One Down & One To Go

I don't think Carey realized he was claustrophobic until he went to Carlsbad Caverns.  I've known him since kindergarten and I never suspected he had a problem.  However, there may have been earlier signs that I simply failed to pick up on.

In the mid 1960s, Carey was working for Sparklettes.  He worked hard all year long hauling 40-pound bottles up and down Mount Washington.  He had the most demanding terrain to deal with of any of the company's delivery routes.  When he went on vacation it took two guys to fill in for him.  At the time, a Sparklettes employee with less than five years on the job was granted a measly two weeks vacation.  Carey was making good money pushing water and decided he deserved something special in the way of a vacation.  I remember being very surprised when Carey asked me to take care of his dog so he could spend two weeks in Tahiti.  

I remember asking him rather bluntly, "How in hell did you come up with that?"  I could not imagine a more unlikely vacation spot for a person like Carey.  Two weeks in a beach chair sipping mai tais out of a coconut shell?  Carey had always been the type of person that is in constant motion; rarely without the radio and TV blaring, drove a Corvette and only sat still when playing cards at the poker clubs in Gardena.  Nothing judgmental mind you, some people may be suited for vegetating beside a tropical lagoon in the middle of nowhere – Carey belonged in Las Vegas.

Just as surprising to me as the destination, was finding Carey had returned home from his vacation in less than a week.  I came up the stairs to his apartment to check on his dog that Carey named Cielo Remney.  I found the front door open and Carey busy cleaning the kitchen.  I walked in and asked, "What happened?"

Carey said, "It was beautiful but after a couple of days it started to drag."

I said, "Drag, as in…….?"

Carey said, "As in got'em no land."

I said, "It's an island for Christ's sake."

Carey said, "If you saw it you'd understand.  You can't believe how small it is.  After I saw and did what there was to see and do, I tried to go somewhere I hadn't been but there wasn't anywhere else to go.  There's just the one place and I was already there."

Before he blacked out, the last thing Carey remembers about entering Carlsbad Caverns, was walking with Evelyn down the switch-back ramps that end 750 feet below the surface.  He was informed later by the park rangers that at some point he evidently put a bear hug on a stalagmite and began wailing like a banshee.  The Carlsbad Caverns average almost 3,000 visitors each day which made for the most humiliating spectacle Evelyn had ever taken part in.  She couldn't get him to stop howling or talk him down from the stalagmite; and the first rangers on the scene couldn't pull him off it.  To this day Carey does not know how he got out of the cave.  Was he blindfolded?  Was he taken out on a stretcher?  Was he sedated?  Evelyn will only roll her eyes when asked for the details and refuses to discuss any part of the experience.

Some ten years after the Carlsbad incident, Carey was living in Colorado Springs and his doctor scheduled him for an MRI.  Carey's shoulders and neck vertebrae were slowly disintegrating and eventually required several operations to repair the damage.  Rather than a single root cause for his ailments it was more likely a combination.  Contributing factors include countless falls from 14 feet onto 3 inches of damp sawdust as a high school pole-vaulter; hauling 5 tons of water every year for Sparklettes; and the two work injuries that resulted in disability awards. 

When Carey showed up for his MRI appointment, he took a look at the tube that his body was supposed to fit into.  He asked to speak with the person in charge and explained that he wouldn't be able to handle such a confined space.  The head of the Radiology Department said it was not uncommon to give patients something to get them to relax.  The department head then gave explicit instructions to the MRI technician to hold off on the MRI until Carey was completely under.

When Carey came to he could hear the department head angrily shouting at the technician.  Carey was sitting on the floor a dozen feet away from what just moments earlier had been a perfectly good MRI machine.  Electrical components hung down on wires from the upper part of the equipment.  The tube was unrecognizable.  Various sized parts and pieces from the machine were on the floor, scattered throughout the room.  The department head eventually calmed down and told Carey it was not his fault and that he held the technician responsible for what had happened.

Five weeks later, Carey was scheduled for another MRI.  In those days there were two MRIs that were conveniently located for the residents of Colorado Springs.  The machine Carey had shut down was a "closed" MRI and it would remain down for another 4 months.  This time he was headed to a different location that offered an "open" MRI.  His doctor had told him that he shouldn't have any trouble with this new type of MRI. 

Carey walked into the clinic and put his name on the sign-in sheet.  The woman looked at the sheet and then up at Carey.

She said, "You're him."

Carey said, "I'm who?"

She said, "You're the one that that destroyed the MRI."

Carey said, "You heard about that?"

She said, "Heard about it?  That's all anybody talked about for weeks.  You put us on the map, your name is gold around here.  We've never been this busy.  That's why you had to wait so long for an appointment."

Carey said, "I guess it's one down and one to go."