Meet Ro

Yesterday was filled--and I do mean filled--with interruptions and minor irritations. Personnel issues at the salon, errands to be run, groceries to be purchased for my dad, who was cooking a special supper for Mom, the inevitable "do laundry or wear dirty clothes" crisis. You all know the drill.

The point is, I didn't settle down to work on LOTO until about 9:30pm. I was tired and crabby and more than ready for bed when I revved up the laptop. Thought about chucking it for the day but just couldn't give myself that out. Didn't finish my word allotment or my story until 1:30am, but I did it. And strangely, had much more energy and enthusiasm about life when I finished than when I started. The story and the feeling of watching it unfold in my head and heart simply thrilled me. The process of taking one bit of truth or observation and linking it to a different, unrelated bit to create a different story called "fiction" is new to me, and I love it. Love it with a passion I've only experienced a handful of times in my life--my children, the Counselor, my writing world and the people in it.

They say you should do what you love and the money will follow. I'm gathering buckets to capture the pennies that surely will start falling from heaven any second now.

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PS--I'm writing stories as they show up in my head and heart, so this isn't in chronological order as far as the finished story. It's just what was with me last night, asking to be written down.

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“When you’ve heard a 14-year-old boy screaming for hours every day while they put him through physical therapy, it changes your ideas about what’s worth getting upset over,” I said.

“Screaming? Why was he screaming?” asked Ruth. Some of the color drained from her face and her eyes glittered as she waited for my answer.

“His name was Jimmy. He got hit by a car when he was riding his bike. No helmet,” I said. Hearing Jimmy’s screams echo in my head again, even in my imagination, gave me goosebumps. I pulled my sweater around my shoulders and briefly explained that Jimmy had been in a coma for months after his accident. After he woke up, he had to get used to being upright again.

“Every day, the nurses strapped him to a big green thing that looked like a ping-pong table. He had to stay there a little longer and they raised his head a little more each day. He screamed from the moment they brought him out of this room until they put him back to bed. Every single day.

“Poor child,” murmured Ruth.

“Oh my God,” said Lynne.

“Be called a gravity table. Agany,” said Ro.

Four heads swiveled toward Ro in unison.

“Sounds like you know,” I said.

“Ya, girl. For true. I was in a wreck tree years ago. In a coma for almost four months after dat. A couple a days after I come to, they be puttin’ me an a gravity table. It was torture,” Ro said. As she spoke, her eyes slid to someplace beyond the gate area, beyond the airport, off to a place only she could see or imagine.

**

Finding pictures in the water spots on the dirty ceiling tile had been Ro’s main form of entertainment for days. She couldn’t stand the noise or the stupidity of the tv. Couldn’t focus her eyes or her mind long enough to read a book, and the headlines on the magazines made her want to scream. “Fifteen New Ways to Turn Him On.” “The NEW Sex Secrets Your Man Wants You to Know.”

Ro was pretty sure there was nothing new under the sun and hadn’t been for centuries. We’ve been pleasin’ and painin’ each other and crossin’ da line between da two since humans learned to walk up tall, I’m tinkin’. Maybe even before dat.

Besides, dat kind a ting, what can it matter now?

Dark thoughts ran through her mind the morning the nurses wheeled her bed out into the hallway. As the familiar ceiling tiles faded from view and new ones appeared, she found herself mildly interested in what was going on.

“Where 'm I a go?” she asked.

The kind nurse, the short, round, loud one who sometimes brought cool cloths to wipe the scalding tears from Ro’s face and neck, smiled encouragingly.

“Out to join the party,” she said. “You’ve been in that room too long. Time for a change of scenery.”

The other nurse, the quiet, serious one, looked at her shoes and said nothing.

Ro had already learned to tell time by the rhythms of hospital. Shortly after the sun slid into the lower corner of the first window, a flurry of footsteps, quiet chatter, and the thunk of metal charts against a Formica counter signaled the 7:00am shift change. About the time the sun hit the middle of the window, the rattle of trays and silverware foretold breakfast. The arrival of another helping of tasteless gruel made it 7:45, or pretty close to it.

The breakfast trays had come and gone already that morning, and Ro considered asking what time it was. From the opposite end of the hall she heard the squeaky wheels of the phlebotomy cart. Ahhh. Be about 9:15, I’m tinkin. What kind a party be happenin’ at 9:15 in da mornin’?

“Party? I didn’ hear any ting about a party,” she said, tipping her face up toward the nurse standing behind her head.

“Ehhhh. You just weren’t listening. We told you yesterday you’d be taking a trip today. This is it. All the way to the Big Circle.”

