Lighthouse Island

by Paulette Jiles

  Why do you think I am not giving you my attention? James straightened his tie and tipped his head. You’re excused.

  The surgeon nodded and said, Very well, now, this would be a surgery needing only a couple of hours. Extended flap and bone bridging. And when this is accomplished then we can fit you with prosthetics and with crutches or a walker and you will be able to walk after a fashion, which you can’t do now, can you? You can’t walk now, can you? He smiled in an artificial way, as if his smile was itself a prosthesis.

  Clearly not, said James. What an ignorant question. He leaned to one side and presented the surgeon with a face of stone.

  It is an ignorant question but we need to reiterate. The surgeon smiled again. Ah, ah, let us establish that you can’t take a step the way you are now but you have to get into some new thinking. A new way of thinking. We can fit you with prosthetic legs and off you go. After some time in rehab and therapy courses, and then, well, it’s off you go for you. He tapped his pointed fingers together and then picked up one of the mannequin’s lower legs.

  Stop talking to me as if I were an idiot, said James. He ran his hand through his spiky brown hair. Why would I be able to move my thighs?

  No, it’s not good to talk to people as if they were idiots. No, no indeed. But you see I’m talking to you as if you were a rational being. Now be brave and realize that a change in your thinking must be forthcoming, Director Orotov. We know that people want to retain useless legs because they’re attached to them; that is, they are attached to your body. Ahem, pardon me. You have a sentimental outlook on your legs but they are, you know, totally useless. He took up one of the plastic lower legs and turned it over and looked at the sole of the foot. Paraplegics often attempt to refuse this very sensible operation. But I am very good at it. I’ve done hundreds, hundreds! When he lifted his head to return his gaze to James there was a kind of wicked delight in his eyes. You move your thighs by swinging your upper body. You’ll see. So prepare yourself, here.

  I think I’ll refuse, said James. He said it evenly, but fear had struck him. He felt he had been dropped from a tall height into the knocking ice of glacial waters.

  You think you’ll refuse, well. You know, I don’t think you really can, James, said the surgeon. This is a surgery order from your superior, William Crumm, Director of Agency Planning. May I call you Jim?

  No.

  I see. The surgeon sifted through some papers. Well, then, you will have to go to counseling on this matter. He carefully laid the plastic lower leg down on the papers, which were rattling in the breeze from his little fan. He said, The counselors have been through all this many times.

  The man was a lower-level surgeon, far down the food chain of the Orthopedic Trauma Task Force and Limbless Reconstruction Council. James had been forced to sit in a cramped waiting room with a loud television blasting in his face along with other patients in their carefully repaired clothes and various forms of limblessness, a sign of his descent from privilege to proletarian misery, of which he should not be contemptuous, except for him the consequences of official poverty would be fatal. He was here on orders from the assistant director of the enormous umbrella organization called the Habitation Bureau, which controlled his own agency. That assistant director was an A43, same as himself, but James supposed he had issued the order because he had somehow come to an agreement with Crumm.

  His private physician was no longer available. It didn’t matter that James had already had his yearly physical. The order for another examination, to be done by a surgeon this time, had come to his office via courier. James couldn’t get anyone to return his phone calls and when he called repeatedly to protest, his calls were redirected from Employee Health to Dietary to Wellness and Medical Certification to Workplace Well-Being and, finally, to Dry Cleaning. They wanted to cut him off at the knees. And after that he would find the prosthetic legs and promised training and therapy were all delayed and delayed and delayed. Maybe he would die under the anesthesia. If they even gave him an anesthetic.

  It’s my life, said James. My legs. He shut his hands firmly on the armrests and fixed his gray eyes on the surgeon.

  It is your life and of course it is your legs, but we have to think about optimizing your vocational abilities. The surgeon, with his cheese-colored skin, stared around his small office. There were crocheted seat covers and a waterfall calendar and a clunky handset phone, which had just lit up with a blinking orange light. The surgeon jammed down on the button as if it were an insect. It stopped blinking. He said, You see these very realistic prostheses, James. He gestured toward the display case. Retraining with these new legs is brief, intense, and very successful. Look at this. I want your full attention, please. Hmmmmheh! Pardon.

  You’re repeating yourself, said James.

  Now, now, the thing is, you won’t be costing the city all this money as you are at present with this wheelchair. The surgeon presented his delicate hand to the wheelchair. Now you see, James, the truth is that you’re going to find it increasingly difficult to get upkeep and repair on your wheelchair. Tires, possibly lithium-ion batteries for the keypad? Whatever. You do very much need a pair of legs. Then he paused and stared at James as if just now seeing him.

  What? said James. His planed face was expressionless as limestone. He dropped one hand on his water bottle with its woven cover.

  The surgeon leaned forward and said in a low voice, I saw you on television. It really is going to start raining, isn’t it?

  James considered what to say. Finally he said, Eventually.

  And flood. We’ll all drown if there are heavy rains. Everywhere. Right?

  What does this have to do with this examination?

