Brainstorm

by Robert Wintner

  Yet I turn a corner to see a three hundred pound woman in a dress, ogling a whirlpool bath that she would fit into about as neatly as a hippo in a salad bowl. I don’t begrudge her fantasy, but I see her as microcosm of our culture. She stares longingly at the whirlpool bath, gently plucking three sausage snack samples from the nearby server. The fancy tub is molded with lion’s feet in the corners and sits three steps up on a display covered in fake marble to look like a Roman bath.

  Did the Romans have snack samples at the ends of the aisles?

  I think the world and my wife are dying, and that I may survive to a void—not a lovely void but a clutter of humanity short on hope or beauty. Maybe nature is bent on displacing bad thoughts. My first coffee since the crisis quickly swells my bladder. My eyes feel yellow. I have to piss like two cows on the same rock. I have to piss like a hydrant. I have to piss now.

  And there is the toilet display. I pick a very fancy model in Forest Pine Mint, meaning green. Forest Pine Mint? Who is calling whom irrational? I think reality is changing its nature and I’m failing to adapt. Or am I? I drop my fly for a whiz. Looking natural keeps unwanted attention at a minimum. So I turn my back on the passing parade in its ebb and flow and look up, like I’m reading the sports page that is often tacked up over the urinals in some of your better bars and bistros.

  Like all toilets in the display, this Forest Mint Pine model is unplumbed and will soon lead to another flow, call it Lemon Sunrise, or Double Tall Latte Piss. I can hear a few gawkers whispering gruffly, just as I image athletes hear isolated voices in the roar of the crowd—“Look at that man!” They sound rote and predictable part of the Home Improvement World without end. I doubt that my particular drummer is keeping a better beat and know I should stop, but pissing on the floor seems perfectly responsive to the mistreatment and neglect coming our way. The cats would have pissed in my shoes or dropped a load on the floor to prove a similar point. I feel felinely aligned if not justified; so bladder muscles get the OK from HQ, and even as I regret what we’ve come to, I ease on, because I’m more disgusted than most.

  But a hand grasps my arm—gently against precision aim. It’s connected to a white sleeve and on up to an orange vest and smiling old guy, who says, “Come on. We have one that works much better right over here.” I feel compromised yet again, but he’s so straightforward and simply communicative that I follow him mere paces to the men’s room, where a solid whiz lets me rejoin the reasonable world.

  The Home Improvement man waits at the door and tells me to have a great rest-of-your-day, as if whackos and wingnuts cuing up to display toilets are just another Tuesday around here. I nod in feeble assurance and tell him that I feel greatly relieved. “You guys promote full service so effectively that I believed it, and it’s true.” I head out feeling Home Improvement satisfaction as only a two-minute piss can provide.

  I feel better about the rough treatment by a rigid society and would go back to tell him how his good deed helped my outlook. He watches, maybe looking out for a compulsive #2, and I realize as well that society is neither merciful nor repugnant but practical, sometimes to a fault. Me too. Fuck it. I exit south-southeast.

  On aisle 61 I miraculously find ¾” pipe in four-foot lengths, which suggests spiritual guidance in a benignly indifferent world. The pipe is a solution to what ails us for now.

  Four more friendly clerks in orange vests come around the far corner off aisle 17, which abuts aisle 37—go figure—adjacent to rough plumbing. They look intent, so I veer south, feeling like a dead-to-rights perp cruising conspicuously slowly in a White Bronco. At Customer Service a woman glances up, so I raise the pipe and put two twenties on the counter. “I don’t have time for this.” Her friendly smile is on the verge of advising a nice day, but she senses something amiss. In ten more paces I’m out.

  Walking briskly to the car, I hear a voice in the distance, “Hey!” I can’t be sure it’s aimed at me and besides, hay is for horses. I learned that in third grade. I close the door in a flush of excitement—an odd blend of victory and guilt, like I’ve done something wrong and got away with it.

