Not good

I fell yesterday, collapsed face down in the dirt. I was talking to Don (Thursday 8/2) felt fine, then all of a sudden wham! On the way down, something clamped hard on the right side of my rib cage. I had to crawl to the front tire of Don's truck and claw my way up. When I awoke this morning after a few hours of sleep, the pain had intensified, my first dose of Naproxen wore off. I couldn't even cough. Right shoulder, back muscles, right upper arm, ribs have no power. Very difficult to move, until I got a little blood flow from another 12-hour pain pill. The pain and weakness seem to be spreading slowly, not good.

Small stroke? Pulmonary embolism?

It always baffled me how I outlived Frank Zappa, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and my beloved mentor Alejandro Rey, brilliant men with tragically shortened careers. If it weren't for them, I would have never written a word. Was one million all I get? Pretty good bargain, half of it in the past few years. I knew there would be a collapse, unable to write more. This little squib had to be composed one word at a time, looking at the keyboard, a river of typos to fix.

Got out my cane, a good strong hardwood stick with a comfortable curved handle, given to me by a learned friend in Colorado when I had a spate of bursitis ten years ago. Makes rising from a chair easier. I don't think I can pick up the dog, which complicates our relationship. No more dog baths, because I have to catch him and carry him to the steel water trough, lather his medicated shampoo to control fleas. I almost had them beaten with frequent baths.

Everything else is in order. My works are archived at Amazon, Lulu, Smashwords, a couple titles on Kindle. I grew to hate Kindle, pennies and groats, no book reviews. A few shoppers read the 10% preview at Smashwords, didn't buy the $4 full text download, 136,800 words of Cable & Blount, the definitive trilogy for mobile platforms. Their fourth adventure, Finding Flopsie, exists only in paperback, which is fine. Most of my best stuff is dead trees, with the exception of Abbreviated Wolf DeVoon, a free pdf at Lulu, 17 pages that summarize laissez faire law, an historic achievement. No brag, just fact, like Walter Brennan used to say on The Real McCoys, back when television mattered and meant something.

My novels are what they are. Funny, that Partners might be my last, the first time I wrote a tragedy. It's still difficult for me to read the third act. Poor Kyle and Karen. "We were as happy as children," Kyle relates, alone together in a one-room snowbound winter cabin far from the nearest town in Door County, a world away from mortal danger and cunning turpitude.

I don't know which of them is the more tragic character. Karen soars as a gifted 22-year-old writer deeply in love with Kyle, his equally cherished life partner and new wife. Happy kids, doomed. It's very hard to read, knowing what will happen in the space of one more month together, spiralling toward the gates of hell, Karen pregnant and fully cognizant of Kyle's looming end as Jimmy's trusted partner and murderous angel of retribution.

I mentioned it elsewhere, but I'd like to repeat that Partners is a study in triangles: romantic triangle of Karen, Kyle, and Liz, his glamorous ex-girlfriend; Karen and Jimmy dividing Kyle's sense of loyalty, pulling him from the highest happiness to the grim business of death, a job like no other, siding "the most dangerous man in town," at war with the mob. And there is another dimension of Kyle that we glean in fragments of interaction with his friend Harry, a simple wholesomeness that young people shared, homemade pizza and beer and music with bouncy, laughing chicks, dull 9 to 5 jobs forgotten at a fun East Side house party.

I have a box of vital documents and 10 years of tax records in cardboard boxes situated so the rats and mold are kept at bay. My will and a power of attorney were legally witnessed years ago, when I was threatened with the spectre of renal cancer, turned out to be a huge rock in my left kidney, smashed up in day surgery and successfully healed, as far as I know. Bought enough time to create Chris and Peachy, Kyle and Karen, books on screenwriting and filming, the omnibus Constitution of Government in Galt's Gulch and a nice adaptation of Mars for audio production. I did everything I could to create a legacy for my daughter. Film rights are the ultimate purpose of writing fiction. Deals are written in six figures.

