by Brent Runyon
“Yeah. Why are there two of you and only one of me?”
“It's not a competition, Brent.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“What?”
“Do you believe in God? It's a simple question.”
“Um, let me think about it.” This is what I always do. I pretend like I'm going to answer the question and then I start thinking about something else and then fifteen minutes later they ask me again and I say I forgot the question. Works every time.
“Why do you have to think about it?”
“I don't know. It's a hard question.”
“Well, do you have any opinions?”
Maybe they're not going to let me get away with it this time. Okay, I could tell them about how I used to wonder if I was Jesus. No, too revealing. I could tell them about the time I made the deal with the devil to be the world's best soccer player. That didn't really work. I could tell them about how I'd put a Ping-Pong ball on the table and stare at it and think, Okay, God, if you really exist, all you have to do is move the Ping-Pong ball and I'll believe in you. I promise, I'll spend the rest of my life devoted to you. I promise. I will. But nothing ever happened.
“I guess I don't really believe in God, like how people normally talk about God.”
“What exactly do you mean?”
“I mean, we can't really know about stuff like that, about God or anything like that, until after we're dead. But I think, maybe, it's possible that there is something that exists that is bigger and, kind of, like, around us, but I don't know what that is.”
“Interesting.”
Why am I talking so much today? It's okay. It's harmless. “When I was . . . after I was in the . . . when the firemen were there around me, and I was lying on the floor looking up at them, I don't know how to explain this, but their eyes were kind of glowing. Like there was a light inside their eyes.”
“Yes.”
“And when my mom came, I remember her eyes, which I've looked at all my life, and they were so green, like emeralds. They were so full of light and, like, love. I don't know, I can't explain it.”
“So, what does that make you think about God?”
“I think that maybe, if human beings have souls, that maybe their souls are in their eyes. That maybe that's what the color is. Their souls.”
“Well, they say the eyes are the windows to the soul.”
“No, that's not what I mean. I mean, the actual color is kind of like your spirit, like your soul. And the black space, maybe the black space is the tunnel that people talk about when they die. Do you know what I mean? Like when you die, you go into the eyes of the person you're looking at and walk through their eyes and, at the other end, that's where heaven is.”
“That's interesting. So you think that when people die they walk through the eyes of others? Almost like a Native American right of passage?”
“No, not like that.” Goddamn it, why did I start talking to these guys? I'm talking about something, and they try to make it about something else. I hate these guys.
“Well, let's talk about something else.”
“Fine. Great. I'd love to talk about something else. What else would you like to talk about?”
Mark gets this look in his eye like he's pissed. He probably doesn't like my tone of voice. I've never seen him look like that. “Let's talk about why you feel the need to be so scarcastic.”
Did he just say what I think he said? Scarcastic?
“What?”
“Why do you feel you have to be so sarcastic?”
“That's not what you said.”
“What did I say?”
I look over at Sheslow. “Did you hear what he said?”
Sheslow says, “He said sarcastic.” Oh right, he's going to back up his friend there. What the fuck, I know what I heard. Fucker.
Jodi and I are bowling. It's always hard to find a ball that will work for me. Most of the balls are too heavy, and the light ones don't have big enough holes.
So most of the time I wind up throwing gutter balls, but today, maybe they waxed the lanes or something, but my balls are rolling really well.
I get in position. Relax. Focus on the arrows, not the dots. Visualize. Visualize. Without my Jobst glove on, my hand is starting to itch, but it's not bad yet. Here we go. Come on, baby. Come on. Come back, baby, come back. Yes, strike.
I pump my fist and Jodi gives me a high five. She says, “Great job, kid. Was that your first strike?”
“Yup. And I'm not a kid.”
“Well, excuse me, you're a bowling machine.”
One thing about Jodi, she's always exaggerating her voice and her facial features to make it seem like we're really having fun. I wish she'd chill out.
Next frame. Relax. Visualize. Be the ball.
Another strike. I'm fucking awesome.
“Wow, Brent, you've really got it going on today.”
Jesus, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's older people trying to talk like they're not old.
Okay, tenth frame. Last chance. If I get this, I'm definitely going to break one hundred. Focus. Use the hand. Follow through. Come on. Come on. Come back. Yes. Another strike. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Maybe I should be a professional bowler.
They're finally discharging me from this fucking place. Lisa just told me. I've been in here for almost three months. Three months?
My parents and the doctors are talking about where I should go next. It seems like a choice between a mental hospital or high school. I don't know which one sounds better, but nobody is asking me anyway.
Tom, the teacher, wants me to do some reading comprehension, but I don't feel like it.
He says, “Are you planning on doing any work today?”
“Not really.”
“Are you going to do anything productive?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Okay.”
I think Tom understands there's nothing he can do to get me to do any work. He says, “So, Brent, what are you going to do when you're discharged?”
“Um, I don't know, go home, I guess.”
“And then?”
“I don't know, high school eventually, but probably not yet. We're going to have a tutor come to our house for a while. And be doing some outpatient therapy.”
