X’S NAME

You can call me an elitist but I almost laughed in their face. They would not shake my hand. I was pushing my wheelchair up the hill when they stopped me. I put my hand out to be rejected. I was not wearing a pair of gloves. They pointed at my palm and told me it would be an infection risk to shake my grubby hand. I said, whatever. They told me they were friends with X who knows me. Who, I asked? They told me the name again. My face burned brightly as I struggled to put a face to X’s name. I can remember a face but never a name. They told me they were starting a business in motivational speaking. Silence followed behind the statement. They stared at me expecting me to join in their conversation. I had nothing to say. I stared at their mouth while they stared at me. It was uncomfortable. The elitist in me thought, good luck. They didn’t have any teeth… no sorry that’s a lie, they had one gnarled and yellowed tooth left in the bottom row. There were no teeth in the top row. I know that I have my faults. Most of my faults are visible like their lack of teeth. I thought to myself, how the fuck is a man with no teeth going to get people involved in his business. He coughed and told me that would be his second business. I looked him in the eye. He was being sincere.

I was telling my father about all the nutters that stop me wanting to talk. I told him how annoying it gets when all I want to do is get to the gym to work on my rehabilitation. I don’t want to suffer fools but I am too polite to not entertain. Does that make me a bigger fool? My father told me I was wrong in my thinking and that I should be glad that people want to talk to me at all. My father has had some clouded gems of wisdom since I landed in a wheelchair. He also told me that the only reason woman talk to me now is out of a sense of pity. He might be right but he maybe wrong. They made me see a psychologist. I talked to them like I talk to the nutters that stop me on the street. I talk to everyone that way. I have had all of my inhibitions stripped. There are no cards under the table.

I had to take my hearing aids in for a service last week. I am deaf in my left ear. I also have a hearing loss in my right ear so I wear two hearing aids, the one I wear in my right ear has a transceiver to pick up the sound captured from my left (deaf side). I rocked up to my appointment and the audiologist took both hearing aids to service and gave me only a replacement for my right ear. I have to wait for three weeks before they will be ready. Tinnitus. I’ll say it again. Tinnitus. Having the noise from my left hand side morphed with the sound I hear in my right has changed my life. It distracts my bruised brain into forgetting. I have only remembered this since I’ve been without my hearing aids. I’ve said that my tinnitus is like a banshee but that doesn’t adequately describe the discomfort. Since I’ve been without my hearing aids the tinnitus has taken me over. It rings and rings like a school fire-bell. I can’t sleep at night. There is no cure for tinnitus. Being able to hear from the left side of my head enables me to not focus on the ringing (will somebody turn the alarm off). I always focus on the wrong things.

Andrew Stuart Buchanan