Fiction
The Cripple
The office door slides past, its metal and white frame close to my head. The office is laid out before me as my body strides smoothly and confidently in to its space. The wooden floors feel solid underneath me, the wide, open spaces and low walled cubicles are no barrier to my vision, and I take a deep breath looking around, proud and happy to work here, proud and happy, in love with the space. There is no better feeling than hearing and seeing the busyness: people making phone calls or quietly typing and reading, the women and men, the hushed tones of a relaxed Friday morning.
“Good morning sir, can I help you?” Elaine the office secretary greets me. She doesn’t recognize me.
“Hi Elaine, it’s me. Morris.” I say lounging my body onto the high counter that faces the elevators. She looks taken aback, then looks me over carefully and her face lights up and her mouth spread in a huge smile. She stands up immediately.
“Oh my god Morris, it worked. You look… Oh my god you look great. I can’t believe it was so fast.” She approaches me and we hug. I wrap my arms around her and feel her press against me. It is so overwhelming and wonderful. Her hair smells like raspberries and soapy chemicals. She leans back and laughs, tears forming in her eyes a little, and I must admit I’m tearing too, but we’re both smiling. She turns to the office and announces my presence. And there is a brief flurry of activity as everyone comes forward and looks at me. Cthere are a lot of ‘oohs’ and ‘aww’s’. I greet the women with warm hugs - Janet and Trisha, Michelle, Jen, Antonia, and Cher - their bodies and stomachs and hair and faces press around me. Kisses on the cheek pound at me. Interspersed are Brian, Fred, Jean Pierre, and Tom, and we greet with our hands clasped, our confident masculine poses. We hook our paws and pound each other on the back. They can’t believe how improved my musculature is. The women drape fingers over my arms and rub my chest, saying I can’t believe it, your are beautiful. And I feel beautiful and strong. The cure for muscular dystrophy revealed at last, the surgery and rehabilitation through exotic treatments and steroids and exercise and dream therapies. The whole painful long and wondrously powerful experience over whelms me and the office. Someone says we should order food and cake to celebrate.
Our boss, Mark, says. “Alright now, that’s enough. We should get onto work. How about we all go out after this and I’ll put up for bottle service in celebration.” The office cheers and people wander back to their tables, smiling and laughing, talking to each other about it, a flurry of iphones and blackberries typing out invitations. Mark turns to me.
“Really congratulations Morris, I am incredibly happy for you. It looks great on you.” He continues as the others walk away. “Your desk is where you left it, and I’m going to forward a few leads on accounts. This afternoon Trish will start working with you to catch up. Bravo!” He grabs my shoulder for a moment, and I grab his. “Welcome back.” We hug like brothers, and I’m taller than him. I’m taller than so many of them. I never thought the women were so small, but they are, and it is a wondrously powerful feeling to hold them delicately in my arms.
“Wait, Mark.” I say, “Someone seems to be missing. Where is Mary? I didn’t see her. I’ve been looking forward to it so much.” Mark smiles at me. He knows that between she and I there was a tremendous and intimate friendship, at one point evolving into a romance for a brief moment, before the muscular dystrophy, and the physical limitations and absurdities it condemned me to. It became too much for her, it ended. She really tried though. Months ago she had broken off from another relationship. I anticipate seeing her again, of being able to hold and touch her without any barrier or distortion from my previous body interrupting this newfound grace.
“She ran out for a lunch with a client. She should be back around three.” He pats me on the shoulder and gives me a wink, then walks back to his office.
There is a strange transition of form and day, like the detail washes out for a moment, then its over. The clock has winded its hand forward. I see my old desk laid out before me. Its surface is raised now to an awkward height, in order to accommodate an electric wheel chair. My specialty key board swings from an extravagant metal arm. I feel freedom in hunching over my desk. I take the keyboard off the arm and set it down, and I sneer at the mouse, a track ball I set underneath my hand on my wheel chair. I go to the back and pickup a normal one. There is nothing to stop me from reaching the high shelf on which it lies. For a moment in the back office, like at so many moments in the last few days, I shudder and cry in relief, in fear. It can’t be real, it can’t really be over. I hardly feel like myself, like I’m anything but a man is strapped to machine after machine, destined for absolute dependence. But even crying is different. Instead of weakly and painfully sobbing as I did when I lay crippled in beds or chairs, now I laugh and cry at once, holding myself with long strong arms, crouching down to rest my elbows on my knees, and feeling so grateful when I stand immediately back up, stand and pickup the mouse and walk out and to the bathroom to clean up.
