Painless (5 page)

After I check in, I’m taken to one of the semi-private rooms where patients are examined.

The nurse pulls the curtain around the gurney and leaves so I can undress. When I have everything off but my underwear, I sit on the gurney with a sheet wrapped around me. A man’s moaning on the other side of the curtain. I’m used to hearing all sorts of human sounds when I come here. Burps, cries, screams, grunts, wheezing. You wouldn’t think a body could make so many different out-of-control noises. The worst is when somebody’s gurgling, and then you know there’s a good chance that soon you won’t hear anything else.

Dr. Wilensky appears. I’ve met him before. One time I cut my foot and glued the skin together. It got infected, and I had to come here. Dr. Wilensky gave me an antibiotic in the vein and said I was lucky I didn’t have to have my foot amputated.

“Let me guess,” Dr. Wilensky says as he reads my chart. “You didn’t know you were on fire until you smelled something cooking.”

I stare at his stethoscope. “Not exactly,” I say. It’s embarrassing.

“And you were in a car accident?”

“It was a minor accident, and I don’t have any injuries. I didn’t hit my head or anything.”

Dr. Wilensky checks me from head to toe, and I think about what Nana’s going to do when she finds out I ran into a ditch. She’ll probably kill me if she’s herself.

When I was about ten years old I found a razor blade in the bathroom medicine cabinet, and I decided to do a pain test. I cut my arm, but it only bled and didn’t hurt. My grandfather opened the door and screamed.

“Please don’t get rid of me,” I said.

“You want to know how bad it’s supposed to hurt?” my grandfather said. “Remember how your dad hasn’t come back? That’s how bad it hurts.”

At the hospital a doctor asked if I was trying to kill myself. He didn’t understand about a pain test.

Back at home Nana made me write “I will never do a pain test again” a hundred times. There are thousands of my “I will not” papers in the closet in her room.

I don’t have to worry about what Nana’s going to do or say.

Not one bit.

When I exit the treatment area, Joe’s standing in the waiting room. I’d forgotten that because I’m a minor, the emergency department would notify a parent or guardian.

“I never thought you’d take the car without permission. You could have killed yourself or someone else.”

“I’m sorry.” I stick my hands into my pockets. “I made a mistake, and then the brakes failed.”

“You need to pay attention and stop walking around with your head in the clouds. What did the doctor do?”

I shrug. “He checked me. He didn’t find anything wrong.”

“What’s wrong with your arms?”

I have marks from when Nana digs her fingernails into my arms. “Sometimes Nana won’t use her walker,” I say.

Joe doesn’t say anything on the way to my house.

I unlock the door. He follows me inside. We go into the living room.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do about you,” he says and sits on the sofa. “Because the buck stops with me.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I’m your legal guardian now.”

I groan and plop down onto the sofa. I can hear the grandfather clock in the corner ticking. “It’s time?” I say. “Things are getting worse?”

“I don’t know, but your grandmother is in no shape to make decisions for you.”

I stare at a stain on the sofa where I once dropped a burrito, wondering if I can actually take care of myself. I don’t want to be left alone. I hear the hum of the heat or maybe the air conditioner, but how the heck am I supposed to know? I figure it has to be the heat because it’s fifty-six degrees outside.

I pull my knees to my chest and hold on to my legs. The grandfather clock ticks so loudly that I want to break the glass over its scary face and stop time. Sometimes I’ve dreamed I’m walking through the house. It’s empty, and I can’t find a door or Nana to show me the way.

I’m thinking that if I was never born, my parents wouldn’t have disappeared on purpose, and Nana wouldn’t have gotten stuck with me. I remember overhearing Ruby tell her I should never have been born. That’s the same as wishing I was dead.

I rest my head on the back of the sofa and stare at the crystal chandelier.

I figure my parents are as pain-free as me but in another way. All they cared about was dumping me so they could go on with their lives.

So I figure it’s my fault nobody ever came to get me. I’m damaged.

What’s sad is that whenever anybody would ask Nana, “How’s James?” she’d say, “He’s fine. He’ll be coming home soon.” Then she’d quickly change the subject. After a while, people stopped asking about my dad, and she didn’t have to lie about him coming back.

“What’s going on?” Nana asks from the doorway. She’s stooped over and holding on to the walker.

“We’re just talking,” Joe says.

“Is it time for breakfast?”

I shut my eyes and take a deep breath. A stranger is living in my house.

“It’s eleven o’clock,” Joe says. “At night.”

She’s not confused. She’s been sleeping for a while. So what if she woke up and thought it was morning? That’s happened to me.

