Urinal Rose

        I’m a few minutes early for my treatment, so I sit out in the waiting area. Carol, my fellow hyperbaric patient, is already there, along with a man in a leg brace. A man and woman in scrubs walk by with a rusty goldendoodle. They approach the man in the leg brace and ask if he likes dogs. “This is a roaming service animal, if you would like to say hello.” 

        The man pets the dog and the couple moves on to Carol. “Oh, I love dogs,” she gushes, and rubs the dog behind his ears. Its tail wags madly. The couple and the dog then pass in front of me but do not stop, continuing on around down the hall. 

        “I like dogs,” I call after them, but they’ve rounded the corner. Carol shrugs. “Screw this shit,” I say, and head into the office, not caring if they’re ready for me or not. 

*

        KC was gone for a week. I missed her smart-assed banter. She's always touching me or punching me on the arm but she's like that with everyone. 

        While she was gone, one of the former hypberbaric patients stopped by and dropped off a large white rose for her from his garden. They didn’t have any vases so they placed it one of those bent plastic urinals, the same kind they give us to take into the chamber. “Here’s your good luck charm,” they always say as they place the urinal on our legs, the idea being, if we take it in, we won’t need to use it. 

        After a few days the rose begins to wither, and after a week, it has shrunken into a dry yellow fist. I comment on this and Jessica glances at it and says, “Yeah, not looking so good, is it.” But the next day it’s still there, and the day after that, and the day after that. 

   When she comes back from vacation, KC tells me about a stray cat that’s been visiting her new condo.

          “Every time I open the door she just walks right in,” she says. I ask how her regular cat likes it. “Oh, Cathy gets really pissed but, then when the other cat leaves she runs after it as if begging it not to go,” she says. She shows me photos, leaning against me and holdng my arm as she flips through them. The new cat is milky white and pristinely groomed. Cathy is black and gray with spiky fur and deranged-looking whiskers. We both laugh at the contrast. Though KC is five years younger than me, lately her face looks pallid and worn. There's a sadness about her, but when she laughs ,her eyes narrow and her face erupts into wrinkles and she looks quite beautiful. As I hop off the bed, I glance at the windowsill. Sunlight is streaming in, causing the edges of the withered rose to glow like a smoldering coal.

Attention Pasengers, we are Beginning Our Descent

         “I haven’t seen you in a while,” I say. 

        Kaitlin is bespectacled and skinny as a stick. She looks like she’s about twelve. She has a habit of listening to conversations happening on the other side of the curtain, and yelling comments, then muttering, “They never listen to me.”

        “I usually work Tuesdays,” she says. “But this stupid holiday throws everything off.”

        “You got a nice long weekend, though,” I say. “Did you get to relax”

        “I have these things called kids,” she grunts. 

        She unwraps the bandage on my left foot. Callouses, she whispers, her eyes gleaming. She turns on the light and pulls up a stool and is soon deeply immersed in shaving away the thick skin that is the bane of every diabetic. 

        “Better leave some for Ronette,” I say.

        “Let me have my fun,” she hisses. But eventually she sighs and says, “But I really should take look at the other one, I suppose.” She undoes the bandage on my right foot. “Wow, this looks all healed up.” She puts numbing agent on my left foot and leaves. From the next curtained stall I hear the sound of the hyperbaric training video starting up. How long ago was it that I sat through that? I feel like a high school senior watching the freshmen bumble around. 

        “They say the herbal stuff works just as well,” Kaitlin is saying. “And it smells nice- peppermint, tea tree. But in the end you’re better off with the real stuff. And even so you’ll be combing them out of your hair for weeks.” I don’t know exactly how we’ve gotten on the subject of head lice, but here we are.  I hear Dr. Ronette’s voice asking the patient next door if they have any questions. Kaitlin rolls her eyes and as she departs says, “It’s obviously going to be a while.” As always, she's right. 

        Eventually Ronette throws back the curtain and yells, “Heere’s Ronnie!” She is followed by Wanda and a nurse I don’t recognize- after all these months, how can there still be someone I’ve never seen before? 

        “Look at that thing!” the doctor screeches. “It’s beautiful! You’re all healed up! Did you bring your shoe? Wait, let me look at the other one first. Ooh, callouses.” 

She chatters on as the scrapes and shaves. I think about how much I am going to miss this crazy woman. 

        “They still haven’t sent the amniotic tissue, but you don’t need it now.” I had forgotten all about this. It had been a month since she mentioned it, saying the tissue, which comes from placenta, often helps wounds heal quicker. “They claimed they lost the first sample,” she says, “and now they’re just not returning my messages. I don’t have to tell you how I feel about these insurance companies. But like I said this is healing up fine without it. There, now let’s take a look at that shoe.”

        The nurse comes back and wraps up the left foot, then puts a sock on the right one. This is the first time it’s gone without a dressing since I was admitted to the hospital in December. She tries to put on the shoe. “They’ve laced this up so weird,” she says. I take it and re-lace it and slip it on. 

