Heaven's Coast - Mark Doty [107]
It took the form, first, of pleasure. Wally’s response to being brought something good to eat, or to a foot rub or a warm sponge bath, would be so enthusiastic and grateful that the people who took care of him found it somehow easy, their work in itself a pleasure. It became a source of wonder to me that a man who could do so little could take such unmitigated pleasure in the world.
A photo from that summer: Wally’s sister Susan had come to visit with her two dogs. Both the visitors—a weimaraner and a spotted spaniel—are standing on the bed with Arden, all of them looking excitedly in the direction of the sun pouring in the windows, and Wally’s sitting up, propped up on pillows, naked, as he was all that summer since it was so difficult to get him dressed and he didn’t much seem to care. A plaid sheet is pulled up to his waist, and he’s leaning sideways at the angle he’ll more and more assume. He’s grinning in utterly absorbed delight at the pack of dogs who’ve taken over my side of the bed. It’s the face of a very happy man.
A certain boyish stubbornness emerges, too—mild, at first, though later he’ll tend toward the bullheaded about what he wants or doesn’t. For now, there’s something undeniably sweet about his wanting, his ways of insisting on his preferences. He decides that it’s fine to be seen in town in his wheelchair, and every day or two we make the trip. Preparations—choosing clothes, getting dressed, packing a little bag of supplies, getting into the wheelchair and out of the house—are themselves a major undertaking. Often, moving Wally stimulates his bowels, so we’ll be halfway out the door and need to turn back. Getting to the sidewalk café for a lemonade or glass of juice, bumping along the potholed street or ripply sidewalk (one never notices, until pushing a wheelchair or riding in one, just how rough familiar surfaces really are) exhausts him, so that he’ll sleep for hours once we’re home. He conceives a desire for a pair of Birkenstock sandals, a good idea, since they’ll be easy to slip on and off, and some of his shoes present a problem for whoever’s helping him to dress. Wheeling to town for the new shoes on a sunny afternoon, we must comprise a scene: a black umbrella’s spread over the chair to keep the sun from Wally’s face, a blanket’s draped across his lap, a straw bag hung on the back of the chair to carry his urinal and his money (he wants to use some specific funds to buy the shoes).
He’s tired today, after getting ready, though determined to accomplish this, but when we get to the store where he wants to look there’s an impossibly high concrete step out in front, one neither of us ever thought twice about walking up, but in the wheelchair it’s entirely another matter. We try tilting, much too far backward to be safe, but it’s no go. A friendly stranger tries helping me lift the chair, one of us on either side, but the ill-designed single step is so high that we can’t clean-and-jerk the two hundred pounds of Wally and chair and accessories. But he will have those shoes, and have them today. A clerk in the shop, happily, is willing to bring all the sandals out to us; from colors and styles spread on the sidewalk, Wally chooses just the right pair, and wears them home, new tobacco-colored suede shoes whose soles will never even be soiled.
Dream: I’m going down to the shore, a crooked and circuitous path, and I have to negotiate my way through dark little ravines, like person-deep cracks in asphalt, to make it out to the water. It’s evening on the bay, the surface shimmering, very quiet, a sense of mystery. Arden’s come with me—only he’s a lighter color, all golden—this is the spirit Arden—and I’m loving him up to say goodbye, because I’m going on a journey, by small boat, where he can’t go. It doesn’t feel like forever, the separation, but something personal, compelled, arduous.
I’m terrified, but I can’t spend a lot of time looking at my terror. There’s so much to do, when I’m with Wally. Attending to his physical needs, keeping him company, maintaining a certain