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| Part 3 by Castgimp |
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| Dear Mikey, Long-time no see. I hope you don't mind my writing to you after all theseyears. The alumni office at school gave me this address, so I hope it isstill a good one for you. I guess I'll find out if the letter comes back.I bet you're surprised to hear from me. I know I should have written to youa long time ago. I thought about it many times, but never got around to it.I suppose I didn't know what the hell I'd say. I'm living in Texas, as you have probably figured out from the postmark. Imoved here almost ten years ago now, right after I got married. That's along story. When I got out of law school I took a job with a law firm inBoston, and spent a couple of years working my ass off for them. I hatedevery minute of it, but I didn't ever stop to think about doing somethingelse. My dad died in 1989, and the shock of that caused me to sit back andreevaluate my life. It was like I had been in a cloud ever since myaccident in Dallas. I'd been just going along with my nose to the ground,trying not to think or feel too much. Sitting in the church at my father'sfuneral I was overcome with the pointlessness of it all. Well, I up andquit my job at the law firm the next week. You don't need to hear all ofthis, but it goes to how I ended up married. I came into a little bit of money when my dad passed away, which freed me upconsiderably. Once I sat down and thought about it, it didn't take me toolong to figure out what I wanted to do. I took a job teaching gymnastics tokids. I had steered clear of gymnastics for years, but I made a few callsto some people who still remembered me, and the next thing I knew I had ajob at a gym in Newton that was owned by a couple of guys who'd been on theUS Olympic team in 1984. To make a long story short, that's how I met my wife Nadine. She'd been onthe University of Texas gymnastics team about the same time you and I werein school. She was working at the same gym, with the young girls, and weended up spending a lot of time together. One thing led to another, and wethought we were in love. I had been a bit of a loner since college and shewas the first person I had really spent much time with outside of work. Shewas from San Antonio, and wanted to go home. We decided to take the money Ihad inherited and open our own gymnastics school. I was a little reluctantto go back to Texas, after Dallas, but I was happy to leave New Englandbehind and try something new, so off we went to San Antonio. The school has been a big success. I have eight full-time instructorsworking for me now, and our program has gotten to be quite well known. Ilove working with the young guys, as you can probably imagine, and I'vemanaged to send quite a few kids on into junior division competition. My marriage has not been as big a success, as you can also probably imagine.I suppose I had no business marrying Nadine in the first place, but we havetwo lovely little girls, and I'm not sure that if I had it to do over againI'd do it any differently. Nadine and I were divorced two years ago. Itjust wasn't working out. I knew I wasn't making her happy, and I wasn'treally satisfied either. We tried to make a go of it for the girls, but inthe end we agreed it would be best to separate. I've stuck around, becauseof the school and to be near the girls. Nadine and I each get to spendabout equal time with them, and they are still the light and joy of my life.My oldest, Joyce, who's just nine, is quite the little gymnast herself.Meg, who's seven, and the black sheep of our little family, has no interestin gymnastics at all, and I say good for her. So why the hell am I troubling you with my sorry life story after all theseyears Mikey? Would it help to explain if I told you I was sitting here witha cast on my left ankle? Every year my little school has a float we put together for the Flambeauparade for Fiesta here in San Antonio. Our Fiesta is a big ten-daycelebration each spring, which involves a lot of eating and drinking andgeneral carrying on. I try to avoid the city during Fiesta, but the paradethe last night is a big deal for the kids. The float we enter brings goodwill in the community and I get some advertising out of it. We build alittle mini-gym floor on the back of a flatbed and we haul some oldgymnastics equipment on board, and then decorate the whole thing withflowers and garlands and the kids ride the float in their uniforms. There'sa backdrop with the name of our school and some painted pictures of goldmedals. I guess that maybe you have to live here to understand. Anyhow the parade was this past Saturday night. I usually walk beside thefloat, rather than riding it, along with some of the other parents of thekids who are riding. It's a night parade and the whole point of theFlambeau is that the floats are illuminated and the bands march with torchesto light their way. The parade route is about six miles but it takes aboutfour hours for the whole length of it to make its way to the end. We'd beenat it for a couple of hours and when our top string of lights went out, justbefore we reached Alamo Square and the reviewing stand. The parade was aseries of stops and starts, and things always slowed down at the square asbands stopped to perform for the crowd there. We were stopped about ahundred yards from the square and I scrambled up on the float to try to fixthe lights. I figured the connection had just come loose. Sure enough, asI climbed up on the back support I could see the dangling wire that hadjiggled itself free. I had just reattached the wire when the float startedforward with a jolt and I lost my balance. I pitched forward toward the bedof the float itself. My left foot was still braced in a joint of the woodensupport scaffolding that I had been standing on, and as I twisted and fellmy foot got wedged in there so I was left hanging by my ankle. My bodycontinued to twist around from the force of the fall and as the torque on myfoot reached the point of no return, I could feel