Kate & Leopold

Kate and Leopold used to be inseparable. Which is quite an achievement when you take into account that their relationship is that of daughter and foster dad. But that was long ago. It was before Ailbhe died, and she is dead twenty years now.

“Hey there, can I borrow a lighter?” The boy said, sneaking up on Kate on the dimly lit platform of a rundown suburban train station.

“What? …Hey, a lighter, you say. … Of course, here you go!” And Kate lit the cigarette sticking out of the boy’s face.

“Thanks.” The boy with the greasy hair said. It was raining and the water was dripping off his highly hydrophobic head. “It’s quite something, isn’t?!” But Kate, who was the only other person on the platform with him, didn’t respond. “The weather, I mean.”

“Yeah, the rain is quite something.” Kate said, not really in the mood for small talk. It was early in the morning – a Monday morning at that. And it was Ailbhe’s birthday. The home-made cake was in her bag on the bench next to her. He will be so excited about the cake, Kate thought, it is his favourite, which is actually rather strange, since it is her birthday. But she would have been happy with that.

“You aren’t really the talkative type, are you?” The boy again. “My name is Andrew, by the way.”

“Kate’s the name, and it’s a pleasure.”

“Okay, I’m just in a binged up mood for a chat while we’re waiting for the train. But if you don’t want to, just say the word, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“No, you won’t.” Kate said, smirking. “And since we’re waiting for the same train, we might as well kill some time chatting.”

“Well, you’re taking the six thirty train, too? Where are you going?”

“The last stop.”

“What a coincidence, me too. What are you doing there? Are you going to the correctional facilities?”

“Yes, I am on my way to the prison, visiting someone. And you, are you visiting somebody, as well?”

“No, today is my first day. I am starting my new job there. I am the new kitchen hand.” Andrew said, beaming.

“Oh, the new kitchen help. How old are you anyway? You look like fifteen, tops.”

“No, I am actually twenty years old. Well, technically speaking I am still nineteen. But I am in my twentieth year, which I will have completed on Friday. So I am more or less twenty.” Andrew chuckled. And Kate, she didn’t respond, because she wasn’t even listening.

Ailbhe had left them the same year this boy was born. Twenty years ago. The same year he went to prison. Kate blinked away some tears. But today is her birthday not the day she died, and it is something that keeps us together, Kate thought, and I’ll be able to spend some time with him. Now Kate could even smile in anticipation.

“Who are you visiting in the prison?”

“Leopold, my dad. But he doesn’t belong there.”

“Most of them don’t, I suppose. What’s he in prison for?”

“God damn it! The fucking train is late, as always!” Kate cursed to divert from the unpleasant subject. More herself than the boy.

“Yeah, I suppose, I am going to be late on my first day in the new job. But I don’t really care, you know, because we’ll drown anyway, anytime soon. It’s been chucking it down for almost forty days, and if we don’t make it to the big ship, we’ll get washed away by the great flood.” Andrew laughed.

There was nothing that could have prevented their story from resurfacing, not even the boy’s terrible jokes. Twenty years ago Leopold had been accused of child abuse and manslaughter. The trail had torn the small family into shreds. Ailbhe knew that Leopold was innocent and this was so hard on her that it killed her even before the unjust end of this horrible trail.

“What’s Leopold, I mean your dad, in prison for?” The boy didn’t let go. And after a little while of silence he added “If you don’t want to talk about it – it’s fine with me.”

Leopold had been a preschool teacher for many years, until one day a girl was found dead in a shed on the school premises. There were also signs that the girl had been raped before she was smothered to death with her own parka. As the only male teacher in the small school, the spotlight was, of course, on Leopold. Even though Leopold was very popular with the children in the school, most of the girls said that he had been touching them and had asked them to do things they didn’t want to do. And that they were afraid, so they obeyed. They accused him, because they thought it was expected from them. For the grown-ups usually know what they are doing, right?! However, when the girls wanted to withdraw their statements, because they saw that it wasn’t right and what the baseless accusations were doing to Kate, Leopold and Ailbhe, the school counsellor said that they were traumatised by the terrible events, but still must speak the truth, which was to identify Leopold as the offender.

“Well then, it was nice talking to you but you look really spaced out right now, so I leave you to yourself.” Andrew said, putting out the cigarette on the bench’s armrest, and leaning back.

Kate had come to Ailbhe and Leopold at the age of two as their foster child. By the time of the accusations she was five. Kate had never had any situations where Leopold had touched her inappropriately. Of course, Leopold liked physical contact, but he was never the awkward touchy-feely type. Anyway, this shouldn’t be the basis of a witch hunt like this. But it was, and in the end they even found particles of his skin under the dead girl’s fingernails. How it got there, Leopold did not know, since he did not do it. But this did not prevent the jury and the judge from convicting him of child abuse and manslaughter.

