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Targets

Kay Smith-Blum

    Who breaks their arm planting bulbs? Well, technically, I was retrieving bulbs, from a box on the other side of the low-rise-industrial-wire fence they put up around small urban gardens at street level to keep out the dogs that don’t keep out the dogs. Why build a fence just high enough for me to trip over? The annoying answer targets me, like mother nature’s sniper: most wouldn’t trip over it. Tripping is a visceral confirmation of old age, a not-so-steady-but-sure march to death, bringing with it the accidents of toddlerhood.
    The virus is also on the march and here I am—albeit four staggeringly painful and miraculous-in-the-fact-my-bone-healed-at-my-age months later—in physical therapy.
    Kat, my physical therapist, announced on Tuesday I should have worn a mask. I must have deleted her email before reading as I do most irritatingly-perky missives that fill up my inbox with advice on healthy choices I used to make. In light of my possible demise-by-virus, I’ve decided I’m healthy enough.
    On Thursday, I arrive orange bandana-bound and insert my disinfected credit card for the co-pay. I Purell my hands and look right. A young man, without a mask, seated on the banquette adjoining the receptionist counter, his body twisted toward it, is chattering non-stop. His pants ride way-too-low, his fleshy cheeks pressing against the rust vinyl cushion in cringe worthy fashion. This can’t be the hygienic standard to which they aspire.
    The machine buzzes. I extract my card and whisper. “He needs to pull up his pants.”
    The receptionist doesn’t make eye contact as she processes my receipt.
    “His therapist is speaking with him about that.” Her response is vexingly passive but the office has lost two-thirds of their patients over the past three weeks to the paranoia of Covid-19. Patients possibly smarter than I. I tap more hand sanitizer into my palm and rub, wondering how often they disinfect the seating area and how crotchety I sound, an old woman who doesn’t understand youthful sartorial choices. Well, she’d be crotchety too if a pandemic had her age group in its sights. I take a chair on the far side of the room and consider the likelihood of the virus spreading through flatulence.
    Kat comes through to collect me. I nod toward the talker whose pants remain low. Kat doesn’t acknowledge. It occurs to me the receptionist was referring to the talker’s psychologist, not his physical therapist. I yearn for a couch of my own to sort out what exactly I should be prioritizing in the few good years I’ve got left that will be awash with one superbug after another. A mask wardrobe climbs to the top of my list. We head to the main room.
    I dump my vest and phone on the chair beside a freshly-wiped treatment table on the east wall of windows. Bikes line the south window bank. Kat sets the timer on the hand bike. Cranes dot the Seattle skyline in front of me exemplifying the war between density and social distancing. All those supposed influencer-PSA’s seem not to have any influence at all based on the swath of young adults that occupy these new apartment buildings and pass unmasked-and-infuriatingly-close to you on any given street.
    A minute into the six I’m required to do, a case-in-point, a high-school-logo-emblazoned athlete begins doing planks in front of the mirrored wall eight feet to my right. He has no mask either. He’s sweating. The type of sweat that could include the droplets that the CDC says—in the 3-D enactment I just saw on my iPhone—can possibly travel more than six feet. I raise my hand off the bike handle to test for a breeze.
    I catch Kat looking at me. I reclaim the hand peddle and imagine droplets drifting toward me. I’ll have to burn this tee shirt and leggings. I dismount and wash my hands at the sink in the center island. I fill a cup with water. I’ve touched the lever. I wash my hands again.
    Kat motions me to the table. She works on my left shoulder. I close my eyes and try to swallow the tickle in my throat that only occurs when I’m close to people. My eyes water in response. I resist the urge to wipe them because I can’t remember if I scrubbed the tips of my fingers.
    Kat manipulates my arm over my head. I breathe into the pain. The talker rings out behind me. Is that his breath or Kat’s I feel parting my hairline? Why didn’t I bury my phone under my vest? I open my eyes. The talker moves south.
