Musing #8

   

 Since losing his left hand during our first MI-6 adventure, Angus has had a conflictual relationship with his prosthesis that impacts everything in his life, from our sexual relationship to his work in the House of Lords.  This makes sense when you are raised in a world where perfection is accepted as standard and damage of any kind is, as best, minimized or, at worst, ignored – bad things simply don’t happen to the titled.  It isn’t as if anyone, either family or society, said this to him or he grew up with rejection from school mates due to a deformity.  And the prosthesis is so technically advanced, initially you wouldn’t realize it wasn’t his flesh and muscle unless you touched it or he tried to put on a button.  But the zeitgeist of perfection that secures the lies of white male superiority are hard to sustain when your husband has to help you tie your shoes.  Paralympic celebrations and cheery physio-therapy adverts be damned - somedays it’s just easier to succumb to depression’s entreaties.

   Although his fluctuations about this have decreased over the last few years, it is like well-managed bipolar disorder – manic and depressive swings slamming against the restraining gates of the best treatment regimens are still swings.  I’ve learned to do a delicate dance between eager, enthusiastic support and cautious, empathic distance based on his needs, not my fears.  This is very difficult to do as a clairsentient like myself who can smell an emotion 50 meters away through a brick wall.  Being deeply in love doesn’t help either.  However, we’ve committed to relationship therapy where we designed signals that communicate feelings and needs without being too mushy.  I went back to doing regular Zen meditation to fine tune my psychic powers.  Angus has monthly physio-therapy and meets with a counselor who specializes in working with amputees.  When things work, they work well.  

   When they don’t, it gets crazy.

   This is one of those “when they don’t” moments.

   Angus has always been competitive and loves a good game of cards.  Before we got together, whenever he’d secure a business deal, he’d treat himself to a week of sexual debauchery, top shelf drinking, and poker, usually in that order – it added that additional adrenaline rush that kept the party going.  Angus was what is known in the gambling industry as a “whaler”, a big fish, and didn’t have to spend a pence on the first two treats.  He knew where the prime, private games were held from the Sands in Macao to the MGM Grand Las Vegas.  Typically, Daisy, the concierge for his private jet that I later named the William Mason, made the necessary arrangements based on Angus’s continence after a difficult negotiation – if he routed the competition in some corporate buy out, it was off to the nearest, best casino.  If not, the plane was returning to Cardiff.  He also had limits on what he spent – once the 10% of what the business deal brought in was lost or if such was tripled, he stopped.  Angus knew that gambling was how the other titled families lost their lands, monies and that was not going to happen to his dynasty. 

   But then I came along and that was adrenaline rush enough for quite a while – trust me on this. 

   Then last year I started rabbinical school in the States – long story.  He would fly in from London or Cardiff as much as possible – did I say we are rich?  But that left us with a few weekends full of sweaty sessions, leaving little room for relationship building.  One would have been forgiven for thinking everything was okay though – I overcame the hazing and struggles common in graduate programs while Angus got a series of policies and legislation through that improved Wales.  I celebrated improved grades with weed and masturbation over extreme porn.  For him, gambling reemerged, yet it is hard to hold cards with an artificial hand.  Addictions are a lot more complicated than the CDC and NHS want you to believe.

   I got out of classes for summer break a bit early.  We hadn’t Skyped in some time for I had several papers due and then finals while he was starting negotiations on a new program for the Cardiff docks.  The last time we spoke was short and he looked haggard, which I explained away as the lateness of the hour on his side of the Atlantic.  But when I took a commercial flight to our London townhouse to surprise him, I found him at our kitchen table trying to properly manipulate a group of cards and look cool at the same time.

   “Fuck!” Angus said before ripping off the prosthetic and throwing it across the room. 

   Luckily I ducked in time.  “Well, glad to see you too honey.”

   He growled at me in some foreign tongue and stormed out of the room.  Extreme emotions brought out the linguist in him.  “Leave me alone,” were the only words I caught as he went upstairs and slammed the bedroom door.

   What had the couple’s therapist told me about my anxious humor?  Shit.

   I put my bags down and looked in the refrigerator for something to eat.  This was another move suggested by the therapist, to distract myself instead of falling into insecure mental rants that tended to run in circles around my head – I was just trying to help and See idiot, he doesn’t want you anymore.  These are the abuse survivor’s fallback self-talk that exist even in the face of evidence to the contrary.  They almost led to our divorce the last time it ran out of control.  “Ok Deetz,” I said out loud while making a Dagwood sandwich, “just give him some time and space.”

