Brainstorm

by Robert Wintner

  Copyright © 2015 by Robert Wintner

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Yucca Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Yucca Publishing

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63158-020-8

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63158-024-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Carol Kato, who often sees the picture

  CONTENTS

  Author’s Note

  Prologue: Comfort Can Fool You

  1 Before Love Came to Town

  2 Happily Ever After

  3 Will You Get Away From Me? Just Get the Fuck Away!

  4 Doogie Howser

  5 An Exercise in Faith

  6 You’re Doing So Many Things to Upset Us

  7 The Gift of the Ages

  8 The Angels Sing

  9 Time for Service!

  10 Stuck in the Valley

  11 Free at Last

  Author’s Note

  A trepan is a hole saw, and trepanation is the process of making a burr hole in the skull to treat disease or relieve pressure. Evidence of trepanation occurs through the ages, back to Neolithic times, as a likely remedy for epilepsy, migraines and mental disorders.

  Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch depicted trepanation in his painting The Extraction of the Stone of Madness in about 1500, showing a patient sitting clothed in a chair as the physician operates.

  Nautical author Patrick O’Brian had Dr. Stephen Maturin, particular friend of Captain Jack Aubrey (the Master and Commander series), perform the procedure on deck in similar fashion. Today’s craniotomy is similar, though significantly sanitized.

  The American Medical Association estimates about 3% of the general population to have cerebral aneurysm that may or may not leak (hemorrhage). The age group at highest risk is forty to forty-nine. Fifty to fifty-nine is second highest risk. Sixty and over is relatively low risk. This narrative is based on actual events. The names have been changed to discourage the litigants.

  —RW

  Prologue

  Comfort Can Fool You

  I see people walking down the street, talking on cell phones, or standing in doorways, talking to themselves. They reflect a mirror universe, where others are listening, and it feels like we function as a collective community, on both sides of the reflective surface. But mirror universe imagery complicates a simple idea; these people mumbling at cell phones and themselves are connected only to more of the same.

  Some people pre-empt the suburban noise pattern with electronic devices clipped to their belts or strapped to their biceps, with wires dangling from tiny earphones. I feel alien and alone in an overbuilt, disconnected world. Even a beer tastes bitter, perhaps fouled by the TV overhead, where a woman bemoans “the mental welfare of our children.” Mentally and physically deficient, she says, today’s kids melt down in the formative years, one hour to the next in electronic interplay. This growing, obsessive pastime among the children might ensure a good supply of pilots for flight simulation, but these kids pant too easily and can’t form a sentence without stumbling. They’ve plugged themselves in like lamps, but the bulb is dim.

  I want this TV off, so I can drink my beer in solace, but the bartender is gone. Rachel should have called if she was running late. I always call her if I’m running late. So I ring her up.

  “Hello.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I . . . coming,” she says, cell-phone fuzzy.

  “Tonight?”

  “Yeah. I . . . coming.”

  Oh, boy, I hear the slosh. “Look, I’ll just—”

  “I’m coming now.” She hangs up. I wouldn’t mind this pub if I could get another beer. How often do I relax like this? I think they have bars like this in hell, with overbearing TVs and you can’t get served. How about a sports bar in hell where you can’t get served with nothing on but golf? Where it smells like old grease and rancid bar snacks, and mortal sinners eternally suffer a guy three seats down in a tiny headset listening to the Beatles’ version of Twist and Shout, with the music blaring loud enough from the little earplugs to compete with the overhead TV.

  How can his brain withstand the sonic boom? He probably doesn’t know that the Beatles did Twist and Shout second-hand, after the Isley Brothers did it first, nor is he likely to care. He probably thinks Aretha Franklin was first with Respect; he may not even know Otis Redding, much less the original Respect. The originals seem better, purer and closer to the source. But I also think that harking back to the olden days may indicate premature-codger syndrome. Or maybe it’s time. I think the Isleys and Otis harked back bitterly, and so did Little Richard when Pat Boone poured marshmallow topping all over Tutti Fruity. I think Gladys Knight and the Pips got marginalized on Heard It Through the Grapevine, but the kids went gaga for Marvin Gaye because he had better promo. Well, at least I’m not all that bitter.

  But I sense a collective consciousness verging precipitously on group mentality. Our social standards appear to be scrubbed daily by the overhead TVs of the world; reality alters as a function of ratings. Ratings are bought with huge ad budgets by media conglomerates that own the “artistic” material. It’s all fair and balanced with an appropriate disclaimer. Enough people watching a thing proves the validity of the thing, just as a double-blind experiment proves a theory, kind of, and presto, a market is made. Homogenized airwaves make the world safe for those truths deemed self-evident by the largest advertisers.

  I reach over the bar for the remote and surf to CNN, where a woman says flooding in Mozambique has caused gross human casualty. She is distraught and makes no mention of the clear-cutting that caused these floods, nor does she estimate prospects for watershed rejuvenation or reef recovery. Some of those humans could have been friends of mine in other circumstances, but I do believe the world will require misfortune in gradually building waves, so that the little light might shine again. What a relief to Mozambique, now that the worst is over.

