Chapter 6: Head Case

A day later I was finally sitting back in my recliner trying very hard to honor my word to Dr. Sousa that I would restrict my activities and stay on bed rest. This was especially hard when I so desperately wanted to reach through my phone and choke the shit out of my agent/publisher/ (yeah, we can scratch the ‘friend’ part for the moment)!

“What do you mean someone stole my fucking Bronco?” I screamed into my phone. The yellow-bellied ass-wipe didn’t even have the guts to tell me to my face when he picked me up and drove me home just an hour before. Instead, I got a phone call after he left ... oh by the way...

“Well, you never said it was a classic,” he retorted with a whine that almost broke the Gay Richter scale. So once again it was the crippled Marine’s fault... “Look the police will be able to track it and make the engine stop or something. They have an app for that now you know.” There is no way he could be that stupid! He was yanking my chain, he had to be. That baby was built before there weren’t even personal computers much less an internet.

I put my hand over my face and shook my head. “You know what? I can’t do this right now Davee. You are bad for my health,” I set the phone down on my armrest and shifted myself to arrange the ice packs better. They were actually packs of frozen hamburger and steaks that Maria arranged inside a pillow case and placed between my back and the chair back. It felt incredible.

“Oh, come on Alex,” his voice sounded from my elbow, “Don’t be such a ninny! I’ll buy you a new...” I reached over and hung up on him. Ah, peace! I reached for my coffee cup and found it empty. As if by magic Lupi appeared and refilled it for me.

“Thank you,” I said. It was pretty embarrassing to be waited on hand and foot by the two ladies but they would not let me so much as go to the bathroom without hovering outside the door like Gunner, wondering if I was okay and why I was taking all day.

“I’m sorry about your car,” she said quietly.

“Meh,” I shrugged, “I’m not all that bent over it. I mean I would be if I was still living on $1700 a month, but as it stands, I just want Davee to suffer a little for being such a presumptuous pain in my ass.” I turned and jabbed a finger at her, “And you are not to tell him that! In English or ... Filipino-ese!”

She giggled, “It’s Tagalog.”

“Yeah, I know what it is, I was just messing with ya,” I grunted back. Something very delicious was cooking in the kitchen and I felt like I hadn’t eaten in ages. Maria came out and put her hand behind my back to check on her makeshift ice packs. “So, ladies,” I began since I had them both here, “are we shopping for an SUV or a minivan?”

I shared the common attributes of each and discussed options for a while before Maria indicated the time and fired off a string of instructions for Lupi to follow while she went and retrieved the girls from kindergarten.

During my overnight hospital stay, I received several texts from my (former) therapist Doc Shannon. I never thought I’d seen the day when a session was made completely of texts. But we didn’t have much opportunity to meet up with my circumstances being what they were. Still, we agreed that I needed to get back in to see her and made tentative arrangements for the following week. If a physical appointment was out of the question, we could have virtual sessions over the Internet.

The next day Dr. Sousa showed up and joined us for lunch. Who could resist the mouth-watering aroma of chicken adobo? One thing was certain, Maria was an incredible cook, and having her around made life so much easier for me. The doc examined my back and discovered her makeshift icepacks, which he approved of wholeheartedly.

“At this rate, you will be walking unassisted once more, by next week,” he said encouragingly, “but I do not want to wait that long for the ablation. I’d like to get you into the surgery center tomorrow morning. I can burn all 8 nerves we had blocked, and have you back home for lunch.”

I was all for this and told him I would be there. He hesitated for a few minutes before he sat down before me and studied my face.

“Uh ... what’s up ... Doc?”

He pursed his lips together as he chose his words carefully. “Mr. Davis, you are a unique individual and I would not have this discussion with you if that were not the case,” he began. I encouraged Lupi to sit in on our conversation in case he had some relevant instructions for my care. “But the fact remains that you are still quite young and physically able to have a full and fruitful life — if it were not for the significant damage to your vertebra.”

