Brainstorm

by Robert Wintner

  I move into the crowd swarming my mate. They prep for incisions, stick new lines into her legs, add a couple to the gang valve in her neck, then pull her hair aside and glop the antiseptic. They roll her to one side and hike her jammies. Goose bumps rise on her ass, and she trembles, but a monotone voice issues assurance that this exposure is necessary for the spinal taps. We’ll have two, to draw just a liiitle bit of spinal fluid, hardly a pint off the top to reduce cranial pressure, just in case, you know.

  They don’t stop but move quick and efficient as piranha on a piglet—stop that! I regret this imagery too and try to calm the waters, though pre-op pares emotions to the bone. A single tear wells in Rachel’s eye, and she says, “There’s more dog food in the basement and cat food across from the counter—”

  “Sh . . .” I bend near and whisper, “Call on me. I’m with you. All my heart and all my soul.”

  She smiles. “Why don’t you talk to me like that all the time?” Even on the cutting board she bats her eyes and complains of insufficient romance.

  I shrug. “You know me. I speak off the top, and this feeling is coming right now.”

  “I love you very much,” she says.

  “You’d be a fool not to,” I reply. “And I love you. I always will.” We move together for a kiss, a light blending of lips and pulse in love with electricity arcing. I often think of our first kiss and think of it now, but then, like life, it seems so quickly gone.

  Then again it’s not, even when it is.

  Our eyes lock as a haze sweeps over and leads me out through the swinging doors. I wipe my eyes, and see that it’s Nurse Nimmins navigating for me. She walks me to the OR dispatch and introduces Anne, who just came on for the next eight hours. I’m instructed to ask for Anne when I call for updates and status. Anne doesn’t stop talking on her headset but smiles and nods assuredly. I write Anne on piece of paper and pocket it.

  I’m walked to the waiting room at Two West. “You should leave,” Rebecca Nimmins says. “There is absolutely nothing you can do here, and you’ll be in much better shape for her when she comes out of recovery, if you can get away from here and relax.”

  It’s now four o’clock Friday afternoon. Rachel won’t be out of surgery for six hours, then another hour or two in recovery. So we’re looking at eleven-thirty or midnight.

  “But I should be here,” I say.

  “You can’t do anything here,” she says.

  I look away. She watches me. I look back. “What if she dies?” I ask. “I think I should be here.”

  Nurse Nimmins is a head taller than me. With a very sad look she says, “She’s not going to die.” I nod, hardly sanguine but receptive to the first affirmation from hospital staff since our arrival. I can’t bank on kind words, but they allow the muscles to let go, to slump around the elusive belief that all will end well. I offer my hand in tentative farewell. Perhaps she sees my weakness and says, “I feel like I should hug you.” I don’t decline, so she steps up and wraps her arms around me, and against her gentle bosom I tremble.

  8

  The Angels Sing

  Yay, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow, I fear less than I did on the approach. Once into a thing you tend to process it more easily, beyond the angst. My doubts and concerns are nothing next to those of my mate. Whatever I stand to lose, she stands to lose more. Together we face the third potential: a life together but apart from life as we know it. In place of the carefree life, we may live with caregivers, attendants and nurses for years to come.

  The team seems intent on processing the difficulty we presented. The effect of their effort is negative; our difficulty stems from their difficulty. Ignorance is not bliss, but obfuscation and condescension are ambient. Every inquiry made in the last three days was met with statistical disclosure. I suspect it’s all they have—or all they’re allowed. We don’t share the need for legal precaution but remain keen on quality in life. We are skeptical of medical miracles. We were made to feel foolish for expecting a role in the process, an emergency process resulting from years of trial and error in a healthcare system dominated by the legal system, the insurance system, the drug industry and the medical complex as it defers to all of the above in its quest for maximum billings. We have suffered a loss of spirit as debilitating as our fear of life lost or impaired.

  You can never know what your mate is thinking, yet I’d bet the farm that she agrees. We are noted as paranoid for lack of utter, blind faith in this place—for asking questions repeatedly, because we got no answers.

