My Life as a Stooge

It began, as so many other stories do?or, in my case, as all my other stories seem to?as I was walking home from the subway.

It was early yet, at least by clock standards, but the winter darkness was solid, and I was drunk. That was okay, though?by now, the cane knows where to take me.

Everything was fine and normal in this way, too, until I realized that I was falling down. For the first time this winter, despite countless admonitions to avoid such a thing, to slow down just a little bit, the cane, then my foot, hit the ice that was still gathered at the corner of 8th St., and everything went out from under me. Before I knew it, I was down, and down hard?the hat flew off and the cane skittered out of my hand and across the pavement into the darkness.

I was pleased to note, however, that I'd hung on to the cigarette. Kept it aloft and lit in my left hand as I slammed onto my right. It's what you call "priorities." And though I had that much going for me, this was the first time ever, after all these years, that I'd lost the cane.

I found the hat?right there in front of me on the sidewalk?and replaced it. Then I put the cigarette back in my mouth. Then I set to flopping around like some kind of dying tuna, feeling for the cane, but finding nothing.

"Don't move!" I heard a woman's voice yell from across the street. "Just don't move!"

Not knowing if she was directing her shouts at me or not, and assuming that she wasn't, I kept at my flopping, up on my knees now, still finding nothing but handfuls of dirt and snow.

The woman across the street kept yelling, then finally dodged across two lanes of oncoming traffic to retrieve the cane for me. As she was doing this, I stood up.

"Thank you most kindly," I said.

"It's okay," she said. "Which hand?" She was still holding the cane, and for the briefest of seconds I thought she was fucking with me, that she was going to make me guess which hand she was holding it in before returning it. Then I realized she was just asking me what hand I caned with, so she could put it in the right one.

It took me a bit to work through all that as I stood there silently, holding out my right hand. Finally I said, "The one without the cigarette." (I have trouble with "left" and "right" most of the time.)

She gave me back the cane, I thanked her again, and continued on my way home, noticing for the first time the mild throbbing in my right wrist.

I couldn't help but compare that kindhearted soul with the stinktown cow I'd encountered earlier in the day. I was on my way out to get a sandwich of some sort. When the elevator arrived at the 14th floor, I stepped inside, and began running my fingertips over the raised numbers in order to find the lobby button. Sometimes this takes me a little while.

That's when the trog who'd stepped aboard the elevator behind me chortled snidely, "You have to push the button to make it go, dearie."

Oh, I'll push something?I'll push something all right, I thought enigmatically, then cut my eyes over in her direction. Instead of punching her, though, which was my first impulse, I whispered, "I need...to find...the proper floor. And when I do, I will...hit...the button."

It occurred to me that sometimes I'm not the blind one.

The throbbing in my wrist grew most intense after I got to the apartment and picked up the phone to let Morgan know that I got home intact. Or reasonably so this time. Still thought little of it. In fact, by the time I got off the phone, the pain had vanished.

Then it came back again an hour later. Then it vanished. Then it came back again, sharp enough to keep me up most of the night. The line from Zelig played over and over in my head: "Then he backed over my mother's wrist! She's elderly, and uses her wrist a lot."

By the next morning, trying to do anything was a bitch. Shaving was a bitch. Opening the refrigerator was a bitch. Brushing my teeth was a bitch. And of course it was my right arm that was bothering me?the one I use to type with.

Well, shit, I thought.

I went into the office anyway, got on the elevator, felt for the 14th floor and punched the button. Then I screamed, but swallowed it.

"You need to hit the button to make it go, dearie." Fucking cow.

When it was clear by that afternoon that my hand and wrist and forearm were noticeably swollen and bruised and not hurting any less, I actually broke down and called my doctor. If this had happened a year ago or more?or even if it had happened during the summer?I probably would have put it off until either the little problem took care of itself or my arm turned black and green and began to smell bad. Now, though, it was just too irksome, so I figured having someone look at it?even a quack?was probably a wise thing.

Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to fit me in until the following week. Way I looked at it, though, I was still ahead of the game. If I normally would've waited at least two weeks before doing anything, well, seeing a doctor after four or five days still made me look like a model citizen of some stripe.

I sat at my desk and tried typing for a while, but it didn't go very well, what with all the pain and the fingers not landing where they should and what-have-you. So I went to a bar instead. I could still hold a pint glass just fine, I discovered. And there are things in this world that kill the pain more quickly and effortlessly than aspirin.

Deep in the back of my brain, in the dark area that feels shame for things unspoken, I began to realize that I was almost hoping my wrist was busted. To be honest, it was still unclear?it might've been a fracture, or just a really bad sprain. I'd never had a broken bone before?none that were ever treated at least?so it would be something new.

Something new or not, it still seems a foolish thing to hope for.

Then I remembered something Grinch?I'm pretty sure it was him, though I could be wrong?told me over the telephone recently.

"Y'know," he said?I don't even remember what we were talking about?"there's such a thing as Schadenfreude, but you have the damnedest case of it I've ever heard of. You celebrate your own suffering."

I wouldn't want to think so, but sometimes I do have to wonder if he's not right.