Brainstorm

by Robert Wintner

  “You were an anesthesiologist?”

  “Yeah, man. Well, I was going to be one. I scrubbed up with those guys.”

  “Why didn’t you become one?”

  He raises both palms like the Pope. “I was in it two years. The money’s good, plenty nurses, but Christ, how can you adjust to this, day in and day out?” I nod. “Besides, I got an offer at Vamac. It worked out.” Vamac is his current employer, where sales are good, but trends can be problematic. At least the current cycle is good, with positive indices and growth likely. His gab is tireless.

  We go back inside. I’m freezing. He reassures me that a standard craniotomy is a simple tune-up, especially on a straight shot to the temporal lobe. “They just shave the head, cut the scalp, peel it back . . .”

  “Please.” We take our seats.

  “No, really, cut the skull with this incredible little buzz saw. It only turns a sixteenth each way, like the saw they use to cut casts off, so they won’t tear the soft tissue. Lift the brain flap, sponge the clot and it’s done.”

  “They have to clip the aneurysm.”

  “Is that what they said? That’s easy. Clip it off, set the skull piece back, sew her up and we have a few drinks.”

  “When were you exposed to this sort of thing?”

  “Oh, hell, man, it’s been twenty, twenty-three years.”

  “They clamp the skull piece back with titanium plates now.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know why they would use an unnatural material, except that maybe the anti-spasm drug they’re giving her is a calcium-channel blocker, so the bone can’t heal on its own.”

  “That’s it! I remember; they used to have big problems with the skull piece mending into place.”

  I wonder what else he remembers. “They screw the plates into place.”

  “Much better. I’ll tell you it’s a weird trip down there. I hit the wall. I got used to carting the stiffs out. But after surgery was the worst, you know with the gore and shit.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “No. But I gotta tell you what really did it for me. They had this guy in there, old guy, eighty-five or so. He’s on the table and they got him splayed open like a road kill, and he dies. You know how the beep, beep, beep just goes beeeeeeeeep? I was moving some things around by the operating table, and this guy, I don’t know if he was an orderly or a nurse or a doctor or what, but he figures out that the plasma bag is empty. That’s why the old guy died. They always keep the next one hanging right there so they can make the change, you know, but they didn’t make it and the old guy died, and this guy lunges for the plasma to make the change and maybe bring this old guy back. Who the hell knows? But he misses and just barely hits the new bag with a scalpel or something, and it breaks and sprays all over the damn place, and I’m right under it . . .

  “Those guys . . . They just quit and walked out, and I have to sponge the old guy down and get rid of the scrubs and sheets and mop the floor and wheel the dead guy to the morgue. It was horrible.”

  “What were you, a cub anesthesiologist?”

  “Yeah, kind of. It was completely different then. They played music in the OR and, you know, drugs were cool then. They can’t pull that shit anymore.”

  “Mm. Another reason for getting out.”

  “I don’t know. I’m telling you though; they do standard craniotomies three, four times a day. She’ll be fine in no time.”

  “What about the mortality/morbidity disclosures they keep hosing me down with?”

  “Fuck those guys. They’re so scared of lawsuits they got the whole system turned around. They don’t give a shit who they scare. They just want to cover their asses.”

  “Tell me this, Doctor, since you’re the only medical staff here who might understand my particular situation.”

  “Yes?”

  “Rachel and I enjoy recreational stimulants. Do we face compromise?”

  “Nah! She’ll get drunk easier is all. Probably enjoy sex more. They do after that view. That’s why nurses are hot.”

  “Maybe the nurses are different now too.”

  “Yeah. I suppose. What a shame.”

  I check my watch. “It’s eight-thirty. I’m going to check.”

  “They won’t know anything.”

  “But they do.” I call Anne. She asks me to call back in five minutes, which I do.

  But she only says, “They’re all the way in. It’s going well. Give me an hour.”

  “Was I right?” Stuey asks.

