Lives of the Impressionists

     I do not immediately call my primary. After staying up half the night fretting, I come to a decision. Maybe if I ride my knee scooter to and from work, and stay off my feet as much as possible, and then only walk on my heel, maybe then I can get the blisters to improve a little, so that when I see Dr. Rochelle next week, she’ll dial back the rhetoric a bit and we can figure out some other solution. Maybe I can get the cooler-headed Dr. Ronda to take a look as well. It’s not a great plan, but I don’t know what else to do, and it’ll buy me a week before I have to face the fact that the rest of my life will probably be spent as an invalid.

So the next morning I get out my scooter and reassemble it. I haven’t used it since December, and I haven’t wheeled to work on it since before the pandemic. As I follow the path where the Great Plank Road once stretched, I find I still remember where all the most dangerous cracks and bumps are. I speed recklessly, even though a single grain of gravel, if hit at the wrong angle, might send me sprawling. What the fuck do I care. 

It’s strange seeing the sights that were once so familiar through my fucked-up lenses. The coffee shop and Amazon store are now closed, and in front of them a small caravan of tents has been erected. I weave around the bodies strewn across the sidewalk. The birds I used to hear twittering every morning are silent –it’s an hour later than I used to arrive. Also gone is the lone woman I used to see sweeping the sidewalk in front of the Mexican consulate, replaced by a long line of blurry people waiting for them to open. The Plaid Pantry is, of course, unchanged.

When I arrive at work, a giant truck is backing out of the space between the museum buildings, where the majority of the construction is now focused. Huge steel girders are now being erected. A fence runs along much of the property, covered with black banners that read “(ART) WORK IN PROGRESS.” I cross further up to avoid getting creamed by the truck and head down to the locker room in the basement, where I stow my scooter for the day. 

As good as it is to see everyone, it's even better to be around art again. There are two shows up at the museum. One is a show about sneakers, and it’s as uninspiring as I had expected. The other has the uninspired name Monet to Matisse: French Moderns, and while the show is really nice, it includes a bunch of artists who, while incontestably French, do not strike me as being particularly modern. For instance, Corot. Corot is one of my favorite artists, his genius pointed out to me by my old friend Irv, who studied at the Barnes Foundation. I miss Irv terribly, and someday will write about him, but he lives on in my mind every time I see a painting by Corot, or by Renoir. Like many people, I loathed Renoir, but Irv taught me how to look at him differently, and now I adore his work.

        As is common in shows like this, there are only a few examples of the artists mentioned in the title –I’m reminded of the “Rembrandt” show we had, which, though lovely, only featured a handful of Rembrandts, surrounded by a ruffed gaggle of lesser Dutchmen. The work is good though, and there are some names I've never heard of scattered amongst the Cezannes and Soutines. Monet’s fuzzy blobs of color are not unlike the way I see the world these days. Of course, he too had cataracts. If I tilt my glasses, I can sharpen the outlines a bit, but otherwise it’s all blobs of blue, blobs of green, blobs of purple. I learn to recognize people by the way they walk, can differentiate their faces from just a few bits of shaded pigment. I use the magnifier on my phone to help me read the computer. Like everything else in my life, it's frustrating and exhausting.

By the end of my second week it feels routine, like I never left. The past six months were a dream. 

        Saturday I sleep in, then sit out on the balcony with a book and coffee. Olivia lies across my lap for a while then dashes off. I can hear her thumping around as she jumps and twists trying to catch flies. 

    I’m surprised and delighted to see that the juncos are still living in the nest –a pair of them. One perches on the roof with a gigantic grasshopper in its mouth. 

        My mind keeps going blank and I just let it. This is not a bad way to live. Lonesome, but not terrible. Anyways, isn’t the artist’s job to be lonely? Most of the artists I know have given up art for human companionship. And who can blame them?

        But I have the cat, the birds, the bugs. I have enough paintings and sketchbooks to fill a good-sized dumpster. If this was all I wanted out of life, I could be content. It’s a gorgeous day. A smear of hills stretches out before me, covered with trees and houses, with clouds above and the busy knot of roads below. I wonder what it would feel like to fly over the railing. 

