Gray Matter

by Gary Braver

  As they approached their corner of the field, Rachel spotted Sheila. Lucinda was on the Reds. In Hawthorne, boys and girls competed on the same teams.

  Dylan looked forward to these games, and he always arrived full of enthusiasm. This morning was no different. Dylan did not start, which was fine since there were so many kids on the team.

  A few minutes into the game, somebody kicked the ball point-blank into Lucinda’s midsection, sending her to the sidelines whimpering. While Rachel took some shamed-faced satisfaction in that, Dylan went over to her and handed her his Curious George. It was clear from Lucinda’s perfunctory dismissal of him that she did not comprehend the comforting gesture, or was just too grown-up to accept it. But Dylan’s untainted compassion brought tears to Rachel’s eyes. After a few seconds, Lucinda got up and joined her teammates, while Dylan returned to the sidelines.

  After fifteen minutes or so, when the score was 3 to 2 in favor of the Reds, Dylan was sent onto the field.

  Dylan was playing forward end. The kickoff went deep into the Reds’ line. After some back and forth, the ball came to Dylan. He quickly positioned himself but kicked it the wrong way. A fast response from one of his teammates on defense sent it back toward the Reds. Dylan rushed into the fray and got the ball. Martin yelled and pointed toward the Reds’ goalie, but again Dylan kicked it the opposite way.

  Some of his teammates yelled at him, but Dylan ran after the ball and continued to run with it toward the Whites’ goalie who tried to wave him back. But he was too lost in his footwork. And before anybody could stop him, Dylan toed the ball into the net.

  The Reds jumped up and down and the Whites shouted protests.

  The coach came out and put his hand on Dylan’s shoulders and tried to explain to him that although he played the ball well, he had scored for the Reds. That he should run for the net with the Red goalie not the White goalie.

  Dylan didn’t seem to understand at first, but when he was taken out of the game, he began to cry. Out on the field, Lucinda was consulting with her coaches, looking like a World Cup champ discussing strategies. Meanwhile Dylan squatted behind the chalk line, crying in his hands. Rachel and Martin went over to console him. “There’s nothing to cry about,” Rachel said.

  “I’m a dummy. Everybody says.”

  “No you’re not. And don’t say that.”

  Rachel looked at Martin. She could read his expression. Several times in the last few weeks Martin had practiced passing maneuvers with Dylan, trying to get him to understand which goal was theirs, but nothing seemed to have stuck. He simply didn’t get the fundamentals of the game even though he had been playing for nearly two months. He was much better at T-ball, which started up next week. But Rachel still feared that he was developing an inferiority complex.

  “Hey, Dylan,” Lucinda sang out as she pranced by after the ball. “Thanks for the free goal.”

  Goddamn little bitch.

  But Rachel said nothing. Across the field she spotted Sheila in a clutch of other parents rooting on the Reds. She had no idea that Rachel was fantasizing about Lucinda falling on her face. She knew it was awful of her, but at the moment she hated that little girl.

  When the game was over, Sheila caught up to Rachel on the way to the parking lot and pulled her aside as Martin and Dylan went to their car.

  “Did you give them a call?” Sheila asked, meaning the Nova Children’s Center.

  Rachel was still upset over the incident with Lucinda, but she did not let on. “Yes, and we have an appointment in two days.”

  She had spoken to a Dr. Denise Samson and explained the nature of Dylan’s problems. The woman said to bring him in for an assessment. In addition to past test results, they needed a complete profile of his language skills, long-term/short-term memory, sequencing, abstractions/concrete tests, et cetera. They also wanted to schedule a functional MRI, which meant viewing his brain during cognitive testing.

  Sheila seemed to beam at the news. “Great. You’re not going to regret it. They’re miracle workers over there.” Then she checked her watch. “Oops, gotta go. Showing a place on Magnolia Drive. Big buckaroos.” She blew Rachel a kiss, still grinning.

  Rachel watched her hustle after Lucinda toward her car, wondering why she was so elated over her appointment at the Nova Children’s Center. Much more than Rachel was.

  As always when Dylan went to bed, Rachel or Martin would read a book with him.

  Tonight he had picked Elmo, the Cat from Venus. Of course, Dylan technically could not read, but they called it reading. He had simply memorized the story line with the pictures and knew when to turn the pages. But it made him happy.

  Halfway through the book, Rachel felt her heart slump as she thought of Dylan trying to entertain the Dell kids with funny faces while they composed poetry on the computers.

