Life at 8 mph

by Peter Bowling Anderson

  There was no way out except in, so I took my softball of toilet paper and did my duty. Between the second and third wipe, the room started spinning and I had to put my left hand on the wall to prop myself up. I didn’t think I was going to make it. If we waited long enough, the night attendant would arrive and she could finish. Of course, that was in three hours. Maybe Richard would fall asleep up there and we could just ride it out.

  I shook my head and refocused on the job at hand. I needed to finish and put him back in his chair. It wasn’t safe or comfortable for him to be suspended in the air this long. I wiped two more times before the mission was successful, and then dressed and returned Richard to his chair as expeditiously as I could.

  Then I threw away my gloves and mask, and scrubbed my hands for three minutes.

  Richard thanked me and smiled, and asked, “Did you survive?”

  I wasn’t sure. I was soaked with sweat and felt like I needed a shot of whiskey. That was more physical contact than I had with myself. I didn’t think I could ever get used to it, and I was concerned that it would become a regular occurrence now that we’d tamed the elephant. To this point, working for Richard wasn’t as bad as I’d projected and I didn’t dread going to work. But if we started taking daily trips to the bathroom, I thought I might have to quit.

  Of course, I didn’t say this. It wasn’t fair or right to present Richard with the ultimatum, Stop pooping or else. I felt pretty evil just thinking it. Yet it was my attitude and I didn’t know if it would change. I hoped time would take care of the matter, either allowing me to grow used to accommodating all of Richard’s needs or spacing enough distance between crises so it wasn’t overwhelming. I still felt like I wasn’t exactly cut out for this line of work. But Richard liked me, and as hard as I resisted, he was wiggling his way into my world full-time. I wasn’t even looking for other jobs anymore. He took up most of my week, and besides, East Gourmet Buffet had just started serving chocolate mousse on their dessert table. Time was already paying dividends.

  “Yeah, I made it,” I answered Richard, with a thumbs-up for reassurance.

  “You wanna switch to mornings?” he joked with an even wider grin.

  I waved my hand and shook my head. “No, thank you.” I was on the right shift, for more reasons than I could’ve guessed.

  Chapter Four

  Protector of the Disheartened

  The next month with Richard felt more like Love Connection than tutoring. In fact, as our online search progressed, it became quite clear that Richard was far more interested in hunting for possible matches than studying hermeneutics. I couldn’t blame him. It was a lot more exciting trying to find the love of his life than reading textbooks. Richard had a program on his computer that read books for him while highlighting each word (it helped reinforce the text to people with reading and writing difficulties to hear it read aloud while seeing the words), and after two hours of listening to that droning automated voice (I called it Computer Lady), I was ready for us to troll dating sites, too.

  Richard picked a Christian site and signed up for a year. He was in it to win it. After two weeks, he made a friend and they “chatted” a bit, but nothing serious. Then Della entered our lives. She’d been on the site for only a few days, yet she appreciated Richard’s testimony we’d posted, and she wrote him a letter. Upon finishing reading her letter, Richard looked at me and said, “She’s the one.” I assumed he meant the one with whom he wanted to focus communicating, but he had other ideas. He was already planning their lives together.

  Della lived in Tennessee, and she really didn’t think it’d go anywhere, primarily because of the distance between them. Yet she still enjoyed talking with Richard. At least once a week, he called her in the evening using an operator at the relay service center who helped translate anything Della couldn’t understand. Richard said he didn’t want to take up our time during the day with personal calls, though I had a hunch it had more to do with his self-consciousness, which I completely understood. One of the scariest things I’d ever attempted was to call a girl, so whatever he needed to do for confidence was totally justified.

  We wrote Della letters a few times a week, and one day while dictating, Richard said, “You should do this.”

  “Huh? Do what?” I replied, though I suspected what he was talking about.

  He just pointed at the computer screen and smiled.

  “Build computers?” I joked, stalling. “I don’t think I’d have the time.”

  He touched his joystick to make his chair recline all the way back, and he said, “Pull me up, funny man.” Every now and then, Richard needed to be readjusted in his chair because he gradually slid out of a comfortable position throughout the day. I jumped up, happy to help steer us away from the previous topic. After I unsnapped his ankle bands, I stood behind his head, which was down around my waist, and slipped my hands under his armpits. Then on the count of three, I pulled him toward me, allowing him to sit straighter and higher. He raised his chair back upright, and said, “Thanks.” As I was fastening his ankle bands, he said, “Well?”

  “What?” I asked, unable to play dumb without grinning.

  He started laughing and said, “Why don’t you try it, too?” He waited a beat and added, “We could double date.” Harder laughing accompanied by inevitable coughing ensued.

  I sat down and shook my head. “What makes you think I’m looking for a serious relationship? You think I’m ready for that?” I was a mostly unsuccessful writer and musician, had lived in nine states in the past fifteen years, didn’t even have my own place, and was now making part-time pay. I wasn’t exactly Prince Charming material.

  “You’ve seen my car, and that’s as good as it gets.”

  Richard pulled closer to me, as I braced for impact. I was sure a hug was coming. But he merely said, “You think that’s what girls care about?”

