about a left radial fracture

when i fall in the middle of the asphalt between the dock and the new london amtrak station nobody gives a shit. i hear my phone clatter and crack on the way down. i break the fall with my outstretched arm, unsettling something under my elbow. my wrist takes the rest of the impact. always the left side when these things happen. in the first moment i’m suspended, like a pause in a dream before i open my eyes—then there’s pain like an aftertaste. i scream out, which ashames me. a couple steps around me like i’m roadkill. two young ferry workers in a golf cart ask if i’m okay—no. they tell me to call an uber and drive away to get drinks in town, probably. i can’t figure out how to pick up my phone from this position. i test my right wrist, it’s okay. i drag myself to the place where the phone fell. 

i call my dad. i tell him i fell. he tells me to get up and make my train. i think i have to go to urgent care. sometimes it hurts less after a while, he says. i think it’s sprained. it might be broken. what’s broken? my elbow. maybe also my wrist. but they might be sprained. i don’t know the threshold of difference. which one is worse? i don’t know. they kind of hurt the same. are you sure you can’t make the train? i can’t really move. i’m still on the asphalt. i have to go, the uber’s here. i’ll call you when i get there. where? the hospital. which hospital? lawrence-something. i’ll call you. 

the uber driver parks on the other side of the lot. i can’t find him. he waves me down, calls my name. i get up. it wasn’t that hard. he loads my suitcase and bag into his trunk, holds the door open for me. to the hospital? lawrence memorial? i think you chose the wrong hospital in the app. i’ll take you to lawrence memorial. he adjusts his gps. nine minutes. a strange device with plastic capsules hangs like a cape behind the passenger seat. inside are candy bars, varied hershey products. there’s a venmo barcode posted to the left.

the guy at the front desk brings me to an intake room while they shuffle patients to make space for me. he keeps apologizing. he says, i just feel so bad. where should i put your suitcase? i tell him anywhere is fine. he tells me he’s getting me a wheelchair. i can still walk but i allow it. it’s awkward getting in. my arm dangles limp over the side. a midwestern nurse with a baby bump relieves him so he’s back to his desk. i can see him through the window. she asks what happened and i tell her, bored now of repeating myself. name, date of birth, where are you from? not connecticut. she prints an intake wristband and snaps it together on my bad wrist, for some reason. she leaves for a minute and comes back. the room is ready. 

she wheels me down a short hallway. the patient rooms are like branching office cubicles, like a low-budget hospital reconstruction. i pass a gay nurse who sees my arm and cringes politely. baby nurse brings me in somewhere and before she can ask if i need a hand, i stubbornly stand and set myself up on the bed. she says, stand up, we should take that off, meaning my jacket. i do and she does. i’m back on the bed. she slides my denim messenger bag under my arm for elevation. she goes somewhere and leaves the door open so the other tenants can stare at me.

i think about the last time i went to the er: november, six am, i woke up with an immobilizing stitch in my side, crawled out to the ninth floor hallway, careful not to wake my roommate who had class at ten, and i called an ambulance. two guys came by with a stretcher, picked me up, loaded me on, strapped me down, and i was grateful boylston was empty so nobody could watch me rolling down with sticky morning hair on my forehead. they drove me to mass general. i tweeted something coy about my circumstances from the back of the truck. i couldn’t walk so they rolled me sideways from the stretcher into a hospital bed, kind of like a fish on a cutting board. they kept me for a while. some nurses saw me, took vitals and blood. they checked me for vaginal stones (which hurt so much that i called off the probe before they finished, motivating a future gyno visit). after three or four hours of passing between tests like a blunt they told me i was dehydrated or something, loaded me with iv fluid, and sent me home. it was an unseasonably short-sleeved day, so i walked stitchless to campus and made it back before rehearsal. by the pizzeria on the corner of chinatown i got a text from petra: sydney heard about it and she hoped i was okay. it was my first time hearing from her in a month. it was the last until the letter. 

