The Burn Journals

by Brent Runyon

  The desserts look okay. Some kind of chocolate cake or Jell-O in a cup with whipped cream on top. I'm going to try the Jell-O.

  They have fountain soda. Yes. That's awesome.

  I sit with a bunch of people from the Unit, but nobody says anything. I keep looking up right when Lisa puts a big spoonful of corn in a paralyzed girl's mouth. It's so disgusting. Can't she chew with her mouth closed? Maybe not, I guess.

  Dinner's over. One of the nurses announces that we're having a little get-together on the Unit. Everybody is meeting in the common area to have soda together.

  I'm the only one standing, except for the nurses, and that must be the other burned kid, Harry. He's just a little guy. Oh God, his face got all melted away, and a bunch of his hair is just scar tissue, and the fingers of his hand are melted together so it looks like a claw. Jesus, what a freak. It makes me feel sick to look at him.

  I'm starting with the man in the mirror.

  I'm asking him to change his ways.

  Why is that song in my head? I don't even like Michael Jackson. Wasn't he on fire once? Yeah, with the Pepsi commercial that caught his head on fire. I wonder if that's why he looks so weird.

  Lisa wants to introduce me to a couple of people. She takes me over to a blond girl in a motorized wheelchair. She's the one who was eating corn before.

  “Brent, this is Chelsea. Chelsea, this is Brent.”

  “Hi, Chelsea.” I put my hand out to shake.

  “Hi, Brent.” I forgot she probably can't move her arms. Wait, no, she's moving her arm a little. She's lifting up her hand. Wow, she's giving me five.

  “Nice to meet you, Chelsea.”

  “Nice to meet you.” I wiggle my fingers under her hand like the cool kids do at school, and she giggles a little. I wonder if she can really feel that. Hey, she's not so bad when she's not eating.

  There's another kid right next to me. He's got red hair and he looks a little older than me, like maybe seventeen. He's in the middle of telling the story of how he wound up in the wheelchair.

  Lisa whispers, “That's Ben. He crashed his motorcycle.”

  “Well, it was raining out and, stupid me, I decided to take out my dad's bike, a real sweet Honda 150 cc. Anyway, about two miles away from my house, I took this turn too fast, went straight off the road and headfirst into an oak tree. Snap.” He sounds like it happened to someone else.

  A chubby nurse standing next to him with a name tag that says Mary says, “So what are you, a C4?”

  “Yup. C4.” I wonder what that means.

  The other burned kid, Harry, pipes up, so I don't have to, “What's C4?”

  Mary answers him, “Fourth cervical vertebra, honey. It means he broke the fourth bone in his spinal column.”

  “Oh, did it hurt?” asks Harry.

  “Not really. I mean, I don't really remember any pain, just the feeling of the rain coming down on my face.”

  God, I hope this isn't one of those “I'll show you mine, you show me yours” contests. Because I'm not about to tell any of these people what happened to me. Screw that.

  Lisa introduces me to the big black guy with the metal ring around his head. The gangbanger. “Brent, this is Latroy. Latroy, this is Brent.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you too.” He seems nice enough. Not as scary as he seemed from a distance. Anyway, he probably can't hurt me with his neck broken like that.

  Lisa says, “Have you met Harry yet?”

  “No.” And I don't want to.

  “Well, let's introduce you two.” She takes me over to him.

  “Harry, I want you to meet someone.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he's very nice and I think you'll like him.”

  “Fine.”

  “Harry, this is Brent. Brent, this is Harry.” We don't shake hands. I don't want to touch his hand.

  “Hi, Harry.”

  “Hi, yourself.” What? “Lisa,” he says, “I hate this. I want to go back to my room.”

  “Okay, Harry. You can go back to your room.”

  “Good.” This kid is a little brat. But now that he said that, I'm really tired too.

  “Lisa, I'm really tired. Can I go back to my room too?”

  “Sure. Thanks for coming out.”

