Potato Chips

 It’s strange not to be leaving work early on a Monday, strange not to roll down to the bus mall on my scooter, not to catch the bus up fourth to Burnside and out Glisan to the hospital. When I get off work, I don’t really know what to do with myself, so instead of going home I take the streetcar up to Powell’s. While the place is not as magical as it once was, I still manage to find a few books I can’t leave without, including a copy of WB Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn. 

It’s a strange and beautiful book, but gloomier than I had expected, and Tuesday I feel depression taking hold. It’s not really because of the book, of course, though I wonder how much is enforces or even amplifies the misery that is never far from the surface for me. I feel myself overtaken by that familiar sensation of being both hollow and leaden, like a church bell. I feel stripped of all normal desire; I only want impossible things. To be young again. For my dead friends to be alive again. To be held in the arms of a woman again. I look at the news and it says that the hospital is considering thinking about possibly starting the negotiation process with the striking nurses. Maybe.

Wednesday afternoon I look at my phone and see that I have a voicemail from the eye clinic. That dreadful scheduler says that there was a cancellation and I should call back if I want to have my cataract surgery next Thursday instead of next month. I call back immediately but as usual I just get her voicemail. I tell her I will take it and that she should call me as soon as possible so I can make arrangements with work. I don’t expect her to actually call back, and she doesn’t.  

I don’t want to get too excited; I’m afraid they will give my spot to someone else. But if all goes well, by this time a week from now, I will be able to see clearly again. I will just need to get reading glasses made, and then I need to get this goddamned foot healed up.

Speaking of which, I’m supposed to be changing the dressing on the wound twice a week, but I find myself unable to bear the idea of looking at it. What if it has gotten worse? There’s no reason why it should; it’s securely bandaged, so chance of infection is very low, and I’m not putting any pressure on it.  

On Thursday I send Nurse Hannah a text asking if the home nurses on strike and she says no. Friday morning she writes back and asks if I am able to change the dressing myself and I say yes, though I want to say no, come help me. It’s been a year since her first visit. I miss her tender ministrations. I miss her talking to my toes. For some reason she sends photos of her grandchildren wearing dinosaur pyjamas and bug wings. 

Saturday is a mild, sunny day. I drink a lot of coffee and get some housework done. Later I wheel down to the coffee for an evening of female Jewish storytellers. The women are good speakers but the stories they share are dull and insipid.

Sunday morning I finally get up the nerve to unwrap my foot. But first I do something I haven’t been able to do since June: I take a shower. 

I should explain that I do in fact bathe regularly, but I haven’t been able to take a full body shower since I started wearing the cast. Instead I sit on the edge of the tub with one foot in and the other wrapped in a garbage bag. Like so many things in my life, it’s uncomfortable and annoying. 

I leave the bandage on when I shower, afraid of getting the wound dirty. My left leg is soft, pale and nearly hairless from being wrapped up for six months. Since it’s an old building, the water pressure isn’t great, but it feels wonderful as it scalds my skin and cascades down my body.

When I get out I sit on the edge of the bed with my wound care supplies laid out on a little table. They were mailed to me by the hospital, and I’m surprised to find that they only sent me a handful of adhesive foam bandages, albeit the really good ones, and saline solution and gloves. 

I look closely at the right foot for the first time in a while. The toe that started me on my hyperbaric journey never healed up fully. It looks stunted and gnarled. I don’t expect it to ever completely recover, but it shouldn’t affect my walking. 

I tug on the milky gloves and gingerly peel off the bandage along with whatever patch of magical absorbent Jenny applied to my left foot the last day I was there. Aquasil, maybe. There is a lot of gunk on the patch, and the wound looks much bigger and deeper than I had hoped. I put on one of the bandages, and lie back in bed and stare up at the ceiling. I feel like I need to cry but I can’t. I have not made any progress. I am back where I started. 

Later in the afternoon I go to a staging of Krapp’s Last Tape with Robyn’s boyfriend. The show is at a tiny black box theater I’ve never heard of. There are five steps up to get into the building. I take them slowly, leaning on the railing and using the scooter as a kind of crutch. The people at the ticket table just stare at us without any sort of greeting. Luckily there aren’t any more stairs, and I roll right in and grab a seat in the front row. 

In the play, an old man sits at a desk, listening to a recording of his voice from thirty years ago. He consumes a number of bananas. There is no exposition and it’s up to the audience to piece together the scant details of Krapp’s rather pathetic life. The actor in this production is decent, though I think a slower, more methodical delivery would better highlight the bits of humor in what is otherwise a pretty morose meditation on aging and regret. It’s one of my favorite plays. And I wonder why I’m depressed.

When we leave, the narrow lobby is filled with people chatting. A shallow bowl of potato chips sits on a table in front of an empty popcorn machine. The air smells like wine. No one offers to hold the door and none of the staff says anything about the lack of accessibility. Alex carries the scooter down to the sidewalk, and accompanied by the tape of my wasted life that is constantly unspooling in my head, I hop down after him.