The Greatest Day by Turk copyright 2001 [email protected]

“Beauty in distress is much the most affecting kind of beauty.” —Edmund Burke, On the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757) This is the greatest day of my life so far. It’s 5am, I’m waking up in the dark in a brokendown trailer outside Bakersfield, I’m broke, and in two hours I’m due at my low-paying dead-end dirty-fingernails job in a gritty metal shop. But I haven’t shot up, or snorted, or popped, or even had a drink in 9 months and 13½ days, haven’t been raped or hopped into bed with a sleazy jerk for sex that made me feel dirty inside and out in 8 months and 21 days, haven’t cut myself in 8 months and 17 days, and haven’t even had a hysterical self-hatred screaming-crying jag in 8 months and 6½ days. I’m not in prison. And I am a strong, beautiful, loving, and lovable woman. And anyway, this is Wednesday, and Wednesday is get-off day. But first I have things to do. Start with the check-over, feet first. Always have to check the feet carefully, because I’ve never had much sensation in them, and they can do funny things without my being aware of it. Like get infected, or turned the wrong way. They’re still there, tiny, red, lumpy. Legs slim and firm. Not skinny, not a word I use any more. No calves of course—never had any nerves to work the muscles to make them bigger. Insides of the thighs covered with network of scars where I cut them, but the scars are fading. Skip the crotch and its equipment and hardware—that comes later this morning. Belly flat and firm. I never cut it. Not sure why, but the skin is left fine and soft. I run my over it with pleasure and satisfaction. Nipple rings still there. Big things, welded so they can’t be removed. I could get them cut off of course, probably will some day. But they give me something on my chest. My godly sister got all the boobs and ass in the family. I clean the piercings carefully. Arms and hands. A million old cuts and a few new ones, but the new ones are just from honest toil. The needle tracks get somewhat obscured in all the other scars, but people who know what to look for can see them. Like cops. One reason I wear a lot of longsleeved boy’s shirts. The hands are tiny and the arms look fragile. But they earn me my living, such as it is. The face. I used to hate the face worst of all. Just like hers, I thought. Fair, lightly freckled skin, blue eyes, reddish-brown hair. A little heart-shaped face. Now I’ve taken out most of the hardware I used to hide it, let the piercings close over. Just the big ring in the septum of my nose, one small one in my lip and another in one eyebrow. I take them out and clean the holes. I’m fanatic about piercings and keeping them clean. I examine the face critically, objectively.

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I step back and look at myself in the dingy mirror. Four feet 6½ inches, 88 pounds with hardware. Just a normal 25-year old woman who gets taken all the time for a prepubescent boy. Boy-short hair, of course, but long just looks out of place with that face and body. I used to have all kind of hateful words for that body. Now the word is elfin. That’s my look, body and face. Elfin. On me it looks good, I really can see that now. Not her look at all—mine. Shower. Turn it on, step in, pull the ragged, stained curtain. Now for the crotch and all that goes with it. Used to have a row of rings up and down the outer lips. Louis would jerk on them. Hurt like hell. Jerk jerking. Louis would put locks through them, use them to chain me to a chair like an animal. Yes, Sister, if you truly hate yourself, really know that you deserve the very worst the world has to offer, want to experience the ultimate in pain and degradation, then get yourself together with Louis Laughlin, stay with him for two and half years while he drags you down to hell. One thing I owe the Texas Rangers: if it hadn’t been for them I might still be with Louis. If I was still alive, that is. Not any more. No more from Louis or any of his ilk. I found this weird guy in Yuba City, queer as a three-dollar bill, to lace me up. Stainless steel wire laced between the piercings, like shoelaces. Through the clit too, then crimped and brazed closed. No prick’s prick is going into that slit, not until I decide to go back to Yuba City and get Smitty the Smith to unlace me. No time soon, maybe never—it’s fine like it is. Just have to keep it clean. I can get my finger in—the gaps are big enough for that. Water is best. I start up the shower wand, let it play through the lacings, past the lips. Do that every morning, of course, and more often when I have my period. But Wednesdays are different—lots longer. It’s good, really good. Much better than Louis ever was. A delicious, subtle tension. I play it, moving the water jet a little this way and that. It builds and builds, becomes urgent. I can’t hold it, can’t let go, have to let go; and the dam breaks and lets all the pressure out and the ecstasy in, so I lose myself in dreamy reverie and imagine—oh, I don’t know what I imagine. And then I do it again. Two, that’s what I allow myself; two orgasms every Wednesday morning before work. Not bad for a recovering sex addict, everything addict. There may be less of it, but the truth is that it’s better than it ever was when I was doing my rabbit act. A little can go a long way. I wash my hair, finish the shower, and get out. Put my robe on and fix breakfast. Black coffee, cereal, banana, milk, eat like a good girl. Sure, I’ve done eating disorders too, but no more. Then dress. Tiny, little-girl panties, my only feminine attire. No bra. She always insisted I wear a bra over my miniscule breasts. I haven’t worn one since she popped her last pill, and haven’t missed it. Plastic ankle braces—not too comfortable, but I can’t get through a day on my feet without them. Little-boy checked shirt and little-boy jeans. Not really work clothes, but they don’t make work clothes my size. Little-, really little, boy’s boots, looking like I took them from my sister’s Ken doll. I grab the lunch I packed last night from the leftovers and clump out into the dusty brilliance of the desert morning.

