ROBERT PATTEN
JUNE 30, 2006
NO, I’M NOT TIRED . Just crippled. Remember?
It just seems like it’s never going to end—every sunny day the same.
Here he comes again, around the corner with his little jogging shorts flapping like a flag. Does he think I like being out here, with some thin white hospital blanket with blue stripes tucked tight in around my knees like I’m the kind of formally made bed that drill sergeants bounce quarters off of?
I can look down and see the tips of my toes sticking out from under the blanket, right there, in some kind of pure white specialized elasticized socks that are supposed to help keep my blood from pooling down there and pulling the skin of my feet tight like sausages—and does he think there’s anything to like about that at all? Like there’s one single scrap of good in it anywhere?
Because there isn’t.
“You should be glad you’re still alive,” people were fond of telling me at first, back when there used to be plenty of visitors in my room, visitors who mixed those easy words with the strange sort of compliment, “You’re one tough guy—other people would have been killed outright.”
Like I don’t ever wish for that.
How much simpler would that have been, to have just died out there? I’ll tell you: two simple paragraphs in the newspaper, and then forgotten. It would have been plenty simpler.
But enough blubbering.
It was bad enough that the nurses had us on the clock, trundling us out to the exact same place every single day, but it was even worse that he was like clockwork too, two-fifteen every single damn day, the clockwork goddamn Energizer Bunny, always running smoothly, always lifting one hand for that short little half-checked saucy wave.
Two-fifteen, time to wave to crippled Robert, hop-skip-jump and buddy was on his merry way. I could have broken his fucking wrist for every single wave. Once, I would have been able to do just that. Now I can’t even pull my stupid white-socked feet back in under the blanket so no one can see they’re so damned clean that it’s obvious my feet haven’t touched the floor since someone else bent down to put those socks on.
He probably just lives around here somewhere, trundling by the Miller Centre as part of his regular run around the lake. Quidi Vidi Lake is just down below us somewhere, walking trails and sports fields, not that I’ve seen any of that recently. It’s probably just his regular running route, and it’s not like it’s anything he’s trying to do to get under my skin or anything.
But he does. Get under my skin, I mean. And that’s not the worst of it.
Four times now—and I’ve counted, believe me, I’ve counted every single time—he’s gone by here with his wife or girlfriend, whatever the hell she is, not too much more than half his age and drop-dead gorgeous, long straight brown hair right down over her shoulders on its way to her ass, long-armed and long-legged, and you can tell by the way she moves just how limber she is. I know it’s not polite to say about anyone, but she’s the kind of woman you can’t help but look at and wonder what she’d be like in bed. And they’ve got the stroller and the baby with them, both of them with their hands together on the stroller’s handle, if that isn’t enough to make you goddamn sick. And I’m pretty sure I knew her for years back on McKay Street, back when she was a neighbour from well down the street and her name was Jillian George. And she could always be counted on to be looking over your shoulder at the bar to see if there was a better-off guy coming in the door behind you. I guess in the end there was, all things considered. Seems to have done all right for herself, running around with him. You can tell she’s got it all worked out.
I can almost imagine what his life is like. I can even hear him saying it. “I’m working the hours I want to now, no more rat race. I’ve checked out, just doing a little consulting work on the side, two days a week at the business school.”
Right.
No long, tiring drives heading out behind the wheel to Goobies or Clarenville or Gander to make sure that everyone has the kind of stock and promotional material they’re expecting. No daily grind, putting on a smile for every one of the hundreds of store owners whose mouths pull down every time they see you pulling onto their lot, clearly thinking, “No customer here, just someone else selling me something.” And I can’t be buying bottled water at every single store, just to make them feel better about it. Christ, I bought all that water, I’d be pissing my life away. Literally.
He’s probably a lawyer who chucked it all in at fifty to live the better life, new wife, new kid, new focus away from court and clients. Sold his share of the law practice, just doing a little commission work for the government since he’s been pitching a few bucks into the right political kitty all these years. Working himself back into the kind of shape he was in when he was in college and playing varsity something. Got his time down below what he could run when he was thirty.
And what a sweet deal that must be, starting all over with all the mistakes smoothed right over, with plenty of cash and plenty of spare time to be thoughtful, chockablock with all the brand new good intentions you didn’t have a chance to have the first time around.
And what do I get to do? Not even have the good intentions. No starting over here.
If I ever do get back on the road, I’ll just be flogging potato chips again and counting the long, slow days, the endless unrolling pavement on the way to an underpaid retirement. Hell, I can’t even reach the wheelchair brakes and release them, even if I’d like to just let them go so I could just goddamn well roll straight out into the speeding, merciful traffic.
How fair is this? I want to yell at the guy. You get the girl, I want to shout, you get the girl and the life and I get the goddamn moose.