Stand & Pivot

     Work has been surprisingly pleasant since I returned. All the things that sucked about the job still suck, but everyone seems happy to see me back, even people I don’t know well, even people I don’t particularly care for. After my months of being a hermit, it feels good to have so much attention.

Though I’ve been hired back to run the new loading dock, the loading dock isn’t actually up and running yet, due to a series of construction mishaps. In the meantime, not much seems to be expected of me. Some afternoons I get posted at the reception desk, a place I’ve logged in hundreds if not thousands of hours over the years. Time seems almost visible, like layers of rock in a shorn off cliff. 

    I had forgotten how exhausting it can be to deal with the public. I like doing it, and I think I’m reasonably good at it, but I had forgotten how much a smile can strain your face, how much the mask of customer service itches.

    I spend much of my time powering through a series of instructional videos they’ve recently introduced. They begin with the history of private security, going back to –and I am not kidding- what the narrator calls “the cavemen.” The narrator himself looks like a bald, albino ape with distractingly mismatched eyebrows, and he gesticulates like an actor who’s taken a lot of speed just before a community theater audition. The videos run about fourteen hours and are almost devoid of useful information. There are a lot of quizzes.

I am still wearing a post-op shoe on the left foot and my new diabetic shoe on the left. After a few days I develop blisters on both feet, despite spending most of my day sitting down. When I go in for my weekly appointment at wound care, I get Dr. Ronda, whom I haven’t seen in a while –usually I have Dr. Rochelle. She looks at the blisters and sees how upset I am and tells me not to worry, that I’m still under their care and they’ll take care of things. She bandages them up and I make an appointment to get the diabetic shoe adjusted. 

By the following week the right foot looks okay but the left is much worse, and both hurt. But Doctor Rochelle has been talking about putting a cast on it anyways, so I’m not overly worried. When I get to the clinic for my weekly check up, I’m pleasantly surprised to be greeted by Jenny from the hyperbaric unit. This is usually her day off, and she doesn’t work wound care that often. Of all the nurses there, she was the kindest and most capable. We catch up on what her cats and husband are up to while I wait for the doctor. 

     A few minutes later Dr. Rochelle pushes aside the curtain. She takes one look at my feet and her face falls. Her usually brassy demeanor is muted, and she gingerly cleans up my feet in silence. When she’s done she stands next to me and stares at me intently. 

     “I didn’t want you back at work so soon,” she says, sounding frustrated. I tell her I thought she said it was okay to go back. “This skin takes a long time to heal,” she says. “A long time. You need to be off your feet for six to twelve months. I know you want things to go back to normal but they’re not going to. Things are never going to be normal. You can’t lead the same life you did. Things have changed. You need to save your feet so you can stand and pivot. You won’t be using them for walking anymore.”

     “Like ever?” I ask. 

     Instead of answering, she says, “I need you to get hold of your primary and have him get you set up for permanent disability, and have him get you a wheelchair. In the meantime sometimes you can find one on Craiglist. Is your apartment accessible? Will they let you use a wheelchair at work?”

    I tell her I don’t think so. She leaves abruptly and Jenny starts applying fresh bandages.  I start to sob quietly.

“How am I supposed to live if I can’t walk?” I ask.

“Dr. Rochelle doesn’t understand that people can’t afford to just take off work,” she says. 

“I’m already so alone,” I say. “I’ve been alone for so long. And never going to find anyone. I’m so tired of all this.”

“I know,” she says, patting me on the arm. “I know. It just sucks.” 

     They insist on getting someone to wheel me to the entrance, even though I tell them I’ll have to walk to the bus stop anyways, and then from the bus stop to my apartment. As I leave, the door to the hyperbaric unit is propped open. It’s the end of the day; the lights are dim and the three chambers are empty. I long to be wrapped in blankets and slid inside one of those tubes, swaddled and safe with a urinal on my lap, dreaming of the normal, healthy life that just a little while I ago I still believed lay ahead.