   Luckily the living room has a comfy pullout couch and a tellie.

   The sandwich fell like a warm carb bomb at the bottom of my belly and made me sleepy.  I drifted in and out on BBC news, trying to cleanse my mind from nearly a year’s worth of what passes as journalism in America.  At one point, I turned over, finally giving up on Angus and pulling the covers up.  I grabbed the remote and it fell to the floor.  I groaned but as I stretched down to grab it I caught a look at a bunch of folks negotiating various prosthetic devices.  The show Click was featuring the Cybathlon, an international competition with disabled individuals performing daily living activities with the help of robotic prostheses, brain-computer interfaces, and powered exoskeletons.  It was the bionic version of the Paralympics. 

   After watching, I got up and grabbed my laptop to look up the event.  When I found the Cybathlon website, I printed the application and a list of companies looking for people to equip and compete.  Then I sat back on the bed, my enthusiasm suddenly thwarted by my wondering if he would welcome my idea.  Then I heard the bedroom door open.

   Angus came down the steps rubbing his stump, which he still complained ached on occasions.  His long hair was a mess and he was still frowning.  “Are you coming to bed?”  His voice indicated that he was still in a bad mood but he was doing something the therapist told him to try – letting me in just a little.

   “Sure.”  I started to remove and fold the sheets I’d thrown on the bed.  He just stood there, waiting for me to say something stupid I suppose.  Often we look for trouble and its partner anger to justify our self-pity.  This time I wasn’t going to enable.

   “I’m hungry,” he pouted.

   “Yeah?  Right, well I think there still is some sandwich makings in there.”  I put the couch back together then added, “I can make you something?”

   “Okay,” he replied. 

   His voice was losing its harsh edge which told me that he was caving.  So, I took a chance and brought the informational material with me when he followed me into the kitchen.  He sat at the island after picking up his prosthesis from the lonely corner he tossed it to earlier.  I left the material at the table and distracted him from my obvious ruse by posing a stupid question, “Pretzels too?”  Asking Angus if he wanted pretzels was like asking Bugs Bunny if he wanted carrots.

   “Ah huh,” he murmured as his eyes caught site of the picture on the first page - a woman with a bionic arm.  “What’s this?”

   “Oh, something I caught on tellie.  It’s some kind of annual competition for folks with electronic prostheses.  You work with some of the innovators in the industry, folks who are trying to improve and expand the availability of their lab-developed prototypes.”  He was reading through the material and absent-mindedly reattaching his hand.  “On Click, I saw that several folks are focused exclusively on the brain-computer interface equipment, wanting to increase fine motor skills and tactile sensations.”

   He was hardly listening to me.  “This stuff looks way more advanced than my hand.  How come I’ve never heard of it?”

   “You have been out of physio for a while now,” I said serving him his plate.  “Tech improves in fits and starts.”

   “It’s a nonprofit, this event.  Likely an incubator for startups and geeks with an idea,” his eyes started dancing as he reached into the pocket of his sweats and pulled out his mobile.  He voiced dialed his attorney, leaving instructions to “investigate the organization behind this” – he had his venture capitalist tone, cocky confident, and excited.   He brushed his hair back with his birth hand then finally looked at me directly.  “What?”

   I sighed and lied, “Nothing.”  It was something else the therapist said, kindness needs time to marinate.  Sure, I wanted to hug him, kiss his face, lick his nipples, and have that sort of sex that isn’t constrained by a flight time or scheduled deadline.  But I had to trust that there was plenty of time for all that.  I poured more pretzels in his bowl and turned around to seal the bag. 

   He caught my arm then said in a softened tone, “Wait.  Come here.”  He pulled me toward him.  I was close enough to smell the turkey on his breath and see the bits of bread in his beard.  He put my hand on his chest over his heart.  “Hear that?  What is it saying?”  He’d remembered too what the therapist said – reassurance isn’t necessary but it’s still nice. 

   I closed my eyes and let my psychic skills take over.  I was flooded with his sadness and frustration but, like the crushed word at the bottom of Pandora’s box, I also heard, gratitude.

   I smiled and blushed.  He kissed my forehead.  Our relationship is cute like that.

  

-          From “The Musings of Deetz Mac Innes, 10/16/2016