His sniff said what words could not. "What the hell? You got another one of these goddamn things? Why? They're nothing but trouble and I've heard you complain about the ones you already have. All they do is scream all day and all night. Do you realize that even at my age my hearing is way better than yours? Do you have any idea the headaches I am going to get? The last one you got just finally stopped screaming, and now you went and got another? Jesus Christ people, what the hell? That's it, screw you people. I'm gonna go chew on something you like. Something good. Yes, I know I'll get hit by the rolled up newspaper, but screw you, it will be worth it. How about those new shoes you got? Guess what? Gone. I hope you like gnawed strips of leather."
The old bastard waddled off to cause some vindictive mayhem. I'll never forget that furry snout sniffing at my face. I'll never forget that old bitter soul reluctantly welcoming to the world. It said: "Welcome to Earth. You're gonna hate it here."
Chicken Scratch
My best friend Bruce finally visited me in the hospital. I've been friends with Bruce for as long as I can remember. He's been saddled with my bullshit for most of his life, and I know if he's been willing to deal with me this long, there isn't a damn thing I'm ever going to do that he's gonna get sick of. He'll deal with my shit and I'll deal with his until the end of time. A truly strong male relationship.
This was actually not the first time Bruce visited me in the hospital, but this is the first time I was conscious. He had actually come by to see my inert form the day after the accident. I like to think that he entered my room, saw me on the bed, then the doctors told him the prognosis: unconscious, but he could be in a coma he never wakes from! Bruce reeled in shock. A single tear fell from his eye. He sat by the edge of my bed, grabbing my arm. His head turned skyward, and he shouted, "Noooooooooooo!"
I'm pretty sure the actual scene was much closer to, "That sucks, I guess call me if he wakes up, okay?" But sometimes I like my illusions better.
After asking about my general health and how things were going, we got down to the real business. I looked at him expectantly and cleared my throat.
"What?" he said.
"Is there anything that maybe you want to say to me?" I prompted.
"About what?"
"Oh, maybe about the date with a psycho crazy white supremacist which resulted in my unfortunate accident."
He rolled his eyes. "The date didn't result in your accident. Yes, you got hit at the same place as your date, but it's not like the date made you get hit by the car. She didn't push you and the date did not involve car dodging. In fact, I have it on good authority that your date herself was otherwise engaged while you were sneaking out of the restaurant. You're lucky you're in the hospital, trust me. It's only because you might have died and are bedridden that Linda isn't here screaming her head off at you."
"What? I'm the victim here," I said. "In fact, one could argue that since Linda instigated this whole blind date that resulted in tragedy, it's her fault. Why is your wife victimizing me and some poor, crazy, white supremacist?"
"Oh yes, you're the 'victim'," he said, his eyes rolling. "It would have been bad enough that you ditched out on Linda's friend. But that wasn't good enough for you, was it? It's never good enough for you. You went so much farther when you orchestrated a full-on fight with the girl. You know Becky doesn't pull any punches. The whole concept of toning down her fighting is alien to her, like 'tact' and 'moderation'. I overheard Linda talking about Deborah on the phone and the word 'stitches' came up."
"Hey, chicks like scars. Maybe some dudes like scars. I'm sure it's just more character for the girl. She could desperately benefit from character that isn't insanity-related." I changed gears. "You keep saying 'friend'. I thought you said Linda had met Deborah only once at her book club. That's not a friend. That's acquaintance at best."
"True, but this will make her lose face in her book club."
"Lose face? When did book clubs become feudal Japan? Is Oprah's Book Club the new Shogunate?"
"See, this is how I can tell you are not married," he said, rubbing his eyes. "Book clubs are extremely important. I'm not sure why, but after a woman has been married long enough, they need to have standing in a book club. And the people who run it are strict. I think they make you commit seppuku if you show up without reading the book."
"Really?" I asked, suddenly excited to hear about book clubs.
"No, of course not," he said.
"Damn, because that would be really awesome. 'I appreciate that your kids had soccer and you were performing marital duties with your husband, Gladys, but when you come to Book Club, you read the fucking book! You know the rules of Book Club, so you know what to do. Here's the ritual book club tanto. You may pick a second to behead you afterwards to lessen your suffering.' It would take organized reading discussion to a whole new level."
"You live in a very strange world," he said. "But you're just evading the subject. I got bitched at for an hour about that fist fight, mainly because she won't yell at you. She won't yell at sick people, so I became your proxy. That said, once you're well, don't be surprised if you're in the doghouse the next time you come over. Be very apologetic when you next see Linda."
"Understood." I paused, then cocked my head in expectation. "So you're not going to give me an apology?"
"Are you serious?" He stared at me for a long moment. I said nothing, meeting his gaze. He broke first with a big sigh. "Fine. I apologize for setting you up with a girl that you felt the need to have beat up by our crazy friend."
"There were good reasons for starting that fist fight," I said, suddenly finding the corner of the room very interesting to look at. "And for keeping a low profile while I made my exit."
"What were those reasons?" asked Bruce, sighing again as he saw where this was going.