Joe stands. “I’ll be back in the morning.” He looks at me. “You be ready. We’re taking a ride.”

Chapter 10

When I was ten I was pretty stupid, but my grandparents wanted to adopt me anyway. They were in the study talking to Joe. My tutor was on the back deck either talking on his cell phone or texting, and I was hanging out behind the door to the study.

Joe said I would require care the rest of my life, and they were already at the age where they did not need a disabled kid. “What’s going to happen to him if you die?” he asked.

“For god’s sake, David is our grandson. He’s our responsibility now,” my grandfather said.

Joe asked if they would like him to check into experimental studies or interviews to help with my medical expenses. My grandparents said no. They didn’t need money.

I remember thinking I’d like to have my picture on a magazine cover because of my condition. I’d make a lot of money and pay a doctor to fix me to be like everybody else. The sooner I got normal, the sooner I’d be loved.

How stupid is that? Not even all normal people are loved.

Joe’s car has been in the driveway for ten minutes, and I’m not going downstairs to hear him lecture me again. He’s not my dad. He’s not even related to me. Unfortunately, I hear a knock on my door. Nana doesn’t knock. Luna will knock, but she’ll say, “Hey, David. It’s me.” And Spencer would just walk in.

He knocks again. I better answer. Maybe it’s not Joe. He never comes to my room. I open the door and see Joe.

“Look,” he says. “I know you want to see me about as much as I want to see you.” He looks me over. “Time to go.”

“Luna’s coming over,” I say.

He doesn’t say anything. I guess it won’t matter.

I follow Joe down the steps, out the front door, and to his car. I get inside and hear my door lock. I don’t ask where we’re going. I don’t want to know.

Joe’s perfect as far as Nana is concerned. You’d think he was her son or grandson instead of her attorney and my guardian.

“We have an appointment,” Joe says.

This is not going to turn out well. “Where?” I ask.

“Twin Falls,” he says.

I knew I wouldn’t be hearing good news. He doesn’t think he can just drop me off there today, does he? He wouldn’t try to get rid of me, would he? I hold my hands in my lap, folded together. “You can’t do this to me,” I say.

He turns onto a private road. “You did it to yourself.”

Twin Falls has golf-course grass covering rolling hills and a stream running along the side of the winding road. Joe stops at a gate, presses a button, and says his name. I hear a buzzer and the gate opens.

For a minute, I look for a way out. I see a redbrick wall along the perimeter, probably built to keep someone from leaving without permission. The driveway winds past redbrick buildings. Joe stops in front of the one that has
Office
written on double glass doors.

A lady shows us a studio apartment on the second floor, and it’s pretty nice, but there wouldn’t be enough room for my games and stuff. From the balcony I can see a pond with ducks.

“I’m allergic to ducks,” I say.

“David,” Joe warns.

I stare at him.

The lady says I’d have an aide to check in on me and help me shower and dress if needed. The aide will bring my lunch too, unless I want to eat in the restaurant.

We go into the hallway and ride an elevator to the fifth floor. The door opens and I see a circular restaurant. A few senior citizens sit at tables. I don’t see anyone that’s not a senior.

“Once a week, a shuttle takes our residents to a movie and shopping,” the lady says.

“That would be too much fun for me,” I say sarcastically. I get a sick feeling inside. Here I’d be going in reverse instead of moving forward.

“You’ll feel at home here,” Joe says.

Only if I keep my eyes shut.

Joe tells her he’ll be in touch.

Looks like Joe’s trying to scare me, and he’s good at that. But he’d never dump me here, would he? Then I think about how my grandparents never expected my dad to dump me and never return.

In the car, Joe starts lecturing me again. “You have bad judgment,” he says. “You should not have taken the car last night.”

“I won’t do it anymore,” I say.

All my life I’ve been trained to live by the rules or else I won’t survive. Check your body. Take your temperature. Don’t bang your head. Don’t bite. Don’t pick scabs. Don’t scratch your eyes. The thing is, I’m grateful I was reminded. Now I’m feeling like “Don’t breathe” has been added to the list, and I’m ungrateful.

“I don’t suppose you can come up with a good reason why you were driving without a license and why the wreck wasn’t your fault.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve checked with the mechanic,” I say. “Maybe it wasn’t totally my fault.”

“I did. The brakes are worn out.” Joe clears his throat. “I should have discussed a few things with you earlier, but to be honest, I don’t know what to say to you.”

“You’re doing fine,” I say.

“You go through life like a bull in a china shop,” Joe says.

“That’s a myth. A bull can actually be very coordinated, but I get what you mean. I know what’s dangerous.”

