Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Clues Were There





March 18th 1989, the anniversary coming soon enough, I already have the heebie-jeebies, the restlessness of recalling being very close to my Creator. The night before, I had watched DOA, that Saturday morning, a rainy, icy, pitiless day, I left home for my doctor's appointment with page 243 of my novel in my Smith-Corona. I saw the dust on that page 68 days later. Another clue, besides the Edmund O'Brien movie, was that I had been rereading Nelson Algren's NEVER COME MORNING. I left the office and 30 seconds later the nurse at the front desk saw me flip up into the air. My first real memory of that day, I recalled earlier moments later during my recovery, was of the EMT cutting open the sleeve of my new and expensive suede jacket sleeve. I asked him not to and he told me, quite matter-of-factly, that it really didn't matter because both bones in my left forearm were sticking through the other sleeve. Above are the photo of me on Day 2, my hand like a sausage, useless as my right hand because the bones took on lives of their own just below my elbow. The other photo, again forgive my glasses and overall scary face look as my hairline receded, shows the torn jacket. I kept it until the tenth anniversary and then I burnt it.

4 comments:

Drizel said...

GOOD GREEF...I also burn things that has bad memories attached....
My word, how our bodies can take more than we will ever relise:)
Keep smiling your not there anymore:)

Charles Gramlich said...

You should have kept the jacket longer. I can see you in a zombie movie wearing that as you hunt your prey through the ruins of a zombie infested Chicago.

James Robert Smith said...

I recall hearing about that when it happened.

You're a true Stoic.

Billy said...

Can you please let me know what happened in a little more detail? I am a new reader of course. Is there an archive I can go back to?