Work continues and I call the leads and I do well. Appointments are made with a few, and the flow of it is coming back to me. Over time Mark sends a list of all my previous accounts that will be transferred back, which ones I’ve lost, and a few new ones to start working on from scratch. It is a generous offer of work. He had warned me he would give me no reprise, that the office was going to get busy the moment I was back, and either I should be ready to work or take more time off. I feel more than ready to work. I feel ready to do anything.
Deeply involved in my efforts, the day passes. Mary sends me a message on my cell phone. She won’t be back in today, but she will meet us at the club after work. The office starts to wind down, and we all wait together while the last few people make their last few calls and the creative staff winds up a few loose ends. I wander around describing and remembering the treatments. It was an entirely experimental procedure, and I was lucky to have fairly strong cardiovascular system, because otherwise it takes much longer. While talking about it, the images of the treatment come into my mind, at times like an incredible out of body experience. I vividly envision the wires and tubes flowing into my muscles. Huge banks of computers humming away while doctors and scientists hover about. I was incredibly high most of the time, awake because general anesthesia was too risky. I can remember seeing computer models as they explained their work in basic terms. As an ad-man I pull many images away to use, scary images. Muscle and sinew ground into tubes and pumped into an awaiting chamber where microscopic devices digest it. Then the eerie pulp is pumped into my body where they distribute the enzymes, amino acids, and proteins deep into every layer of my pulsing tissue, while, influenced by heavy steroids and human growth hormone, my body metabolizes and adopts it with eager efficiency. Bone and weird pulpy extracts too, I drank plastic smelling drinks, and had to survive the strange, electrical pulsing when they recharged the micro capacitors that the devices’ small receivers and transmitters utilize for guidance. While I talk about it, while I think about it, I remember the tremendous changes. One day in a wheel chair, the next day nearly blacked out on morphine, then incredibly, a few days later, taking my first few strides.
And dream machines, never ending dreams of walking, stumbling and walking, stumbling and walking. They even gave me a selection of sports, so I dreamt of baseball, throwing a ball. I dreamt of can openers and forks and knives. I dreamt about boiling water and cooking and Frisbee. Dream after dream, hours and hours of what seemed like days and days of dreaming of everything, every mundane activity. They have me practice moving in a padded room. They have me ride a bike. They have me do every thing I had been unable to do since the age of 11, when the first muscle tear occurred while walking, and an endless series of limitations began to be imposed on me. They have me dream of showering, of shopping, of stretching and yoga.
And suddenly there is a weird transition. The talking seems to have ended, all of them fascinated by the stories. A few suggested the more lewd acts they hope my body was trained in. I smile and laugh with them - in fact it was.
We are going to a small lounge on Perry St. near Bleeker, Le Rêve de Réveil. As we go outside it is raining and thundering. The clouds and downpour so think I can only see a few blocks before the world fades to an inky, dark cloud. I feel almost as if I could float through the windows, up into those clouds. Most of the office comes along, and we ride in 4 cabs downtown. Midtown passes, huge buildings cutoff by the rain, the eerie white glow of lights gyrating and twisting through raindrops on the windows. I am reminded of so many trips where a special van had to be arranged, where I either arrived early and left early, or arrived late and left early, handicapped services not willing to pick me up at 430 in the morning. Though I also think fondly of the few times I did go out, and the special lights people would decorate my chair with, and the humorous attempts I would make to spin and move with the music in the rare clubs with elevators or handicap access. This is different. I sit in the back of a cab pressed between Trisha and Jean Pierre as they bicker about the Ad account for Indigo body products. Jean Pierre wants to do sultry European sex, and has pushed hard for creative to come up with unique ideas for it. Trisha wants a much more modern approach: demonstrative, nearly scientific, but, of course, with gorgeous models. They talk over me and I nod and smile. I know better than to get the way of one of these arguments. The moment you offer an opinion and it’s taken, if the account goes sour it all gets blamed on you.
