Loops
Larson opened his eyes.
“Shhhh.” The sound emerged softly from the doctor’s lips.
He came up behind Larson and wrapped his arms slowly around his torso, gently nesting his head on Larson’s left shoulder.
“Shhhh, shhhh, shhhh.” Three seductive puffs, each quieter than the last.
Larson became even more terrified, the breath of his tormentor warm against his cheek.
“Why are you so afraid? This is for your own good.” Dr. Richards let go and moved around to face his trembling patient, whose body was spotlighted in the intense glow of a single overhead klieg.
Larson’s arms were raised and stretched, each tied to columns by metallic tethers. His ankles were roped to eye hooks anchored in the concrete floor. Naked, except for his blue boxers, it was obvious he had just pissed on himself.
Richards pointed to the wet spot and the small puddle gathered on the floor. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“Why are you doing this to me?” It was half whimpered, half sobbed.
“Because weak ones like you will never go through with it willingly. Why can’t you just be a man and accept the treatment? This will make you a new person, Larson?” And then added in his most gentle, most serpentine tone—a taskmaster father belittling his son—”Not a person who wets himself like a baby in diapers.”
Larson flooded with useless rage, the rage of utter powerlessness: “Because it’s not my choice. It’s yours. What fucking right do you have to tell me what’s best for my life?”
“Ah, Larson—me, me, me—that’s all I hear from you. Me, me, me.” Richards moved forward and patted his hand calmly on Larson’s chest.
“Don’t touch me!” Larson’s crystal blue eyes flashed.
But the doctor didn’t flinch. “Larson, sometimes we don’t know what’s best for ourselves.”
Larson spit squarely onto Richard’s chiseled face. “You’re not fucking God!”
The angrier Larson got, the more unperturbed and supercilious Richard’s approach became. “I have—we all have—your best interest in mind.”
“Then why tie me up half naked?” None of this made sense to Larson. This violated every medical procedure he knew of; it stretched reason to the limit. He tossed his head from side to side, then looked up and let out a wail of frustration. “No fucking doctor in his right mind would do this. No hospital would have a room like this. It makes no sense.” His long jet black hair flew onto his face. “You make no sense!”
Richards just stood there, dressed in a bright yellow surgical gown, smiling, lightly stroking Larson’s chest the way one might stroke a purring cat.
Larson said hoarsely, “Why? Why humiliate me like this?” He tried to push his body weight back to get Richard’s hand off him, but of course, that, too, was futile.
“Not humiliation; just the best position for the procedure.”
“That’s bullshit. I should be catheterized, anesthetized, and on a table, not strung up like a side of beef.”
“That would be one way, yes. But this way is simply more memorable.” Richards drenched Larson in the word, savoring it.
“You’re a sick fucker. When this gets out, you and your thugs . . .”
“What, Larson?” He dropped his hand. “When this gets out . . . what? That we’ve given you a better body? That you no longer have pain?”
“But I didn’t ask for this! I don’t want it.” He knew his cries were a waste of time, but it somehow made him feel better. It made him feel as though he were at least trying to put up a fight, not acting like the baby Richards claimed he was. Yet even as that positive thought surged through, he felt himself release another batch of piss and his bowels groaned.
Richards walked out of the halo of overhead light to a metal push cart—one of three—tucked in a dim recess of what appeared to be a luridly painted orange operating room. He took up a syringe. “Something to calm you. The operation will go better if you’re calm, won’t it?”
Was he supposed to answer that, Larson wondered? He struggled, but each yank only sent more pain shooting up his arms and down his legs. “At least have the decency to knock me out—the humanity to anesthetize . . .” His words got lost in another heaving sob.
He came back into the ring of glaring light. “Larson, stop being a child about this,” and then said as one would talk to an infant, “such a noisy little baby.” He punctuated the thought by jabbing the needle directly into the left pectoral and discharging the bright pink serum rapidly.
Within moments, Larson could see his vision begin to blur, everything suddenly cast in a vibrant neon glow. “What are you . . .” but his tongue became too thick to speak, as though his mouth were suddenly stuffed and tangled with hooks and sinkers.
“Yes, Larson, it’s truly more memorable this way.” Richards removed the needle and swabbed the spot with a red silk handkerchief that he pulled from the breast pocket of his surgical outfit.
