The Burn Journals

by Brent Runyon

  “Better. Go again.”

  “What should I do different?”

  “Give it a little more oomph.”

  “Okay.” I find another eight-pounder, this one with bigger holes, and head back to the line. I'm sure I can get at least one pin this time. At least one. I bend over and roll the ball with my right hand. My right elbow doesn't straighten all the way, so the ball drops down on the floor and bounces a couple of times on its way down the lane. It's going down the middle, though. Right down the middle. Now it's moving left. Come on, baby, come on. Get one. Get one. “Yes! I got one!”

  “Good one.” Jodi gives me a high five on my way back to the ball return. “Way to go, kid.” I make a fist and pump it one time in the air, just like Jordan when he won the NBA finals. I'm the man.

  Dad is coming up on Friday. Mom and Craig will be here on Saturday. It was his birthday the other day, the twenty-sixth of June. He turned eighteen. I wonder if they had a big party with all of our family friends. I wonder if anyone asked about me.

  I wonder if we'll ever be friends, my brother and I. Ever since we were little kids, we always fought, but now I kind of wish I could talk to him. Or even, I don't know, just hang out and be friends. I know that sounds stupid, but I think about that sometimes.

  I wonder what would've happened if I'd told him what I was going to do. Would he have stopped me? Or just said, That sucks, and kept shooting baskets? No, I think he would've tried to stop me, but to be honest, it was too late. I would've found some way to do it.

  Dad's here. I'm happy to see him. He takes me across the street to the Ronald McDonald House, where he's staying. It's pretty nice. It kind of feels like a bed-and-breakfast because it's real quiet and there's a lot of old furniture, but there's also fun stuff like in a real hotel, like a TV and a VCR and a Ping-Pong table.

  Dad says, “Want to play Ping-Pong?”

  “Okay.”

  I used to be good at this. I wonder how I'll do now. My friend Jake and I used to play in his basement a lot. We'd crank up Appetite for Destruction or the new Poison album and hit the ball around. He was a lot better than I was, though.

  Dad gets the ball and hits me a nice soft lob. He's taking it easy on me. I can't quite get my arm high enough to smash it, so I hit him back another high lob.

  He says, “Good, Brenner.” I give him a look. What does he think, I'm a fucking baby?

  He hits another soft lob, right at me, and this time I smash it. Fuck. Right into the net.

  I serve and he volleys to my forehand. Big mistake. I swing and hit it hard right at him. It hits the table and then bounces off his beer belly. I'm loosening up a little.

  He says, “Whoa, Brenner. Take it easy, budder.”

  “My point. Serve.”

  He gives me another softie and I smash that one too. I say, “Serve.”

  Another lob. Another smash. “Serve.”

  I can tell he doesn't like where this is going, but screw it, I don't want to play like a first grader. He's still smiling, but I can tell something just changed. He's gritting his teeth now.

  This time he hits a hard serve right to my backhand, and I miss it completely.

  “Shoot.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  He serves again and this time I hit the ball, but it goes right into the net.

  “Your serve, Brenner.”

  I give him one of those heavy spinning serves, where it's impossible to see where it's going. He whiffs it.

  His weakness is that he doesn't have a forehand. I can tell because every time I hit it on that side, he turns his body around so he can hit it backhand.

  I say, “Do you still play racquetball all the time?” He used to always be out playing racquetball after work. He even played with that old guy who used to coach the Celtics, Red Auerbach. Yeah, I think that was it.

  “Yup. I still play with Julius during lunch.”

  “Isn't he really good?”

  He laughs. “Yup, but, Brenner”—talking in his voice where it sounds really gruff—“last week I played him, and I slaughtered him, budder.” He moves the paddle through the air like he's a swashbuckler.

  “He must have been sick.” We both laugh.

  After a while we go into the TV room and pop in a video that they have there. It's called Goodfellas and it's about gangsters and their lives. Although it seems to be more about cooking than it is about gangsters.

  Dad and I both fall asleep when the gangsters are in jail talking about how to slice garlic. We wake up and the TV just has static. He drives me back to the hospital. That was nice, though, just sitting together like normal people watching a movie.

  Mom and Craig are here. I promised I'd take them on a tour, so I show them the basement, where the bowling alley and the gym are, and all the different areas of the hospital. Mom says I'm walking a lot better. I wonder what Craig thinks, he hasn't seen me in weeks, but he doesn't say anything one way or another. That's the thing about my brother—it's hard to tell what he's thinking. It's like he's got a few extra layers between him and the rest of the world. It's funny because when we were kids, he was always the more sensitive one. Whenever we said good-bye to our grandparents, Craig would cry. I asked him why and he just said, “What if they die before we see them again?” I never understood that. We should be happy when we see them, not sad. I wonder if that's why it's so hard to see what he's feeling because he tries to cover everything up.

  Before everything, I used to do this thing when I was upset—I used to take all my feelings and push them down inside me. It was like they were garbage and I was compacting it to get more in. I felt like I could keep pushing all my feelings down into my socks and I wouldn't have to worry about them. I don't think I do that anymore.

