My muscles are cramping again; I can feel them developing knots and sore spots from overuse, but I don't want to stop typing until I have to. A massage would help, and Angelique will get to me when she can, but that won't be for at least an hour. She is kind however, and overworked, and not many people would have been willing to take a job working with mutants. We're lucky to have her working at the shelter.
Still, if I don't want my neck to cramp up, I have to stop and stretch by rolling my head around. Actually, I suppose this is a blessing, since I can look out the window while I do so. The view has changed of course. We moved again, up to the third floor this time. When we were on the ground floor the people were only a few feet away; it was almost like being in the street with everyone else. You could hear the mingled noise of conversation between friends, laughter from kids, and the sweet words of lovers. Here on the third floor, they're far enough away that glass and distance makes them seen and not heard.
I'm grateful for these new rockers David invented for the shelter. It's a measure of how much he cares that he would spend his time and money building these chairs. They prevent bedsores by rotating the weight of our body; it's one less thing for Angelique to worry about. I have to smile everytime I look at the color David painted them: baby blue for boys, pink for girls. If Ruthie could see them, she'd scold David for being a sexist.
David's also having the walls repainted to a light green. It should be quite attractive once it's finished, although I wish he'd change his mind about bricking up the windows. He's right to worry about the security risk, but I think I'd miss the fresh air and light all the same. Jake would too, if he were still alive. I know Ruthie would have agreed with me; and Micky insisted on having a bed with a window view so I suspect he will miss it as well. Then again, by the time they wall it up, Mick might not be able to see it anyway. He's not too far behind me in the program.
There are twenty-three of us now, excluding Angelique and David. There are always medical personnel here, but they're not part of the family; they come and go so quickly that we rarely have a chance to associate names and faces. The young doctor who was here last week said there was a surprising number of applicants for the weekly rotation. It seems our shelter is popular for its peace and quiet despite the fact the residents are mutants. It's considered almost a vacation for young, would be surgeons. They come in, do a few operations a day, and spend the rest of the time studying, watching TV or reading.
David may expand the group of visiting medical personnel to include a few student nurses; only the best, he assures us. He has no intention of allowing some clumsy RN wannabe to come in a gawk at us from a distance. If they are admitted they'll be assisting Angelique and performing specific medical duties. He's even thinking of restricting it to third year students only. His concern is hardly a surprise. David takes very good care of the family.
His family he calls us, as if we truly were instead of being merely mutant outcasts. Dregs of society would be the description of observers less kind but more accurate. Xavier had a gentler phrase: Not failures he said, but mutants that were not allowed to succeed. Pretty words, but then Xavier, in my opinion, is renowned more for his words than his actions. He talks of human/mutant peace, but from what I've seen takes no action to promote it, unlike David. David doesn't just talk about dreams, he makes them happen.
The Shelter is David's idea. Using medicine to soothe human fears is his idea. This entire program is his idea and in the long run I think, is far more likely to attain mutant/human peace than Xavier's vague talk of dreams. For one thing, David keeps in touch with what the narrow minded would call the enemy, The Friends of Humanity, in order to keep the lines of dialogue open. Talking is preferable to violence as a form of expression, as David says with a smile. It also allows him to understand what fears they have about mutants; and then build it into the program. It is thanks to David, rather than Xavier, that the shelter is left in peace.
It helps that he deliberately keeps the shelter low profile. Most people on the block apparently were unaware it existed until the FOH told them. Who would believe a group of over 20 mutants could live down the street without blowing something up? We're certainly the quietest, least known collection of mutants in the country. We have attained nothing of the infamy of the X-Men which-as David points out-is all to the good. There are some here who openly hate the mutant vigilante group, though I must confess to a sneaking admiration for them. I am a minority here in that respect.
"Lousy Bastards, making trouble for all of us." Jake once growled.
No use to protest that they're trying to help. Jake was bitterly opposed to their very existence; as if their absence would have made a difference. Myself, I think it was jealousy on his part. Most of us who live at the shelter are of an unheroic nature, trying to scuttle through life without getting killed.
It's partly the petty nature of our powers, I guess. I can add a tinge of red to stuff. Bring me a yellow coat and I can change it to orange; a blue scarf becomes purple. It's useless, no more than a party trick really. It's sure not something worth suffering for. Lucky me, I don't have a choice. I can't control it. It's like wearing a neon sign that says "MUTANT."
