Jacob, at the desk next to mine, is shouting over the partition. I open my eyes and look at my vibrating phone. Mercer’s number flashes up. I ignore it and it stops and I sit there thinking.
I look around the buzzing office, take in all the heartfelt, sincere intention imbued in the atmosphere like a cologne. I pick up my bag and go.
6
I turn left and clap my way up the street, fighting against a biting wind. The gym bag hooked over my shoulder is weighing me down, a counterweight upsetting the delicate balance I need to maintain upright and mobile. This is what I have had to relearn. How to walk in a different way than I did before. How to rely on a man-made instrument more than my own body. How not to think about the missing metatarsals and bone and cartridge. Or the toes that still itch even though they aren’t even there.
I think back to the hot and cold water therapy. The painful exercises I had to do. The hatred I felt toward my cane. At the time I told myself that a disability would not define me. That I would be just like I was before, only without a full foot. That I would rise above what happened to me and move forward in my life a stronger, better, braver person.
But that was a lie. There is nothing brave about me at all.
Tonight was fifty/fifty between riding the subway or going to the gym. My first inclination was to ride the subway because I figured it might give me time to think through the disclosure dilemma. But I couldn’t face the ugly possibility of passing out in some strange borough again (and not having the fortune of a portly gentlemanly savior like I had last night), so I elected to go to the gym instead.
As I do with my apartment, I mix up my routes to the gym. Because patterns and the usual are the Hansel and Gretel crumbs that could lead to my downfall.
Tonight I take two different trains and walk my way in and around the blocks surrounding the Port Authority Bus Terminal on the corner of 8th Avenue and 42nd Street. I head north toward Hell’s Kitchen, dodging overstuffed trash bags piled in clumps on the curb, passing by the dingy steak houses and dimly lit bars and deep-fried aroma of greasy spoon joints. Wedged here and there, between the various restaurants, is the occasional eclectic boutique, selling vintage apparel like a pair of 1960s leather block-heeled pumps and tweed winter coat with a rabbit fur collar.
I keep walking until I reach a nondescript door halfway up a quiet alleyway and step inside. I pause there and take in the smell of well-used yoga mats and pine disinfectant. The fluorescent rod flickers overhead, illuminating the poster of Venus Williams in her purple Berlei bounce-less sports bra, stained by a water leak sometime back but never replaced. I hear a whoosh in the labyrinth of pipes lacing the ceiling as someone flushes the toilet.
I see Beth. Thank God for Beth. With her sober square face and frank eyes and broad shoulders. Thank God for the strength of her spine, so much stronger than mine, and the way her arm darts out whenever I’m about to fall, ready to catch me like a brace, then reposition me upright over and over. Thank God, too, for her unsmiling lips and her “I-don’t-give-a-fuck-what-anyone-thinks-of-me-attitude,” because that’s why I trust her second only to myself.
We first met eighteen months ago when I spied the flyer on the noticeboard in the work cafeteria. Amongst the ads for secondhand cars, roommates wanted, private yoga sessions, and Reiki training was one for self-defense classes at a women’s-only gym. It took me a month to decide whether or not to go. In the end, I did, which turned out to be one of my better ideas because I met Beth and Beth taught me many useful self-defense techniques I could master, even with a cumbersome half foot.
Tonight the gym is quiet because class does not start for another hour yet. I head for the changing rooms and spot Beth in the studio skipping like a maniac in front of the wall mirror. Her eyes shift to my reflection.
“Twice in one week,” she says, not breaking a beat.
The black peony rose on her shoulder is slick with sweat.
“Yeah,” I say. “Glutton for punishment.”
“One-on-one?” she offers, thrusting her chin at the container of Everlast boxing gloves and mitts.
I nod. “Why not.”
I go change and when I return, she’s got the equipment out. The medicine balls, the gloves, but the rope is back on its hook because for me it’s the sandbag across my shoulders and lunges back and forth the length of the room and Beth walking beside me in case I lose balance. After the warm-up, we are into it. Every fifteen seconds, Beth calls it. Jab. Jab. Left uppercut. Cross punch and uppercut. Knees and jabs. I love it. Getting into the zone. I feel alive, jabbing and ducking, my hair a mess, my muscles and biceps hardening, my tendons flexing. But most of all I love learning how to fight. For when the day comes. For the day he arrives on my doorstep. Because it will happen. And I will be ready.
Today I punch hard. To get it all out. I grit my teeth and grunt with every connection. I listen to Beth’s instructions with laser focus. I try to knock her off balance. But she’s too strong. Like a brick wall. Finally, she calls time a little before 7 p.m. so she can prepare for class.
“You’re were a million miles away tonight,” she says, putting the equipment back.
“Yeah.”
She doesn’t say anything else, like, do you want to talk about it? Or do you need a shoulder to cry on? That’s not Beth’s style. Her style is to be there if you need her. She’s a woman of few words and I like it that way.
Women filter into the gym, ready for class.
“You did good today,” she says, without looking back.
7
It’s cold and dark by the time I leave the gym. It’s always a downer when a session is over. You would think I would have a nice endorphin hit, and I do, but the reality of my life is a great leveler because inside the gym I can reach great heights but out here I am back to just being a cripple. It’s like having a dream you can fly only to wake up and realize you can’t.
The disclosure problem returns with a thud and all at once I’m weighed down and all my good gym work is out the window. Don’t get distracted, I tell myself, get distracted and you’ll make mistakes. Miss something that might be out of place, a person, a vehicle, and you’ll be at risk. Think about the disclosure issue when you are safe at home.
I manage to cast it aside and advance along the pavement, taking a hard left, passing a fast food joint with a flickering old-school neon sign. I smell cooked hamburger meat and my stomach growls.
The sidewalk is unusually busy with people and I feel a little skip in my heart. Too many faces to scrutinize at once. I double my pace, but it’s hard with the cane, and I’m soon short of breath. Forced to pause for a second, I hike my gym bag up my shoulder. Glancing behind me, I catch sight of a man a few yards back. A cold finger runs down my spine. His gait, the way he holds his shoulders, the straightness of his back, the baseball cap down low. Especially the baseball cap. It could be Him. Bending to pick up my bag, I dare to look again. He’s paused now, studying the menu of a diner. Stalling? Waiting for me?
My every nerve ending screams. I need to leave. I need to leave now. I double my efforts and pick up speed, ignoring the shooting pain in my foot, trying to keep my cane from swinging out too wide so I won’t accidentally fall flat on my face. I’m sure he’s on the move again, even though I don’t stop to look. I can sense him, eyes trained on the back of my head, walking up behind me to do Lord knows what.