  Next comes Burger King on a blues riff, Toyotas with funk and soul and the show biz segment, reporting on bottom-line gross revenues on what defines our culture in Hollywood terms. The fellow down the bar shakes his head and warbles in a falsetto, “Wooo!” He grins for the boogie muse and me. I don’t think the Isleys or Otis or Gladys Knight or the Pips or Little Richard would care if this guy never heard of them. Maybe they stayed happy in their art, which was different then, more a part of their lives and a reflection of their souls, as the soul genre implied, rather than a computed calculation of notes and lyrics to maximize market yield. I tell the guy down the bar, “The Isleys did it better.”

  “What?” He mouths the question. I shake my head. Never mind. Then again, the Isley guys did Long Tall Sally and Stagger Lee, neither one original for them. It was . . . I don’t know. Who did those, Long Tall Sally and Stagger Lee? Well, maybe I’m altogether wrong.

  On the TV overhead a man in a pastel suit sincerely assures that no one should accept erectile dysfunction. The fello
w three seats down pulls his plugs. “What?”

  “The Isleys did it better.”

  “Want another?” The bartender asks on returning.

  I smile and walk out. My ride is here.

  Rachel might be drunk, but she smiles brightly. She often calls us the odd couple; she’s so tolerant and understanding.

  1

  Before Love Came to Town

  We met at the dog pound on Maui, Rachel and I, on a warm, sunny day. With my new house finally finished, the debris hauled off and the grass cut, a dog or two seemed in order. After all, it was a farm in the tropics; it needed some good dogs. I had many things to do that day, but then coming around the last curve out of town on the way home, the dog pound stood out like an idea with right timing. If not now, when? On impulse I pulled in.

  Two women worked the place with oddly differing airs about them. The front counter woman had enhanced her womanly wares till they resounded with sexuality, visibility, cleavability, availability and, just like two rolls of plump, fresh Charmin, squeezability. Of course I dasn’t, but the presentation was compelling, immobilizing me in the decision-making process. But I did decide in a blink, after all, because a man knows that a stupendous rack will not endure like true love. But I get ahead of myself; love was not yet on the table. I savored the dazzling display like a chocoholic scanning a sampler, wondering what would be better, the creamy nougat center or the crushed nuts.

  Supremely suggestive, her form-fit denim presented a leggy foundation on a perfect ass with excellent lift and spread, leading up to an incredible front framed in lace and loosely covered by a man’s shirt tied at the waist but straining at the braces and yearning to be free. I could have pulled the slipknot one-handed. But she glared as if at a man-dog in need of a muzzle. That glare also felt practiced and formidable. I wasn’t her type. Or maybe she wanted a pursuit. Her lustrous dark hair starkly contrasted with her pale, chiseled face, like the frustrated queen in Snow White. She knew that any mirror would tell her what all men have in mind. Her waist was narrow as the evil queen’s, her curvature more inspirational, beyond Disney into Crumb. I asked how things were going today at the dog pound.

  “This isn’t a dog pound!” she said. “We don’t like that kind of talk. It’s an animal shelter.”

  “My mistake.” She returned to her work, ignoring me.

  She was not Rachel. But there on the steps to the side stood a woman of more soothing profile, who was. Her natural features allured like an oasis on a tundra. She asked, “Are you looking for a companion today?” Long blonde hair framed her sparkling green eyes.

  “Yes. I am.” She brightened, assuring me that we could get through this with patience and understanding, and then everyone would be better off, especially the lucky pooch. “Two companions, in fact. Dogs. I have a cat.”

  “Two dogs? You want two?”

  “I travel sometimes. They’re not like cats, you know. They get depressed. If I have two, they can keep each other company when I’m gone. Can’t they?”

  “Well. Yes. Maybe you could get one today and see how that works out.”

  “Nah. I’m busy. And I’m good with dogs and cats. Don’t worry. I spoil ‘em rotten. I treat them like people. Well, better, actually.” She smiled at my sophistry and led the way. I thought I’d done well. She told me for years afterward that I made a bigger impression than any man at the dog pound in a long time, because I wanted two. She knew then that I was special. What a woman. She showed me the old dogs, the young and middle-aged dogs. I picked two and took them home.

  She seemed nice enough but hardly for me; too nice and conventional in a married sort of way. Her subtle anxiety may have been nothing but high energy, but it still felt contagious and different from my usual composure. She infused the scene with tension, like it was a pictorial from House and Garden, with chitchat and niceties between a single-minded bachelor and a woman wallowing in disappointment. It wasn’t for me. Neither was the hard body up front, who seemed more like a centerfold from Soldier of Fortune.

  A month later we met by chance in the grocery, Rachel and I. We recognized each other immediately, and she asked how the dogs were doing. They were doing fine, naturally. We talked dogs for a while, until I thought, singularly, why not? So I asked, “Hey. Do you want to get together for a bottle of wine?”

