Moving Forward in Reverse

by Scott Martin

  13

  Every Problem Has a Solution

  Later in the afternoon I walked over to the Soccer Office at the McPhee Center one block away. It was Winter Break for the students so the halls were deserted and quiet except for me and the slow scuffing sound of my walk. I paused at the door to the office, taking a moment to run a finger across the plaque that used to say my name before I had requested it be changed. It now proclaimed the space within to be the Soccer Office, aptly named to convey that this was not my personal office but a communal place for our players to feel free to drop by between classes and talk about their studies or soccer.

  I fumbled the key into the lock, disregarding the difficulty caused by the myos as an issue for another day, and pushed open the door. At the familiar sight of the blue sofa and two tall bookcases I’d scrounged from the campus storage rooms the year before, I felt my legs go weak and my lungs begin to cave.

  It was all exactly as I had left it five months before. The blue papasan chair; the trophies in the bookcases; the professional and national team jerseys hung on the walls: All of it had sat untouched while I fought death and limb-loss to return.

  I stumbled my way over to my desk as the tears began to fall, letting the door close behind me, and lowered myself into the chair. I thought about the last time I had been in here: I had just completed the itinerary for a soccer tour of Europe and set an appointment to meet a recruit and her parents in their home in Apple Valley near the Twin Cities that Sunday. But come Sunday I would be in the midst of massive organ failure. And Monday morning, Lindy would call my mom to suggest she contact the rest of the family; it didn’t look like I’d make it much longer.

  They had gathered in the hall, sitting with knees drawn and backs sagging against the plaster-covered walls; too many to fit in my one small room. The church was called and the pastor came for prayers. ‘Now might be a good time to grant your son his last rites,’ he’d probably said, hushed, regretful.

  No parent should be put through that, I thought. Good people shouldn’t have to feel that much pain. Certainly not a woman that raised six kids basically by herself.

  My back rounded against the sobs that assaulted my body as I wept for the suffering they had endured. And through it all I had slept. . ‘Shit!’ I blurted out as I beat the myos against my legs.

  Once I stopped crying, I sniffed and swallowed the lump at the back of my throat. Breathing ragged breaths into raw lungs, I turned my chair to face the desk and reached into the Bankers Box on the floor. Unlike the Soccer Office, the mail delivery had not been frozen in time while I was away and I had a great deal of letters to work my way through.

  ~~~

  The wood frame of the chair grated indignantly as I plunked onto the green cushion atop it. I growled under my breath and fought the urge to kick the office chair.

  Three hours it had taken me to get here – and by here I mean the building next door – from my apartment. Whatever optimisms I had felt upon waking were long gone after the hours spent fighting through the arduous process of getting ready for the day.

  It began with the aggravating endeavor of showering with no hands (a difficult task which started with a slam onto my ass when I slipped on the wet tile, and ended with a mouthful of shampoo because – news flash! – teeth are the only way to open a bottle with no hands), followed by an education in prosthetic hands. I learned that reaching behind my back to tuck my shirt in would invariably cause the myos to lose their suction on my arms and fall off – no matter how many times I attempted it. Another thing that causes myoelectric hands to fall off: sweat, such as the sweat which accumulates after trying for nearly half an hour to pull socks over foot prosthetics. Currently, my miniscule feet were adorned with socks, foot prosthetics which looked like black leather ankle boots about as big as a pair of size seven shoes, more socks, then topped off with adidas Sambas. Despite the effort I had gone through to make the blasted things wearable, I could still feel my foot pivoting uncomfortably inside the leather inserts when I walked, trying to compensate for the lack of flexion in the toe region. Should’ve just worn the damn bunny slippers.

  Even after the issue of bathing and dressing myself, I had to come to terms with the fact that shaving with a blade-type razor, combing my hair, and brushing my teeth simply could not be done the same way without a wrist. Not possible. Needless to say on top of the abundant shopping list I had mentally tabulated for myself, I was already exhausted.

  As I made my unceremonious entrance into the Housing Office, Shelli, the assistant to the Assistant Director of Housing, glanced up from behind her desk then looked back down only to have her eyes rocket back up as she registered who I was.

  ‘Scott!’ she said – or maybe asked, it was hard to tell. I smiled at her as best I could through gritted teeth; she didn’t deserve to be collateral damage to my residual agitation. ‘Welcome back!’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Hazel eyes narrowed in my direction. ‘What’s wrong?’

  I liked Shelli. She dressed and carried herself professionally, but I could always make her laugh. I gave a grand huff of a sigh and proclaimed, ‘It took me three hours to get dressed this morning!’

  ‘Ah,’ she replied, sympathy drawing her expression together. ‘I suppose you have a great deal of adjustment ahead of you.’

  Before I could answer, a familiar, deep voice boomed, ‘Scott! How’s it going?’

  I turned my head and leaned back in the chair slightly to look up at Tom. ‘Please let me know the next time you go shopping. I need to buy a few things.’ Namely all new showering and grooming equipment because quadruple amputees can’t do things the way normal people can.

  ‘Sure. Let’s go.’ This time I had to do a double take. What, now?

  When I just stared in his general direction, he gestured towards the door. Okay, he means now, I realized and got up to follow him out of the building. I could check-in with Chuck, the Director of Housing, to let him know I was back to work later. It had been the Chancellor who told the previous Director of Housing to give me my position as Assistant Hall Director in an effort to enhance my contract and there were rumors that Margaret, the Assistant Director of Housing, wanted this practice to end. My feet hurt, but perhaps I was walking on quicksand with my dual positions.