  Molly and Dino are very happy that I’ve returned in a few minutes instead of seven hours. They whine and wag their tails and want to know if I brought them any biscuits. I promise them biscuits and a tad more anarchy at home as I gaze at them in another realization that anarchy has devolved to confusion. Where is my representative who’ll take over in this time of dementia? Molly and Dino don’t like such reflection, so they whine and lick and whine some more, taking over in their way.

  The car fits right in, bonging higher decibels, flashing on the dash now as well as on the handy console data panel, insisting that I get professional help or face the reaper. I love ignoring it.

  We speed home, and in another hour the gate is back up. It will make do for another week. In the meantime, Sandy left a message that yes, she’s available. I call back, and she comes over. We review the drill, and in minutes I’m back on board the ferry for the ride across Puget Sound, quickly falling asleep.

  My nap is deep but brief. In only minutes it’s another rugged waking, another bonging and flashing in the traffic weave, back to Intensive Care. Rachel looks resentful, angry and pained. “Do you know what they did to me?”

  “I do. I would give anything to have them do it to me instead.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Yes, well. Tell me what you want me to do. I’ll do it.” She wants me to take her home. I feel like a politician, assuring her the home front is secure, the house sitter in place. She says again she’s not sure she wants to do this.

  I’m spared further dialogue by the curtain opening on Goldfarb again. “Hello. Is this a good time?” Rachel closes her eyes. I can’t believe his gall. He makes pissing on the floor seem like child’s play. He wants to assure us that he’s reviewed our very special needs with the team, and all parties involved agree that two signatures on the consent form will serve everyone’s best interest. I tell him that we’re resting now. It’s not a good time. We’re trying to conduct a nap here. If he could give us, say, a week and a half?

  “He’s not writing anything,” Rachel says.

  “We want this to be a family involvement. That way you won’t be alone.”

  “I’m not having surgery,” she says.

  “Not having surgery? You must.”

  She shakes her head. “That’s not what they said at the store.”

  Goldfarb loves the volley with an apparent handicap on the other side of the net. “You’re not fluent!” he trumpets. “You must have surgery. And you both must sign.”

  “Dr. Goldfarb. She’s fluent. She’s not lucid. Never has been. You want lucid; you talk to me. But not now. Now we really must invite you to leave.” Goldfarb is troubled. “I’m afraid we’ll have to insist.”

  Goldfarb doesn’t need the hostility, and neither do I. Fortunately, into the tension steps the neurosurgeon. “Do we have the consent?” he asks. “What’s the delay?” He looks at me. “Do you want to proceed or not? We’re very busy.”

  I take the consent form from Goldfarb. “We want to proceed. Rachel, sign this please.”

  “What does it say?”

  “It says you’re fully informed on the possibility of mortality and morbidity, and you won’t sue.”

  “Am I?”

  I smile at her. “Yes. You am.”

  She signs. I address the surgeon. “We’ve had a meeting of the minds for a while now, Doctor Lawrence. Goldfarb here seems hell bent on a pissing contest, but if it’s all the same to you, we’re feeling the need for some peace and quiet while we wait for surgery.”

  The neurosurgeon takes the consent with a nod. I have not signed. “Best we get on with it,” he says.

  “I agree.”

  Goldfarb leaves. The neurosurgeon has the angiogram negative with him for review with us. This is not customary, but I learn that in my absence Rachel has threatened to leave again if she can’t see the
negative and see her name on it and have it explained by the man who proposes to penetrate her skull and probe her brain. I’ve always known that her social skills outpace my own, and I’m frankly relieved that she’s sharing the burden here.

  Dr. Lawrence explains, pointing out the primary vessels and bifurcations. The aneurysm dangles like a bloated grub, obviously out of synch in nature’s arabesque of vessels in a gossamer-like web that feeds the brain. We are further instructed on the insight gained by angiogram, which is a clear view of the vessel network. The view of the veins is unencumbered by the clot, thanks to the angiogram. We are told the aneurysm is bigger than anticipated; these things are rated technically as small, moderate, large and huge. This one is huge, a veritable mystery of nature, to stretch so far and not burst but only leak. It’s nine millimeters long, five millimeters wide.

