“I was thrown, and when my vision cleared, I saw that the remaining guys were starting to evacuate,” he said. “They knew the situation was out of control. They wanted to get me out, but I couldn’t move my legs. The men said they’d send down rescue guys with a backboard, and if the paramedics were afraid to come down in a mine, they’d bring the backboard themselves.
“But the situation was still volatile, with a threat of more ignitions. I could hear the rescue personnel, up above where I was. Their superiors were saying they had to pull out. The rescuers radioed back that they still had a man down there to bring up, but they were overruled. I heard their noises growing fainter, and then they were gone.”
Cicero ’s knuckles seemed a little paler as he held the glass, the only sign of emotion.
“I was okay at first. I thought, Silas will make them come back for me, but then I saw Silas. He was dead. That was when it became real to me, that I could die down there.” He paused. “I was okay while my lamp held out. That was about thirty hours.”
“Thirty?” I said, amazed. “How long were you down there?”
“Sixty-one hours.” Cicero drained the rest of the wine. “About half that was in total blackness. Around that time, my imagination ran away with me. I was completely paranoid. I was sure that the paramedics had been lying when they’d said they were coming back. It was too dangerous; the company would just seal off that part of the mine and tell my brother that I’d been one of those who’d died instantly.”
He’d finished his wine, and was supine again.
“Of course, it didn’t happen that way. They came back,” Cicero said. “In the hospital, I told myself over and over that my spinal cord was in shock, that I’d walk again. It took a while to accept that I wouldn’t. I did that in rehab, the hardest part of which was getting the bill afterward. The mine declared bankruptcy after the accident, and we all lost our medical coverage.”
“Typical,” I said.
“There’s a lawsuit, on behalf of everyone injured, and I’m part of it. But it’s being dragged out in court. Meanwhile, my medical debts can charitably be described as ‘massive,’ and I now have a preexisting condition that insurers won’t cover.”
“But you’re in good health, aren’t you?” I interrupted.
“Right now, yes,” Cicero said. “But being a paraplegic, even a healthy one, isn’t cheap. And it makes you vulnerable to other health problems down the road. Those problems can be headed off with preventive care and physical therapy-”
“Which an insurer won’t pay for, because it’s part of a preexisting condition,” I finished for him.
“Exactly. Right now, I have some basic medical assistance for the indigent. If I got a job, I wouldn’t be eligible for it any longer, and then my noncovered health-care costs would subsume a large part of any income I’d make. I’m in that rare situation where getting employment would actually drag me down, not lift me up.”
I’d expected a story along these lines, but hadn’t anticipated how completely he was trapped.
“Other than medicine, from which I am barred,” Cicero said, “there’s nothing I’m equipped to do that would bring home anything close to what I need to survive without adequate health insurance. And if I did find work, there is one hospital, two clinics, and a number of medical professionals with claims to my future earnings. Right now, I’m referring my creditors to the legal precedent of Blood v. Turnip.”
I said the necessary, inadequate thing. “There’s got to be some way to get around the rules. Somebody’s got to see that the situation’s ridiculous. This isn’t supposed to happen.”
Cicero laughed. “No, it’s not,” he said. “It’s the result of a daisy chain of misfortunes. If only I weren’t banned from the only profession in which I can make a viable income. If only I hadn’t chosen that particular mine to work at. And so on.
“Everyone does see it’s ridiculous. Finding a way around it is a different story. The medical social worker at the rehab clinic in Colorado decided I should come to Minneapolis, because my brother Ulises was here. Once here, I was assigned a caseworker who was 23 and stumped. She got me disability checks, and that was it. It’s not her fault. The system isn’t set up to handle individual circumstances. Nobody is authorized to change the rules or interpret the subtleties. Everybody would like to help you, but no one actually can.”
“That can’t just be the end of it,” I said, turning my palms up, fingers splayed.
Cicero surveyed me. “You don’t cohere sometimes,” he said. “You seem so world-weary on the surface, but under the surface you have these veins of naive faith in the system.” He shrugged. “But I’ve told you a good deal more than I thought I would, and I still didn’t answer your original question.”
“What original question?” I honestly couldn’t remember.
“Exactly,” Cicero said. “I was telling you about the mine accident. What I might not have made clear was that I spent sixty-one hours lying in a space with dimensions only slightly more generous than a grave.” He paused. “Since then, I have a very hard time with enclosed spaces. I’m not agoraphobic, I’m claustrophobic. It’s why I rarely go out.”
“The elevator,” I said, understanding.
“That goddamned elevator,” he agreed. “I’m not afraid of a six-minute descent; it’d be hard, but I could do it. But if I got trapped, I’m not sure if I could take it.” There was shame in his averted gaze. “God knows it’s stupid.”
“Fears are irrational,” I said. “I’m living proof of that.”
Cicero didn’t respond, tipping his head back to observe the lights of a plane. MSP was to the south of us, and the jetliners climbed across the city’s airspace with assembly-line regularity. In twenty hours, their passengers could be anywhere in the world. Down here was Cicero, whose world had become so small that, for him, ascending one flight of stairs to see the night sky was a journey.
“But if you stay in all the time,” I said, “how are you getting food, groceries?”
“From my patients,” Cicero explained. “I’m not a strictly cash business; I trade in favors and services, too.”
“What about meeting people?” I said.
“They come to me,” Cicero said. “Dripping blood or coughing, but I take them as they come.”
“Women, I mean.”
“Ah, yes, women,” Cicero said. “Who wouldn’t want to date an insolvent paraplegic?”
“ Cicero,” I reproved him.
“Sarah,” he said, “don’t make a project out of me.” His tone said the subject was off-limits. I dropped my gaze, accepting his rebuke.
“Things were better when I first came to Minneapolis,” he said. “Ulises had a ground-floor apartment- no elevator needed- and I had a van. Nothing great, but it had hand controls, and it ran.” He paused. “I’ve still got the van, downstairs, but I might as well sell it. It’s not doing me any good now, and one of the kids down the hall has to go down once a week and start it, so it doesn’t just die of neglect.”
This part of his story raised an obvious question. “ Cicero,” I said, “where’s your brother now? You said they sent you here to live with him.”
Cicero ’s dark eyes seemed more sober than they had been only a moment ago. “I did live with him,” he confirmed. “That’s a story for another time.”
“I thought you had no secrets,” I reminded him.
“I don’t,” Cicero said. “But it’s probably not a story you want to hear on top of the one I just told.”
“Is he dead?” I persisted.
“Yes,” Cicero said. “He’s dead.”
I shook my head, eyes lowered. “Jesus,” I said.