        “We’ll check it tomorrow when you come in, to make sure it’s not rubbing,” Ronette says. “Don’t get rid of that old boot yet.” 

        “Are you kidding?” I say. “I’m having this thing bronzed.”

         It starts to rain as I totter in my mismatched footwear up to the bus stop. This shoe feels so much more comfortable than the post-op one. At the stop, a man in a jacket with the word SECURITY across the back is deep on the nod. His possessions, including a guitar without a case, are heaped across the bench I’d like to sit on. I lean against the shelter. It doesn’t matter. I have one good foot to stand on. 

Free

         I like to water the plants on the balcony in the morning before the sun turns the corner and starts to beat down on them. I forgot this morning, and stepped out into the blazing sunlight to see if they were unhappy. On the street below, a nondescript gray car was stopped in the middle of the intersection with both front doors open. There are only two roads in that intersection; Clay disappears into 14th, which in turn rounds the bend and is swallowed up by Market. It’s a confusing spot, but there’s not usually much traffic, so a lot of people make U-Turns there. 

        A man got out of the car and started to run like hell down the hill. I noticed the nose of a police cruiser parked around the corner of the building. Two more cop cars came tearing around the corner and followed the man down Clay. A woman cop approached the stopped car and ordered a woman to get out of the driver’s seat. The cop secured the woman’s wrists behind her back and took a dark object out of her pocket and placed it on the hood. What looked like a city maintenance vehicle pulled up and another cop got out and kept an eye on the woman while the other cop pulled on gloves and checked the trunk and glove compartment. 

        My inability to see was really cramping my ability to gawk effectively, so I went back inside. Imagine how dull Rear Window would have been if Jimmy Stewart had cataracts. When I looked out a few minutes later, the street was empty. 

        I lazed around and did some housework until 2;00 or so, when I went out for a walk, with the vague idea of getting coffee at a café I like in the Park Blocks. I walked past the Episcopal Church across the highway from my apartment. There was a door on the side of the building with a pair of golden wings painted around it. The feathers look exactly like bananas. Above the door were the words

He will cover you with his feathers

and under his wings you will find refuge.

Ps. 91.4

-

        It’s one of the more comforting psalms. Sinead O’Connor took the name of her first album after it. “You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra…” This is not the vengeful G-d but the kindly, protective patriarch, though the author –said to be Moses- can’t resist slipping in a few lines about the wicked being punished. When I look up the text online, my reading is interrupted by a pop-up ad for pickup trucks. Just the kind of vehicle Moses would drive.

The area around the church is littered with sprawled bodies. It’s getting hot out; a man asks if I have any water. I don’t but I should start carrying some. Around the corner is a cluster of conjoined tents in front of which someone has written in chalk on the sidewalk

Why are we so sad

Why do we wake up wanting

to go back to sleep, dream

of a new life, one where

we stay young and free

no one to tell us no or what

to do We are

lost

        I continue to the coffee shop and sit outside and watch the blurry students walk by. I try to write but I can’t think of anything worth saying. Everything is vague or smudged or rubbed out. I have nothing meaningful to say. Just more gibberish, more babble. I wonder if that guy who ran from the car got away, if he’s still out there crouching in the bushes somewhere, hiding. High above me, the leafy canopy of the elms stretches over the street, the wings of some giant green bird, smothering me, keeping me safe.

18 Hole Simulator

        I was deeply, consistently miserable all week. I found it almost impossible to move or get out of bed. I only have a few weeks of treatment left and while I’m hoping for a smooth landing, I’m worried about the very real possibility that the moment I try my new shoes I’ll have to take them off again, get them adjusted, go back to wearing the post-op shoes. I’m also worried about my vision. Underneath it all I’m worried about how these things will affect work, providing I have a job to go back to. How can I work if I can’t walk or see? Will I end disability, just to have to get back on it again? Even when I’m not actively thinking about it, the worry is there beneath my skin, keeping me from being able to get anything done. 

        It doesn’t help that it’s been dark and gloomy out every day. And to top things off, I saw on Facebook that a dear ex co-worker had died. I couldn’t find any details, but Ann had battled cancer for years. Ann had been a few years younger than my mother, and one of the best people I knew. She was head registrar at the museum, which meant she oversaw the comings and goings and storage of the artwork. She was funny, kind, and smart, and had very little tolerance for bullshit. For years I would have lunch with her and the other registrars in the break room. Those lunches are some of my favorite memories of the museum. I only saw Ann a few times since she retired, and now of course I wish I would have made more of an effort to keep in touch. 

        But I didn’t, and she’s gone, and there’s nothing to do but feel sad about it. 

        In the meantime the internet keeps showing me ads for cars (I don’t drive) and computer games (I don’t play). I would prefer the vapid looks of AI camgirls rather than promises of rugged four wheel drive and 18 hole simulators. 

        My sessions in the chamber go fine all week. I watch Synecdoche NY, Lonesome Jim, The Man Who Wasn’t There. Miserable men trying and failing to connect to other humans. KC is on vacation so there’s no one to flirt with. There’s a new patient in the middle tube who is young and pretty, but she talks a lot about her husband and small children. 