Okay, I wasn’t sure where this was going, but he had a compelling way about his delivery, so I just nodded.

“What I can offer you is merely a band-aid. A temporary fix — if you will, that is geared towards relieving your discomfort rather than correcting the problem itself. I can deaden the nerves but they will eventually grow back, necessitating another ablation in the future.”

“But Doc, you saw the images,” I interjected, “All those transverse, side-ways bones are busted to pieces and floating around. There is nothing they can do about that.”

He nodded. “This is true to an extent, but let me correct you by saying ‘there is nothing they can do about that ... here. And by ‘here’ I mean in this country.”

I sat back pressing my back further against the cold packs. “Wait, you are saying that there are countries that can actually fix my spine?”

“Indeed,” he replied confidently, “where I studied medicine in my home country of Argentina, there have been numerous breakthroughs in orthopedic and spinal corrective surgeries.”

“Argentina?” I gaped, “As in South America Argentina?”

He smiled brightly, “The one and only. I know several medical professors who taught at the University of Buenos Aires who have pioneered groundbreaking medical advances that have profoundly improved the lives of hundreds of people from all over the world.”

“So why can’t they do these things here?” I asked, almost offended at the suggestion that American medicine was lagging in any way.

“Therein lies the quagmire that is American politics,” he sighed, “the government here has absolute control over approving any medical research, and as is often the case with big Pharma and other consumer industries (like petroleum) — money talks!” He pulled out his portfolio and removed several brochures printed in laser color. “Other countries like India, Turkey, Iran, Brazil, or even my country Argentina — have no such financial obstacles barring them from devoting more money to research than auspicious and gaudy institutions like your Mayo Clinic. Instead of tall expensive skyscrapers or vast grandiose medical malls, we build clean and efficient buildings with state-of-the-art technology that cost pennies on the dollar compared to American institutions like Hopkins. And we devote the enormous savings towards furthering our research and finding newer medical breakthroughs.”

“So, you are saying that they have developed ways to repair my shattered vertebrae in Argentina?” I asked as feelings of hope dared to intrude upon my resigned depressed reality.

“Not repair, Mr. Bishop,” he corrected, “replace.”

“Alex, I need you to remember all of the progress we made together as we helped you accept and overcome that tired notion of ‘survivor’s guilt’.” Doc Shannon’s voice was soft and pleasant to my ‘almost-but-not-quite hypnotic state’. The lights were low and I was reclining back in a super comfortable chair, with my feet up. “It took months for you to accept that it was okay for you to continue living when those closest to you fell. I want you to hang on to that acceptance. Hold it firmly against your chest and don’t let it go for anything.”

I felt my eyes stinging as I recalled their faces. They were so fresh in my memory, it was as if they were there with me, judging me, calling out my failure for letting them die. I sobbed and struggled to find breath as my chest heaved.

“It’s okay to feel the pain of their loss, Alex. It’s okay to grieve for them. Let yourself grieve for those you lost, as often as you must. You must not bury that pain again. Hold it up high in the light of your acceptance and honor them with your tears and pain — they deserve it. Just like they deserved your love.”

My breathing became ragged as I swallowed painfully against the lump in my throat. God, it hurt so bad to feel that loss so fresh again. All I wanted to do was make the pain go away.

“Acknowledge your acceptance of their passing. Accept that they are gone and you are still here, honoring their memories. Cherish every one of them for the gifts they gave you. Your life is so much richer for each of them having been such a precious part of it. Each of them played a role in helping you to become the man that you are today. Acknowledge the man you have become. A living man. I want you to hold onto that.” Her voice faded and I felt the quiet of the room like a suppressive cloud, trying to strip away my happiness and peace of mind.

I lay there and clung to my acceptance that I still lived and that it was for a purpose. ‘What was that purpose? Why must I go on living with all this pain and sorrow? What could possibly justify such an awful existence?’

