Head Case

by Sarah Aronson

  “My son’s got a strange sense of humor,” Dad says to Harry. “Real funny.”

  Pots clang in the kitchen. Harry looks like he wants to say something. Maybe I’m sorry. Maybe Shut up.

  “I just wanted to give people hope. They feel so bad for you. They want to believe that you’re going to be okay.”

  I wish I could stand up and beat the crap out of him. “Just get me the girl. Put me on the bed, and she’ll do the rest.” I sound like Freeberg on steroids. “When she’s done, you can drag me into the water. Let me float. I want to die on a beautiful day in the water without this chair.”

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Harry says. “I shouldn’t have said that. But don’t act like a jerk. You’ve still got a lot to live for. It’s just hard. It’s the first day.”

  “No! Listen to me. I’ve got a tube up my dick to help me pee in a bag, and nails in my neck, and no feeling anywhere south of my shoulders.” Harry starts to cry. “Yeah, go ahead. Cry. Cry and walk out of here.”

  He goes nowhere.

  “You know I can’t go to Bermuda, or anywhere else. How would I get there? All I can do is sit here and wait—wait for someone like you to show up and throw some pity my way. That’s my whole life. I wait, wait, wait, wait for you to visit me and pretend I’m who I used to be. The last thing I need is you telling people I’m going to get up and walk.”

  He blows his nose, and I almost take it all back. I almost tell him I was just playing. Except it’s not a game. Not a joke. This is my life. This is the truth.

  Harry doesn’t give up. “Maybe you will walk. You never know. Science is making a lot of headway.” He looks away and his voice trails off.

  Headway. Yeah.

  He strums his fingers and looks at the door. “I heard about some guy who had the same kind of injury. He learned how to use his hands. And what about your roommate?” He’s losing the battle. He knows how stupid he sounds. “He can do a lot of things.”

  “Harry, the doctors are one hundred percent positive I’m never going to walk again.” Even now, it’s hard to say. What makes a man? Is it legs? Can you be a man with just a brain? “I’m never going to do anything again.”

  If I were deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid, but I could run and catch, would he be telling people at school I could learn to think again?

  “Maybe you should go.”

  Harry gets up. He opens the door—does he know right now how lucky he is?

  Yes. He knows. He knows and he wants to get out of here now. He wanted a punch line, some hope to help him, but I’m not leaving him a way out.

  “I’ll come back,” he says. He opens the door.

  No, you won’t. He closes the door behind him.

  Slam. Good-bye.

  Game over. No winner.

  “Harry’s not staying for dinner?” The corners of Mom’s mouth collapse. She looks like she wants to throw the plate in her hands Frisbee-style smack at my head. “Too bad,” she says, answering her own question, disappearing with the plate and returning with a full glass. “I made his favorite. Lasagna.”

  The timer goes off. Lasagna is my favorite food. She downs her drink like a pro and heads back to the stove. It smells great. Hospital food sucks. I can’t wait to open my mouth and let her shovel it in, one spoonful after another after another after another. My first meal at home.

  I motor to the table and she turns off my power. Keep one of us at the table. How handy. She stomps over to the stairs. “Dinner!” she yells. “Now.”

  Dad needs one more “dinner” and two more “nows” before he manages to make an appearance at the table. He stands near his chair but does not sit.

  Come on, Dad, sit and talk. Tell me a joke. “Could you move my joystick?” I ask.

  He does not move. I’m not sure he knows how to do anything with my chair.

  Mom puts down the salad and shows him how it’s done. Her sleeve grazes the garlic bread. “Damn. Dry clean only.”

  Dad pulls out a magazine and stares at the center article while Mom walks back and forth, first with a salad bowl, then a white ceramic pitcher. “Water, Hal?” She fills each glass halfway. When she sits down, Dad grabs the pitcher and fills his too high; water drips on the table. Mom puts her hands together. “Thank you for the food we are about to receive.” No mention of the spill.

  Dad pats the table dry. “Rub-a-dub-dub. Thanks for the grub.”

