Help. Succor. The Middle Part.

Slivers, Brian Kershisnik

succor, v.t. [L. subcurrere, succurrere, to run up to, aid]
Webster's

I don't like to work at a desk. If it's a big project I spread out on the floor or for word-work I sit on a squishy surface like a sofa or a bed with books and paper and pens (laptop, too, now) surrounding me in nesting half-circles. For this reason when I was a freshman in the dorms I made my bed every day, made it like it mattered, like I was in the army; otherwise there was no place good to sit. One day as I was pulling up the quilt my grandmother made for my far-from home-college-bed I stepped all my weight down onto a cute cup full of perky colored pencils my (former) cheerleader roommate had left at the edge of the empty space between our beds where she had been working on an art project, sitting with her back against her bed, paper and pencils spread on the floor, me at the library. The cup, which co-ordinated with the push-pins in her bulletin board, the throw pillows on her bed and brought out the secondary colors in her spread, was supposed to reside on her desk like a fat little vase with a bunch of skinny spring flowers, brightly painted shafts, wooden cones topped by pretty color cores tapering to fine, fine points kept very sharp because she liked to work small, but she had abandoned it on the floor and it had migrated to the very edge of my bed where it secreted itself and lurked in quilt folds till I outed it with my foot. The roommate stored her pencils point up lest they be inadvertently dulled by too long standing.

The people in Descent from the Cross are hurrying. The cross is coming down, coming apart, the whole weight of a man swinging from the nails fastening his hands and arms to the heavy upper crosspiece. The horror at the tearing and twisting in his flesh must be immediate to them and awful in their hearts and stomachs. He's dead of course, he doesn't feel it and though they know that, they feel it for him, as we do for the dead, the sleeping, the comatose. They hurry not to be hurting for him longer than they must. The sun is slipping away, pulling them into the Sabbath and enforced rest. They can work now, set and headlong, fill their minds and eyes but tomorrow will be empty and relentless. No distractions. Now they have him still, now they know what to do; now, in this little moment, they can help him, still. They love him, they believed him, this is not what they expected. There's irony here, rich and dear. Him dead, in his death and with his suffering hammering out for them their greatest help, driving home their most exquisite relief. Them crying, dying inside, hurting from force of his help. I don't know how they could be big enough, old enough, to see this moment as anything other than a disaster, the worst possible outcome. At least he's dead, he didn't suffer as long as he might have and it's over. They no longer must stand back, frozen, breathless observers of suffering. They can work and they rush to him, helping their helper. And he needs them, needs their hands; he can't get off the cross by himself.

Give us help from trouble:
for vain is the help of man.
Psalms 60:11

I couldn't see why my foot should hurt so, so badly and I didn't know what to do. There was no blood and only a strange, hard white bump along the edge of the sole of my right foot, just outside the circle of the heel. If I'd been home I'd have limped out my dad who would have turned off the table saw, taken my foot in his hands and turned it toward the light while I hopped madly around in the sawdust trying not to fall over. Then he would have sighed and taken me into the bathroom where the light was good and worked me over with tweezers and fingernail clippers till I was out of danger and then as final benediction doused me with alcohol for good measure. All on my own, far away from the family table saw and tweezers, I washed the funny bump with soap, returned the scattered pencils to their darling cup, put them on the tidy desk opposite mine, climbed on my bed with my books and studied while my foot sang a hot and throbbing song of pulses and heartbeats.

Next morning I couldn't walk well. The bump was still there. I went to class sans books, I couldn't manage them. I didn't go home for lunch, it was too far to cross the street; by the end of class I was just focused on living long enough to get back to my dorm room and die. I wanted to die lying down. It was for this my parents had send me out into the world, to make me strong or, failing in strength, dead. Limping on my toes was not the ticket at all, better to take a long step onto the heel of my right foot, a shorter, quicker, more painful step onto my left, rest, repeat. I didn't ask for help as I inched and halted across campus, in fact I told a couple of nice people who stopped to inquire that I was fine. They believed me. Sadly, I need to be forced to accept help. No one forceful came along. Must have been a student government meeting somewhere and all the team practices. I had never noticed till I measured it out in handspans that my dorm room was the furthest but one a person could live in and still be on campus. The atmosphere thickened as I edged along, taking up arms against me; accomplishing the Castellia Hall main doors seemed like half way instead of home free, I was rapidly going downhill and the hall all felt uphill. When I finally, finally got my key in the door and opened it I found our living room/kitchen full of people. Male people, and one roommate.