At that same moment, the door to the room slid open and a young, shapely woman in bright blue scrubs entered. Without saying a word, as if on cue, she proceeded to one of the carts and lifted what appeared to be a cutting tool, glistening silver with a two-inch circular blade at the tip. In his stupor, Larson thought he recognized the instrument from one of the doctor shows he watched on the Net.
“You may proceed, doctor,” Richards said as he once again assumed his place behind Larson, embracing him, holding him tightly in place as the woman approached and let the blade touch the top of Larson’s right ear. She activated it, and Larson could hear the sputtering rotary pass through his lobe as it was cut from the side of his head.
Richard gagged Larson’s scream as he struggled against the searing pain. “Shhhh. Shhhh,” one hand now over his mouth, the other stroking his soaking forehead and hair. “Shhh. Don’t thrash about—you’ll make her slip up.” There was almost a smile in his voice.
Larson tried to stay conscious, but the pain was extraordinary, and he felt like he would puke as he felt the woman remove the lobe and then place it in a small porcelain bowl on one of the carts. He could sense blood trickling down his neck and onto his body.
The nameless doctor then retrieved a much larger cutting tool from a different cart and moved towards Larson’s arm with a blade that looked at least six inches across, though his vision was blurred in an electric haze.
He groggily thought of what he might do once his hand was severed. Would he swing his newly released arm and knock the bloody stump into Richards? Would he be able to slither out of his shackles? A dozen ridiculous retributions swam around in the puddle of thoughts.
He thought he saw the door open again. This time there was a male orderly standing in front of him, tall and black with smoking brown eyes. He reached out and supported Larson’s right elbow to prevent the arm from falling once the hand was detached. Then another man entered holding a silver covered basket—hadn’t Larson just seen this in the opera Salome, the head of John the Baptist landing on the platter like a hole-in-one? “Thaz whar my han’s goin’,” he slurred.
“Right, Larson. That’s for your hand.”
Larson tried once more to struggle loose, but could barely muster a wiggle. He could still feel the satin of Richard’s sleeves against his chest. He leaned his head to the left and heard himself mumble, “Why?”
“Shhhh, shhh, soon you’ll be as good as new.”
Larson saw the blade begin to rotate, slowly at first, then quickly, a silvery blur that whined as it came down on his wrist—and cut clean through. The orderly slowly lowered the arm that pulsed out blood while the other pulled the hand free of the tether and place it on the tray. Another orderly—a woman—emerged into view and staunched the flow of blood with what looked like a red-checkered kitchen towel.
That must have been when he passed out . . .
* * *
. . . and came to on a crash cart being rolled into an operating room.
It was white tiled, with overhead fluorescent tubes. His nurse, Sylvia, walking next to him on his right was holding his hand gently. She was in the middle of saying something when he came to, but her sentence ended with a reassuring “You’ll be fine.”
He felt himself going under again as the cart came to rest under a battery of intense lights.
“Can you hear me, Larson?”
He tried to nod. In his grog, he saw Sylvia still standing by his side. That was reassuring.
Larson managed a nod.
“You have everyone rooting for you, Larson. You have everyone . . . you have everyone . . .” The words spun out in endless loops, softer and gentler, until there was only a warm blanket of silence.
That was the last thing he remembered until the next day, when he woke to the vase full of vibrant red tulips on the nightstand next to his bed. He closed his eyes, then reopened them. Yes, red tulips, brilliantly red, the red of a child’s paint box, of fire trucks, of his childhood beach ball—too excitable.
He turned; the shades on the window were drawn, submerging everything in a peaceful dimness.
It was a private room. The door was shut. Through the glass he saw people walking back and forth—hospital personnel and visitors weaving around each other in a silent dance.
He couldn’t remember where he was.
Or why?
Then a momentary flash of memory came to the surface. Something about his hand. His ear, too?
At that moment the door opened, and a wash of sound filtered in from the hallway. Larson squinted—he didn’t have his glasses on—and made out Dr. Plath’s tall, thin form. As Plath approached, she came into focus.
“Well, how’s the patient today?”
Larson tried to say OK, but couldn’t. It was then he realized he had a tube inserted down his throat. It scratched his throat.
He grunted and tried to smile.
“I’ll take that is a positive?”
Larson smiled.
“Good.” Plath had a terrific bedside manner; she always made you feel like you were the only patient she was seeing that day—she never rushed and there always seemed to be a lilt to her voice.
Stunningly beautiful, Plath could have been a movie actress and her warm hazel eyes would always put Larson at ease. They reminded him of his older brother’s hazel eyes, the brother Larson loved best, the brother he could go to when their father Richard was raging about the house in an alcoholic stupor, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The old nickname caused him to shiver.
