The Walking Man

  The Walking Man

  A novel loosely based on a true story.

  Wright Forbucks

  Rated PG-13

  Release Date: March 11, 2012

  © Wright Forbucks, 2011

  All rights reserved.

  www.wrightforbucks.com

  Even Steven by Wright Forbucks

  "Hysterical yet poignant" love-story-cum-thriller with a science-fiction flavor that spills into the spiritual elements of nature. Even Steven is a story about a widow and widower who meet in the tiny New England town of Apple after losing their true loves to murder and misfortune.

  Packed with an hilarious array of diverse characters and events, this "genre-bending" tale of love, death and the meaning of life, from the author of The Walking Man, is as fascinating as it is cheekily quirky.

  Purchase Even Steven in the U.S./worldwide

  Purchase Even Steven in the UK

  Go to Even Steven excerpt

  Chapter One

  Pitiful Me

  I'm not suggesting everybody should dive head first into the shallow end of a swimming pool, but being a quadriplegic isn't as bad as you might think. Especially if you're fortunate enough to live at Leicester County Hospital, a facility dedicated to the care of the motionless, located in Shyshire, Massachusetts; a town committed to excellence in everything it does.

  First of all, in these tough times, you get to live rent free in an air-conditioned building. You're fed three delicious meals each day. Plus, you're cleaned and dressed by nice people who genuinely care about you. Also, if you're lucky, one of Shyshire's many volunteers might read a newspaper to you and inadvertently change your life.

  I joined the ranks of the motionless at age sixteen. Unlike many of my stationary brethren, the poor bastards born with horrible birth defects, I had memories of motion: I once rode a bike, tossed a baseball, and chased a "girlfriend" around a campfire. At my fifteenth birthday party I bowled a two hundred twenty-six; to raise money for breast cancer, I once ran a half marathon, reaching the finish line in ninety-two minutes.

  I wish I could tell you my immobility was caused by a motorcycle crash, or even better, a hang-gliding mishap, but unfortunately, unlike many of my paralyzed bedfellows at Leicester County Hospital, violent trauma wasn't the cause of my pathetic condition.

  The fact is, long ago, my doctors stopped trying to determine the source of my quadriplegia, leaving me with a medical mystery that's taken me forty years to solve.

  4 – 0.

  ~ ~ ~

  My original diagnosis was Myasthenia Gravis, a disease that generates antibodies that block muscle-nerve connections and causes mild to severe immobility. Like all autoimmune diseases, Myasthenia Gravis happens when a hyperactive immune system destroys something good because it thinks it's something bad. Accordingly, treatment options for Myasthenia Gravis include the use of one or more immunosuppressant drugs, such as Imuran. These pharmaceuticals limit a body's assault on itself but increase the odds of death due to cancer, or a common cold, a trade off my wise-ass neurologist once called a "shit-out-of luck proposition."

  In terms of severity, Myasthenia Gravis is the common cold of neurologic diseases. It's rarely fatal and most often attacks the faces of teenage girls.

  MG, as the doctors and nurses call it, is most notable because affected muscles often return to a normal state upon rest. This means, after a day of muscle flexing, MG sufferers look just as pathetic as the unfortunates with MS, Parkinson's or ALS. However, after a good night's sleep, they look and feel like a young Burt Reynolds, regardless of their gender.

  I still clearly remember the day I was semi-diagnosed as having Myasthenia Gravis. It happened at Massachusetts General Hospital, the best place on earth to be if a rare disease is intent on putting you in the ground before your "time."

  My initial hospital stays took place in 1971, when the city of Boston, in an attempt to address its racist past, began passing "corrective ordinances" to make sure people with colored skin got their share of whitey pie. This resulted in Boston's many medical institutions having to hire brown and yellow immigrants, regardless of their qualifications.

  That being so, the "technician" who shock-tested my muscles to determine the cause of my increasing immobility appeared to have been recently imported from a Laotian rice paddy. I say this because she looked Southeast Asian, and I could smell dog on her breath.