  I never faulted Rachel’s vanity. She’s too selfless in other ways. So what if she’s a classic beauty who feels good with her good looks, who has fun with what has come her way? Can I call this a character defect in a woman who would pull to the grassy center divider of an interstate highway to rescue a duck and six ducklings? Do I label her self-absorbed after seeing her make a bed in the bathtub so a three-legged bitch could recover from the amputation? “This dog is only six,” she said, “and besides, she wants me to do this.” And besides, all the kennels at the pound are full, and a three-legger would be going down.

  It’s the same way with a huge blue macaw accused of attacking hotel personnel on the lawn of the Grandiose Arms, or whatever silly name the place goes by—landed right there out of the clear blue sky and tried to bite the boys who only wanted to bag him. Could someone come down and, you know, subdue him or put him down or whatever it is that you do? Oh, yes, Rachel could go. With a smile on her face and love in her heart she marched past the boys and mid-managers up to the big bird and offered a forearm. Simon (the bird) looked down and off to one side. Then he stepped on up to the shoulder, where he rode for a year until Lily came along, another huge blue who’d plucked half her feathers from sheer frustration from living in solitary confinement but got sprung at last on an abuse charge. Simon and Lily became an item in Rachel’s living room—Lily stopped plucking, and next thing you know, it’s a nesting family in a plastic dog kennel fitted behind their cage. Three little baby macaws taking the bottle were far from home in the treetops of South America where they belonged, but they’d also arrived, equidistant from the misery their parents had suffered. Is this vanity?

  So what if Rachel can’t walk or dress or feed herself? So what if she lives in a wheel chair? Will she not remain the Queen of Hearts? Yes, she will, but I set these thoughts aside, for I feel the foul spirit seeking openings that open wider here.

  The team prepared us for the very worst so we can’t say we weren’t warned. I think the spirits, dark and otherwise, go like luck, where they are most received. I think the team knows the numbers, and I sense a practiced and practical numbness among them, even those who freely show optimism. I’m sure the numbness is required by the job, and I’m not the first guy to whistle in the dark.

  I stand on the street corner by the Emergency Room door. I bum a cigarette from a pedestrian and smoke it with the other bums.

  I sit in my car in the parking lot with the engine running. It bongs, lights flashing for service, but I want the heater on.

  I stare out my window on the ninth floor in downtown Seattle. Ships go out in search of the world and come back in.

  I lie back on the sofa and stare at the ceiling. I watch my thoughts. An hour goes by and another.

  I get up and light incense, nine sticks of it, three each for the three levels of the spirit recognized in Huna magic, the way of Aloha. I light four more sticks for the four seasons and four more for the winds and one more for Rachel. I stand in the smoke and pull it over me because I’ve seen Indians do this in the movies—real Indians, our Indians.

  The phone rings and wrings my wits, shattering the trance like a hand grenade on my desk.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, man.”

  “Hey. I got a bad situation.”

  “I know. How is she?”

  “In surgery.”

  “Keith told me. When did she go in?”

  “Four.”

&n
bsp; “Can I come down?”

  “Yeah. Why don’t you.”

  “See you in a bit.”

  “Hey. Call before you come up. I might go on back down there.”

  “You can’t do anything down there. Let’s relax for a while.”

  “Fine. If I’m not here, I’ll be down there. Two West.”

  He agrees but encourages me to hang around the office for another few hours, because it’s so much more comfortable, and the waiting rooms are a drag, and you can’t even smoke a joint there. He’s my friend, Stuey Stuart, with whom I ride motorcycles, if not to live then at least to forget. Or maybe we ride to remember how it was when school was out and the world was ours.

  I need a friend now for distraction, even as I fear his brand of distraction. But I want to drop the fear; what could be better to displace a focus on mortality and morbidity than the distraction Stuey usually offers? What else can you do in life but live? He brings casual confidence to the table, whether we face brain surgery or a pass on a twisty mountain road in torrential rain. We’ll press on to a fire in the hearth. He’s good for that. Still, he’s worse than a wife when it comes to prepping for an outing. He could be two hours with his face and his hair, and I pace, waiting for the phone to ring again, hoping against the worst but ready for action if it comes. Then I head down.