Chicken

     I’m extremely nervous about starting work tomorrow. I know it’s going to be overwhelming and exhausting but my biggest fear of course is for my feet. What if they get bad again? What if I have to take time off work right away? It’s hard living with this fear, and I spend most of the day indoors, feeling paralyzed. I do the Sunday crossword, call my stepfather for Father’s Day, prepare my lunches for the week; I’ll miss having the luxury of eating whenever I want to. As if she knows the jig is up, Olivia demands to sit on Daddy’s lap all day and meows insistently whenever I try to get up. 

 Though the junco parents seemed to have disappeared, all weekend at least one of the fledglings was still coming in and out of the nest and chirping like crazy. Until today, when it is eerily silent. 

    Eventually I decide I need to get out. All day the sun has struggled to break through the clouds, with little success. I walk to the park blocks and get some coffee at the café there. The caffeine perks me up and I do some drawing and leave a message for my actual father. The air is cool but still; no breeze rustles the elms above me. 

    A woman staggers over and asks, “Hey Sweetie, do you have a cigarette?” I say no. She smiles and reaches into a paper bag and pulls out something and hands it to me. Even up close I can’t tell what it is, but I take it from her. It’s a morsel of fried chicken. 

    “There’s more over there,” she says, pointing to a bench with a paper bag on it. I thank her and she says you’re welcome and walks away. I realize she looks like a lot like KC if she had spent a few years on the street. Same red hair, similar build. It’s only been a few days and I already miss them all so much. I hold my hand perfectly still, afraid to touch the thing but not sure where to throw it away. It feels greasy and slightly warm on my palm. I sit there for a while then pop it into my mouth. It is incredibly delicious. 

Limitless

         For my last day in the chamber, I tried to be hyper aware of everything, tried to hold onto every sensation. It was difficult, I felt my attention slipping all over the place. 

        Sally was the only one on the floor; I could hear KC puttering around in the tiny kitchen. For the last time, Sally checked my blood pressure, which was high, and my glucose, which was low. She gave me some cranberry juice to bring it up to 130. As I sat there drinking it she said, “Okay, since this is your last day, I have to give you the spiel. But before I do, I need to show you the new sign Martin taught us.” She made a kind of shaka of her right hand and put her left hand near her elbow and wiggled her fingers.

        “Bullshit!” she cried. “And now the spiel.”

        The spiel basically consisted on telling me if I needed anything, I shouldn’t hesitate to call, and that I should definitely write them a Google review. “I’m not saying it has to be five star… but it kind of has to be five star,” she said. “I know it’s stupid, but they really read these things.”

      “What’s it worth to you?” I asked, putting out my palm. 

        “Listen buster, don’t give me any…” She made the sign for bullshit, then slipped the elastic for the grounding wire on my wrist. I pressed the silver button for the last time. For the last time, the green light flashed on. I was not going to burn to death in the chamber. 

        “We watching Limitless today?” she asked. I said sure. She had been trying to get me to watch this damn movie all month for some reason, though she kept saying it wasn’t great. 

        “Then why do you want me to watch it?” I kept asking.

        It was, indeed, not great. Bradley Cooper plays a man who gets hooked on a drug that increases your mental capacity to one hundred percent. It also made him know just what to do and say in every situation. Hijinks ensued. It was reasonably entertaining as long as you didn’t stop to think about it. 

        When the movie ended she put the patient channel on. A piano and violin braided their melodies together as waterfalls cascaded, clouds drifted, and a furry-antlered elk chewed on leaves. Then she twisted the knob and my ears started to crackle for the last time. I worked my jaw and after ten minutes she twisted another knob and the machine went silent. It was over. 

        She pulled me out and she and KC took my vitals and checked my ears. KC asked, “Has anyone ever told you you have exquisite eardrums?” She wore a Foo Fighters t-shirt instead of scrubs. I changed and when I came out of the dressing area she asked if she could give me a hug. Sally came over and said she wanted a hug too. Alan came out of the kitchen and said he didn’t need a hug but that he would miss me regrdless. 

        I wanted to say goodbye to Jenny and Gladys but they were running around somewhere. I was dazed by all the hugging and couldn’t think of anything clever or profound to say. My brain felt like oatmeal. I wished I had some but f those drugs Bradley Cooper had been on. I put the thank you cards I’d drawn for them on the counter and told them I’d see them soon –after all, I would still be coming to wound care once a week. And then I walked out, feeling an overwhelming, seemingly infinite number of things as I staggered into the blinding sunlight. 