  I nodded, and replied, “Uh, yeah, I think it’s crossed their minds. I know it has mine.”

  “What about somebody nice to talk to?” When I didn’t respond, he pointed his crooked right index finger at me and said, “Like you.”

  I smiled, knowing his heart was in the right place. I’d actually come to expect it from him. He rarely missed an opportunity to encourage me. I wondered if it was a reaction to a lifetime of neglect and mistreatment, but Richard couldn’t stand seeing me, or anyone, disheartened. He was all too familiar with the feeling and now sat blocking the entrance. I found it incredibly ironic that a man slighted so much in life was one of the biggest encouragers I’d met. He wasn’t immune to melancholy, as his meltdown over being single demonstrated, yet he didn’t overindulge in self-pity. Feeling sorry for himself was a bottomless hole Richard couldn’t afford to dig, because there was no one else to help shovel him out.

  Yet despite his good intentions, I thought his position on this particular matter was overly optimistic. I said, “That’s important, too, but the rest of the package matters.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few moments, a habit of his I’d come to admire. He tried to process everything before unleashing a comment, something most embraced as critical yet few actually did. His face grew more serious, and the advice he picked was something my mother used to say when I was growing up: “Don’t borrow trouble.” I smiled upon hearing these familiar words, and he added, “Let the girl make up her own mind.”

  It was hard to argue with that, yet it was also difficult to recognize self-worth when tallied in public. The fruits of my labor didn’t add up to an attractive portfolio measured against the world’s paradigm of success, and the road less traveled I’d taken so eagerly and confidently years ago didn’t appear to offer any remaining on-ramps to the freeway. It felt like I was on a moving walkway at the airport unable to slow down or change direction; I could only wave like a tourist to all that had once blocked the view. It was a sobering, frightening realization, one I’d known f
or some time yet kept at arm’s length. I felt helpless, angry, and pretty much alone.

  When I looked over at Richard, he was smiling like we were the two luckiest blokes alive. “Am I right?” he asked exuberantly. “Huh?”

  Mr. Persistent, protector of the disheartened. I shook my head and finally cracked a smile. It was hard to argue with him.

  R

  The road less traveled hadn’t begun with Bryan, but he definitely helped gather snacks for the road trip. We’d known each other for fourteen years, going back to a chance encounter at the same seminary he now attended. I’d just started classes, having graduated college a few months before with the intent of becoming Ernest Hemingway. I was one of the only students with long hair, which peaked Bryan’s interest since he was a fan of alternative music and thought I might be, too (most of our schoolmates at the conservative seminary weren’t big into grunge). That was actually his greeting when he’d first spotted me in the school library: “Hey, do you like alternative music?” I glanced behind me hoping to find the person he was addressing. I was on my own.

  Bryan was six feet, four inches and thin, with blond hair and a small hoop earring in his left ear. Was he accusing me of violating the school’s music policy? He wasn’t dressed like campus security. Surely, they didn’t allow earrings on the force. Was he attempting to make a citizen’s arrest? I considered answering in Spanish to throw him off my scent, but I only remembered a few words and No sé would get me only so far. If he spoke Spanish, my cover was blown. Finally, I shrugged and answered, “I guess.”

  That was all he needed. With his foot in the door, Bryan provided me with a complete rundown of his favorite alternative bands, songs, videos, and magazines. He described his acoustic and electric guitars, amp, and preferred tuner. Occasionally, I inserted a “Cool” or “Me, too” to keep the spotlight on him while I picked the best excuse to disappear.

  He seemed like a nice guy, just talkative, and I wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Ever. I despised talking on the phone and avoided interaction in person. Sometimes, I played a game of how long I could go without speaking to anyone. Three weeks was my record. I was a bit anti-social.

  However, Bryan, like Richard, was persistent and remained undeterred despite my abrupt exit from the library. Over the next three weeks, he chased me down on campus numerous times until I ran out of bushes to duck behind. He was like a bulldog that wouldn’t let go. Eventually, I gave in and we became friends. But he wasn’t done with me yet.

  He liked a few of the essays I’d written and he kept hounding me to try writing songs. He wanted to jam. I was reluctant since I couldn’t play an instrument and didn’t care much for poetry, but the bulldog was dug in for the long haul.

  The result was I took up piano and guitar, we started a band with my roommate, Tripp, and after I graduated, we all moved to Atlanta where Tripp’s family lived. Tripp’s childhood friend, Winn, became our singer, and a seasoned musician named Scott answered our ad in the paper for a drummer. For the next four years, we played gigs in the Southeast, recorded demos, printed band shirts, rehearsed tirelessly, worked part-time jobs, scraped pennies together for rent, ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches, sweated countless hours in our van, and then broke up. The band had run its course, or maybe we needed a break. Unfortunately, endings often masqueraded as pauses. Tripp got married, I moved to South Florida to live with old friends, and Bryan went off the deep end. The band ended right around the time Bryan’s relationship with his girlfriend fizzled and his side business installing mini-blinds sank him deeper in debt than he already was. The coalescence of these blows was more than his chemical imbalance could stand, so he turned to a brief life of crime for a quick score to fix all.