  I scan the office before leaving to double check what should be second nature, things like the lights, the oven, the refrigerator, because I’m forgetful now, absent-minded and severely distracted. The stove is off, and so are the lights—but wait. Rachel made the glass lampshades in the office, nouveau flower patterns in predominant blues with red and orange petals and green leaves. I go to the two by the reading chair she uses when she waits for me to finish my work. I turn them on and place my palms on the shades, feeling the space where her hands once worked, feeling the lingering neurons—feeling what people in Hawaii would call the energy. I take my leave and leave those lights on.

  Of course this is human nature, the one based on hope and desire. We will die like the other animals do and join them in drinking what Socrates called the waters of forgetfulness. Then it won’t matter. I knew this and accepted it long ago, yet I hope and desire.

  Maybe it’s the starvation diet and sleep deprivation of the last few days on top of the impact and rapid descent to mortality/morbidity potential. I’m leveled out now, the G-forces of ignition and liftoff more manageable, but that which surrounds me feels surreal. The walls don’t breathe, nor do the floors tilt to a corner where I could roll down the drain. Yet I stand on the rim of a deep, dark hole. I pinch myself and it feels like a pinch. My senses seem in tact, yet I feel removed. I recall the times when death seemed near, only twice for me. The first close encounter was on acid, when a six-foot pepperoni pizza festering purple cheese chased me down the road.

  The second was at sea, inescapable as the first with no alternative but to ride it out and remember Mother as the bulkheads cracked. Those moments never go away. Yet I think this current proximity takes a greater toll. The potential death is not my own, but I feel more stuck than before. Before, I could measure the difficulty and adjust, more or less. I could go for a walk or trim the rig or check the hatches or clean the bilge-pump filter again or smoke a joint or drink some wine to dull the edge. Now I want to move my mind off dead center, but I can’t. I can’t help her or me. I am helpless.

  An elderly woman steps onto the elevator and stares at me. I don’t know why, until I realize she is only staring back. Oh, and she’s waiting for a response to her greeting. “How are you?” I tell her I’m fine so she can proceed with her thoughts on the weather.

  I step out of the elevator into the garage and walk toward my car but stop halfway, alone, with these few cars and God. I listen and wonder why the world offers no more silence except in a parking garage four levels underground. “Okay,” I ask. “What do you want?”

  The question blurts out. “What do you want? Tell me what you want.” I don’t address a personal God. I hold humans and their personal needs and the God who exists to fulfill these things as the source of most trouble in the world. I am here in trouble on a personal level. Yet in the crux I won’t give in, for it would be nothing but weakness. I have faith in what I know, so I seek strength through answers available in nature. That is, I beckon for guidance. It will come, if you let it. I stand still. It doesn’t come, so I ask myself what I must do. And I weaken, finally promising to be “good” forever, if only . . .

  I know that won’t get it either; what is “good” to me would be damnable to the teeming refuse yearning to be free. I press on to the world outside, with its pavement and construction and unyielding demand for more. I vow on the way to renew my commitment to personal goodness, if only . . .

  Dusk on Friday is jammed with traffic, people hurrying to flee this congestion for its suburban counterpart. A dense sky moves slowly in all directions like traffic verging on critical mass. Light is a concept here. This is daytime in Seattle, mostly characterized by glare in shades of gray, dirty scud to gunmetal to thunderhead.

  I creep slowly in the non-flow to a red light. Two lanes over on the bus a black woman meets my eyes. We look away and then down at a man between us in a late-model sedan with a sunroof, picking his nose. Digging upward for a stubborn woolly one, he finally hooks it, plays it light and draws it on out. He stares at it on his fingertip as the bus woman and I bunch our foreheads, and then he eats it—sucks it off his finger with relish. We gasp in unison. She looks at me again from two lanes over and shrieks Oh, God! And we laugh, moving apart because the light is green.