  “Okay.”

  I sit in bed and watch TV. Sometimes I think I'd be happy if I could just lie in bed and watch TV all the time. That's the way it used to be at Children's. God, that was so great. I miss those guys.

  Phone's ringing. They gave me this weird little phone when I checked in that just sits on the dresser. I guess I'll answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “Brenner?” It's Mom.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hey, bud. How's it going?”

  “Good.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Watching TV.”

  “How's the hospital?”

  “It's fine.”

  Dad picks up the other phone. He says, “Hey, Brenner. How's it going, budder?”

  I laugh. Dad's funny sometimes. “It's good. What are you guys doing?”

  Mom says, “Well, it's Craiger's graduation today, and we just wanted to call and say hi and say that we miss you. And that we really wish you were here with us. Nanny and Grandpa are here too. Wait, I'll put Nanny on. Here's Nanny.”

  “Hello, Brent.”

  “Hi, Nanny.”

  “Hello, sweetheart. Just wanted to say a quick hello and that we miss you down here. We're just so pleased you're doing so well and can't wait till we see you again.”

  “Okay, Nanny. Thanks.”

  “Love you, dear.”

  “Love you too, Nanny.”

  “Here's Grandpa.”

  “Hey, champ.” Grandpa's got the most recognizable voice. It's so deep and gravelly. When you sit in a room with him, you can actually feel it through the furniture.

  “Hey, Grandpa.”

  “Good to hear you're doing so well up there, but we miss you down here. So keep getting better.”

  “Okay, Grandpa. I will.”

  “Okay, love you, buddy.”

  “Love you too, Grandpa.”

  “I'll get Craig.”

  When I was little and we'd go down to Florida to visit Nanny and Grandpa, I'd sit down by the pool with him in the plastic chairs and listen to his voice through his chest. He had that big old scar on his belly from where he got his gallbladder out. It was so big and smooth and it looked like an oak leaf. I liked to put my hand on it and feel the outline.

  Craig's on the phone. He says, “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “What's up?”

  “Nothing. What's up with you?”

  “Nothing. Just this graduation thing.”

  “Yeah. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing. Watching TV.”

  “Oh. Okay. I'll let you go, then.”

  “Okay. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  We both hang up.

  Dr. Doug Foust is here to see me, just like he said he would be. That's one thing about psychologists—they're consistent. I sit in my bed and he pulls a chair up close.

  He says, “So, how's it going here?”

  “Okay.”

  “Good. What have you been up to?” He's got this way about him that makes it seem like he doesn't really care what I say, but I feel like he's listening hard.

  “Nothing, just school, OT, and PT.”

  “How's that?”

  “Fine.”

  “Good. Any complaints?”

  “No.”

  He looks over at my guitar sitting up against the wall. “Do you play?”

  “I tried to learn, but it's out of tune, like seriously out of tune.”

  “Want me to tune it?”

  “Sure, can you?”

  “No problem.” He picks it up, turns the things at the top, and plucks a few strings. It sounds much better in his h
ands than it does in mine.

  I say, “Do you know any Beatles tunes?” Dad bought me a Beatles tape last weekend.

  “Yeah. I know the early stuff, but the later stuff is much harder. They got into a lot of difficult tunings and strange chords.”

  “And strange drugs.”

  He laughs. “Yeah. So, had any thoughts of suicide lately?”

  “Um . . . no.”

  “No feelings of taking your own life?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?” Did he just ask me why not?

  “What?”

  “Why not? Why haven't you thought about killing yourself?”

  “I don't know. I just haven't.”

  “You could have, you've had plenty of opportunities.” I don't understand, does he want me to try and kill myself?

  “Like what?”

  “Lots of drugs in the hospital. Lots of windows.”

  “Oh. I guess I just never thought about it.”

  “I find that hard to believe.” Now he's starting to piss me off.

  “Well, it's true.”

