthur had already played the videotape twice. During the replays, if a nurse walked by, Arthur would immediately use his remote control to pause the video, or if necessary, turn off the TV. By midnight, Arthur had played
The Very Best of Tom and Jerry: Volume One
, beginning to end, eight times.

At first I thought about complaining about
Tom and Jerry
to Juliette Dritch, but instead I decided to act indifferent in hopes that Arthur would eventually relent. I wanted Arthur to understand the extent of my resolve. Knowing he had to witness the cartoons, too, my intent was to turn the tables on Arthur by watching
Tom and Jerry
until he could no longer bear it.

It was our first test of wills.

"Play it again, Master!" was my standard refrain whenever episode six of
The Very Best of Tom and Jerry
:
Volume One
thankfully ended.

~ ~ ~

I'd been living at Leicester County Hospital for two weeks, and into my seventieth viewing of the
Tom and Jerry
videotape, when an Apple native finally visited me. It was my brother Hal.

Hal was quite different from me. Growing up, he was an ultra-considerate nerd. I was more the jock type. Hal had called ahead to confirm visiting hours and made special arrangements with Nurse Judy to get some alone time with me.

My brother arrived at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, right between lunch and dinner. In preparation for the visit, Nurse Judy had acquired a new fall wardrobe for me from the LL Bean Quadriplegic Catalog.

The duds caused Hal to greet me by saying, "You look great, big brother."

After a tour of the hospital, Nurse Judy left us alone. Hal suggested we take a "walk" outside on the hospital's hiking trail, a perfectly level concrete sidewalk that traversed the backyard of the Leicester County Hospital. The trail provided an awesome view of the valley below, including the spire of Saint Beatrice in "downtown" Shyshire. I remember our walk like it occurred yesterday. It was an awesome day, sixty degrees, no clouds, with air so fresh that you could taste the wildflowers and trees that covered ninety percent of the hospital's grounds.

At the start of the walk, Hal told me he was thrilled to see I was 'getting along' at Leicester County Hospital. He then told me he had a steady girlfriend named Gina and a new red Ford F250 pickup truck.

"I bought it with the money I earned from working as a busboy at Rickford's," Hal said.

Rickford's was Apple's legendary "pancake emporium."

Hal had an unusual quality that caused most folks to pause when forced to consider him. He was so incredibly ordinary that there was simply no way to describe him other than saying, "Hal was Hal." My brother didn't have a single noteworthy trait or passion. He aspired to live below the radar.

I once bought Hal a T-shirt with the word "dull" on its chest. The lettering was only an inch high. It was Hal's favorite article of clothing. He wore it until it was threadbare. Then he bought a replacement shirt that read "duller." Hal apparently deemed himself unworthy of the title "dullest." He obviously didn't want to peak early.

I was anxious to hear more about Hal and my family, but before allowing Hal to broach the topic of Mom and Dad, I interrupted him and said, "Hal you have to do me a big favor."

"Anything, brother."

"I need you to travel to Hyannis and find out everything you can about Arthur Slank, my roommate."

It was the days before the Internet, so data gathering on people was a difficult and time-consuming task.

"How do I do that?" Hal asked.

"Go to the library. Look in old newspapers. Go to the town hall and pull the marriage, birth, and death records for Slanks. Then find a local bar and start asking questions."

"Private eye stuff."

"Exactly," I said. "Consider it an adventure."

"I'll get it done, brother," Hal assured me without ever asking why. "You can count on me. I'm sure there can't be many Arthur Slanks living on Cape Cod."

"For the Cape's sake, I hope not."

We were at the midpoint on the hiking trail, dead center in the backyard of Leicester County Hospital when Hal stopped talking. I knew something was wrong.

"How's Dad?" I asked.

"Dad's fine," Hal said. "You know Dad."

"How about Mom? Is she feeling better?"

"Not so good. She got in a car accident."

"A car accident," I said. "Mom doesn't drive."

"Mom's dead," Hal responded.

Chapter Three

My Maria

There's nothing more pathetic than not being able to kill yourself. For a solid year after I murdered my mother I did everything I possibly could to terminate my existence, but nothing worked. For months, I goaded Arthur Slank, hoping he would set my bed on fire, but he was enjoying my pain far too much to flick a match in my direction. Twice, I made serious attempts to starve myself to death, but after a few days Nurse Judy would shove a feeding tube down my throat and fill me up with a puree containing representatives of the four major food groups. Dr. Bonjour regularly treated me with anti-depressants, but they only worsened my condition by causing me to dream about running along a beach, grooming longhaired dogs, or being the lead tap dancer in a Broadway show.