Sputterpub's Blog

A big part of the problem was Jeannie herself. Her head. They had to tread carefully around this one. The report did mention her aneurysm; it says the accident was definitely the direct cause of the concussion, but all parties agree that the injury was greatly exacerbated by the time bomb in her brain.

What they didn’t mention they didn’t know. But I’ve worked with Jeannie for six years. The woman has phobias and doesn’t hesitate to describe them. She won’t ride in the first or last car of a train. Whenever she gets a cold she accuses the building of making her sick. She’s so uncomfortable alone that we always try to arrange to have someone with her. She would have tried to insist on a low office except she’s convinced that she’s vulnerable to environmental insults if she works below the 6^th floor. And she’d take the stairs if that were feasible, but we settled on 14 and that’s a thigh burn.

So Jeannie is very nervous in the elevator. And that time she was riding alone. I’m sure her tension contributed to the concussion which triggered her aneurysm which caused the brain bleed which has her in the ICU, even now.

Maybe I shouldn’t describe her in present tense? Not that she’s terminal – in fact, she’s amazingly conscious and now expected to recover – but maybe she has changed.

It’s ironic that Carl can’t see her. But only family gets into ICU, and he’s not that yet. Now maybe never.

He doesn’t take to adversity. Many people can become irked to the point of tantrums by small things but rise to the occasion in a real catastrophe. My husband is just the opposite. He seems so easy going: all sorts of minor irritations flow past him like water off a duck’s back. But bring on a crisis and he freezes. He was stranded on the bridge during the Loma Prieta quake. Other people walked on, some even climbing past the break. Carl stayed put and waited for rescue that never came. Hours later he and a few other sad cases finally shambled back to First Street and to finding their ways across the bay. Or when our son was injured, up at the river, by a stick-batted rock … why, I had to actually argue with Carl about the trip to the hospital. There was a probable concussion and lots of dirty water, but daddy wanted to just bandage it and watch.

No. Carl isn’t good when the chips are down. Unless Jeannie makes a fast complete recovery, I won’t bet on them going any distance any more.

Carl’s more of a good-time guy. The first year with him was the most fun in my life. We laughed all the time. After he left his wife he moved into my apartment. I’ll never forget when my neighbor Linda mentioned how jealous she was of me. I asked why. “Oh, your love affair,” she said. “Carl?” I replied. “Not him: you two. I have to tell you, I often hear you through the wall. I mean, our bedrooms are this close,” she explained, holding up the index and second fingers of her right hand, pushing them hard together. “I’ve heard you two laughing as and after you made love. God, you sounded happy …”

That was the beginning. Sweet times. Except I remember them now and the shades are different. Then we were dealing with Barbara, his crazy soon-to-be-ex-wife. Fielding her emotional phone calls at odd hours. Ultimately getting a restraining order to make her leave us alone.

Now I’m the soon-to-be-ex-wife. I’ll admit I’ve been confused. I’ve made a few calls. My timing probably could have been better. But to get a restraining order against me? When I don’t even know where they live? Carl won’t tell the kids his address or new phone number, ostensibly because they might give it to me, the harridan, the terror of their pure love. Give me a break.

Because I’m finally giving Barbara one. Suddenly I’m sure she was never crazy. Now I’m sure the problem was Carl.

I’m sorry about Jeannie. Not in apology, but in sympathy. Maybe my key had something to do with the accident, but I’m sure I didn’t mean it.

I’m sorry, in apology, about Barbara. I’m ashamed now of how we mocked her. How we even used her distress as an aphrodisiac. For that loving laughter that Linda overheard? That laughter was mean.

If I prayed I would do one for Jeannie. But the longest prayer would be for myself. It’s awful and sorry and trite that I had to be the mocked wife, the wronged woman, to see my own cruelty.

I’m toting around a lot of baggage. I may as well carry more keys.

It was a freak accident. It never should have happened. The forensic people have finished their work now, and they say it took a perfect conjunction of unlikely events. But the fact is, an office elevator fell last month. And Jeannie is still on life support because of it.

I swear it’s dust. It’s always dust. There may only be one God, but dust motes are His messengers. Every time there’s a problem with machinery nowadays, it seems to boil down to an intermittent glitch somewhere very small. It’s got to be dust. Some mote lodging somewhere, momentarily blocking or constricting or otherwise affecting. That’s when they actually manage to find the problem. Most of the time the repairpeople just aim blame at other involved parties (they point at each other so much it’s called the Digital Age) and replace whole modules. It’s cheaper to do that than to find the problem and fix it.

Except maybe it isn’t dust.

My problem, no matter what the experts say, is I think I may have caused the accident. I rode the elevator that morning. And I dropped my key down the shaft.

