Hot Lines

In the winter, Caroline started falling. She’d walk up three stairs and lose her balance. Her doctor at Mt. Sinai said she had the flu and to keep giving her water. But she kept falling on those stairs. I phoned hot lines, the hospital pharmacy, our regular pharmacy, the family doctor, her hospital doctor, the mental health association, and left messages at Nine South, Mount Sinai’s in-patient ward where I knew some of the nurses. “Bring her in for blood work. And keep giving her lots of water,” her doctor said. She should drink more water. Try to eat. Meanwhile that lithium kept climbing in her system—4.3 units, 5.1, and two days later after eight hours in emergency, 6.5.

Time passes slowly and quickly in emergency. You slam down tears and related fears, and you stay in intensive for five days, head resting on the bars of bed side, eyes staring in.
“Boy, she’s tough,” the doctor said. “We’ve given her five times the regular dose and she’s not out yet.”
“You seem to have a way with her,” the doctor said.
I just stared at him.
“We’re going to cut holes in her thighs for the dialysis tubes. You’ll be alright?”
“Yes. We’re a tough bunch.”
“I see that. You hold her down and tell me if her legs start twitching.”
“They’re twitching,” I said. “Twitching again.”
After an hour, the doctor sent me out.
Abie phoned from Geneva.
“She’s going to die,” I said. “Come back. Take a plane and come back.”
“I can’t. We’re closing. We’re getting close.”
I could hear voices on his side.
“What could I do anyhow? What good would I be? Don’t worry, I’m on top of this. I’m calling every hour.”
“That’s what they tell me,” I said.

I spent five days with my head pressed against the railing of that hospital bed. On the third day, I treated myself to an hour of training at the Y gym. I thought I was doing fine. I was calm, mostly I didn’t cry. Except when I’d go to the bathroom, I’d start sobbing and sounds like an animal wailing in the night would build in my chest and spontaneously erupt. Or I’d be walking to the subway and my legs would give way. But I was never alone, because in the midst of everything, all the evictions and sad times, my muscles remained intact and kept me going.

I hid the Western Union bank drafts in the folds of my deceased grandmother’s light blue satin tablecloth with its matching serviettes. One draft purchased a shoe box of steroids —Anavar, Clenbuterol, Winstol V—pure good shit—and later on, I added D Bol that Crazy Bobby, my coach’s best friend, gave me for my forty-seventh birthday. Bobby was in love with Sophie, a Greek lesbian whom he plotted to marry. My coach was engaged to a sweet nurse named Kathy but he had the hots for me. That’s how it goes. Coaches fall in love with their athletes and athletes will do anything for their coaches. John was my mentor although there was a fifteen year difference between us. In my way, I was wild crazy in love with him—that is until I met Garth who stole my heart at Strictly Fitness, and by daring me to move into the Nina Street bachelor basement with him, saved my life.

By summer, I was slipping adavan down Caroline’s throat every two-and-a-half hours so she could sleep and stay calm. I once had dog Abie named Pluto after the planet although I never saw the link. When Pluto chewed at furniture, Abie would bind the dog’s mouth with silver masking tape and with old-fashioned zeal, he’d strap the puppy’s body whenever he ran off and when he wouldn’t listen to commands. So whenever the doorbell rang, Pluto would sneak up behind me, pry open the door and bolt. Abie applied the same training techniques to our first born. “Disappear,” Abie would say to her as she’d approach him while was watching his TV. “Get lost.” And when she couldn’t sleep at night, the dark closing in around her, he’d yell, “I’m going to tie her down, you hear? I’m going to take off my belt and strap her and tie her down.” I never let him do any of those things. I’d stand in front of him with my strong voice and muscles and I’d say, “Not on my life, you won’t.”

I don’t know how I found the strength to remain all those years and how I finally found the strength to leave. “You’re never going to do it,” Garth said and I took his dare. It was the only way I could exit and I guess he knew it. I left with my books and my canvases. My muscles kept me upright.