  I don’t respond. So he insists we have all the time in the world for a bar and a few martinis. I insist that I can’t. So we go outside for two more beers. He won’t shut up, reviewing prospects for the unbelievable business that’s coming his way. He says huge volume isn’t even a variable anymore, because the economy is so hot these guys want it right now and don’t even peep when he jacks the price twelve points, as long as he can deliver now.

  Maybe he sees my inattention. He shifts gears to our upcoming scooter rides over the mountains, just around the corner in April and May and then, look out, summertime. I smile, wishing it were summer now. We remember the glory times, but they too go to murmurs and then silence and the shivers set in.

  A few minutes before ten I call Anne again and call her back in five minutes. “They’re closing her up,” she says. “It went very well. She’s not even intubated. She was, but she did so well, they removed it.” Intubation delivers forced air for those who can’t continue breathing, and it prevents constriction, likely from reverse peristalsis. I feel like I’m on the mend, thinking of reverse peristalsis instead of puking. Who knows? If the throat constricts anyway they go quickly to tracheotomy and an air hose through the neck. Oh, it’s not a pretty place. At least Rachel was spared that part of it.

  “Can they tell yet about the . . . morbidity?”

  “We think there wasn’t any. You won’t know for sure until she’s out of recovery. You’ll want to be there. We want her to recognize you and speak coherently.”

  “You mean in a sentence?”

  “A sentence would be ideal. Let’s see. She should be up there by eleven-thirty or midnight, right on schedule. The surgeon is looking for you in the OR waiting room.”

  “He’s done?”

  “Yes. Closing is rudimentary.”

  “I thought I was in the OR waiting room. They told me to wait in Two West.”

  “No. Go downstairs. I’ll call him and tell him you’ll meet him there.”

  “Thank you, Anne.” I set the phone down and feel my face respond to the lateral gravities of joy and non-restraint. Stuey hovers near and now sees the news on me. “They’re done,” I say. “They’re closing her up. She didn’t die. And no apparent morbidity.” He shakes his head with a smile of his own and begins another silly rant on I-told-you-so. But he stops because I am breaking down, heaving from inside out as the dark spirit rails in disappointment. I am gently pressed and then heavily moved as great chunks of glacier overhanging the sea for way too long fall away in thundering release. I join the lament.

  My friend hugs and rocks me. I cannot speak but rather spew the grief of days and nights and in equal measure the fear of years. “It’s okay,” he says.

  But it’s not.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” he insists, but I’ve had it up to here and way beyond. “It’s okay. She’s okay. Hey. Hey. Hey.”

  I don’t know that the dam ever burst on such a reservoir. It gushes forth and gushes again. It flows in torrents until the floodgates can gain a purchase and slowly close, until nothing remains but puddles. “Okay, I’m done. I’m okay,” I say, wiping my face, breathing deep, gathering my manly self and standing straight. He nods, not as spent as I am but significantly removed from a minute ago, and we’re off to meet the wizard.

  Lawrence of Neurology is just a guy like us, of course, but it helps to see him loose, removed from his suit and tie and formal demeanor. He wears sleeveless scrubs
and a skullcap. He shakes my hand like a good sport after a match, as if now we can let our friendship show. He says it went very well, according to plan with no surprises, and she should recover to a hundred percent in a short time.

  “No debilitation?” I ask.

  He delivers the tight-lipped smile, as if legal defense is understood between us. I think he means to convey that Rachel is past the risk of morbidity, maybe, but who can say? Certainly not him.

  Stuey asks how big was the clot. Lawrence is relieved with a question of fact, free of conjecture; he brightens, turning to Stuey, and says, “Golf ball—well, actually closer to a lemon.”

  “Big lemon?”

  Lawrence smiles again; how big is a lemon? Then he nods. “It was very big.”

  “Any trouble sponging it out?”

  Lawrence has no time for shop talk with a fiberboard salesman. So he walks away, telling us over his shoulder, “No. Most of it comes out in a clump anyway.”

  We go up to the ninth floor and back to the ICU corridor to wait for another hour or two. The two guys with the younger brother are there as well, waiting. We review snowboarding, medivac helicopters, surgery, litigation and the system, but we keep it simple, avoiding morbidity. They want only the safe return of the younger brother to the construction crew. I think theirs is a world without end.