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The bike is still chained to the back of the trailer, too old and decrepit to be worth stealing, even here. I unlock it, swing my leg across the saddle, turn the key, kick the starter with all my might. It sputters, stumbles, then catches. First time! I rumble off toward 184. The cops eye me but no longer stop me; they’ve gotten used to the elfin motorcycle woman who looks like a little kid. They never figured out that my license and IDs are all fake, that they were letting a wanted woman slip past them. It’s almost 4 o’clock and it looks like my prayers to the overtime gods are going to be answered. Business has been slow and without overtime my paychecks have been really thin. Straight time at $8.35 doesn’t go far. Hernando tells me to clean out the forming press dies and set up for another run of a dozen of the same part. The dies are junk and should have been re-plated a long time ago, but the owner doesn’t want to spend the money. Like everyone at L&S, Hernando and I speak in Spanish. To clean the dies you take the press apart, pull them out, clean them, put them back, and reassemble the press. Then you have to re-align it. Two hours if you’re practiced and it’s a good day. Fat chance. Hernando says, “¿In media hora, eh?” Half an hour. I nod; my voice doesn’t carry well in the noisy shop and I avoid shouting when I can. Question: Why does a shop that can hire all the hunky hombres it wants bring on a woman who doesn’t come to chest height on any of them and couldn’t arm wrestle with their pinkies? Answer: To clean the press, and stuff like that. Those little slim arms and tiny hands can get where no big Mex-man’s ham-hands will fit. I cut the power, unplug the machine to be sure, and tape the handle in the open position. Not to OSHA standards, but it does the job of making sure the machine won’t decide to run a press cycle while my hands are in it. Rubber gauntlets go on. Smallest available, and eight sizes too big. Hernando wanted me to dispense with them, but there’s all kinds of metals and chemicals in there. It would be easier if I could have a better sense of feel, but this has to do. Holding the brush, I wriggle my hands in, then my elbows, until my armpits are resting on the rim of the machine and I can reach up into the recesses of the die. Whoa, what was that? Ground trembles, rolls. Oh shit, an earthquake. Oh shit! My arms are in that fucking machine’s fucking maw. I pull back sharply as the ground really rumbles and the press clatters. Not worth worrying about getting a few scrapes; get out! I pull free so violently that I fall back on my fanny on the grimy concrete floor. I put my hands out to push myself up off the floor. Come on hands, push. No push. I look down. No hands. No elbows. No arms. I can’t get my mind around it. I look up at the machine. No gap between top and bottom. The gap I had my arms in closed when the earthquake shook the press. My arms are still in it; I’m here on the floor, three feet away. My arms are gone. My skinny, scarred, needle-tracked arms are gone.

