Suspects

by William Caunitz

A sip of scotch accompanied him on his now compulsive journey back into the past.

  She appeared on his third day in the hospital: a tall, gangly woman in a hospital coat with an artificial leg under one arm and a shoe and several plastic envelopes in her hand. “Hi. I’m Alice Crowell. Are you ready to walk?”

  He looked at her, and then down at his stump. “I wish the hell I could.”

  “I’m going to have you on your feet and walking in about five minutes. But first I’d like you to swing your legs over the side of the bed.”

  As he complied with her directions, she laid the prosthesis and the shoe on the bed. She stood in front of him and rolled the stump shrinker, which looked like an Ace bandage made into a sock, off his stump, and began to gently knead his stump. “There is a lot of swelling and edema, but that is to be expected.”

  Watching her hands work, he asked, “What’s edema?”

  “Body fluids that collect in the soft tissues. With your leg gone the normal body fluids that pass through your body can’t make the return journey. Some of them collect in your stump and cause it to swell. Stump wrapping and elastic shrinker socks help reduce the edema.” She lifted up his stump, examining it. “The surgeon did a great job beveling the bone into a cylindrical mass.”

  She carefully placed the stump down on the bed and picked up the plastic envelopes. She slid one envelope behind the other until she found the one she wanted and ripped it open. She put the remainder back down on the bed. “This is a stump sock, Tony.” She dangled it in front of him. “From now on a good deal of your daily routine is going to be devoted to stump sock management.”

  He noticed that her teeth were slightly bucked.

  “In the morning there is not much edema, so you might start off the day with a four- or five-ply stump sock. But as the day progresses and body fluids accumulate and swell your stump, you might have to change to a one-ply sock. You must wear a sock—otherwise there will be friction, which will cause abrasions, blisters, and denuded skin surfaces. And if you don’t control the edema your stump might swell so much that it won’t fit into the socket, and conversely, if it shrinks too much, the socket could become too loose.” She smiled. “Got it?”

  “Got it,” he said, looking into the socket of the artificial leg.

  She handed him the stump sock. “You put this on, and I’ll put on your shoe.”

  She put a regular sock on his real foot, and then slipped a shoe on his foot. “You’ve probably noticed that the shoes and sock are yours. We got them from your mother.” She tied the lace, then stood up. She picked up the prosthesis. Hefted it in front of him. The leg had the other shoe on.

  “This is a temporary leg, Tony. The socket and the foot are adjustable. It’ll take months until your stump has shrunk to its permanent size. At that time you’ll be fitted for a prosthesis that will be made for the angulation changes for your best gait pattern.”

  He nodded at the prosthesis. “What’s it made of?”

  “Laminated polyester resin and fiberglass.” She held the prosthesis up in front of him. “This is a PTB prosthesis. Which stands for ‘patellar bearing tendon.’ I want you to take both your hands and feel the little space under your right kneecap.”

  He cupped both hands over his right kneecap and pressed forefingers into the space.

  “That is your patellar tendon,” she said. “Your femur rests on top of it and the tibia below it. There are no pain receptors in that area, and the patella is therefore impervious to pain. It can bear somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. It’s the patellar tendon that will bear the weight of your body.”

  “There are no straps. How does it stay on?”

  She turned the prosthesis so that he might look inside the socket. “See this bar molded across the top of the socket?”

  He looked inside to where her finger pointed. “Yes, I see it.”

  “That’s the patella bar. Your tendon rests on that bar, supporting your body. It’s as though your left leg were kneeling on top of the prosthesis.”

  “But what secures the stump inside the prosthesis?”

  “Feel above the right kneecap. Feel that ridge on top?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now raise and lower your leg. See how that ridge expands and then contracts?”

  “Yeah. The ridge is there, and then when I lower my leg it’s gone.”

