Don't Leave Me This Way: Or When I Get Back on My Feet You'll Be Sorry (8 page)

THERE IS AN UNSPOKEN RULE
you are learning: Nurses never answer call lights. Pushing the button by your bed will never produce a nurse, only a nurse’s aide. The aides are responsible for initial contact.

You have been waiting for over fifty minutes to urinate. You can’t do it yourself; you need to be helped. And you have a bladder infection. And no one is materializing. Must be the aide’s lunch hour.

You keep pushing the call button, but no one responds.

What’s the worst that could happen? You pee in the bed and soak everything. But what if you were choking on something? What if you fell? What if the volcano in your head went off again?

You pick up the phone and call the main switchboard from the outside line.

“How may I direct your call?” an official-sounding voice queries. “Hi, I’m sorry to bother you but no one is answering the call button on my floor.”

“Is this a joke?”

Like you’re in the middle of some juvenile telephone prank. (“Is your refrigerator running? You’d better go catch it.”)

“If so,” the voice continues, scolding you, “it’s not a very good joke. This is a hospital, and pranks like this can have serious consequences.”

“My name is Julia Garrison, I’m in room 417. Please look it up. I have to be lifted to the potty chair and I’ve been waiting a really long time. It hurts.” You sound panicked; you’re extremely eager for her to take you seriously.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

As if you were in a joking frame of mind. You’re not.

If you’d been willing to joke, you’d have said, “Ahhh, relief. Never mind. Could you send someone from housekeeping?”

The tiny Hawaiian nurse who shows up a few minutes later with her hair in a tight bun is not so approving of your resourcefulness.

“It’s against procedure for patients to call the front desk,” she says as she pulls the covers back and hoists you up.

“Is it against procedure to make a patient with a bladder infection wait nearly an hour to pee?” you ask.

“Just don’t call the operator again.”

While you’re perched over the toilet, you consider singing her the old Jim Croce song “Operator” as you relieve yourself. But she’s holding you up, so you think better of it.

You sing it silently inside your head, though, and when you start cackling with laughter, she doesn’t seem to understand what’s so funny.

Before your stroke. Sitting at home. When your body still worked…

Jim walks in the room and says he’s going to watch a video. He brings you a video and asks whether you want to watch it with him. He holds up the video case and shows you the title. And you look at the case, and it has the title written in big black letters and the title of the video is…

The title of the video Jim asks whether you want to watch is…

Big black letters and you can read them and the title of the video he wants to watch with you is…

See a woman’s face, see a woman’s face, see a woman’s face, who is it?

HOPE IS A POWERFUL MOTIVATOR.
Hope is always what gets you to the next goal; once achieved, there’s the goal after that. Anyone who tries to kill the hope in your heart is the one you have to be prepared to battle. You tell yourself to remember that.

Jim walks into your hospital room and puts a box on the bed. Inside it is a pair of sneakers. Funky Converse high-tops. No support. No room for a brace.

He says, “You are going to walk.”

YOU ARE SITTING IN A WAITING ROOM
in a hospital and it is afternoon and there is rain falling outside. Jim is sitting next to you holding your hand. Across the hall is another woman with dark hair and birdlike features. You are both waiting for some kind of treatment. She seems to be ahead of you in line.

She has on shoes that you think are cool, but you can tell she is wearing a brace, just as you are beneath the Velcro-sealed sneakers you’re wearing. She has on shoes that look fairly normal even though a leg brace is inserted in one of the shoes. You are dealing with shoe envy because wearing this clunky brace beneath your ugly geriatric shoes has you feeling just a little nostalgic. You love buying new shoes. Now you have to wear these special shoes for old people.

So many cute shoes out there—and not a pair of working feet in sight. You can never wear stylish shoes again—it’s ugly flats for the rest of your life. And you’re feeling a little sorry for yourself when the birdlike woman starts weeping.

And you ask her what’s wrong and she doesn’t want to say at first and you ask again and she explains her operation and how it went wrong and her husband left her before the accident and how there is no one to help her care for her children. She has no network of support, no family to help care for her or her kids, and she’s going to lose custody.

And then there’s Jim right next to you waiting with you so you won’t be lonely. And all the people in your family who keep materializing by the side of your bed and asking you what you need and how they can get it for you.

She does not even have family. You wish you could help her in some way.

The nurse comes and tells her it’s her turn.

“You’re going to get your kids back,” you tell her as the nurse leads her away. You have no idea why you would say such a thing, or if it’s true. It just comes out of you.

“No, I’m not,” she says. She doesn’t even look back at you.

“WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?”

Your walls say, “Hi, remember us?” Same walls, same window, same bed. You’re not in the hall. You’re back in your own room.

Jim is there in the room with you and the two of you are waiting for something. You just can’t recall what it is. You’re lying down in the bed, so you must be finished with whatever therapy the bird lady had. You’re clearly waiting, and Jim’s helping you wait for it. Whatever it is.