  “Okay. Great.” He hands me back my guitar. “So, I'll see you Thursday?”

  “Okay. Bye.” Maybe it's weird that I never think about suicide anymore, but I don't know. You only get to live for such a short time anyway. It doesn't make sense to kill yourself.

  Mom and Dad are here for the weekend. They got me some presents. A Beatles tape and one of those Hypercolor shirts that changes color when your body temperature changes. It's purple when you're cool and pink when you're hot. I put it on over my Jobst garments, they sign me out, and we walk out into the parking lot.

  It's so hot out here, my shirt has already turned completely pink. I can't believe how hot it is. It must be like a hundred and twenty degrees. I wish I could sweat, but I don't have very many pores because of the burns and the graft sites. I can feel the sweat making a traffic jam in my body, trying to find a place to get out, but it can only get out of my forehead and armpits.

  We get in the car and turn on the air-conditioning full blast. My shirt starts to turn back to purple.

  We pop in the tape and listen to the good Beatles songs.

  There are places I remember

  All my life, though some have changed

  Some forever, not for better

  Some have gone, and some remain.

  Dad says, “Isn't it beautiful here, Brent?”

  “What?”

  “Beautiful here.”

  “Yeah. It's hot, though.”

  “Sure is.”

  We drive into the main part of town, looking for something to do. It's so hot outside. I can feel it coming through the window even though it's closed. My itching is getting bad.

  Dad stops the car in front of a shoe store. He says, “Want to go check out some shoes?”

  “Not really.”

  Mom says, “Jodi said you needed some new shoes to work out in.”

  “Oh. Can you get them?”

  Mom gets out of the car and goes into the shoe store. I wish they could air-condition this whole town. They could put it in a bubble and pump some cool air in, and then we could have a good time.

  Mom comes back with a pair of sneakers that look okay. The heat comes in again when she opens the door and my shirt turns pink again. All this heat, all this humidity, is making me have a sick feeling, like kind of dizzy. It makes me want to go back to the hospital and take a bath in ice water.

  Dad says, “So, what else do you want to do?”

  “I don't know. What else is there?”

  “A movie?”

  “Okay. New Jack City?”

  “No. We're not going to see that.”

  “Why?”

  “We're just not.”

  “That sucks.”

  Mom says, “How about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Craig saw it and he said it was really good.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Then what do you want to do?”

  “I don't know. Go back to the hospital?”

  “Okay. We can do that.”

  At least back inside the hospital it's cool, that's one good thing.

  They're moving me. I've only been here for a week and they're moving me in with a roommate down the hall. This fucking sucks. I was in Children's for like four months and had my own room, and now I have to fucking share a room with another person. They're putting me in with Latroy, that big black guy with the ring halo on his head.

  We're both lying in our beds after dinner watching our TVs. I'm watching Quantum Leap, and he's watching I don't know what.

  Mary, the chubby nurse, comes into the room. She's Latroy's primary nurse. “Hey, guys.”

  I say, “Hey, Mary.”

  Latroy doesn't say anything.

  She says, “Hey, Latroy, time to take your shower, buddy.”

  He doesn't say anything.

  “Hey, buddy, time to take your shower.”

  He's still not saying anything.

  “Hello in there.”

  “I don't want to.” Oh, this could be interesting.

  “Well, you don't have a choice.”

  “Well, I don't want to.”

  “Sorry, buddy, you're taking a shower.”

  “No, I'm not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I am not.” This is getting a little scary.

  “Latroy, get your ass up and into that shower.”

  “Forget it.”

  “What did you say?” Maybe I should leave.

  “Forget it.”

  “Get up.”

  “No.”

  “Get up!”

  “No!”

  “Get your ass up!” Mary's only about an inch away from his face now.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Move your ass or I'll move it for you.”

  “Fuck you.” Jesus.

  Mary grabs the steel rods that connect his halo to his shoulders, pulls hard, and drags him by his head out the door and into the bathroom. I guess he's in the shower now. He didn't even try to fight back, even though he's about a foot taller than she is. God, I thought she was going to pull the screws right out of his forehead.

