Dr Rukeyser grew up a Michael Jackson fan and doubled down with each change to his legacy, from King of Pop to peculiar to pear-shaped to pedophile. She argued that Michael was none of those plosive associations and rather had a right to forge his own identity, including choices (if they were) for body alterations. From her teens to her twenties, Dr Rukeyser had no second thoughts about a career in plastic surgery. Now in her late forties, she was staring down that raison d’être.
“I’m 100% on this,” her potential client asserted—we’ll call him Hank to protect his privacy, as he would be searchable on IMDb and other casting lists. “I’ve never wanted hands and have trained my whole life for this opportunity.”
“Trained how,” Dr Rukeyser asked, clipboarding this consultation, “like in the Stanislavski method?”
Hank bobbed his head. “Funny you say that—you might have seen some of my roles.”
“Not really. Tell me about them.”
Happy to do so, he didn’t raise his arms from the sides of the chair to itemize or gesticulate. “My first commercial was for Swagtron hoverboards and I was this kid who had this catchphrase, ‘Look, Ma—no hands!’ In thirty seconds I had to convince my actor mom that I could jump from the swingset, ride a bike with arms akimbo, dribble a soccer ball, turn her concern into a glimpse of pride. The Swagtron, then, was my earned surprise under the Christmas tree.”
Dr Rukeyser took note. “Curious strategy. Like a vetting process for gifts.”
“Maybe. And then one for a voice-activator like Alexa or Siri.”
“Which one?”
“Neither. The company went bankrupt, so I’d rather not say—but my performance was nominated for a Clio award in the way I didn’t have to hold my phone or open a laptop or...”
“I think I get the gist. You’re dexterous without the need for hands. However,”
Dr Rukeyser set the clipboard on her lap and, consciously perhaps, pushed the bridge of her glasses closer to her eyes, “the amputation of both is a jarring request. Why not bind them for a stretch of time—or even just one to see if you’d actually need the other?”
Hank shifted his weight and scanned the pictures on the walls to call her out: “you’ve done Botox jobs for all these fine people, liposuction, wart removals, cosmetic implants—”
“—I’ve never amputated any—”
“fingers? Like that polydactyl child I read about online—it led me here, in fact. And the article went on: ‘if the body is a temple,’ you were quoted, ‘not all parts are doing holy work.’ You did say that, right?”
“Well, I wanted to emphasize the predominance of what the body does right.”
Hank shrugged in some agreement. “Or your work with gender-affirming surgery. You can’t deny that what I’m asking is so different.”
“There is strict licensing and oversight on all these procedures. Voluntary amputations of hands is... not what I’ve ever heard of, let alone can practice.”
Leaning in, Hank reiterated what had already been proposed: “your lawyer and mine have already agreed in principle to your complete immunity from any malpractice—beyond your substantial pricetag.”
“This is not about money,” Dr Rukeyser put up her palms, “and certainly not what lawyers determine.”
The consultation went another twenty minutes and ended on the suggestion ‘let’s sleep on this’—separately, of course. Dr Rukeyser drove home and imagined Hank doing the same in a driverless car. She stopped at an Olive Garden drive-thru to give herself the night off from cooking. She mindlessly voice-activated a playlist to the 25th anniversary release of Bad, jumping to a side B that, as a kid, she would lift off of a turntable and flip over, carefully replacing the stylus to hear ‘Another Part of Me’, followed by ‘Man in the Mirror’; she hadn’t handled vinyl that way since the digital revolution. Maybe life was less and less hands-on.
Nevertheless, this would be a game-changer for her raison d’être (she could not shake the term). Even if the contract provided for nondisclosure of her role, inevitably her reputation would feed the talking points of countless echo chambers. She imagined someone like Howie Mandel—a preeminent germophobe who hasn’t been seen to shake anyone’s hand for decades—extolling the choice to reduce the manipulation of social norms. She wondered what Helen Keller might say, having only her hands as a means to communicate. She thought of a friend who was born with brachydactyly, enduring endless whispers and worse before receiving prosthetics and mastering their use. That friend was a fan of Black Sabbath, largely inspired by Tony Iommi who lost several fingers at a packaging plant, then practicing like hell to become the ‘Ironman’ of heavy metal guitarists.
Olive Garden at rest in her gut and the garbage disposal, Dr Rukeyser scrolled through her options to round out the night. She was missing her cat, who died after Covid, perhaps out of loneliness once she had quit working from home. She wasn’t quite wed to her office, but she had long ago acquiesced to being ‘in demand’. With A.I. wearables evolving to transplants, her own touch with the times would only increase. Retirement would never breathe down her neck—probably the opposite: the Hanks of this world would hound her like a queen bee to keep up the hive.
To summon up sleep, she played with her hands: crocheting the fringe of the bed throw, drumming a rhythm on lips, hinging and humming a ‘here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and.... The people would either wiggle like worms or disappear in expectation, depending on the inward or outward weave of her fingers. She tried other variants, as if making silhouette bunnies with no light at all. She cracked her knuckles unnaturally to compel a massage, undo any damage. About to lose consciousness, she noticed a glow on her phone: ‘Dr Rukeyser, I’m texting without’—
Daniel Martin Vold Lamken (2024)
No comments:
Post a Comment