My Famous Brain

by Diane Wald

  It certainly wasn’t perfection, but it was better than the current state of affairs. I was surprised how happy this little bit of hope was making me. For so long I’d gone on without any hope at all.

  “I want it,” I said.

  Gerry held up his hand in a stop-sign. “Hold on, there, my friend. Not so fast. Don’t you have other questions?”

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling. “You’re right. What about the risks? I could die on the table, I suppose, but that’s not such a big deal to me now, Gerry, believe it or not. What else? I could become a turnip?”

  “You’re already a turnip, Jack,” Gerry said. “I’m glad to see you’ve still got that weird sense of humor. But yes, you could be worse off. Brain surgery, needless to say, is pretty delicate stuff. The absolute worst scenario would be complete paralysis; another possibility is total and immediate blindness. There are other ‘ifs’ too—a lot of them. I’m not trying to scare you, Jack, but you’ve got to consider the worst.”

  “I will. But what are my chances? If you were a betting man, Gerry, would you bet on me?”

  “You’ll have to have a conference with your surgeon, Jack, to get a handle on the odds and all the details. But yes, I think I’d bet on your coming out of it on the plus side. You’re relatively young and your body’s still fairly strong, though I’m sure you don’t think of it that way now. Go home. I want you to wait a few days and see if you have other questions. Call me as soon as they come up. You can call me at home if you need to, okay? This isn’t something to be entered into lightly. Nor is it the answer to all your prayers. It’s a crack of light under the door, that’s all. No guarantees, you see. I wish there were.”

  “What about recovery time,” I asked. “How long would I be in the hospital? Would I need nurses at home or something? Where would I have it done, in the city? Have you got a surgeon in mind?”

  “See?” Gerry smiled. “The questions are starting already. That’s good. Yes, you’d have it done here, and yes, I have a man in mind—the best in the country, and he’s here in New York. If all went well, you’d probably be functioning again in a month or so. I don’t think you’d need a nurse very long. As for time in the hospital, that question would best be directed to your surgeon.” He got up and came around the desk and took hold of my shoulders, half-lifting me out of the chair.

  “Jack,” he said. “I’m not kidding when I say I want you to think long and carefully about this. It could be a very good thing if it works out the way I hope it will, but no matter what happens, it won’t be any picnic. Talk to someone about it, okay? Maybe your friend Don? Someone. Don’t brood on it alone; you need input from others. Be sure to call me; don’t worry about being a pest. And now I think you’d better go home. How are you feeling today? Is there anything you need before you go back to the hills?”

  “I feel great,” I said. “All I need is a crystal ball. Gosh, Gerry, I wish I were a religious man: I’d go into a corner and pray myself into understanding all this.”

  “You’ll pray in your own way,” he said wisely, his arm around my shoulders as I walked to the door. “Call me soon.”

  Gerry’s news had sapped me of all energy. I could barely speak when I got in the car with Don. I told him we could go back to my place, that I had some interesting news from Gerry, and asked him if I might take a little nap before we got into a big discussion. He asked only if the news were good, and when I said “not bad” he sighed happily and set me up with a pillow in the back seat. “Sleep on,” he said. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll just put the radio on, and I’ll wake you when we get to heaven.”

  It was an odd, endearing thing to say—or maybe I misheard him. As I drifted off to sleep, lulled by the hypnotic automotive noises and snatches of songs from Don’s radio, I tried to analyze the second chance I seemed to be getting. Better to wait and see if anything really panned out. But in my heart, I felt there was really no question that I would go ahead with the operation.

  36. A Perfect Patient

  That night, after Don had tucked me up on the couch with some Ovaltine and a thousand pillows (some of them taken from his car: he was certainly a traveler prepared for any eventuality), I told him what Gerry Hamilton had said. He was elated. He tried to be sensible, but he couldn’t stop his happiness from shining through. Before we turned in that night, he had made me promise that I would enlist his aid in getting back and forth to see the surgeon, and that he should be in charge of any recovery plans I needed to make. He could take a short leave of absence if need be, he said, and come to Massachusetts to stay with me a while; or I could come and stay with him and Denny until I could be on my own once more. He said there was plenty of room, and that Denny, even though he’d never met me, could be relied upon to react favorably to such a scheme. I wasn’t so sure about any of it, but I said nothing to dampen his good will. I knew Don was offering too much, but after a lot more discussion, I assented. I could always insist on adjustments later if I felt I was becoming a burden to him. Don came back again a couple of weeks later to ferry me to my surgeon’s appointment. I was in sorry shape; all of my symptoms were sending me toward oblivion at a dizzying rate. My one fear was that the doctor would feel I was not a good surgical risk, and refuse to take my case, but, as it happened, luck was once again with me.