  It’s been there for years, possibly since birth. I want to tell Dr. Lawrence that the long-term nature of the thing was my initial hunch, contrary to that of young Dr. Michael, but I stay mum. “You see how the aneurysm dangles forward and slightly in? That means it bled into the space around the brain. If it dangled forty degrees the other way, it would have bled into the brain, causing instant death.”

  “How much of my head will you cut off?”

  He looks dismayed. “She means hair.”

  He smiles. “I’ll do my best. I promise. I’ll cut as little as possible. But we must cut some.”

  “Can I pull it over to the other side and hold it with a beret. Or tie it with a rubber band?”

  “No berets or rubber bands in the OR. You’ll have to trust me.”

  “Show me again where you’ll cut me.”

  Again he drags his finger from behind the part in her hair, around and down. “About nine inches,” he says. But he sees the downward spiral in this line of questioning, so he gives us good news; the aneurysm, though large, appears to be a single weak spot in the cell wall and not a cluster. A compromised bifurcation often appears with smaller bubbles off the vessel wall with a bleeding aneurysm. When these occur, they must also be fixed as long as the brain is exposed, which adds complexity and several more paragraphs of disclosure on the statistical history of mortality and morbidity during surgery. We have been spared the smaller bubbles, however.

  “You mean they can be like rhoids?”

  “Like what?”

  “Hemorrhoids. You know how they want to bunch up on you once they get started?”

  “Not exactly. But if that helps you, then yes.”

  Why not like rhoids? I think it’s exactly like rhoids. Never mind. We’re signed off and won’t be disturbed between now and then. Lawrence of Neurology turns away with a smile over his shoulder. “You can eat tonight. Not tomorrow. Not too spicy. You’re on the dietitian’s rounds for dinner. They’ll be by in a little while.”

  7

  The Gift of the Ages

  It’s not for nothing that hospitals are known for bad food. Still, you hope it’s only a joke, but then you know it’s not when the dietitian arrives with the evening shmush. She’s a roly-poly, jolly lass who appears to do the tasting and spend her days off at FoodCo buying in bulk. She delivers this meal in person to introduce herself. Dinner is two slices of white bread smashed under a fillet of sole, meaning shoe sole dba “prime rib.” The assemblage is drowned in cream gravy with a lightly congealed skin.

  I laugh. I know I shouldn’t, but it’s a blessing, the laughter. The sight, scent and sound of it (“Oh, God . . .”) make this a wonder to behold. Rachel minds her manners but tells the dietitian, “I don’t eat meat.”

  “Aw-hall right then. That’s why I’m here, to make sure everything is just how you like it. Vegetarian. Okay. Do you eat dairy products?”

  “Yes. And fish and chicken are all right.”

  “Okey dokey. I’ll take care of that.” The dietician takes her leave, leaving us to hunt or gather dinner for ourselves. Maybe it’s a good night for a continuing fast. Or maybe Rachel will get hungry enough to eat what she’s been served.

  I check the rest of dinner, which is green gelatin, coffee and four slabs of butter. “And no coffee,” I yell. “And low fat!” Too late. The dietitian is gone to see that tomorrow turns out better.

  “I haven’t eaten in three days,” Rachel says. I agree, though it’s really only two days. What does she want? Nothing is what she wants. But that’s not such a good idea.

  Why not?

  Well, because it’s good to have something to eat before they slice your melon open. This I don’t say, because the curtain opens again on a cheery face and a happy voice along with bright eyes and good posture. I hope for the best but I brace for goo goo morbidity talk or more extraneous blather.

  “Hel-lo. I’m Leah, your new nurse. I only have one other patient tonight, but he might need me fairly regular. He’s a little guy, banged his head pretty badly.”

  “Still no vacancy in neurology ICU?”

  “No. We bring the kids here anyway, no matter what their injury. Did you get dinner?”

  “Well. Yes and no,” I say. Leah understands; she saw it. I ask where is good for take out, nearby. She says the Thai place a mile down is good. Rachel likes the idea, but wants it simple, maybe some noodles, maybe some . . . pineapple. No, not pineapple, some . . . What do you call it?

  Tofu?