my ankle break. The searing pain was oddly familiar. I knew that my ankle was breaking asit happened. I found myself actually trying to visualize whether it was mytibia or my fibula, or both, which had splintered. Instinctively I tried toreach for my ankle, but hanging there like that there was no way I could getanywhere near it. As I lunged upward with my body, I dislodged my foot, andfinally came tumbling all the way down onto the bed of the truck. I don'tknow which was worse, anticipating falling down onto the truck with mybroken ankle, or actually landing on it. The brutal shock of my anklesmacking down onto the wooden truck bed was blinding. I felt as if I hadlanded in a heavy heap, but I must have bounced, because I was suddenlyfalling off the truck and I landed hard on the pavement on my side with myfeet under the truck, and the next thing I knew the back wheels of the truckwere rolling over my broken ankle. It was like a bad dream. The wholething, start to finish, from being up on top of the float tinkering with thelights to being on the ground with the truck running over me probably didn'ttake more than three of four seconds, but it felt like a year. The pain inmy ankle as the truck rolled over me was worse than anything I'd ever feltbefore-worse even than Dallas I think. I could feel the jagged edges of thebroken bone being ground together by the weight of the truck. I didn't knowif anyone had seen me fall in the dark or not, but my screaming brought thewhole parade to a stop. I was keenly aware of the fiery pain in my anklebut was blind to everything else around me. I know I kept screaming overand over "my ankle, my ankle, not again, oh Jesus my ankle." I was rolling on the ground and clutching my knee to keep my ankle up offthe ground when I became aware that there were two cops kneeling on thepavement in the dark next to me. Through the fog of the pain and the roarof the crowd, I finally managed to figure out what one of them was yellingin my ear. "Are you all right?" "No!" I shouted back. As if that weren't obvious. "I've broken myankle!" "Are you sure?" he shouted back. "Yes, Jesus, I've broken it before. I know it's broken. I felt it break."I couldn't believe I was arguing with him over whether or not my ankle wasbroken. He was suddenly shouting in my ear again. I tried to focus long enough tomake out what he was saying. "Don't you worry sir, we're going to get yousome help. But first we've got to get you out of the road so we can getthis parade moving." I panicked. "NO!" I found myself screaming back at him. "Don't move me!You can't! Not like this! Please don't try to move me! I'm begging youofficer! I'm really hurt badly! My ankle is broken! You've got to believe me! I'm seriously injured! You'll just make it worse! Please!" But mypleading fell on deaf ears. "I'm afraid we have to move you sir. You're in the way. We have to get theparade moving. We can't wait for an ambulance." And then suddenly thesetwo cops were picking me up and my broken ankle was hanging thereunsupported and the pain was so intense I thought I was going to pass out.I could feel the blood pooling around my ankle and my boot was gettingtighter and as we moved through the crowd I could feel the raw grinding ofthe fractured pieces of bone. I was pretty sure it was my tibia. It feltlike my tibia was broken just slightly above where I broke it in Dallas.Lightning bolts of pain were shooting up my leg into my hip and back and myfoot and ankle were throbbing from the pressure that was building up insidemy boot. They dragged me over to a patch of empty cement and set me downand I turned and wretched, vomiting from the waves of pain that were causingmy stomach to contract in violent spasms. I was soaking wet with sweat.There seemed to be a terrible crushing pressure on my ankle that I couldn'trelieve no matter how I shifted and twisted. I tried to lift my ankle upoff the ground, but even that movement made the pain dramatically worse, andinvoluntarily, almost as if my broken ankle had been struck with a bat, myankle and boot crashed back to the cement sidewalk. I was unable to hold myankle up off the ground as much as I desperately wanted to. My fingersground into the pavement beneath me as I tried to block the waves of painthat were wracking my body. I looked around desperate for some help, andcouldn't see either one of the cops. I thought for sure they intended tojust leave me there writhing on the side of the road. I panicked, andstarted to yell. "Help me! Help me! Somebody help me please! I need somehelp! My ankle's busted and I'm in terrible pain! Please somebody get mesome help!" Suddenly one of the cops was next to me again. He sounded angry. "Take iteasy there fella. We're getting you some help. We don't want a scene here.You been drinking or what? Quit your screaming. What the hell were youdoing up on that float anyhow? This is what you get for horsing around!Now settle down. I'll show you busted if you're not careful." Then heraised his heavy black boot up above my broken ankle and held it there,threateningly. "You keep it down buddy or I'll cancel that ambulance that'son its way." I sat in numb silence. I was terrified that he would bring his boot down onmy ankle. I had a sudden image of this fucking cop in his boots and tootight uniform grinding his heel into my ankle and smiling cruelly as hepulverized what was left of my ankle. I summoned all the discipline I hadfrom my days of training in the gym and forced myself to lie there silently,unmoving. I was truly scared, and sick with pain. I decided to focus onthe feelings and sensations in my ankle, rather than trying to block themout, because I knew the fear of pain was almost worse than the pain itself.I concentrated, and tried to imagine exactly where it was broken. I triedto visualize where the bones were, and what the broken bones looked like. Itried to picture my foot below the broken ankle. I tried to isolate thepain, and evaluate it, and compare it to pain I had experienced before. Andthen Mikey, I thought of you. As I was concentrating on my