        After Friday’s session, they tell me not to come in Monday, that the office is closed for Memorial Day. I’m not looking forward to having an extra day of isolation. 

        After my session I go home and make lunch, but instead of allowing myself to collapse like I have all week, I propel myself out the door. I ride the streetcar to Goodwill, then to Tanner Creek Park. It’s an odd little city park with only a few small trees but lots of native plants and wildflowers. I talk to my mother then finally head home. I read a while then head down to the Goose to try to cheer myself up with a chowder and a martini. It sort of works. 

        It’s nearly ten by the time I trudge back up the hill. I hear fireworks in the distance but I can’t see any. Up in my apartment, I stare out at the city skyline. Above the buildings I can just about make out the uppermost tips of the tentacles of light, briefly flashing against the clouds then vanishing as if they had never been there.

 

Perfect Ending

        It’s a little chillier this morning, but I sit out on the balcony anyways. I’m in the middle of a book of short stories I’m really enjoying. As I read, I occasionally check my phone for updates in the live coverage of the Trump hush money trial. I don’t know why I’m interested in it; I don’t usually do more than glance at such stories. But it has colorful characters and the stakes are low, and I suppose I secretly hope something melodramatic happens. 

        I glance up at the ledge and see the junco once again clinging to the underside of the decorative flower. How odd that it keeps doing that. Then suddenly it disappears. I tilt my glasses so I can see clearer. 

        The flower does not quite meet the underside of the ledge it’s attached to, and I can just make out bits of twigs and grass sticking out from the space in between. 

        It’s a nest. There’s a fucking nest in there. 

        A moment later the little bird reappears and zips off across the highway. Is it still building the nest, or bringing food to its mate as she sits on the eggs? I put down the hard boiled egg I’ve been chewing on, feeling a little guilty. But there’s a nest right above the window of my own nest! If I’m lucky, maybe at some point I’ll get the chance to watch the little ones fly out. If there are little ones. If they make it. 

        The junco is gone a long time. I pray I haven’t frightened it away. After nearly an hour it returns though and slips inside. A minute later it pops its head out, looks around, and takes off toward the hills. I want to tell everyone I know, even though it’s ridiculously silly to be so excited about something so inconsequential. I want to get some birdseed for them but am afraid that Olivia will get too excited. So far she hasn’t noticed the junco coming or going.

        When I get to the hospital I see a sign in the lobby that says there will be baby goats here from 11 to 1:30. It doesn’t say where they will be, or why. When I get out of treatment I text N. that I’m done and leave by the side entrance as usual. Half the parking lot is roped off. Two trucks are giving away sno-cones and blaring tin drum versions of the Pina Colada song and Margaritaville. Off to one side, in the shade, is a low wire fence with a half dozen baby goats inside, being petted and picked up by nurses and patients. A tattooed woman in a pair of hot pants opens the gate to let people in and out. N. texts that he’s going to be a little late, so I get in line and soon find myself in the pen, waiting for a baby goat to be free. 

        A nurse with a goat in her arms asks “Do you want a wiggly one?” 

        “I’ve been waiting years for someone to ask me that," I say, and she hands me a squirmy little goat, who starts bleating loudly. Once he’s in my arms he quiets down immeditely, and seems completely relaxed. I scratch him behind the ears like a cat- he’s not any heavier than Olivia. His hair is surprisingly soft. I could hold him all day, but there is a long line forming so I ask the nurse to take a picture, then hand him back and head leave the enclosure. 

        Maybe this is where I should end this story: standing on the edge of a parking lot, surrounded by people in scrubs, listening to steel drum rendition of “How Sweet it Is (to be Loved by You),” punctuated by the occasional plaintive bleat. The sun is shining and a soothing breeze is blowing and the forecast for tomorrow is calling for more of the same. A young woman with no legs wheels through the gate and a baby goat is placed upon her lap. She beams with delight. 

        My ride pulls up. The credits roll.

THE END

The Ledge

        I wrenched my back in my sleep two nights ago and it still hurts when I sit down or stand up. This morning, my right leg is killing me for no reason. I feel like an eighty year old man. And this morning my sugar was extremely high, but I knew why and fought to keep from beating myself up about it. Amazing how eager I am to battle myself, and how tiring it is to do so.

        I take my coffee and my computer and sit on the balcony. The weather has been mild and dry enough for me to start sitting out here in the mornings. I have until 9:30 before the sun sneaks its way around the edge of the building and into my eyes. Despite the roar of traffic, I can still hear birds sing. I see them peer over the ledge of the roof above me as well; usually pigeons but sometimes a junco or sparrow. Yesterday a junco landed on the hook I have sticking out of my pot of lavender, then saw me and instantly flittered off. 