  Yes, tofu. Not too spicy. Leah assures us this place has good tofu. She feels like a lucky draw; she’s so normal, yet I wonder why she would choose a life of days and nights in this place.

  It’s dark outside, wet and windy, and the medivac helicopter is grinding to earth again from somewhere in five states, delivering another trauma victim. I lean into the slanting rain and cinders and feel the little stings bouncing off the numbness of days and nights of no sleep and no beer.

  I find the Thai place and order thirty bucks worth of this and that and a beer, right now if you don’t mind. The Thai fellow at the cash register watches me inhale the beer. I wonder if my color improves as I return marginally to where I once belonged. He shags another without being asked, pops the top and says, “Slow down. Plenty time.” I obey, drinking the second one. It gives me goose bumps, perhaps relieving a minor withdrawal or filling a fundamental need or taking the edge off or taking whatever form fulfillment needs to take. It tastes like a consolation, like a gift from nature. I finish when the groceries arrive, and the man says, “You like one more?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth I think I might.”

  He shags a brown bag and puts the beer inside. “Must not open for you to take out.”

  “I understand.” I’ve already paid, but when I go to pay for this one, he pops the top and waves me off. I am taken by small kindness in my time of need. Sure, I gave him thirty bucks for some noodles and tofu and a half-dozen shrimp, but still. I walk back to the car through teeming throngs of alternate-sexual-preference kids with rings, pins, staples, and cotter keys piercing their faces. I feel their pain and wonder if mine shows.

  I feel better on my return, though it’s after eight. Visiting hours are over, so I must walk in the wind and rain around the complex to the night entrance, where security is tighter than at the UN. I am interrogated, scanned, frisked and finally approved.

  Up in the ICU Rachel is napping but opens her eyes and says, “I can smell it.” She opens a box ravenously, eats four bites then lays back and sighs.

  “That’s it?”

  “I’m full. I haven’t eaten in days.”

  I haven’t either. Nor am I the beneficiary of several gallons of electrolytes through four IV tubes. I eat. But I too fill quickly. And I tire. I watch her drift off, and I ease on back in the chair, apparently undetected on the ICU. We sleep.

  I awaken in the night in a pleasant drift with no coordinates; with no intersect on the space/time continuum. I am nobody on an extended visit to nowhere. Momentarily lost and free-floating, I’m quickly found. Compression wakens me to the density of earthly mass closing in. Flashing lights, beeps an
d the wail of humans remind me of vital function run amok.

  We are in a hospital, Intensive Care. My neck is so stiff I must sit up slowly. I have to whiz so badly I must slowly stand. I wish for a mint julep raspberry daiquiri toilet display in the hall, and I laugh. But I stop, because I really have to whiz, and because I must keep my suburban adventure to myself or get yelled at. This I know, ducking behind the curtain to the commode. Nurse Leah is changing occluded quart bottles, meaning empty, when I emerge, refreshed. “You were sleeping pretty hard,” she says. “You guys have been up a few days, huh?”

  I nod. “I’m breaking the rules, being here, aren’t I?”

  “Nah. You can leave whenever you’re ready. It doesn’t matter. I think you’ll be better off tomorrow if you can get some sleep though.” I love her; her language and demeanor are so reasonable and understanding. Or maybe she simply knows how to handle a customer like me. Either way is okay.

  From deep in her covers, Rachel asks, “Am I still on for eleven?”

  “Yes, you are. But time doesn’t mean anything here. Everyone gets bumped. But I know they’ll get you in there at some point tomorrow.”

  “How do you know?” I ask.

  With a tight-lipped smile she says, “You’re at sixty hours.”

  “You mean . . .”

  She nods. “Since the bleed. That’s very important.” She touches me. “Get some rest. I’ll take good care of your sweetie.”

  “They won’t let me wash my head when it’s done, will they?” Rachel is up from the covers now, perhaps sensing the goal line.

  “No. But I’ll tell you what; we’ll wash it in the morning. Okay?”

  “You’ll help me?”

  “You bet I will.”

  Rachel rolls over and softly says, “They want to cut it off.”

  Leah bends beside her and says, “I know how you feel. I know what it’s like for you two. They don’t know what to make of you.”