  ~~~

  I suppose my mood may have been more palpably disgruntled than I’d intended. After wandering through the nearby Target store with me, Tom stopped in the middle of a large, empty parking lot on campus and got out of the car.

  ‘Let’s see what you can do,’ he beckoned from his open doorway. I blinked, his words echoing back to me. Drive? He wants me to drive?

  I stared at his empty seat for a moment, letting the concept settle in. I had hands and feet now. Why shouldn’t I drive?

  With a shrug and a grin I unbuckled my seatbelt. ‘Why not?’

  Chuckling softly, I slid across the dark navy bench seat and into the driver’s side. As the saying goes, it was like riding a bike: I was screwed.

  Driving forward was easy, but trying to turn as most drivers would turn the wheel was a disaster. Once I had gripped the wheel, I couldn’t open my hands quickly enough to adjust their position and continue the turn. The result was me helplessly twisted in a car that was quickly careening off its designated course. This led to our discovering that I had also lost my touch on the brake pedal when I stomped down far too hard to keep the car from running into the cement base of a street light. Tom and I flopped in our seats like rag dolls, looked at each other with wide, bulging eyes, and promptly burst into raucous laughter.

  ‘Oops,’ I said sheepishly. ‘Sorry about that.’ While I made attempt after unsuccessful attempt at turning the car, Tom continued to laugh so hard that tears began pouring down his cheeks. As the only person in the car capable of watching his head rattle back and forth like a bobble-head, I felt minor concern of a concussion would be a more appropriate response.

  ‘Okay, Mario,’ he said after the ump
teenth attempt. ‘We need to smooth out your technique.’

  ‘What I need is a spinner knob like they have on ski boats to allow the driver to turn more quickly. Only we replace the knob with a U-shaped handle that has a padded grip on one side so I can grab that and use it to turn the wheel without needing to let go.’

  Zenon built me just such a device and had it ready the following week. Tom and I rigged it to his steering wheel and continued to practice. Two weeks later, Sue took me to be tested for my driver’s license.

  Upon greeting me, the proctor’s only comment was, ‘I can’t say that I’ve tested anyone with your type of handicap, Mr. Martin.’ I shrugged and distracted him with the contraption on Tom’s steering wheel (Tom and Sue had generously lent me the station wagon for the test).

  He didn’t say a word for the entire duration of the test, only taking his eyes off the road once to jot a few notes on his clipboard after I successfully parallel parked on our return.

  ‘Well, Scott,’ he said, ‘I see no problem with having you behind the wheel.’