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Someone is screaming. Loud, really loud—a hell of a scream. It’s me, screaming my head off. My arms hurt like hell. I don’t have any arms, but they still hurt like hell. They set the morphine drip control down near my feet so I could press it. A woman who’s addicted to both shit and pain, and you give her a choice between them. I’ve been trying to go light on both, just enough so I don’t get too deep in either. More of the morphine last night, so I could sleep, more of the pain today. I wiggle the bandaged stumps again. I keep doing that, as if I’ll find it’s not as bad as I remember. But every time I find it’s really worse. They’re no more than an inch or two long, just stubs, too short ever to bring together. I know they have robot arms, but I know that people work them with the stumps they’ve got left. No stumps, no robot arms. Hell, I don’t know anything about it, but that’s my fear. Completely helpless: no arms, senseless lumps for feet. Completely, totally, 110%. Couldn’t even make my living on my back. Of course when the great State of Texas catches up with me and sends me to one of their beautiful prisons for 15-20 for dealing then I won’t have to worry about making my living. Or living, period. I wish I could follow her example, I really, truly do. But it’s pretty hard to cram pills in your mouth with no arms. Knock on the door, head peeking through. The nosy social worker who came earlier. “Hi, it’s Concepción Zuloaga, the social worker. Can I come in?” “Sure, why not?” She asks in stumbling Spanish whether I’d rather talk in it. “English will be fine, thanks.” She’s Mexican-American, obviously, speaking standard California brand English and Spanish that’s not very good. Not nearly as good as mine. It’s funny as hell. Small, but not as small as I am; slim, but with more curves than I have. About my age, pretty but nothing special. Maybe something special about her sparkle, not her looks. “Can I get you anything?” “Thanks. I’d like a sip of water.” One of the infinite list of things I can’t do for myself. “I wish I had some good news for you, but I’m afraid all I have is bad this afternoon. Your motorcycle was stolen and your trailer has been broken into and ransacked. I don’t suppose you had insurance?” I shake my head no. “The Sheriff’s office really wasn’t on the ball on this. They should have checked at least your trailer as soon as the case was reported to them, about 6 last night. I think you ought to file a complaint. I’ll bet the county would pay you for at least some of your losses.”

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“I don’t think so. It doesn’t really matter.” That’s all I need is the Sheriff taking an interest in who this “Nadia Martinez” really is. She pauses for a moment, then goes on: “You really must have a lawyer, you know. I don’t think your employer has any workers comp insurance. You won’t even be able to get medical care without a lawyer. I think Dan Olmedo will do all right for you. I’ve seen him do good work for others. And you don’t need any money—he works on contingency.” Olmedo was the guy I turned away earlier. Don’t need any lawyers looking into who I am either. I turn my head away. “I don’t like lawyers. I can’t think now. I just want this to be over.” Instead of turning around and walking away, she sits down in the chair beside the bed. “It’s after my shift, I’m off work. Let’s be friends. I always wanted a friend who was smaller than I am. Call me Connie.” She means it, I can tell. “Hi, I could use a friend, and I think you’re nice. I’m Nadia-theno-armed.” Connie smiles and reaches out her hand. I swing my foot over so we can shake. It’s a pretty limp shake on my part, my foot flopping around. “What’s with your feet?” “Oh, my spine was defective when I was born and the nerves to my feet were mostly not there, so I’ve never had any sensation or control.” “The doctors said you’ve got hundreds of cut scars on your body.” “Yeah, and that’s not counting my arms. I’m addicted to pain. Hell, I’m addicted to practically everything. I’ve been kicking it. I’ve been clean and sober for nine months.” “And now?” “I have no idea. I don’t know about anything now. But I don’t want to go back to that.” She sits silently for a little while. I don’t have any energy to carry the conversation. Then Connie says, “Nadia, this just doesn’t add up. You have no family, no friends, no money, no possessions, and don’t want any help. You’re running away—it just sticks out all over. Are you illegal? Let me help, please. I won’t betray you, I promise. No matter what.” I don’t know her from Eve; why should I trust her? But I’ve got to get help from someone, and I don’t have any better alternatives. “Yeah, well. I’ve got a lot to run from. Fifteen to twenty for dealing, for instance. Not that I was dealing. Not that that makes any difference. It’s not in California—somewhere else. I wouldn’t last long in prison.” “I know about prison,” she says quietly. “I’ll do whatever I can. What about your family? Would they really turn you in? Or are you afraid you could be traced through them?” “My dad left when I was 8 and I haven’t heard from him since. My mom really is dead, like I said. No aunts or uncles or cousins. And yeah, my sister would turn me in. She’s a