Plath came close and touched the bandages on Larson’s head and let out an encouraging “Good.”
Then she moved back and said, “All right, Larson. I’m going to lift the sheets now to see how you’re doing. Is that OK?”
Not every doctor asked. Some just prodded and touched him like a piece of meat. Even if she was going to do something anyway, Plath always asked.
Again, Larson nodded, and then watched the doctor pull back the covers. She lifted Larsen’s arm. White bandaging covered the stump where his hand used to be.
“You may feel ghost pain from time to time. Your nervous system will try to trick you into believing that you still have your injured hand. Don’t mind. It’ll pass.” She smiled reassuringly.
Then she pushed the sheets down even further.
“Ah. Very good.” She prodded Larson’s left thigh. “Does that still hurt?”
Larson nodded that it didn’t.
“Terrific.”
Larson was puzzled. Why was Plath looking down there? There wasn’t anything wrong there.
With great effort, Larson tried to tilt his head to look for himself, but he couldn’t.
“You want to see?”
Another nod.
“You sure?” Plath sounded concerned. “I don’t want to overwhelm you all at once. This is a lot to take in one twenty-four hour period.”
What the hell was Plath talking about?
Larson tried to gurgle out “it’s OK,” which Plath seemed to understand.
“All right then. Let me prop you up.”
Plath went to the foot of the bed and pushed a button. Larson felt his upper body slowly moving upright. Five degrees, 10 degrees, 15 degrees—slowly upwards.
At about 30 degrees, Larson looked down the length of the bed.
He could see his right leg, but where his left once was, there was merely bedding. Bandages covered a stump near the top of his left thigh.
Larson began to tremble. Sensing the reaction, Plath immediately started to lower the bed and came to Larson’s side at once. She took his right hand in both of hers. “I’m so sorry. Truly.”
Tears started to flow out of Larson’s eyes.
“It was the only way. You were too . . .”
But the rest of the words were lost.
His ear, his hand, now his leg. It was so much to take in. So much . . .
* * *
. . . “to take in. But he’s taking it like a trooper.”
He recognized Marion’s voice. She was talking on her cell out in the hallway.
“No problem,” she said.
He looked. He was propped up in his bed at home. The shades were drawn and the blue room was flooded with warm October light. The windows were open a crack and a mild breeze blew through, fluttering the voile curtains.
“I’ll call you the minute we get back more results. Bye.” And after another second, “Love you, too.”
He could hear her snap shut the cover as she walked into the room. She was pushing the phone into her pocket. “Hey, sleepy head.” She said quietly. “How are you?” It was the smile he always remembered.
“OK, I guess. Still a little groggy.”
It took him a few moments to adjust. His room. His house. His ex-wife standing by his bed.
She walked over, looking as radiant as he always remembered. The dark brown hair, the grey eyes—like Athena in The Odyssey he used to joke—the Angelina Jolie lips.
“That was Aunt Suzi. She says hi. She’s coming by tomorrow after she drops off the kids at lacrosse.”
“Cool.” It took effort to speak. He tried to adjust himself in the bed and immediately Marion helped, lifting him slightly so she could adjust the pillows, and gently laying him back.
“Dr. Williams will be here soon. He wants to check you before he heads out for the weekend. Something, huh? A doctor who actually makes house calls.”
“Probably costs an arm and a leg.” He managed to smile at his bad joke.
She didn’t know how to react at first, but then groaned a laugh and rolled her eyes. “You’re getting better.” She patted him gently on the chest.
“Listen,” she said, “I’m running down to bring up your sandwich. Want anything special to drink?”
“Just water, babe.”
Babe? The word floated in the air between them for a moment. He hadn’t called her that since the divorce. And for the second time in a matter of moments she was caught off guard. She just nodded and slipped out of the room.
Babe? He said to himself. Where the heck did that come from?
He was fully awake now; whatever sedative he’d taken had worn off.
Almost at once he became aware of tingling. The side of his head itched. He remembered the ear and the thick bandages still in place.
Then his leg. Yes. The leg. But Dr. Williams had told him he might feel phantom sensations.
But then his arm began to feel scratchy.
He lifted his left arm. It was still bandaged tightly. He went to use his right hand to scratch the place just above the left elbow.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
He went to scratch his left elbow with his right hand.
Larson began to feel panic.
