being “cured.” I saw the sadness in my father’s eyes whenever he looked at me struggling with my braces and crutches. I noticed the angry way he handled my wheelchair when getting it in or out of the car—as if he wanted to smash it on the ground. I knew I was not to blame; still, I felt I had failed him.
My father didn’t tell me how he found the new doctor. I knew he had been calling hospitals. We went to see him, and he said a series of muscle transplants might help. Since the muscles used to bend my legs were stronger than those needed to straighten them, they could be repositioned, so I could use them to lock my knees and stand. This type of surgery worked best on children, but with a lot of therapy, I might be able to get rid of the braces. No guarantee, of course.
Following the examination, his secretary explained that though the hospital expenses would be covered by Blue Cross, the doctor’s fee was a little high. “No problem,” my father said, interrupting her. He told her that he would make up the difference, work overtime if he had to.
What could I say? That I didn’t want to get cut up anymore? That I wanted to take the Shakespeare course the next semester? Wasn’t I happy to be given the chance to get rid of the braces? Wasn’t I grateful to my father? I went into the hospital in the fall of 1966, as cheerful as ever.
The hospital was drab compared to HSS. Very few of the patients were young. The few who were never stayed long. They had broken bones, mostly. None were disabled like me.
Usually, in my room were women in their nineties with broken hips, who slept constantly. A few times, I rang my bell to call a nurse, suspecting my roommate was dead. But the nurses knew I needed urgent care only if I’d just had surgery. The best I could hope for was a “Can I help you?” over the intercom.
“I think my roommate passed away!”
“Okay, I’ll be there in a minute!” the voice on the intercom told me. I knew it would be at least a half hour. Luckily, no one died.
I read to pass the time, anything from Shakespeare to Harold Robbins, from Rolling Stone to True Confessions, and watched the soaps on TV.
I was in and out of that hospital for almost a year. I missed a year of college. I missed two big NYC demonstrations against the war. I didn’t go to San Francisco during the Summer of Love. I did wear flowers in my hair, which was probably all I would have done had I been out of the hospital. I had transplant after transplant—four or five or six. My mind erased the memories of pain associated with the surgeries. Pleasant memories of my time there were retained: my mother spoon-feeding me her tiny meatballs in broth; my father reciting poetry in Sicilian; Sarah, my Blythedale counselor, visiting me and playing her guitar.
Other memories of that hospital would have been better forgotten: being pushed in my chair to therapy by an orderly and feeling his hard penis pressing against my back and the nape of my neck; waking up in the middle of the night because my breasts were being fondled or a man’s hand was between my thighs.
I was young and enjoyed male attention, especially since outside of the hospital I didn’t get much. Often I flirted without realizing I was doing it. I flirted with the orderlies, the X-ray technicians, the interns. Then, when they did things that shocked and humiliated me, I didn’t know how to react and resist. I passively submitted, feeling it was my fault.
A cute intern often stopped by my room to tell me how beautiful I was. He asked what I was reading or what I was watching on TV. He said he wanted to take me out on a date when I got out of the hospital. I smiled a lot, told him he was cute.
One night, I woke up from a deep sleep—especially deep due to the sleeping pills the nurses generously and indiscriminately handed out every night. The intern was by my bed. My young body was responding to the skillful movements of his hands. Then he was on top of me, and before I knew what was happening, he was penetrating me.
When he was done, he lay on top of me for a few minutes, and I lay quietly under the weight of his body. Then he got up and left. I pulled a tissue out of the box on my nightstand and wiped between my legs. There was blood mixed with his sticky semen. My blood. He had gotten all the way inside me. I definitely was not a virgin anymore.
Was it rape? Or was there consent? I didn’t scream. I responded to his caresses while half- asleep. And I had been flirting with him. Was it “free love”? Or was I a slut? Everyone said I was such a nice girl, a cheerful girl. Such a good patient.
A scalpel or a penis. What was the difference? I’d gotten used to strangers touching me, handling me, manipulating me, doctors cutting me up, over and over again, inflicting pain. Pain or pleasure. What was the difference? Did it matter what they did to me? After all, what claim could I have on this defective, damaged, disabled body? Wasn’t I supposed to be grateful to the doctors who were trying to fix it? Wasn’t I supposed to be grateful to any man for any attention I could get?
After the intern’s nocturnal visit, I tried to call Audrey. I needed the comfort of her voice. I wanted her to tell me I wouldn’t get pregnant. I hadn’t seen the intern put on a condom, but it was dark in the room. Surely a doctor would have been careful. Still, I worried. To whom could I confide but my blood sister? I couldn’t upset my mother. And I was afraid anyone else would have blamed me for what had happened.
Audrey hadn’t been to see me at all. And we hadn’t been talking on the phone as much. I assumed she was busy in college. When I called her house, her mother answered.
She sounded surprised to hear my voice. “Audrey? Audrey’s in the hospital.”
In the hospital? What hospital? What for? Audrey was all done with hospitalizations. Her parents had long ago stopped being obsessed with the cure. Why was Audrey in the hospital? Her mother seemed reluctant to answer.
“Do you have a phone in your room? I’ll tell Audrey to call you as soon as she feels better.”
I gave her my room number and hung up. Only then did I remember the red pills. I doubled over in my chair, as if I’d been punched in the gut. Oh no! I should have warned her mother. But how could I have ratted on Audrey? She showed me the pills because we were blood sisters and she trusted me.
“Oh, please, Audrey, don’t die,” I repeated over and over. “I don’t want you to die. I don’t want you to leave me.”
Her mother had said she would have Audrey call me. That meant she wasn’t going to die. But why wasn’t she calling me? I waited for three days, too afraid to call her mother again. I hardly left my room, because I didn’t want to miss Audrey’s call. But then, when the call came at nine in the morning, I was so sure it was my mother, who always called at that time, I answered in Italian. “Pronto.”
“I fucked it up, but I’ll do better next time.” Audrey’s voice sounded weak and hoarse.
I couldn’t talk. I held the receiver with both hands and cried.