  At night, they make me wear these splints to stretch the bands in my shoulders. They're called airplane splints because they make my arms stick out like the wings of an airplane. And also a mouthpiece that fits between my lips and stretches them lengthwise because the scars on my face pull my mouth down a little and they're trying to stretch it back to normal. They also made me a clear plastic mask molded especially for my face that's designed to flatten out the scars on my cheeks. I don't wear that at night, though, only in the day. I feel like a cyborg. “He's more machine than man now.” That's how I feel. No joke. Just like a frigging cyborg that doesn't have a mind of his own.

  Every night, in the middle of the night, that freaky nurse, Laurie, comes in and gives me pills with her creepy extra long fake nails. I get a shiver up my whole body when I see those things. I try to take my pills without opening my eyes.

  I'm in a car. I'm driving a station wagon and I'm going up to the top of a waterfall because I've got to get rid of these bodies. I killed them. I killed these people and now I've got to get rid of these bodies that are in the way back. I don't remember it. I don't remember why I did it, but I know I did it. I killed them. I killed them. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I wish I could take it back. I wish I hadn't killed them, but I did, and I wish I didn't, but I did. They're so dead, so pale, and I have to throw them over the waterfall and they'll fall over and no one will ever see them again.

  “Wake up. Wake up, Brent.”

  What? What? What do you mean?

  “Wake up, Brent, it's just a bad dream.” No, it's not. It's not a bad dream. I can feel it. It's all over me. I can feel it.

  “Brent, it's okay, you're just having a bad dream.” I open my eyes, it's Celeste, and she's rubbing my stomach. Maybe I should ask her if she'll help me get rid of the bodies. No, don't ask
her. She won't understand. No one will understand.

  “It's okay, honey, you were just dreaming.” But I wasn't, I wasn't dreaming. It was real. I killed people and I was getting rid of the bodies on top of a waterfall, and I feel, I really feel like I killed someone. I feel so awful.

  “You were just dreaming.” I don't know. I guess I was dreaming. Something about some bodies and a cliff. Throwing a body over a cliff or something.

  “It's okay, honey. You were just dreaming.”

  “Was I dreaming?”

  “Yes, you were just dreaming. It's okay. It's okay.” Is she right? Maybe she is right, but I still have this guilty feeling all over me, like oil on one of those birds in Alaska. I feel so terrible, so sorry.

  Jodi is taking me down to the bowling alley in the basement. This'll be fun. It's just like the White House in here, with the gym and the bowling alley. The only thing we need is the movie theater and a bunch of jellybeans.

  I still feel bad after that dream. Even after I woke up this morning. Even after I took a shower and got my rubdown. I feel like I want to run as fast as I can, like I want to run right out of my skin.

  It's just a little bowling alley, three lanes with a ball return and a bunch of balls. Not like in the real world.

  “So, Brent, let's start you out with a ten-pound ball.”

  “Okay.” Ten pounds is a lot heavier than it sounds, I can hardly lift it with two hands, let alone one. “So, what should I do?”

  “Just roll it toward the pins.”

  “With both hands?”

  “If you want.” I stand at the line and look down the lane to the pins. God, they're far away.

  “Is this regulation?”

  “Yup.”

  “I'm not sure I can get it that far.”

  “Try.”

  “Okay.” I put the ball down on the lane and push it forward with both hands. It's hard to bend down that far because the skin around my shoulders is so tight. The ball just rolls right into the gutter and slowly down the lane. It's going to take about five minutes to get all the way to the pins. “That sucked.”

  “Good first try. Go again.”

  I go back to the rack and pick up another ball. This time an eight-pounder. At least now I can hold it with one hand, barely, but my fingers are too big to put in the holes. This time when I roll it, the ball goes a little farther but goes in the gutter about halfway down the lane.