  Problem solved.

  ~~~

  A week before I became ill, I took delivery of my new black-on-black Pontiac Grand Am GT that I had special ordered. After waking from the coma, the consensus was that I didn’t stand a chance driving a stick shift, so the car was sold to a wholesaler. (Ugh!) My replacement vehicle now that I was officially re-licensed for driving on the open road was a brown Chevy Cavalier purchased off the lot. (Double ugh!)

  Once I had regained the independence of a sixteen-year-old, things began to slip back into a routine. No longer dependent on friends for shopping runs and errands, our relationships regained some of their old distance. As was customary before my illness, I continued to meet Tom, Sue, and their three boys (Matt, Spencer, and Jeremiah) for dinner at the campus cafeteria. Being employed by Housing, our meals at the dining hall were included as part of our compensation – an aspect not always viewed as a benefit.

  Riverview Café was located in the Hilltop Center building very near Towers Hall. I had eaten in the all-you-can-eat dining facility with a view overlooking the Chippewa River countless times during the past year, but walking in for the first time after my illness was a whole new ballgame. The further I drifted from the sanctity of the doors, the greater my growing anxiety that people were watching me became.

  As the boys scattered to their preferred dining options in the cafeteria, I lagged behind them, hoping to blend in with their shadows. I was fooling no one. There was no doubt Tom and Sue could sense my discomfort with the situation.

  ‘Just do your best,’ they’d encourage me in slightly hushed tones.

  ‘You’re doing fine.’

  ‘Can I get you something else?’

  I tried to smile and nod in appreciative understanding, but inside apprehension battled irritation for the lead. I hated being in the open almost as much as I despised my reliance on them for help. I never went back for seconds on anything.

  I learned a lot of valuable lessons through my efforts, though. For instance, my habitual way of holding a tray was to pinch the lip between my first two fingers and thumb. I discovered the hard way that this was not a secure hold. The combination of no wrist, a slippery tray, and my inability to flex with the hands while walking was a calamity waiting to happen. As I tried to make my way between the salad bar and grill station, feeling infinitely like I was playing the childhood game of racing with a ball held between two sticks, my grip faltered. I glanced down in time to see my plate and two glasses of milk go tumbling off my tray, clattering in a splatter of dairy at my feet.

  Horrified, I stared dumbfounded at the shattered ceramic and spreading puddle of milk. I could feel eyes on me as a stillness fell over the cafeteria. Cold sweat spread across my face and back.

  Someone in an apron approached cautiously, like a scout trying to determine if the coast was clear. The aproned worker mumbled something along the lines of, ‘It’s okay.’ and bent down to clean my mess. I tried to make light of it, apologizing and making facetiously self-depreciating remarks – anything to hide my horror and humiliation.

  When all physical evidence of my spill was erased, the attendant offered to get me something else. I tried not to cringe outwardly at the feeling of being relegated to the status of the needy.

  ‘Uh, no, that’s – that’s all right,’ I stuttered as I began backing towards the exit. ‘I’ve actually got to go. Thanks, though.’

  I knew everyone was watching as I made my hasty retreat. No one spoke and the quiet aggrandized me like the elephant in the room I was. It would take a couple days before I could brave the public cafeteria again, but I would never be able to shake the feeling of being watched, as if the whole cafeteria was holding its breath waiting for me to fumble. I knew what the servers thought each time I shuffled through the door: Oh, no. It’s this guy again. Get the mop ready.

  As my paranoia worsened and more things routinely slid off my tray, I began unwittingly traversing the path of isolation. Once the students returned, my anxiety only amplified as my fear of embarrassment swelled to debilitating proportions. It wasn’t long before I stopped going to the cafeteria altogether.

  ~~~

  ‘Hey, Bonzo!’ a man’s voice hollered across the phone line when I answered.

  ‘Savrsnik?’ I asked, thinking only Scott Savrsnik would call me Bonzo for no apparent reason. ‘Holy shit!’

  ‘Yeah, man,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna be in Eau Claire for a meeting next week. Are you available for lunch on Monday?’