  We sit. We wait.

  We wait more.

  A few minutes before midnight the elevator opens. We sit up as we have done every time it opens, but this is it, two nurses in front, two in back, easy, easy, gently over the bumps and out. I fear the view of my woman drenched in carnage, but I step quickly up.

  Stuey stands beside me. The attendants pause briefly, and we are struck with a sight I will never forget. Rachel is still wired to many leads. She is wrapped in blankets with her head swathed in gauze over the top and around the sides so that only her face is showing. She radiates as if lit from inside, more alive than I’ve ever seen a person, effusing color and energy, brightness and warmth—and strength and movement even though she lies serenely still. Her lips are moist, her cheeks glowing. Angels hover overhead in a swirl and a song.

  Yes—this one is as tough to explain as anything I’ve ever known. You can’t talk about angels without inviting the easy discount, without sounding like a hopeless romantic who hopes against hope against what has come to pass. But this too is as real as the fear and darkness; here is a vision. Here the ether palpitates in rare articulation. I see spirits engaged in movement, raising their voice in a harmony more deafening than the silence of the canyons. They have no lyric, no arms or legs or harps or long white beards. They have fish tails and they swirl in gaudy colors. They have cat whiskers, briefly, and hooked beaks and wing feathers. They loll their tongues and wag their tails. They’re watchful, busy and alert, ready to rise against intruders.

  They’re only smoke or fog. Or maybe something in my eye is refracting the light just so, breaking it down to what my heart wants most to see. These spirit visions are likely nothing but a distraction reflecting the personal order of an original animal nut.

  Yet Stuey sees something too.

  “Holy shit,” he whispers.

  “Oh, yes,” I agree.

  9

  Time for Service!

  We are quickly waved off and waved back. We must sit and wait till she comes to the surface. She should regain consciousness soon, or she could drift indefinitely deeper and farther away. If she fails to blink or mutter she’ll be dragged to the surface by injection. I cringe at every flex of the heavy hand, but the system is built on data, and the numbers are deemed the ultimate truth. Into the last phase of this gauntlet, our self-evaluation as healthful people living significantly above the lowest common denominator is incidental. Human response to radical drugs is the object of absolute belief, of faith that we will live and/or die within a 4% margin of error. We can only sit and wait. And shut up.

  In a few minutes I’m called back. She’s in a private room with walls and a door. What a relief. But this place and the system have made me tentative at every turn. Are they treating us better because our odds are now longer? That’s cynical, possibly paranoid, what a walk down the street might feel like after a mugging. Never mind. I want her to open her eyes and see me, optimistic as a Rotarian. I plant a smile on my face to better solicit a sentence with a subject and verb, period.

  She barely breaks the surface and can’t stay afloat. She squirms slightly like a worm on concrete near the end of the struggle. The radiance is still on her, but it also twists with overlapping layers of pain, with fear of death and worse, of mutilation or debilitation. I sense the struggle is above her and in her, between the dark other and the others I witnessed a few minutes ago. She opens her eyes. She stares at me, not with recognition but in disbelief, as if to ask, How could you? She seems heartbroken, grieved at a loss of trust, at what I caused to happen. I stretch my smile and tell her how proud I am. I tell her how strong she is, how well it went, how well she’s doing, how soon we’ll be home.

  She reaches to touch my face or maybe she sees something else, so I lean close. She feels my cheek, but this is not for love. She can’t see right, can’t find my depth, can’t be certain who I am. She lets her hand fall and rolls to one side as the hope and desire in me ebbs to zero. She moans, “I’m so unhappy.”

  Oh, God. I am happy now, though my smile twists in the grasp of sadness—sadness reverberates from my usually happy mate. Tension melts when she speaks, subject and verb and all the rest. I tell her to rest easy; I’ll be back in the morning first thing. She says, “Take your time. Go have some fun.” That’s three sentences, and she knows it’s me, though we hang in space and time like rags on a bucket.

