The Spaceship Thing
Five years ago, it was my good fortune or not, depending on how Zen you are, to be mugged at four in the afternoon on a very bright April day. It was April 17, in fact, and I remember it well because it was one of the few times I didn't file for a tax extension.
"Hell, let's just do it right now," my income tax guy said, and we did indeed file a return on time, one that seemed a little too loosey-goosey to me. So on April 17, I'd just come out of a big box store, swinging a couple of cheap artichokes snug in their plastic bag, mostly worried about getting audited. And then I heard the sound of running very close to me, then I felt hands clamp down on my shoulders, then I was spun around to face a nicely groomed guy of about 19. To grab hold of my bag, he knocked me down and that's what broke my hip.
I remember I had a lot of thoughts lying in the parking lot, as the thief and his bf sped away. A bunch of those thoughts are still crammed in a wordy article I wrote right afterwards, because writing is what I do to keep from going nuts. My longish pensee on violence, big cities, and the importance of loud screaming was tentatively accepted by one magazine. Then, like some kind of fainting maiden I was suddenly overcome by a weird incompatible combo of exhibitionism and shyness. So I yanked my article and stuck it in a file drawer, where it still lives today.
But I can remember one of those thoughts I had on April 17: how I hated that for the next days, weeks, and months, all my conversations were going to be about This. I'd been one thing and now I was This.
It's something my husband said to me in the hospital and I knew just what he meant. "This one thing happened and now I'm all different, but I'm really not," he said through a maze of plastic tubes. He was still in ICU, wired up like a NASA project, everything bleeping, counting, and eeping.
I crawled up onto the bed. "I dunno if you are or not," I told him. "Your spaceship is kind of dented. I better check." So I looked into his eyes which, trust me here, are the exact lovely blue of old old denim. "Yeah," I said. "You're the same guy."
You need someone to tell you you're the same guy. It's something I remember.
I remember what it was like: being a collection of symptoms, being a typical This, or an atypical This, and being surrounded by lots of people who'd like you to just settle the fuck down and get with the program: being This. One of my therapists, a well-meaning woman, kept urging me to decorate my walker with plastic flowers. "Are you high?" I'd always yell. She took my horrible tempers very nicely, I must say. But then, she didn't know I was at war.
Getting well is war and don't let anyone tell you different. If you believe otherwise, you might wind up on one of those motorized chairs, cruising through the big jolly supermarket, your hair perfectly done, holding a canned ham on your lap. But that's just my idea of hell. I bet you've got your own. Whatever it is, hold onto it like a mother, swear you'll kill yourself in some forlorn ditch and let wild dogs devour your flesh before you turn into This.
And so, today, after dancing by myself to Dylan's Thunder on the Mountain, crying while I did, because the last time he and I danced was maybe the last dance we'd ever have, I thought to myself: Just quit being such an asshole.
Then I marched out to the car, drove up to the Walgreen's and bought every pen, marker, dry board, sketchbook, and flouresent felt tip I could find.
"This for you?" the clerk asked, checking me out. He already knows about the stroke. I told him yesterday.
"Nope," I said. "It's for him. He used to be an artist. It's time for him to get off his ass and be one again. And by the way, your Etch A Sketch is strictly for pussies."
We both looked at the pink Etch A Sketch. "Yeah, it is," the clerk admitted, "You still want it?"
"Sure." I said. "Any Etch in a storm."
"Did I ever tell you I had Bell's Palsy?" the clerk asked me, smiling shyly.
"Nope." I said, "And I never would have guessed."
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