Chapter 9 #2
A new episode starts, and I stare hopefully at Jane and Lisbon.
It’s not great that Jane’s first name is Patrick, but maybe that’s some kind of sign.
This nerve shit cannot wear off soon enough.
Seems unfair that a nerve block doesn’t seem to be blocking the pain and is only adding in weird symptoms. I’m hurting so hard and counting down the hours until I can take real meds.
At six a.m., I greedily pop a few prescribed pain pills and wait for relief.
And they fucking do nothing. Not a dent.
Later that afternoon, I make a call, get another prescription delivered, and take the new pills that night, but apparently, I’m a weird mutant who doesn’t do well with drugs most people crave because I’m still in tears.
Redheads are notorious for having difficult reactions to a million things, and now is another time that I curse my hair color, as maybe this is one of them.
I could probably sell what drugs I have on the streets and make a fortune.
My fridge is full of food, but I barely have an appetite. Still, out of grateful obligation, I heat up some noodles and dumplings because I know my body needs nourishment.
That night, out of desperation, I message a friend from college who recently became a nurse. She puts me on a good schedule of high doses of Advil and Tylenol, and I sleep with significantly less pain.
And I sleep for days, because why would I want to be awake? The rest of the week is a haze.
After I start to feel like a human again—just barely—I post on socials about my injury and about losing my dear friend Patrick.
It makes me tear up to search through photos and find so many of us together, all ones when we were blissfully unaware that these photos would be the last. And I post not because I have to, but because I know how kind my followers are and how much they actually care.
The very supportive comments are truly touching, and restaurants and my fellow social media food folks keep me fed with deliveries for days.
It’s too much, really, and I have to—or get to—share with my neighbors and my local unhoused friends.
Patrick’s funeral is in a few days, and I can’t go because I am not allowed to fly with my fucked-up arm. I go back to my secure place. My bed.
Staying snuggled up is the best option for now, I figure. Or maybe forever. So, I curl up and don’t move, grateful for my comfy mattress, pillow, and weighted comforter. I just don’t want to be awake. Not for any of this.
At some point, I force myself to get up.
It truly takes all my energy to shower, and I resentfully use a weird plastic wrap that keeps my cast dry while I sit on the tiled floor for twenty minutes and let the hot rain burn my skin.
It feels so good, and I want to live in this water sanctuary forever.
But I know I can’t. When I finally turn off the water and reach for a towel, I catch sight of myself in the mirror, and I waver, stopping myself against the sink.
My skin is bright pink, my eyes are bloodshot, and I smell.
Even though I have ten kinds of soaps and body washes, I forgot to use any of them.
I have no idea what day it is. But apparently, many have gone by because RobBob sends me videos from the celebration-of-life thing held at a bar, and I feel nothing.
Which I recognize is so odd. Throughout the beautiful speeches and even when his wife manages to sing, I can barely watch.
Or even react. In one video, RobBob reads—or tries to read—the piece I wrote commemorating Patrick, but the drunken guests are more interested in talking among themselves and asking the DJ for a song, as though they’re at a reunion or some shit.
Celebrating life is great and all, but I cannot do that right now.
I grip my comforter and roll over, loving the darkness.
Even though what we had was one and done and we exchanged numbers in what felt like a formality, I text Dave.
Me: Any chance you have that Airbnb free soon? Like, for a few weeks?
I’m not sure who invented goddamn text bubbles that let you know someone is typing, but I hate that sadist right now because there are bubbles and then no bubbles. A number of times.
This was a mistake. I took the vacation fling too far, and Dave is trying to figure out how to reply.
He’s hesitant to say anything, right? But he volunteered his Airbnb info, suggested that I might like it there.
Although that was more for wintertime. Belatedly, I recognize that it’s prime rental season and that he must be booked up.
Twenty minutes later, a text comes through.
Dave: Sure thing.
This seems curt, but I take him at his word because I need to.
Me: Thank you.
Yet I want to share that I need to run away, that my life is falling apart. That I’m falling apart. That I need to escape all the things. That I want to scream, and cry, and make everything that’s happening untrue.
He sends me the address, and then after a few exchanges, he vehemently refuses to let me pay for even a month. We can argue about that later, I decide.
Before I go to bed, I check on the cats.
Going back to the alley is giving me flashbacks to my wrist snapping, back to the scene of the crime.
After I set down food in multiple spots, I very, very carefully take a seat on the steps of the fire escape and watch as that little gray striped kitten shares food with a raccoon, eating side by side.
Slowly, I inch down the stairs, cupping my cast and sling in my good hand, and walk over and talk to him, using a silly high-pitched voice and baby words, as one does with cute animals.
And while he perks up, it’s then that I learn that I was wrong. His mom didn’t love him the most.
She hated him the most because an absolutely horrifying and feral howl comes from behind me, and I turn to see a cat who is clearly this stripy baby’s mother.
His spitting image, just larger. She is pissed I’m feeding him and caring for him, and I realize that while I think he’s tiny and cute, she sees him as the runt of the litter.
She doesn’t want me anywhere near him, and she’s been pushing him away from any food resources.
Her continued wails give me chills, so I back off, afraid that I could make this situation worse.
I crawl back up the stairs into bed, and RobBob and I voice message for hours, reminiscing, laughing, and sharing all things Patrick.
We are both alone and destroyed in our specific kind of loss.
We were each just a friend. Like, nobody feels the need to reach out to us, to check in, to do much of anything.
We share a unique and lonely kind of hell because people don’t understand that our worlds have also been shattered. Losing a child, a spouse, a parent? Those are at the top of the pain pyramid. But the lower hierarchies hurt in their own ways.
Katrina’s loss is tremendous—toppling ours by miles—so I almost feel guilty for hurting as much as I do. It doesn’t feel right to claim any grief when mine is nothing compared to hers. To the heartache she and Tommy will feel for years.
Granted, nothing feels right. I fling a pillow over my head and toss and turn until I am so worn out.
I know I won’t sleep until I send one text.
Me: That bald guy from The Princess Bride, Wallace Shawn. He was on SVU. (Can’t believe I know his name.)
My phone dings almost immediately with Dave’s reply.
Dave: Yes, that episode was also with Judd Hirsch. Didn’t take either of them as serious actors until then. Just brilliant.
I actually smile for the first time in days.
Fucking make me fall in love, Dave. Again.