Disarmed by Izzy Ezagui

Author:Izzy Ezagui
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781633884281
Publisher: Prometheus Books

DEALT A BAD HAND

March 2009. Rehab's not all fun. My roommate, Benny, is a radio operator. He lost his legs. But the rocket took his balls, too. The entire region down there's a total mess. We're not at the point where we're making jokes about it yet.

One night, Benny shits his bed. I wake up to him moaning, “Oh, man. Oh, man. What's the matter with me?” The nurses are already here to change him. I stumble over to his bed. My face wants to scrunch up from the stench, but I force it to relax. I'm looking in Benny's eyes, and I can see he's in a tailspin of abject hopelessness. My territory. There's feces covering his entire lower half, but his contorted face tells me the situation upstairs is far more of a muddle. So I sit with him while the nurses clean up. I hold Benny's hand the whole time, trying not to shift the IV needle protruding from somewhere above his knuckles.

“There's nothing the matter with you, Benny. You're a goddamn hero, man. A flippin’ rock star. Don't you forget that for a second. This…” and I motion with my eyes…“this is no big deal, I promise. You've survived worse…crap.”

Benny snaps out of it. Smiles wanly. He sighs a few times and we sit there, waiting for the clean slate. When it's done and I look away from Benny for the first time, I see the nurses are staring right at me. I can't read their eyes. Is it respect? Pride? But in that moment, I'm not thinking about my own pain, my drug-addled brain, my troubles at home. My Phantom. I'm thinking only that I still have this capacity, I have one hand left to hold Benny's—or any brother's. I can do what the nurses do, and think of others before myself. Which makes me experience a little surge of something nice, something familiar. Yes, this is exactly what my parents would do. What they have done their whole lives. Tzedakah.

Back in my own bed, though, I can't help thinking, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” It's hard to feel sorry for yourself with a missing arm when the guy beside you lost his legs and his ability to leave behind a legacy. Benny's talking quietly to his mother now over the phone while I open a letter from…Curls, the ambulance medic, wishing me well. Wow. Her words comfort me, and I can almost hear her voice again. And I hear Benny's soft voice, comforting his mom; he bolsters her the way I did him. I just spent umpteen months worried I had no balls, and here was Benny, proving it takes something far deeper inside to be a man.

The next day, and from then on, the nurses smile at me in a new way. No matter how loopy the drugs make me, no matter how temperamental and morose I can get, they treat me with patience and kindness.

Despite that, I, too, have very bad days.

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