  “That area of your leg is called the supracondylar. When you put your prosthesis on, you’ll raise up your stump and slide the lip of the socket over the supracondylar. The lips of the prosthesis will cover the supracondylar, and when you lower your leg the bone will contract, locking the stump inside the socket.” She lowered the prosthesis and held the socket a few inches away from his stump. “You ready to walk?”

  “Alice Crowell, I’m good and ready.”

  She put the prosthesis onto his stump. “Slide off the bed, putting all your weight onto your right leg,” she ordered, ready to catch him should he fall.

  Gripping the mattress, he struggled off the bed onto his feet. He cried out from the pain and fell backward against the bed, gripping the frame.

  She grabbed his shoulders. “I know. Your stump is swollen and very painful. But we have to get you walking today. So let’s try again.”

  He took a deep breath and righted himself. His body felt as though it were balanced on an unsteady toothpick. Sweat rolled down his armpits. His stump felt raw and throbbed with pain. He watched her, waiting for her instructions.

  “Just walk,” she instructed him. “Right leg first. Heel, sole, heel, sole. Then bring your left leg through.”

  He had gone but a few steps when he lost his balance and crumpled to the floor. She hurried over to him and helped him up. Frustration gnawed at him. He was a cripple. On his feet once more, he pushed her away. He wanted to go it alone, to conquer this affliction. With his arms out at his side, he managed six exhausting steps before tumbling to the floor.

  “That’s enough for today,” she said, bending to heft him up once more. Supporting him with her shoulders, she helped him back into the bed. He lay on his back, gasping for air.

  She looked down at him with an expression of compassion and determination. “Listen, Sergeant, you’re not the first guy to lose a leg, and you’re certainly not going to be the last one. In fact, you are now a member of a very distinguished alumni association.” She smiled at her stack of envelopes down on the bottom of his bed. “You’d be surprised who’s in the club. We’ve got a federal judge who let his diabetes get out of control, a pilot who didn’t exactly walk away from a bad landing. A lot of people who have one thing in common—and they call themselves the One Missing Club. When you feel ready, one of the volunteers is going to stop by and start working with you.”

  Scanlon looked up at her and asked bitterly, “And have you got any cops in your little club?”

  For a moment she looked off balance, but she recovered very fast. “Well, we had a sergeant from your Bomb Squad a few years ago …” She blushed in confusion and came to a sudden halt.

  “You mean Frank Lally?”

  “I think that’s the name. How did you know?”

  “Because he didn’t make it. He swallowed his gun.”

  Alice Crowell realized that she had a loner on her hands.

  She pulled up his hospital gown and went to remove the prosthesis.

  “No! Leave it. I’m going to wear it until it becomes a part of my body.”

  He was discharged from the hospital on Friday of the eighth week. Jane Stomer put in for a vacation day in order to drive him home. “I appreciate your visiting me every night, and, well, just being there.”

  She looked at him. Smiled. “You’re a sweet man, Scanlon. But please don’t go sentimental on me.”

  He reached across the passenger seat and touched her cheek. “I won’t.”

  They entered his loft by the front entrance on East Fourth Street. There was an unwelcoming stillness about
the loft that made him uneasy. It suddenly appeared to be too large, too dark, filled with too many inhibiting shadows. He limped over to the closest sofa and started to lower himself, then lost his balance and fell onto the cushions. She rushed to his aid.

  “I’m a klutz,” he said.

  “You are not.” She took him into her arms, comforting him. He pressed her close, needing the reassurance of her body. “Stay the night,” he whispered.

  She cupped his face in her hands, kissed him tenderly on the lips. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  She helped him off the sofa and over to the bed. She helped him undress. For the first time in his adult life he was dependent on someone else. He did not like the feeling; it scared him. Sitting on the edge of his great bed, he took off the prosthesis and handed it up to her. She took it and walked over to the clothes chest, examining it. She put it down on the chest and came back to him. Watching her, he felt a twinge of concern over the lack of sexual spontaneity.