“Alex,” she spoke again, “I want you to consider this acceptance that you have worked so hard to achieve. You are holding onto it tightly and by doing so you have allowed yourself to live once more. You know it’s not always easy and there will be bumps along the road. But you have accepted in your heart that you can go on living.” She paused again and I let her words sink in.

“Living alone is not enough now,” she continued, “there is so much more to life than just living Alex. Now you must open yourself — your mind and your heart — to the notion that you are also allowed to be happy again. You must find it within yourself to accept that the love you once felt isn’t gone forever. You can love again, and you can be happy as well. And you can do so without that tired worn-out ‘survivor’s guilt’.” Her voice faded again and a moment later I noticed the lights becoming slowly brighter.

I sniffed and sat up straighter, my cheeks and neck were damp with tears and I reached for a wad of tissues to dry them off. Doc Shannon was a tall ebony-skinned woman with stark chiseled features. One could easily picture her as a fearsome Amazon priestess or an elegant Cleopatra. She stood over 6 feet tall and had many basketball tournament trophies on display in her office from her time in university. I’d still pit her against Shaq any day.

“How do you feel Alex?” she asked with a soft voice that hardly matched her physique.

I swallowed several times and reached for my half-full (Hah! See what I did there?) cup of coffee. It was cold but perfect to soothe my throat. “Ahem, I feel emotionally drained right now, to be honest.”

“I understand. Our emotions are such a huge part of who we are. Even animals experience emotions,” she replied, “what you need to do now is learn how to love again. But more than that you need to allow yourself to be loved in return. And that is terrifying because it means you are opening yourself up to potentially more pain. You must make yourself vulnerable once more.”

“How the fuck do I do that?” I asked tiredly. “You think anyone in their right mind would ever want to experience that kind of loss twice?”

She smiled at that. “Define ‘right mind’ Alex. We are complex organisms capable of cognition and great leaps of intellect. But we are far from rational.”

“You’re not helping,” I grumbled finishing off my coffee.

“One step at a time big guy,” she replied closing her pad, “for now just work with the tools you have. Dust off that toolbox and oil it up. Relearn to deal with those issues that have crept back into your heart and mind. But know this,” she warned, “just by acknowledging Lupi and her family and by placing their needs above your own. By doing those things you have already confessed some degree of love. And that alone makes you vulnerable to a certain degree.”

The breakthrough medical technology that could ‘replace’ the damaged parts of my spine involved removing the entire disc and all of its broken parts and replacing it with a brand-new artificial disk made from polymers and bimetal compounds. The precision demanded was achieved by computer modeling and 3D printing. Beyond that, it was all smoke and mirrors to me but everything I read and saw on the websites Dr. Sousa provided me, was almost too good to be true. As he said previously, there were only two reasons why he even broached the subject to me, one was that I had so much to live for that it made the risk vs reward seem negligible, and the second was that I now had the money to pay for it.

He told me that my signed consents and permissions authorized him to share my case files with other professional entities. However, he wanted to make sure I was completely okay with it before he submitted my file to the Buenos Aires Spinal Institute, along with a 6-page letter graciously asking them to consider evaluating me for possible treatment. It took me a millisecond to give him that okay. Naturally, there was a ‘fee’ involved with the referral request, which amounted to several thousand dollars, but I paid it without hesitation. If it would help convince them I was committed to this, it seemed like a small price to pay.

Maria continued to stay with us and watched the twins whenever Lupi had to work. Her presence was welcome and everything seemed to flow smoothly whenever she appeared and began fussing around the kitchen or laundry. Often Lupi worked later and her mother or a coworker would bring her home. It grated me to remain seated all the time but I guess it beat lying in bed. At least I was able to research stuff and work on my book.

Some evenings like this one, the girls would lay across the master bed with one or both dogs and watch cartoons while Maria busied herself with washing, cleaning, and cooking even though it was never expected of her. In the evenings it was cool enough to leave the front and back doors open. The screen doors kept the bugs out while airing the house out.