Trisha is tall, nearly as tall as I am, with a curvy body and long legs. She has a somewhat long nose and face, but she hides it under bangs and widens her mouth with a dark red lipstick. She makes her points like a queen, and at times it seems like she is rejecting Jean Pierre as a person. Then she will suddenly smile and laugh over something he says in his almost too suave, Cote d’Ivoire accent. He his is a big guy, with smooth black skin, and an impossibly hard musculature. He speaks and you have to listen as the rolling syllables come out in what sounds like poetry. He makes English a beautiful language, out of spite, of course, but a beautiful French sounding spite.
Every so often Tom leans back and pleads, “Oh my god, are we still talking about work?” Or, “Jesus Trish, now try being critical!” To which we laugh, and her sharp insightful but barbed comments lose their heated flavor.
“Look at her.” Jean Pierre says, leaning forward, talking around Trish. “She knows she is beautiful and demands to be listened to. Every idea that comes from her must be heard with closed eyes, or else her décolletage will do all her arguing for her.”
“You would not pretend to agree with this chauvinist, would you?” Trish interrupts, talking low and intimately, her face a few inches away from me, her breasts pressed to my shoulder. “You agree with me don’t’ you? Aren’t we all tired of watching bored, fifteen year old, Norwegian girls telling us how to have perfect skin?” Her big, dark green eyes bore into me as she teases the hair on the back of my neck with a long elegant finger.
“She, uh, does have pretty strong point Jean Pierre.” I say.
“No, Morris, she is not making her point strong, she is making yours.” And we laugh. Trish takes the argument back up in earnest, pulling her chest back, her hands flying past my face in frantic gesticulation. Tom in the front groans in frustration again, turning back to me and begging me to talk about something else. I can hardly hear over the next interchange, as Trish tells Jean Pierre to stuff his Francophile sensibilities in the garbage. And he drags counters her, indignantly, illustrating the travesty colonialism and how his artistic roots stem from an African love for the spirit, but, “despite my roots I have to sell to cultureless Americans.”
We arrive, shortly thereafter at the lounge. Mark is waiting at the door, like the captain of his platoon, talking to the bouncer and waiving us in with a pat on the back. Inside it is half full, with tables and seats still open, waiting for the 12 o’ clock rush. It’s Friday, and many others will be coming. Boyfriends and girlfriends, dates and hangers-on, anytime the company throws a party it blows up.
As I enter the club the rhythm and beat, the flashing lights seem to overwhelm me for a second. As it did before, when the work day suddenly passed, as I dove into a flashback of the process, things seem to transpire in fast order, only this time I notice. They pass as darkness, an awareness of events of situations, conversations. In the darkness I feel as if I toss and turn, though I experience it as though I am restrained, in my chair again. Pleadingly I think of it as post traumatic shock, and just as eerily warnings of it enter my mind, warning from doctors that at certain times my body will remember its former self. But it seems hard to believe. For a moment I find myself doubting everything. My eyes cast around confirming reality, the hard table, the glass, the taste of liquor. Something rings false, hollow, like de ja vu.
And Mary walks in, and I forget it all. This new body rises, of its own accord, and I stride towards her. She cranes her head through the crowd and spots me looking her straight in the eyes. There passes over her face a look of instant recognition, and with the bass timing my steps I rush towards her, and she starts towards me. Halfway between the seats and the entrance we meet and hug. I can hardly bear it. Years of history, some of humiliation, a whole world turned upside down and inside out and her arms are around my neck and we are standing. Standing! I can hardly hold back anything. She leans back, her body against mine, swaying ever so slightly to music. Her hand finds its way to my face, and she caresses my jaw.
“Morris.”
“Its me.”
“Morris.” She says again, like a sacred oath. She has deep brown eyes, smooth olive skin. Her hair is curled and wild. Her black shirt is cut low and her skirt is down to mid-thigh. Her boots, luscious boots covering calves I admired mostly from afar, occasionally up close, as at times, at her apartment she would rest her legs over mine and I would feebly run a twisted hand over her knee - a sign of comfort and ease between us, a sign of trust. The tears in her eyes catch strobe lights like falling diamonds. Before she can say another word I kiss her, fully on the lips. I hold her around the back, around that delicate rib cage and lean down and I plant my mouth on hers and she opens like a flower. There is nothing but the rush and the beat and we find ourselves gripping each other to the faint sound of cheers and clapping behind me.