"Those are classified."
"By who?"
"That's also classified."
"So are you going to call Becky and have her come beat me up to get out of this conversation?"
"Classified.... but considering it," I said with a mock serious expression.
He rolled his eyes. His vision fell upon my legal pad. "What's all this?"
"I'm writing my memoirs."
"Memoirs? Are you dying?" he asked, with actual concern.
"No, I'm not dying."
"Not even of something heretofore unknown disease, like, say, being-an-asshole cancer?" He paused. "Wait, sorry. I should use the medical name. Jackass Cancer."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "I'm writing my memoirs to preserve everything for posterity. A rough draft, if you will. For when I really write them when I'm older."
"Why would someone want to read them then? Are you going to be less of a dick? A notable member of human society? The first survivor of late stage Jackass Cancer?"
"At some point, I think I'll be a better human being," I said. "Maybe. Perhaps in the next section of my life. All the really good Bad Boy Memoirs have the redemption part. And if I don't manage to turn it around, then there's the death bed confession route."
"How are you going to write a memoir that includes your own death bed confession?"
"Would you stop nitpicking? You're my friend, you need to be constructive."
"Is that how friendship works?" said Bruce, measuring out the sarcasm slowly. "Because that's a revelation. Can I borrow your pad? I need to write this down. 'Constructive and not nitpicking at all.' It's such an alien concept. Someone should use a time machine to send that memo to us in high school. Particularly you. In fact, when I say 'us', I actually mean just you."
"Just look at what I wrote the other day."
"It looks like chicken scratch," he said.
I rolled my eyes. "It's not chicken scratch. In fact, when have you ever been around live chickens?"
He looked at it again, his expression thoughtful. "Okay, maybe it's the writing of a particularly neat chicken... who is also mentally disabled."
"Y'know, guess what? I'm writing a new
section," I said, grabbing legal pad and pen. "Oh look at this that I'm writing right here." I turned the page so he could read it as I wrote.
Bruce is a douchebag. Underline. UNDERLINE.
Maybe for your benefit, dear reader, I should revisit the reason why I started writing this memoir. I mentioned a few reasons for why I started writing, but none are true. Not even the reasons I gave Bruce. I'm not sure my life is in actual need of redemption. I've never been a paragon of virtue, but also I probably overestimate my own selfishness in some of these narratives. Ultimately, the decision to write came down to boredom. I'm stuck in this hospital with nothing to do but watch my medical bills skyrocket. So writing was something productive and somehow soothing.
I'm lucky I didn’t hurt my writing hand, my right hand. Otherwise I’d have to learn to write with my left hand. My natural handwriting is already atrocious. Not quite the chicken scratch Bruce would suggest, but it has been affectionately called “the handwriting of a mad child.” If I had to learn to write with my left hand I'd expect the writing to be completely unreadable. But I've admittedly never tried to use it. I could be shocked to find that it naturally writes in a flowery cursive better suited for the illumination of manuscripts.
I doubt it.
When Bruce finally read one of my entries (a section which comes later), he pointed out that it wasn’t exactly true (his actual wording was much harsher and more dismissive, I have kindly cleaned it up for you). I scoffed at his disbelief. I told him I clearly remembered it that way. He shook his head and said something under his breath about a concussion, but then smiled at me patronizingly.
I freely admit to embellishment, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. People, particularly authors, lie all the time. You do it, I do it. Before you begin to pick up a stone to throw, I highly suggest you examine your own recollections of events to friends. We all embellish. We all edit. We always add in subjective changes when we recount the experience to others. For example, we might remove unrelated events or aspects to focus things to what we're trying to explain. We may skip over time or speed things up. We may simplify to make the story quicker or the point more clear. We might go off on relevant tangents. And as we all should admit, sometimes we change the details for our audience. Sometimes we change details to make ourselves look better in the retelling. Other times, we might make ourselves look worse to get sympathy. But we never quite tell a story as it actually happened.
In truth, I am doing nothing different. I'm just doing it on a much larger scale. A good story should entertain; I'm just making sure that this story is really entertaining. Go big or go home. I am stuck in a hospital; going home is not an option just yet.
I am hardly the first to do this and will not be the last. Besides those that we know are definitely untrue, some of history's greatest storytellers and historians may be complete liars. History is written by the victors and stories last because they are remembered, retold, and enjoyed.
I've always had a great fascination with Baron Munchausen. In the eighteenth century, a German nobleman went to war and returned with all sorts of stories of his adventures, as well as some general tall tales, some of which got mixed together. While the average listener knew the Baron was doing some fond exaggeration, the stories got remembered and retold. Retelling always involves some embellishment at the liberty of the storyteller. Over time, the embellishments got worse, additional stories were added, new wrinkles, new characters, new points were all combined to help the story. Eventually there were all sorts of adventures attributed to the Baron, far different than the stories he told. It reached such an extreme within his lifetime that he was sometimes called the Baron of Lies (a name Munchausen himself did not embrace).