pain, suddenlyimages of you flooded my mind. And then unaccountably I was awash in a seaof emotion, and the pain in my ankle was the farthest thing from my mind. Iwas back on campus and you were with me and we were twenty years old and wewere on our way to the gym and we were horsing around and slapping eachother on the butt and laughing. I was startled by the hot wet tears thatwere running down my face. I broke my fucking ankle Mikey. I broke myfucking ankle again Mikey. Mikey, Mikey, Mikey. Oh man, I gotta get a grip here. Well anyway, the ambulance finallymade its way through the parade crowd. The EMTs insisted on taking my bootoff, which they shouldn't have done. When they yanked my boot over my heelI was in such pain that one of my wildly swinging arms connected with one ofthe EMTs and knocked him back hard into the side of the ambulance. I wasscreaming like a wild man again. "Oh God stop! Jesus! Leave me alone!Leave my poor fucking ankle alone! Stop it! Oh God stop it!" The guy Ididn't hit threw himself down on top of me to try to contain me. In the end they sedated me. It was probably best. I guess I was inshock. My pain had become so explosive that I was a danger to them and tomyself. Even with the sedative, the pain in my ankle burned through, and Icould feel every bump and jolt in that ambulance on the way to the hospital.In my groggy half-waking state I imagined that I was back on the bus fromNashua and you were sitting next to me, trying to distract me from my painand cushion my ankle from the hard ride of the bus. I could actually feelmy ankle resting on your lap. I barely remember arriving at the hospital.I remember it hurt like hell when they moved my leg around to x-ray my anklefrom three different angles. I had been right about it being my tibia. Itturned out to be a spiral fracture of the medial shaft of my left tibia. InDallas I broke my tibia straight across. This time, the way my foot gothung up and the way my body twisted when I fell, my tibia splintered in acurving spiral line from the very base of my ankle up toward my shin. It isthe kind of broken ankle that skiers get when they fall. They had tooperate in order to set the bone, and I guess the scarring and calcificationfrom my last injury complicated the procedure. By the time I was fullyconscious again, I was lying in a hospital bed with my left ankle once againencased in white plaster. This time the cast goes all the way up my legnearly to my crotch. So that was a week ago, and now I am home with a pair of crutchesand instructions to stay off my ankle. Which brings me to my point inwriting to you today. I won't be back to work for quite a while. Thedoctor said I'll be in a cast for eight to ten weeks at least. These oldbones don't knit they way they used to when we were kids. I'll be in thislong leg cast for four weeks, and then they're going to put me is a shortleg cast I guess. Anyhow I have good people to look after the school for mewhile I am convalescing, and Nadine has the kids full time for now. Itmeans I've got some time on my hands. I guess there is no other way to saythis. I'd love to come and visit you if you'll have me Mikey. You'reprobably thinking, what an ass-hole. He doesn't call or write for fifteenyears and then he breaks his ankle again and suddenly he wants me to takecare of him. But it's not like that Mikey. Being laid up with a broken ankle again has been good for me. Asmuch pain as I'm in, and it is still considerable, I have to say I'm glad ithappened. Breaking my ankle again has been like going back in time. Theheavy weight of the plaster cast on my ankle and the feel of the crutchesunder my arms are familiar. Even the pain and the lack of mobility and myinability to move my foot when I want to have been like old companions tome. It's all reminded me of happier times in my life. And it's reminded meof you. Just the smells of the plaster cast and the rubber pads on thecrutches bring back strong happy memories. I think those three weeks wespent between Nashua and Dallas were the happiest three weeks of my life,and if it took breaking my ankle again to make me realize that, well, as Isaid, I'm glad it happened, and I'd gladly break my ankle again if I had toin order to retrieve that set of emotions I thought I'd blocked and lostforever. I miss you Mikey. I'd love to see you. I'll certainly understand if yousay no. I have no expectation that we could pick up where we left off.Hell, I don't know anything about you. You might be married yourself forall I know, or living with some handsome young guy more likely. I don'tknow if you ever even think about me anymore. I wouldn't blame you if youdidn't. Still, I guess I hope you do. I've certainly spent a lot of timethinking of you over the years, and they've all been good thoughts Mikey.All of them. I promise you. Well I have taken up much more of your time than I intended. I guess Ican't expect that you'll even read through to the end of this long letter.Somehow, though, I think you'll understand about my ankle, and how itbrought me back to you. So call me if you want. I'd love to see you. As I said, I'm pretty free totravel right now. I don't know if you would even recognize me after allthese years. People say I haven't changed much, but I think I have. Myhair is starting to go gray now at the sides. Of course I'll be the onecoming off the plane on crutches with my leg in a cast. I do miss you Mikey, and I am sorry it's taken me so long to write. You canimagine that I've turned into a pretty stubborn old cuss, and I'm not evenforty. I guess it took another broken ankle to get it through my thick headwhat it is in life that is really important to me. You were everything tome Mikey. I don't suppose I ever told you that. I hope you knew it. I'llstop now, before I get messy on you. It felt good to write all this down,even if we don't get a chance to see each other. As I said, call meanytime. I'm not going anywhere. I'll just be sitting here nursing myankle, watching my toes sticking out from the end of my cast. Joey |
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