“Your brother Joe is bringing pizza for dinner,” Jim says. “Designer pizza. You’re going to love it.”

“Oh.”

“Are you okay? You sound funny.”

You should probably tell him about this face thing. Or did you? “Jim?”

“Yeah?”

“Did I tell you about the face thing?”

“What face thing?”

“I can’t feel my face anymore. It’s like I’m talking through plaster.”

It does take quite a bit of effort to get the words out.

“Okay.”

“Plus my head hurts like hell.”

“Okay. I’ll get the nurse.”

“I feel different, Jim.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back.”

He’s gone.

THEY ARE STRAPPING YOU
to a gurney. They are putting you in an ambulance.

“Honey, they’re going to take you back to the critical care hospital. It’s about thirty minutes away. You’re going to go in an ambulance.”

You’re confused. Why are you going back there? Weren’t you already in a hospital?

“No. I want Jim to drive me.”

Jim above you, a familiar face amid the strangers.

“You’re still an inpatient, ma’am. It’s not an option.”

Who the hell said that?

“What is happening to me, Jim? Am I having another stroke?”

“We’re going to find out, that’s why we’re taking the little trip to critical care. Don’t worry. Let’s go.”

Not Jim’s voice. Sky changes, noise level drops, interior roof of the ambulance slides into place.

“I want Jim to drive me. I don’t want you to drive me. I want Jim driving me.”

Sound of an engine gunning to life.

“Why can’t Jim just drive the ambulance then?”

Sound of gears shifting, ambulance moving backward, then pivoting, then rocketing forward. Siren goes on.

You hear yourself say: “I do not give my permission for this.”

Tires screech and you are moving and the straps are holding you in place and you are being violated and your face is gone.

Before your stroke. Sitting at home. When your body still worked…

Jim walks in the room and he’s going to watch a video. Holds up the video case and shows the title to you. Can’t make out the title. Big black letters.

See a woman’s face see a woman’s face see a woman’s face on the cover of the videocassette. Who is it?

SIREN.
Ambulance moving fast. Staring at its steel-girdered ceiling, which is now vibrating like one of those big paint-can shakers at a hardware store. Out of control.

“Is Jim still behind us?”

“Yes. I can see him.”

Time collapsing. Face all gone. Head hurts even worse now. Like the first time. It occurs to you that you may die. It occurs to you that you are not really here anymore. You’re suspended somehow inside the metal cage they’ve shoved you into, and it’s hurtling with a high whine, and you can see yourself locked inside it.

Can’t move.

You’re suffocating.

You heard yourself say, “No.”

Overpowered.

Jesus.

Violated.

BEFORE YOUR STROKE.
Sitting at home. When your body still worked.

Jim walks in the room and he’s going to watch a video. See a woman’s face.

Jodie Foster.

Jim walks in the room and he wants to watch a video and he says, “I checked out a good video for us to watch.
The Accused,
with Jodie Foster.”

And he put it on and you both sat down and you both watched.

And when they got to the scene where the men attacked her, where they held her down screaming and laid into her, your body started shuddering, you couldn’t control it, faster and faster, and you were sobbing and Jim wanted to know what was wrong and you couldn’t say anything.

You were hovering outside of your body. You were not really there in your living room anymore. You were somewhere else.

Growing up, you always referred to yourself as “Julia-wait-till-the-wedding-night-Fox.”

You were preserving yourself as the one thing you could give as a gift to the person you loved. You would be the wedding gift. Your friends thought it sounded too much like a fairy tale, but it was what you believed. You just felt you could never make love to somebody without having the love that goes along with a lifetime bond with that person.

People called you a tomboy growing up. You were always a buddy with the guys, never a girlfriend. Once your father even asked you if you were a lesbian, because he couldn’t understand why you didn’t date. You thought about saying, “Dad, I’m so glad you brought this up. I’ve been struggling with how to tell you, but I’m in love, and I want to marry Tina Turner.” You spared him that joke, though, and told him the truth, which was that you were just more of a buddy-type person and that you really didn’t even know how to flirt.

You spent a lot more time in the mud with boys than trying to attract their romantic interest. Every time you tried to flirt it, was pathetic. Once, as a twenty-something, you were at the auto mechanic’s picking up your car after a fender bender. You were inside the garage, inside your car, and the cute mechanic was leaning in the window to talk to you. You were chatting, smiling, and doing the best you could to be flirtatious. You reached over and got the aviator sunglasses from your handbag. You put them on trying to look cool—then you noticed something slapping against your face. There was a misshapen, flecked-with-purse-dregs, out-of-its-cartridge tampon stuck in the hinge of your glasses, hanging off your face.

That was what used to happen to you when you tried to flirt. You weren’t exactly a smooth operator.

For some reason the cute mechanic never posed the date question. Maybe he was turned off by your Inspector Clouseau take on female cool.