Backdraft

        Every day I expect the juncos to be gone, and every morning I’m delighted to find they’re still here, and making quite a racket. The one in the nest chirps constantly. The parents are still feeding it, but they don’t go into the nest anymore, they just perch outside and a hungry little head pops out. It looks like the parents are trying to pull their child out by its beak. The other chick spends most of its time on the roof above, occasionally trying to get in the nest. When it gets close, the parents attack it, slapping it with its wings, the birds tumbling though the air together and screeching as loud as a junco can screech. It has also learned how to cling to the brick, which is rough and the mortared furrows are deep. There is no sign of the third chick, if there ever was one. It may have flown off, it may be dead.

    A week ago, I saw, caught in the high arched ceiling of one of the corridors, a foil balloon with the words FEEL BETTER on it. It was still there the next day, and every day that week. This morning I’m amazed to see that it is still there, having drifted into the corner but still full of helium. Every time I see it I think about how odd the phrase “feel better” is; does it mean better as in “no longer ill,” or better as in “less bad?” I guess it’s less demanding than “get well;” it doesn’t instruct you to get better, just to feel like you are. It's a lot less pressure.

        A new batch of firemen were at the clinic today. Sally was showing them the facilities as KC pranced around, tossing her ponytail coquettishly and giggling. As she took my vitals, I asked if she wanted me to fake a seizure so she could impress the firemen with her resuscitation skills. She cocked her head and seemed to seriously consider it. I felt a twinge of jealousy, but there’s no point in being jealous of fire fighters. 

        She asked what I wanted to watch and I told her to pick something. She suggested Apollo 13, and we talked about how much we both miss Bill Paxton, but ultimately I didn’t think I could watch something so claustrophobic. 

        “How about Backdraft?”

        “Hmm, firemen are more your thing.”

        She rooted through the movie bin. “Here we go, Blazing Saddles!” 

        I laughed. “Is that, um, appropriate?”

        “Definitely not,” she said, “But we have it, so someone must have said it was okay.” I just hoped Dr. Virginia wouldn’t pass through, but who knows, maybe she loves it. Anyways it’s not like anyone could hear the sound but me; I wouldn’t be subjecting anyone to the repeated use of the n-word. 

        It’s a short film, and when it was over Sally grinned and put on Deep Blue Sea without consulting me. It was another fucking shark movie, and it made The Meg look like Citizen Kane. It was strikingly similar to Rise of Planet of the Apes (which I watched last week; what a depressing film) in that the sharks were becoming super intelligent due to being subjected to experimental drugs to treat Alzheimer’s. I would have rather watched Dodge Ball again.

        As I changed into my street clothes, Jenny was prepping a guy who was about to have his first treatment. He sounded nervous and she was doing her best to reassure him. 

        “Fresh meat?” I asked. 

        “Oh and here is our resident brat,” Jenny said. 

        “Only for two more days.” 

        “Brat.”

        It was strange knowing I was so close to being finished. But I would still be coming to wound care regularly for a while, so it wasn’t like I was really done with this place and these people. In two days I would slide into that tube for the last time, and emerge just as the kids were getting out for summer vacation. 

        A woman in the elevator asked me what floor the sky bridge was on. I didn’t even know there was a sky bridge. The balloon was still hanging suspended above me as I left. I waved goodbye to it like an idiot. I was not yet well, but I did indeed feel a little better.

The Meg

         There seem to be three baby birds, though it’s hard to tell because they all look the same. There’s one who keeps fluttering up and hovering in front of the nest, seemingly uncertain how to get in. Another darts in and out, seemingly thrilled to have figured it out. A third remains inside, chirping insistently. The parents are still feeding it; they must be exhausted. They’ll all be gone soon, so I’m spending as much time out here as possible. 

        Their chirping seems especially loud this morning because the traffic on the three ramps heading west is barely moving. This is the first time I’ve seen it this congested. It’s so quiet I can hear a man in his car yell, “Fuck you! Fuck you! FUCK! YOU!”

