FRAGMENTS
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, September 25, 26, and 27, 2006 (Clare is 35,
Henry is 43)
CLARE: Henry has been gone all day. Alba and I went to McDonald’s for dinner. We
played Go Fish and Crazy Eights; Alba drew a picture of a girl with long hair flying a
dog. We picked out her dress for school tomorrow. Now she is in bed. I am sitting on
the front porch trying to read Proust; reading in French is making me drowsy and I
am almost asleep when there is a crash in the living room and Henry is on the floor
shivering, white and cold—“Help me,” he says through chattering teeth and I run for
the phone.
Later:
The Emergency Room: a scene of fluorescent limbo: old people full of ailments,
mothers with feverish small children, teenagers whose friends are having bullets
removed from various limbs, who will brag about this later to admiring girls but who
are now subdued and tired.
Later:
In a small white room: nurses lift Henry onto a bed and remove his blanket. His
eyes open, register me, and close. A blond intern looks him over. A nurse takes his
temperature, pulse. Henry is shivering, shivering so intensely it makes the bed shake,
makes the nurse’s arm vibrate like the Magic Fingers beds in 1970s motels. The
resident looks at Henry’s pupils, ears, nose, fingers, toes, genitals. They begin to
wrap him in blankets and something metallic and aluminum foil-like. They pack his
feet in cold packs. The small room is very warm. Henry’s eyes flicker open again. He
is trying to say something. It sounds like my name. I reach under the blankets and
hold his icy hands in mine. I look at the nurse. “We need to warm him up, get his core
temperature up,” she says. “Then we’ll see.”
Later:
“How on earth did he get hypothermia in September?” the resident asks me.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Ask him.”
Later:
It’s morning. Charisse and I are in the hospital cafeteria. She’s eating chocolate
pudding. Upstairs in his room Henry is sleeping. Kimy is watching him. I have two
pieces of toast on my plate; they are soggy with butter and untouched. Someone sits
down next to Charisse; it’s Kendrick. “Good news,” he says, “his core temp’s up to
ninety-seven point six. There doesn’t seem to be any brain damage.”
I can’t say anything. Thank you God, is all I think.
“Okay, um, I’ll check back later when I’m finished at Rush St. Luke’s,” says
Kendrick, standing up.
“Thank you, David,” I say as he’s about to walk away, and Kendrick smiles and
leaves.
Later:
Dr. Murray comes in with an Indian nurse whose name tag says Sue. Sue is
carrying a large basin and a thermometer and a bucket. Whatever is about to happen,
it will be low-tech.
“Good morning, Mr. DeTamble, Mrs. DeTamble. We’re going to rewarm your
feet.” Sue sets the basin on the floor and silently disappears into the bathroom. Water
runs. Dr. Murray is very large and has a wonderful beehive hairdo that only certain
very imposing and beautiful black women can get away with. Her bulk tapers down
from the hem of her white coat into two perfect feet in alligator-skin pumps. She
produces a syringe and an ampoule from her pocket, and proceeds to draw the
contents of the ampoule into the syringe.
“What is that?” I ask.
“Morphine. This is going to hurt. His feet are pretty far gone.” She gently takes
Henry’s arm, which he mutely holds out to her as though she has won it from him in
a poker game. She has a delicate touch. The needle slides in and she depresses the
plunger; after a moment Henry makes a little moan of gratitude. Dr. Murray is
removing the cold packs from Henry’s feet as Sue emerges with hot water. She sets it
on the floor by the bed. Dr. Murray lowers the bed, and the two of them manipulate
him into a sitting position. Sue measures the temperature of the water. She pours the
water into the basin and immerses Henry’s feet. He gasps.
“Any tissue that’s gonna make it will turn bright red. If it doesn’t look like a
lobster, it’s a problem.”
