'Pain an Evil'

I was seated in the waiting room of the physical therapy center with the rest of the human wreckage. Two men were seated to my right, speaking Spanish. Both were in street clothes with no obvious signs of injury or disease. To my left was a black man about my age, dressed all in black. He had a prosthetic right leg beneath the knee and was drinking a cup of coffee. He uses a walker to navigate. We chatted, indifferent stuff at first, before I asked him how he lost the leg. “Fuckin’ diabetes,” he said. He still occasionally feels his foot, the so-called “phantom limb” phenomenon. He goes to PT hoping to ease other pains – knees, hips, back. Edema is an ongoing problem. He spoke clinically, without complaint, and I appreciated his apparent absence of self-pity. When he stood, he groaned softly. It sounded familiar. He had noticed my cane and I told him about the arthritis. As he moved toward the PT room he said, “Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?” and laughed. To read while waiting I brought…