  Pause. Silence. It’s great to be home.

  Mom dishes out the food, first to Dad, then to me. Her plate remains empty. She grabs my fork from my place setting, and scoops up some lasagna. She places it in my mouth, holding a napkin under my chin, just in case she pulls the fork out too fast. No one tells her to fill her plate; no one reminds her to eat.

  “It’s so fine to have you home, Frank,” my father says.

  I let the food settle on my tongue, then chew: cheese and sauce, but no meat. A minor disappointment. “Thanks, Dad.”

  Mom delivers another mouthful into the back of my throat. This time, she gives me meat, pasta, and sauce, and an oversized chunk of onion, but no cheese. No cheese. She says, “Father Joseph called today. He’s going to try to stop by, but he’s so busy. I was thinking we should call the taxi and see him at church. What do you think?”

  Dad stuffs his face with lasagna. “How much does it cost?”

  Mom sighs. It must cost a lot, because she drops the subject. “He said there were three new admits.” She holds the cup in my face and sticks the straw in my mouth. “Such a shame. Such a shame. One was a girl. Fell off her bike in traffic. No helmet.” Mom takes every injury personally.

  Dad shovels food into his mouth. “How stupid can you be?”

  “One of the boys was injured in a forty-two-car pileup on the interstate. Did you hear about that?” She stuffs a bite in my mouth. Cheese and meat. Zucchini. I hate when she adds vegetables.

  Spoonful after spoonful. Cheese and meat. Cheese and pasta. Statistically, she’s got to get it right some time. Meat and cheese. Sauce, pasta, and onion. But no. No. She does not get it right. She messes it up. Every time.

  “Four people died. In the pileup.” Sauce and pasta. More zucchini. Nothing to drink. Where’s the bread? The salad?

  “Do it right!” I yell. “Can’t you do it right? A little bit of everything. Pasta, cheese, sauce, and meat. How stupid are you? Why can’t you do it the way I like it?”

  Mom begins to cry.

  “Nice, Frank,” Dad says. He downs his second or third scotch. “You could try being a little polite.” He pushes back from the table, gets up, and disappears. My mother throws my napkin on the ground and leaves the table, too. The half-finished dinner sits on the table.

  “Do you think this is fun for me?” I am stuck; the chair won’t move. “I can’t even pick up a fork and eat my food.”

  Come back.

  Please, come back. Don’t leave.

  Someone.

  Television noise blares from above. The door slams. The smell of garlic teases me, makes me tired. I close my eyes and wait.

  Her ice-cold hand stings my neck. “Sorry, Frank,” Mom says. She turns on the power and puts my joystick back in place, enabling the chair.

  I smell the stale remains of Italian dressing and sauce. I must have fallen asleep, zoned out—not sure how long. The sun looks almost red; it stabs the clouds and makes them bleed.

  “Do you want me to reheat your dinner?”

  “No, no thanks.”

  She stacks the plates and heads for the kitchen. She does not invite me to join her, she does not encourage me to talk.

  She needs a break.

  Me, too. Have chin, will travel.

  My bedroom is now off the living room in the room we used to call the den, a straight drive from the dinner table. All my old furniture is present and accounted for, but it is newly clean and my papers are gone. No clutter; my CDs are in order. There is no dust, no book set aside carelessly for later. Just like the wall in the living room, this place feels
like old country music, wailing and crying for something that is gone. The life has been sucked out of it. My father should make a brass plate: Frank Marder’s bedroom, circa 2007.

  I motor to face the desk and smell pine, Lysol pine. And Murphy oil soap. My mother dusts twice a week. Tuesdays and Fridays, every week, all year.

  The bed, a brand-spanking-new hospital-issue bed, takes up most of the space. They bought a special skin-saving mattress so they won’t have to roll me every two hours. The special pillow is in place, too. The white-and-yellow blanket looks soft. I wonder if it matters. It could be the roughest, most uncomfortable, scratchiest blanket on the planet, and what would I care?