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Jesus freak and thinks I ought to burn in hell. My friends—I didn’t have any friends, just people I did sex and shit with. I’d rather starve than see any of them ever again.” “When did your mother die? How old were you?” “Fourteen years ago,” I tell her. “When I was eleven. She was a big-time pill-popper and one day she just decided to pop them all.” “Couldn’t have been accidental?” I shake my head. “Th-th-there—th-there was a note.” Why are my eyes all wet? I’ve told this story a thousand times without tears. I was doing fine until she asked that question. Why now? Connie puts a hand on my thigh, as if to steady me against the wind. “Do you want to tell me what it said?” “I never knew. Never. They wouldn’t tell me. My sister said it blamed it all on m-me, but she didn’t know either.” Connie stands up, takes two tissues, dabs my tears with one hand and hers with the other. Then she leans down, hugs me, her cheek against mine. She sits back down and I can see her shift back into action gear. “Nadia, you’ve got to have a lawyer. Let me find one who won’t ask questions about anything he doesn’t need to know. Dan Olmedo maybe, or someone else. Will you let me do that?” I nod, too exhausted even to speak. “I won’t come see you again tonight, but we’ll talk tomorrow in visiting hours. And I’ll see you officially during the day. Adiós, mi amiga.” It’s 9:30 and Connie has shown up for her official visit, Dan Olmedo in tow. They’re lovers, it’s obvious. He’s cute and nice. I try not to feel jealous. His Spanish is better than Connie’s, but not as good as mine. We speak in English. He phrases his questions carefully: he knows he doesn’t want to know too much. He tells me that under California’s workers’ compensation law, L&S Metalcrafters is supposed to carry workers’ compensation insurance which will foot all my medical bills, pay me twothirds of my average weekly pay for as long as I’m recovering from the accident, pay me “limited compensation” for the reduction in my “earning capacity” as a result of having had my arms cut off, and pay up to $16,000 for “vocational rehabilitation”. I can also get some rehabilitation services from the State and disability payments from Social Security. Two-thirds of my average weekly pay. I couldn’t really live on what I had been making, even with two hands to do everything for myself, and now I’ve got no hands and a third less. He does the math for me because I’m still too woozy—maybe $250 a week. Every indication is that L&S Metalcrafters doesn’t really have any insurance. The law says they have to, but no one enforces it with much energy. But that doesn’t mean I’m out of luck, because the State is supposed to pick up the tab and then collect from L&S. Only the State fund is pretty broke now because lots of companies have stuck the State with the tab and the Legislature hasn’t wanted to do much about it.

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Wonderful, just wonderful. He quizzes me pretty closely about exactly how the accident happened and who told me to do what and how things were normally done. I’m terrified I’ll be ineligible for benefits because I wasn’t doing it the right way and should have known so, but he says no. As long as I was doing what I was told and the supervisors knew what I was doing I’m perfectly safe. As safe as I can be while L&S and the State try to get each other to take the fall and neither has any money. As safe as I can be on $250 a week until I’m “recovered.” How does anyone ever “recover” from getting her arms chopped off? He says he thinks he can get the temporary disability payments to continue until they fit me with prostheses. I remember that’s what they call the robot arms, prostheses “Prostheses? Shit,” I say, in my ladylike way. “Look at those stumps. Shit. They’re not an inch long. They can’t fit any prostheses to those. I’m just screwed.” He’s distressed. “Look, I don’t know. It’s a unique case, really unique. I think we’ll be able to get you what you need, but we just have to go one step at a time.” The nursing staff likes me. Most of them are Hispanic, and they think I’m cute. The little blue-eyed armless Latina. I don’t look so much like a Latina, but who would speak Spanish like that if it weren’t her lengua materna? And who would go by a name like Martinez if she weren’t of La Raza? It’s a good thing, because I’m not the easiest patient. For one thing, my arms continue to hurt. Not all the time and not always the same way, but they hurt a lot, and it doesn’t help make me any sweeter. They hurt a lot more than they ever did when I still had them. I don’t mean that the stumps hurt, although they hurt too. I can feel my arms, maybe more strongly than when they were really there, and a lot of the feeling is pain. It’s time to get up and go to the bathroom. I got up on my feet for a few moments yesterday, but now I have to take some steps. I stand about as steady and straight as a limp noodle. Two nurses prop me up, but it’s hard with no arms. My feet flop around and I almost fall a couple of times, but I manage to get to the can, feeling like I’ve run two marathons. I’m supposed to shit but I can’t. Try hard but don’t push too hard. Sure. No go. I do piss, however. They know all about the lacings. Carmencita, the nurse aide, has a squeeze bottle that she uses to squirt me before blotting everything dry with toilet paper. Getting up is really hard. There’s no room in the bathroom for them to stand beside me, and no arms for them to pull on. And my feet don’t nearly touch the floor when I’m sitting on the toilet. I nearly topple before Carmencita hugs me to her very ample bosom. They mostly carry me back to bed. What do I weigh now, without my arms? Eighty pounds? Seventy-five? I ask Carmencita to clean my nipple piercings. They took my face hardware out, but didn’t attempt to cut off the nipple rings or my lacings. She seems happy to do it, and I’m