Other men went to war, just like the Baron. They brought home stories too. Likely most of their stories were true. Where are their stories? Centuries later we remember the Baron of Lies, but none of those other men. We remember the Baron, whose story is still getting retold in books and movies. We've even named a mental disease after him. Truth dropped by the wayside in the face of pure human entertainment and collective memory. Of men who time remembered, the liar prevailed. That's something to think about.
You may ask if this memoir is true. Am I lying to you in my chicken scratch, in my words, my recollections, and my adventures? Dear Reader, of course I am not. This is a memoir, and memoirs possess truth in some form. That's important. For all the falsehoods and half-truths, this memoir is absolutely and positively true in its heart. So when I smile and tell you it's all true, believe me, Dear Reader, it's all true.
Would I lie to you?
Becky & Zeppo
The second of my friends visited me a few days later. Becky had also tried to visit me in the hospital before I awoke. She had visited me the morning after the accident. She had already been in the hospital for a gash on her cheek ("That crazy bitch Deborah had some wickedly sharp rings on her hand!") which luckily ended up not needing stitches. She said that I actually was partially conscious when she visited, but I was definitely not lucid. She said I just kept mumbling something about Cocoa Puffs and shaking my head. Once it stopped being hilarious, she had gone home.
I've known Becky since college. She's actually calmed down a lot since then. She was particularly... aggressive in college, so her current personality is actually somewhat even handed in comparison. I still had to wonder if she was going to punch me in the arm as a hello, and this is while I was in a hospital bed with a leg in traction. I sometimes wonder if she sees throwing a punch as some sort of social exchange. If she were male, I would expect her to chest bump good friends as a greeting. But since she is female and also quite well-endowed in the chest, I could see why that would be awkward and how men would soon find that awkwardness leading to them being the victims of more punching.
She did not punch me in the arm, but her hug was still quite bearish and firm. She had a brown scab on her cheek from the wound, which looked like it was healing quite well. For a moment I looked to see if she had other bruises, but her arms were covered in multicolored tattoo sleeves that obscured all bruises.
"I fucked that bitch up," she said with a smile, referring to Deborah. Becky was sitting on the bed writing dirty words on my leg cast where I could not reach to cross them out. "I respect her willingness to fight for what's her's, but her mouth was making checks her fists couldn't cash."
"I don't really think I want to talk -" I started, but she talked right over me.
"I'm sure she could have won versus some random girl, maybe someone who went to the gym and thought they were badass for doing yoga. But not me. She should have known she was outclassed."
She put the cap on the pen and put it on my side table. "Oh, I almost forgot!" she said. She punched me in the arm. Sometimes there is no escape from the inevitable.
"Ow! Why so much harder than usual?" I said.
"That's for sneaking out. If you call me to fight for you, you stay until the end. You gotta have my back."
"Well, I didn't call you for a fight," I said. "I just hoped that the threat of the fight would have been enough. Then we'd leave and the first round would have been on me."
"So you expected you could have me confront someone and it not end up a fight?"
I opened my mouth to say something, but she then tilted her head and raised her eyebrow. I closed my mouth.
"That's what I thought," she said. "Still, not a bad fight. I'd be harder on you, but I see whatever powers that be made sure you got what was coming to you for doing that." She tapped the cast on my leg.
"I really think this is unrelated to my behavior," I said weakly.
"Karma's a bitch. Protest all you want, but things come back to you."
I sighed. I still prefer to think there was some other cosmic reason for my accident. Or just blind chance. Wrong place at the wrong time. Definitely not karma.
"Oh, I saw your brother the last time I was here," said Becky "You were out of it, so I doubt you saw him.
I noticed him in the hall and was gonna let him know what the doctor said, but he must not have heard me."
"My brother?" I said, confused. "None of my brothers live anywhere near here. They're states away." How could one be here just hours after the accident? Nobody could have notified them.
"Musta been," she said. "Looked just like you. I did not realize you looked so much like your family."
I frowned. That sounded very, very wrong. I suddenly felt very cold and knew I should mention this to Bruce. Becky didn't know my brothers, but Bruce did. And Bruce knew about the other matter. More on that later.
April, 1986 - Long Island, New York
I only have three brothers, but when I was very young, I told people I had four brothers. They would point out that my parents had four children and I was not counting myself. Being young, impressionable, imaginative, and probably quite confused, I did not want to chalk up my mistake to mere mathematical miscalculation. I instead believed I had a fourth brother, one that people either did not know or simply did not talk about.
I imagined various facts about this fourth brother. No matter what I thought of, the fact was true instantly and retroactively. During the summer, he made extra money by working at the small concession stand at the local pool selling ice cream. I imagined that some of the girls there had crushes on him, since he was cool and aloof in the concession stand. Sometimes he would bring me home packets of Fun-Dip that he bought at the end of his shift with his discount. I'd be sitting cross-legged watching TV, and he'd walk by, ruffle my hair, and then toss the candy in my lap. His grin said, "Here you go, kiddo." Then as I dug my greedy little paws into my overly-sugary treat, he would wander off the unwind after work, listening to prog rock albums on oversized hi-fi headphones.
Damned Lies! Page 3