DB Cox - December 2004



Motion

I looked back from the boxcar just in time to see the huge iron wheels roll over the boy’s leg. I was never sure if the agonizing scream came from Shane or his mother, but I never made a sound. From that moment on, I would replay the scene again and again in my mind with no loss of intensity. Looking back, I would recall only bits and pieces of the next few hours: somehow managing to get the kid to the emergency room, Claire lying on the waiting room floor crying, completely broken, unable to get to her feet -- from time to time, pulling herself together long enough to vent her rage at me. Racked with guilt, I could only stare straight ahead, willing to accept any punishment that came my way.

The word "STUPID" flashed, like a white neon sign, in my brain. I had been showing off -- the whole damn thing, just a lark. When I noticed the slowing moving train, I hadn’t been able to resist showing the boy how I used to jump trains for a joy-ride when I was a kid. When I sprinted off to grab the ladder on the side of the boxcar, I never even thought about the boy following. And now there was nothing but time to think about the accident. Whenever the grisly sequence spooled through my brain, my whole body would shudder, and an unbidden sound would escape from somewhere inside my soul. Sometimes, I would stay up all night moving restlessly about the house, chain-smoking and drinking too much. There was no way to put this thing behind me, so inside a storm continued to build.

______

Before the accident, dinner had always been a pleasant time for all of us, but now with Shane in the hospital and only Claire and me at the table, it had become an edgy, silent affair. A black wall had come between us and would not go away.

"Claire, why are you staring at me? If you’ve got something to say, just say it."

"Who’s staring?" she says and lowers her glass to the table.

"I won’t have you blaming this whole Goddamn thing on me."

"Well John, why don’t you tell me who I should blame: the B&O railroad – the engineer on the train -- or maybe I should blame Shane for following a fool."

I wad up my napkin and fire it toward an overflowing trash can. I push back from the table, pick up my cigarettes and walk out to the porch. Cars are speeding up and down the street completely ignoring the "Slow/Children Playing" sign. For a second, I wish I had a gun so I could shoot out a few tires, then frustrated, I sit down hard in one of the lawn chairs. I pick up the paper and see my name right there on the first page along with the whole fucking story. I sling the paper as far as I can out into the front yard. Some of the pages break away, and blow back into the sad-looking shrubbery planted along the porch. I take a drag on my cigarette, lean back in the chair and close my eyes.

I hear the screen door open and suddenly feel the sting of an open hand across my face. Startled, I open my eyes just in time to catch Claire’s wrist before the next blow can land. Instinctively, I raise my right fist then catch myself just in time. Shaking with rage, I lower my hand slowly back to the arm of the chair. I want to stand up and shake her. I want to shake her until she cries.

"It was an accident Claire.", I say. "It was just a crazy fucking accident."

I stand up and walk back into the house. Still trying to calm myself, I go to the kitchen cabinet, take out a bottle of scotch, pour myself a strong one and sit down at the table. Claire comes in from the porch, goes directly to the bedroom and starts packing. I make no move to stop her.

______

After Claire’s exit, I stayed in the house for three days in a row, without eating, without sleeping. I disconnected the phone and spent most of my time lying on the living room floor, staring up at the ceiling. When I got thirsty, I’d walk into the kitchen and get a drink from the spigot. One morning someone came to the front door and rang the bell. I waited. After a minute, they rang again then went away. I was feeling really bad about not going back to the hospital to see Shane, but I was afraid of running into Claire and setting off some kind of nasty scene. So I just added one more awful failure to my growing list of things done wrong.

At night, I lay motionless in the dark, my head pulsing with the same gruesome images. I would sweat until my clothes were soaked through. I thought of myself holed-up here in the blackness, in a locked house for three days, completely mad, feeling a rage that had no focus, and I knew that soon, I would have to do something.

Then, it came to me. I had to feel the pain – I had to know what it was like to be without a part of your body. Not just any part, but the same part as my son. Maybe then, I could be forgiven, released from these chains. I stood up and stumbled through the room bumping into furniture. I turned on all of the lights: the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom. I took off all my clothes, found the key to my workshop, and walked out into the backyard. The moon was shining across the grass like a searchlight. I unlocked the door to the shop, walked over to the workbench and picked up what I was looking for. I plugged the thick black electric chord of the skilsaw into the outlet and sat down on the floor. Everything had come down to this single, blinding point – understanding this one thing perfectly. I extended my right leg as far as I could along the cool, white linoleum, and placed the skilsaw perpendicular to my thigh, just above the knee. I leaned forward and pushed down as hard as I could. I found the trigger with my right index finger and squeezed. The combined screams of a human being and a whirling saw-blade against bone, cracked the still night air in half.

_____

I’m parked at the window in my wheelchair, staring through a metal-grate at the gardener, who’s hard at work in the flower beds. It’s the same guy who has been the gardener through all the years I’ve been here. Anyone who takes the time to look at his flowers will know he loves his job. There’s nothing to do here in the dayroom except sit, unless you like to work on jigsaw puzzles, play cards, or wander aimlessly around the room. I hear the ward door open -- up the hall out of my sight. Anybody coming through that door is almost always a disappointment, but this morning it turns out differently – at least for me.

A voice calls out, kind of bored and impatient, "letter for John Harris…", but I’m so weighed down by medication, I don’t feel like answering. So, somebody from admissions is kind enough to bring the letter down, already opened, and hand it to me…

The letter is from Claire. Somehow, she found me. How, I don’t have a clue. Even after all this time, and through the gray haze of drugs I feel a melancholy settle over me like a flicked sheet over a bed. I’m afraid to read the letter, but I can’t summon the will power to roll across the floor and drop it into the gray-metal trash can.

She’s living in Boston -- married to a man who owns a "sporting goods" store. She says she’s turned into a "fitness nut", and has ran in the last three Boston Marathons. Shane lives in New York – a well-known artist who shows, and makes big bucks on his paintings. She writes that he sends his best and will try to drop by for a visit some time. Claire works as a secretary for the Massachusetts Transit Authority and says she loves her job. The one-page letter ends "Well I’ve got to go now… Love, Claire".

Smiling, I drop the letter to the linoleum floor and look out at the people moving across the hospital grounds – all, seem to have a sense of purpose. Cars and trucks rolling along the highway – fading jet trails intersecting across the skyline, already history. Everybody and everything moving as fast as possible toward a crucial appointment with the nothing that waits like a holy ghost -- somewhere in the distance.

__________

DB Cox is a blues musician/poet originally from South Carolina, he presently resides in Watertown, MA. He has played guitar since the age of 14. After graduating from high school in 1966, he did a 4 year stint with the Marines. After his discharge, he spent a few years in the south playing whatever jobs he could find. In 1977, he moved to Boston, MA to attend the Berklee School of Music, where he eventually found the blues circuit. He enjoys writing for the same reason he loves playing the guitar -- a way to communicate how he feels, at a given time, on a given day.