I watch Henry’s feet floating in the yellow plastic basin. They are white as snow,
white as marble, white as titanium, white as paper, white as bread, white as sheets,
white as white can be. Sue changes the water as Henry’s ice feet cool it down. The
thermometer shows one hundred and six degrees. In five minutes it is ninety degrees
and Sue changes it again. Henry’s feet bob like dead fish. Tears run down his cheeks
and disappear under his chin. I wipe his face. I stroke his head. I watch to see his feet
turn bright red. It’s like waiting for a photograph to develop, watching for the image
slowly graying into black in the tray of chemicals. A flush of red appears at the ankles
of both feet. The red spreads in splotches over the left heel, finally some of the toes
hesitantly blush. The right foot remains stubbornly blanched. Pink appears reluctantly
as far as the ball of the foot, and then goes no farther. After an hour, Dr. Murray and
Sue carefully dry Henry’s feet and Sue places bits of cotton between his toes. They
put him back in bed and arrange a frame over his feet so nothing touches them.
The following night:
It’s very late at night and I am sitting by Henry’s bed in Mercy Hospital, watching
him sleep. Gomez is sitting in a chair on the other side of the bed, and he is also
asleep. Gomez sleeps with his head back and his mouth open, and every now and then
he makes a little snorting noise and then turns his head.
Henry is still and silent. The IV machine beeps. At the foot of the bed a tent-like
contraption raises the blankets away from the place where his feet should be, but
Henry’s feet are not there now. The frostbite ruined them. Both feet were amputated
above the ankles this morning. I cannot imagine, I am trying not to imagine, what is
below the blankets. Henry’s bandaged hands are lying above the blankets and I take
his hand, feeling how cool and dry it is, how the pulse beats in the wrist, how tangible
Henry’s hand is in my hand. After the surgery Dr. Murray asked me what I wanted
her to do with Henry’s feet. Reattach them seemed like the correct answer, but I just
shrugged and looked away.
A nurse comes in, smiles at me, and gives Henry his injection. In a few minutes he
sighs, as the drug envelopes his brain, and turns his face toward me. His eyes open so
slightly, and then he is asleep again.
I want to pray, but I can’t remember any prayers, all that runs through my head is
Eeny-meeny miney moe, catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers, let him go, eeny meeny
miney moe. Oh, God, please don’t, please don’t do this to me. But the Snark was a
boojum. No. Nothing comes. Envoyez chercher le medecin. Qu’avez-vous? Ilfaudra
aller a Chapital. Je me suis coupe assez fortement. Otez le bandage et laissez-moi
voir. Out, c’est une coupure profunde.
I don’t know what time it is. Outside it is getting light. I place Henry’s hand back
on the blanket. He draws it to his chest, protectively.
Gomez yawns, and stretches his arms out, cracking his knuckles. “Morning,
kitten,” he says, and gets up and lumbers into the bathroom. I can hear him peeing as
Henry opens his eyes.
“Where am I?”
“Mercy. September 27, 2006 ”
Henry stares up at the ceiling. Then, slowly, he pushes himself up against the
pillows and stares at the foot of the bed. He leans forward, reaching with his hands
under the blanket. I close my eyes.
Henry begins to scream.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006 (Clare is 35, Henry is 43)
CLARE: Henry has been home from the hospital for a week. He spends the days in bed,
curled up, facing the window, drifting in and out of morphine-laced sleep. I try to
feed him soup, and toast, and macaroni and cheese, but he doesn’t eat very much. He
doesn’t say much, either. Alba hovers around, silent and anxious to please, to bring
Daddy an orange, a newspaper, her Teddy; but Henry only smiles absently and the
small pile of offerings sits unused on his nightstand. A brisk nurse named Sonia
Browne comes once a day to change the dressings and to give advice, but as soon as
she vanishes into her red Volkswagen Beetle Henry subsides into his vacant-lot
persona. I help him to use the bedpan. I make him change one pair of pajamas for
another. I ask him how he feels, what he needs, and he answers vaguely or not at all.
Although Henry is right here in front of me, he has disappeared.