His right hand to scratch the left elbow.
Panic turned to terror.
His right . . .
Marion was just walking in with the sandwich and a glass of water with a bright red straw. Immediately she saw Larson’s distress.
She practically threw the plate and glass on the dresser and hurried over. “Larson.”
He was quaking.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
Larson started to cry, a cry that quickly became a wail.
“Larson, talk to me.” Now she was beginning to panic.
His wail had turned into a full-fledged scream.
She took him by the shoulders and shook him gently, “Talk to me. What’s wrong? What’s happened?” She let go and intuitively reached for her cell. “Should I call for help? Tell me. Please.” Now she was crying.
He thrashed his left arm against the bedding.
He thumped his right leg up and down.
But there was no longer a right arm to do anything.
“Larson!”
* * *
“. . .Larson! You still there?” A pause. Another scream: “Larson!”
The debris was still falling and the dust swirling.
He came to from his daze hearing the screams of soldiers and wounded civilians. His ears were ringing so loudly that everything sounded like it was coming from another room.
They’d been on foot, patrolling the market.
That was the last he remembered.
He could tilt his head to the right. His eyes were blurred with sand, but he could still see blood on nearby blocks of cement and as the blazing Iraqi sun penetrated the settling clouds, he could see two bodies—women in black—about a yard away.
“Junkyard! You there?” He found the strength to shout.
His jarhead buddy had been his constant companion for the last six months. They were both from upstate New York and he was the closest thing Larson had to a brother. Where was he?
“Fucking son of a bitch!” He heard himself yell as the wave of anger began to mingle with the agonizing pain. Why couldn’t they just let it alone? Why did they have to keep bombing people? Why?
The questions were one way to deal with the stabbing jolts he felt punching his torso.
“Junkyard?”
He thought someone yelled to him, but Larson didn’t understand Iraqi. “Here. I’m here!” He said as loudly as he could, but each new word was torture.
In moments he heard rocks and stones being tossed about. They were coming through the rubble.
“Here guys,” someone yelled. It was Junkyard. Even through his garbled hearing, he knew the voice.
“Junkyard?” It hurt so much to talk.
“Fucker, that you?”
He could only manage two words: “Me. Junkyard.”
People were heaving debris to get to him.
He was pinned down by a cinderblock wall.
In a few moments, someone was hoisting the cinderblocks from his chest and then shouted, “Jesus H. Christ.”
He twisted his head and saw Junkyard rummaging through the rubble, his hazel eyes showing only pure terror. He was dripping with blood himself, cuts slashed across his face. “Christ, buddy.”
They say you see things in times like this. Your past. People and places. Larson saw his ex-wife. Larson saw his two kids, both star lacrosse players at Paul Smiths College. Larson saw his home on Lake Placid. Larson saw . . .
“Don’t leave me, bro. Stay with us, here.” Junkyard yelled.
Larson tried to keep awake, but it would have been so much easier to fall into a deep, soothing, warm ocean of sleep, waves of sleep caressing, waves of . . .
“Larson. Larson. Stay awake. Larson.”
Then he could see the medic leaning over him, shouting orders over his shoulder.
In the hazy periphery he saw Junkyard move off to the side, sobbing bitterly.
The medic barked into his Talkie. Larson made out some of the words—trauma—no legs—shattered arms—ear blasted off—loss of blood—can’t stop bleeding—meaningless words at the time. He could barely keep awake.
But the thing he kept trying to hold to was the sight of Junkyard looking at him, in tears. Terrified. His bro. His confidant.
“Don’t leave me, Fucker.”
For the first time, Larson really felt loved. Someone was worried about him. Someone wanted him to live. In his marriage, with his family, with his kids—he always felt like the one doing the loving. Suddenly he knew he was loved, that someone truly and deeply wanted him to stay alive. It was the one thing to hold to right now as the world slipped further and further away in a blurred mangle of sights and ever more distant sounds. The two of them, Fucker and Junkyard. Junkyard and Fucker. The two jarheads from Elba County. Two . . .
Junkyard.
He felt himself smile. Such a name for a brother to have. Such a . . .
* * *
. . . such a sight. He was glad no one else was around. It was taking some getting used to, seeing through one eye, and what he saw with that eye was often more than he could deal with sometimes. But with Dr. Michaels’ help, he’d do it. He had every confidence.
He used his mouth piece to move his chair in front of the mirror. He always waited till he was directly in front of it before he looked up.
