Elbow comedy

It was pure comedy gold when my face kissed the sidewalk on Chambers Street in front of an audience the size of an Equity Waiver house.

How does a grown man simply fall face first onto concrete? I'd tell you, but frankly it's none of your business.

For the first few days, the scrapes on my nose and lip seemed to be the main attraction. Then my right elbow began throbbing with the persistence of an EDM bass line. By the end of the week, it had become impossible to ignore.

The orthopedic surgeon took one look.

"You tore your tricep."

Not strained. Not injured. Tore. As in detached. As in no longer interested in participating.

Ten days later they reattached muscle to tendon and tendon to bone. The first thing I remember upon waking from propofol Neverland wasn't the nurse, the doctor, or concern for my well-being.

It was the cast. A plaster contraption stretching from my armpit to my fingertips that felt less like a medical device and more like something a device used to restrain the certifiably insane.

When I got home, still groggy and mildly in love with narcotics, I weighed myself with and without it. Eight pounds.

I was wearing a small child.

For the next four days I swam in and out of consciousness on so much dope that I couldn't follow the plot of House Hunters. 

The heavy cast was replaced by a rigid plastic brace that permanently positions my arm in a casual bend. It has a vaguely jaunty quality to it, though I couldn't define jaunty if you held a gun to my head.

The real surprise, however, has been my left hand. For decades I've apparently been blessed with one competent hand and one deeply committed understudy.

Brushing my teeth has become an improvisational exercise. Pulling on pants requires planning and prayer. Eating is now a spectator sport. The food starts on the fork. Whether it arrives in my mouth is anybody's guess.

More often than not, dinner lands in my lap, on the floor, or somewhere in the general vicinity of where I happen to be sitting.

I had no idea how much responsibility my right hand had been carrying all these years.

The pain is mostly gone now. What's left is annoyance and the humbling realization that independence is a fragile thing.

Still, next week I'm taking this act to Rome.

If you happen to see a one-armed American struggling heroically with a fork somewhere near the Pantheon, please remember that tickets should be purchased through my handler.