I’m walking down the hall past the bedroom with a basket of laundry in my arms
and I see Alba through the slightly open door, standing next to Henry, who is curled
up in bed. I stop and watch her. She stands still, her arms hanging at her side, her
black braids dangling down her back, her blue turtleneck distorted from being pulled
on. Morning light floods the room, washes everything yellow.
“Daddy?” Alba says, softly. Henry doesn’t respond. She tries again, louder. Henry
turns toward her, rolls over. Alba sits down on the bed. Henry has his eyes closed.
“Daddy?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you dying?”
Henry opens his eyes and focuses on Alba. “No.”
“Alba said you died.”
“That’s in the future, Alba. Not yet. Tell Alba she shouldn’t tell you those kinds of
things.” Henry runs his hand over the beard that’s been growing since we left the
hospital. Alba sits with her hands folded in her lap and her knees together.
“Are you going to stay in bed all the time now?”
Henry pulls himself up so he is leaning against the headboard. “Maybe.” He is
rummaging in the drawer of the nightstand, but the painkillers are in the bathroom.
“Why?”
“Because I feel like shit, okay?”
Alba shrinks away from Henry, gets up off the bed. “Okay!” she says, and she is
opening the door and almost collides with me and is startled and then she silently
flings her arms around my waist and I pick her up, so heavy in my arms now. I carry
her into her room and we sit in the rocker, rocking together, Alba’s hot face against
my neck. What can I tell you, Alba? What can I say?
Wednesday and Thursday October 18 and 19, and Thursday, October 26, 2006
(Clare is 35, Henry is 43)
CLARE: I’m standing in my studio with a roll of armature wire and a bunch of
drawings. I’ve cleared off the big work table, and the drawings are neatly pinned up
on the wall. Now I stand and try to summon up the piece in my mind’s eye. I try to
imagine it 3-D. Life size. I snip off a length of wire and it springs away from the huge
roll; I begin to shape a torso. I weave the wire into shoulders, ribcage, and then a
pelvis. I pause. Maybe the arms and legs should be articulated? Should I make feet or
not? I start to make a head and then realize that I don’t want any of this. I push it all
under the table and begin again with more wire.
Like an angel. Every angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, almost deadly
birds of the soul... It is only the wings that I want to give him. I draw in the air with
the thin metal, looping and weaving; I measure with my arms to make a wingspan, I
repeat the process, mirror-reversed, for the second wing, comparing symmetry as
though I’m giving Alba a haircut, measuring by eye, feeling out the weight, the
shapes. I hinge the wings together, and then I get up on the ladder and hang them
from the ceiling. They float, air encompassed by lines, at the level of my breasts,
eight feet across, graceful, ornamental, useless.
At first I imagined white, but I realize now that that’s not it. I open the cabinet of
pigments and dyes. Ultramarine, Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber, Viridian, Madder Lake.
No. Here it is: Red Iron Oxide. The color of dried blood. A terrible angel wouldn’t be
white, or would be whiter than any white I can make. I set the jar on the counter,
along with Bone Black. I walk to the bundles of fiber that stand, fragrant, in the far
corner of the studio. Kozo and linen; transparency and pliancy, a fiber that rattles like
chattering teeth combined with one that is soft as lips. I weigh out two pounds of
kozo, tough and resilient bark that must be cooked and beaten, broken and pounded. I
heat water in the huge pot that covers two burners on the stove. When it is boiling I
feed the kozo into it, watching it darken and slowly take in water. I measure in soda
ash and cover the pot, turn on the exhaust hood. I chop a pound of white linen into
small pieces, fill the beater with water, and start it rending and tearing up the linen
into a fine white pulp. Then I make myself coffee and sit staring out the window
across the yard at the house.
At that moment:
HENRY: My mother is sitting on the foot of my bed. I don’t want her to know about
my feet. I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep. “Henry?” she says. “I know you’re
awake. C’mon, buddy, rise and shine.” I open my eyes. It’s Kimy. “Mmm. Morning.”
