Every Note Played(24)
“You look tired,” says Richard.
“Queeraoke last night. I was up late.”
“With anyone special?”
Bill hesitates. “No.”
“Anyone unspecial?”
“I’ll let you know when Ryan Gosling realizes I’m the one for him.” Bill works some styling gel through Richard’s hair and combs it. “You lucky bastard. Look at this head of hair.”
“Yeah, I’m the lucky guy in the room.”
Richard hears the monotone sound of his own voice, still unfamiliar to him, every last syllable of one word bleeding into the first syllable of the next, every word a single note played over and over. D-D-D-D-D-D. Every sentence is the same song. It’s the ALS anthem, lullaby, number one hit.
“You’re not getting any pity parties from me, Handsome. Open.”
Bill brushes Richard’s teeth with an electric toothbrush and wipes the white froth off his lips with the now cold, wet facecloth when finished. The last step of their morning bathroom ritual is the arm massage. Bill begins with Richard’s right arm. He rubs moisture cream onto Richard’s shoulder, biceps, elbow, forearm, and hand, Bill’s strong fingers sliding along Richard’s skin, pressing into abandoned muscles. As with the shampoo, it feels like heaven to be touched.
His right arm and hand are flaccid and passively accept everything Bill does. He wiggles and pulls on each finger. He holds Richard’s arm, the elbow in one hand and the wrist in the other, and gingerly rotates the arm at the shoulder, circling forward, then backward, moving this frozen joint. He lifts Richard’s arm above his head, dragging his fingers down Richard’s skin, squeezing from wrist to armpit, trying to drain some of the edema that plagues Richard in this hand. His limp fingers look like tight sausages due to the fluid that seeps from his leaky veins, pooling in his hands.
Richard watches this exercise somewhat detached, as if his fingers and arm belong to someone else. Yet he feels everything Bill does in vivid detail. Each touch reminds Richard that his arms aren’t completely severed from his body. Even though the efferent pathways are forever out of order, his arms are still connected to his nervous system, the afferent signals of pain, pressure, temperature, and touch completely intact. Somehow, this is comforting.
Bill moves over to Richard’s left arm. Although both arms are completely paralyzed, they look and act nothing alike. While his right arm is hypotonic, a limp noodle of skin and bones, his left arm is rigid, his fingers locked in a deformed claw. The spasticity in Richard’s left arm resists Bill’s touch as if in rebellious disobedience. Bill has to work hard to rotate the arm, to uncurl each stiff finger. Richard tries to will his misbehaving fingers to relax. He has no influence over them.
Done in the bathroom, they walk to Richard’s bedroom dresser. Bill knows where everything is. He chooses underwear, socks, jeans, and a gray crewneck, each with Richard’s approval. Bill then dresses Richard like a parent dresses a small child, like a girl dresses a favorite doll, like a home health aide dresses a grown man with ALS.
Bill pulls a pair of old loafers from the closet, and Richard worms his feet into them. Lastly, Bill loops the lanyard holding Richard’s iPhone over Richard’s neck as if it were an Olympic medal, clips the Bluetooth connector to his shirt collar, and presses the Head Mouse target sticker to the tip of his nose. There. Richard checks himself in the mirror. As always, Bill did a fine job. Richard is dressed and ready to go out, as if he has somewhere to go, as if he’ll ever be expected anywhere other than the hospital ever again. Except for the ghoulish hang of his arms, his protruding belly, the extreme thinness of his face, and the absurd sticker on his nose, he still recognizes himself in the mirror. He wonders if at some point he won’t.
They make their way to the kitchen. Bill opens the refrigerator door, that impenetrable vault, with an easy, unremarkable tug and begins pulling ingredients for this morning’s smoothies. Richard’s favorite recipe is peanut butter, banana, yogurt, and whole milk, with dashes of protein powder, flaxseed, citalopram, and glycopyrrolate. Today’s special will include the addition of a laxative. Yum.
Richard looks out the living-room window. He knows from Bill’s winter coat, hat, and gloves that it’s cold outside, but the day appears sunny, inviting. He looks at his desk, the bookcase, the TV, the piano, exactly as they were earlier this morning, yesterday, the day before that, the month before that.
“I think I’d like to go for a walk when you leave.”
Bill removes the lid from the blender and gives Richard a long, serious look. Richard hasn’t gone out alone, unattended, since his left hand went dead.
“I’d feel better if you waited for Melanie.”
Melanie comes at 1:30, three hours after Bill leaves. Richard hates that he needs Bill’s permission to leave his own home, but there’s no other way. If Bill shuts the door behind him when he leaves, Richard is trapped inside his condo, his living tomb.
“I’ll be fine. Just leave my door open.”
“What about the front door?”
“I have my neighbors’ phone numbers. Someone will let me back in.”
“Who’s home?”
“Beverly Haffmans should be around.”
Bill approaches Richard and leans his mouth over the phone resting on Richard’s chest. “Launch voice control,” Bill says slowly and clearly. “Call Beverly Haffmans.”