  The test that my newly entitled American administered was called an electromyography. The electro part of the word, as you may have guessed, comes from the Latin word 'electros' meaning to shock the living shit out of a perfectly innocent human being.

  An electromyography tests muscle response to stimulus, i.e., high voltage electricity. The test involves a machine that has a big knob with graduations that go up to eleven, lots of wires attached to skin clips, plus an ink jet printer that spits out results in the form of a line graph. Normally, data generated by an electromyography is difficult to interpret. However, if your output graph looks like a plot of the Dow Jones Average circa 2008, Myasthenia Gravis is the likely cause.

  As painful tests go, an electromyography is a five out of ten. But unless you're Sylvester Stallone, it does evoke a grimace. Thus, one would hardly expect a technician to smile while conducting an electromyography, or jump for joy upon reading its results—as was the case when yours truly was shock-tested…

  "Glad you're happy, Miss Paddy," I said in a faux upbeat tone. "What's up?"

  "Sworry, you have rare disease," she told me. "You've mwade my day. Fwirst time in my cwareer I twested somebody with gweneralized myasthenia gwravis."

  "Well, gwood for you," I said, with a hint of racist mockery, being a young and stupid product of an all-white town. "What about me?"

  "Sworry," she responded. "You’re, what’s the American word…"

  "Fwucked?"

  "Yes, yes, fwucked." She smiled. "You are fwucked."

  It was downhill from there. Apparently, my Myasthenia Gravis was different from regular Myasthenia Gravis because once my muscles got 'fatigued' they never returned to a normal state. Three weeks after my electromyography, I did a face plant in the bread isle of a 7-11. Six months later, I had completely lost my ability to move both my arms and my legs. All I could do was open my eyes, breathe, talk, chew, and sing Melancholy Baby.

  My first two weeks of complete immobility was spent in the hospital. Then I was transferred to my parents' house. While I'd been away, the insurance company had provided my folks with a used hospital bed, a collection of bedpans, and ten thousand dollars. In exchange, my parents signed a contract in which they agreed to cover the cost of my long-term care. My brother Hal told me my dad said it was the easiest ten grand he'd ever made.

  I love my folks, but they weren't exactly MENSA candidates.

  My bed was installed in the living room of our modest farmhouse located in Apple, Massachusetts—my hometown. Situated in rolling hills, formed by retreating ice ten thousand years ago, Apple is located about forty miles northwest of Boston. It's home to five thousand people, all white, no missing teeth.

  Apple is quintessential New England. Everybody lives by a book of rules and minds everybody else's business. And so, for a couple weeks, I was big news. Cars beeped as they drove by the picture window that framed my view of the world, and the few pedestrians who passed by our house usually stopped and waved, seemingly unaware of my inability to respond.

  With the stated goal of buying yours truly a year's supply of adult diapers, a month after I became immobile, my high school held a bake sale for me, reportedly selling a record amount of brownies.

  At the student rally following the bake sale, the president of my class, a kid who hated my guts, cried as he informed my ex-schoolmates t
hat my condition was likely terminal, a claim that immediately caused several busy body mothers to visit me to celebrate my sorry state.

  Having grown up in Apple, I realized most of the town's moms desperately needed to witness a tragedy so they could feel good about their own pathetic lives. Thus, whenever a local mother entered my room, I would flap my tongue between my lips, emit a bucket of drool, generate some tears, and then mumble, "Pray for me."

  A year into my quadriplegia, the highlight of my non-recovery occurred when my parents made arrangements for me to deliver a "thank you—hey, I can still talk" speech during halftime of Apple High School's homecoming football game. Dad told me my mother felt "highly obligated" to acknowledge the outpouring of sympathy the family had received from the townsfolk in response to my tragic condition. He also mentioned family finances and that Apple Motors, our town's sole car dealer, was "sponsoring" my appearance.

  I was driven to Rickford's Field, the town's football stadium, in an ambulance. My driver was a local stoner named Jimmy Something-or-other. I'd met him before. He was the brother of one of my brother Hal's friends. During the ride to my big event, Jimmy told me his life story. He had dropped out of Apple High School because he couldn't handle the "pressure." He became a volunteer ambulance driver because his goal in life was to be an EMT so he could pursue his love of carnage.