“It’s 2:30 in the afternoon. You should get out of bed.”
“I can’t get out of bed, Kimy. I don’t have any feet.”
“You got wheelchair,” she says. “Come on, you need a bath, you need a shave,
pee-yoo, you smell like an old man.” Kimy stands up, looking very grim. She peels
the covers off of me and I lie there like a shelled shrimp, cold and flaccid in the
afternoon sunlight. Kimy browbeats me into sitting in the wheelchair, and she wheels
me to the door of the bathroom, which is too narrow for the chair to pass.
“Okay,” Kimy says, standing in front of me with her hands on her hips. “How we
gonna do this? Huh?”
“I don’t know, Kimy. I’m just the gimp; I don’t actually work here.”
“What kind of word is that, gimp?”
“It’s a highly pejorative slang word used to describe cripples.”
Kimy looks at me as though I am eight and have used the word fuck in her
presence (I didn’t know what it meant, I only knew it was forbidden). “I think it’s
‘sposed to be disabled, Henry.” She leans over and unbuttons my pajama top.
“I’ve got hands” I say, and finish the unbuttoning myself. Kimy turns around,
brusque and grumpy, and turns on the tap, adjusts the temperature, places the plug in
the drain. She rummages in the medicine cabinet, brings out my razor, shaving soap,
the beaver-hair shaving brush. I can’t figure out how to get out of the wheelchair. I
decide to try sliding off the seat; I push my ass forward, arch my back, and slither
toward the floor. I wrench my left shoulder and bang my butt as I go down, but it’s
not too bad. In the hospital the physical therapist, an encouraging young person
named Penny Featherwight, had several techniques for getting in and out of the chair,
but they all had to do with chair/bed and chair/chair situations. Now I’m sitting on the
floor and the bathtub looms like the white cliffs of Dover above me. I look up at
Kimy, eighty-two years old, and realize that I’m on my own, here. She looks at me
and it’s all pity, that look. I think fuck it, I have to do this somehow, I can’t let Kimy
look at me like that. I shrug out of my pajama bottoms, and begin to unwrap the
bandages that cover the dressings on my legs. Kimy looks at her teeth in the mirror. I
stick my arm over the side of the tub and test the bath water.
“If you throw some herbs in there you can have stewed gimp for supper.”
“Too hot?” Kimy asks.
“Yeah.”
Kimy adjusts the faucets and then leaves the bathroom, pushing the wheelchair out
of the doorway. I gingerly remove the dressing from my right leg. Under the
wrappings the skin is pale and cold. I put my hand at the folded-over part, the flesh
that cushions the bone. I just took a Vicodin a little while ago. I wonder if I could
take another one without Clare noticing. The bottle is probably up there in the
medicine cabinet. Kimy comes back carrying one of the kitchen chairs. She plops it
down next to me. I remove the dressing from the other leg.
“She did a nice job,” Kimy says.
“Dr. Murray? Yeah, it’s a big improvement, much more aerodynamic.”
Kimy laughs. I send her to the kitchen for phone books. When she puts them next
to the chair I raise myself so I’m sitting on them. Then I scramble onto the chair, and
sort of fall/roll into the bathtub. A huge wave of water sloshes out of the tub onto the
tile. I’m in the bathtub. Hallelujah. Kimy turns off the water, and dries her legs with a
towel. I submerge.
Later:
CLARE: After hours of cooking I strain the kozo and it, too, goes into the beater. The
longer it stays in the beater, the finer and more bone-like it will be. After four hours, I
add retention aid, clay, pigment. The beige pulp suddenly turns a deep dark earth red.
I drain it into buckets and pour it into the waiting vat. When I walk back to the house
Kimy is in the kitchen making the kind of tuna fish casserole that has potato chips
crumbled over it.
“How’d it go?” I ask her.
