With some men this never needs to be discussed, we just get it. But Piston's inquiry about my serious commitments edged me and when I mentioned it he smiled by lifting one side of his mouth. It was the same methodical wry smile I often find on *my* face. I was asking about your work schedule, he said rolling is eyes, Relax we're not on a date. I treated him to my version of his smile and relaxed.
OK, so I mentioned he's no ballerina on the track at the gym. Rigid back, no swing to the shoulders. It's painful to spy on him walking the track while trying to keep my pogo dancing on the elliptical rhythmic. It's all he does at the gym: No lifting, no machines, nada. Three days a week he's a freaking track junkie. I was thinking about paying 46.00 a month to stroll the track when he tells me the story of a Frida Kahlo-esque accident two years ago in some southern goth backwater town in Mississippi where he was doing research on frogs. This resulted in extended hospital tours that involved lying on polluted beds, howling, incapacitated and beckoning death.
I was a client with no experience to direct my care, he said, I was forced to consider the existential question. The question that takes on a rabid twist for a 'patient' who chooses to spend his time in what basically was a prison. The question that is also in an old Sylvia Plath poem, do you know it? He quoted:
That being free. What would the dark
Do without fevers to eat?
What would the light
Do without eyes to knife, what would he
Do, do, do without me?
I know it, I said, it's called The Jailer. And the question, buried deep, is How did I get here?