That wouldn’t have happened if I’d been more awake. But I was suffering from a lot of sleep deprivation right then. And it wouldn’t have happened if I carried a collection of keys, like most people. But I love to travel light. I hate to bring along anything that turns out to be unnecessary. It really bothers me to return from a trip with something unworn in my luggage. Or to live in a house with a formal dining room or other unused space. So I carry single keys on clips when I can. And since the same key that opens our office door will give me access to the ladies’ room, that Schlage lives alone in my bag.

I was distracted as I exited the elevator that day. I’ll admit it – I was indulging in vengeance fantasies. I tell myself all the time that the best revenge is living well – I chant that as I book a facial or a massage (and would chant it as I make an appointment for hair color, except right now I don’t have my hair colored, because my friends advise me to look my age in court, and my attorney doesn’t disagree). I try to just concentrate on me and ignore Carl and Jeannie, but I’m human. I slip up.

And I was tired! I was running the script where his ED returns, and Jeannie gets to deal with the drag of trying to help, and Carl finds someone even younger. I was thinking some version of that when I stepped off the elevator, and I wasn’t even aware of it when my hand relaxed. My key fell between the edge of the elevator and the 14^th floor, flew like an arrowhead, downward between the strips of corrugated brass at my feet.

I remember feeling chagrined. I even thought about that word. What a fluky thing; I probably couldn’t have dropped the key so it fell that way if I tried all day. It was like those sneakers you see flung over a power line, hanging by their twinning laces and twisting in the wind; those dangling shoes are ugly, but you can’t help admiring the skill or tenacity that managed to hang them.

I wasn’t particularly inconvenienced by dropping my key. The office was already open and there were spares inside. But I thought fleetingly when it happened, and more elaborately since, about that plummeting metal piece. Did it slice through something vital at the bottom of the shaft? Did it manage to land without doing damage but then act as a metallic bridge between signals that never should have crossed?

The report said there was evidence of breakage and suggestion of a short, but there really was too much damage to be sure. They know the spring failed in a spot. And they acknowledged that the elevator was long past required inspection. But that’s true of nearly every elevator in the financial district; go ahead: take a look at the framed card the next time you ride one.

(continued/concluded tomorrow)

I saw him last night. He was dressed up, in his way. Wearing his crow and even an eye patch. It always amuses me when he wears the patch. Gives him a rakish look. Implies that he can see something. And maybe he can.

We’ve been talking, recently, about skydiving. I’ve been trying to describe the free feeling in free fall, and Ty has been telling me the birds’ version of it. But when I explained the body high, from having your weight hang unsupported by your skeleton, that seemed to get him. I guess the birds don’t feel that.

Last night when I met him, he wanted more discussion about diving. But I was pretty obsessed then about Chris. Sure, objectively I hear everything my mother says about fish in the sea and how I’m only nineteen and have my whole life ahead of me, but I know (and I guess Ty does too) how much the relationship means to me. I want it to work, and I was thinking I might have blown it.

I walked with Ty and he heard me reproach myself for not learning. That launched him into a talk about creatures only learning what they have to learn. He said that cliff-dwelling birds don’t even learn to recognize their offspring; as long as they can find their nest they can safely assume it contains their chicks. On the other hand penguins raise their chicks in flocks. So they have to learn to recognize their babies or they’ll waste their energy feeding creatures who aren’t theirs.

I didn’t have much patience last night. I told Ty it would be weird not to know your own kid, but that didn’t help me solve my Chris problems. Then I watched him talk to the crow. Ty didn’t actually speak to the bird but there did appear to be something going on, bird-to-blind man.

The crow voiced sounds for a minute or so into Ty’s ear. And then Ty told me with a smile that Chris and I would be all right. In fact, he said he couldn’t give me specifics, but he saw Chris in my life for the rest of my life, and he understood that I would be satisfied with the nature of the relationship.

Sweet. His words really did make me feel better. A kernel of warm happy energy opened in the core of me, flowered out, and the next thing I knew I was blurting an invitation to dive. The words were out before I understood them. I almost laughed. But he quickly accepted, and I thought: why not? I do all the work in a tandem jump …

We’re going to the drop zone in a few hours. Ty is meeting me at the park. We may have to clean him up a little first. I can almost see us on our way, my car ringed by escort birds. But I called Chris this morning. We talked while I watched Barking Man pass by the front of my place. We’re getting together tonight. I think things are going to be okay.

Ty tells me all birds talk and no birds talk. He says they have separate valves on their bronchiae, so they can warble two simultaneous but different wavering tones, and those two tones fool our brains into hearing words. It’s called “sine wave speech.” Kind of like the way we can hear muted conversations in the rush of white water. But more isolated and refined.

