*For maximum enjoyment of this blog post, please read Walking Through a Spider’s Web first.
Kaleab, my ten-year-old son, had just won his youth playoff baseball game. The young man pitched lights out and raked at the plate. I couldn’t have been more proud of him. It was a celebratory evening all around, full of fist pumps, chest bumps, bat flips and cheering parents. A victors’ meal at Piesano’s pizza awaited, where I would toast his win with a chilled Blue Moon, an armful of garlic knots, and enough supreme pizza slices to fill a bathtub. My son’s victory would permit me to overindulge.
A bunch of us parents gathered with our ballplayer sons under the lights in between fields for post-game high-fives, Honest Kids organic juice boxes, Goldfish crackers, and to relive the highlights from the action-packed game. That’s when they swarmed me from the oak tree I was standing under. Bats. Lots of them. Coming at me from above in a silent and dizzying array of flapping, chaotic black. Like a scary scene in a movie. They were everywhere. I ducked and dodged, waving my arms around me to shoo them away.
“Something wrong?” asked Dorothy, one of the moms. Several others also noticed my distress, curiously watching me flail about.
The lightning flashed green and yellow in my left eye, and I knew what was happening. An explosion of floaters and light flashes had erupted in my left eye. These were not bats. Nothing was attacking me except my own body.
“Um, mosquitoes,” I replied weakly to disguise my embarrassment.
“They must really like you. Not bothering anybody else. I don’t see any. Seems too cold for mosquitoes.”
The lightning show was dazzling. Colors and shapes filled my vision. “I’ve got the pheromone or blood type or whatever it is that attracts them.”
“Lucky you.”
I stepped away from the gleeful pack of travel-ball parents and rubbed my eyes to try to clear the unclearable. I knew what this was. I had seen it before. Only then it was bees, not bats. Great, I thought. Here we go again. I recalled what my ophthalmologist had said when this had happened in my right eye years before: “Posterior vitreous detachment. Nothing serious. Give it a couple months to clear. The flashes will start to die down and the floaters will dissipate. It’s annoying, I know.”
But a couple weeks later things were getting worse, not better. The flashes rivaled the Aurora Borealis and the floaters were clouding my vision like someone was spraying mud at me through a firehose. Something told me that this wasn’t the same as what had happened in my right eye. But like any man, I shrugged it off and gave it a little more time. Dumb.
After a few more days of worsening symptoms, I dragged myself in to see my ophthalmologist. He eased his head back from the slit lamp and calmly said, “You have a horseshoe retinal tear with shallow superior retinal detachment. We need to do surgery right now or you risk losing your eyesight. This is serious. We’re prepping the room next door for a pneumatic retinoplexy.”
“What? I … what do I have, again?”
“No time. We can talk after the surgery.”
“But I have to go to work today.”
“You’re taking the next few days off to rest. Can you call someone to pick you up?”
I called my wife, Maria, while lying in the surgery chair, people buzzing around me prepping things like long needles, syringes, and gauze pads. “Um, I’m having eye surgery right now, Maria. No time to talk. They’re ready to go. Will lose my vision if we wait any longer. I need a ride in about two hours.” My surgeon hovered above me with a needle and syringe in hand, waiting for me to confirm my plans with Maria and hang up. Once I did, he brought that long needed toward my eye and said, “Worst part. Ready?”
“Ready.” And off we went. I was fully awake and conscious for all of it. I’ve never done hallucinogenic drugs, but I imagine what I saw during the surgery is what one sees when tripping on acid. Kaleidoscopes and mandalas of bright white, red, yellow and green in stark relief against a universe of black. If not for the surrounding surgical miasma and intermittent stabs of pain that defeated the local anesthesia, I might have actually enjoyed the experience.
The surgery ended. They patched me up with gauze and tape so thick it felt like I was wearing a manhole cover on the left side of my face. It looked like one, but it was white. On the way to check out I ran a hand along the hallway walls and had nurses escort me by the arms because I had no depth perception, and because the contact I had in my right eye was the one for close-up, not distance.
And this is how it would go for weeks after they removed the bandages. No driving. No depth perception while wearing a black pirate’s eye patch. Limited vision from my one good eye. What better time to attend a Gators men’s basketball game versus Florida State University at the Exactech Arena with Kaleab and some friends! Being an FSU grad, I donned my finest FSU polo shirt while Kaleab wore Gators garb.
During halftime, nature texted me. I answered. Using a single trekking pole for balance and stability, I eased my way along arena walls and down flights of stairs to find the bathroom. Shuffling forward like an octogenarian, I squinted through the lobby and saw the men’s room just up ahead, adjacent to a busy concession stand. I walked in.
This place is impeccably clean, I thought. Not a scrap of paper anywhere. Everything shined and polished. Where are the urinals? It was a large bathroom filled with stalls as far as I could see, which wasn’t very far. The urinals must be around the corner. But screw that, I can barely see and walk, so I’ll just use a stall. And I did.
I exited the stall and slinked to the sinks to wash my hands. Again, I couldn’t help but admire how clean and well-kept everything was. I wasn’t used to a men’s room being this clean. The fastidiousness of it all impressed me, and I silently commended the Exactech Arena’s facilities crew.
As I washed my hands, a young woman with long brown hair sidled up next to me and began washing hers. We exchanged awkward glances. Well, that’s odd. What’s she doing here? I felt my face heating up. I began scrubbing faster, imploring the soap to rinse quickly from my hands. This wasn’t right … for her to be in here with me. This is a men’s room! And then it dawned on me. I was attending a basketball game on the University of Florida’s campus. UF, a liberal university in a liberal city in a liberal county. Ah, yes, that makes sense. Gender norms are obsolete here. We have city ordinances saying men can use a women’s bathroom and vice versa. That’s what this is. This woman identifies as a man, so she’s using the men’s room! Makes perfect sense. I’m a little uncomfortable standing here next to her, but suck it up, Garrett, this is the world we live in now. Get used to it. With this new revelation in mind, I wiped my hands dry and smiled at her as she finished washing her hands.
“Have a great day,” I said as I exited the bathroom. She failed to make eye contact with me and smiled awkwardly. You did the right thing, Garrett. You accepted her without judging. You made her feel welcome and that everything was perfectly normal. You’re a swell guy! Well done!
When I exited the bathroom, a woman standing in the concession stand line applauded me. This didn’t make any sense. Why was she doing this? What had I done to deserve this? Confounded, I looked above me and saw the blue Women bathroom sign. I lost my breath, staggered backwards, and had to reach for the wall to hold myself up. The woman kept applauding while the other woman from the bathroom walked out from behind me and made her way back through the crowded arena lobby. I could only guess at the applauding woman’s intentions, but it seemed to me that she was applauding me for having the courage, as a man, to confidently step into a women’s bathroom without worrying about judgment or other consequences. After all, in this liberal town gender norms are obsolete.
Breathlessly, I said to the applauding woman, “What are … why are you clapping?”
She tugged on her Seminole shirt and pointed to mine. “Go ‘Noles! I like your shirt! We gotta stick together when we’re in enemy territory.”