CHAPTER TWO
Jeremey
Emmet is the man I love, the only person I could ever imagine being with for the rest of my life. David Loris, however, is my best friend.
David and Emmet and I are all three best friends, really. People call us the Blues Brothers around town as a kind of local in-joke after our viral video, even though it bothered Emmet for a while as there were only two Blues Brothers in the movie and the Saturday Night Live skits. Honestly, I can’t tell either of them this, but if it were up to me, I’d say the two of them could be John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd—David as Belushi and Emmet as Aykroyd—and I would be the guy with the camera or something. They’re so funny and sharp and determined all the time, the ones who make all the plans. I…don’t. David would say I was the quiet one, the stealth Blues Brother you had to watch out for, or something clever.
David is a C4 incomplete quadriplegic. This means his spine is damaged at the C4 vertebrae, but it’s not completely severed, which is important to understanding how his paralysis works. If he’d had a complete injury, he’d have no feeling whatsoever from those nerves on down, and there’d be no hope of repairing them with current medical technology. With an incomplete injury, however, how each patient experiences paralysis varies widely, and so does their recovery. David can use his left arm somewhat, but not his right, and he can feel parts of his legs on both sides, though he can’t move either of them. I’ve seen him flick a toe on occasion, but he says he’s not doing it. The movement is a nerve response. His nerves do odd things, jerking and twitching without him having any control over them, and he needs to be shifted in his chair manually because without those nerve pathways, his brain can’t send the little signals to twitch and fidget and keep from getting sore that able-bodied people do literally without thinking about it.
Some of this kind of caretaking is my job. I wanted to go to school to be a certified nurse’s aide so I could help David more, but school was too much for me and my anxiety, and I had to step out. David said it was no big deal, but I still feel like I failed him. I help him with daily tasks, though a lot of what I do is keep him company. He says that’s worth more than I give myself credit for.
He must have thought I was having one of my low self-esteem moments as I escorted him back to his room, because when he saw my troubled expression, he gave me a very David grin and bumped my leg with his elbow when I reached for the handle to his door. “Hey. Don’t hang around me when you’ve got your man waiting for you upstairs. I can handle opening my own doors.”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something. Can I come in for a minute?”
“Sure.” He looked surprised and slightly nervous, turning his chair to face me as we entered the room. “What’s up, J? Did I say something stupid to Train Man again? Do I need to go apologize?”
Train Man was David’s nickname for Emmet. “No—you didn’t do anything. I wanted ask about The Roosevelt.” I bit my lip, feeling guilty, though I wasn’t sure why. “Is it…is it in trouble? Money trouble?”
I had my answer in the way he tried to guard his expression. Eventually he gave up and sighed. “I’m not supposed to say anything, so don’t tell anyone. But…yeah.”
I have to tell Emmet, I wanted to point out, but I had a feeling David knew that was implied. My stomach twisted, and my throat felt thick and tight. “Is it…is it going to close?”
David shook his head, a rough, clumsy gesture because he was tired and his muscles were getting weak. “He won’t let it close. But he has to find new funding. We’re privately run, but everyone here gets money from state and federal programs, so in the end it’s as if we’re state-run anyway. Plus we got started the first few years on grants, and those have run out. And all these hospitals closing have fucked our shit.”
I’d heard about the closings from Marietta, Emmet’s mother. “The mental health facilities that closed, you mean? The hospitals and large-care institutions closing in favor of group homes?”
“Yeah, that bullshit. The state closed all of them. Like, all of them. There are floors of some hospitals, but that’s it. Then there are group homes, and us. So you’d think, good business for The Roosevelt, right? Nope. They changed the way the law read, and you have to be a certain type of group home with a certain type of certification with a certain type of government contract. Dad about blew a gasket. What this boils down to is mental health services being sold off to corporations who don’t give a shit about mental health, just business.”
Now I understood why Marietta was so angry. “How can they do this?”
“The governor is a dick, is how, and in the last election people listened to a bunch of religious loonies and bigots, and now we have a conservative majority who—surprise—have no interest in anything but promoting corporate agendas. And since my dad isn’t one of the corporate assholes in on the gravy train, we’re screwed. We have no grants, none of these backroom-deal contracts, and fewer residents. There’s no waitlist right now, and someone is moving out the first of the year. Which I didn’t tell you about, but, so you know, it’s happening.”
The knot in my stomach tightened. “But you’re sure The Roosevelt won’t close?”
“I’m pretty sure my dad will move my family in here before he’d let things come to that, but yeah, money is tight. And getting tighter. What he’s trying to do right now, as far as I know, is find better funding options. More workarounds on these stupid restrictions and asshole laws the governor wrote for his dickhead buddies who own managed care companies. He wants to lobby local lawmakers, that kind of thing. But it’s getting hard for him to run his day job and keep The Roosevelt solvent too.”
“Is there anything we can do? You and me, or any of us at The Roosevelt?”
David shrugged. “I don’t know. I doubt it. I mean, I’ve thought about asking if I could go with Dad more to his fundraisers, but I hate being the crip on display, you know?”
“Yeah.” I’d gone with David to a few of those fundraisers, and they were indeed pretty uncomfortable. David usually ended up on stage beside his dad, pasting on a smile while Bob got teary and talked about David’s rehabilitation. Sometimes David told his own story, but it felt like a performance. As if everyone was there to watch a movie, to feel moved by David’s trials and tribulations, make a donation, then go home. Meanwhile, this was David’s life.
David grimaced. “I hate doing that shit, but if it’s schmooze or close The Roosevelt, I’ll do it.”
I wasn’t going to let him make the sacrifice alone. “I’ll do it with you.”
But my voice trembled as I said it, and David gave me a knowing look. “You’re doing no such thing. You want to go barf up your sob story in front of strangers on a stage so they can masturbate to your pain, but you haven’t told your boyfriend how bad your situation is yet?”
My cheeks got hot, and I averted my gaze. “How…how did you know I haven’t told him?”
“Because he hasn’t turned into a tornado of activity trying to help you.” David leaned over as far as he dared in his chair and bumped me with his hand. “You’ve got to tell him. I know he’s gonna freak out, but you’ve got to tell him how much worse your depression is. Pretty soon he’s going to notice on his own, and then he’s going to be worried and hurt both. He’s already going to be upset he’s the last to know.”
I knew all of this and, ironically, it was making my depression worse. I wrapped my arms tight around myself and rocked, aware this was a habit I’d picked up from Emmet, the rocking as self-soothing. I wished I had told him a long time ago. I bit my lip and let a tear slide down my cheek. “Do you…think it’s too late?”
“What, do I think he’s going to break up with you over this? No. That’s your depression talking. He might be mad, yes, but I think annoyed is more likely. Tell him why you held back. Then don’t hold back anymore. And a bit of advice, bro: go tell him now. Get out of here and go do it. I need to take a nap anyway.”
I wiped my eyes and stood, then went to David and hugged him. “Thank you.”
He hugged me too, a quick but firm one-armed pat on my shoulder. “You’re welcome. Now go. Don’t worry about The Roosevelt, and don’t worry about Emmet. Everything’s going to be fine.”
I did leave, but I worried too. About Emmet’s reaction, and about the future of The Roosevelt.
I had a feeling I was going to worry about the future of The Roosevelt a lot.