        There are decorative shapes attached to the bottom of the ledge, about one every six feet. I’m not sure what they’re made of. They resemble four-leaf clovers with a flower in the center. Sometimes a junco will swoop up from below and cling upside down to them. The bird will hold there for a minute then plummet. I don’t know how they cling like that, or why, but Olivia is eager to catch one. I pray she will remain content with flies and silverfish; I worry that she will make a wild leap. 

        She has been cautious about joining me on the balcony, but she’s venturing out more now that I’m spending my mornings out here. I keep an eye on her when she does, and when I’m inside I place an improvised screen across the door. The barrier ir more symbolic than practical, but so far she respects it, though she could easily get through or over it. I fear she will jump up onto the flower box, onto the back of the chair and across to the next balcony, which is about six feet away. She could probably make it safely, but the ground is four stories below. They say a cat can survive a fall from that height but I hope not to find out. Sometimes I miss my little Spencer; I never worried about him falling or trying to get away. I guess I don’t actually think she’ll jump, otherwise I would make a more effective barrier. Or just keep the damn door closed.

         Yesterday was my fortieth treatment, which ordinarily would be my last, but they’ve approved me for an extra twenty bonus sessions. I might not need them all; the doctor is very pleased with progress on the right foot, in fact she says that by next week, it may be healed up. I think about how black it was in the hospital, how certain I was that I would lose it. 

In a month I theoretically should be able to return to work. My biggest fear is that my foot will get a wound right away from the new shoes, like it did last time. In which case I’ll have to get back on disability. I’m not sure how long the museum will tolerate it, or if they’ll even take me back. People tell me they have to, and maybe that’s so, but I’m skeptical. Of course, I’m skeptical about pretty much everything these days.

        And then there are my eyes. I’m told it takes ten weeks for them to return to normal, but that’s not taking into account the cataracts, which I will have to have replaced at some point. I’m very nervous about it; not so much for the operation itself, which everyone tells me is quick and painless, but about how long it will actually be until I can see again. In the meantime I’ve gotten fairly used to my blurry world, though I’m not comfortable in the dark, or around crowds; I was tense through much of the Ethiopian music performance last weekend. While I’m grateful I can see at all, I’m also frustrated and impatient for all this to be over. I’m so sick of being stuck; I want to move forward. I want to see, I want to walk, I want to remove this barrier and interact with the world. I watch a flock of pigeons dive from the roof, down into the trench of the highway, swoop up and careen through the air before circling around and settling back where they left from. The cat, busy stalking a silverfish, doesn’t notice. I gather my things and go inside to get ready for treatment number 41.

 

The Northern Lights

         The night sky shimmered with psychedelic swirls of green and magenta as the Northern Lights made a rare appearance over Oregon. I didn’t even bother to look up, assuming they wouldn’t be visible with all the light pollution, but the following day the internet was filled with photos. I felt sad that I had missed them, but heard they might be visible one more night.

        A little before noon I took the bus up to St. Johns for the yearly St. Johns parade. The Widder lives up there and was marching in the parade with the food bank. I had asked Robyn if she was going and she said oh hell no. 

        “I guess I’m the good daughter now,” I said. 

        “I guess so,” she agreed.

        St. Johns is a neighborhood of Portland that was once a separate town founded by a man named James Johns. He wasn’t an actual saint, but people called him one because of his generosity to the poor and homeless. The parade would run through the almost-charming downtown area. 

        The curbs were all taken, but I set my camping chair in a shady spot  near the announcer’s tent just in time to see the parade begin, to the sound of RESPECT played by the Roosevelt High marching band. A number of antique convertibles followed, each carrying a beaming Rose Festival princess doing that slow, dreamy princess wave. 

        “And here come the real royalty,” the announcer quipped, as a mob of the Rose Festival Clowns performed their somewhat subdued antics.

        More old cars followed, all of them driven by old white guys. The last of these drove a roadster painted with flames. In the passenger seat sat an enormous plush Minnie Mouse. Next were the Royal Rosarians, a local Shriner-type organization, only wearing boaters instead of fezzes. The Elks were right behind them though, and they do still wear fezzes, though they’ve traded those little cars for mopeds, which is a shame. 

It was the first hot weekend of the year, and even with my blurred vision I could see that the women of Portland had responded the way they always do, by exposing as much of their pasty skin to the sun as possible. It threatened to distract me from the balloon-festooned SUVs and ATVs ridden by bankers and housepainters.  

A group carrying a banner saying West Coast Fitness passed by, with no music or costumes. Some Senator I’d never heard of drove past, followed by people holding signs imploring that we vote for various candidates. A woman sitting next to me screamed “NO MORE PIPELINES, I DON’T WANT TO BLOW UP!” 

        The oddly named Floyd Light Middle School played Another One Bites the Dust. A small herd of John Deere tractors rolled by. There were little leagues and credit unions, the staff of a place called the Your Inn Tavern. The announcer would sometimes read off ad copy for the businesses or make mild jokes. “Hoop dancing, it’s not just for kids anymore. It’s all about self expression and finding your voice.” A young girl walked by, wearing shorts that read “I ♡ MY BOYFRIEND” across her skinny ass. A group of unicyclists wobbled by, Portland’s sort-of-beloved Unipiper not among them.

