The Sea-Wave (12 page)

E
very day is a somewhat new day.

O
ur one neighbour Macey is super-Christian. She squeezes through keyholes. I don't think Mom even likes her, but you can't tell someone who wears a shawl to go away.

When Macey mentions Jesus, she can't stop. Like the kid in Grade 10 who says “fuck” uncontrollably. If Mom tries to distract her by talking about dish detergent or her new moustache trimmer, Macey will say something like “Jesus had a moustache,” with a dreaming look in her eyes like she's remembering her dead husband.

When Mom leaves the room to get coffee or use the bathroom, I'm terrified. Macey usually ignores me but when we're alone she talks to me in a strange quiet voice, like she's trying to hypnotize someone who's sleeping. She always says more or less the same thing: that Jesus loves us all or that no matter how badly off we think we are there's always millions of people who are worse off and if we could all just rejoice in that and love Jesus we'd be so happy.

I thought about this and tried doing it but picturing millions of suffering kids didn't boost my mood a bit. Neither did a dying guy pinned to a stick.

Only one thing did make me happier: imagining Macey on an adjacent cross with blood gushing out of her hands and feet.

I'm not worried about going to hell. I've lived there a long time already.

I
used to feel emotion all the time. I wasn't quite happy, but I didn't realize how unhappy I was. Once you understand that, you just can't go back. You can try, but you can't go back.

When I hear music . . . I can listen to music for hours sometimes and nothing happens. But then I'll wake up in the night, I sleep with my radio on, and I'll hear a song that wakes me up
again
.

It's amazing. Like remembering my name. Everything is so clear and so real again. It's like I can breathe again. It's just the best feeling. I wonder,
Do other people feel like that all the time?

When I wake up, it's gone.

T
he old man has red hands. The outsides of his hands are red from the sun but his palms are even redder and cooked-looking. At first I wondered why but then I realized he's stopping a lot to pull out the weeds that keep choking up my wheels and it's wrecking his hands. There's streaks of green on them and brown dots that are probably blood. There's a guy named Gerry who my dad says was an ordinary working guy until his brain came out. We saw him at the mall. He paced a lot and occasionally started laughing insanely and rubbing his face. His face and his hands were red and raw. My dad asked him how he was and he just laughed and rubbed his face off. Then his mom took him to the bathroom. Then my mom took me to the bathroom and I threw up.

A
bilities Camp sounded fun. I was glad to get away. There were a few wheelers sitting outside, so I loosely associated with them until my parents drove away. Then we wheeled into the auditorium.

I'd never seen so many sick kids. The girl next to me . . . She was just a head in a chair. I sat around until the lights went mostly out. Then the fat lady licked her microphone and said dramatically: “We are
not
disabled. We are
multitalented
.” And everyone cheered, who was able.

When the lights came back on, I looked around. The head in the chair was staring at me. This other girl was struggling with her nebulizer.

I never really realized I was a freak until someone made a camp for it.

I
n my dreams I have a wheelchair. Every time. Other kids are playing ring-toss with unicorns and I'm wheeling along, looking for ramp access.

One time on AM 800 CHAD this dream expert was talking about either lucid or lucent dreams. The idea is you're dreaming, you
realize
you're dreaming, you
take control
of your dreams. Then you really could if you wanted toss those rings, or eat the mayor, or pretty much anything else you could think of.

So I tried it. Just before I fell asleep, I told myself I was going to have — I think it was a lucid dream. The trouble is when you're dreaming, you can't
tell
you're dreaming. So if you've got a baby growing on your kneecap, your brain just says: “Yup. As usual.” You're supposed to insert a clue into your dream before you nod off and when you run into that clue you'll know you're asleep. In my dreams I'm usually just quietly reading, so my dream clue was that I'd read the word “smudge,” which is my least favourite word in English and the first word that terrible poets reach for when they're trying hard to be metaphorical.

So I kept thinking smudge, smudge, getting sleepier and sleepier, and when I dreamed I was reading I
saw
the smudge, and had an epiphany. I threw my book down. “I'm dreaming,” I said to myself. “This is all a dream. I'm
taking control
of my dreams. I'm going . . . to fly.” Flying, just the freeness of it, is probably the ultimate wheeler fantasy.

I closed my eyes. I
focused
.

And then it happened.

I felt myself rising higher and higher. I got that butterfly feeling. It should have been so amazing.

But it wasn't amazing. It was fucking depressing. Because my wheelchair just floated up with me. No matter how hard I rocked or pushed down on my armrests, it stuck to me. And I felt so much sadder and more devastated than I've ever felt in my waking life.

I floated back down to the ground. I picked up my book and I kept on reading.

Then I woke up.

I
should probably draw a picture of the old man. If I get recalled to life again people will want to know who to look for. Or if they just find a skeleton with a memorandum book.

Drawing isn't my forte. I draw a lot. A couple months back I drew a picture of a hermit crab out of the encyclopaedia and even though I don't really like people to see my work I was proud enough, it even looked like a crab, to stick it on the fridge. No one said anything till the Jehovah lady came. My mom lets them in because she can only disappoint family members. They went into the kitchen. I listened from the top of the stairs. The lady must've seen the drawing because she said: “Oh how old is your little one?” There was a long pause, then mom said: “Twelve.” Then a longer pause where I imagined the Jehovah lady screwing up her corneas and maybe slanting her head like a puppy. “Oh,” she said, finally. Then she started in about Jehovah. I retracted back into my room like the nearest seashell.

I guess with my skill a drawing would be worthless. And there's no point again because the old man looks
exactly
like da Vinci's self-portrait.

It's uncanny.

I
bit the dentist. If you gouge your hook into my cavity and ask me if it hurts I'm going to bite you. Like the crocodile in
Peter Pan
. My main virtue may be my strong teeth.

I get my dentistry done now at the hospital. They put you under and after you can't have solid food or your lungs will collapse. The doctor illustrated this by drawing eyes on a sandwich bag, then blowing it up and popping it on his chest. At the same time as the
pop
the nurse jammed the IV in. The last thing I remember is the doctor crumpling the puppet with its head blown open.

I couldn't eat for three days. I could have broth but chose not to. Not snacking is murder. I wanted some mixed nuts but kept imagining my chest flattening like the card guys in
Alice's Adventures.
Or my head blowing open.

On the fourth day I ate breakfast and threw up. “Life is simpler,” my mom said as she wiped it up, “when you don't bite people.”

She's probably right.