Cathie, the kind nurse, always talked like she was trying to be heard above a crowd. Her unruly hair usually looked like it needed to be combed, and sometimes Ro noticed food stuck in the corners of her mouth or between her teeth. Still, she was Ro’s absolute favorite. When she heard a loud, “Hey there, kiddo,” from the doorway, Ro knew the next 8 to 12 hours would be good ones. Or, at least, not entirely bad ones.

“An’ what am I ta be doin’ out at da Big Circle?” Ro asked.

“Finding your sea legs again,” Cathie answered. “Are you ready?”

The only possible answer was no. Ro was not ready to find her sea legs, not ready for anything but being left alone to think. The last thing she remembered before waking up in this place was Wade turning to smile at her, his booming laughter bouncing around inside the little red Accord.

“Don’ ya be worryin about dat,” he had said. “I’ll make sure der’s plenty a good grub at da party, if I have ta make it ma self.”

Wade was always laughing at Ro for the way she ate. She insisted on fresh vegetables, lots of fruit, and plenty of bottled water every day. No boxed or packaged food sat waiting in the cabinets of her apartment. Instead, she stopped at the grocery store on the way home from work each night, much the same way her mother and her grandmother before her had walked to the market each day, choosing just enough fruits and vegetables for the day.

Wade, on the other hand, lived on fast food. The faster, the better. When he felt like going all out, he microwaved a frozen dinner, but most of the time he cruised through whatever drive-thru was closest when he got hungry.

“Like I’d be eatin what you be cookin’.” Ro said. “Ya crazy, mon.”

“Yeah, girl, crazy. Crazy in love wit you.”

And that was it. No matter how she tried, Ro couldn’t find any pictures, any sounds, any ideas about what happened after that. Next thing she knew, she was hearing the voices of strangers talking about her. The people seemed to be in the same room with her, but their voices came from far, far away. She tried to open her eyes, but the lights were so bright they made her head hurt. She tried once or twice before the blackness floated up around her like a warm blanket, and she let herself drift back into its soft, sweet embrace.

In the end, a smell made her fight her way up and out into the light from the dark hole where she’d been hiding. The smell was definitely not a fragrance, but not really an odor, either. Something in between, something that made her long to see her mother. It drifted past her nose, beckoning to her senses like the hand formed in the smoke from a genie’s bottle in the old cartoons her nephews watched on Nickelodeon. It led her up, up, up toward the light, motioning to her from the corner of the room. A familiar sound filled the room, too. Somehow, Ro thought the smell and the sound belonged together, but she couldn’t think why.

When she finally opened her eyes, the only thing that made sense was the connection between the smell and the sound. A beautiful, dark-skinned woman was mopping the bathroom floor. The smell of disinfectant and the sound of the mop swooshing back and forth, back and forth, played tricks with Ro’s head, and she called out, “Ma. What ya’ doin’ here?”

Immediately, Ro chided herself. What’s da matter wit me. Ma be dead 5 years or more.Yeah? Between the mopping and the shapes and colors of the tiny braids covering the back of the woman’s head, Ro was confused. Her head hurt and she was beginning to ache all over. She was about to close her eyes and let the darkness erase all her questions when a man in a knee-length white coat walked up to the side of the bed.

“Welcome back,” he said.

It had been a bitter, cold welcome they offered. No one would tell her what had happened, other than to say her she’d been in an accident. When she asked for Wade, they shushed her like a child and gave her shots that sent her right back to the black places. It didn’t take long to stop asking. And now the nurses wanted to know if she was ready to “find her sea legs.”

Lawd mi Gawd. I don' tink so.

“Okay, here we go. You just lay still and let us do all the work,” the stern nurse said.

Ro heard counting and felt herself being picked up and swung to her left like she was a heavy board being heaved onto a porch rail. When she came to rest, she looked over her shoulder to figure out where she was. All she could see was a flat, bright green surface. Maybe some kind of table or something. But why. . . .

Cathie’s voice boomed out from somewhere near Ro’s feet. “You’ve been horizontal so long your heart has adjusted itself to the idea. We’ve got to get your circulation system up and pumping again before you can get to work on walking.”

Her voice and manner might be rough, but Cathie had the kindest eyes Ro had ever seen on a white woman, and Ro trusted those eyes. She watched Cathie’s hands pull big straps across the front of her hospital gown and snap them together like a seat belt. Next, Cathie pulled another set of straps across Ro’s legs and tightened them.

“You feel that, kiddo?” Don’t want to pinch you, but we can’t let you fall off your ride, either.” Cathie sounded just a little too cheerful, the kind of voice you’d use to coax a child to take a pill or stand still for a shot.

“Na. Can’ feel a ting,” Ro said.

“Believe me, that’s good,” was Cathie’s reply.

What could possibly be good about not feeling anything?