He took a breath and then lifted his head, waiting for the punch of reality.
For some absolutely bizarre reason, he thought of Star Trek. The first series. The one he watched on reruns when he was a kid. Specifically “The Menagerie” with Captain Pike who, after being severely injured, is forced to live out his life in his motorized chair, which he controlled with mind waves. He remembered being terrified by the thought of such a life, eternally trapped, always at the mercy of others.
He shivered, bringing himself back to the mirror.
Not quite Captain Pike, but close enough.
Let’s start from the bottom. No legs. He wasn’t a good candidate for prostheses, so it was life in the chair.
No arms. That meant the mouth tube into which he blew “instructions” for his chair: various puffs and breaths for movement forward, backward, left, and right. Quite ingenious actually, and Larson had become a master.
His neck? A tracheal speaker allowed him some speech.
And the piece de resistance, his head. One eye was covered with a patch. Where his ears should be were small red discs. He actually could deal with that. Lots of people wore eye patches and his discs looked like cool pair of ear muffs.
It was the hole where his nose should be and his lipless mouth that freaked him out. There was no gauze over the hole right now because the doctors were coming back in a few moments to try to fit on the prosthetic they’d come up with. He’d seen it. It looked pretty good. It was certainly better than a hole.
And the lipless smile; the perpetual toothy grin? Well, they told him they might try some reconstruction next year when they give him the cochlear implants.
Lots to look forward to.
Lots.
He couldn’t help it; he started to tear up. It wasn’t self pity really. He’d been through so much in the last few years. A tour in Iraq. His divorce. Then the kids. How much could he take? How much? He wheezed out loud.
Just one big endless fucking . . .
* * *
. . . He jolted up in bed.
The phone was ringing.
“Shit,” he jumped out and jammed himself into his blue boxers that lay next to the bed.
He’d only wanted to take a short nap, but the clock said 4:30. He was way late for the kids.
The Caller ID said Marion Bigelow. He grabbed the phone. “Yo. Listen, before you say anything, I want you to know I’m on my way this second.”
“The kids called me ‘cause your majesty wasn’t answering his cell.” She was beyond pissed. “Don’t keep promising things and then fucking up.”
“Sorry. I’m there. I’m there.”
“Whatever.” And as she slammed the phone down, he could hear her yell “Stupid Fucker.”
Funny how he thought he deserved the abuse she heaped on him sometimes. But maybe this time he’d earned it. Not only had he missed their Lacrosse game, he’d promised them supper in Saranac. If he hurried he’d make it to Paul Smiths in 45 minutes; it was about 20 back to Saranac. He could do this.
Getting dressed in whatever he could grab, he threw on his coat and scrambled out to the garage.
“Keys.” He said, clonking his head, and ran back into the kitchen. They hung on a hook by the fridge.
He tore down the driveway, slowing only long enough to make sure the automatic door was closing.
At this hour, Route 86 was probably the best road, though it was starting to get dark, and he hated the curves up by Harrietstown.
As he sped towards Ray Brook, past the camp grounds, he was doing everything in his power not to beat himself up. He loved his kids. They were good boys. Young men, really. Jody 18, Martin 20, both studying forestry and conservation, both stars on the Lacrosse team. He was proud of them—and they seemed to be the one good thing that came out of his marriage to Marion. If his friends Joan and Larry were Romeo and Juliet, he and Marion were the Macbeths—and that would be on the good days.
He grabbed the dash for his cell. He flipped it open. Sure enough, three calls. Two from Jody, one from Martin. “Fuck,” he said aloud and looked down to autodial Jody.
That’s when he heard the pop, followed by the explosion.
Blow out.
He tossed the phone and tried to gain control, but that seemed impossible. His yellow Xterra went flying off the road. He tried to keep on the shoulder, but he’d been going way to fast, and the gravel only made it worse.
Then he saw them. The two kids on their bikes. He screamed at the wheel as he frantically tried to turn it, but there was nothing he could do. He felt the thud and crash, saw the bodies fly over the hood, then saw himself flipping end over end down the embankment. In moments, there were flames and tearing, ripping pain like none he’d ever . . .
* * *
Larson opened his eyes.
“Shhhh.” The sound emerged softly from the doctor’s lips.
He came up behind Larson and wrapped his arms slowly around his torso, gently nesting his head on Larson’s left shoulder.
“Shhhh, shhhh, shhhh.” Three seductive puffs, each quieter than the last.
Back to: Vol 1, Issue 1