All birds can do it. Mynahs and parrots are naturals, but mynahs are cousins to common starlings: any bird can do it if he tries. And I guess, around Ty, birds try.

He says he can understand them. I assume his blindness makes him pay more attention to what comes in his ears. But I don’t know: sometimes I think maybe he reads their minds. No. He says he hears them.

They tell him the future. Advise him about love and war and winds and storms and even coming earthquakes. And sometimes, he says, they foretell the effect of a spiritual adventure; that’s why they’re known to flock around certain holy folks – there they gather information, and process it to predict.

Ty has amazing stories. His own life has been three. He says he started life male, switched to female in his late teens, and flipped back to manhood seven years after that. I’m not at all clear on what he means by that. I don’t think surgery was involved but Ty just won’t provide details. If I ask he changes the subject, usually to something about birds.

That’s how I learned that all bird embryos start out male. Ty didn’t answer my surgery question but informed me that all other animals start babies as females, and something has to happen to the little bud to make it male. It’s the opposite with birds. The default is boy.

Or another time, when I poked into the sex change stuff, Ty explained how a bird can dive at a speed faster than your basic falling object. He got me that time. I forgot my question because I’m into physics and skydiving. I may major in physics. It all depends on how the quantum class goes next semester. No matter what, I’ll keep jumping. Lately my life seems to be time spent between jumps. It makes my mother nervous, even though she knows I’m safer jumping that driving to the drop zone.

Anyway, to hear Ty tell it, he’s been three versions of himself. He’s the only person who’s ever had sex as both a man and a woman. He says it’s way better for women.

I was surprised to hear that. It runs counter to common understanding. Also seems to make less evolutionary sense. But I’m not sure Ty believes in evolution. He talks about gods a lot.

He even has three stories about his blindness.

The thing you learn when you integrate with the disabled is that it’s not cool to ask them about their actual handicap. Neither the extent nor the origin. So when a disabled person volunteers such information, you tend to pay attention.

The first time he told me, he said he was handicapped by the gods because he knew too much. He could foretell, so they wouldn’t let him see. He said he was stricken by disease and when he recovered he was blind. Untreated measles? I got the impression then that he was a kid when he lost his sight.

Another time he told a long story about witnessing a goddess bathing. I think he was drunk, and I only heard the tale once, but it was a rather vivid and elaborate account. I don’t doubt Ty saw someone naked. Maybe there were painful consequences. He must have been at least a teen.

The best version, the one I’ve heard most often, is the story about sexual gratification. Because of his background, Ty is in the unique position to state whether the pleasure potential is greater for women or for men. According to him, when he tendered his conclusion for women, the women were not pleased. They had been maintaining that men had more fun. Their displeasure resulted in his loss of sight. He calls the disputants gods. I wonder if, really, they were doctors.

(to be concluded tomorrow)

Crazy people walk here. Not dangerous-crazy, though some are clearly off their meds. More like bizarre-crazy. I looked up “bizarre.” My dictionary says it comes from the Basque “bizar,” for “beard.”

I live in Berkeley. I was born and raised here, and now I attend Cal. We call “here” the open ward.

We have Barking Man. He’s got some sort of palsy and he seems to walk for therapy. He also barks. He knows where the dogs live. He tries to provoke them by calling their names and barking when he passes. He usually succeeds. The surprise is when I see him drive by in his Mercedes coupe. I wonder if he bought it with settlement funds from some accident that crippled him.

There’s Praying Woman. She wanders the streets with a vacant look on her face. She kneels and genuflects on the sidewalk of most street corners.

Friendly Guy always wears a red crash helmet. I’ve never seen him fall or even wobble, but he’s padded as if he’s had some concussions. He likes to say hi to everyone.

Purple Woman is so color-coordinated that even the tennis balls that pad the rear legs of her walker are lavender.

But the true bizarre, the Bearded One, is Ty. He walks with a bird on his shoulder, and he refers to himself as a Scalawag. He doesn’t have a pegleg, but he’s blind.

“Arg” is what Ty often says. I’ve heard him refer to cops as Scurvy Rats. But privately he’s told me that rats don’t get scurvy. Only people and guinea pigs and monkeys lack the ability to synthesize C for themselves.

I started to know Ty a year ago. I was walking a lot then, at night. It made my mother uncomfortable, but I was too restless at home. I kept passing Ty. It doesn’t matter to him whether it’s day or night when he wants to walk.