nobody knows i’m here but my parents. i don’t know who i can realistically tell. i tweet about it and turn off my phone again. coy, kind of pathetic. a stout intake nurse wheels in a tall computer and scans my id and insurance card in a machine that looks like a long cricut. name, date of birth, where are you from? not connecticut. she scans my wristband to double-down on confirmation. she says, we’re going to take some x-rays. she goes. 

a blonde lady, grad student type, wheels in a bulky device with a table-thing and monitor. she’s the radiologist, at least the image-taker. i think there’s a difference. she needs my arm on the table for the x-rays, so i swing around so my legs dangle off bed and i find a position that’s not terribly uncomfortable. she says, a little to the right, okay, that’s great. but she needs to take a few and this angle isn’t cutting it. we work together to flip my wrist and elbow around in shapes that make me bite my lip but it’s over soon enough. 

the real nurse finally comes in, and i know it’s her because her voice has the only real authority. she’s 55 with summery highlights. i tell her what happened in a now-rehearsed summary. she says, well, i took a look at the x-rays. the good news is, no fracture on the wrist. so it’s not broken? no. is it sprained? probably. the bad news is that you have a—and she makes squishy fingers—tiny fracture in your arm by your elbow. you’ve got two bones there, and she tells me their names, then she says, you’re lucky ‘cuz you broke the one that’s less important. that’s the good news. i say, oh, good, and her information rolls off me like rain. i wait for her to stop talking. i say, before you go—my only question is, can you call my dad? he’s a physician. 

she calls my dad. she tries to explain terminology to him that he already knows by the tone of his voice. he convinces her to give me extra ibuprofen to take home. she says she’ll see if she has any. i think of the picture with the manga-panel lion who says let’s take ibuprofen together while she rummages through drawers and uncovers some. the gay nurse appears with a bottle of water meant for children and that helps me get the pill down, though i’m infamous for dry-swallowing and its consequences. 

a new nurse brings a sling. am i going to have to bend to get in there? yeah, he says. he doesn’t help me, just holds it out while i figure out how best to contort myself. my body protests the adjustments, i take shallow breaths, one inch at a time. but then it’s done. he loops a strap around my shoulder and another across my waist. feel good? yeah, thank you so much. it really doesn’t. he goes.

i check my phone again. my mom says she booked me a hotel and a new train in the morning. petra and some others have replied to my tweet.

the gay nurse returns, says i’m good to go, no need to sign any outtake documents. i thank him. he and the head nurse shuffle my green corduroy jacket over my good arm and drape it over my left shoulder. they go. 

i remember my shoes are under the bed. leaning hurts but i drag them out, somehow manage to slip my feet in. but i can’t tie them. i take a lace in my teeth and try to pull them tight. i tuck the aglet by my ankle. they’re still too lose. they’re going to fall off. 

i’m crying. there’s woman in a room across the hall, gray hair pulled back, maybe sixty. i can’t tell what’s wrong with her, why she’s here. she sees me struggle, slides off her bed, comes to me. bending down to the first shoe, she says, i broke my arm in december. really, i say. she doesn’t tell me how she did it. second shoe: how’s the pain? six out of ten. she double-knots. ah, thanks so much. she smiles, too familiar. i bet i look like her daughter. 

i’m not crying because of my shoes or the hospital or the limp broken limb by my side. i’m good at this stuff, i’ve done it before. i wish i wasn’t in fucking connecticut. i wish i had somebody else to call, a girlfriend who’d drive two hours from boston, hold my good hand, tie my shoes. but in this moment i am as alone as i would be anywhere else. she’s the one i want to call, but she’d assign this a cosmic act of karma if she knew. i remind myself: she fucked off and she hates me and i don’t know who she is. does it matter anymore? it’s been five months, nine months really. i have to stop crying. fuck, i stand up and i shoulder my bag and i pull my suitcase behind me and i leave the hospital through the valet entrance. my uber picks me up and doesn’t help me load my bags, just pops the trunk, so i do it one-handed. 