The world’s a scary place for me, but I want a life even if it’s short. If I mess up, I don’t have anything to lose. The worst that can happen is I’ll die from disease complications. Lately I have realized there’s more to life than staying inside, afraid to go out.

Considering I’ve been in the hospital dozens of times, I’m doing all right. I’ve heard doctors say I wouldn’t survive. My lips, hands, and legs are scarred, and I’ve had a hole in my throat, tubes in every opening in my body. Wouldn’t the doctors who said I’d be retarded and die young be surprised to see me now?

“You could say you’ll try to find my parents,” I say. “Give me a chance to meet them.”

“And you think they’d want you with them?”

“No.”

“Even if I found them, I would not trust them with your future. You had two broken legs when your father left you here,” Joe says. “Dog bites on your arms, bruises, and I don’t even remember what else. You thought you were like Superman with super-genes.”

I remember using crutches and going fast. “I’m not a little kid anymore,” I say.

“You had been in the hospital ten times.”

Nobody wanted me. Not my mother or father or my make-believe friend.

“I have hired a detective to find your father and let him know his mother’s condition. I’m warning you, though. Only one of three things can possibly happen. We find him, and he wants to be left alone. We don’t find him because he doesn’t want to be found. Or he’s dead. Somebody’s going to get hurt, no matter what.”

“He’ll come if he’s alive and knows Nana is sick,” I say.

“We tried to find him when your grandfather died,” Joe says. “And many times before.”

Chapter 11

The morning sun hangs over the top of the mountains in a clear sky. The light makes the backyard look like a garden in a magazine.

Luna and I go down the steps of the deck to the swimming pool. When Nana was well, she’d sit on the deck and watch me. Sometimes she’d swim too. She swims better than she walks. A long time ago she competed in the Olympics.

Luna sits cross-legged on the side of the pool. She’s wearing jeans and a heavy sweater, and I’m wearing a swimsuit.

I sit next to her and kick the water.

“Where’d you go yesterday?” she asks.

“Joe took me to an assisted living community. He’s trying to force me to live there.”

She shakes her head. “I think he was trying to scare you,” she says. According to her, the management of a retirement community doesn’t usually allow someone my age to live there. The residents who don’t want to be around kids would move.

“Joe’s serious. He doesn’t kid around. He’s perfectly content not to have to worry about me.”

“Then don’t annoy him,” Luna says, shutting her eyes and looking upward. “The sun feels good.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“Warm,” she says. “Like when somebody says, ‘I think I love you.’”

A girl’s never told me that. Nana frequently says, “I love you,” and it feels good unless she adds the “cutie patootie” part and somebody’s listening.

“You should go swimming,” I say.

“The water’s too cold for me. You have no idea what it’s like to freeze.”

“It’s bad.”

“How bad?”

“You can become dehydrated, numb, and get frostbite, and the entire body is affected,” I say. “When I was eight, I sneaked outside to play in the snow. I tried to make a snowman, but he turned out to be creepy. My grandmother caught me before I could give him arms or legs or a smiling face. She wrapped a blanket around me.” I shrug.

“I was dressed in pajamas and wasn’t wearing shoes. Back then, I didn’t understand that I could’ve gotten frostbite and end up losing fingers or toes. I’d like to know the feel of snow on my skin or in my mouth, but she scared me when she said I could lose a limb, so I never did that again.”

“Cold is like somebody you care about telling you they don’t care any longer,” Luna says.

I nod. I like how she simplifies things. Sometimes I wish I could switch the inside and outside of me, but then I’d have guts hanging all over the place.

There are things I can try to fix, but I can’t fix me. Not feeling pain or temperature are my weaknesses. It’s the way I am. It’s like kryptonite and Superman.

I swim for about fifteen minutes, and then I go underwater to practice holding my breath. It will make my lungs stronger, and it’s fun to do something that most people can’t do.

The next thing I know, Luna’s in the water grabbing me under the arms. She pulls me to the shallow part and holds on to me.

I don’t see the point in letting her go. I look into her green eyes. I smile at her. At the same time she’s panting and shivering and asking me if I’m okay. “You were under for four minutes,” she says.

It didn’t seem like four minutes. For the moment it’s just the two of us looking at each other, and I’m not about to make her mad or embarrass her by saying I wasn’t drowning. “I’m okay now. Thank you,” I say. I think I’m feeling warm. “You better change clothes before you freeze to death.”

We climb out of the pool. She takes a couple of steps toward me. “I work for you,” she says and pushes me into the pool.

Luna leaves early, and I think it’s because she’s mad at me. I don’t understand her, and she doesn’t understand me. I wish she did. I wish I hadn’t crossed an invisible line.