One of the things about growing up in Berkeley is how accustomed you get to disabled people. The Cal campus was the first accessible one in the country, and the Bay Area is a good place to live. Most of the disabled students who come here stay. So from an early age, we’re used to seeing chair-riders and blind folks and silent groups with vivacious hands.

I was entering my “evolved” phase. That’s when I started to make a point of politeness. I tried to be gentle in voice and body language. When I caught myself with my arms crossed in front of my chest I’d turn it into a self-hug. I tried to notice. Nodded or said hi to everyone I passed. Acknowledged them and tried to be acknowledged. So I said hello to Ty.

It took a few times before he talked to me. At first he may have been too surprised to speak. I don’t think blind people in general or Ty in particular are often greeted by passers. But after a little he was hi-ing back at me, or evenin’-ing, and soon we progressed to conversing in short sentences.

It got to where I saw him often. He knew my step the way a dog knows a car engine. Within a month we sometimes walked together.

Like I said, Ty wears a bird on his shoulder. You’d expect it to be a parrot in keeping with the pirate theme, but the birds are not his pets. He insists he doesn’t own them. They’re locals.

Most days he wears a pigeon. On occasion it’s a seagull. And rarely during the days but quite often at night, a crow rides next to his left ear. I know there’s more than one pigeon. I never get close enough to the others to be sure.

(continued on Wednesday)

“The thing is,” Denise would start her speeches to Dinah, forefinger aimed like a pistol shaking with her vehemence. “The thing is …” She stabbed the air with those words. She’d be bouncing naked on her twin bed, on her side of the room, hair flapping, breasts swaying, belly shaking, angrily declaiming over some offense of Moe’s, threatening often to kill herself, to throw that unclad body from the window at her side, even though they were only three floors up and the sliding glass could be opened maybe four inches.

It seemed like the only time she spent in the dorm room was after a fight with Moe. She’d storm in, heated flushed indignant at least, and pull off clothes she’d worn too long. She had fine-pored olive skin and her big breasts hung in U’s. Her aureoles were brown. She was slim but her belly draped a bit over her crotch, wiggled oddly when she then climbed to bounce on her small toes on her small bed, O-eyed and O-mouthed with that finger out: “The thing is …”

Dinah knew Moe hit Denise sometimes, and she concluded that Denise asked for it. It was like a dance they ran and each knew the steps; the reward was some kind of fabulous makeup sex, busy mouths locked on each other’s loins for hours, hours, that Scott and Dinah couldn’t even imagine well enough to mock.

Dinah saw it once from the other side. Instead of being in the dorm room studying when Denise tromped in, she was at the fight when Denise stomped out. They were all at Moe’s and Kaseem’s place. Scott and Kaseem were playing a long game of chess and Dinah was reading when sounds of strong argument began in the bedroom. Epithets and drawer slamming.

Soon they were in view. Denise was leaving, Moe was following yelling, she was turning screaming, and he was reaching for her at the door, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her a little to emphasize his words. It was scary, so sudden, but then they saw Denise was moving under those hand-covered shoulders, resonating like a tuning fork, amplifying the sway till her back was smacking the door. Like pushing the Ouija piece. They witnessed her helping the passion look good before she tore out of there for the privacy of her bouncing bed.

They saw all that, the choreography, but they somehow never realized that the sags and shadows of Denise’s body signified more than harmless ventures into sex. Why that girl had birthed at least one baby, and Dinah never knew it till recently, gazing at her own used belly, thinking back.

West Virginia. Denise didn’t go back much. She and Moe didn’t make it of course; neither did Scott and Dinah. They lost touch after that year, but Dinah heard tidings of Denise last month.

She married a fireman. They moved to Nevada. Denise settled down in the Sparks area and raised four kids.

Dinah got the news from Philip’s wife Rita, after connecting with them on the Internet. Philip seems successful: a tenured math professor well-married to a self-employed businesswoman. Through them she learned about Kaseem’s disability and Moe’s death in a rock climbing mishap. They told her no one knew where Scott was. They forwarded some e-mails from Denise.

Her letters were creepy. It sounded like she had gone completely over to the other side. A regular church participant. Almost fundamentalist. Profoundly anti-choice. So consistent about denying her past deviance that she almost believed the rewrite herself. It was easy to resist re-acquainting with her.

The view of Denise is much more satisfying from here, decades backward, noticing clues about histories that nobody thought of then. Dinah can still see Moe edged forward on his chair, fired by argument, punctuating his opinions with sharp drags on the unfiltered cigarette between his orange fingertips. She’ll never erase the vision of wide-eyed Denise in vehement, naked, chaotic bounce. They were all young then, weary and excitable, coiled in abusive ballet. It amazes Dinah, really, to note how little they noticed.