  At the next light I see a silver-haired man in a silver suit and matching Porsche twiddle a mint from its silver wrapper and eat it. Maybe he had eggs for lunch, and now his breath smells like mint and sulfur. Or maybe he ate his secretary for lunch. Or his boyfriend. Or maybe he’s sucking antacid tabs to dull the edge in his gut after a day of risking megabucks for more. Green again, and we’re off. Every Joe Blow in town needs to ace a Porsche in first gear. Me too, until I slow and give him his due, staying calm, being good.

  The waiting room in Two West is fifty by fifty with one door and no windows. Families wait here. It’s a grief collective but with separate scripts, each group tuned uniquely to the vicissitudes of old age or car wreck or untimely disease or more exotic trauma. I take a seat at the deep end, seeking space and clean air. Two boys in their twenties sit nearby. One has a younger brother who snowboarded off a cliff as seen on TV. The young brother had no advance staff to map hazards, so he free-fell sixty feet and hit a rock with his head. That was earlier today. Surgery is now. I wait with these boys and share my anxiety over heroic measures and a system based on exclusion and obfuscation. The boys are more agreeable to the place, however, agreeing that surgery in two hours flat is a miracle, and anyone who sues this place or these doctors ought to be shot. They don’t know who will pay for the younger brother’s surgery, but by God he’s in there having the top quarter of his brain removed, and the doctors are doing their level best. “Removed?”

  “Yeah. It’s the part you don’t hardly use anyway.”

  “Ah.” I think this system is designed for these boys and their brother, who live by faith and acceptance of what they’re told. The mother arrives and embraces both boys. They grieve.

  A family group on the far side enlarges on arrival of five more and two toddlers. The toddlers are released to wander the waiting room. Both drool garden slugs from their noses. One is taking a shit. The place reeks and wails. I wish everyone well and move out to the corridor with two chairs.

  Hospital air feels stale, but the air in the corridor is at least breathable. I sit by the door leading to the patio reserved for smokers. It’s seven o’clock, after hours, so the reception desk is unattended. I pick up the phone and press the second button down on the right, as instructed. I ask for Anne. I remind her who I am and ask for status. She says she’ll find out. Call back in five minutes. I wait five minutes
and call back. “They’re just now inside,” she says. “It’s going well, on schedule. She’s doing fine. They haven’t yet exposed the clot or the aneurysm.”

  “On schedule? It’s been three hours.”

  “They’re very deliberate in there. That’s what you want. Pre-op is at least an hour. I can tell you this, though: They say she was very peaceful going under the anesthesia.”

  “You mean more peaceful than most, or more peaceful than they expected?”

  “They don’t expect anything. They try to be ready. They see many reactions. Hers was very good.”

  “Well, thanks. I’ll check back in a while.”

  “All right. Give them an hour or two.”

  “I’ll try.”

  I ring off and sit. I wait and stare. I watch people come and go; they embrace with a shudder against fear and loss. The lament rises and falls. A very old woman counsels her family that someone must be here at all times now. I can’t tell if she shares my apprehension on heroic measures, but I think not; I think she wants her husband to have company in his passing. Others simply meet outside to embrace and cry.

  And here comes Stuey with a brown paper bag. I don’t depend on a personal God for personal needs, yet I thank the spirits for their emissary. In the bag is a six-pack. I stand and lead the way to the smokers’ exile. Outside I am humbled in realizing the value of company and cold beer. Stuey is full of life; this will take a few more hours, so why don’t we go somewhere decent, like a bar.

  I tell him I need to be here, and I pop another beer.

  He shrugs and lights a joint.

  I take it deep as a drowning man grabbing for any rope in reach, but you don’t get “high” when you’re pressed this low. Stuey rambles over a phase of his life he never mentioned but that I should know about, which was his brief career in anesthesiology. He took part in dozens of procedures like this one. Dozens. “It’s a cakewalk, man. In and out. No sweat.”