the hotel is a holiday inn conveniently by the train station. at ten pm the lobby is empty except an old dude and some sweet young lady who he’s probably paying to fuck. a man checks me in, hands me key cards and a voucher for breakfast. i can’t open the booklet with the keys without dropping my things. i ask him for my room number to save me trouble. he shakes his head, he can’t say it aloud, god, who gives a shit, whatever. i toss my bag down by the elevator. 213, alright. the elevator’s slower than the one in walker, but it gets me there. empty hallway. i swipe the keycard, push my door forward. it won’t lock in place. my eyes fall on my bags. fuck. i bring them inside one at a time to the great dismay of my still-broken arm which keeps getting tugged in the most unfortunate directions through all this effort of doing this alone. 

i go to the bathroom. the toilet paper is over to my left so i can’t reach it without standing. i can’t get my pants back on so i leave them on the carpet. i maneuver into bed. the room is too hot for my jacket but too cold without one. i can’t find a comfortable position for my arm. i’m a side-sleeper but not tonight. i thought my knee was alright but assessing it now, it’s swollen over my scar. did i fuck up the surgical site? i think there’s an orgy taking place above my head. i want to go home. i don’t have a home. a holiday inn is as much my home as anywhere else is. i’m back in boston tomorrow, and then what, out of work for two weeks until i see an orthopedist? stranded in my bedroom, no visitors, just the drag race all stars finale and a trader joe’s microwave meal? how do i shower with a sling? i can’t even dress myself. i’m breaking out in acne too. i forgot to pick up my birth control from cvs. i certainly can’t now. my knee hurts. why didn’t i ask them to check my knee? 

in the morning i visit the “authentic italian restaurant” in the lobby, which serves an american breakfast buffet. another suspicious age gap couple makes conversation at the table to my right. the guy says, i just came to keep you company. the girl seems uncomfortable—she finishes first and leaves. the waitress stops by with jugs of water—where’d she go? oh, she had some work to do.

i check out at the front desk. i ask the clerk if i need to return my keys. she says, well, you don’t really have to, but i drop them on the counter because what the hell would i do with them. my uber is twelve minutes away. i’d walk to the station but not like this, and it’s only a ten dollar ride and my dad will pay for it if i ask him to. i make a point to show my sling as the driver approaches, but he doesn’t help me load my bags. two for one with that. he drops me off by the entrance and another couple gets in right after. he says, have a good trip, and i say, you too, sorry, i mean, have a good day too. 

the station isn’t too busy, but it isn’t usually. i’ve got twenty minutes before my train. the wifi’s down. there’s a guy selling coffee in the far corner behind a counter that reads JAVA JOE’S. he’s bored, he’s adjusting café chairs to pass the time. i pass the time making playlists. do people see i’m in a sling or does my jacket shield my left side? how greasy is my hair under my hat? i wore these clothes yesterday. my mom is texting me about orthopedists and i ignore her. 

the train is almost here. most of us are catching the same one so we file out together, crossing the tracks to the far side, climbing a ramp to the platform. it’s such a nice day. we had consistent rain all week on the island. my parents will go to the beach, they’ll fight about a parking spot and my sister will fester in the backseat. tonight they’ll make vodka crans and watch the sunset on the balcony and it won’t even go in the bag. they like to be without me. i like to be without them too, but it’s dirtier to admit that. i resent the love i was denied when i needed it. they pay with my black sheep distance. maybe it’s not fair, but that’s the bed i’m laying in. i’ll have a terrible love over none.

there’s a family to my left, a mother in a jersey shore costume and her husband, a balding financial analyst, and three scowling preteens. i watch them. i can’t imagine i’ll find a partner who would marry me. the gates lower over the track crossing and the alarm begins to blare. i wish i’d made my train yesterday. night rides with headphones in are intimate and kind of gothic. sad songs run the risk of temptation in that atmosphere, but as long as i’m sober, i roll the same dice for a good revelation. i like to write while i’m traveling. my pilot pitch was born on the northeast regional to new york comiccon 2018. when i was a kid i’d stare out the window on car rides while my siblings played pokémon black and white on the dsi, and i’d devise self-inserts and fantasy plots. these days i’m creatively stumped. i write what’s in my head to drain it like pus from a wound.