When you went to college, you were still a virgin, and you were proud of this, because most of the girls you knew weren’t virgins. You weren’t “experienced,” but this didn’t matter to you.

During your freshman year in college you had a friend named Rick.

You knew him from the year before; you had met him while visiting friends. He was nice enough and the two of you spent time together. There was nothing sexual about it. It was a friendship: talking, hanging out, like several dozen other buddies you’d had over the years who were guys.

When you eventually went to school in Vermont, Rick was still there at another college across town. You went to a party over at one of the dorms at his college.

You had been drinking keg beer (which was pretty disgusting) and partying with Rick.

Rick volunteered to give you a ride back to your dorm, and you gladly accepted.

Getting rides across town had been a bit of a dilemma for you recently, so you were relieved to know you had a ride home.

It got late. Rick’s car was at his house. You left the party together.

You walked over to the house he shared with two other boys. It wasn’t far.

He invited you inside. You thought for a moment, then decided to go in. Maybe if you hadn’t been drinking all night, you would have insisted that it was time for you to go home. But everything seemed fine.

The minute you stepped in, he shut the door behind you.

He started kissing you, right there in the hallway. At first, you thought it was nice. But the minute he decided you didn’t seem to mind him kissing you, he stopped being Rick.

You’d hardly realized it, but it suddenly dawned on you that he had been leading you somewhere. He closed another door behind you.

You wanted to leave. But he wouldn’t stop kissing you.

He started ripping off your clothes.

You didn’t want to have sex with him, and you told him so. It didn’t matter. He kept tearing away at clothes and underwear.

You tried to make your way to the door. He threw you onto the bed and kept tearing off things.

You said, out loud, so you’d know you had said it, “Stop, please stop. I’m a virgin.”

He got on top of you, held you down, and forced his way into you.

“No, you’re not,” he grunted. “No, you’re not.”

He had you pinned down. He was strong. You were utterly defenseless. Something animalistic took him over and he was no longer Rick, but Sick Rick. The nice guy had left the room and been replaced by a maniacal stranger.

You were no longer a person, but some kind of blow-up doll without human feelings.

All the time that he was violating you, you sobbed and begged him to stop, but eventually you stopped the begging and a sense of unreality came over the room and you saw yourself pinned to the bed by a stranger and heard yourself weeping.

He grunted loudly and pulled himself out of you and dragged your head over his penis, which was now limp. You heard some voices in the room, probably his two roommates, but you couldn’t see anything because of the way he had you pinned. You recall thinking that he was actually proud of this.

He held your head down on his penis for what seemed like hours and you thought you would suffocate. You came very close to vomiting from the wretched smell of urine and semen. He must have sensed this, because he pulled your head away. You looked up and around. Whoever was in the room had left.

Once it was over, you eventually stopped sobbing and lay there for a long time, numb, empty, gone.

Jesus.

Violated.

Not really there.

The sun was up.

Your voice was hoarse and raspy.

You asked as quietly as you could if he could get you home now. You didn’t want to agitate him, so you asked very humbly and very submissively.

He nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him.

You realized that, if you played your cards right, you might actually get out of this alive.

You scrambled to find your clothes. Your underwear had vanished. You put on your pants and your sweater sans undergarments. Each had been torn.

You opened the door and looked out. His roommates were passed out in the front living room. You saw him jostle them awake and ask them to go with him, with the promise they’d all go to breakfast. His treat.

Rick had an older Mustang with bucket seats in the front. There were lots of fast-food cartons strewn in the car. You got in the back. The three boys sat in the front, with one of them sitting where the gearshift was located. They didn’t want to even sit in the back with you. One guy offered gum to the other guys in the front. As they unwrapped the gum and popped it in their mouths, they rolled the wrappers up and took shots at you with the gum wrappers. This amused them so much that they found other discarded wrappings and threw those at you, too. They were having lots of fun and laughing at this game. They dumped you at your dormitory.

It was a weekend, and the dormitory was empty. Everyone had gone home to the safety of parents and family.

You climbed the stairs to the second floor where your room was. You walked into the shower stall fully dressed. You turned on the water as hot as it could get. Your body leaned against the flowing hot water in the stall for a long time, until the shower head ran cool.

But you were not there
.

Years later, you were on the Cape with some friends at a club where young adults and college-age kids would go to get drunk and meet members of the opposite sex. You noticed a man with dark hair trying to catch your eye. He looked familiar.

When you realized it was Sick Rick, your stomach went cold.

You were speechless. You just stood there gawking. He must have mistaken your staring as a come-on, because he made his way across the
bar to you. You thought surely he’d say your name or apologize or something, but he didn’t even recognize you now. You had lost weight and cut your long hair and were a few years older.

He said, “It’s been a while since I’ve come across a smile as nice as yours.”

Not only did he have no memory of you, he was trying to pick you up.

You stared at him for a moment. Then you threw your drink in his face.

You motioned to your friends and left the bar without looking back.