miss pamela running it on like it is
‘i don’t know, Richid. it’s hard to explain, but now that he’s a quadriplegic he’s brought us all together. we were all real confused about who we were, our identities? you know J was our leader in a way and now he’s all caught up in being gay. gay in Santa Fe, and he’s living with Tommy who’s only eighteen but they’ve been together for years now because J does everything for him. he doesn’t have to lift a finger. but it’s strange, Richid, now that Steve broke his neck and is a quadra…have you ever seen what they do to people who break their necks, Richid? i’ve never been around someone who’s that sick. it makes you go through your whole life. you wonder what matters anymore. you know what I mean? they screw this metal strip that looks like a halo on his head and they have him with weights pulling on his body. one’s twenty-four pounds and the other is thirty-six. and then they have him on a waterbed, like, and they have to turn him over every two hours. on his back and then on his face, Richid. i’ve never seen anything like it. he hasn’t really slept for a month because they keep turning him over. he doesn’t even seem to realize what happened to him. he’s been on morphine. he’s so sick but he’s pulled us all together. everyone from Reddington. does that sound right? people we haven’t seen for months are sending flowers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. and he asks for Michael Weaver. they were good friends. didn’t separate over nothing heavy. just straight with each other. Steve told Michael everything real blunt. his doctors are real happy because we all go to see him a lot and we know what to do about not eating milk or too much carbohydrates. so i’m getting involved with cripples. can you believe it? i stare at wheelchairs and i can tell right away if it’s a good one or not. and i’m working in volunteer therapy. i’m going to get my hair cut, Richid. i figure now’s the time because of the storm. i got to change my hair. i’m gonna get it cut like Peter Frampton. i was down in Beacon Hill during the storm. i was dressed in rags. i looked like shit. everybody else down there dressed to kill in their pleated pants and i was a mess. i feel like the Queen of the Subways now, Richid. i should enter Miss Subways in New York because all i do is ride them back and forth. i got to move to the North End so I can walk around a little. i’m cleaning houses in Revere, a couple of them, and I’m always on the subway and I was in a movie, Richid, a TV movie that was on last week with Joanne Woodward. i was hanging out with her and she’s real nice and Paul Newman’s short but he’s got those beautiful eyes and all we did was walk and walk up and down the street and then run in all movies they hire people for ten dollars an hour just to walk. i’m going to be in another one. i forget the name of it. i would a got involved with Danny who’s been teaching me a lot about how to massage people with injuries and we’re real close but i won’t do it because what’s the point of getting involved with someone when you might run off to California or something? it don’t make sense. i’ll call you, Richid. give me your number. people still remember that song, my song, but call me Richid because you know i lose things and forget. the snow has been something here in Charlestown we had no oil or heat for days but then the oilman came and everyone a little oil he was real nice, Richid. Joey is fourteen now and sometimes, you know, once a week i feel like i never want to talk to him again because he gets real nasty. he’s real skinny and he isn’t interested in girls yet and he’s lifting weights and he got a scholarship to all the Catholic High Schools that was ten kids out of seven hundred and he didn’t tell anybody that’s the way he is, Richid, he never tells us anything, but he’s doing real good and i think he can’t decide whether to go into professional sports or to become a heart surgeon. yeah. i should go now too, Richid. yeah. i love you, Richid. Bye.’
This is an excerpt from my book, The Paragraphs — Cutlass Press
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