by Jason Starr
“I’m afraid things aren’t going to be quite the same for you anymore,” the woman said.
I got the technicalities from the doctor the next day. The C4 vertebrae of my spinal cord had been severed, which is just about the worst type of spinal cord injury a person can suffer. I had been stabbed in the neck with a four-inch knife.
I had already undergone three operations and the doctor said more surgery could be necessary. For at least a few weeks I’d be hooked up to a ventilator. Because I had been in a coma, there was a chance I had suffered brain damage.
During the next few weeks I was near death several times. I had a severe case of pneumonia and I needed an emergency operation when scar tissue from a previous operation restricted my breathing. A stream of doctors and nurses came in to monitor me, drug me, feed me intravenously, and change my bedpan. Since the bone in my neck had been fractured I had to continue to be stabilized by a halo which was screwed into my forehead. I could only talk when a nurse stood by to suction the mucous from my mouth and from the tube which had been inserted into my throat. I was so out of it from the medication that I spent most of my time asleep. Even asleep I was depressed. I dreamt I was able to pick up a knife or gun and kill myself. Then I’d wake and realize with horror that from now on even suicide would be impossible. I’d have to live out the rest of my life in misery whether I liked it or not.
When Julie hadn’t come to visit me after the first few days, I knew she was probably out of my life for good. I was happy for her. As crazy as it may seem, I didn’t blame her for my injury. Although no one had said anything to me about it, I was fairly certain that she had stabbed me. While I wished she hadn’t done it, I knew she had acted out of desperation, and anyone in the same position probably would have done the same thing.
During this period, Detective Figula came to my room several times. I heard him asking the doctor whether he could question me, and each time the doctor told him that I was too weak to talk. To be honest, I didn’t care one way or another. The murders I’d committed were my least concern and at times they didn’t seem to have anything to do with me. My entire life seemed to be someone else’s life that I could view like scenes in a movie. I could rewind it and repeat certain events and none of it was real.
One afternoon I was having another suicide dream – I was about to jump into a volcano – when I woke up and saw Detective Figula staring down at me. I closed my eyes and pretended to fall back asleep.
“Come on, Bill,” he said. “The doctor said I could talk to you today. Let’s not make this any more difficult than it has to be.”
He waited until my eyes opened.
“You’ve been quiet for long enough. I need to know the truth.”
I was more alert, but I hadn’t regained any movement below my shoulders. My voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Leave me alone,” I said.
“Sorry, but I can’t do that,” he said, “not until I get that confession out of you I won’t. You did it, didn’t you? You killed your boss and you killed that prostitute to cover it up, right?”
There was only one reason why I didn’t confess to my crimes and it had nothing to do with me. When you’re paralyzed it doesn’t seem to matter whether you spend the rest of your life in jail or on an island in the Bahamas and I had no plans to go to the Bahamas. But I didn’t want to hurt Julie. I realized how humiliating it would be for her if it came out in the news that her fiancée had been a ruthless murderer. After all the ways I’d disappointed her, lying to the police this last time was the least I could do to repay her.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “Why won’t you believe me?”
“I’m giving you a chance to clear your conscience,” he said. “Do you want to just lie here thinking about the lives you ruined?”
I tried to speak. A nurse had to come over and suction my mouth and wipe the saliva off my chin.
“If you have evidence I did something,” I finally said, “why don’t you just arrest me...stop bothering me.”
Detective Figula took a deep breath.
“The fact is I don’t have any evidence against you,” he said. “No substantial evidence anyway. I guess you did a good job cleaning up after yourself that night.”
“I was at the movies,” I said weakly.
“I checked up on that. The ticket taker remembered seeing you. She identified the cast on your hand and the scar on your forehead.”
“So,” I said. “That proves it.”
“I’m afraid it proves nothing,” the detective said. “One of the ushers remembers seeing someone getting up about halfway through the movie and going out one of the side entrance doors. He said it was dark and he couldn’t identify the person, but I have no reason to think that the person couldn’t have been you.”
“It wasn’t,” I said.