  The last time I had visited Scott and his wife, Jill, was before I moved to Eau Claire a year earlier – before my illness. I wasn’t sure if he knew what had happened to me, but I didn’t want to make any assumptions so I just responded, ‘Sounds good,’ and told him where to find me and when. Somehow I knew I should have asked the question.

  ~~~

  Noon on Monday I was roused by a booming knock at my apartment door. Using the outside of the myo where the rubber was less slippery (my solution for turning a doorknob with no wrist), I opened the door to the grinning, mustached face of my former college apartment mate. We hugged and patted each other on the back. As we separated I could feel a hesitation in my usually jocular friend. An onslaught of sweat broke out across the surface of my skin as Scott’s eyes locked onto the myos.

  The seconds ticked by as we stood in awkward silence – me, terrified of what had to come next; him, traumatized by what he was missing.

  I closed my eyes briefly, steeling myself for the conversation that was about to come and said, ‘Come on in.’ Scott seemed to shudder back to life at my words.

  While the silence had been broken, the dividing cruelty of its cause and effect remained strong, driving a cold fissure between old friends.

  ‘Have a seat,’ I said, gesturing to the sofa and watching as he lowered himself onto the cushions, his face frozen in an expression of horror and shock. I looked into his eyes, wavering halfway between the myos and my face, and saw the sharp light of betrayal.

  ‘You didn’t know, did you?’

  He looked up at me with those same distraught, pained eyes. ‘Is this a joke?’

  I winced. Wouldn’t that be great? If all of this were just some elaborate joke? After taking a seat on the chair across from the sofa, I took a breath and told one of my best friends the greatly abbreviated story of the past six months of my life. As I spoke, Scott shook his head back and forth, eyes downcast and brow furrowed as he tried to absorb what I was telling him.

  When my recount came to an end, he simply sat quietly until time seemed to dull the sting of my words.

  ‘Nooo.’ He shook his head vehemently. ‘No. NonoNO!’ I looked down at the myos as the rift between us developed another crack.

  After another painfully protracted pause he murmured, ‘How did you contract the bacteria?’

  I looked at him with sad understanding. Sitting with Scott, sharing my story and watching it tear at him in figurative sy
nonymy of the physical severs I had experienced, I could again see the ripple effect of my illness. It seemed with each passing day the reverberations spread further and further and the distance between me and the people they touched grew wider and wider.

  I opened my mouth, wanting to apologize for the emotional trauma he was going through, but stopped myself moments before speaking. I felt terrible – in fact, I think I felt more for him than I did for myself – but I didn’t want to develop a habit of apologizing for my illness. Instead, I apologized for something else.

  ‘It’s complicated, but, actually, Scott, I’m afraid I can’t go out to lunch. A meeting came up this morning. Sorry to bail on you, man.’ There was no meeting and, in all likeliness, Scott probably knew it, too. But I could tell he was uncomfortable seeing me like that and needed time to process what he had just learned. I could understand that and wanted him to know I understood.

  He studied me for a moment, then nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, sure. It’s no problem.’

  Together we stood from our seats. I showed him to the door and watched as he ambled down the hall towards the exit.

  Scott and I would communicate through email sporadically once electronic mail became popular. He was known for sending out weekly jokes and always made me laugh. We’d meet in person again down the line, too. The sad truth, though: our relationship was never the same after he saw me that day. Always a good man and an even better friend, Scott’s reaction was one of many, all unique and yet so much the same. The beauty and the cruelty of friendship is that you rarely experience trauma alone.

  14

  Cracking the Top 10

  In order to continue holding the dual position of Assistant Hall Director and Head Soccer Coach, I had to put in longer hours, a fact which didn’t perturb me in the least. All of a sudden it was far easier to forget all that had happened in the past months and simply devote myself to my work. Players started dropping by the Soccer Office between classes just as they used to before the illness. Whether intentional or not, their resumption of old routines was monumental in helping me push aside any inhibitions or any anxiety I felt about returning a changed man.