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happy to have it done. It’s strange to feel someone else’s hands on my nipples, but not unpleasant. But how am I ever going to get off? I don’t have to worry about that yet: it’s five days to Wednesday. “Tell me why they want you, Nadia. I don’t want to know where, just why.” Just a week ago was the last time I had arms, just a few minutes less than a week. Connie knows, and she made a point of coming to be with me. Anything is better than thinking about that again, even this. “I was living with a guy named Louis, if you could call it living.” I shrug my shoulders, funny gesture with no arms. “We were both on heroin, all kinds of stuff. Of course he was dealing—there are hardly any legal ways to support a serious habit.” “Please go on.” Connie’s voice is soft, but insistent. “One morning about 3 am the cops bust in. They’d been watching for months, getting evidence. I can’t tell them anything, because I don’t know anything, but Louis sells everyone he knows. Tells them I’m dealing. Fifteen to twenty.” “Were you dealing?” “No. He’d never have trusted me with the junk.” “Why did he tell them you were dealing?” “He’s a junkie, that’s why. You don’t need any other reason. I guess he figured he might get an extra day off his sentence for me. Or maybe he just wanted to hurt me one more time.” “You’re sure you couldn’t get clemency on account of your disability? Because you’ve been living honestly?” “Not a chance, not a fucking chance. Believe me, I’m not kidding you.” “It would cost them a lot to incarcerate you, with people to take care of you and all.” “You must be thinking of some other State! They’d just throw me in with the general prison population, let me try to keep my head above water. They put people to sleep there every day, they could care less about what happens to me.” I shudder again, violently, getting out of control, unable to stop it. “I’ll kill myself if they come for me. I’ll find a way!” “How did you get away? Did they release you on bail?” “A big-time drug dealer like me? No way! And who would have paid? They locked me up in a holding jail. Then a m-m-male, m-m-m-m...” I’m gasping, shuddering violently, unable to breathe, unable to think. Connie’s hugging me and I don’t have to think. “How many times, Nadia? How many times have you been raped?”

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“I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know! I can’t count!” I’m screaming and writhing in her arms. Again she dries my tears, strokes my face with her hand. “And that’s why the stainless steel wires across your vulva, right?” “Partly, just partly. I’m no angel, Connie, not at all, not one bit. I’m a sex addict, an everything addict. It reminds me, helps me.” “A heroin addict who didn’t use any of her optional morphine.” “Just a little.” I laugh. “You have to get the picture: I’m a pain addict too. I couldn’t lose. Hell, I ought to be delighted about prison. The ultimate in pain! The one final big pain.” “What do they have to identify you? The fingerprints won’t do them much good.” “No, but they were thorough and took footprints too. Anyway, there’re aren’t all that many women of my general description. I just hope if I can keep a low enough profile I’ll never come on their scope. Maybe the lack of arms will confuse them some, too.” “I’ve been thinking; those feet don’t seem to be much good to you.” Z-Z-ZAP! The great cattle prod of life springs to life. “No shit, they’re completely useless! I’d be just about as well off with wooden ones. And then no one could actually prove who I was, not at all. “But how would I get anyone to cut off my feet?” “I don’t know,” Connie admits. “‘Medical necessity’—that’s what we want. Because you could walk better with prostheses than your feet? That’s probably not enough, though.” “Maybe they could have a prosthesis with mechanical toes, so I could use it to do things? That would really be nice.” “That might sell! Maybe it could be done. Let me ask around. How about a pizza party? Order in and we can eat pizza and talk. Maybe Dan would like to come over.” “Am I allowed to order pizza?” Not that I have any money to pay for it. “No, but I am. What kind do you want?” I had been getting kind of tired of being examined by a string of doctors over the past two days, but this one is pretty cute. Dr. Akira Otsugi is about 5’ 4” tall, solid, with one of those finely chiseled Japanese faces with very oriental eyes. He’s a resident, about my age. I try out some Japanese on him. He answers haltingly, flushing, so I switch to English. His answers run to soft monosyllables. I can’t figure out whether he’s preoccupied, revolted, or shy. Anyway, he unties my gown, puts it quite neatly aside, and begins his exam. Very thorough, very precise, but swift. No comment about the nipple rings or the lacings. No one ever comments except the simple Mexican girls who work as nurse aides and helpers. Who would comment? Doesn’t everyone have them? But he certainly notices the lacings, runs his fingers over them. I move my hips a little, but he gives no response. Maybe he doesn’t like Chicanas, even ones who speak