Young Mick feels the same. He can turn small objects into salt, and thinks being a walking cooking ingrediant is a lousy reason to die. Jake was a passive mutant; he didn't do anything, he just looked like a mutant with froggy skin and eyes. Jake had it rougher than all of us. Being a mutant was bad enough; being a repulsive mutant was unforgivable. David never thought Jake was ugly; but then David sees the beauty in everyone. Maybe that's why he helps the lowest of the low. Like me.
When David met me, I was scraping up a living by working for the city parks employees. They'd pay me $20 a night to do their work while they'd punch in and go to a second job somewhere. I did the stuff they hated, like cleaning out public bathrooms and scrubbing urinals. It was almost funny. I wanted to be a social worker a lifetime ago. I'd gone to all these advanced college classes in high school so I could get my degree in record time and go out to save the victims of society. This was PM, or Pre-Mutancy as I call it. I'd never dreamed that one day those victims of society would make a habit of beating the hell out of me because I was even lower on the totem pole than they were. When street bums drive you away from their alley because they consider you trash, it really drives the message home.
David found me after some junkies rolled me and stole my money-all $7.00 of it. If he hadn't brought me here, I'd probably be dead. After 20 years of having people kick me out of dumpsters and homeless shelters, here was David offering me a place to live and regular meals. I remember, I kept waiting for him to tell me what strings were attatched. I was about as suspicious as any other street dwelling bum. Bitter too, but the only thing David asked of me was trust.
Jake and I were the first members of the family, along with Ruthie. Then came Joshie, Beth and their boy Mick, with Paulie arriving a few days later. Back then the shelter was a hole in the wall. We had some cots and blankets, a battered refrigerator that had been painted a color Mick called puke green, and a stove took thirty minutes to heat up. The walls were smudged and dirty, the windows smeared and filmy with dust.
It was noisy too. There was an old guy with a boom box who used to sit outside the door, switching stations whenever a commercial came on. The front window was so close to the street that a honking horn could make it vibrate, causing dust to flake off in tiny pieces.
Inside the shelter it was just as loud. Me and Jake argued about anything and everything. Mick was always working on a new song, certain it would make him a rock star. Paulie's domino's clattered constantly..he was incapable of playing in silence. Ruthie created her own hum of conversation. She loved boggle, and spent all her time practicing finding words in words. She could usually talk one of us into a game, and if she couldn't she would simply play against herself, keeping up a flow of chatter as she battled the only resident who could really give her a contest.
Gradually, David brought more mutants to the shelter. Some he picked up off the streets, some came begging to his door. A few came at the suggestion of their families. Stephanie came here at the age of twelve, her mutantcy a source of embarrassment to her wealthy parents who offered David untold sums of money if he'd take her off their hands. He refused to do so, of course. Instead he spent several hours simply talking to the girl and introducing her to the family. In the end, she asked if she could stay at the shelter with us and, since it was her wish, he agreed. And that is David's gift; he can instill his love in a terrified, lonely girl in a matter of minutes. She trusts him completely. At times, she puts us all to shame.
Stephanie was the first one to agree to David's program. Her consent was not needed, really; David is her legal guardian and could simply have ordered her to comply, but that is not David's way. I have never met anyone less likely to force his ideas on another person. Then again he doesn't have to; people are drawn to him and what he says is so sensible that they can't help but agree. Even Jake, and he was the most stubborn old goat I ever met.
Jake.
I wish he were here. He died of some staph infection last month and I miss him terribly. We used to talk late into the night over checkers and chess. We discussed politics, religion, baseball, science-you name it. I swear we spent hours at the windows every day, watching people walking past the shelter. Our favorite view was directly in front of the library steps were we could watch people on the stairs.
No one walks up the stairs the same, as Jake once pointed out. The old at heart don't walk up the stairs so much as drag themselves against the forces of gravity. Oftentimes they gripped the railing so tight we could see their knuckles whitening as the pulled their mass from one step to the next.
Daydreamers don't even know they're climbing. They blindly mount the steps, not even aware they've reached the top until they stumble as they try to step up again and their foot drops farther than expected. My favorites are the businessmen who treat the steps like an obstacle in their path. They hit the steps at a trot, using the front half of their foot only for greater speed. Rarely do they use the railing as if to leaning on it would be admitting to an unbearable weakness.