  My soon-to-be favorite surgeon, Dr. Logan Bitterby, was one cool customer. He spent so much time looking me over that I began to sweat and tremble, but he seemed to take no notice of my fear. He listened to my heart so long I began to think he had fallen asleep at the stethoscope, and he performed a lengthy, wordless examination of every bodily surface and orifice until I wanted to writhe and scream. He flashed his little red and white lights—each one brighter than the one before—in front of my eyes for what seemed like months, peering into them endlessly and breathing his hot, cinnamon-scented breath into my face like a dragon. I was terrified of him. His bedside manner was like that of an undertaker—someone who did not expect his clients to have any need or desire for communication.

  But finally I was dressed again and sitting across from him in his office. He let me sit there, still sweating, for another six years while he read over my file. Then he looked me full in the face and smiled broadly; even with my poor vision I could make out the brilliance of his teeth. I became more terrified still.

  “Well, Dr. MacLeod,” he said jovially, “my examination is complete—except for the blood tests, and we will have those results tomorrow. I don’t expect any surprises.” He closed my folder and sat back in his chair, as if that were the end of it. I wondered if I were supposed to leave.

  But I found some courage somewhere. “And?” I said. My voice sounded like it was coming from some room down the hall.

  “And,” he repeated, “I am willing to perform your surgery if you are willing to have me. I will do my utmost for you, and I expect you to do the same for me. I only allow myself perfect patients—by that I mean those who strive to cooperate, who work very hard to achieve results, and who desire the only result acceptable to me. That result is life. If there is any part of you, Dr. MacLeod, that is not prepared to walk on the coals of hell and still cling to life, you must tell me now. There are many other doctors.” He paused. I knew I was supposed to pledge my fealty. This is crazy, I thought, but I was hooked on his voice. It sounded the way I’d imagined as a boy that Merlin’s voice had sounded to the young Arthur.

  “I want to live,” I said, delivering the line as if I were in a lurid soap opera. “And I want you to do the surgery.” Maybe, I thought, an archangel would appear above us, wielding a glowing sword—or scalpel.

  He clapped his hands together soundlessly, then reached across the desk and shook mine.

  “Splendid,” he boomed. “We will succeed together. Now we will discuss the particulars. I am sure you have many questions. No question is stupid or too small, remember that.”

  And then he became as open and communicative as anyone could wish. We discussed every angle
of the operation, from beginning to end. Since I had a better-than-average knowledge of medicine, he went into exquisite detail; since I was a psychologist, he explored with me some of the emotional difficulties I might encounter. He was a fascinating man, and I could see why he had such a fine reputation. Gerry Hamilton had told me that my luck in getting such a quick appointment with Dr. Bitterby was the equivalent of stopping by unannounced for tea with the queen at Buckingham Palace. I was impressed.

  A date two weeks away was set for my hospital stay.

  37. I Don’t Really Think She Forgot

  A few years after I left NSU, Eliza wrote to me; unfortunately, I had recently died. She mailed the letter, which I reproduce for you here, to my last address, and it was soon returned to her by the Post Office marked “Forwarding Order Expired,” so although Eliza thereby learned I had moved (and was puzzled by the fact), she had no idea I was no longer among the living. I believe the Post Office also has a little rubber stamp that says “Deceased,” but thank God they did not use it that time. She learned of my death a few weeks after the letter came back to her, from my lawyer, as I have told you. Not long ago—and I use that phrase with caution, since time has no meaning to me as I am now—this letter was revealed to me in one of my “visions,” and you will perhaps be able to imagine the effect it had upon me.

  Dear Jack,

  I’m sending you what is probably the six-hundredth draft of this letter, not counting all the attempts I’ve made mentally over the years to compose some kind of note to you. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, but I feel in some ways that I never left your side—or perhaps, more correctly, that you’ve never left mine. I don’t know what your life is like now: I can only pray (and I do, daily) that you are happy, and that you are not alone. I am not alone; I am married, but I am not writing to tell you details about my life.

  It’s my heart I want to discuss, and, especially after all this time, perhaps you will think that I have no right to do so. Nevertheless, I will trust to your sweet nature and go on. I blame myself for losing touch with you, Jack, at a time when you needed my support very badly. I have suffered this guilt as well as the loss of you every day, and I do not say that to assume some kind of dramatic pose, or to try to “get you back.” Both efforts would be inappropriate to say the least. I just don’t know how it happened, Jack—do you? One day we were together, and then somehow we were not. Nothing was really stopping me from calling you, writing you, going to see you, but I felt as if it would have been wrong—that something undefinable had constructed a mountain range between us, and that I was powerless to change it, although my heart was breaking, and although I hungered for news of you every day, and especially every night.

  I’ve gone on with my life of course (one has very little choice), but the need to contact you has grown so strong over the past few months that I did not think I could go on another day without making a serious attempt to do so. It became an emergency I could not ignore.

  Why now? Again, I don’t know. It’s just become overwhelmingly urgent. It’s true that I’ve wondered why you never made an attempt to contact me again either, and that was painful, but I am sure there are many good reasons for it, and, again, I trust to your wisdom and intuition.