“Real good. He’s in the living room.” There is a trail of water between the
bathroom and the living room in Kimy-sized footprints. Henry is sleeping on the sofa
with a book spread open on his chest. Borges“
Ficciones. He is shaved and I lean over him and breathe; he smells fresh, his damp
gray hair sticking up all ways. Alba is chattering to Teddy in her room. For a moment
I feel as though I’ve time traveled, as though this is some stray moment from before,
but then I let my eyes travel down Henry’s body to the flatnesses at the end of the
blanket, and I know that I am only here and now.
The next morning it’s raining. I open the door of the studio and the wire wings
await me, floating in the morning gray light. I turn on the radio; it’s Chopin, rolling
etudes like waves over sand. I don rubber boots, a bandanna to keep my hair out of
the pulp, a rubber apron. I hose down my favorite teak and brass mold and deckle,
uncover the vat, set up a felt to couch the paper onto. I reach down into the vat and
agitate the slurry of dark red to mix the fiber and water. Everything drips. I plunge the
mold and deckle into the vat, and carefully bring it up, level, streaming water. I set it
on the corner of the vat and the water drains from it and leaves a layer of fiber on the
surface; I remove the deckle and press the mold onto the felt, rocking it gently and as
I remove it the paper remains on the felt, delicate and shiny. I cover it with another
felt, wet it, and again: I plunge the mold and deckle down, bring it up, drain it, couch
it. I lose myself in the repetition, the piano music floating over the water sloshing and
dripping and raining. When I have a post of paper and felt, I press it in the hydraulic
paper press. Then I go back to the house and eat a ham sandwich. Henry is reading.
Alba is at school.
After lunch, I stand in front of the wings with my post of freshly made paper. I am
going to cover the armature with a paper membrane. The paper is damp and dark and
wants to tear but it drapes over the wire forms like skin. I twist the paper into sinews,
into cords that twist and connect. The wings are bat wings now, the tracing of the
wire is evident below the gaunt paper surface. I dry the paper I haven’t used yet,
heating it on sheets of steel. Then I begin to tear it into strips, into feathers. When the
wings are dry I will sew these on, one by one. I begin to paint the strips, black and
gray and red. Plumage, for the terrible angel, the deadly bird.
A week later, in the evening:
HENRY: Clare has cajoled me into getting dressed and has enlisted Gomez to carry me
out the back door, across the yard, and into her studio. The studio is lit with candles;
there are probably a hundred of them, more, on tables and on the floor, and on the
windowsills. Gomez sets me down on the studio couch, and retreats to the house. In
the middle of the studio a white sheet is suspended from the ceiling, and I turn around
to see if there’s a projector, but there isn’t. Clare is wearing a dark dress, and as she
moves around the room her face and hands float white and disembodied.
“Want some coffee?” she asks me. I haven’t had any since before the hospital.
“Sure,” I reply. She pours two cups, adds cream, and brings me one. The hot cup feels
familiar and good in my hand. “I made you something,” Clare says.
“Feet? I could use some feet.”
“Wings,” she says, dropping the white sheet to the floor.
The wings are huge and they float in the air, wavering in the candlelight. They are
darker than the darkness, threatening but also redolent of longing, of freedom, of
rushing through space. The feeling of standing solidly, on my own two feet, of
running, running like flying. The dreams of hovering, of flying as though gravity has
been rescinded and now is allowing me to be removed from the earth a safe distance,
these dreams come back to me in the twilit studio. Clare sits down next to me. I feel
her looking at me. The wings are silent, their edges ragged. I cannot speak. Siehe, ich
lebe. Woraus? Weder Kindheit noch Zukunft! werden weniger... Uberzahliges Dasein!
entspringt reir Herzen. (Look, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor future/
grows any smaller.. .Superabundant being/ wells up in my heart.)
“Kiss me,” Clare says, and I turn to her, white face and dark lips floating in the
dark, and I submerge, I fly, I am released: being wells up in my heart.