Jake loved watching the children. Kids approach the tall staircase like a playground, using every part of it like a misplaced jungle gym. Railings are for swinging on, sliding down, hooking skinned knees over, being used as a balance beam, climbing up, around, under, over..the uses are endless to a child. The steps become mountains,barren martian landscapes, scenes of gun battles of cowboys and indians, a place for testing ones ability to leap up, a racetrack, a football field. All the time stubby legs pump furiously, hands clench into red fists, arms pinwheel wildly. It always made Jake laugh, probably because his appearance kept him from having a normal childhood. For that matter, he never even had a normal life until David brought him here. Jake spent 13 years living in an old refrigerator in a junkyard. If David hadn't found him, he might still be there.
*****************
Oh, much better. Angelique just gave me a backrub, bless her heart, and massaged all the kinks out of my neck. I love my typewriter, and I'm grateful to David for getting it for me, but my neck gets stiff and sore pounding out a letter at a time. The news came on while Angelique was giving me my massage, and there was another anti-mutant demonstration, this time triggered by some bank robbery allegedly committed by mutants. Those of us gathered around the TV sigh, knowing soon the local FOH leader will knock on the door and ask for David, ready to complain again as if all the mutants in the world are David's responsibility.
It's hard on him, taking the brunt of human fear and anger so we can go on undisturbed. Often some new member of the Friend Of Humanity is advocating action, and David has found that simply giving them a tour of the shelter and explaining his program does wonders for silencing the agitators. That's the beauty of David's program. Show people, he says, rather than tell people and they'll respond. It works.
In David's words, if humans are frightened of being harmed by mutants, then we need only to prove we are harmless to win acceptance. At first the idea seemed ludicrous, but David is very persuasive. No one can speak like he can; he's a brilliant man. Every point of contention is swept away, every question answered. His words dazzle listeners, and he can move us all to tears with the strength of his words.
Even so, I'll admit he had trouble convincing us first. We even called him mad. Three residents stormed out despite David's pleadings for calm. They were dead within 24 hours, executed by 'persons unknown' as the police said, as if the FOH group 3 blocks away was nonexistant.
David was crushed and as angry as I've ever seen him. I remember him calling us together to give us the news, and lashing out in anger at the vanity and selfishness that had brought about these murders. He was doing everything he could to keep us safe; and if we weren't even willing to make sacrifices to help ourselves then what was the point of keeping the shelter open? It was the only time I heard him speak of closing down and I think it terrified everyone: the thought of going back to the streets, back to a world where we were a hated minority. I for one, couldn't bear the idea.
Stephanie was the first to agree. I recall the passion and energy on her face as she ran from one resident to the other, pleading that we listen to David; that we show him that we were willing to do whatever was neccessary to avoid losing our home. She had us at an unfair advantage of course, for being the baby in the house everyone there loved her as their own. She wore Paul down first, then Ruthie. They wore down Josh and Beth and their teen age boy Michael who convinced his girlfriend Sara.
At that point assent became a tidal wave, until almost every resident was willing to go along with it, if only to keep David happy. Surely we owed him that much. David made the arrangements immediately, scheduling all the residents for the same day. Best to get it over with he said, his smile soothing away worries.
It was a shock at first. When we first awoke, we all had the same reaction: Dear God, what had we done? There was the pain, or course, but more than that was a gut wrenching fear that what we had given up could never be recovered. It seemed the worse mistake of our pathetic, useless little lives, and we seethed in anger.
For a time we blamed David. We shouted at him in rage and resentment seeing it as a loss of freedom rather than a gain in safety. Nothing he did, no effort he made was greeted with gratitude or thanks. He even hired Angelique to see to our needs while we blackened his character with vilest words. For weeks we stewed in self-pity.
I spent my days staring out the window at passersby, envying them. I became obsessed with legs: toddlers with short pudgy legs that barely held them up, the strong muscular thighs and calves belonging to joggers, the frail, spotted shriveled legs of old ladies, making their way down the street, the legs of young ladies sexy and slender with pantyhose clinging to the curve of the thigh...the angry marching legs of the Friends of Humanity.
It was the latter that proved to us the wisdom of David's program. It was after midnight a month later when the front door was pummeled with angry hands. It was FOH of course, demanding entrance to the shelter, shouting they had the right to search for dangerous mutants-as if any of us in the shelter could be classified as anything more than scared sheep.
The invader's voices were harsh and loud, so different from David's light tenor as he protected those who had so recently vilified and abused him. His voice was calm and soothing as he spoke quietly to the protestors, convincing them to send in a delegation to examine the shelter and see for themselves that we meant no harm.
It was a triumph.