I wasn’t surprised to see headlights pull into the Drive as Lupi’s schedule was client-driven. But it wasn’t Lupi who stepped up onto the porch and peered through the front screen door. Gunner thumped down onto the floor and crept into the living room with a low growl deep in his chest. Maria appeared from the kitchen and hissed under her breath as she recognized Dante reaching for the door knob. Gunner’s growl became loud enough to hear and that promptly brought Libby to the main room as well.

“Libby, Gunner, At Ease!” I commanded and they both promptly Dropped down on their bellies. “Maria, could you please go check on the girls?” I asked calmly and was pleased to see her moving towards the bedroom, “and close the door? Libby, guard!” I pointed to the bedroom and she promptly rose and joined the older woman.

“You might as well come on in Dante,” I called out to him as he twisted the knob and pulled the screen door open. He was Dressed in a comedy of mismatched clothes. His dirty tan pants were bunched around his ankles, with only a zippered hoody covering his torso, zipped up halfway. His head was covered by a white stained doo rag.

“Well, if it ain’t the Soulja,” he replied smoothly moving his head side to side like Stevie Wonder. “You don’t look like much of a Soulja now.”

“Dante,” I sighed gesturing with my left hand, “even if I were stuck in a wheelchair, shitting myself, I’d be ten times the soldier you’ll ever be.” I slowly reached over to my computer stand and slid the cover off the fingerprint reader.

“You best watch your mouth Soulja boy,” he snapped, “or I might just have to put a cap in it.”

Gunner chose that moment to break ranks by lunging to his feet and barking loudly. That was all the distraction I needed to place two fingers on the glass and notice the bottom of the gun safe drop down to reveal my Springfield. “Gunner!” I yelled angrily, “At Ease!”

With a reluctant grumble the large rottweiler settled back down on his hind quarters, refusing to go any lower.

“Yeah, you better control your dog else I’ll cap his ass too.”

“You know Dante, you sure do talk a lot for a dumb-ass punk without a gun in his hand,” I mocked him as my right hand caressed the grip of the .45 like a lover. I pulled it from the box and lowered it to the arm of my recliner as he jerked his eyes from the intimidating mutt and back to the real threat.

“You think you the only mutha fucka who can bring a gun into a man’s crib?” he snapped pulling up the front of his hoody to reveal a shiny chromed pistol.

“Not a smart place to pack your heat,” I snorted disgustedly, “but then you ain’t got nothing to lose down there do ya, Dante?”

“Man, Fuck you!” he yelled as he pulled the big gun out of his pants and began raising it sideways at me. Why do they always show gangsters holding their guns sideways? “I’m done with you and all this bull...”

I had already tuned him out once he became a target. The rest was simple muscle memory. Acquire target, sight alignment ... trigger control...

BAM! BAM!

A single 230-grain .45 caliber hollow point slug to the chest is more than enough to ruin your day. A double tap is exponentially worse. Dante was blown backward off his feet. He slammed back against the fragile screen door, shattering it before he slumped down to the floor and was still.

Gunner was on his feet barking furiously as soon as the sound exploded within the confined space of my living room, my ears rang and the stench of cordite suddenly permeated the area. I rose to my feet and made my way to the master bedroom door. Cracking it I found Maria clinging to the twins with fright-filled eyes. Libby shoved her way past me to join her brother by the front door.

“Everything is okay,” I told her as she met my gaze. “I had to put him down. He will never hurt anyone again. Stay in here with the door closed until I come back. I have to make a call.”

She nodded and I closed the door once more, turning back to the living room. I called the dogs back and locked them in my room before grabbing my phone and calling 9-1-1. It rang three times before a tired voice answered: “Nine one one Operator. What is your emergency?”

I released the magazine and cleared my weapon, locking the receiver open and placing both parts and the round on the kitchen table. “Hello, my name is Al Bishop and I live at 531 Hamilton Road. A black guy just entered my home with a gun and threatened to kill me. I shot him twice and he is lying dead on my living room floor. There is a woman and two children hiding in my master bedroom.”