        I was a little tense since I needed to be ready to jump up and take pictures the minute the food bank float arrived. In the meantime, there was the Clark County Fair Equestrian Club -cowgirls and horses alike covered in spangle and flowers and fringe- and blooping cop cars and first responders, and a city bus that may have just disregarded the reroute. And let’s hear it for the good folks from Teeter Roofing, serving the community since 2012, call this number for a free estimate.

        A fire truck with World on Fire Brigade lettered across it was followed by an oil tanker from a train train, sporting an  enormous sign that read PEOPLE AND PLANET OVER PROFITS. The woman who didn’t want to blow up squealed and ran into the street and took a lot of pictures. The vehicles were covered with vague, ominous slogans. A third truck read simply GLOOM OR BLOOM. 

        Finally the food bank folks arrived, pulling a model of the St Johns Bridge and blasting Weird Al’s “Eat It.” An entire pantry’s worth of costumed volunteers surrounded it, drooping a little in the heat. There was a pea pod, a banana, a container of cheese balls, a rather miserably looking slice of bacon. I took some pictures and waved to the bottle of mustard, but she didn’t see me. 

        There was one more high school marching band after that, then nothing. There was no closing statement from the announcer, the parade just suddenly ended. One small group of people, obviously not an official part of the event, marched down the street carrying FREE GAZA signs, but the crowd had already started to disperse. 

        I strolled through the arts and crafts tents, briefly tempted by the allure of macramé plant holders but otherwise bored by the same crap I see at every outdoor event. Jars of raw honey, garish photography, loads and loads of jewelry. I watched a guy mold clay on a bicycle-powered pottery wheel for a bit, then hit Revolutions Bookshop, a tiny but mighty shop equally stocked with interesting literature and progressive political books.

        The Widder texted me when she had changed out of her costume, and said she would drive me home, along with some bags of food from the food bank. She’d been keeping me supplied with fish and vegetables while I’ve been unemployed, and I owed her a great deal. She was kind of my Portland mother, and I saw her more than I saw her daughter at this point. 

        However I did have plans to see Robyn that night for dinner and a show of Ethiopian music. Before she and her boyfriend picked me up I called my brother and asked him to bring Mom flowers for Mother’s Day tomorrow. 

        Alex drove and Robyn told us about a homeless guy named Damian she had bought a cup of coffee for. “He offered to give me some meth,” she said. 

        “I hope you took him up on that,” I said.  

        A few minutes later she screamed, “Oh my God stop the car that’s Damian!” She threw open the door before it came to a stop and raced to the sidewalk, screaming “Stop that! Get the fuck away from him!” A man and a woman who didn’t look like they were drinking age were beating and kicking the shit out of another man. Robyn continued to scream at them but they ignored her. Another woman was sitting on the ground nearby and the first woman switched over to hitting her while the man continued to work Damian over. A few other people stopped and finally the assailants stepped away. 

        “That’s what he gets for trying to take my woman!” the man yelled. “You try to get with my woman, you get beat, motherfucker!” The young couple walked away, the man still throwing threats, his tank top soaked in blood. 

        The other woman just sat there while Damian staggered tp his feet. He had a horrible gash on his forehead. Robyn brought him some money and first aid supplies. “Did he take them?” I asked. 

        “He took the money,” she said.

        As we drove off, Damian started yelling that he was going to fucking kill that guy. 

        Shaken up by what had happened, we got sushi and went to see the Ethiopian band. The food was good and the music was joyous, but I while I had a nice time, I didn’t feel particularly moved by either. I felt disconnected, like there was a shell around me. I was shielded from the drums, the blood, the sun. They dropped me off at home and before I went in I remembered to look up, but all I saw were some glittering crumbs of stars, a crust of moon. There was no teal or violet or magenta in the sky. Only black.

Luck

        I'm finishing up my first full week in the chamber. I don't love the afternoon slot, but Monday I return to my old schedule; one of the other patients needs to switch so she can pick up her kids. I imagine her explaining to her kids that Mommy has to spend some time lying in a glass tube every day. As much as my life has not turned out the way I had hoped,  I have managed to avoid the complications that go along with breeding.

    As the days get longer, I start taking my daily walks later in the evening, just before dusk. I'm not supposed to be on my feet too much, so I usually just do a loop around the neighborhood. For a change of scenery, I walk along the edges of the PSU campus. I don’t spend much time down there, but maybe I should; the older parts of campus are pretty, with lots of trees and older buildings. When I return, I walk up 15th Avenue, directly across the highway from the Imperial Arms. My building looms, silhouetted against the darkening sky, like a giant molar. 

The following night I decide to get another look at the building from that angle. I head out a little earlier. The row of buildings along 15th Avenue that I see directly out my window are mostly low-income housing. The sidewalks in front of them are lined with people in various stages of fucked-uppedness. I narrowly miss being knocked over by a number of men and women in a drunken, distracted hurry. 