“What about this knife in the back?” he said. “Do you remember how it got there?”
I hesitated. I knew that Julie must have made up some story to protect herself or he wouldn’t be asking me about it now. I didn’t want to say anything that would make the police suspect Julie, if they didn’t suspect her already.
“I was in my apartment,” I said. “Then I...I woke up in the hospital. I don’t remember anything else. Honest to God.”
“You don’t remember fighting with a black man who had broken into your apartment.”
“A black man?”
“Actually, your fiancée claimed he was Puerto Rican.”
“I only know what the doctors told me,” I said. “I don’t know how much longer I can talk.”
“I understand your fiancée hasn’t been here to visit you,” he said. “Did you have some fight about something?”
I tried to shake my head, forgetting for a second that my head was still held steady in a halo.
“My life isn’t the same anymore,” I said. “That changes things in a relationship. I guess I’m just too much trouble for her now. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”
I could tell that I had affected Detective Figula and that he was beginning to feel sorry for me. After that day, he returned to interview me several more times, but I never budged on my story. Fortunately, the cop in Harlem never came forward about seeing me near the river that night. I assumed this was because it was dark and he didn’t recognize me, but I never found out for sure. Since I didn’t get any publicity in the press as a suspect, Lisa didn’t come forward either with her story that she’d seen me on the subway with the garbage bag. Although the prostitute’s friend had identified me as the man who had beaten the prostitute up, the police were never able to prove that the prostitute had been trying to blackmail me or that I had any real motive to murder her.
Finally, the police stopped coming to question me. There was a T.V. in my room on just about twenty-four hours a day and I saw no new reports on the news about either of the murders. There had been another murder of a prostitute in Queens and, according to one report I saw, the police were still considering the possibility that Denise Furguson’s death was related to the other murders.
I realized that, barring any new developments, the police had probably given up the case against me. Personally, I didn’t care one way or another, but I was happy for Julie. Now she could live out the rest of her life peacefully, without fear that her past with me would come back to haunt her. As it turned out, I didn’t see her again until six years later. It was a sunny spring afternoon and I was in Central Park, travelling along a path in my motorized wheelchair. I controlled the chair with a sip ’n’ puff mechanism, which required me to blow air into a straw device. At first I didn’t recognize Julie. She’d lost weight and she’d stopped dying her hair blond. She looked much fitter and healthier than she’d ever looked when I’d known her. Standing next to her was a tall, slim, professional-looking man whose hands rested on the handle of a baby stroller. Sadly, I realized how that could have been me standing next to her. She saw me staring at her and the way her gaze stayed fixed on mine I kne
w she recognized me. There was a long awkward moment during which I felt very embarrassed and ashamed. I smiled at her. She seemed uncertain for a moment, then she turned away. I watched her walk away with her husband and child, hoping she would look back at me. She didn’t.
It took me a long time to get my life back together. After two months had passed since my injury, I was moved to Mount Sinai Hospital for rehabilitation. I had daily appointments with doctors, nurses and therapists. Despite the rigorous training program they put me through, after another month I didn’t show any sign of improvement. The only good news was that I hadn’t suffered any significant brain damage. The psychologist said my mind would always be healthy.
My body had begun to shrivel away. The doctors said this was normal with quadriplegics, that I shouldn’t be afraid to look at myself. I still had dreams of suicide.
A couple of months went by and I hadn’t gained any new movement. There was talk of sending me home, but I told them I didn’t have any home to go to. I couldn’t go back to my old apartment – I didn’t even know whether Julie was still living there – because it was a fifth-floor walk-up. They said my only other option was to go to a nursing home. I said that was all right with me and it seemed as though the rest of my life had been decided. I’d be fed and changed and taken care of like a baby until one day I’d drop dead and they’d bury me in some anonymous cemetery. I had absolutely nothing to live for.
Then one day something happened that would change the rest of my life.
A pretty woman with dark curly hair visited my room. I had seen so many doctors and nurses and psychiatrists and other hospital officials that I didn’t even pay her any special attention. I hoped she would just go away and leave me alone in my misery. She asked me questions about myself and my life – where I was from, what I’d done for a living, things like that. I ignored all her questions and it seemed as though she was fed up with me and about to leave when she asked me if I wanted to talk about returning to work.