“That sounds good.”
Yeah, that sounds good.
When I go home, this is how it's going to work. I'll go into Children's twice a week for physical therapy. The rest of the time Mom will do my cream massages at home, and I'll work with a physical therapist from the school district. So before I get discharged, they have to make a video so my mom and the person from the school district will know what they're doing.
I remember when we did this video thing at Children's, God, that was terrible. I started crying right in the middle. Whatever I do this time, I'm not going to cry. No crying.
Jodi's got the camera. The thing I hate about being on camera is how it makes me feel like I can see myself from the outside. Before, I used to like that feeling. I used to always ham it up for the cameras. Make funny faces and do little jokes. People always said I took a good picture.
Jodi tells me to go over to the weights and do my pulley exercises, that's where I grab on to a handle with a rope and a weight at the other end and pull down over and over again. Jodi says, “Are you ready?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, I'm going to press record.”
“Okay. Action.”
“This is Brent. He's a fourteen-year-old, um, teenager who was burned in February following a gasoline, uh, fire and was burned over eighty-five percent of his body. He spent several months in an acute care hospital and has been here at the duPont Institute for three months doing an intensive rehab program to restore his arm range of motion, for scar management, and to restore range of motion in his legs and his knees. Right now, what you're watching Brent do is his upper-extremity range-of-motion exercise pr
ogram, where he's lifting ten pounds of weights, then pushing down. This has helped him restore his elbow range to full. Brent's going to show you a variety of exercises that he's able to do, and note how well he's able to get his arms over his head, because he does have a lot of scar tissue on his shoulders and on his back.”
She motions for me to come forward and stretch my arms out wide and do the circles with my arms. I can almost get my arms even with my shoulders.
I look down and notice I'm wearing my Magic Johnson T-shirt that he sent me when I was at Children's.
I say, “Note the signed Magic Johnson T-shirt.”
“Magic is a personal friend of Brent's.”
I switch to my next exercise, lifting my arms up as high as I can go. My hands can almost reach to the top of my head.
Jodi says, “Note how well Brent can get his arms above his head. When he first came here, this was a major task, as he was not able to get his arms as high as he can now.”
My arms are starting to itch because my Jobst garments aren't on.
She asks me to do some more exercises. Touching my hands in front and behind my body. Stretching my neck. Opening my mouth really big. She wants to show how the scars pull at my skin and make me look like a freak.
We stop for a while and go into a private room with one of those white sheet dividers for a background. Jodi asks me to take my shirt off and stand in front of the sheet. I don't like to look at myself with my shirt off, but now it's hard not to. I still can't believe how purple my scars are. Not even purple, more like magenta.
Jodi's talking about my skin and my graft sites and how they made my skin in Boston and sent it to me. I should make a joke. A joke would make me feel better.
I say, “I feel like that guy . . .” What guy? I can't remember. I know who I'm thinking of, but I can't remember who he is or what he's called. I feel like that guy who stands naked in front of a white sheet with his purple scars all stretched out for the video camera.
She's still talking. I don't like this.
She's saying something. “And the color is excellent.”
The color is excellent. Yeah, right. The color is excellent.
Finally she lets me get the Jobst garments and comes over to help me put them on. “The purpose of wearing an elastic garment over burned skin is to prevent the scars from growing out of control as the skin heals.”
“Are they going to know what you're talking about?”
“These are the Jobst garments.” She points. I think she's a little annoyed with me.
Finally I've got them all on. They make me feel better, like I've got a protective coating on.
“The last thing Brent puts on, before he's ready to roll, is his mask. It's a clear mask made especially for Brent's face.”
I show off the mask like I'm a flight attendant.
Now we're going down to the gym so I can show how good I am at bowling.
A couple of weeks ago, I bowled a one forty-three, but now I can barely hit any pins. All my balls keep going off to the left. Jodi's still yammering on about how much I've improved.
I say, “What am I doing wrong?”
“What are you doing wrong? I think you're rushing.”
“Okay.”
I look at the camera, hold out my hands, and say in my most sarcastic voice, “I'm usually really, really good. Just not today.” That was kind of funny. Maybe I should do more stuff like that.
Jodi's telling me to bend down like I'm picking something up from the floor. I can do it pretty well with my left hand. I can bend over and stretch my trunk and just barely reach the floor. It kind of hurts because the scars are so tight and banded, but I can do it. With my right hand I can't even reach down to my knees.
Jodi says, “Okay, one more. Bowl a strike.”
“Okay.” Focus. Focus. Visualize the pins falling. Line up to the right. Bend over. Release the ball. Good. It's moving slowly, but it's headed toward the center pin. Keep going. Keep going. Shit. I got eight. I always get an eight when I'm trying for a strike.
Now I have to get naked and lie on the table and let them rub cream into my skin while they videotape. I get my clothes and Jobst garments off and get up on the table. Gina throws a towel to me so I can cover up my penis.
