My Cane

I didn't need it until this morning. The pain in my hip began a couple of days ago, but, as usual, I said to myself, tough it out. It'll pass. But, it hasn't passed. In fact, it traveled down the rest of my leg and stayed there. It's there now - hip to calf. Where I completely ignored that cane before, I automatically reach for it now. I reached for it right from the git-go this morning which in itself was unusual because my kids and wife have been on me to use the cane for weeks, but the thing had a tendency to get lost a lot or else I simply refused to use it. Only old people need canes, right? People who could fall. Only the infirm. Right? Geez.

There's history here. My father had a degenerative bone condition called Paget's. His bones became fragile and misshapen. Before he needed to use two aluminum forearm crutches he used this one: a classic, handsome, amber colored, bamboo model.Its rubber tip made no noise compared to the aluminum others which gave off a distinctive, metallic clank every time they touched the floor. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. You knew my father was there.

Once, years ago, I was in a carrel doing research at the downtown Los Angeles public library, a very handsome place. At the time, my father had been dead for decades. Although, I certainly thought about him from time to time, he was in no physical way a part of my life. Cut to the chase. I was in the carrel when whatever I was reading rendered me groggy enough to lay my head down on the desk and drift into sleep.It was against library rules, but I couldn't help it. I went deep asleep. Out. Then. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. The metallic jangle of his crutches punctured my sleep. He was there. He was alive. My breath caught. My heart jumped. He was walking by. My father was walking by!...Except it wasn't my father at all but a little, old lady with two aluminum crutches of her own. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank. She disappeared around a corner, and her clanks went with her. For an instant my father was as alive as he'd ever been. It startled me to my marrow, as deep as it could go. In the time it takes a quark to disappear, my father breathed again, but it was just a little, old lady walking by. Just a little, old lady walking by, but she set off every synapse in my system when she did.