AN INVITATION

[behindthedoor]

IMPALED

What a loaded word.

When I read it I jumped from the swivel chair in my office and began to hop around while making little pained noises as if I had just stubbed my bare toe against a brick. The hospital referral said matter-of-factly:

“25 year old male who fell from second story window and was impaled on wrought iron fence.”

Ahhhh!

It went on – ”…into throat and chest and abdomen… ahhhh… feeding tube… ahhhh … collapsed lung… ahhh… needs teaching…”

Needs teaching? What, about reducing falls prevention risks by not climbing out on a window ledge, or by removing iron spears from below your living room?

I drove there but could not keep myself from repeatedly visualizing the event. Despite my attempts to turn it off, it kept looping through my internal youtube brain site with horrifying detail. However, when I got to the street, and then to the particular door, I could not even look at the aforementioned fence. I averted my eyes and began to whistle, looking down Myrtle Street like some lame shoplifter about to pinch a porterhouse. I rang the bell and slipped into the lobby with a palpable feeling of relief.

Upstairs, Louis was standing inside the room waiting for me. He was Ichabod Crane tall, and looked even longer because he wore a large flesh colored hard plastic collar. He was loosely dressed like an NBA player, baggy shorts and shirt, with the bulge of a feeding tube noticeable beneath his silky, purple Lakers jersey.

He was remarkably well, despite the fact that a few weeks ago he had climbed out on a stone window ledge to wash his windows, lost his balance, tumbled through the air for about twenty feet, and then was found by folks on the street, speared like a beast waiting for the rotisserie.

He was fine!

Of course, fine is a relative term.

I mean he will need to be fed through a tube for a while, and will have to wear this bothersome collar, but the fact that Louis was standing there talking to me, and could pour his Ensure and hit the bulls-eye opening in the tube, was a bizarre miracle. But these miracles happen. The opposite is, of course, sadly true.

Louis told me he was not lit the day of his flight, only hung over. I wasn’t buying it. But what does my opinion matter? It seemed my job there was redundant, because I felt Louis was already being shadowed by some benevolent force of nature. Nonetheless, I taught him how to operate the little pump that could deliver his supplements. However, he was not really interested in walking around with a cute little L.L. Bean backpack and a machine humming in his ear. This was just not Louis. Louis preferred the idea of dumping in a few cans at a time, like a college freshman pounding down a couple of Budweisers. He was not at all interested in going outside with tubes mysteriously snaking from a backpack and disappearing under his shirt.

I didn’t argue with Louis.

I left, wishing him good luck, and immediately thought how ridiculous that sounded. Louis needed good luck like the Pope needed another set of rosary beads.

When I walked out the front door I looked to the left at the fence, then up to Louis’s window. He was standing there, framed perfectly within the rectangular sash. I noticed that the glass was very clean. Louis waved and smiled.

I walked away, down Myrtle Street, past rows of wrought iron fences.