Viki sets up the camera in the corner, down near my left foot. Everybody seems so tense. I hope they can't see my penis with the camera. I try and adjust the towel so the camera can't see anything.
Viki says, “Okay, you guys, I'm going to start recording. Are you ready?”
Gina says, “Okay.”
I say, “Okay.” Viki presses record. My heart is beating so fast, just lying here. This sucks.
Viki's saying something about the scars and how they need moisture. God. God. God. Let me out of this fucking place.
Viki's voice sounds nervous. “The hypertrophic scarring in the lower extremities should be rubbed using a lateral motion, applying the Eucerin cream in an even fashion so that Brent's scars are blanched and the scar tissue is made more supple by the cream.”
I say, “I feel like Frankenstein.” Either no one heard me or no one thought that was funny. Maybe it wasn't funny.
Finally they finish and Viki turns off the camera. I feel like I've been under water for a long time. I leave tomorrow.
September 13, 1991
Falls Church, Virginia
I'm gone. No party. No ice cream. No pictures. They didn't do anything special, not like Children's, and I don't even care. I'm just happy to be finally leaving. I'm so happy to be leaving. God. It's September 13th. Friday the 13th. Is that a bad omen?
February, March, April, May, June, July, August. That's more than seven stinking months. Seven months in hospitals, eating hospital food, sleeping in hospital beds, wearing hospital clothes, talking to hospital people. I used to be really nervous about going home, but now I can't wait to be back in my own bed, in my own house, with my dog and my mom and dad. Craig is off at college already.
Oh God, there it is. The carport, the bay window, the aluminum siding, the wooden fence with the chicken wire to keep Rusty in, the wreath on the front door, and Mom and Dad and Rusty and me. It's all here.
They made a Welcome Home sign. That's so nice. And there's Rusty. “Hey, Rusty. Hey, Rusty. Hey, Rusty. Yes, I'm happy to see you too. Yes, I am. Yes, I am.”
She's doing that thing she does when she gets excited. She runs around in circles around the kitchen into the dining room and back through the living room. That's so cute. She's so cute. God, it's nice to be back here.
I go downstairs into the family room. Yes. The comfy chair. I get to sit in the comfy chair. Mom asks if I want anything. “Maybe a Coke and a Snickers ice cream bar.”
This is the life. This really is the life. This is, like, what everybody dreams about when they come back home and they try to figure out what they're going to do next.
Chris calls, he says our old soccer coach Darrin wants to take us bowling. I think about saying no, I'm not in the mood, and then I think why the hell not.
I met Chris at the bus stop when we were eight years old, and we've been friends ever since then. We started playing on the same soccer team, and then we started hanging out, playing G.I. Joe and going to each other's birthday parties. He's a nice guy, although he's never been the coolest kid on the block.
They come to pick me up in Darrin's Jeep. For a long time, when he was our soccer coach, he had a red Mustang convertible. That was awesome.
“Hey, guys.”
“Hey, Brent. What's up?” Chris shakes my hand.
“Not much. What's up with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Cool.”
“Hey, Brent.” Darrin shakes my hand.
“Hey, so do you want to go?”
“Yeah.”
We head out to the Jeep. They leave the front seat for me. God, Chris has gotten tall. He must have grown six inches since I've seen him.
“Chris, you got so tall.”
�
��Yeah.”
“How tall are you?”
“Six-two.”
“Six-two?”
“Yeah.”
“Jesus, you're a giant.” The other thing is, now he's cool looking. He's wearing a blue bandanna on his head, I've never seen him do that before, and he kind of carries himself differently, like he's a man now or something.
“Chris, have you been working out?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“I'm going out for JV soccer so I've got to, you know, bulk up.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?” I'm just asking, kind of as a joke. Chris has never been much of a ladies' man. That was always my department.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yup.”
“Who? Anybody I know?”
“Did you know Denise? Laura's friend?”
“Yeah, I think I talked to her on the phone once.”
“Yeah, her.”
“What does she look like?”
“She's pretty. She's got brown hair.”
“Does she put out? Do you get it on?”
Darrin laughs. Chris sort of squints. I'm sure the answer is no.
“Well.”
“What?”
“We have some fun.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Like what? Kissing? Second base? Don't tell me you're doing it?”
“No. No. Like second or third.”
“What? You're joking.”
“No. No. I can't really talk about it, though. You know, you shouldn't kiss and tell.”
God, I always kissed and told him everything. I can't believe it. Chris is getting more action than me. I can't believe it. God, he's changed so much, and I'm just, Jesus, I'm just the same.
Chris and Darrin both have their own bowling balls. I can still only handle an eight-pound ball, and it's hard to find one of those with big enough holes in it. This one is nine pounds with big holes. I'll try it.
I have to take one of my Jobst gloves off to get my hand in the holes. I try to do it so nobody notices. It's always so weird when I take my gloves off because I have them on most of the time, and I start to think that that's what my skin looks like. And then I take them off and I'm always surprised that my fingers are so skinny and the skin is so fragile.