  The surgeon said in a low, secretive voice, That experimental ag station, a resort. It’s supposed to be someplace up in the Northwest. I just want to know if it is really going to start these, you know, torrential rains, flooding! I’ll make an application to go there myself. Like all the rest of my superiors. They say they are selling management rights. I could get a little beach house, a little condo or something, up there in the Northwest, mountains, out of the flooding, eh? And what do you think of these public executions? They’re going to want more and more . . . The surgeon paused. So I have you here, aaaahem, the horse’s mouth, animal metaphor there, just for my personal information.

  The rain is a supposition, said James. It’s merely a projected event. And yes, the television will want more. And more. That is not a supposition.

  The surgeon was silent for a moment. I see, he said, in a low voice, and then in a normal voice, Very well. So. Now here. He lifted a box from a shelf in a delicate gesture. Take this videotape home. It shows the whole operation. You may find the noise of the oscillating saw and the blood spraying around a bit off-putting but better you know than not know. Then, you’ll see patients running, jumping, dancing and so on with their new legs. Here, take it. Take it home and watch it. Now, your patient record says you aren’t taking any medication at all. Is this true?

  Aspirin, said James. Once in a while. This was all covered on my last exam. I think you have the file in front of you.

  Why am I getting these hints that you have accessed some sort of experimental drug? It’s here, right here. The surgeon lifted a page and adjusted his glasses. It says “private informant relays dubious information from Nutrition’s retynil palmitate”—that’s a derivative of vitamin A—“labs of unauthorized investigational preparation used on pigs with spinal injuries that has been illegally forwarded to patient Orotov.”

  What labs? Where? said James. The question Where? nearly always stopped people. Nobody knew where anything was and didn’t usually even know where they were, as if the entire world was a sitcom set of generic nowhereness.

  I have no idea where! The surgeon glared at James. Now, do you have any feeling in the legs at all? The surgeon shot his wheeled office chair backward and turned to
a Formica counter. He picked up a steel pin that looked like a pushpin. He walked over to James.

  No, James lied. Same as always. No change, no feeling.

  Well, let’s do a quick check. He jammed the pin into James’s thigh. James did not move or react even though it was extremely painful.

  He said, Doctor, there is no need for this. You must take my word for it, he said. But the surgeon was now jamming the pin into James’s lower right leg, and it made a sound. Blood appeared as dark spots on James’s trouser leg but he neither moved nor cried out by fixing his eyes on the pin and preparing himself.

  Stop! James said. Look, dammit, there’s blood. This is septic.

  Then he shot out his hand and gripped the surgeon’s wrist. James’s hand was thick with muscle; from his knuckles to his wrist the muscle stood out like ropes. This from twenty years of spinning the wheelchair rims. He crushed his hand around the surgeon’s wrist with great force. I’ll break your hand, he said. I swear I will. Do you hear me?

  Let go. The surgeon dropped the pushpin on the floor. Let go! Ah, ah.

  James opened his hand.

  The surgeon darted behind his desk, holding his right wrist in the other hand. How dare you! he said. Ahhemmmmmm! Now I’ll need the consent form in a month. I’m giving you one month. That’s enough time. Get back to me within a month. Do you hear me? The surgeon glared at James through his flashing glasses and held his fractured wrist.

  A nurse entered the examination room. She had three steel teeth in the front of her mouth and was still swallowing her lunch.

  Your time is up, she said to James. You can go.

  No, it’s not, said James. I have . . .

  Get out, said the nurse.

  James used his battery-powered motor to roll through the crowd in the Dollar General. The uniformed girl at the entrance swiped his card and the message on the monitor said, Hi James! Hope you enjoy shopping with us today! instead of Hello Director Orotov. Welcome to Dollar General. He was quickly sliding down the greasy chute of social destruction, which inevitably preceded arrest. He passed several people he knew and they turned away and pretended not to see him. He was becoming socially toxic. If he was forced into an operation to cut off his legs he was done for.

  James used his motor instead of his hands because it made him less noticeable. He rolled past the home décor department with its rustic fence around the water features, past the foods, down the aisle of refrigerators and fans and even one air conditioner, while his thigh and lower leg were shot through with pain; past housemaids in slovenly gowns printed with bright flowers pushing carts full of paper towels and dish soap in bottles and cat food and bright toys, all unavailable to the masses. Also available to people with the right ID card were booths that did dry cleaning, shoe repair, barbering, and hair and nail beautification. These people came to meet friends and chat and wander about in the cool air. It was 103°F out on the streets today where Nadia must be trudging on like a desert explorer in search of the Lost City of Rain.

  He came to the shoe repair shop and presented a ticket to the girl behind the register. She went to the back and signaled him to come around the counter and into the rear where a man with thick black hair sat over a pair of high-heeled shoes. The man looked at James and said nothing and moved the high heels aside. Then he reached beneath his workbench and pulled out a box containing a pair of stout lace-up shoes, handmade. These were for the day that James would walk the disordered terrain of Lighthouse Island, if indeed he had any feet to put in them. Sorrow flooded him for a moment like a heavy drug. The shoes were so hopeful, the odds were so great. They were made with thick rubber soles from new tires, the seams tight and the leather oiled and the stitching minute. The shoemaker’s hair fell in his face as he gazed at James and shook his head.