A dozen or so hostile men came warily into our home, their words to David brutal and sarcastic as they asked questions.....only to be silenced by the sight of the 'dangerous mutants' they had feared lying harmlessly in bed; white bandages marking the stumps of severed legs. Again, David's voice, soft and gentle, explained that we had taken this step to assuage any fears that we intended harm. I can still see their eyes moving from one set of stumps to another and the look of ....relief? No, I believe it was respect..that passed across their faces.
David's expression was easier to read: Confidence. Love. Pride. It was a delicious feeling, knowing he was proud of us. An unearthly light shone from his face, bathing all of us in its radiance. For the briefest of moments, I knew why those who see angels are frightened.
Then the FOH left, and we were still alive and well. Not one person had been harmed. Since that moment we've thrown ourselves in David's program with whole hearts and souls. True we have balked sometimes, like children balking at their parents guidance. David always brings us around.
The only one who fought David's program was Jake. He claimed he'd never authorized the amputation, though David showed Jake the signed form. He called it self mutilation and accused David of playing God. He was livid when David moved us to the second floor and gave us a curfew after a threatening note was found in the mail. It was infuriating, listening to him villianize David who was risking everything to keep us safe.
I think by that point, a lifetime of mistreatment was finally causing mental problems for Jake. It was sad, watching him slide into paranoia and distrust. After he tried to leave without permission one day, David had to keep him sedated most of the time. The worst moment came when he tried to attack Angelique, wrestling the needle away from her and threatening to blind her if he wasn't allowed to leave. Only Stephanie's quick thinking, ramming his wheelchair with her own, averted disaster.
After that, David had no choice but to authorize a lobotomy. Jake had become a menace to himself and everyone around him; it was the only way to keep him safe. I missed his company, though. He used to rock endless in bed, bleating softly, until he bit his tongue through and David had it removed for Jake's safety. It is a measure of David's generosity of spirit that he allowed Jake to stay for the remainder of his life, despite the burden it placed on the shelter and on David personally.
Poor David, overworked and tired already, could never have keep up with our needs without Angelique. She has truly been a godsend, particularly once our arms were removed. He may have to hire others if we continue to get new family members. Three others have joined in recent months, sent by their families. After initally objecting to the program, they have begun to adapt well. And of course, David somehow is always there when he is needed.
We probably wouldn't have the courage to continue without him. He sits with us when we are frightened and eases our pain. Even now he tolerates our doubts, for we lack his strength and clarity of vision. There are times when we are overwhelmed with frustration or anger. Most of us had learned to do for ourselves, and it is hard to accept the help of another.
There are moments when I have regrets; spells when I miss tying my shoes or holding a spoon in my hand, or bathing myself without assistance. I think what bothers me most is physical sensation, or perhaps the memory of sensation. There are phantom feelings of course, where arms and legs used to be, phantom pain, they call it. Strangely enough it's the real pain I sometimes long to feel again: the numbing tingle of a leg that's fallen asleep, the blunt throbs that come from a stubbed toe, the icy sting the basketball makes slapping your hand when you've been playing too long in the cold. I awoke yesterday, and realized my body doesn't remember the feeling of stepping into a bathtub that's just a little too hot; how it scalds a bit first then warms the very core. I know it burned a little, in a sort of delicious, comforting way...but I can't remember the pain itself. I never would have thought I could miss pain, real pain not phantom pain; not imagined pain.
And yet, David is right: What did I truly give up? What had my legs really brought me but the grief of running from hatred and the ache of wandering alone? What had my hands done for me that Angelique can not do as well? I'm not an artist or craftsman, a writer or a musician. My hands served a sort of mundane purpose, dog paddling me along through a life without style or grace. They were nothing like David's hands; soft yet strong, guiding us toward the right choices, brushing away doubts. There is no chore my hands can perform that David won't do for me with far more grace and beauty. It is a small sacrifice to make for the safety of the shelter.
Follow me, he said, and you shall live. And so we do, hiding quietly in our shelter. Sometimes I believe we have amputated ourselves from the world as efficiently and cleanly as we've amputated our limbs; but we are alive. Life, says David, is everything. And yet.
The people outside the window melt into fuzzy forms, then shapeless blobs of color as salt water teases my lips. I can feel hot, oily liquid running down my cheeks. I'm crying. Odd, for I've always fought the weakness of tears; this one time I weep without shame. I weep for Jake. I weep for Ruthie who loves playing boggle but no longer can; for Mick, who dreamed of being a rock star, for Paulie and his dominos. I weep for the members of the family who will soon have not even a window to see the world go by. I weep because tears burn like drops of acid trickling down my face, another sensation I'll too soon forget.
For tomorrow they will take my eyes; and I shall weep no more.
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