I’m in my room when I hear Nana arguing with the sitter.

“I’m going, and nobody’s going to stop me,” Nana says.

That sounds like something she’d normally say.

“Calm down,” the sitter says.

I go to Nana’s door. It’s open. She has her shoes on, heading toward me, pushing the walker. The sitter’s holding on to her arm.

“She only wants to walk around,” I say. And that’s good. That will help her get stronger.

“Call Spencer,” Nana says.

“Why?”

“It’s your grandfather’s birthday. We’re going to the cemetery, and you’re getting your driver’s license.”

“It’s okay,” I tell the sitter. “She always goes to the cemetery this time of year.”

I’m a little worried about the driver’s license part.

“This is an emergency,” Nana says to the sitter. “David wants a driver’s license, and I’m going to be the one to take him. It’s a life event.”

That makes sense to me. I probably have forty hours of practice by my way of counting.

But I should ask Spencer in person so that he doesn’t feel like he has to do us a favor. We haven’t talked to each other in a while, and he seems to be avoiding me. He’s been busy with Cassandra and getting ready to graduate. He doesn’t have time to hang out.

“I’ll be right back,” I say.

I cross the road in front of my house and then head down a path to his house. His house is kinda small, so we’ve never hung out there. I can hear kids yelling as they play in his backyard. Last year, Spencer’s dad lost his job, and now his parents run a day care.

On his porch is a box. I pick it up and knock. His mom answers, smiles, and invites me inside. She takes the box and says she’s glad the graduation invitations have finally arrived. She wants me to come to Spencer’s graduation, but it’s going to be on the football field, and it’ll be hot. The ceremony will take a couple of hours. “Maybe you can come for part of it?”

“I’ll try,” I say. I could’ve been graduating with Spencer. If I could go back in time, I’d go to school and not have tutors.

Spencer comes into the room.

“Nana would like for you to drive us to the cemetery and to get my license,” I say. “If you’re not too busy.”

“No problem,” Spencer says. “I have to find my wallet.”

We go to his room, and he searches through the clothes on his floor. I take a look at a college brochure on his desk. I imagine myself going to college, but only for a couple of seconds. I need a driver’s license to get anywhere.

On the way out, Spencer’s mom tells me that if I need help during the day, I’m welcome at their day care. It’s awkward. It’s embarrassing. Why does everybody think I’m helpless?

The sitter’s car isn’t in the driveway, and Nana’s not in her room.

We hurry through the house, calling her. We find her alone in the study.

“Where’s the sitter?” I ask.

“She scratched me, and I fired her.”

Nana has a small scratch on her forearm, probably from when the sitter was trying to keep her in her room. She tells me to open the fireproof safe. She can’t remember the combination.

Spencer’s shaking his head in an I-can’t-believe-this kind of way.

I’ve come this far. I’m getting my license today.

I thumb through the important papers: my passport and social security card, a copy of her will, an advance directive with my name on it, stocks, and my birth certificate. I take it and start trembling. It feels like the beginning of the end. I feel like a monster for being more afraid of what’s going to happen to me.

“I love this car,” Spencer says about the BMW. Actually, it belonged to Grandpa.

“Then it’s yours,” Nana says.

I glance back at Nana. She’s holding a sheet of paper with about ten things on it. She likes to make lists of things to do or else she forgets. I drum my fingers on the console. I wonder if she ever had a bucket list.

“I can’t take it,” Spencer says.

“I have already arranged for you to have it,” she says.

“Thank you.” Spencer smiles and looks over at me. “Relax. The test is easy.”

“You don’t have to act like we’re friends just because Nana gave you a car we don’t want,” I say.

Spencer stares straight ahead. “We are friends, and I’m allowed to be annoyed with you. I get annoyed with my brothers and sisters all the time.”

When we pass the elementary school, I turn my head and glance at it. It’s changed over the years. There’s a new playground now and about twice as many buildings. Nana let me restart school for a while so I’d be around other kids. I only made it to second grade. I always had trouble paying attention. One day my class went to the auditorium to hear an author speak. I sat next to the teacher’s aide who was assigned to supervise me. She was wearing a fuzzy sweater. My arm brushed up against it. Fascinated, I touched the sweater with my hand, rubbing it over and over. My brain was thinking,
This is what a cute lamb feels like
, and I was seeing one in my head.

Finally, the aide went over to the teacher and whispered to her. She took me to the principal’s office, and Nana was called. Nana later said I shouldn’t do stuff like that. It’s inappropriate. I didn’t mean anything by it. I only liked the feel of a lamb against my skin. School was awful after that. The kids—and my friends—somehow found out what happened and called me “freak” and “pervert.” I got into a lot of fights. I bled a lot.