  Soon she slips under, giving in to the stone tied to her ankles, sinking again to morphine dreams. This will piss her off; she doesn’t like pharmaceuticals. But I let it pass and let the drug flow, because I frankly think she’s still in denial. Maybe I am too. Things seem different now, as if we’re coming out.

  The hospital provides pamphlets on what ails you or a loved one. Statistics for morbidity and mortality remain consistent, and each is written to the lowest denominator of comprehension skills. Each pamphlet focuses on specific needs of the most debilitating potentials. Between these lines is the ghost of mortality. Short of that is severe handicap and redundancy, so you can’t say we didn’t warn you.

  I read of the devastation that will change my daily life and that of everyone around me. But I don’t read too far, for I’m sensitive to toxins and can fortunately smell them before swallowing. One noted physician feels that in the entire subarachnoid outing, surgery is the easiest part of all. Challenges of extreme potential come next. I think he presumes the ease of surgery to be a function of coma and/or anesthesia; the system can more easily process an unconscious patient—damn. I check myself against negativity once more, imagining Bre’r Bear strolling down a country road whistling Zippety Do Da.

  I repress the negative potential. We survive and soon we’ll thrive. The physician in the pamphlet is meant to ease the family into post-op, his message apparently distilled by legal counsel to careful wording. I don’t want to be knee-jerk to every helpful effort coming our way, but I’ve been conditioned to be on guard.

  “What are you reading? Let’s go.”

  I agree. Stuey wants a bar, a wild one where we can really celebrate. I also appreciate his challenge, more than that of the brochures, but he is also dismissed. “I’ve had very little sleep and not much to eat the last few days. I can’t.”

  “Well. Okay. Let’s go back to the office then. We can stop at Larry’s for a barbecued chicken. That’ll be better. Have a few beers. Get high. You still got some of that apple brandy?” I nod. Larry’s is closed, so we stop at Quality Foods, open 24 hours.

  In no time we’re swilling beer and brandy, firing joints, eating greasy chicken with two hands and reviewing the bogus taste and engineering of the Harley Davidson designers. We both anticipat
e trading up in another season. I may ponder BMW or Victory or anything less wasteful and with better handling. Stuey agrees—but forlornly, because he’s stuck in an image. In that small world he thinks he’ll go ahead with chrome wheels. Because, frankly, he’s tired of running spokes and tube tires on the open road, where a flat could shut him down and leave him stranded. “Who needs that?” He shifts quickly and jumps to my desk, grabbing my binoculars with his greasy hands and scanning the building a block over. “There! Look!” He’s found a female and is certain she’s in a bedroom, where she will undoubtedly take her clothes off. I pour us another short round of apple brandy. “Look at this,” he implores.

  I drink and tell him, “I think Madonna could walk in here with her thumb up her pussy, and I couldn’t care less.”

  He laughs. He can’t share my indifference but appreciates the imagery. “Her thumb?” he asks, moving his fingers in a test pattern near his pussy. “I guess her thumb would work.”

  I laugh too. “It’s a figure of speech.” I need peace and rest. I’m amazed again at how quickly life restores itself; with basic needs fulfilled. I have fed. I need sleep. But I take the binocs he hands me and I watch the woman across the way. She’s not in a bedroom. She’s having a drink with a man. I tell him it’s unbelievable what she’s doing now, dropping to her knees and, no, it can’t be . . . Stuey laughs, rolling another joint. Finally, I’m catching on to why he’s here, to engage in foolish behavior and facilitate my high. I’ve suffered overexposure to mortality/morbidity, so I accept his guidance now in cold, clinical light, as if his silly antics are integral to rehab. Besides, his challenge seems only moderate with no potential. I try my best to go along with his system.

  Soon we both tire and turn in to keep from passing out. Stuey will sleep on a futon he happened to bring along. It’s down in his car. He has only to shag it, unless of course I want him to put his underpants on backwards and lay down with me. I laugh, but I’m already on the sofa, wondering why he planned to stay over all along, as if he knows something else about the cakewalk we’ve just been through.