i'll be your cane

Early in the night, last night, I sat typing chat messages to a friend who'd recently returned from travels overseas. We didn't chat much about her travels. I laid on the charm, as I try to when seeing someone online who'd been missing so long her absence had become unnoticed. I've been with her once, I her first. I'd be a joke to talk of hard feelings or awkwardness. Her shyness doesn't render the scene uncomfortable. Just, with barriers to break down. She's real reserved, but I have no type. The alcohol didn't hurt my chances, but think some amount of exceptional tact must have been involved. Last night, about the time she'd told me her friends ditched her, and her parents were out for the night--and she had makings for rum and Coke, the telephone rang. The voice was totally through a track phone, female, and tired, or something. It was a another girl in my life, one I see about every day I'm not working. She requested I come hang out with her, in a tone of imitation mock sweetness, whose double negativity amplified the actual sweetness electrically. I said I'd call her back, but I didn't provide an explanation, but that I would. I was torn, I hadn't actually been invited to this past fling's for a rendezvous, but the door looked open. My last line of chat was "telephone." So, I typed, "I got an offer to hang out." If she was too shy to invite me before, too shy to try to get me to break plans, or if she'd hoped we'd chat it up all night at a safe distance of several hundred miles of Ethernet cables, I don't know--I was two beers into matching her rum limit. But we knew the right thing to do, we said goodnight. I called my other friend back, and we made plans. I took a shower, and drove the speed limit for thirteen miles.

The girl, who I'll say now prefers to be called a girl, citing "woman" as highfalutin in her self image; the girl was sleeping in fetal position when I was let in by her mother, who I love. Her mom was pretty half adamant that the girl be taken to the emergency room. She said she'd had a fall on the cement porch. Her mom said, "Okay, take her to the ER," then stood expectantly over me and the girl. I must have thought the word, "Uh," about ten times. It's like when someone tells you to take on a task with someone. I'd have had a better chance knowing what to do if I was told to milk a goat. The girl came around, and showed us that there was no evidence of head trauma, but stood up and swiftly hit the floor. She'd fallen asleep so tightly fetal, her right leg had lost sensation. Just then, a sheriff came to the door. If there's one thing 9/11 has taught me, it's the value of protecting oneself from information. Her mom didn't call him, and I have no idea why he showed up.

Meanwhile, the girl was slurring and speaking incoherently. One might have guessed she was hallucinating, but I recognized the off subject questions as the result of a rude awakening. This was the end of a two hour nap after being awake thirty-three hours, she said. The cop talked to her mom for awhile, then he'd like to talk to me. So we talked. He asked, "Is she like this a lot?" (I'd heard the cop mention to her mother about a suicide risk. I surmised the girl, and realized I needed to keep her out of the clutches of people who would see all this as that. Thank the cocktail party effect for one thing right in the world.) To get back to the the cop's burning question, "Is she like this a lot." Two things to take into account in this conversation. Two elements are subjective. Also, it is a catch twenty two. 'Is this out of the ordinary?' If yes, action should be taken. 'Is this happening all the time, is it a problem?' If yes, action should be taken. I spoke with the man. I told him I observed wit and humor in her, but that she was just tired. That, I take some of the same medications she does, and have been in her same state in varying severities. When we were through, he said, "I still don't know if she is like this a lot, and thanks for answering all my questions." I think he was sincere.

The cop asked to speak to the girl alone. The girl got up, and knocked several knickknacks off a table on her plummet to the floor. I don't know why we weren't asked to leave, or where the girl was going to. The bathroom, maybe. I'd been coming to her aide when she'd try maneuvering around the house on the sleeping leg, so I sprung and caught her before she added more bruises to her limbs. There was something of instinct, not to shy away, when she was in need. She's very affectionate with me. So I was used to the feel of her skin. And she always makes me feel very deft when she's around.

The cop left after urging us to go to the emergency room to get the leg checked out. Which, by now, I was beginning to think was a good idea. Her leg still hadn't woken up. She was resistant, but agreed to think it over after some food. Fast food was mostly closed at the hour it was getting to be. I carried her in my arms to my car in the driveway. We rolled up to an all night gas station, and I took her order. Since, there was no way I was letting her come in with me. But she insisted she'd like to browse. I figured her leg was reviving enough, so I came around and helped her out. It wasn't a little hobble to the door. It was a one legged pogo. I did my best to stabilize her, but we were learning a new demonstration toward one another. She slipped, and her ankle twisted sharply, she cried out, I'm sure. Though, I might have repressed the memory of the sound of the cry, itself. A voice came over the loudspeaker, "Are you alright out there?" I carried, in my arms, the girl back to the car and managed to unlock the passenger door, and help her in. I raced inside and told the cashier that there certainly was a need to panic, but not for her to panic. We drove to the ER.

It was a long wait. I abode by the non-smoking campus of the hospital, the sign stating, conspicuously crookedly placed on the foyer glass. To see her wheeled down the hall in a splint for the sprain, was so much sunshine. Her level of lucidity throughout the rest of the night and into the early morning, was like the phases of the moon. At times, she was vibrant and talky, but fell into mumbling random irrelevant questions. We found a Mexican place whose drive-thru was open, and returned to her home on the outskirts of town. We soon discovered in our journeys from then on, that there's more organization required to move objects as well as a person manually from cars to houses. I carried her in my arms, food bags and keys also dangling from my grasp. She felt like no more than a cinder block on my muscles. But, stepping up steps and holding doors with my shoulder blades, with that responsibility, it felt more like cupping a butterfly in my palms.

We slept much needed sleep. I'd been up comparable to thirty-three hours, myself. I have no idea the endurance residing in this girl. With a freshly-sprained ankle she had some errands to do in my town. There were wheelchairs at the stores, she insisted. Sure, I'd be up for that, maybe there would be a motorized one somewhere. You can't let an opportunity like driving a Rascal around Wal-mart pass you up just because you got a little scraped up. I had to talk her out of a couple of stops, or ask please for her to let me take on the business involved in them while she waited. And, I ensured her safety at every gas station stop. The asphalt has got to be on a grade, you'd think, for fuel runoff.

Just like the moon, she knew not whether it was night or day. It was eight o'clock PM, and shit, she just remembered that the mall doesn't open until ten. AM-PM mix up has never happened to me as abruptly as this, but I can totally understand. I keep odd hours, and it gets downright eerie. So, instead of drive-thru breakfast, we got some cheeseburgers. I didn't carry her into the hamburger franchise, and it's not that I would've liked to, other than it's the easier way to transport her, at the moment. She's a little proud for crutches, rascal enough to bash clothes racks over in Target with one of their go-carts, and not too shy to ask me out in a crowded fast food chain. Gratitude, maybe, if so, circumstance. Lucky, not yet, in the ultimate sense. To reveal a close moment so far, I said, "I want every kiss to show you how I've admired you for years." We've been friends awhile, and we've been waiting. Maybe waiting for two nights like this. I tell her she's my element, and the struggle of these nights couldn't have been swum in any other waters but hers.