  Standing a few feet away from him, she began to undress, starting their foreplay. He gaped at her, anxious to see her step from her panties. When she was naked she came to him and slid onto the bed next to him. As she did, she took in his once-proud body, but looked quickly away lest her gaze linger on his stump. She began to kiss him. She saw that he was limp and ran her hand over his loins and took hold of him, stroking him gently. As he grew, she stroked harder. She had become the aggressor, he the passive partner. She was all over him, kissing, licking, saying arousing things.

  Their foreplay proved arduous. His ungainly lopsidedness precluded the fluid, urgent movements of lovemaking. He could see her trying to avoid his stump’s caress, because each time it brushed against her, gooseflesh came and she recoiled. She attempted to hide her revulsion behind a smokescreen of feigned passion.

  When she had him hard she lay on her back and watched as he struggled to position his awkward body between her legs. She took hold of his frail erection and guided it into her dry body, rubbing it on the inside, hoping to lubricate. With his right knee bearing his weight, and with his torso balanced upright by the brace of his left hand on the mattress, and with his stump dangling weightily, he looked down and watched her efforts.

  He felt himself going soft and thrust forward into her. She gasped from his tearing intrusion, and turned her face sideways so that he might not see her pained expression. Biting her lower lip, hoping that it would soon end, she moved her body to his thrusts. But it was no use. He became aware of her perfunctory movements, saw her expression, sensed her lack of passion. He lost his erection and withdrew from her body, falling dejectedly onto his back.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. I couldn’t lubricate. It’s been a long time since we made love.”

  “I guess I lost more than my leg.”

  She took hold of him and shook him violently. “Don’t you dare do this to yourself. You’ve just undergone a great trauma. You can’t expect to just pick up your life where you left off. It takes time for your body to adjust to the new situation. For us to adjust to each other.”

  A flash of teeth, a laugh laden with mocking sarcasm. “Sergeant pegleg limp dick at your service.”

  “Don’t do this, Tony,” she cried, suddenly overwhelmed with compassion for him. She felt a need to mother him, to make love to him, to make him a whole man again, to restore his self-confidence. She started to kiss his body, desperately wanting to reassure the man she loved. Her caressing palm massaged his genitals. Her tongue moved over his neck, down his body. He whimpered, closed his eyes, but did not grow hard. She shifted her body between his legs, pausing to gather the courage to finish the distasteful task that she had set herself. A task that she had done several times with her married lover; a task that when done to completion caused her to become sick.

  He placed his hands on her head and nudged her down.

  She felt his hot member on her cheek. She flicked the tip with her tongue, making wet little circles over the head. She leaned forward and ran her flattened tongue over the silky undershaft, glancing up at him, seeing that his eyes were half closed, his head writhing on the pillows. She moved her head up and closed her lips around him.

  His body moved to the bobbing motion of her head. His cries encouraged her, and she drew him deeper into her mouth. Harsh sounds came from his throat, his grip on her head tightened, and he came in forceful spurts.

  She froze, impaled upon his organ. And then, with one quick jerk of her head, she was free of him. A sour expression twisted her face. Her lips were pursed tightly together, and her eyes brimmed. She looked about, searching for some nearby place to unburden her load. She gagged and swallowed involuntarily. Slapping her hands across her mouth, she leaped from the bed and ran into the bathroom. With her hands gripping the cold rim, she leaned over the sink, her body racked by violent heaving. With her mouth wide, her tongue strained by dry retches, she lowered her face into the sink and vomited.

  Scanlon lay on his back, listening to her. He wanted to rush from the bed to comfort her. But he could not. For in one frightful moment of insight he saw that he was now disgusting to women, and he knew that he never again would be able to make love to a normal woman. He buried his face in the mattress and cried.

  They spent the night in his great bed with their backs to each other, staring out at the retreating darkness, falling in and out of restless periods of sleep.