        My own rides have evaporated. I guess I’ve hit the limit of what people are willing to do to help. I don’t really mind taking the bus, but it’s less human interaction than I get in the car. I know my circle of acquaintances will be exploding when I’m back at work, but until then I have somehow, unbelievably, become even more alone. I don’t even interact with the other patients anymore; with the schedules being staggered, they’re in the tubes by the time I get there, and the next shift starts when I’m inside. 

        I’ve also stopped answering the phone, which rings all the time with collection agencies. Even with insurance, I owe so much money to so many different medical offices, I will never pay it all off. I can feel needles of anxiety spreading within me, sharp and crystalline.

        When I go in, Sally has me watch The Meg. It’s terrible. Gladys asks me why I’m letting her pick my movies. 

The Meg (short for Megalodon) is about a prehistoric giant shark released from the depths by scientists. The shark cage in the movie eerily resembles the chamber. I can imagine huge teeth clamping down around me. 

I’ve never understood why there are so many shark movies, considering how limited the premise is. This one tries not to take itself too seriously without hitting the depths of idiocy plumbed in movies like Sharknado or Sharktopus (which at least have funnier names). It’s ridiculous and predictable, which I guess is what most people want.

That night I decide to go to First Thursday, when all the galleries have openings. On a beautiful night like this it can be nice to wander around the Pearl District, and sometimes there’s some interesting work on display. But tonight everything strikes me as being dull and pointless. Even with my blurred vision I can tell I’m not missing anything. It all evaporates the moment I turn away.

        I walk the streets crowded with booths of people selling crafts and feel increasingly isolated. There are couples everywhere, and packs of scantily-clad young people on the prowl. I don’t fit in here any more than I do with the mainstream folks who flock to theaters to see those shark movies. Not that there’s anything avant-garde or especially stimulating about First Thursday. Despite its pretensions, it’s a glorified stroll through the mall. 

        I know I’m not that weird, and that my taste isn’t that esoteric. I am fussy though, in that I don’t want to waste my time looking at disposable art. I realize that my snobbishness contributes to my isolation. I feel so alienated from the same world I long to connect to. I’m a friendly person and I can get along with nearly anyone, but I rarely feel like I’m actually connecting with them in a meaningful way. It’s all just splashing in the shallows. 

        Not yet ready to face the quiet apartment, I stop at the Goose on my way home. A huge group arrives right after me, a phalanx of blandly attractive young people in jean shorts and tie-dyed t-shirts. Some of them carry guitars. I order a drink and try to write but nothing comes out. I feel like I’m staring into an empty room. The air is filled with voices but no one’s there.

Dodgeball

     This morning Sally calls to ask if I can come in an hour later from now on. They’re staggering everyone’s schedules so the nurses can get proper lunch breaks. 

        “Oh, you mean like the law requires,” I say. 

“Now look here,” she says.

When I come in she’s in better spirits. She just had a week off and has colored her short hair a blond that almost looks gray. 

“What did you bring to watch today?” she asks. 

“Nothing,” I say. “I thought for my final week I’d let you pick for me.” 

Her eyes light up. “Dodgeball?”  She’s been trying to get me to watch this idiotic flick since I started treatments. 

“Dodgeball,” I sigh. 

“You’re gonna love it!” she says. “It’s really dumb.”

She’s right about the dumb part, but wrong about my loving it. A scrappy team of misfits, led by Vince Vaughn, enters a national dodge ball competition in order to save their gym from being taken over by an evil corporation. It’s no Raging Bull. The highlight of the film is when KC walks by with an armful of bandages, looking adorable with her red hair pinned messily on top of her head. She sticks out her tongue at me as she passes.

        After being pummeled by ninety minutes of testicle jokes, I close my eyes. I snap them open when Sally picks up the phone and tells me I have some visitors, that she is doing some training. I crane my neck, expecting to see medical students but instead there are six beefy men in FIRE DEPT t-shirts looming nearby. “You don’t mind, right?” She puts on the CARE channel and I watch pine trees shudder in the wind as outside the window real pine trees shudder in the real wind. 