I pass the various on and off ramps I see from my windows, crisscrossing over one another. I ride past here with people sometimes, but in the ten years since I moved here, I’ve never walked around in this area. There’s not a lot of traffic on them this time of night, it’s surprisingly quiet.

A woman crouches in the street, picking through the grass that grows in a narrow strip beside the curb. She looks up and says something, but when I ask her to repeat herself, she turns back to the grass. As I start to walk away she calls to me again. I prepare to lie and say I don’t have any money on me, but she just asks me if she can give me something. She holds out two small three leaf clovers, pinched between her fingers. Her nails are covered in chipped silver polish. I take them and thank her. 

“Do you need any more for anyone?” she asks. Her clothes are disheveled but her face is lovely, framed by twin braids of thick black hair. I tell her no, it’s just me and the cat. “Tell the cat meow for me,” she says as I walk away. 

        As I slip the tiny sprigs into my wallet, I peer closer at them. They are four leaf clovers after all; the extra leaf on each is smaller than the rest. How long as she spent down there, searching patiently for these things?  I should have given her a couple of bucks, but she didn’t ask for anything. The chances of coming across a four leaf clover are are one in 10,000.  I look back at her, crouching in the gutter, fully engrossed in her work. I think about going back, then continue on my way as the sun goes down.

Madagascar

        The forecast is for another day of steady rain, but all morning the sun keeps breaking through the clouds like a swimmer fighting not to drown. I have my first treatment in a month scheduled for later this afternoon. I can’t get motivated to do anything in the meantime. I keep shuffling from the desk back to the bed, unable to focus on anything. I keep going back and forth between reading online about the pro-Palestinian protests and the Trump hush money trial, and reading a book about the build-up to World War II. It’s no wonder I’m feeling down. The book is mostly about the pacifist movement and the hypocrisy (not to mention anti-Semitism) of Churchill and Roosevelt. It’s depressing but interesting. I learn that for years the Germans planned to send all the Jews to Madagascar. At least they would have had lemurs there. 

        Also weighing on me are all the anniversaries this year. My last girlfriend dumped me five years ago. A few months later, Jasmine died. I’ve been living in the Imperial Arms for ten years, and been in Portland for twenty. And exactly thirty years ago, I dropped out of college after trying to kill myself. I know it’s not good to dwell on the past but with my days being so empty, history eagerly rushes in to fill the void. 

        At 1:30 N. picks me up and drops me off at the front entrance. There is a new policy that I have to check in downstairs before heading up. An attractive woman around my age is working the desk. I heroically fight the urge to stare at her cleavage. She looks at my chart and frowns and says, “Have you been here before?”

        As I tromp through the corridors, people keep stopping in front of me, or else they walk right at me, eyes transfixed on their devices. A guy cuts me off as we’re getting in the elevator; we ride up to the fourth floor in awkward silence. I am the only person wearing a mask. 

        In the hyperbaric room, both J. and S. greet me with cheers. They are busy putting people in the chambers. One of them I recognize from before, an ancient man who worked for years as a lobbyist. I’ve tried to get him to talk about it but he’s pretty out of it. 

        I slip immediately into the old routine. Change into scrubs, hop up on the slab. Socks, blankets, blood pressure, glucose, grounding bracelet. J. recites the familiar litany of questions –“Piercings, products, lotions, potions? Any new tattoos?” -and slides me into the tube. The roar of oxygen starts up and the movie comes on. It’s Laura, which I apparently left behind when I went home over a month ago, expecting to come back the next day. Gene Tierney looks like a china doll. Dana Andrews looks like he’s chiseled from granite. The film was released in 1944. The war had been going on for years. It was obvious by then that the Jews of Europe would not be going to Madagascar.

Meatballs

       I have an appointment with the infectious disease doctor, whom I really like. He’s a fellow artist, and we always end up talking about art. I unwrap my foot and he looks at it and says, “Wow. This looks much better than it did a month ago.” He asks how I feel about doing one more round of antibiotics. “I mean, at this point there’s no way of telling if they’re even doing anything,” he says, “But as long as you’re not having any side effects, I’ll give you one last refill, then we’re done here. Hopefully next time I see you will be at the museum.” 

        I head across the street to Wound Care, where they said they wanted me to pop in so they could do a quick dressing change. A. repeats what they told me Tuesday that it will most likely be at least a few weeks before they can squeeze me in. We talk about the multi-person chamber at Emanuel that's closing. "I worked at that hospital five years and I didn't know it was there," he says. "It's in a weird kind of mobile home type of thing. You can read in that one though."

        "Goddammit, I want to read," I say. 

"They make you wear a plastic helmet type thing," he says.

"I don't care, it would be worth it."

    Instead of heading home after my appointment I treat myself to lunch, then ride the train out to Hillsboro, where there’s an antique place and a coffee shop I like. At the antique place I find an old wooden meatball press decorated with a painting of a chef holding a plate with a roasted turkey on it. It’s baffling. I mean, not only should he logically be holding a pile of meatballs, but they would be easier to paint, so what the hell? Is the turkey going to be ground up into meatballs? We obviously live in a world gone mad.