I had one roommate (not in my actual bedroom, that was the (former) cheerleader) who was nearly always to be found in the company of many brainy and attractive men. This was for two reasons. First, she was the most caring, generous, mature and, well, noble person on campus. She lacked physical loveliness of any sort whatever and I hope dearly when she grew up she married the best man on the planet. Second, she was maybe the smartest student on campus. People, boy people, wanted to study with her as often as she would allow them; she was a born teacher and made learning difficult maths and sciences joyful. I think. The learners all looked joyful; I couldn't understand any of their conversations but things seemed to be going well for everyone. Consequently our living room/kitchen regularly overflowed with crowds of the best and brightest male students. It was a splendid situation for everyone and I heartily recommend you always arrange your dorm rooms after this pattern. Blessedly, one of them this time was an especial friend of mine who, like all my true friends, had some considerable force to his nature. He saw my trouble (I was listing and leaning and green), told me I was stupid, got me to a chair and required of me the history of my injury while another friend, a caring, truly good and very tall person (what a lot of lovely people in this story!) put aside his trigonometry or nuclear physics or whatever to go examine the dear little desk cup and its denizens. He brought it into the kitchen, a trifle grim about the face, holding out one pencil, a white one. Where the other pencils all had great long tapers of colored core rising proudly, piercingly yet perkily in softly complementary shades from the wooden shafts, the white pencil's sharp core was broken off cleanly at the base, at the wood, showing no color whatever.

Which explained the funny, white bump in my foot.

My especial friend, who I'm going to call Rick which wasn't his name but is close, took off my shoe and sock, assuring me he would take the broken lead out and wash it and I would be fine. He examined my foot for about three fourths of a second and assured me that his friend and mine, the good man holding the sweet cup and offending pencil, would remove the lead from my foot, wash the wound and I would be fine. You can trust him, Rick said. And that is what happened, Rick holding my hands and talking to me and risking maybe half a glance about twice during the process (there's a scene in Master and Commander which reminds me forcibly of this moment, you know the one, the calm surgical removal via mirror, by the doctor and a crewman, of a bullet from the doctor himself which is accompanied by a lot of deep breathing and not a lot of watching on the part of the master and commander). Our mutual friend went to work, calmly and steadily opening up my foot using the single edged razor blade people who study advanced maths apparently keep about them, (my dad always had one) while my beloved roommate acted as scrub nurse and swabbed frequently with horrible but helpful alcohol. The alcohol swabbing made me press my head down hard on the sofa arm and hate all of them heartily (Rick in particular) while Rick stroked my hair and said all the things a dental hygenist once told me she had to learn not to say, ever. "Oooh boy." "Whoa!" "That's not good."

It wasn't good and it wasn't over because I think we had all assumed the broken and embedded point, once exposed, could be lifted out whole, but the demon-spawned white pencil had a chalk core and the chalk had fed on my fluids, had crumbled and softened to an indistinct and formless mass. There was no lifting it out at all, more like spooning. The good, good man worked steadily away while my angel roommate held my foot and made quiet, useful suggestions and Rick had his head down now, too, next to mine, holding on to me like he was the one dying and told me I could bite his hand, if it would help. I said I didn't want to, thanks, which was a lie but I didn't do it and I thought, this is what happens at college, your friends take care of you, and felt very alone and unsafe and wished for my dad who had been to a bit of medical school and was better than a surgeon.

The next morning I had a bright red line running across the bottom of my foot and about two inches up the inside of my leg, toward my ankle.

What a waste of alcohol.

You need never have heard the words blood poisoning to know how scary it is when you see it. Like seeing a blackwidow spider, certain streetbikes, or a woman all dressed in plether, an ancient instinct tells you, this is bad; run, baby, get help. The first person, miraculously, I met that morning was the boy who was at the time sort of functioning as a boyfriend and who had me into his car and into the emergency room long before I had finished telling him why I couldn't walk so well. I was scolded roundly by the receptionist, the nurse, the doctor (for---???), given antibiotics and taught how to treat blood poisoning. Which I have done since, too many times. Seems I am a bit prone. It was good for me to learn this on a week day when doctors were readily available.

Therefore, let your hearts be comforted;
for all things shall work together for good for them that walk uprightly...
D&C 100:15

That is the end of the story, or very nearly. All these people helped me, rushed in as soon as I admitted my need, tipped my hand (my foot?), as it were. Maybe they saved me from serious difficulties. I don't know what happened to any of them after we all left Snow College, not a single one, though I do know one thing that happened before we left. My good, calm friend had an epiphany that night. At about the moment he set down the razor to wipe the sweat off his hands because nothing was going as planned and the pencil point was chalk and the chalk had become a porridge, he noticed he had started to feel good. Confident. And interested. Realized he was going to change his major, realized he would become a doctor. I wonder now, all these years later, which of us in this story was helper to whom and by what working we all found our places. Helping people can hurt quite a lot. As it can hurt to let them help you.

And he ordained twelve, that they might be with him...
And to have power to heal sicknesses...
Mark 3:14-15

I have a little movie in my mind of my friend; a very tall doctor with red hair fading now to grey, taking a child's foot in his hands to be stitched, to be treated, turning it to the light, working with care and precision, growing interested and confident as he sees things are not what he expected here. I see the mother, holding the child's hand, maybe watching a little, maybe not, trusting this good, good man who is helping them.

And the King shall answer and say unto them,
Verily I say unto you,
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,
ye have done it unto me.
Matthew 25:40

Thorn and Sparrows, Brian Kershisnik