        Sally shows the firemen how the chamber works and after she talks to them for a while they inspect the gauges and hoses then file out. Jenny turns the knob and the pitch of the hiss changes as I start to depressurize. 

        Before she can ask how I liked the movie, I ask Sally how it went with the firemen. “Pretty good, I guess,” she says, “Though they did inform us that the safety hoods we’re supposed to wear in an emergency aren’t actually heat resistant and will melt to our faces if there’s a fire.” 

        As I change back into my jeans I can hear Sally talking to Dr. R on the other side of the curtain. “That wasn’t how I was trained,” she says. “I don’t think any of us were trained that way. And remember that Japanese chamber that exploded? One of those boutique places?” I think about the news story about the racehorse in Florida, horseshoes sparking against steel. His name was Landmark’s Legendary Affaire. What a stupid name. What a stupid way to die.

As I push through the door I nearly crash into KC. “Oh, hello there,” she says, eyes twinkling. I want to take her in my arms and dance with her. Instead I step out of her way and head downstairs for the eighth last time.

Stick the Landing

     The weather in May is predictably unpredictable in Portland. When the mornings turned chilly and damp, I stopped having my coffee on the balcony and retreated to my writing nook. Every once in a while I poked my head outside to see if the juncos were still there, and would be relieved to see one enter or exit the crack where their nest was wedged. 

    For weeks I had been dreading getting hold of the museum. I had no idea how they would act about my possible return. But when I got up early Thursday I paid my June rent and insurance, then took a deep breath and emailed HR to let them know I would be able to return to work after the 15th, which was the somewhat arbitrary date my doctor put on the release. 

    An hour later I got a call from the head of security. He sounded jovial and after we played a little do-you-even-remember-who-I-am game., he said, “I have a proposition for you.”  

    “Uh oh,” I said. 

    “We have a new position covering the loading dock. It doesn’t pay great, but I talked to HR and they said they can give you what you were making before.” 

    I was stunned. This was literally the best-case scenario for my return, one I had not even allowed myself to think possible. For years I had run the loading dock, which included handling all the mail and packages and overseeing the art come in and out. The position was eliminated during the pandemic, and I had done what I could to juggle the shipping and receiving along with my other duties, but without someone dedicated to it full time, things had gotten pretty chaotic. I had loved the job and had always wanted it back. 

    I hung up the phone and screamed.

    After my treatment I went to the hardware store to pick up a few things, then treated myself to an iced coffee. The sun was bright and a cool breeze rustled the leaves. I got a text from a friend saying they were really happy about the good news. I hadn’t told them about the job, so I was confused, until it occurred to me that they were talking about the trial. 

    The former president was being charged with illegally trying to affect the 2016 election by paying to hide the fact that he had cheated on his wife with a porn star. I had been following it pretty closely, but I hadn’t read the news that day, not expecting the jury to have come to a decision so quickly. They had just found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records –pretty tame compared to all the other awful gifts he had showered upon us over the years, but it was still good news. While I found everything about the man noxious and his cult frightening, but I had grown weary of hearing people obsessively whine about him. His cartoonish buffoonery was a dangerous distraction from the quietly malevolent forces conspiring to hammer this country into a dystopian Disneyland of intolerance and cruelty.

    But Schadenfreude is indeed pleasurable, and it felt satisfying to see justice being served for a change, to see such an unpleasant miscreant held accountable for his actions. And while I was still nervous about my foot healing up completely now that I was so close to the finish line, the guilty verdict coupled with the fact that I would have a job I actually liked waiting for me at the end of this ordeal made me nearly giddy. 

    The following morning was warm enough for me to sit out on the balcony. Olivia had learned how to push past the screen, but while I knew she would love to eat a delicious bird, she seemed mostly invested in pouncing on silverfish, so I increasingly allowed her to venture out. 

    She was of course infatuated by the juncos, which had become extremely active. They took turns flitting in and out of their crack with increasing frequency; the chicks must have hatched. I strained my ears, hoping to catch their little peeps over the traffic. l couldn’t hear them, but I felt comforted knowing they were in there, gobbling their regurgitated bugs, growing bigger and stronger, developing feathers so they could survive that first terrifying plummet.