        I spend a pleasant afternoon bumming around, chatting up everyone I come across because I’m so goddamn lonely. I probably seem like a desperate creep, which at this point is… pretty accurate. 

        On the ride home, a baby starts crying at the same time as a cat is yowling and the train itself is squealing where the cars connect. All three sounds are the same pitch and volume, and blend together into an unholy screech. No one looks up from their phone. 

        At home I microwave some soup and just as I’m sitting down to eat, the phone rings. I recognize the number of the wound care clinic. I wonder if I forgot something there this morning. It’s J, the hyperbaric den mother. 

        “I know this is last minute, but I wanted to know if you were available to come in on Monday to resume your treatment. We had a cancellation.” 

        “Are you fucking serious?" I honestly cannot believe what I'm hearing. Luckily they're all used to my cursing by now. "Yes, my God, yes, I will be there."

        “Oh good, I was afraid you would have plans," she says. "It’s at two, not your usual time.”

        "Look, i would come in at two in the fucking morning at this point." 

        She laughs. “It’ll be good to see you. We miss you.”

        I’m so hungry I eat my soup without reheating it. I take out my new meatball press. I don't know why I got this thing, I don't even know how to make meatballs and am unlikely to learn.  and look at the idiotically smiling face of the chef. He looks so goddamn smug. Will his guests be disappointed, or pleased by the change of menu? It doesn’t matter. We live in unhinged times. You can’t predict anything, stability is an illusion. The world is a chaotic jumble of noises that at any minute might combine into an ear-splitting cacophony. 

        And then again... they might not. 

The Desk

        House of Dreams, the cat shelter where I met Olivia, held their spring plant and vegan baked goods sale on Saturday. The timing was perfect; in this new apartment, my plants no longer formed the dense, thick jungle they had downstairs, and I longed for more greenery to fill the space. The sale was in someone’s backyard, a beautiful space sheltered by towering cedars. I chatted with a few people I knew and adopted some new leafy children in the hopes that I would not immediately slaughter them. 

        After that, I had lunch with a friend, and then dinner with another friend who was down from Seattle. We went to the Alibi, a Tiki lounge that has been around since the forties. All in all I had a good weekend, and felt closer to normal than I had in a while.

        And then, after the disappointing news from my doctor, I crashed, feeling more hopeless than ever. In the wild, it makes sense that the bad things leave deep, lasting impressions, while the good ones dissipate quickly. But it doesn’t help us much now that we aren't chased by wolves that often. When depression descends, it’s easy to forget I was ever happy; or if I do remember, it only serves as a cruel reminder that I no longer am, and probably never will be again. 

        It suddenly struck me that I refuse to learn the lesson presented to me by my shrinking world: that we must appreciate the small things, that we must show gratitude for every gift we are given, especially that of life itself. I don’t appreciate the small things. Beauty rolls right off me like water droplets off a waxed car hood. And despite all the hardship I have not become more compassionate or humble or thoughtful. Worst of all, I have not learned the lesson that has been hammered into me repeatedly over this past year, that of patience. If anything I feel more impatient than ever, unable to just sit calmly with myself for even a few moments, despite the fact that I have nothing but time on my hands. 

        “You’ve been so strong,” well-meaning friends say, but the fact is, I am not strong. I am not resilient. I am not brave. I am a broken machine running on automatic pilot, a zombie lurching forward because I don’t have the will to do otherwise. I am given this opportunity to be off work, to spend my time however I like (provided it doesn’t involve walking around much or spending much money) and I can’t seem to do much other than mope. Which then gives me a wonderful opportunity to indulge in some delicious self-loathing for wasting my one precious life. Really, I have earned this confinement. This is the purgatory I always yearned for, why can’t I just learn to stop worrying and love it? Why do I steadfastly refuse to nurture these sprouts the universe has so generously planted in me?

        I woke up the next day still feeling miserable, and knew I needed to get out of the apartment to distract myself. I headed out to a Goodwill on the other end of town. I had never found anything good there, but I needed a destination. And though I didn't really want to admit it to myself, I was secretly looking around for a new drawing table. I have a desk, a nice little rustic secretary I found at a junk shop last year. It fits perfectly in the little writer's nook I've made in the walk-in closet. It's perfect for writing but isn't great for drawing at. 

    I've never had a decent table for doing art on. When I was 13, my grandfather bought me my first drafting table; one of the few kind things he did for me. It was cheap and ugly but I have a strong memory of riding in his yellow pickup to go to Boscov’s to pick it out. Years later my stepmother bought me a folding drafting table at Blick. It served me well though over the years it had started falling apart. I had finally gotten rid of it -but only reluctantly, because Jasmine had drawn at it. I tried a few other tables over the years but was always limited by my cramped quarters, and had never found one I felt comfortable at. My latest experiment was a shaky, spindly thing that someone abandoned in the trash room. 

