Say a Little Prayer

The same driver as last week greets me cheerily as I roll with my signature move onto the bus. He is just as chatty as before, though all he wants to talk about is the weather, which leads to him talking about global warming (thankfully he is not a denier) then nuclear power, and then of course the risks of annihilation as a result of said nuclear power, at which point I let my attention drift off, leaving him to carry on by himself about Fukushima. “You know they have lots of like wild monkeys over there, so they had a chance to test the effects of radiation on primates that are, you know, not that much unlike us…” As he had noted, it’s a deceptively chilly day.

On a whim, I take a different route to get upstairs. I roll past display cases filled with plush animals from the gift shop, past the mysterious Blue Elevators, which perhaps lead to some secret part of the hospital, perhaps where they do animal testing, or keep horribly mutated patients. I pass numerous signs pointing the way to the Heart Center, then speed through the heart of the Heart Center itself before arriving at the familiar Green Elevators. 

I press the blue button and roll in, and immediately I’m told to have a seat in room one by Tim, the only male nurse left in the office, so competent and invaluable that other departments keep stealing him away. Aside from an occasional glimpse, I can’t remember the last time I actually saw him. I take off my post-op shoe and sock and he raises the chair. 

“Well this looks all healed up,” he says, then looks at the computer. “Oh, I guess it was last week too. Well, I guess this is it then. It looks beautiful.”

Lena comes in and asks if I want another watercolor animal card. I say no thank you, though I love the one I have. Once again she asks if I mind if she records our conversation using AI. I ask if this is for her podcast about secret lives of the wound care patients. “Because I would listen to that.”

She cuts away the callus, and seems very happy with the results. As she works, Vicki slips in to sit at the computer. “Did you get hold of the shoe people?” the nurse practitioner asks. I tell her yes, though I actually didn’t. I already know what they would say, which is the same as all the diabetic shoe instructions online. Wear your shoes at home to begin with, starting with a half hour, then an hour, taking them off regularly to check for redness or swelling. After that start wearing them outside. 

I tell her all this but she seems skeptical that the instructions are not more elaborate. “What did they tell you to wear in the meantime?” she asks. 

“They didn’t tell me anything,” I say, feeling like we’ve been through all this before. “I’m wearing the post-op shoe when I’m at work, because I can walk on the heel. I haven’t worn the shoes outside yet. I’m taking this very, very slowly. I’ve learned my lesson.” She seems okay with this and gently presses the area where the wound is. Karen and Jenny pop in to gush about how good the skin looks.

“Did you get to the beach?” Karen asks. 

“I did,” I say. She asks me how it was and I say it started out good, but I got food poisoning. 

“Luckily it didn’t hit until the next day.”

I really was incredibly lucky. I’ve never had food poisoning before, at least not to this extent, and the idea of being stuck on the bus as an apparently endless stream of liquid fecal matter pours from my body is too horrifying to even contemplate. As it was, I felt disgusting, and took the day off from work. Today I felt a lot better, and had managed to eat a salad for lunch with no ill effects.

“They have one of those mats that leads down to the beach for people with mobility devices,” I tell her. “Not all the way out to the water, but still.” I had sat on my scooter at the edge of that hard strip of blue vinyl for a long time, staring out at the waves crashing in on themselves. Everything was gray: the sky, the sea, the sand. There were no other people around, just huge piles of driftwood scattered about. 

I go to Seaside once a year, during the off-season, because it’s cheaper. I always stay in the same crummy motel facing the ocean. It’s become a ritual for me; there is something magically healing about waking up in the morning and looking out over the water. However, this trip I didn’t feel any of the usual comfort and well-being from breathing in that salt air. I couldn’t relax, and took little pleasure in visiting the usual little shops. I had been good and used my scooter the entire time. Even without the mobility mat, Seaside is the most accessible of all the beaches, with a paved promenade running all the way along the coast, though it wasn’t as smooth as I hoped, and everything I did required a lot more concentration than usual. Maybe that was the reason for the disconnect. Or maybe I’m more of a mess than I want to admit.

“When do you see your podiatrist?” Lena asks

“I need to get a new one,” I say. “I’ve had trouble finding one who doesn’t suck.” They all nod and mumble in agreement. 

“Well they might be able to do x-rays and see what the underlying cause of this is, if there’s a bone spur or something. We’re just here to patch you up, we can’t tell what the underlying cause is.”

I tell her I’ve had the knobby ends of my metatarsals sanded down four times now, but it only helps temporarily. They continue to calcify and eventually break through the skin.

“Dr. Taggert said she was going to recommend someone,” I say. “Do you know who she uses?” 

Vicki says she thinks it’s Dr. Glazier, though he’s not certain. I tell her I can send Taggert a message to ask. 

“Yeah, I think she’s back next week. She took her son to Panama.”

“Is she helping to broker Trump’s deal to buy the canal?” I ask. No one laughs, all of them looking grumpy at the mention of that dreaded name. 

“Her son wants to be a doctor,” says Vicki, as if this explains everything. I try to imagine what it’s like to be Dr. Tagger’s son. A lot like being her patient, I imagine. 

“So do we see him in a month?” Lena asks her.

“No, that’s it. He is done.” Vicki turns to me. “Call us if it opens up or if you have any other problems, but other than that you’re done with us.”

“Really?” My chart had listed me for weekly appointments for another month, but it was probably just automated. 

“I’ll tell Dr. Thompson, I’m sure she’ll be pleased,” says the nurse practitioner.

“She’ll be pleased to have me out of her hair at last,” I say. 

“No, she likes you. You’re one of our favorites. We’re all going to miss you.” 

It was all over so fast, it feels like a blur. I didn’t get to chat or catch up with anyone. The baby bird is unceremoniously being booted from the next. I feel a mixture of feelings so overwhelming I can’t think or say anything.