  You may not wish to respond to this letter, and I will understand if you don’t, believe me. I know you will not think me a fool if I tell you I’ve spoken to you in my dreams, and you have spoken to me. I did not always understand what you said, but I am always trying, and I hope we may speak that way again and again. Let me repeat my wish for your happiness and freedom from pain: you suffered too much, Jack. That was always something I could not understand, no matter how you tried to convince me we would both someday understand it.

  And I hope this letter will cause you no moment of pain or unease; I realize you may be having someone read it to you, so I will not go on any further. I hope what I’ve already said will not embarrass you in any way. But if it helps to know that someone out there has never forgotten you, and never will, then I have, at least, at last, done something to repay you in small part for the invaluable gift of your presence in my life. If there is anything, ever, that I can do for you, I will: that’s love, is it not? Consider it a timeless offer.

  Still yours,

  Eliza

  No matter what Eliza said about my so-called wisdom, I have no doubt that had I received that letter while I was alive, I would have done everything humanly possible to find her. I would have sent Don Rath rushing to the ends of the earth with the admonition not to return to me without her. I know he would have succeeded: he always did. And perhaps, had we been reunited, Eliza and I, a great many things would have turned out differently. Who knows? At least I could have soothed her silly guilt, could have made her understand that we parted indeed because of a “mountain range,” and not because of any failure of hers. It’s true I’ve tried to instill that knowledge in her through dreams and other kinds of messages, and perhaps her own development and the sense of her soul has brought her some measure of that truth as well, but I have still not evolved to a high enough state to say that it was just as well that the letter was mailed too late. It was not—is not—“just as well.”

  What vexed me the most was the realization that Eliza’s mother had never told her about my one last phone call to her daughter. I guess I’d always imagined that she would. Maybe she had her reasons, or maybe she just forgot.

  But I really don’t think she forgot.

  Small things can do so much damage.

  38. Meeep

  I’ll spare you the details of my surgery and recovery. Let me just say the experience was, as I had been warned, no picnic. I was in the hospital for weeks, but fortunately I suffered only minor complications. My doctors (there seemed to be scores of them besides Drs. Hamilton and Bitterby, many of them interns and residents who were eager to learn from my case) appeared to be pleased. At first, I noticed no change in my condition whatsoever and began to rue the day I’d agreed to the operation, but gradually, as the trauma of the surgery itself began to wear off, I started to feel quite a bit more cheerful. Occasionally I would have headaches, but they were remarkable in that they had a definable ending: they did not hang on forever and blend into each other the way the old headaches had.

  My vision had not improved, but neither had it deteriorated, and Dr. Bitterby felt that it would probably remain stable for quite some time. That cheered me. Don Rath burst into happy tears when I grabbed him by the goatee one day, so genuinely tickled was he to be “seen” by me. By the third week, I was allowed to sit on the side of my bed, and I noticed no problems of balance or space perception. I began to wonder if all this extra suffering were going to pay off after all.

  But more than anything else I wondered how I was supposed to get along at home. There was no question but that I would need a medically skilled companion until the literal hole in my head was fully healed. The hospital sent me a kindly social-worker lady who arranged with various interstate agencies to provide me with male nurses who would live with me until such time as I could make do with daytime visits alone. I had specified—no, demanded—male nurses because I could not bear the idea of having some starchy female sleeping in my spare room and fussing over me as if I were an invalid child. It’s also true that, knowing the weakened condition of my emotional fortitude, I greatly feared forming some terrible libidinal-umbilical attachment to an angel in white. I was informed that male nurses, who were few and far between even in the city, would cost far more than my insurance was willing to pay, but I agreed to take on the extra financial burden.

  Little did I know, however, that other arrangements were being made—not by an angel in white, but by a guardian angel: Don. He’d been to visit me ten times at least during my hospitalization, and he was there the day of my release. I had hired a car and driver to take me home. Don and I joked around while he packed my things and got me settled in a wheelchair for a last promenade down the cream-and-gr
een hospital corridors. He wheeled me through the front doors and out to the sidewalk. I could make out the shape of a car waiting there. But just as I was being gentled into the back seat, I realized there was no hired driver, nor was this a hired car: it was Don’s own. I remembered the very smell of it: waxy and bookish and tinged with a pricey cologne, just like its owner.

  “Wait a minute. What’s this?” I asked, but Don pushed me gently into the seat. The many pillows were still there, and he arranged me among them like a prize pineapple in a fruit basket, swirling a plaid blanket down over my knees. He closed the door quickly, ran around the car to the driver’s side, and hopped in breathlessly, as if he feared I’d make a run for it. I laughed at him.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to make this drive again,” I said. “Don’t you have anything better to do, kid? Not that I don’t appreciate it, really, but you’re starting to make me feel guilty for taking up all your spare—and un-spare—time.”

  He cough-laughed. “Don’t think about it; I just wanted to do it, that’s all. I have to satisfy myself that you’re properly settled at home. As for feeling guilty, you know what you can do with that.”

  I had to admit I was happy to have him there; I hadn’t looked forward to a long drive with a stranger. “Okay, Doc,” I said. “but someday I’m going to be strong enough to fight you off, you know.”