  “A bottle?” Maybe I pressed, but I wanted to drink a bottle of wine with her so we could get decently buzzed and then screw. Is that unreasonable? No, but she faltered.

  So I said, “Next week, maybe. I’ll talk to you then.” It seemed perfunctory and dismissive, like it would never happen. But then it did, the puzzle parts sliding into place when least expected.

  For starters, she was married—not truly married but legally married, not yet divorced. I read her well enough; her guileless uncertainty gave her away. Then again, she likely read me too and wanted some wiggle room in proximity to the wolverine hunger before her. She looked away and blushed with her own mumble that maybe, I suppose, sometime, I guess, sure. I let it go. If she knocked on my door I’d offer the wine.

  Another two weeks went by till I rang her up one empty afternoon to see if she wanted to take in an early movie. Well, I guess, okay, she said. I don’t know why people go to movies on dates when all you do is sit in the dark for two hours beside someone you don’t know any better when the credits come up. I took her home, her home, and pulled up so she could get out, because I knew she wouldn’t come home with me, not on a first date. She was too classy, with a dress and lipstick and shoes and a cashmere sweater. Besides, I was too tired for the talking and feigned interest and more drinks way past cocktail hour. So I said good night; I had a great time and maybe again soon or something or other. She agreed and leaned over like it was 1962, and we kissed for a few seconds there on the front seat, and my skin went tight and my pulse kicked up, and I wondered where the hell that came from.

  We went out the following week to dinner. She wore another dress, a warm-weather number in red-orange with shoulder straps and snug hips. Afterward, outside the restaurant, we stood talking to a parrot on a perch. Her thigh brushed mine, and it happened again, the electricity out of nowhere. We didn’t screw for another two months simply because I knew she wouldn’t. Her? Screw me? Get outta here. But then of course we did, because you must, unless you’re in a monastery, where it can often take longer.

  She didn’t come out and tell me she was married, but I knew it from the real house and real furniture and grown-up things and the way she prepared dinner and her presentation of everything. She reeked of stability then stumbled with its opposite. Her marriage had failed but not her faith in all good things. Still she saw herself as a woman whose marriage had failed and lugged that baggage with guilt, compensating for her deficiencies, as if they were proven and must be balanced. She loved her job at the dog pound more than anything she’d ever done, because she could save cats and dogs daily by simply taking the time to find an owner or a new home for another soul so eminently adoptable. I sensed that the dogs and cats were a blessed object of her giving, her penance. I came to learn that the giving would remain compulsive, part of her character. Beyond that, the animals returned her love, which she’d been a long time without.

  She rarely failed the cats and dogs and broke the rules on maximum stay at the dog pound, many times drawing the line against the time that those animals most lovable would have been led down the one-way hall to the long sleep. She would not allow them to be put down. When the kennels overflowed, she brought them home, sometimes three or five of them, old or young ones or any who asked for a break, just this once. She got them out of the pound to gain more time to find them homes. But her halfway house efforts went past compensation for anything and required no return; this was pure love. In the meantime the orphans she brought home got along more or less with her three dogs. The problem, she confided, was that she could not stay on at the dog pound indefinitely, because of the shortfall, about a grand a month between expenses a
nd income. We had popcorn and beer in her kitchen on another evening a few months into our liaison. She seemed pleased that I took the time and effort to come over, and she didn’t mind that it was ten-fifteen, after Aikido class, which had been my libido transfer for years. Now I got to transfer and eat it too, with popcorn and beer.

  I remember that particular evening, because she revealed doubts on the future. I admired her by then, because many residents in a resort community wait tables or clean rooms or bell hop or sell real estate or otherwise serve the guests. No matter how much you might appreciate good service, none of it warms the heart and soul like service to the animals. Here was a woman worth pondering; saving those I loved the most.

  Our dialogue then was like that first kiss. I stood back, out-of-body as it were, scenes of naked abandon only minutes away in my mind, and I heard myself say, “Yes, well, don’t you worry. Now you have me to take care of you.” I won’t call it a psychedelic experience, but I watched the words flow out as if spoken by another self. I didn’t believe them, didn’t want to take care of her or anyone. I wanted sex and fun. Caring for another seemed marginally possible but hardly likely for me. Still, it seemed the thing to say because she was, after all, quite a date.

  Such base assessment may seem harsh, but the truth often is, and I don’t recall these drives—the lust and the nurture—as opposing. What romp is ever better than with one who cares? I have nice manners when I’m not hostile. Nor do I judge myself or seek judgment. I record what happened to more clearly understand what happened next. Which wasn’t much, except for the romps and more fun than most people could ever anticipate. We went to Thailand and Malaysia, Mexico and Europe, San Francisco and Seattle. We rode the train to Vancouver and smoked hash in Amsterdam and rode another train through the Alps and walked past Chris Columbus’s house in Genoa. We hiked fifteen miles across the volcanic crater at the top of Haleakala and slept there under the stars with a decent zinfandel.