Nice, that my daughter is grown up, age 16, finished with high school, applying to college, a private Christian school in Branson, about as good as it gets. She's doing the paperwork for student aid and work/study on campus, has nice letters of recommendation and a high ACT score, National Honor Society and 3.85 grade point averages stretching all the way back to elementary years. She traveled with us, all six continents, kindergarten in North Africa and first grade in Australia, good schools in Copenhagen and Golden, aviation ground school in Houston, violin and piano composition with virtuoso teachers, ballet and contemporary jazz classes, private gymnastics, horse ranches, Girl Scouts, girlfriends and nice boys. I couldn't ask for a better daughter, new life to replace my old worn-out life, a simple conscious conclusion on the day she was born at a private clinic in Costa Rica. Her little kidhood was a barrel of fun in the warm jungle rainy season, frequent trips to the beach in dry season, restaurants and resorts and an ATV "bumpy machine" that she mounted like an intrepid acrobat, to sit in front of me, helping me to drive it. Wonderful young woman now, ready to leave home.

I'm writing because I can. The pill knocked back my awareness of pain. Medical assessment is basically impossible. There's a small town clinic 25 miles away, only marginally competent. No reason to trust the Springfield hospitals as a Medicaid patient -- and what could they do for me anyway? Turn me into a vegetable. I think I'd rather skip 100% diagnosis, thanks. If it's lung cancer, I'd rather have hospice. A friend in Scotland suffered heroic treatments, died a few months later. But I don't think it's cancer. Too sudden, wham, fell face down and couldn't move. Last evening, I was able to walk and do a little gentle work at the firehouse, where a dozen of us gathered to set up the annual picnic grounds, rake leaves and pick up windfall. What happens when I run out of pain pills is yet to be determined. I have enough for a week. My condition will improve, or I will remain stupid and feeble, or it will worsen.

Life on life's terms, old chum.

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UPDATE - Slept well, five or six hours, I think. Pain meds accreting effectively, not so bad to get around, a few limitations. Sneezing was one of them, coughing awkward but possible. I don't think I'm getting worse and I'm cheerier this morning. The dog is funny. He bangs on the door for meals, pushes me around until I feed him (he noticed I'm slow) and then wants to go out again. Technical name for this relationship is cupboard love. People are guilty of it, too. I love the whole supply chain -- ag science, tractor and implement manufacturers, shippers, truckers, distributors, grocers, credit card issuers, commercial lenders, and insurers. Nothing works without steel production, oil rigs, power generation, utilities, highways, restaurants and fuel stations, usually bunched together every 100 miles or so, coast to coast. Nowadays, we also have to thank Chinese suppliers. Good idea to raise tariffs (I know, everybody else with brains is opposed). Important to cut the cord to China, especially food and pharma.

I've been thinking about women. Big surprise, huh? If you know my theory of laissez faire law enforcement, then you know that I hold all brave, clever females in very high esteem, wrote a long, loving fictional tribute to them that spanned a plentitude of times and places, some in the fictional past, some in the distant future, but most of it squarely in the recent now.

That, however, was not why I was thinking about women. I was trying to remember whether I had ever met someone who I truly loved, who filled my heart with joy -- and I came up with a big fat nothing. I was married four times, lots of other hit-and-run romances, maybe 75 or so, but I pined for no one. Well, maybe the babe I encountered at an employment office, but I'm too old and ugly for her and I made that explicit when I said goodbye. No one else? Wake up and talk sense, dumbshit. You know perfectly well who you love.

Oh.

Her. Never met her in person, didn't have to. And she probably knows, I think. Nothing to be done about that. She married someone else, and I can't leave my present tour of duty until my daughter goes off to college. Doesn't matter. Too late now. Wonderful to have someone to love, near or far, and keep the thought of her fresh in my mind when I lay down to rest. I have a photo I seldom look at. She probably knows. Obvious years ago, more so now. Armed and dangerous and brilliant, a beautiful warm hearted poet living a double life, staring death in the face as a job. I hated death scenes, wasn't tough enough. Better that she married the engineer, brainy and comical, slightly stupid.

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Saturday 8 pm -- Intense back muscle spasm, had to take a pill ahead of schedule, slept an hour or two, unhappy about a setback, shallow breathing, can't cough.

10 pm -- What pain? Feel fine on drugs. Not very bright, but that doesn't matter.

Sunday 3 am -- Aha! dislocated or broken ribs that click loudly when I squeeze my sides with both elbows. No wonder my back hurts. Injured when I fell. If anyone cared to look, I might have bruised, torn muscles.

Sunday 9 am -- Terribly hard to cough. Needed to huddle like a ball on the bed. Okay, revised diagnosis. I fainted and fell, got hurt when I fell. Broken or dislocated ribs, badly bruised ego. Bed rest and pain pills indicated.

Brain still works. Drat. I was hoping to slip away some night.