March 2004 Issue - Essay # 5
Going
to Ground
By Nance Knauer
Brian
laughed and rubbed his forehead where a bluish lump was growing.
"People would stare." "Yeah,
right." I stood back and
watched as he straightened up with jerks and starts.
He had suffered a major head injury in a motorcycle accident and
was still working at recovering his balance and coordination.
I reached out to help, but he shook me off and again fell to the
sidewalk, scraping his elbow against the curb.
"What
are you trying to prove? C'mon,
take my hand." I glanced
at my watch and noticed we were already twenty minutes late.
"Quit being so stubborn and grab on."
The gardens where we worked were still three blocks away, and we'd
been late every morning that week.
Brian
remained silent as he managed to stand without assistance.
He took off down the street like a wobbly-legged colt, and I waited
before following, my own steps deliberate and slow.
I had recently been diagnosed with an inner ear disorder, and had
my own problems staying upright. We
met later in the tool shed where Brian was struggling to pull out the
roto-tiller. Flipping through
the posted work schedule, I noticed Bill had assigned me to weed and trim
the iris garden. Gathering my
tools and a bucket, I walked over Brian's just tilled soil, laughing at
his curses, and set up a station by the pond.
The
grape-like fragrance of the flowers reminded me of my skipped breakfast,
in fact, that I hadn't eaten since lunch yesterday.
My ears had treated me to a day of wild spinning, with my stomach
as the motion detector, and today was no better.
I crouched down and tugged on a string of creeping Charlie.
Runners had woven their way between the iris and the sweet flag,
and as the roots tore free, the scent of crushed thyme clung to my
fingers. My stomach growled at
the scent. Every
day I lost: confidence in my ability to walk, hope that the world would
ever steady. Brian had it
easy--cracked his skull when his motorcycle couldn't hold a turn in the
rain. Head injuries didn't
progress, and the only scars were on the outside, pain arising from what
you couldn't gain, not from what you would lose. A
crash and the sputter of the tiller engine brought me to my feet and when
I turned, I saw the tines spinning in the air and Brian on the ground
laughing. The motor popped and
flashed, then quit, leaving Brian's voice to echo off the garden walls in
the quiet of the early morning. I wobbled over and wrestled the machine
upright pulling out the choke before I sat down.
"You
alright?" "Oh,
man. I'm great.
Did you see that? A
perfect three-point landing." He
traced an arc with his arm and a whistle, ending with a BLAM and more
laughter. My
voice rose from between my knees where I'd let my head sink down.
"Don't
you get tired of this?" I
raised my head and watched a girl jog through the path by the roses, then
looked down at Brian who was slowly working his way to sitting up.
"Aren't you sick of falling down?" "How
long have we known each other? I
met you in rehab, what, six months ago?" I
nodded, and Brian continued. "How
many times have you seen me fall?" "That's
what I mean. You hit the
ground more than a rodeo clown. So
what are you laughing about?" "Don't
you get it?" Brian's head
bobbed as he tried to focus in close on my face.
"It's not about falling, or wondering if you'll get up, or
what people think. It's about
finding things. Look.
Lie back here and look up." I
looked at him without moving. His
face was so bright and I was so tired of this new life, of not feeling
normal, of not being like everyone else. "C'mon.
You'll see. Lie back
with me." I fell back into the mounded soil. I waited for my head to settle and then I saw it. Against the blue curve of the sky, a red balloon was dipping and diving, each gust of wind shooting it higher. We watched it until our eyes burnt with trying to focus on it, until it cleared the clouds, until we could only imagine its flight. |
| Author's Biography Nance
Knauer lives in Her fiction has been published online at the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Word Riot, The Sidewalk's End and SmokeLong Quarterly, where she is very excited to be working with the editorial staff.
|
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