Richard Gilligan laid sprawled out on the hardwood floor, semi-conscious and blinking. Just blinking away his sore, sore eyes. His mind was blank. It didn’t seem to want to function correctly. Richard was beginning to regain control over his faculties. He brought his hand up to palpate his left eye, tender to the touch. He could feel an acute pressure in the back of his skull as he did so. It felt as though he was pushing a needle into the center of his brain. How had he ended up on the floor last night? Why were his eyes so tender?
Richard sat up and looked around the room. Something was off. His purple and chartreuse ottoman seemed duller than usual, along with the colors in the rest of the living room. Maybe it was an overcast day. Richard looked toward the window, which looked much further away than it ought to be, but it seemed pretty bright. He was more concerned that his window was so far away. What had once been his tiny living room now seemed more like a corridor. The angles of Richard’s couch along the corridor wall seemed incorrect, lopsided even. He had to get out of there and clear his mind. As he attempted to stand up he was struck with a pain not unlike the one he experienced when he touched his left eye, but much more severe. His head jerked back at this and he collapsed onto the hardwood floor.
When Richard came to he was staring up into the worried eyes of his dread-headed roommate, D’wayn. It had never occurred to Richard until this moment that at 42 and a half years old, he might just be too old to have a roommate like D’wayn. It was true that most of Richard’s friends had long since graduated from SUNY Albany with their various degrees but, as a 22nd year sophomore, Richard had still hadn’t found the right major. And with $972,000 worth of debt on which no payment would be due until six months after graduation, and no great prospects elsewhere, Richard could find no reason to move on with his life.
Richard had met D’wayne the summer before last at the latest of his many part-time jobs. Over the years as his debt piled up, Richard would periodically attain a part-time job in an attemtp to pay some of it off, or just for some spare cast to fund his many parties. These jobs never lasted more than a few weeks. D’wayne was the bus boy to Richard’s watering at a little mexican resturant called Los Encheladas. Through this symbiotic relationship of serving, cleaning, pot smoking by the resturant dumpster, and tip sharing, Richard and D’wayne grew to be friends. So when Richard’s lease ened that september, he suggested that he and D’wayne move in together.
“Dude, that looks so harsh,” D’wayne said, still hovering over Richard. “What’d you do to deserve that set of shiners?”
Richard thought back on the night before. All he could remember were Chelsea’s face and a pair of pink Reeboks. Chelsea was kind of like Richard’s girlfriend, though he didn’t like to limit himself with labels like that. Richard had met Chelsea in his Anthropology seminar two years ago when he was working toward one of his many attempted majors. He had decided then that it would be cool to be an Archeologist. That is, until the expectations that he had cultivated by watching Jurassic Park were shattered by the actual content of the course. In any case Chelsea had been his professor for both that course and his Intro to Tae Bo that semester and they really hit it off. Normally the university would frown upon this situation, but seeing that Richard was Chelsea’s senior by eight years, and since Richard had taken courses with nearly every professor on campus and was so well liked, it was more or less accepted.
“I don’t know, man… all I remember is… I don’t know, was Chelsea here last night?” Richard’s mind was still swimming from the pain in his skull.
“Shit dude, I think she was. And I think Cindy was here last night too,” D’wayne recalled, now gawking at Richard’s left eye.
“Oh, Jeez. I’d better get over there and do some damage control,” Richard responded.
“Well you might want to swing by the emergency room first, that left eye’s starting to look a little wonky.”
“Wonky? What the hell does that mean?” Richard snapped in a nervous tone.
“I mean you left eye isn’t synced up with the right one. It’s just floating around the socket like a dead fish.”
“Oh, I probably shouldn’t drive then… can you take me?”
An hour and forty minutes later Richard and D’wayne were in a blindingly white examination room. Richard was sitting on an examination table with doctor peering carefully into his left eye. The doctor was standing very close to Richard’s face. Richard could smell the Minestrone the doctor had had for lunch a little too well for his liking. D’wayne was staring incredulously at a poster describing the symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome and advertising Terraquant laser treatment.
“Well, Mr. Gilligan. It seems like you may have detached your retina in at least the left eye, if not right as well. What were you doing, if you don’t mind my asking?” the doctor asked, nearly cheek-to-cheek with Richard now.
“I… actually can’t remember.”
“Man, they think they can cure everything with lasers these days!” D’wayne blurted out.
“As a matter of fact, one of your treatment options for this injury is laser surgery.”
“Don’t do it man, it makes no sense. How can lasers fix an eye? I don’t buy it, they just want to hike up the bill,” D’wayne argued. Richard was beginning to get confused. His mind still hadn’t settled from whatever had damaged his eyes and he could barely follow what was going on.