“Let’s go.” She says, those onyx eyes searching mine.
“Now? What about the bottle service, the party?”
“Now.”
She looks behind me and waves and I look back too. We rush off. This is too much, too much, and the darkness comes again. No not now I want to remember this I want to feel this, but the bonds of the chair on my back, the hum of an electric motor, the beeping of a heart monitor seem to rise up out of a cloud. No not now! And I’m back. We are entering her door.
The music is gone and we are alone. There is only the rushed breaths and tugging of lust, we embrace each other madly. I strip her clothes with a passion I had not known before. My heart is beating in my chest, blood madly rushing to every tip of me, and those tips extend and extend. I feel huge. I feel larger than life, and she is all smiles and pulling, wet lips on my neck, hot breath in my ear.
“I love you.”
I love you keeps reverberating through me. The music is gone but the beat is still in my heart, pumping and pumping. I push her down on the bed and she falls back. A dark angel, shinning eyes and skin and heaving breasts and taught stomach. And the darkness starts swelling around me. There is nothing but her. There is nothing but her perfect body. Even the bed seems to drop away. We are floating in darkness and I am between her legs, feeling those taught muscles flex and bend against my hands as I run my nose up her thighs. The muscles fight each other as my tongue dances over her sex, and I revel in the power of my arms, I revel as I flex triceps previously, disastrously weak, now bulging, hard, and strong, and I push those legs apart. She moans my name again. Morris stay with me. And darkness slides around curling like smoke, licking at her from underneath. Come to me, kiss me. I leave her fragrant wetness behind and slide like a crouching animal up her body. Her legs, legs I had worshipped, had sketched on the computer over and over again. Legs I had seen walking so strongly while I lay pinned to that damn chair, that damn black chair. Now they are pinning me, they are round me squeezing my butt, pulling me inside.
For a moment there is only ecstasy. There is only me, pumping inside her and our mouths trying to devour each other, biting and pulling and calling out with overwhelming desire. Then the darkness surges again, I cry out against it, NO NOT NOW.
“When you’re ready.” She says.
And she grinds against me and out for a moment, and at the peak of the pleasure, my body sweating, looking down at her, I inhale sharply and the smoke that dark around us enters my mouth. What just happened, what is happening, this isn’t normal, where are you? My mind rushes out questions I don’t want answered. The darkness keeps breaking against the walls of my mind, pulling me in and out. The closer I get to completion the more forcefully it asserts itself, but I assert my will against it until something snaps.
Then I feel it like a wave through me. A sudden rush of power through my limbs, and then, starting at my groin, I start twisting. I can feel myself twisting and tugging, the muscles clenching and contracting against my will, the power of it starting to hurt her. But I’m so close. And it surges again, taking out senses one at time, blocking out my vision, then my sense of touch, then I’m deaf and looking at her and she looks scared, and I can see, somehow I can see my reflection in her eyes as my face twists and my limbs ripple. A nightmarish surge, only tremendously strong in those dark eyes painted with fear and then I know I’m hurting her. She is crying out, stop, stop stop, and I don’t know if I want to, but I become so scared at the thought and ….
She’s gone. Where did she go?
“Where did you go?” I cry out. Where are you, where are you and I take those legs and try to stand up and they are heavy - so incredibly heavy. And I look around in the dark and see a green light bursting at my eyes, and my body is Goddamn heavy, somebody has tied me down. I’m panicking. I can feel my heart fluttering in my chest, fluttering and it’s so hard to breath. And the green blinking light speeds up then turns red, it starts keening an alarming pulsation, and I can hear a sound in the hallway. And it comes to me, rushes upon me with the force of a wave, washing over my mind, bursting against my eyes, flooding them, and my throat tightens and I sob.
I am awake. I am awake. I am awake.
The home’s nurse peaks into my room.
“Mr. Ballentyne, are you ok?” She rushes in to find me tangled and straining in twisted sheets and blankets. I look down at my form lying tied to the bed. Tied incase of seizures of course. The blinking red light cools down, but she is checking my pulse and looking around. I am awake. My body isn’t heavy. My limbs aren’t heavy. I have muscular dystrophy, I am weak, and there is no cure.