“Jesus F. Christ! It’s a quarter past seven, and now the train is coming, finally. If we get there without any further delay, I’ll still be late as fuck!” Andrew fumed, now a little bit less relaxed than before.

For Kate it was slightly different, she wouldn’t be late in the sense Andrew was running late. But if the train took its usual one and a half hours to get there, she would only have ten minutes left of her assigned time slot to celebrate Ailbhe’s birthday and eat the cake with Leopold. But this was, of course, exclusive the time needed for the security procedure when entering the facilities.

Clavicula

You probably know these kind of video clips from YouTube; there are thousands of them, and they are more or less funny – as long as you are not involved. It is so obvious; how can someone not see this coming? As long as you are not involved!

Well, I was and I did not.

I was on the way to Black Rock – wetsuit in my rear pannier bag. En route to an evening swim, which had become an almost daily routine lately. The sun was shining like most of the evenings recently. And cars parked along the Prom in Salthill.

And that is where you usually start laughing when you see this particular setting on YouTube. “That dumbass is going to jump the handlebar, just keep on watching!” you would probably say to your friend next to you. And then he jumps – not your friend, but the poor guy on the bike in the video clip – what else can he do?!

I saw the driver’s door opening. I saw it and pulled instinctively to the right. But the right in this case wasn’t right enough. Because the left tip of my handlebar still got caught by the door that was still in the process of being opened. Then I jumped and flew.

“I am so sorry! That was my fault, I should have checked in the mirror. I am so sorry!” Domhnall said, as he tried to lift me up from the ground.

“Don’t be sorry, just don’t do it again, okay?!” I said though my clenched teeth. I should not have said that out loud. But it was too late. I should have thought it only inside my head, but there were already so many other things begging to be thought right after I had come off the bike so violently. That must have been the adrenaline, I believe. My body was flooded with this precious hormone so that I felt like one of those invincible superheroes – only without the ridiculous cape.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” that was Domhnall’s wife. Like most of the smarter part of this planet’s population with at least a bit of common sense left to her name, she had left the car on the safe side. “You are bleeding. Wait, I get you something.” There was a dark red hole in my left thumb and then there was something that looked like a piece of bone piercing through the flesh. But I did not care. Just put a plaster on it and be done with it.

Domhnall and his wife were swarming around me like pesky pigeons lusting for breadcrumbs. They were taking care of me and the bike and all. But still, I did not want them to be there, I wanted them to leave me alone. I was pretty much convinced that after I had put on my wetsuit and had swam a few strokes in the bay, the pain would go away by itself and all would be fine and go back to normal in no time. Wishful superhero thinking, you know?!

I was dragged back into reality, though, when Domhnall asked me if the bike was okay. From the looks of it, the bike seemed fine. I had hit the road first and the bike had basically landed safely on top of me. “Only the chain has come off.” I said. Even though I had gotten up from the ground propped upon my right arm – feeling nothing, now the chain seemed to be so much heavier than myself before, because lifting the bloody thing – with my right hand – back onto the frontal chain set proved to be impossible. I did not even feel the greasy connection of metal links in my fingers.

With the adrenaline rush gradually wearing off, I became aware of the painful fact that I was not a superhero at all, but an ordinary and at that mortal human being. So I surrendered to ephemerality and accepted Domhnall’s offer to drive me and the bike home. And around this time it also leaked into my consciousness that something funny must have happened to my right arm and shoulder. Because when I got into the passenger seat, Domhnall had to fasten my seatbelt for me.

With the adrenaline almost entirely flushed out of my system, I felt overcome by a leaden tiredness. Wrapped in this heavy blanket I just wanted to stay at home after Domhnall had brought me and the bike into the house. But my flatmate insisted on going to the emergency service just to be sure how to deal with the injury.

I have had heard stories about this institution. Time in there, they said, is like gooey molasses, passing in slowest slow motion only. That is why I brought a book. Just to kill time if necessary. But I think – among other things – I broke the record that day. I had dropped the paper work into the letter box of a certain blue door down the corridor, as I was instructed by the receptionist, and had just found myself a comfortable enough chair to sit down and enjoy the book, when a nurse called my name.

In a room full of beds and curtains, I was seated on a greenish bed with a paper sheet on top.

“Marcus, how do you feel and what happened to you?” nurse Siobhán asked me, while she took the blood soaked paper tissue off my left thumb. Just a bruise and a flesh wound, no actual bone sticking out, I could even wiggle the swollen thing.

