Crooked Bean

The morning that Bean woke up with a crook in his neck, he did not think much of it. Presumably he had slept in a weird position and would be fine within several minutes.

When the crook did not go away until later in the day, after he downed several aspirin, he simply assumed he was coming down with something and resolved to get to bed early that night.

When it came time to make the decision between watching Letterman and getting enough rest, Bean put it off the early bedtime. He felt he had earned an evening of comedy and superficial celebrity interviews by putting in a full day with a crook in a neck.

The next morning his neck felt find but Bean could not move his left leg. It was stuck between asleep-ness and painfulness and no amount of blood flow seemed to restore its functionality. Aggie was already up with Lidia, flitting around the house and exclaiming things from corners near and far.

Bean attempted to speak her name, assuming his voice would be weak due to all his inexplicable sleep injury. To his surprise, his voice was loud a clear. His shock at hearing himself bolted him into an upright position and when Aggie finally came in to check on him there seemed to be nothing wrong.

“My leg is not working.”

“It looks fine,” she said absentmindedly, kissing his knee as if he were a toddler and continuing on her way.

Standing up proved challenging but Bean did the best he could, hobbling over to his dresser and pulling out a pair of sweatpants. Wearing slacks did not seem like an option in his injured state. He managed to dress himself while lying on his back, then rolled up again to hobble into the living room.

Lidia tore by him, only inches from his malfunctioning leg, the moment he stepped out of his bedroom. There were a precarious couple of seconds, but he caught the end of a freestanding bookshelf to steady himself. The bookshelf did the trick briefly until it too lost control and began to tip. Bean finally tipped as well, falling over a fluffy chair’s armrest and landing with his chin to his chest and his working leg curled into his forehead. His non-working leg was holding the bookshelf at bay as volumes of antique “for show” books showered onto the floor.

Aggie came wandering in, but instead of rushing to Bean’s aid she stood with her hands on her hips and waited until she felt enough time had passed that Bean had learned a lesson. Then, carefully, she pushed the bookshelf back onto its base, pulled Bean up by the arms, and said, “I hope you’re planning to clean this up.” Nervously, he did as he was told, hoping to avoid future mom-eyes from his child’s mother. Those were the worst.

Letterman that night seemed every more necessary, so he again put off getting enough sleep to clear his mind.

The next morning Bean woke up with a sore neck again.

“You know what, Aggie? I’m just going to stay in today,” he said, turning over carefully. “Because I don’t think I’ll ever get up the nerve to actually skip Letterman.”

Aggie pounded him on the back. “It’s your turn with Lidia, idiot. Get up.”

So he did as he was told. And as he raised his head he noticed the pain was gone.

“Aggie, hit me again.”

Without question she hit him again. All the parts were in working order. Violence, as it turns out, is sometimes the answer.