Chapter 28 Mickey
Five weeks of rehab and the days have developed a rhythm that would bore anyone who isn’t living inside it.
The mornings begin with Jason. Push-ups climbing from twenty to thirty, the screaming in my triceps becoming familiar.
Transfer drills until my shoulders burn and my body knows the choreography well enough that Jason stops spotting and starts watching with his arms crossed.
The tilt table climbing degree by degree toward vertical.
Afternoons with Leah, learning the thousand small negotiations between my body and the world it used to move through without thinking.
Then the parallel bars. The first time Jason walks me to the bars and locks the gait belt around my waist, my arms are steady but my chest is tight.
I grip the bars and he says “when you’re ready” and I push.
For a second, I’m hanging, all arms, my weight suspended between two pieces of wood.
Then my feet are on the mat, my legs are underneath me and I’m standing for the first time since the hallway.
Eleven seconds. That’s how long I held the first time with my arms shaking, my blood pressure dropping, the room going gray at the edges. Eleven seconds of vertical and then Jason lowered me back into the chair.
The next day, fourteen seconds. Then twenty. Then thirty. My arms carry the weight and my legs participate, not holding me up or supporting, but present. The left more than the right. The left has always been ahead.
At every session break, Jason tests. The fingertip down my shin. The press on the sole of my foot. Try to move your toes. The signal goes out. Nothing answers.
Until one day it does.
Jason runs the pinwheel across my outer thigh, the left side, a patch of skin above my knee that has been silent since the bullet. The metal points trace a line across the skin and I feel it.
Not sharp. Not clear. More of a distant pressure. Like someone pressing a thumb through a heavy blanket. But it’s there. The signal traveled from my thigh through the damaged cord to my brain and my brain registered contact.
“There,” I say. “I felt that. I thought maybe I did before. Today I definitely felt it.”
Jason doesn’t smile. He doesn’t do celebration. Instead, his pen moves faster across the notepad.
“Is it consistent?” he asks.
“Past couple of days. Getting a little stronger.”
“That tracks with what we’re seeing. Sensory return doesn’t always come back in a straight line. Different pathways recover at different rates.”
“So that’s good?”
He glances up. “That’s very good. It means signals are getting through. That’s what we want.”
I don’t tell Benji. Not yet. You don’t report a break in the case until the evidence is confirmed. If it happens again tomorrow, I might tell him.
It happens again the next day. And the day after.
And the day after that. The left thigh above the knee, consistent pressure response every test. Then the left calf starts twitching, involuntary contractions that fire when Jason applies stimulation.
Not voluntary movement. The nerves doing it on their own.
The doctors order updated imaging. The swelling in my spinal cord is decreasing.
The neural pathways are showing activity that wasn’t on the initial scans.
Benji calls at six every night, his face filling my phone screen.
He tells me about clients and venues and Dante’s real estate obsession with 30A.
I tell him about rehab. Some nights we don’t talk about anything important.
The important thing is that we stay in contact.
The little things matter as much as the big ones.
Late one night, my phone rings. It’s Tex.
“How’s my best buddy doing?” I have him on speakerphone and his deep voice fills my room.
“Your buddy has been learning how to cook from a wheelchair and holding ninety degrees on the tilt table. How’s my bar?”
“Your bar is still standing. Sheila’s running the front. Stormy’s running the kitchen. I’m running the construction and trying not to kill the contractor, who is a man named Dale who moves at the speed of a glacier with a hangover.”
“How’s the upstairs coming?”
“That’s why I’m calling. The elevator is in, Mickey. Installed last week. Runs from the back hallway straight up to your space. I rode it fourteen times the first day. Stormy told me to stop but riding the elevator was fun and easier on my knees.”
“Did it pass inspection?”
“Sure did. Smooth and quiet. Big enough for your chair with room to spare. Stormy measured the turning radius in every direction. He got a tape measure and figured out how much room a wheelchair needs to make a full turn and designed every inch of that room around that number.”
“Tell him I said thank you.”
“The space is twelve hundred square feet with the bathroom closed off. The rest is open. The bathroom tile went in last week. One of Dale’s friends was supposed to do it and didn’t show up. So Stormy watched videos and did it himself. It looks better than professional.”
“Is there anything Stormy can’t do?”
“Not that I’ve found. Not as long as he has a YouTube video to watch. He’s nervous about you seeing everything. He was up at four this morning cleaning the elevator. Who cleans an elevator?”
“Stormy does.”