  My old blanket was blue-green. I picked it out last year—big sale at the outlet. Mom made me go. She told me to buy a good one. For college.

  Harry rode shotgun. We put our hands on every blanket in the store and imagined all the girls that we’d get to know underneath them. College was going to make us men. College was going to bring us girls. College was the place where there were more of them than us.

  After a few more fantasies, I paid for a blanket with a thick satin border that felt great under my chin. Ironic. I got the matching sheets, too. I always loved sleeping late and lying under the covers. Meredith did, too.

  Once.

  “You look good in green,” I said.

  She was up to her chin in my blankets and me.

  “This feels so good,” she said, squirming around until there was no air between her skin and mine. “I feel like I’m swimming in silk.”

  I kissed the back of her head, pleased with myself, confident that I’d soon be getting the payoff I’d imagined.

  Sleeping late. Not on my schedule.

  Swimming in silk. Never again.

  Girl in my bed.

  Once.

  Mom comes in. “Is it okay?”

  “Yes. It’s very nice.” Her eyes are expectant, needy. She has worked hard to make the space right.

  “You have a speakerphone here,” she says, waving her arm in the direction of the desk, “and we just ordered a special intercom and a new computer. Voice-activated.” She waits for me to say something affirmative.

  “Yes. Good.” Damn. My voice lacks enthusiasm. The day has already been too hard. A voice-activated computer is a great thing. A speakerphone, too. Great consolation prizes. Sorry you can’t move, Frank. Sorry you picked the wrong door. But here are the gimp toys, just for you. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give Frank a hand!

  Tomorrow. I will tell her thank you tomorrow, when I can really mean it, when I can push out more than one syllable at a time.

  She wants it now. Now, Frank, now.

  “I tried to put every poster in its place.”

  Yes, yes, yes, the posters are all here, the ripped corners repaired with invisible tape. You can still see where she took off the tape, the tape I was not supposed to put on the newly painted walls so many years and months and weeks ago. I know. I see. I’ll tell her tomorrow.

  Now. Now.

  “I went through every book. I brought down your trophies and your old model planes.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We bought the new bed. We fixed the bathroom. We did everything they told us.”

  “Mom.”

  “Frank.” She sits on my bed.

  “What did you do with my room upstairs?” Shit, my head wants to explode. I don’t know why I’m asking this. She should call my dad and get me in bed.

  “I turned it into an all-purpose room,” she says. “Like an office, with a small TV and a treadmill.” Pause. Frown.

  “A family room?”

  “Not really.” Her lips pucker. She is biting the inside of her mouth.

  A family room by any other name is still a family room. For the walking people in the house. A sanctuary, away from me. I bet it looks great, full of color and comfy chairs and shelves full of books that you can pick up with your hands and read. She can pucker her lips all she wants; she is going to stand there and tell me all about it.

  “What color did you paint it?”

  “Celery stalk.” My mother glances back at the door. “With a splash of glaze and celadon.”

  “What kind of treadmill? The one with arms? What about the furniture? The TV? Is it a flat screen? How many inches?” I am an asshole. My mother is going to need a place to go. I shouldn’t take it out on her, but I do. I do. I wanted those things, too. I still want them.

  “I brought everything down.” She takes two steps away from me. “Every book, every card, every poster, Frank. I tried to make this space nice. I did the best I could.” She looks over her shoulder again, but Dad is not going to come to her rescue.

  My favorite books, the ones I will never pick up and read again, are here. Alphabetized. The stereo, the model airplane from seventh grade, the trophy for winning last year’s science fair are all in place. Just the dust is gone.

  “Where is it?” I ask. Her cheeks turn red. She knows what I want.

  “Your card collection is in the top drawer. Do you want to see it?” She is ready to mobilize. She will show me each card if she has to.

  “No. No cards, Mom. I want the jar.”

  “Let me get Dad. You need to get to bed.”

  She looks away. “Did you throw it away?” Pride and privacy are just words. I am not ashamed.

  The look on her face makes me wish I hadn’t asked. Call it disappointment. Call it fear. She crosses herself and clears her throat.

