Hopefully not creepy, just human
I washed the entire body of Bob, paralyzed from the waist down, I took his clothes off, I put him in the fancy lift, I pushed him to the shower, I placed him back in the chair, I washed his long hair, I used two squirts of body wash the way he wanted, hung the washcloth on the bar he indicated, Washed his feet, washed his legs, washed his thighs and private creases, Washed his back, washed his hair with two applications, applied conditioner, He washed his armpits and face, but I washed his beard with the shampoo. I dried his hair with the brush and hair dryer on high/hot the way he requested. A couple times he almost passed out and died, bleeding from orifices, while I stood horrified that managing life and death was paid at 15.00/hour and Bob said it was a good rate. He didn’t ASK ME if it was a good rate. He told me repeated that it was. And that me implying the commute was a considerable expense, 20-30 min time plus gas? In what year was 15/hour a good wage? Not this one, or last, or all the way back to 2015, at least. Bro, you’re being cheap, wtf. I’m a poet, I’m not trained for fitting a grown, tall ass man’s feet into pressure socks. i’ve never changed pee-bags before. And that’s how you got the good rate on me- no real experience. Bob took me out to the dinner the morning I performed the entire routine independently: getting him up, presentable, wearing glass and a watch, tolerating my extra-ness, and he drove the van that was fitted for a wheelchair. He told me once that one of his aides said, This aint social hour, upon arrival He liked that and he wished I would shut up, be less authentic, give less, share less, do more. do your job for 15/hour, that great rate. I remember his feet, heavy and blue blood cold, as I handled them, taking them off and putting them back on the feet-plates of the wheelchair. Changing the potty under the wheelchair. Dump the mess in the toilet, yeah, bob this was worth 40/hour minimum. That’s why I can’t totally love you. You tried to rip me off, use my humanity. Get a good enough deal. But stupid me, I still loved Bob. I tried to follow him into some virtual reality game, and I totally forgot the name, but I Remember his wide display of two large monitors, high class desktop computers, acorn trees asleep in their pots, You’re a full man here, and he said, you wouldn’t recongize me. We can’t be friends. I’m not nice there, like here. I sprayed his glasses 2-3 times with the tiny bottle of glasses-cleaner, getting them perfect. Thinking about that old erotica movie, Secretary. I felt some type of way for him. Of course, it helped me that he was impotent, no feeling, no control. I pulled the urine condom off and rolled it back on the soft snail. Blood came out, and blood in the urine bag attached to the leg. Bob wanted me to adjust things just as he would have, if he could use the lower half of his body. But the lower half was dead weight for him. He shared with me the one poem he ever wrote, and I put it on the momento shelf I have that supports the box holding the ashes of Tatiana, beloved first cat, and pictures Mary took, the program bulletin from her funeral, a lock of hair that’s yellow and various other magic things, things to keep the love forever spell. So I don’t know if Bob is still alive. He probalby is. When he started peeing blood, I was getting another job that paid closer to a “living wage.” I think Bob knew 15/hour isn’t a living wage anymore. An I think his virtual alter ego was closer to the surface than he realized. He was like Forest Gump’s friend Captain Dan. Too angry to befriend, too bitter, but still sexy. Also, I think he was a Trump-lover type guy. He had “wife-beater” tank tops with American Flags, and such. He lived in a nice neighborhood. That’s usually enough for Americans to side with Fascism, imho. Well, Dan I loved you though. I started wanting to be liked by you, to make you laugh, to change you. Sorry about that. I just thought if you smoked weed it would help. A loser-making-15/hour-type of idea. Especially if you’re gonna die, bro. But thank you for letting me handle your body, that vulnerability. Sometimes I wanna find out if you’re still alive, but what if you are, and you offer me 15/hour again, while I love you.