“Actually it’s less expensive, less invasive, and less time consuming than the alternative: Cryotherapy, in which we use liquid nitrogen to seal the retina to the back wall of the eye again.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” D’wayne suggested.
“I’ll take the laser thing,” Richard replied. He still hardly knew what it meant to choose either one, but he knew that it was always a good bet to ignore D’wayne’s input entirely. Last time Richard had listened to D’wayne it ended with two broken fingers, a bad tatttoo that looked more like a baked potato than a sea turtle, and irreprable damage to his liver. Why a sea turtle Richard would never know.
Within two hours Richard was lasered, paid for, and on his way to Chelsea’s apartment. Richard had no insurance. He hadn’t been covered by his father’s insurance for nearly twenty years now, but he figured another $2,500 was just another drop in the water tower that was his debt. And besides, he got these cool new shades out of the deal so it was all kosher.
“Alright, D’wayne, when we get to Chelsea’s apartment I want you to wait in the car,” Richard said as D’wayne pulled out of the St. Peter’s Hospital parking deck.
“That’s cool, man. But you should stop and get some flowers on the way. Chicks love the flowers, man.”
“That’s such a puerile gesture. You don’t give a woman Chelsea’s age flowers.”
“Why not, dude? I give my mom flowers.”
“Chelsea is twenty years younger than your mother, so don’t even go there. In fact, don’t go anywhere. Just stay in the car and let me handle it.”
Chelsea sat on a crimson leather sofa across from Richard trying her hardest to look distracted by cleaning her nails. She was wearing a pair of pink Reeboks.
“So what happened to your eyes?” Chelsea spoke with an impeccable British accent; no one could figure out how she had acquired this accent as she was born and raised in Schoharie County, New York and had never in her life been to England. She claimed it was a speech impediment and would become very terse whenever Richard mentioned it.
“I should think you’d have a better answer for that than I,” Richard answered as Chelsea ran her thumbnail along the bottom of a front tooth to clean it. “You did a good bit of damage too… detached the retina in this one here.” Richard pointed to his still lazy left eye.
“Huh… I thought I dreamt that part,” Chelsea grinned as she ran a pinky along her bottom left incisor. “Good.”
Richard jumped to his feet at this. “You could have fucking blinded me!”
“You had you arms around that Cindy woman!”
Richard rolled his good eye at this. “She’s just a friend, I was teaching her to waltz.”
“You don’t teach girls half you age how to waltz with you hands up their blouse! That is sick on so many levels, Richard.”
“So you punched me in the eyes?”
“You’re forty-two years old, you’re still in school, and you’re partying with people who were born when you were twenty-four.” Chelsea’s voice began to waiver with the onset of tears. “Anyhow it was a double roundhouse kick to the eyes.”
“I’m so sorry, baby, I was drunk. Or high. Or both. I can’t remember. I can’t even remember who she was.” It was true that Richard didn’t live the most average life style, but he was happy for the most part. He had a nice apartment. He had a nice car, well not a nice car, but a running car. Anyhow they weren’t really dating. Chelsea was too much like her mother. What a bitch.
“You know who she was.” Just as Chelsea said this there was a knock at the front door. “Go away please, now’s not a good time” Chelsea sniffled.
“Special delivery!” D’wayne’s voice came from the other side of the door.
“God dammit, D’Wayne, what did I tell you about staying in the car?” Richard said as D’wayne entered the room carrying a pitiably small and ragged bouquet of flowers.
“Here are those flowers you wanted me to get for you, Richard.” D’wayne gave Richard an exaggerated wink, as if Chelsea was the one who was partially blind.
“I think that’s a very kind gesture D’wayne, but I’m afraid that it’s too little too late.” Chelsea said. D’wayne shoulder’s slumped in disappointment at this.
“Too little too late? What are you saying, baby?” Richard asked in a worried tone of voice. D’wayne began to cry.
“I… I think I’m saying that it’s over, Richard. I can’t take your ‘I was drunk’ or ‘She didn’t mean anything’ anymore. And then to send poor D’wayne off to fetch some flowers to make it all better, that’s just poor form.” Chelsea wiped her tears on her sleeve and then pointed to the door, “I would appreciate it if you would go now.”
“Awe, quit your bawling D’wayne. She’ll come back to me.” With that Richard and D’wayne exited Chelsea’s apartment and headed down the stairwell. D’wayne rubbed his eyes dry with one of his dreads.
“So… did she tell you what she did to you last night?’ D’wayne asked in an apologetic tone and Richard shook his head.
“She fuckin’ kicked me in the eyes.”
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