  The sense of emasculation affected his entire body, causing him to lie hunched over with his right leg blanketing his stump and his genitals tucked between his thighs, subconsciously trying to hide his shame. His manhood was gone, and Jane Stomer knew it. He would never be able to forget that look on her face every time his stump brushed against her. How could he forget her getting sick after doing that to him? He was a goddamn impotent freak. And worst of all, she knew. It could never be just his dark secret.

  Several times during that night he shivered, and she moved close to him, placing her warm back against his. And each time he inched away from her.

  A disquieting silence separated them in the morning. They sat at the table with the glass top and ate a light breakfast of juice, coffee, and warm croissants.

  The uneasy silence lengthened.

  Suddenly she announced that she was leaving to buy the Sunday Times. She was gone a long time, and when she returned she had the heavy newspaper tucked under her right arm and was holding a book in her left. She was late, she explained, because she had taken a taxi to her home in order to get a book she wanted him to look at. She put the newspaper down on one of the nail barrels. Facing him, she opened the book to a page that had a sliver of paper protruding from it and began to read aloud. Erectile dysfunction was the most common sexual problem for men. Its most common cause was psychological, a common way for men to express anxiety. There was no need for embarrassment, she read.

  He was sitting a few feet away from her, his hostile gaze riveted to the book in her hands. With astonishing agility, he lunged up and grabbed the book from her, throwing it across the loft. He lost his balance and stumbled backward onto the sofa.

  “Scanlon!” she cried, rushing over to help him.

  “Get away,” he said, shoving away her helping hands, struggling by himself to sit upright in the seat. He squared his shoulders, brushed down his ruffled hair with his hands. His face was impassive. “Don’t you worry yourself about me. I’m going to be just fine. And I really don’t want to hear any more of that goddamn shrink bullshit.”

  She lowered herself onto the sofa next to him. “Yes, Scanlon. Whatever you say.”

  They spent the rest of that Sunday morning listening to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and reading the newspaper. They seldom talked. The one-o’clock movie was Casablanca. Jane cried at the end; she always did. When the movie was over she looked at him as though she were about to say something, but changed her mind, and instead leaned close and kissed him.

  He was cold and unresponsive.

>   “Would you like to make love?” she asked softly.

  An orange-juice commercial had his attention. He did not respond to her overture. She rested her head on his shoulder and in a reassuring voice assured him that his impotence was a temporary problem. If he was that concerned, he might want to get some professional help. He quickly became hostile.

  “You should talk about it, Tony.”

  “There is nothing to discuss.”

  “But there is,” she pressed.

  “Don’t you understand the English language? I said that there was nothing to talk about.”

  “Men! They can never talk about what’s bothering them.”

  He got up and changed the channel.

  The following week he did not return any of her many telephone calls. On the following Friday she called again. Listening to her talk, he realized how very much he missed her. But instead of telling her that, instead of asking to see her, he told her he had been too preoccupied with teaching himself how to walk to return her calls. He promised her he would call her in the morning. He didn’t.

  The specter of his impotence haunted him, filling his lonely nights with fitful periods of sleep. The nightmare was the same, night after night. He and Jane were in the great bed. He was unable to get it up. He knelt on one knee, balancing himself with his left arm while he masturbated with the right, desperately trying to become erect. She watched, said nothing. A strange man stood off in the shadows, watching. A funny smile would come to Jane’s mouth. He’d remain limp, sweating. She would suddenly burst out laughing just as his father stepped out of the shadows.

  He’d awake with a start, drenched in sweat and trembling.

  A week later, on Saturday, there was a knock at his door. He opened it and found Jane Stomer standing there with both hands planted firmly on her hips, her beautiful mouth quivering with anger. She glared at him briefly and then pushed past him into the loft. He closed the door and leaned against it, waiting for the expected outburst.

  She faced him. Her voice cracked. “I have a right to know just exactly what your plans are concerning our relationship. If it’s over, Scanlon, then damn it, be man enough to tell me so that I can get on with my own life.”