Sugar Among the Freaks by Lewis Nordan

Author:Lewis Nordan [Nordan, Lewis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 1996-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Wheelchair

Winston Krepps had been abandoned by his attendant, and the door was shut tight.

Winston pressed the control lever of his chair. The battery was low, so the motor sounded strained. The chair turned in a slow circular motion; the rubber tires squeaked on the linoleum floor of the kitchen.

For a moment, as the chair turned, Winston saw two teenaged boys on a bridge. Winston released the control lever, and the chair stopped. The boys were naked and laughing, and the Arkansas sky was bright blue. Winston recognized himself as one of the two boys. He pushed the hallucination away from his eyes. It was the day real life had ended, he thought.

The clock above the refrigerator said four—that would be Thursday. Jesse, his attendant, must have left on Monday.

Winston turned his chair again and faced the living room. He saw a boy lying on his back on a white table. Winston turned his head and tried not to see. Doctors and nurses moved through the room. The prettiest of the nurses stood by the table and chatted with the boy. The boy—it was Winston, he could not prevent recognizing himself—was embarrassed at his nakedness, but he could not move to cover himself. An X-ray machine was rolled into place. The pretty nurse said, “Don’t breathe now.” The boy thought he might ask her out when he was better, if she wasn’t too old for him. He had not understood yet that this was the day sex ended. Winston looked away and pressed the lever of the chair.

The motor hummed and he rolled toward the bedroom. The tires squeaked on the linoleum, then were silent on the carpet. The motor strained to get through the carpet, but it did not stop. Monday, then, was the last day he was medicated.

Winston negotiated the little S-curve in the hallway. He could see into the bathroom. The extra leg-bag was draped over the edge of the tub, the detergents and irrigation fluids and medications were lined up on the cabinet. Winston saw his mother in the bathroom, but as if she were still young and was standing in the kitchen of her home. He saw himself near her, still a boy, strapped into his first wheelchair.

He closed his eyes, but he could still see. His mother was washing dewberries in the sink. There were clean pint Mason jars on the cabinet and a large blue enamel cooker on the stove. His mother said, “The stains! I don’t know if dewberries are worth the trouble.” Winston watched, against his will, the deliberateness of her cheer, the artificiality of it.

He stopped his chair in the bedroom. There was the table Jesse had built, the attendant who had abandoned him. Jesse had been like a child the night he finished the table, he was so proud of himself. He even skipped that night at the country-western disco, where he spent most of his time, just to sit home with Winston and have the two of them admire it together.

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