Nana and Grandpa fought for me. They tried to explain why touch was so important for me. But the thing is, what’s best for me didn’t fit the school policies. The school wanted me in special ed. Grandpa decided to hire tutors. He said it was cheaper paying for the best teachers than risking my future.

At the DMV, I flunk my road exam. I bet I’m the only person in the world who failed the test. I was nervous. I only shake my head when I walk out of the DMV.

“Sorry,” Spencer says.

I smile at him, and he places his arm across my shoulder. I don’t look his way again as we head slowly to the car with Nana pushing her walker next to me. What if I fail at everything else on my bucket list? Walking between the two of them, I’m feeling like I’m smothering in a box and can’t get out. I shove Spencer’s arm off my shoulders and walk ahead of them.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Spencer calls to me.

He’s right. I’ll be seeing the world from the balcony at Twin Falls.

On the way to the cemetery, I’m thinking nothing can turn me into a normal person: not a license or a car, or even a mom or a dad or a girlfriend or a million dollars.

Spencer turns into the gravel parking lot between the two-hundred-year-old church—no longer used except for a few community events—and the small cemetery, the final resting place for Grandpa’s family, which includes a few soldiers, farmers, a teacher, a doctor, and four children. Before Grandpa died, we’d come here for picnics.

Oak trees shade the cemetery. There aren’t any other cars or people around. It’s so quiet I can hear the grass growing.

Spencer stays in the car texting Cass. They text each other all the time. I don’t know how Spencer gets anything done.

“Need help?” I ask Nana as she gets out of the car. She shakes her head and says she doesn’t need help to go to the bathroom. I watch her as she pushes her walker to the church door.

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Spencer says.

I walk over to Grandpa’s grave and say hello to him. His headstone reads
Return to sender
. That was his idea.

“What’s new? How are things on the farm?” I ask.

I give him time to send me some sort of sign. I don’t see anything different except a squirrel in the oak tree.

“I flunked my driving test today,” I say. “I couldn’t parallel park. I kept backing over the orange cone, and the examiner laughed at me. If you get bored, feel free to haunt him. Nana is okay, and she’s planning to head to the farm soon. I’m going to be fine.” I see her coming my way. Spencer’s helping her walk with the walker.

Next I walk over to Noel Peeples’ grave. She never has flowers or visitors.

Then I go see Seth and say hello. Somebody’s left him a teddy bear.

Leaning against a tree trunk, I watch Nana bend over Grandpa’s grave, her long, white hair falling in front of her face. She talks for longer than usual. I watch a squirrel watching me. I’m glad it isn’t a zombie. You can imagine anything in a cemetery, especially when you want to forget failing.

Nana’s grave site is next to Grandpa’s. My grave site is next to hers. I don’t like to look at mine.

Grandpa had a heart problem, and whenever he had chest pain, he’d take a nitroglycerin pill under his tongue. Afterward he’d get a headache from the medicine. I was amazed that one tiny white pill could cause so much pain.

One afternoon I was sitting on his bed. I tried one of the pills to make myself get a headache. It didn’t work, so I tried another one. It didn’t do anything.

I stood to put the pills away, and that’s all I remember. The next thing I knew, paramedics were putting me onto a stretcher and elevating my legs. I was practically standing on my head.

That ambulance ride was great.

I didn’t have to stay in the hospital. My blood pressure had dropped dangerously low from the nitroglycerin, and I fainted. No big deal, but Grandpa started keeping his bottle of nitroglycerin inside his shirt pocket where he could get to it quickly, and it was safe from me.

One day Grandpa said, “You’re changing. You’re becoming a man.”

To me that meant I was closer to dying, and I was only ten years old. The next morning when I got up, I said hello to myself in the mirror and listened to my voice. I didn’t sound like a man, and I smiled at myself.

Not long after, Grandpa went to the hospital and never came back except in my thoughts and sometimes in my dreams. He has his arms folded across his chest and he’s saying to me, “Where’s my nitroglycerin?”

It’s evening, and I get my laptop. I go into Nana’s room and sit in the recliner.

Nana reaches for her bottle of pain pills.

“You took a pill after dinner,” I say. I pick up the bottle and read the label. “You are supposed to take one every four hours.”

“I’m hurting,” she says. She looks so small when she leans forward in her bed and slumps her shoulders. “I’m worn out.”

I don’t know what to do. “I think a pain pill takes a while to work.” I don’t know. I have never taken a pain pill in my whole life. I take off the cap and then twist it back on so it’s child-proof. “I’ll tell you when it’s time.” I set the bottle on the table.