    I raise my arm for a six-week progress measurement. Kat smiles and tells me I’m improving rapidly. I nod, pleased I’ll be in good shape for my impending death. The talker, whose pants are higher now, but not high enough, comes back into spittle range. Doesn’t he understand the whole mask thing only works if we all wear one? I approximate the space between us and contemplate giving him a belt. If the clinic can suggest facemasks why not belts?
    Kat’s intern cajoles the chatterbox into action when he pauses. Does the intern realize that a life-altering Leo-DiCaprio-Titanic-loogie could be headed his way? I speculate on the intern’s age. His ability to assess risk is still developing.
    Rob, the aging hippie who typically has the appointment after me, arrives without a mask either. I turn my head, fuming, as Rob with his shoulder length grey ponytail and bad knee bob past. He mounts the recumbent bike. Kat hands me a pair of two-pound weights. I do my arm lifts in a huff. I need a drink. I refill my water cup as Kat grabs a pillowcase.
    I join her at the linoleum covered wall. Do they wipe it down after every use? The pillowcase, the only barrier between me and possible Covid-19 remnants, keeps my arms at a tensioned distance that makes my shoulders burn by the second set of ten.
    Kat returns, creating a much-appreciated human shield between the talker and me. He’s waxing on while doing a step exercise about four feet away with a thick band of silicone around his ankles. The band pulls on his pants. Someone should have thought that through.
    Kat circumvents his path, leading me to the mirror on the southwest side of the room. Behind me, the athlete moves to a table next to the one I used. Shouldn’t there be a tables-for-those-without-masks section? His leg bumps the chair holding my vest and phone. Kat hands me a rubber blade to shake. She sets a timer.
    In the mirror, the talker’s pants slip another notch. The athlete is breathing toward my chair. I try to concentrate on jiggling the blade. My shoulder aches. Thirty seconds goes on a long time. Slipping-pants two-steps out of my sightline. The athlete turns his head. The timer beeps. I exhale.
    Kat guides me to the east wall of pulleys. Her intern assigns slipping-pants his last exercise in the northwest corner of the room. I close my eyes and pull. My bandana and arms move with my breath. Right arm up, left arm down. Reverse. I hit twenty and open my eyes. Kat says I’m all done.
    Slipping-pants has been dismissed too but he stands in the passageway, making it impossible to maintain a social distance and exit. My stuff remains hostage on the chair next to the athlete, now icing in the recline, breathing straight up to the ceiling. No Way Out? I raise an eyebrow at Kat.
    “You can exit this way.” She points to an alternate route through the back hallway of treatment rooms.
    Hair slips down on my right shoulder. My hair clip isn’t the only one losing its grip. The mirrored wall is three short feet from Rob on the bike.
    I release the rest of my hair and hold up the clip. “Is there a mirror anywhere else?”
    Kat nods. “Just inside the first treatment room.”
    I suck in my breath, make a dash for my things and scurry past Rob’s ponytail into the room. I twist up my hair and zip my vest. I adjust my bandana. I Purell my phone and hands and stuff a tissue into my pocket for the walk back down the hill. I glance over. Pants is levering the door open with an ungloved hand. I grab another tissue. I see Kat watching me.
    I issue a muffled goodbye. I temporarily reject the notion that a tissue is absorbent and place it between my palm and the door handle. I creep down the hall. An elevator pings. I wait until the doors thump closed before stepping around the corner. I toss the tissue in the trash can and elbow the button.
    The elevator deposits me in the lobby. I head to the Boren Avenue exit. Slipping-pants is pushing through the glass door. He goes left. I propel the door with my back. Does everyone over sixty in Puget Sound feel like they have a target on theirs?
    I go right and lap O’Dea High School before circling back to my route home. Pants is a block ahead of me. I slow my pace. The cherry-blossom-lined hillside envelops him and he slips from my horizon.
    A cluster of unmasked teens lumber toward me. I cross to the other side of the street, mulling over the merits of a fully functioning arm while attached to a ventilator.
    Is it something I will need?

 

Previously published at Heavy Feather Review.

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