Dispatches From Our Book: A Suitable Vessel for Magic

Episode #1: A Suitable Vessel for Magic

Nov 16, 2023

February/19/2020 - Drifting Over Transoms

The day we were married you were in the chaos of the fifth floor at Mount Sinai, connected to machines, and you wore a hissing mask that pushed oxygen into your failing lungs. That night when we could still say words to each other. I said: “Goodnight, Husband,” and you whispered back: “Goodnight, Wife.” It was the sweetest thing I had ever heard.

After you wrote “Mercy” on your clipboard in a shaky scrawl, “I want to die now,” we moved into palliative care. It was luxuriously silent. I explained to the nurses that I needed to lie down next to you while you waited to die. But no matter how many times I asked the hospital social workers for a cot they refused to give me one. So I made one instead. By wedging a chair against the bureau to keep it from sliding away, and pillows on top of the wide wood armrest, I extended the bed enough to climb in and stay with you.

Our last night felt especially still. There was no more speaking possible for you now. Your head rested on my left shoulder. I turned off the overhead fluorescents, and read aloud to you by the light I made - just enough to see by - coming from a crack I left open from the bathroom door. I put my hand on your heart as I read from one of your ancient Emmet Fox books. Highlighted with three different colors over your lifetime, and handed down to you by your great Aunt Edith. This one had a broken spine. This was the one you hurled across the kitchen floor when we first loved each other, and you were furious that Emmet’s promises had not come to pass.

It was so hot, but in the relative peace of palliative care we managed to get a small fan from a nurse who told us to keep it quiet. It was contraband. I clipped it to the end of your bed. The vibration and oscillation made it droop it’s head. Like yours to my shoulder for your last days. The cool wind moved the cotton sheet that lay over your groin. The nurses insisted on dressing you in your hospital gown after they bathed you. Maybe they wanted to hide your chest scars. Two horizontal red lines that ran across your chest where your breasts had been. But you cared nothing for modesty anymore. You pulled it down and away from your chest, and eventually off your shoulders. Finally we only used it as a cape to drape over your shoulders when I danced you to the commode.

Your records showed that you were a trans man, but the nurses routinely forgot. They were puzzled that you didn’t have the necessary lower male equipment to use the urine bottle. At night we danced back and forth to the small bedside commode before the nurses could reprimand us. Every few hours you threw your leg over the edge of the high bed. That was my signal to rush to your side before you could try to stand. I would tell you we were going to dance, and put your arms over my shoulders. We would stand slowly in that embrace - I could smell your sweet skin - then twist down in a tangle of tubes onto the commode seat.

I don’t know if you understood inside of your morphine how my love grew every minute. It is indescribable. Remember how you used to love to watch me eat? You said it must have been what it was like for a parent to watch their child eat - that kind of love. I told you I would stay with you on the ground here as long as you wanted.

“I’ve got you until you tell me to let you go. You can ride on my breath. I’ve got you.”

The intercom system woke me at 4:30 am. “Building maintenance please call the operator! Please call the operator!” echoed loudly down the hallway. Your head still lay on my shoulder. I put my hand on your plexus. But your belly was no longer rising, not even a faint gasp. You had gone. All the transoms opened to let you ride. You disappeared so quietly. And I was so close. They gave me four hours. I lay in bed with you, still lazy from your Valium. Still happy to be next to your skin. Loving you even more improbably. Your final disappearing act. I told you it was beautifully done.

Two nurses removed your tubes and I played your music again. Stornelli Amarosi. A never ending story. Music for drifting over transoms, for winding and flying with you on its back. I wanted to go with you. That’s all. I wanted also to be drifting, sluicing out of the hall of poisons into new air. It’s hard to despair when I know you are whirling, maybe even walking on water, waving your tin foil scepter in your hand above your head.