  A mile away from Rickford's Field, twenty bikers—members of Hardcore, Apple’s distinctly non-notorious riding club—pulled in front of my ambulance to provide a loud and puttering escort to the football field, where a thousand even noisier fans were waiting to hear my "acceptance" speech. After a couple slow laps around the track, the Hardcore boys popped synchronized wheelies then sped away, enabling the Apple High School Marching Band to accompany me to the center of the football field, where they played Aerosmith's Walk This Way while Jimmy Something-or-other pulled me out of his ambulance.

  To start the festivities, the Mayor of Apple introduced me to the sell-out crowd, lavishing such words as "hero" and "inspirational" upon me. When the Mayor ran out of hot air, a slew of local dignitaries presented me with gift baskets and celebrated my courage with brief yet resonating speeches. Finally, after the Apple High cheerleaders commemorated my quadriplegia by lying motionless on the sidelines of the football field, pompoms down, the owner of Apple Motors presented me with a key to a new Honda Civic.

  Now, how fucked-up was that?

  When it was my turn to speak, it became apparent to all present that the event's organizers had neglected to procure an adjustable microphone stand. The oversight obligated Jimmy Something-or-other to raise the head of my gurney so I could make a discernible thank you speech.

  Jimmy was thoroughly unqualified to flip burgers, and so had little chance of adjusting my complex stretcher properly; amid mounting pressure for me to speak, Jimmy panicked and slammed one of his Frankenstein boots into my gurney's adjustment levers. This simultaneously elevated my head and lowered my feet, causing me to promptly sit up, before sliding out of my gurney. I landed face down on the fifty-yard maker with an inelastic thud, hitting the ground like a bag of Jell-O that'd been dropped from an airplane.

  You could have heard a pin drop.

  After the Mayor—and others—thrice denounced Jimmy Something-or-other over the stadium's public address system, dubbing him a "fucking idiot," I was rushed to Apple Memorial Hospital where I learned my back was broken—as if it mattered.

  I went home later that evening with my booty, no worse for the wear.

  ~ ~ ~

  My years at home were tough. Taking care of a quadriplegic, especially if he's your son is, at best, unpleasant. The relentless nature of the job, no doubt combined with memories of my active childhood, eventually caused my mother to turn to alcohol to get by. In contrast, my condition seemed to have little impact on my dad who, in my twisted mind, remained a less than useful thing.

  At first, despite my obvious condition, my family remained optimistic that I would eventually recover, and so did everything they possibly could to treat me like a regular person. At my first Thanksgiving as a quadriplegic, my dad used bungee cords to strap me into a regular chair so I could sit at the dining room table with the rest of the family. Then, during the feast, he kept coming out with things like, "Son, would you please pass the mashed potatoes." To which I would respond, "Daaaad!"

  I could never quite figure out whether my father was ashamed of me, or simply delusional, trying to convince himself I was still a regular kid. I say this because he religiously avoided installing the handicap accessories required to support my new "lifestyle." He built a portable ramp out of particleboard that he would attach to our front stairs whenever I needed to enter or exit our house; when not in use, he hid it behind some bushes. Instead of purchasing proper shelving for my room, so Mom could quickly assess the state of my supplies: bedpans, diapers, creams, straws, laxatives, etc., Dad insisted on hiding all my stuff in our china cabinet. Even worse, he refused to trade in our Volkswagen Beetle for a handicap van. In fairness, difficulties in inserting me into our tiny car never deterred my father, who devised a multi-step process for sliding me into our VW's front passenger's seat. Unfortunately, the process took twenty minutes and required a mechanical engineering degree to perform.

  Unlike my dad, my mom was a realist, so she couldn't deny her pain. After I became a quadriplegic, Mom always tried to serve me with a smile, at least in the beginning, but her cheeks were often wet from crying.