I thought it was a cruel joke. Since I’d been in the hospital, work had been the last thing on my mind. No one from A.C.A., not even Nelson, had come to visit me, and I assumed this was because they all still suspected that I’d killed Ed. I didn’t think there’d be any way I could continue my job there, and I didn’t see why anyone anywhere would hire me.
“Leave me alone,” I said. “Stop fucking with my head.”
She didn’t leave. Instead she told me about all the technology and services available to help paralyzed people and she said when I was ready I could go to her office to meet with her.
Out of curiosity, I went the next day. It turned out she’d been telling the truth. She taught me how to use a computer which I could control with a mouth stick, and she said that at some point I could learn to use a voice-activated computer. Although it took me a while to catch on, I was thrilled to be actually using a computer again. In some ways, it was better than if I had risen from my wheelchair and learned to walk again. Life without work had always been inconceivable to me, which may have been the main reason why I’d been so depressed. If I could work, it didn’t seem to matter to me whether I was paralyzed or not.
I met with the woman two times a week. After each visit I became more and more convinced that I could actually return to work again. The question was what type of job I would try to get. I knew returning to A.C.A. was probably out of the question and even before my injury it had been nearly impossible to get a job in advertising. My only other skill was phone sales so I decided that’s what I’d do.
With my Social Security Disability Insurance I was able to move into a small, specially equipped apartment on the ground floor of a high-rise apartment building on the Upper East Side. It was exactly the type of building Julie had always dreamed of living in, complete with a doorman, health club and swimming pool. A state agency sponsored me for evaluation while I tried to return to work. Medicaid paid for a twenty-four hour home attendant who fed me and moved me periodically to make sure I didn’t get pressure sores. I obtained a voice-activated computer and I learned how to use it as well as I’d ever used a manual computer.
It took me a few months, but I finally got a telemarketing job, selling computer hardware to small and medium-size businesses. It was a large office with about twenty telemarketers a shift. Every day when I arrived the Floor Manager would rest the headset on my head then I’d log on to the computer and start calling. I was happy to discover that my old sales skills were still intact. My first day at the job I set a company record, selling nearly ten thousand dollars worth of equipment. With the voice-activated computer I became a virtual selling machine. I could make nearly twice as many calls as the other workers, which meant I was twice as effective. All I had to say was “dial” and I’d be back on line, making a pitch to another prospect.
I was earning about a thousand dollars a week. I was so thrilled to be back in the working world that I rarely thought about my injury anymore. I actually found it convenient to come home from a day at the office and have someone bathe me and feed me. On weekends, I sat by the pool reading newspapers and magazines. During the week, I was completely focussed on work, thinking about new sales strategies and ways to improve my performance. In many ways I was living a perfect life.
But as time went on, I started to feel limited at my job. I knew that I had more in me than to be a lowly telemarketer. I started to dream about returning to a job in advertising. The problem, of course, was that I needed to have some recent management experience on my resume. If I could get promoted at the telemarketing job, perhaps work my way up to running the department, I could use it as a stepping stone for getting my career off the ground again.
The only trouble was my boss was young and he had no plans of leaving the company. The only way I’d ever get in charge of the department was if I could somehow get rid of him. Sometimes I imagined myself rising up from my wheelchair, walking into his office, leaning over his desk, and strangling him. It was so clear – the sensation of his neck caving in, his body falling limp, his power becoming mine. It was a beautiful thing to think about.
Copyright
This ebook edition published in the UK in 2014
by No Exit Press, an imprint of
Oldcastle Books
P O Box 394,
Harpenden, AL5 1XJ, UK
noexit.co.uk
All rights reserved
© Jason Starr 1997
The right of Jason Starr to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN
978-1-84344-511-1 (print)
978-1-84344-512-8 (epub)
978-1-84344-513-5 (kindle)
978-1-84344-514-2 (pdf)
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