  Larceny wasn’t exactly a perfect fit for Bryan.

  One night, he decided to break into the Piggly Wiggly, yet it wasn’t until he climbed on top of the store with his bag of tools that he realized he’d forgotten his huge crowbar down in his truck. He sat on the roof berating himself for a minute or two before scampering all the way back down to retrieve it. Later, he stole a tractor-trailer with the intent of filling it with ATMs he collected around town, but unfortunately, he rear-ended a car and then couldn’t crack open any of the ATMs. Finally, he decided to flee to Miami in hopes of networking with the Mafia. When those coveted doors failed to open, he ran out of money and decided to fish for food while crashing on the beach. But he was arrested stealing bait before he could live off the land, halting his crime spree.

  Bryan managed to avoid major jail time and moved back in with his folks in Fort Worth. We didn’t see each other for three years until I had the notion to set a novel on the border to Mexico and picked tiny Port Isabel, just across the bridge from South Padre Island, as home. Bryan was up for a new adventure and moved down, and for the first year or so, life was fairly uneventful. He was on medication, worked at a dive shop, and seemed to be enjoying himself. Yet, once again, he started a side business, this time in web design, and fell so far behind in orders that he panicked and disappeared. When three days passed without word, I feared he was either arrested or dead. The next morning, a call from the police station in Brownsville confirmed my suspicions—he’d been arrested for shoplifting. When I bailed him out, he didn’t say a word on the ride back to our apartment. Finally, I asked, “What’d you steal?”

  “Software,” he mumbled, looking out the window as I pulled into our parking lot. “From Best Buy.”

  “What’d you need that for?”

  At first, he didn’t answer. Then as I parked, he said, “I didn’t, not really. I just wanted it. So I took it.” I tried to pick the response that might set him off the least, but before I chose, he muttered, “Wanted to be in control for once.”

  And that was it. He didn’t say much more the rest of the week as we packed and headed back to his parents’ house in Fort Worth. I felt guilty dumping him on his folks as I hightailed it out of town. I didn’t know what else to do for him, and I really didn’t want him to die on my watch. He needed more help than I could give, or at least that was what I told myself as I left.

  I didn’t see Bryan again for five years, but I often thought about what he said regarding being in control. It seemed his extreme mood swings, ADHD, depression, and major insecurities left him stuck on an endless roller coaster of emotions. He was convinced he was powerless over his own life, like he had no say in his future, dreams, career, success, romance, or even feelings. It was all up to somebody else, or nobody, but certainly not him. Whether he was adrift forsaken by God or simply incapable of steering straight on his own, he didn’t know and increasingly didn’t care. The only thing he knew for certain was he was a screw-up, a failure, and that he “sucked at life,” as he’d declared more than once. He had command over nothing, and the harder he grasped at what he most wanted, the more he fumbled it. So he stole things, anything, just to get his hands on something tangible that was his and couldn’t be lost at the last second. He stole to accomplish a feat, to see it through to the end without giving in.

  Of course, shoplifting guaranteed his self-fulfilling prophecy that he’d never emerge from the undertow. Ironically, the liberating sense of command flooding his system as he safely exited a grocery store with power bars and cookies stuffed down his extra baggy pants was the most potent form of sabotage he employed. Even in his rebellion against himself, he couldn’t pronounce victory without strings attached.

  Perhaps after years of being the victim, Bryan depended on the role as his identity and alibi for not holding it together. If he wasn’t emotionally unstable, where was the irrefutable progress that could be proudly displayed to relatives at holiday meals? Where was the normalcy, the dependability? His role built a trapdoor for him to slip through just when a corner might be turned.

  As much as he worried and exhausted me, I still missed Bryan and kept in touch with him over the next five years. I also missed playing music in
a band, having merely written and recorded songs on my own since we all went our separate ways in Atlanta. When I told Bryan I was interested in forming a new group, he immediately started making lists of potential names, clubs we could play in Dallas, and avenues for finding a singer. He actually sounded a lot like he did when we’d first met in the school library.

  It didn’t take him long to track down Manya, an incredible singer in Dallas who was open to practicing with us. I was living in Raleigh at the time working odd jobs while writing another book and more songs. I’d moved around a lot since Atlanta, writing and submitting work while collecting a duffel bag full of rejection letters. Yet when I heard the recordings Bryan sent, I knew it was time to pack once more.

  Six weeks later, I knocked on Richard’s front door.

  Chapter Five

  GO

  After five months with Richard, I was working forty hours a week while getting paid for twenty-five. Things weren’t perfect, but they were slowly leveling out. His other two attendants had been with him longer, though one had started just two months before I. The other had been with Richard off and on for two and a half years, so I was still last on the totem pole. His CLASS program allotted Richard only so many attendant hours per week, which created a tacit rule with his staff that time was money. Richard wasn’t about to yank pay out of his oldest attendant’s pocket for some new hire who might quit next month. If I wanted more cash, I had to put in the time, but we were getting there.