        Last week I had seen a huge, beautiful professional drafting table in a thrift shop. It was magnificent, but it was also a beast, and I knew I would never be able to get it home. Besides, did I really need that much surface area? I don’t make large works on paper, and I have my easel for big canvases. 

        As I expected, there wasn’t anything of interest at Goodwill, but before I left I swung through their meager furniture department. There were a number of antique wooden cradles, and a single nondescript wooden desk. I walked past the desk without really noticing it, but as I was leaving I took a closer look. It was a perfect size, not overly large but bigger than what I had, and sturdy but not heavy. The top was beautifully worn with use; the whole thing appeared to be hand crafted, with a set of drawers on the right side. And it was only ten dollars. 

        I stood there looking down at it and found I couldn’t walk away. I felt hypnotized. I was frozen with indecision. They hold furniture for 24 hours after you pay for it; I could certainly handle throwing away ten bucks if I couldn’t get someone to help lug it home. I suddenly grabbed the tag and started texting friends as I hobbled to the counter. 

        N. said he could be there in an hour. I crossed Halsey and sat at the Starbucks to wait. They didn’t have any indoor seating area so I sat out in the drizzle as a bunch of high schoolers shrieked around me. One of them sat at my table and stared at me. I ignored him and he went away.

        The desk fit perfectly in N.’s hatchback and we got it home and upstairs with no problem. I shoved the old desk out of the way and pushed the new one into its place. It was perfect. Olivia jumped up onto it immediately. After being in such a terrible mood and feeling like I couldn’t go on, the pleasure I felt sitting at this desk was a shock. I couldn’t remember the last time I had adored an inanimate object so much. This simple thing was by far the nicest, most substantial desk I had ever owned. 

        I sat for a while and watched the blurry traffic far below me, stared at the forlorn highway trees that I knew would grow to seem like familiar companions. I ate dinner on the table, distractedly reading a New Yorker article about paying attention. The sky was bright but mottled with clouds. My new plants hung in the windows, not yet dead. Olivia meowed insistently and dropped her stuffed chicken at my feet. My big, nice, airy new apartment was now complete. I was finally home. And for a few moments, in that brief window of time before the waves of misery could start crashing back in, I felt something that resembled, that may have actually been, contentment.

 

Mayday

I had my second appointment at wound care since my insurance was reinstated. I heard the doctor before I saw her…it was Dr. R1 instead of Dr. R2, who I usually see these days. When she comes in, I call her by the wrong name. “Oh, I’m sorry, I always get you two mixed up. You could be sisters, you know.” She laughs; the two doctors are polar opposites of each other. R1 is boisterous and excitable, a middle-aged white woman with no indoor voice. If you met her on the street you might think she was on a lot of drugs, or else needed some. R2 is friendly but reserved, with a bone dry sense of humor. She travels and reads a lot. She is Black, and always wears an African cap of some sort. They both seem intensely focused on their work and neither has any tolerance for bullshit. I’ve grown to admire and trust them both.

“I can’t believe how good this looks!” she screeches, prodding my toes. “I really think we are going to save this toe!” Then she looks at my other foot, which still has a wound on it. "Oh, I'm not sure what's going on with this one though. We might have to get you casted up. We'll keep an eye on it for now." 

        “Is that Seann I hear?” One by one, the nurses push aside the curtain to say hi. Last of all is KC, who comes over and gives me a hug. 

        “When are you coming back to us?” she asks. 

        “That’s a good question. When am I coming back, doc?”

        “Well it’s complicated,” she says. “It could be a couple of weeks.” I am crestfallen, and no amount of positive prognoses or hugs from pretty nurses can brighten me. I had hoped to resume any day now but this just keeps dragging on and on. 

        R1 explains that Emanuel hospital is closing their hyperbaric department the next day, which is May 1st, and there has been a rush of people trying to get in. “They have a group chamber that can hold twelve people at a time!” she says, her eyes wide with wonder. “Can you imagine?” 

        I don’t have to; I find a news segment from a few years ago that gives a tour of the whole thing. It looks kind of like a fallout shelter, with rows of cots along the sides. The newscaster mentions  that it’s Hyperbaric Awareness Month, which was launched in 2021 and just happens to be in May. There is a website promoting the procedure called Hyperbaric Aware. Their slogan is “Healing Under Pressure.” Their site features attractive people wearing apparel that reads Pressure On and Just Breathe. 

I try to enjoy my afternoon but I can’t stop fixating on just how tired I am all this. I want my life back. I want to go out and do things and meet people without constantly worrying about my health. It’s so hard to appreciate the small things when you live in the constant shadow of the big things. 

        I know I’m ungrateful and probably unpleasant to be around. But it’s so difficult to fight the self-absorption when it’s just you, stuck at home by yourself every day. Hours and hours of nothing, and I can’t concentrate on my art or reading. This has been going on for too long. My brain has cracked under the pressure. The process of healing has left me permanently scarred.