  “Are you talking about the old pickle jar containing four used condoms?”

  Meredith dubbed it “the candy jar.” We were going to see how fast we could fill it.

  “Yes. That jar.”

  Mom looks over her shoulder again, but Dad, her husband, the person she probably wanted to initiate this talk, is not here. “No. It is not here. I threw it away. When I found it, I—” She sniffs. “I thought I raised you better than that. I thought you were a respectful young man. I thought you were different…” She starts crying. “What you did—what you saved—it was repulsive. I didn’t even know you were … I thought you were different … than your father.”

  I don’t have the energy to be mad. I was not like my father. I was just having fun. The jar is gone. Screaming won’t bring it back. For that matter, seeing the jar won’t bring me back.

  “It was mine.” My voice sounds weak.

  “It was revolting,” she says.

  Once I was a boy who became a man. Then I was a man who became a head. The jar was just a jar.

  They should have let me die. They should have put the period at the end of the sentence that is me, my life, my time. They had at least ten good reasons. They probably had that many opportunities.

  But nobody did it. Nobody ever started counting.

  day two

  You can tell right away that Sunset Goldberg wasn’t always an employee of the state. Her hair is braided in long, skinny purple, pink, and yellow braids that hang to the middle of her back. She wears a big green rock in her nose and a red string around her wrist.

  My mother brings her decaf chai tea. “Next time, I’ll make sure to have soymilk.”

  “Frank, my job is to oversee your transition from hospital to home,” Sunset says.

  Mom nods. Yes, yes, thank you, thank you for helping me with this unbearable burden.

  “You can ask me anything. I’m a licensed occupational therapist, as well as your care coordinator. Periodically, I will report your needs to the state.” Sunset blows on her tea before she sips. “But that’s mostly a formality. Be confident that we’ll get you all the equipment that you need as fast as we possibly can.”

  “Have you heard anything about the van?” Mom’s watch beeps, and she gets off the couch. Time to shift my weight.

  Sunset motions my mother to stand to the side. Together, they tip my head forward until I can see my knees. “I’ll grab Frank’s back, you keep him steady. I’d like to take a quick look at his skin. Just to make sure.”
She takes a deep breath. “On three.” They pull me up, just out of the chair.

  “I feel a little light-headed.”

  “We got you,” Sunset says. Mom hums.

  “Looking good, look-ing good.” My pants rustle when she pulls them back up; my body thumps when it hits the chair. “Frank, think of me as your navigator. I’ll find help for your mother, a therapist who will come to the house, and will be available twenty-four-seven to answer your questions.” She puts me down and brings her mug to her lips.

  “You want some water?” Mom asks. Sweat rolls down Sunset’s blouse.

  “Thanks, yes. Don’t worry about the van. It will be ready soon.”

  She’d sound very professional if it wasn’t for the hair and the string and the funny accent. “Are you from France?” Great language, French.

  “No,” Sunset says. “I grew up in the Bronx. I lived in Toulouse for three years. My boyfriend grew up there. I guess I have one of those voices that picks up new accents.” She finishes her tea. Puts up a finger. “Je vais retourner tout suite!”

  “Back in a flash,” I translate.

  Mom stands at the window and we watch Sunset unload boxes from her car. “Careful,” my mother says, “you don’t want to drop that.”

  My computer.

  “Careful, you don’t want to drop that.”

  The fancy new intercom.

  “Careful—”

  Sunset smiles at me. “I won the Miss New York power-lifting championship three years ago. Came in tenth in the nationals. I can deadlift three hundred and thirty-five pounds clean. Don’t you worry. I won’t drop anything.”

  She may be able lift a computer, but she does not have the intuition to install the software. She hunts and pecks and curses for two hours. Mom sits in the living room and reads. I motor back and forth between them. Can’t the state find someone who can read a goddamn manual?

  “Isn’t it time to shift my weight?” Mom gets up from the table like I’m an impatient toddler who wants the same answer to a question that has been answered before.

  How many more minutes, Mom? Huh, Mom?