They bring my scooter and I say, “Wow, so that’s it. I’m really done.” 

“Not quite,” says Jenny. “You still have to ring that damn bell.”

They all start chanting “Ring the bell! Ring the bell!” The three bells are still there, alongside the Oscar statue, which still hasn’t gotten Carrie’s name etched into it. I pick up the town crier bell and ring it hard. It makes a high, sweet peal. Everyone cheers.

“See you in a couple of weeks,” I say. 

“Nooooo!” they all cry. I hit the button and the door opens and I roll away. 

I’m still in kind of a daze when I get onto the bus. I have plans to see a movie in a couple of hours, so instead of heading home, I decide to get something to eat, since my stomach seems to be back to normal. 

I transfer to the streetcar. Two women get on after me, dragging a pile of huge bags after them. They are both dressed in skintight gym outfits and are dancing and laughing and jabbering over one another and obviously very, very high. One of them asks me what stop they should get off for Goodwill. As the streetcar moves one of the woman starts singing, 

This morning I wake up

And I put on my make up

I say a little prayer for you

They both belt out an approximation of the chorus before breaking into hysterical laughter. 

Together forever you’ll stay in my heart 

and I will love you 

forever and ever is how it must start

you always bring heartache to meeeee

“This is your stop, Dions,” I say, as the doors slide open. The women cackle and dance out the door, then go back in and get their bags, then go back for a bag they forgot, then for yet another one. As we pull away I see them in the bus shelter, arranging their bags and wiggling and waving their arms in the air wildly like those inflatable figures in front of car dealerships. 

I get a burger at a place I like down the street from the theater. I sit in the sunshine and watch the passerby as I eat. I use the lavatory and while things are still not normal, I feel okay, and I roll off to sit on a bench before the doors open. As I sit there, my stomach starts to gurgle loud enough that I can hear it. It feels uncomfortable, but I figure I’ll be okay. 

When the cinema opens I use the restroom immediately. Things are once again not great wotn there, and I don’t feel any relief when I’m finished. I take my seat and start to hear the gurgling again, but then it settles down and I’m able to enjoy this sweet, silly film for a while. When Parker Posey is accosted by her asshole ex in the stairwell of her apartment, I start to feel stomach pains that don’t abate. It feels too complicated to quietly extricate my scooter in the dark, so I stumble up the aisle and once again jettison a stream of slop, feeling greatly relieved afterwards. I obviously wasn’t ready for solid food, but instead of dwelling on my foolishness I tell myself it’ll be okay, I’ll make it through the film and get on the bus and go home and sleep through the night and feel better in the morning then go to work and then it’ll be the weekend and I can relax, having learned a valuable lesson about the hazards of food poisoning. 

I go back to my seat and fifteen minutes later I feel like I’m going to throw up. I breathe deeply and close my eyes but the urge grows more and more insistent, and I start to cough in what is obviously just a prelude to something much worse. I get up the aisle and make it to the restroom as fast as I can. I have barely shut the door when vomit begins to spew, and feeling the muscles of my sphincter start to unclench, I make a fatal error in judgment and instead of pulling down my pants and turning around, which might give me a chance to keep the damage manageable, I decide to face the basin. 

I explode from both ends, a twin fountain of sour slop. Everything I’ve been holding in, everything I’ve been ignoring and avoiding and shoving deep inside over the past year, two years, hell, probably my entire adult life, it’s all gushing out of me in as violent and disgusting a way imaginable. I have no control over it so I just let it happen, my conscious brain shutting off temporarily so I can get through this. It feels like it goes on forever but the whole thing only lasts about five seconds.

When it’s done I drop my trousers and squat on the can but nothing more comes out. Most of the shit is liquid, which means it doesn’t smell all that bad, but also means that I am thoroughly drenched. 

My brain flips into damage control mode as I try to assess the least painful way of extricating myself with the minimum amount of humiliation. The catastrophe has ended, everything else is aftermath. I wipe the beige puddles from the floor with toilet paper, then struggle out of my shoes. I strip off my underwear and run it under the tap but quickly see the futility of this and throw them in the trash can. The thought occurs to me that I should just throw open the door and walk out naked and dripping. For a brief flash it seems like a reasonable thing to do. 

Instead I wash myself off as best as I can, but there’s really nothing I can do to hide the fact that I am a sopping mess, so I just pull up my soaking pants and buckle my belt and head out to the concessions stand to start making my apologies, praying my stench will be masked by the smell of popcorn.

 

 

*   *   *

When the bus crossed the river, I felt myself starting to vomit again. I couldn’t hold it in, so I took out a plastic bag I happened to have wadded up in my coat pocket and coughed some soggy chunks into that and pulled the cord. As soon as I got off I once again started ejecting from both ends, and I just let it, cautiously rolling along the unfamiliar terrain. I was twenty blocks from home but I couldn’t bear the idea of getting back on a bus in my state, so even though I was exhausted, I just rolled on. I felt the pressure building again and thought about crouching in the bushes, but figured what’s the point, and just let myself go. Let the few dog walkers think I’m just another bum soaking in his own filth. It was freeing, in a way, not to care, to be released from any of society’s expectations. I was just an animal, albeit one dressed in wet clothes and balancing on a rickety contraption through the streets. The wound care clinic, that oasis of cleanliness and compassion, of cast saws and wound vacs, with its endless rolls of gauze and sterilized scalpels, seemed thousands of miles away. The hole was closed, the wound had healed. Would it open up again? Of course it would. But for now it was closed and the night air was mild and the city felt gentle. Between the buildings, I could see the moon, a bright blob suspended in the darkness. Cutting through the park, my wheel hit something small and sharp at just the right angle and I almost toppled over. But I didn’t.