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Japanese. (Was it smart to show I could speak Japanese. How many factory girls named Martinez speak Japanese? But Texas doesn’t know I speak anything by English.) Maybe he’s saving himself for a Japanese girl, or an Anglo. The feet get special attention, poked, prodded, moved this way and that. Then he asks me to turn on my stomach and examines my lower back. My hamstrings and lower legs also come in for attention. Then he turns to the shoulders, removing the dressings so he can look at the rows of staples that close the incisions. His touch is lightly electric. Finally, it’s time to test my flexibility. I’ve got plenty, show him how I can touch my feet together behind my head. Naked on the bed, with my laced pussy thrust up and out at him. “All right, you can—ah, I’ll help you with your gown.” He flushes again, embarrassed. We both know he was going to tell me to get dressed, both know I can’t. “The wounds are healing very well. You should be able to start on desensitizing the stumps soon.” He puts the gown over my shoulders and ties it up behind. “This is the fourth exam,” I say. “What can you tell me?” “I have to consult my colleagues. It’s a complicated case.” Another flush. “Very unusual, many factors.” He turns and flees. I’ve had my thrill for the week. Connie shows up at 4pm to ask if I want to go to her place for dinner with her and Dan. “Can I do that? Can I just go out for the evening?” “Yep, you can. I checked. They’re going to release you as soon as arrangements can be made. We’ll talk about it tonight.” I take my walk around the floor in a funk. Right, release me. Release me to what? I can’t even wipe my ass. Some sort of “long term care facility?” Some sort of warehouse for useless people while they’re waiting to die—or get caught and go to prison and die? I’m stuck on this floor. I can’t open the doors to the stairwells, can’t push the elevator buttons. I’m tired and I head back. I come around the corner and find that the doors have been closed across the hall. Doors that are always left open except that now they’ve been closed. I’m trapped. Will anyone come this way late on a Friday afternoon? Just doors closed, really simple. Just push the latch with your thumb and pull on the handle. Easy. I could do it in a second with hands. I could probably do it in a minute with toes, if I had toes that worked. Only now I can’t do it at all. I bend over and try to push down on the latch with my chin while pulling with the stub at my right shoulder. It hurts like hell and doesn’t work. I stand there and weep with frustration and despair. I hear footsteps behind me and turn to see a janitor, a young Hispanic man.

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“¡Haga el favor de abrirme la puerta!” I plead, tears all over my cheeks. He looks stricken with guilt—he must have closed it—and scurries to let me out of my prison. Back in the room, someone has put the bed in its high position. I could slide back into the chair and wait until someone comes to pull me out. I could poke my head through the curtain and ask my new roommate to call a nurse, if she’s awake. I could wander out to the nursing station and ask for help. But I really want to find ways for myself. I still feel unsettled from the doors in the hall. The control unit doesn’t seem very likely—you have to steady it while pushing the buttons. I look at the bed, which comes up to about my nipples. Come on, Nadia, you used to be a gymnast, bum feet and all. I spring up, flop forward on the bed, use my momentum to flip my feet up. It’s a good thing the side guard is raised on the other side or I might have rolled right over the side. But not too bad, all in all. Connie lives in an old “shoebox” apartment building, with cracked stucco and neglected plantings. The apartment itself shows signs of age, but she’s decorated it very pleasantly. Southwestern style, short on money but long on imagination. A lot nicer than my trailer ever was. Her chili is good and she and Dan make a game of feeding me. I’m sort of getting used to being fed. Not getting to like it, but getting to take it for granted. I’ve figured out a way to deal with deep chairs, at least some of them. I scoot up on her couch, swing my legs up, get them under me, and sit on them. It puts my head up higher and lets gives me leverage to get out of the seat when I want to without help. Some people couldn’t do it, but I’m so flexible and so light that I can sit on my legs all day with no problem. Connie hasn’t seen this before and laughs with delight. “Oh! You move just like a cat! I love it.” Dan’s smile looks a little forced. He’s not looking forward to this. Neither am I, because I’m sure he has no good news. “Let me review what’s going on,” he begins. “L&S Metalcrafters is responsible under the law. They’re trying every possible way to get out of it, but I don’t think they will. They’ve got three theories, but all of them have been tried before and the State and the courts have never bought any of them from anyone else. Also, I think they’ll try to get out of it through bankruptcy, but that’s the State’s problem.” “Sr. Salinas is a real credit to La Raza,” Connie puts in, sourly—Salinas is the owner. “Sr. Salinas could care less about common people, My Sweet, but we will win in the end. Anyway, L&S is making difficulties about treatment, even though they don’t accept any responsibility, and so far the State examiner hasn’t put his foot down.” “Is Salinas paying him off?” Connie demands.