“Stormy cleans when he’s anxious. That’s why the Roadhouse is the cleanest bar in Bay County now.” He pauses and sighs. “One more thing. The space is going to be your space when you get here. Whatever happens in your life, that room fits around it. You understand what I’m saying?”
He’s leaving a door open without naming who the door is for. “I understand,” I say.
“So, how is the rehab going?” he asks.
“I did twenty wheelchair push-ups today. Jason says my arms are ahead of schedule.”
“Twenty? I can’t do twenty regular push-ups and I have working legs. Your arms are going to be bigger than mine and that’s a threat to my identity.”
“Your identity is fine, Tex. Nobody’s taking your title.”
“I don’t know about that. My title is Big Tex. If your arms get bigger than mine, I’ll have to change the sign to Medium Tex or Average Tex. Or maybe even Tex Who Used to Be the Biggest Man in The Building but His Best Friend Got Jacked in Rehab. That’s too much to fit on a blinking neon sign.”
“It could fit, but it would be a very long sign.”
“The sign budget is already stretched. Sheila wants me to add “And Grill” to “Big Tex’s Roadhouse” because she says people don’t know we serve food.
I said the four-hundred-pound smoker in the parking lot is a clue.
She said “not everyone knows what a smoker is, Tex.” I said “it’s a giant metal box that smokes.
” Who doesn’t know what a smoker is? Before I go, I need to tell you one last thing. About the seagull.”
“Alright, go ahead,” I tell him. “I’ve got nothing but time.”
“There’s a seagull that’s been coming to the deck every day around lunch.
Sits on the railing by table six and watches people eat.
Today, lunch rush, guy orders a basket of fries.
Sits down at table six. Makes the fatal error of getting up to grab napkins.
He’s gone maybe fifteen seconds. The seagull drops off the railing, lands on the table, and slurps down half the basket before the guy gets four napkins out of the holder. ”
“What did he expect? Everyone knows you can’t leave food unattended on the Gulf.”
“Right? So the guy comes back and the seagull is not next to the fries, Mickey. The seagull is in the fries. Feet in the basket. Standing there like it planted a flag. So the guy goes up to Sheila at the bar. He says, ‘A bird ate my fries. I want a refund.’”
“And Sheila, without looking up from the glass she’s polishing, says, ‘I’m not refunding you for a bird’s lunch.’”
“The man says, ‘The bird ate my food.’”
“And Sheila doesn’t say another word. She just points to the signs that Stormy put up everywhere on the deck that say, ‘Don’t feed the seagulls or leave food unattended. They’re aggressive.’”
I laugh, picturing Sheila’s face.
“The seagull came back an hour later and Sheila went over to it, cooing ‘hey baby, did you like the fries?’ Between me and you, I’m beginning to suspect Sheila and the seagull have some kind of a racket going. Anyway, got to run. Stormy is waving his dishrag at me from across the bar.”
Click.
He’s gone. Hearing Tex’s voice makes me homesick. It can’t be too much longer now though. A few more weeks and I’ll be back home. Stormy and Tex in the building. Sheila every day. Mom and Dad close enough to visit.
The next morning, Jason pulls up a chair after our session instead of standing. “Your progress has been ahead of schedule,” he says. “The sensation return, the motor response, the standing tolerance. I’m putting in the discharge evaluation request for you on Monday.”
“Discharge? Are you serious? How soon?”
“Ten days. Maybe twelve. Depends on the evaluation.”
“And then what?”
“Outpatient PT three times a week. I’m sending your file to a therapist in Panama City named Steve Hill. He specializes in spinal cord injuries and he’s not going to let you slack.”
“I don’t slack.”
“I know. That’s why I’m sending you to Steve. He’s the only therapist I trust not to get steamrolled by a cop.”
Ten days.
I text Benji after Jason leaves.
Mickey: Jason says I might be discharged in ten days. He’s putting in the evaluation request Monday.
His response comes immediately.
Benji: TEN DAYS!!! OMG!! Ten days until you’re home!!! Ten days. I can’t believe it! I’m in tears. I’m so happy for you!!
Mickey: Me too. Will I still see you before I go?
Benji: YES!! Whatever it takes, I’ll be there before you go.
Ten days until I’m finally home.
My phone buzzes later. It’s after eleven at night and my phone lights up on the pillow beside my head.
Benji: You awake?
I should be asleep. Jason has me on the bars at seven and the smart move is to close my eyes and let the day go. But the screen says Benji and my thumb is already moving.