  Before I became a burden, my mom was infinitely happy. Perhaps due to the death of her father when she was twelve years old, my mom didn't sweat the details. She knew how to address the needs of her children without being oppressive, allowing my brother and me to grow into the persons we were supposedly meant to be. She was definitely not one of those moms who invented tragic scenarios so she could warn her kids not to break a leg or get an eye poked out. She sought fun, within proper limits, while taking good care of us. We always had fresh food, good clothes, and we went to Disneyworld, or the equivalent, at least once a year. Hal and I were delighted to be Mom's kids.

  As a patient, I was too self-centered to notice the signs of my mom's depression, but now they're obvious to me. Mom's slide into oblivion began the minute I was installed in our living room. My first and greatest mistake had been letting Mom give up her world to care for me. She quit her part-time job at the Apple General Store, abandoned her book club and even stopped knitting—her favorite hobby. Within a couple years, the phone stopped ringing, her smiles had subsided, and the humming of show tunes was replaced by sighs of despondency.

  During my home stay, difficult incidents were too many to recall; most involved attempts to move me. A typical disaster occurred one day during a summer heat wave when our house lost power, causing the temperature in my room to quickly climb to one hundred degrees. In response, without the help of my brother Hal, who was at the town beach with his buddies, my mother tried to transfer me to my wheelchair on her own. Her objective was to take me outside and cool me down with a garden hose; I'm ashamed to say I was bitching up a storm at the time.

  The maneuver required hauling me from my bed and depositing me into my wheelchair, which involved a quick lift, a turn, and then a push. First, my bed needed to be hand cranked to place me in a sitting position. Next, the panel on the receiving side of my wheelchair had to be removed. Then, my wheelchair needed to be locked into position, parallel to my bed. When the setup was complete, I then needed to be snatched under my armpits, lifted, and quickly slid into my wheelchair. The move required both strength and agility. My mother was five foot two inches tall and she weighed one hundred pounds. At sixteen, I was already six foot tall. My nickname prior to my decline was the "refrigerator;" I weighed two hundred fifty pounds.

  A few hours into the blackout, a neighbor-townie stopped by to inform us that Apple Light and Power had confirmed that the electricity would be out for most of the a day. Being somewhat a self-centered idiot, I used this inform
ation to intensify my demands that Mom move me outdoors, by yelling things like: "Come on, Mah, you can do it… Come on, Mah, you're strong… Mahhhh, you gotta get me outta here… Mah, I'm sweating my ass off… Mahhhh, come on, Mah!"

  "I don't know, son," Mother responded. "You’re a big boy."

  Finally, after a couple hours more of squawking, Mom gave in. She properly set up the bed-to-wheelchair move and then grabbed me my under my armpits and pulled upward with all her might. Amazingly, she actually lifted me out of my bed, but my weight prevented her from executing the follow-on spin move needed to plop me into my chair. Instead, she stumbled backward while pulling me toward her petite body. For a moment that seemed like a year, Mom teetered back and forth under my full weight while releasing guttural moans that suggested she was giving birth. After a couple seconds, Mom started to collapse, so I screamed, "Dear Lord, Maaa! If you drop me I'll die!" In response, Mom somehow mustered the strength to drape me over her shoulder, charge forward, and then slam me into my wheelchair.

  In response to Mom's inspired death defying move I said, "Gee, Ma, next time can you pleeeease be a little more careful?"

  Mom was too distracted to respond; she'd slipped two discs in her back.

  About ten seconds after landing in my wheelchair, the lights came on and the air-conditioning began to hum. Fool that I was, while Mom was still writhing in pain, I said, "Hey, Ma, the power's back! Change my sheets and put me back in my bed."

  My mom's back never healed, and I never stopped making demands. I was so concerned about my life support that I never considered the things I could have done to make life easier for her, such as controlling my weight.

  During my stay at home, I never once, not for a single second, considered the implications of a walking man's diet on a person incapable of burning an extra calorie. Taste being one of my only remaining sensations, I ate non-stop and constantly demanded food. I could blame Madison Avenue and claim, as a constant TV viewer, I was a victim of Doritos commercials, but that wasn't the case. I ate because it was my preferred way of imposing my existence on others. It was how I said, "Hey, here I am."