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“I don’t think so, although anything is possible. I think he has political connections, however. Anyway, the four doctors who examined you don’t agree. Three think you should get a Utah arm, but the other disagrees.” “What’s that?” I ask. “The Utah arm is a very fancy prosthesis which is supposed to work well in extreme cases, which you are.” He’s totally matter-of-fact about it, and of course he’s totally right. “I think maybe the University of Utah invented it, or something.” “Utah arm, not arms?” Connie asks. “Yes. Apparently they can fit only one in a case like this, or there’s no benefit to fitting two. I’m trying to find out more. The doctors can be awfully vague, and I don’t think any of them have ever dealt with a ‘bilateral shoulder disarticulate,’ which is what you are when you’re not being Nadia.” We all laugh, a good thing to be doing under the circumstances. “What about the feet?” I ask. “I’d be a lot better off without them.” Would I ever! “Three of the doctors agree, but the fourth doesn’t. Two of them think that amputation of the feet and fitting of prostheses should qualify as part of treatment for your accident, and one isn’t sure.” “Who is this fourth guy and what the hell does he think should be done?” I ask. “He’s Meltin, the older guy. He was named by L&S and all he’ll say is what he’s against. I’ve run into him before and he never met an injured worker he didn’t think was a fraud and malingerer. I don’t think he can stop treatment, but again he can slow things down. I’m trying to get a single expert appointed, someone who actually has dealt with bilateral shoulder disarticulation cases, to make up an impartial, definitive treatment plan. But L&S has been resisting. Anyway, we’ll have to find the right guy. Art Otsugi, the resident, is being very helpful. He seems to have taken a real interest in the case. Do you remember him? Short, Japanese-American?” Akira “Art” Otsugi? Dr. Akira=smart? Oh, boy, do I remember him. I just nod, but I see a twinkle in Connie’s eye. Not much gets by her. “Anyway, while all this is getting fought out, everyone wants to get you out of the hospital.” “Including me, not that anyone bothered to ask.” Dan sighs. “I know, I know. But it will all get fixed. Again, L&S is making difficulties. We’ve finally worked out a deal I hope you’ll accept. There’s a Mrs. Rose Kitter in Bakersfield who’s a licensed home-care provider. She will give you a room and board and home care. L&S wanted to turn all of your temporary disability payments—which come to $257.14 per week, but the way—over to her, and wanted her to accept this as full payment. She insists on more and I insisted that you had to have money for items other than room and board. So she will get 75% of your disability for room and board plus $150 per week for personal care, coming to a grand total of $342.85 for her. The other 25% or $62.29 will be paid into an escrow account from which I can disburse to you or on your behalf for clothing and incidentals.

13

“In addition, there will be a visiting nurse who will come three times a week, and you will come to the hospital twice a week for occupational therapy.” “Occupational therapy! You’ve got to be kidding,” I scoff. Connie chimes in. “This is really to help get your stumps ready for further treatment and develop skills for activities of daily living.” I’m going to give a sharp rejoinder, but then realize that I’ve already taught myself to do several things I thought were impossible a few days ago. “OK, OK. When does all this happen?” “Tomorrow, if you’re ready.”