  For you?

  James leaned back and closed his eyes and then said, No, they’re for a nephew, and handed the man two tickets to the audience section for a live taping of News Interns. He’s been assigned to limestone mining management for the concrete people. He has to be out with the crews.

  You just had to lie, lie, lie all the time.

  In the linens section a day-flight watchman came to stand beside him.

  Well, it looks like she’s in there, he said. Sir.

  How do you know? James took down a thick towel and then put it back.

  Well, I saw a backpack and some books there. Like you said, The Girl Scout Handbook. Up on the twentieth floor. A pair of red canvas walking shoes, women’s size. He spoke in a low voice.

  James slammed both hands down on the wheelchair arms. What the hell is she doing going barefoot?

  Well, sir, said the watchman. How am I supposed to know?

  He was a youngish man with white untanned circles around his eyes where he wore his goggles and the tattoo of an abstract eagle on one arm. His khaki shirt smelled of cooled sweat. He said, Probably just resting her feet. That was yesterday. Nobody saw her go out as far as I know but you know the ground guys; they’re holed up in some alleyway drinking.

  James’s heart failed when he thought of her slipping out of the abandoned towers at night, into an unknown world. All right. I’ll have your army knife here in a minute. I will meet you up in front. You know the penalties for buying for outsiders here.

  I don’t want it, sir, said the watchman. That’s not what I want.

  James’s expression became formal and blank. That’s what you’re going to get, he said. Period.

  No, no, I just want you to go talk to your brother for me. Sir. Sir, I’d give anything to learn the big ones. Anything, just to get some instruction on a real prop plane. I’ll clean his house, sir, I mean it. I’ll wash his windows and mop his floors. Talk to him for me. I don’t want the army knife, sir.

  Are you serious? Do you know how precious those things are?

  Yes. If he would just let me hand tools to the airplane mechanic or something. Anything.

  How do you know about my brother?

  He’s on the alert list at the neighborhood stations. Farrell Orotov, pilot, it says. Just an alert. Not an arrest or anything. Per Director Crumm.

  No kidding, said James. And me?

  No sir, nothing. Not yet.

  All right. I’ll remember. Now go on.

  James tried to buy the Vercingitorix Army Knife with its ten blades, whistle, flashlight, awl, and scissors, but the clerk ran his ID card through the slider and said, Not authorized.

  James did not argue. It was time to stop arguing. It was not an easy thing to abandon everything, all he had ever known, his disappearing social circle, his comfortable apartment, his work, his books, the carefully arranged life that enabled him to function in a wheelchair. To launch himself into an unknown country with nothing but a few survival items and his maps, some experimental medication and a girl he barely knew, but there had been other people at other times who had also hesitated, even in the face of the sure but steady crushing of their lives. They had hesitated and hoped that official protests and moral arguments and legal representation would save them. Those people were all dead.

  He was going someplace where social prestige did not matter. His privileges were gone. In the world to come much would depend on physical strength and field expedience, risk taking, weapons, brains. His heart bounded ahead like some beautiful, long-limbed animal gathering itself and flying over a fence in a cascade of shining hide and muscle, a creature beloved of the sun and the open spaces. It landed in a field of grass that seethed like a sea and Nadia walked along beside him and there were others, men of old. That phrase was from some song or poem, what was it? Men of old . . . ta dum ta dum . . .

  He rolled toward the exit through the cool, swampy air with his shoebox and fresh celery and jicama and wine and a set of batteries. He came to the exit card-check and a small but intense light began to flash.

  Sir, sir, your permission c
hip to enter Dollar General has been canceled, the girl said. I’m sorry but this is your last visit until you update your chip.

  Chapter 23

  Nadia slipped out of Dogtown Towers in the dark and into streets of the neighborhood to the north. A moon came up but it was the rice milk advertising moon with the cow jumping across it and a dish and a spoon running after the cow. Good as milk! Then the real moon came up, and it was a crescent diminishing into a sliver and it was faint and undecorative compared to the advertisement moon.

  She fell asleep on a roof in her boy’s clothes and the red polka-dot canvas shoes, leaning against the parapet, wrapped in everything she had. Drying curtains floated on lines, solar casserole pots were washed and ready for the next day. Nothing in them. She checked.

  In the first pale light she woke up and climbed down the fire escape ladder. It was a strange gray morning with drooping clouds and the feel of water in the air.

  She was unsure of how to walk or act as a boy. The thing was to bring as little attention to herself as possible, and find some means of transportation, to make it to the e-waste area. James was the man who lived in the rice-milk moon, he was the voice of the dazzling glaciers, the brown-haired man who would rise from his imprisoning wheelchair, where he had been confined by enchantment, and take the rudder of a sailboat over the glassy seas until the lancing beam of Lighthouse Island swept across their sails.