  We have family therapy today with Doug Foust in the recreation room, which is just a little room in the corner with a bunch of windows and a piano. Doug says he wants to give us all the opportunity to talk to each other and say what we've been feeling. He asks Mom to start. That's a bad idea because Mom is just going to start crying.

  She says, “Well, it's been real, real hard.” She's crying. “Sorry. It's been real, real hard, saying good-bye to Brent. Not having him around so we can see him every day. That's been hard.” She wipes the tears with the palm of her hand and Doug hands her a box of tissues. I hate it when she cries, it makes me feel so guilty. “And it's also been hard, you know, getting ready to send Craiger off to college. And I know he's gonna be close, but that's gonna be hard too.” She has this habit of talking like a baby when she's really upset. I hate that.

  Dr. Foust says, “Thank you, Lin. Don, what would you like to say?”

  “Well . . .” When Dad talks in a group, he puts on his business voice and sounds like he's giving a presentation. I hate that too. “Well, I, all of us, really, have had a really hard time the last few months, adjusting and adapting to the new challenges and making sure the things that have to be done are getting done. But on the other hand, I think this has brought us together, made us stronger, and we've had a lot of support from our family and friends, and that has been great. We appreciate it all.” Who is he talking to?

  “Thank you, Don. Craig, what would you like to say?”

  “Um . . . well, I don't know. I don't really have anything to say. It's been pretty hard, you know, for me, to watch what's been going on at home. You know, to watch Mom and Dad sort of fall apart at the end of the day. That's been tough. I think that's been the hardest because that's what I see all the time, you know?

  “And at first, I think that sort of made me really angry at Brent. Just to watch all the pain that Mom and Dad are in, and I know that Brent was in pain too, but it was hard to watch what Mom and Dad were going through at the end of every day. So that made me really angry.”

  He stops for a few seconds. What the hell is he doing talking? Jesus. He says, “It's just because I was home. Because I was the first one to see him. I mean, because I was there and I
saw him walk out of the bathroom, and the look on his face, and how all this black smoke came out from behind him.” Craig stops talking. I can't tell if he's angry or he wants to cry.

  “Brent, what do you have to say about that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “No.”

  “Don't you have any response to what your family said?”

  “No.”

  “No response?”

  “No.” Because I can't make them feel better, because I can't stand to hear about all the pain I've caused, and because anything I say will only make them feel worse.

  It's the Fourth of July. Mom and Dad and Craig want to go watch the fireworks somewhere. I don't know. I always used to love the Fourth of July. I loved going down to the Washington Mall and watching the fireworks around the monument. It looked like the stem and the fireworks were the flowers.

  This year, I don't even want to hold a sparkler. I'm sure one of the sparks will catch my Jobst stockings on fire and go right up my arm and over my back and down the other arm and down my legs. And I'll be rolling on the ground trying to put it out and I'll never be able to put it out. I'll just burn and burn and burn.

  It's weird because I used to be such a pyromaniac. When I was eight, my brother and my cousin called me Firebuggie. It was summer and we wanted to dig a tunnel in the backyard, like in The Great Escape. Craig and Reune did most of the heavy digging and it was my job to get light so they could work. They gave me a book of matches and told me to give them some light. That was my favorite part, when I got to light the matches. It gave me a little thrill every time I did it. My heart would start racing and then I'd flick my wrist and the flame would come out of nowhere. I loved the little explosion, the ignition and the smell, and the way it blossomed and then wilted into almost nothing and started to grow again. I loved the layers, the blue, the red, the orange, and the little seed of black in the middle. I used to hold it in my hand and watch the flame burn down the match until it just about touched my fingers, and then I'd blow it out. We spent our whole vacation digging in the backyard, making that tunnel.

  We watch the fireworks on TV at the Ronald McDonald House, and then they all drive me back to the hospital. They're leaving tomorrow. I'm going to miss them.

  I'm going to Dr. Doug Foust's office today for our appointment instead of him coming to my room. It's down on the ground floor.

  His office is strange. I sit down in an easy chair and right across from me are two puppets. One is a little kid with blond hair and a funny kind of Sesame Street smile. The other is a puppet that looks exactly like Dr. Foust, with the beard and the corduroy and everything. I say, “What are those for?”

  “The puppets?”

  “Yeah.”

  “For people who find it easier to talk through a puppet than through themselves.”

  “Weird.”

  “Do you want to try them?”

  “Me? No way.”

  “Okay. Well, Brent, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “Okay.” I hate it when people do that, tell you they're about to tell you something. It makes me nervous.

  “I'm going to be taking a job at another hospital in a few weeks, and that means that I'm not going to be able to be your therapist anymore.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. I'm sorry that it worked out like this, I liked working with you and talking to you. I wish we could have kept it up.”

  “Me too. So who am I going to be talking to now?”

  “Well, it'll actually be two people.”

  “Two people?”

  “Yes. Dr. Sheslow, who's worked here for a long time, and Mark Miles, who's just finishing up his residency.”

  “What does that mean? He's a student?”

  “Well, yes, he's just finishing up his studies to become a full-time doctor.”