“I’ve dislocated my shoulder, I guess.” I said. “Just give me some painkillers and pop the nasty thing back in.” Siobhán rolled her icy blue eyes and spun around on her swivel chair. When she came back after her three-sixty, facing me, I was given one of those small and transparent plastic cups filled with pills of different colours and shapes. They would help me to cope with the pain, she said.

“You look like you fell off your bike, judging from your condition and outfit, of course.” That was nurse Deidre, getting ready to leave.

“Yes, I suppose so. That’s what happened. Can you just pop it back in, and then we can all go home, please?” I said.

“We will need to examine you first. Can you stand up, please?” Siobhán asked. With my left arm I was holding on to my book, phone and wallet. My right arm was dangling listlessly alongside my body.

“We will just put this back here.” Siobhán said, taking my belongings off me and dropping them back on the bed. “It will hurt a bit, but we need to get you out of your cycling gear, okay?!” And at that nurse Siobhán started to pull all three layers of sports gear over my head – in one go.

Unfortunately, the cocktail of drugs had not kicked in yet. And when the skin-tight material of my cycling gear pulled my right shoulder up and closer to my head, an up-swell of pain, high like a tsunami wave, flooded my body. Pain, in general, is to be understood as a warning signal, intentionally. It usually indicates that there is an injury. But I knew all this already. Why did this daft cow need to make me suffer again? This wasn’t a nurse, but a butcher in disguise; and for an instant I saw a shiny meat cleaver lying within reach of nurse Siobhán on the table next to me. But it just turned out to be only a transparent folder with my medical record in it, reflecting the bright light from the ceiling.

I suppose it is nonsensical bullshit, but in the internet they say that a human body can only bear up to forty-five del units of pain. But at the time of giving birth, a woman feels up to fifty-seven del of pain. This is similar to twenty bones getting fractured at the same time. And then they also say something about getting kicked in the balls – something I can relate to more than going into labour –, which is supposedly even more agonising. The pain I felt in the emergency room, however, was so overwhelming that for a short moment I was close to passing out. But I did not. Instead I felt nauseous and almost threw up.

“Look at this, Siobhán!” Deidre was back in the room pointing at my bare right shoulder. “You can clearly see it. There is a gap. See?! And the other one feels so smooth.” Now standing right in front of me, Deirdre was touching both of my collarbones at the same time, smiling at me.

“Marcus, it looks like a clavicular fracture. But to be sure we’ll need to do an x-ray of your shoulder.” Siobhán said, looking over Deidre’s shoulder from behind.

In the end the x-ray confirmed a double fractured collarbone. And sitting there on the green bed again, looking at the x-ray on the computer screen, kind of a déjà vu was coming up and I had the unmistakable feeling like I knew it all along, since I had come off the bike so unexpectedly. Before my mind’s eye, I could even see myself going over the handlebar – just like if I was on YouTube –, and with the painkillers gradually taking effect this put a maliciously gleeful smile on my face.

Changes

It is around four o’clock in the morning on a cold and windy summer day at the Irish west coast – no rain, though. You were just woken by the remnants of a birthday party next door. The last guests were still outside talking loudly, making noise. And then, all of a sudden, a vacuum full of silence. They were gone, from one second to the other. Now, someone is cleaning in front of the house. Sweeping the floor noisily. Since going back to sleep is not an available option at the moment, you decide to have a cigarette at the window.

It is one of those few moments, when you get the feeling that you are alone in the world. But there is no loneliness. There is only a certainty that you are a single human being – detached. The connections you usually have to other people, don’t feel as strong now as during the rest of the day. But now it doesn’t bother you. You feel like floating, free to go wherever you want to go and to do whatever you want to do, be whoever you want to be – probably your-self.

You feel like leaving. Leaving the place and people behind – only taking the memories with you. Just some change. You read somewhere that this hour of the day is called “the hour of the wolf”. It is the hour of change, the hour between night and dawn, when the new day is about to begin. A new day full of change – new opportunities, new people and new ventures.

You still feel a bit tired, but you are not ready to go back to sleep, yet. It somehow feels like travelling. When you have arrived in a new place, early in the morning. Everything is completely new and everything is still possible. Everything is exciting.

Watching the clouds go by. Listening to just a few seagulls – the early birds – while most of their kind have still their heads dug under their wings. You’re making plans. No, not really making plans, just letting the mind wander. Like brainstorming, only without the storm. Everything comes by itself, nothing is forced. Thoughts come and go, some stay, others just fly by.

Slowly, with time, people and places come back to you. (Or are you coming back to them?) No, not really places, but definitely people. People who are important to you. People you don’t want to miss in your life. People you deeply care about. People you love. And this love turns detachment into attachment. Not instantly, but slowly and surely.

And this very comforting feeling of attachment wraps you up in a warm and cosy blanket and you are eventually ready to go back to sleep.