  “Are you kidding me? What am I, a fucking classroom? That's fucking stupid.”

  “No, you're not a classroom. It's just the way it works at this hospital.”

  “That's fucking stupid. I don't want that.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Give me a fucking break. Jesus. Why do I have to have two psychologists hanging around giving me a hard time? Isn't one of you assholes enough?”

  “Well, normally I would agree with you, but in your case—”

  “What? I'm so fucking crazy that I need two of you dickheads making my life difficult? Fuck you.” I get up and slam the door behind me and head up to my room. Fuck those guys. I can't believe this. Just when I was starting to like him, he picks up and gets another job. Dickhead.

  Foust is here with the new doctors. Give me a fucking break. Look at these guys—they look like the Marx Brothers of psychologists. All three of them have facial hair and lab coats on with their names on them.

  Foust starts talking. “Well, Brent, I just wanted to introduce you to your new doctors. This is David Sheslow, and this is Mark Miles.” The Sheslow character is skinny with a mustache. Miles is fat with a mustache. They both look like dickheads.

  “Hello, Brent. I'm David Sheslow.” He reaches out to shake my hand. His hands are sweaty. Gross.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi, Brent. Mark Miles.” He's got really fat hands. Sick.

  “Hi.”

  “We're both very excited about working with you.”

  “Great.” Smell the sarcasm.

  “Dr. Foust has told us a lot about you, but we're anxious to get to know you on our own.” What, are these guys such idiots that they share a brain too?

  “Well, it's nice to meet you. We'll see you in our office on Thursday. It's right next to Dr. Foust's.”

  “Okay. Bye.” Jesus.

  Jodi and I are the only people in the gym. I wonder why nobody else ever uses this place, maybe because they're all in wheelchairs. She gets me a tennis racket and a ball and I start hitting it against the wall. The scars around my shoulder are so stiff. I can't really get my arm high enough to hit it very well. I keep hitting it too high up on the wall and it bounces over my head. This sucks.

  I hate it when I try and do stuff that I used to be able to do and then I can't do it anymore. It's depressing.

  Every time I open my mouth to say what I'm feeling, something stops me and I have to make sure I'm not going to say anything stupid. It makes me crazy. And then, once I've figured out what I'm going to say, I have to go over it, over and over again, just to see if what I'm feeling is right. And then I have to figure out how to say it. Like, if I want to say, I feel sad, do I say, I feel sad, or, I feel so sad, or, Sad I do feel, or what? How about, Feeling sad am I. How about, I'm the saddest boy in the world.

  Sometimes, when I'm feeling something really strongly, the next thing I know I'm singing some song that's almost exactly what I feel, and I don't even know I'm doing it.

  Every day I wake up and take the wheelchair down to see Gina and get my massage. Then I go see Jodi and then Viki, the physical therapist. After that's lunch. Then school. And on Tuesday and Thursday, I have to see the therapists.

  I like having a routine.

  More fun with dickhead therapists. I guess they thought better of having me talk to both of them at the same time, so Mark Miles is talking to me by himself.

  “Hi, Brent.”

  “Hi.”

  “How's it going?”

  “Fine.” Dickhead.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I told you, fine.”

  “Okay. So, let's talk about your feelings before the accident. Had you been feeling suicidal for long before the accident?” An accident? Is this a trap?

  “Hmm.” This is the oldest trick in the book. I just pretend I'm thinking about the question and start looking around for other things to think about. This guy's got nothing on me. I sing quietly to myself. “‘Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.'”

  “What are you singing?”

  “‘Strawberry Fields Forever.' The Be
atles. Heard of them?”

  “Sure. I grew up with them.”

  “Yeah, they're good. Do you know, ‘For the benefit of Mr. Kite there will be a show tonight on trampoline'?”

  “Yup, and, ‘I've got news for you all, the Walrus was Paul.'”

  “No, it wasn't, it was John.”

  “No, it's from a song, ‘the Walrus was Paul.'”

  “What?”

  “Never mind, have you thought about my question?”

  “No, what was the question?”

  “Had you been feeling suicidal long before your accident?” Accident?

  “Um, I don't know, let me think about it.”

  “Okay.”

  Now I mumble to myself, “Well, you see, I could have, but actually, what I was thinking was . . . since he was bothering me . . . I didn't behave . . . the correct procedure . . . nevertheless . . . irregardless.”

  “Brent? What are you saying?”

  “Oh, I'm just mumbling to myself.”

  “Do you hear voices in your head?”

  “Sure, who doesn't?”

  “Voices distinct from your own?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “I guess so. I mean, some of them sound like me, and others sound like different people.”

  “Like who?”

  “I don't know. Just like other people.”

  “Are you bullshitting me?”

  “No. You asked me a question and I answered you.”

  “I think you're trying to avoid my questions.”

  “That's interesting. I'll think about that.” This guy is a complete fucking tool. I could run him in circles all day long and he'd never even know he was spinning.

  “Brent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any intention of answering my question?”

  “Which one?”

  “The first one.”

  “Which was that?”

  “How long had you been feeling suicidal before your accident?”