  She kissed his silky hair as he recited the pages, feeling the warmth of his head beneath her lips. No matter how hard he tried, he would forever feel stuck, humiliated, surpassed by other kids who would go on to bigger things. And he would never grow to appreciate the higher aspects of science, math, literature, or art. He would never know the higher pleasures of discovery or creativity.

  As she listened to him recite, all she could think was that he would grow up feeling inferior—that his wonderful enthusiasm would turn in on itself as he learned what a limited space he occupied in the world.

  After they finished reading, Rachel sat on the rocking chair in his room and watched her son sleep, his Curious George on the pillow beside him.

  Sometime later, Rachel awoke.

  She was in a hospital ward. For a moment, she was totally confused and frightened because she couldn’t recall how she got here. Maybe she had had a stroke, that while putting Dylan to bed she’d been struck by an aneurysm, sending her into a blackout.

  She was in a bed and hooked up to an IV and a vital-functions monitor that chirped as neon lines made spikes across the screens. They appeared normal. In fact, she felt normal. So what was she doing in a hospital?

  As she stared around the room, odd features began to assume a pattern of familiarity: A small crib sat at the foot of the bed; flowers sprouted from vases on the tables; stuffed animals filled a visitor’s chair. Hanging across the mirror was a CONGRATULATIONS streamer. And cards. Lots of cards on the food table to her right. Some with cartoons of naked bouncing babies. IT’S A BOY!!!

  My God. She was in a maternity ward.

  That couldn’t be. She didn’t recall being pregnant. Besides, that was medically impossible. She had had a hysterectomy two years ago. It made no sense.

  Of course it made no sense, she told herself. This was all a dream. A flashback dream. And the sounds of someone approaching the room cut through the thick mist of sleep. And fear and confusion gave way to a sudden rush of joy.

  “Here he is,” announced the nurse.

  Through the door came a nurse who looked vaguely familiar. But Rachel was too confused to rummage for an identity because the woman was holding a newborn baby. “Here he is,” she sang out. And she gently placed the little bundle in Rachel’s arms.

  Rachel couldn’t believe her eyes. It was Dylan, and a replay of the day he was born.

  Tears of joy flooded her eyes. She was reliving the most beautiful moments of her life. The birth of her only child. Her beautiful little boy. What a wonderful dream.

  In that hazy margin between wakefulness and dream-sleep, she wished it wouldn’t end. She wished the moment would telescope indefinitely. Because deep down in the lightless regions of her conscious mind she recalled a stalking fear born out of a report she had read somewhere. In the article a phrase had cut through all the technobabble like a seismic shock—the single solitary phrase: chromosomal damage.

  Not my baby.

  The moment passed as somebody put a hand on her shoulder. Through her tears she recognized Martin beside her in a chair. She hadn’t noticed him before, but that was part of the Lewis Carroll absurdity of dreams.

/>   “He’s got your head.”

  “Yes,” she said, not wanting to break the spell by questioning his odd wording. So she nodded as if Martin had said, He’s got your eyes.

  Dylan was wearing one of the little knitted caps they put on newborns. With the little point at the top he looked like a baby elf. But he was beginning to fuss. And though his face was still red and a little wrinkled, Rachel decided that the cap looked tight across his brow.

  “It’s okay, little man, it’s okay. Mommy will remove this thing.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” said the nurse. “It’s a little cool in here.”

  “Oh, just for a moment. Besides, he’s half-hidden.”

  The nurse rocked. “Well, I suppose.”

  Ever so delicately Rachel peeled back the little cap with her fingers. For a moment, Rachel froze.

  Then from deep inside, a scream rose out of her as her mind tried to process what her eyes were taking in: The top of Dylan’s skull was missing. And in its place was a gaping dark hole, edged with red raw tissue and a white layer of bone.

  Rachel was still screaming as she stared into the gaping brain pan of her infant’s head, wondering in a crazy side thought why no blood had stained the tiny white cap, and why Dylan was still alive, in fact, behaving like a perfectly healthy infant, staring at her wide-eyed, his little pink berry mouth sucking for her nipple, his hands making little pudgy fists—all in spite of the fact that the top of his head was missing.

  Rachel’s scream caught in her throat like a shard of glass. In the overhead light she spotted something inside his skull. It was his brain, but it was a tiny shrunken thing lying at the bottom.

  “Boy, oh boy! He’s sure got an appetite, haven’t you, little guy?” the nurse chortled.

  “Well, that’s Something he inherited from his old man,” Martin said with a big happy grin.

  Was it possible that they didn’t notice? Rachel wondered. But how could that be under these harsh lights? Or maybe she was hallucinating?

  While Dylan nursed happily at her breast, Rachel closed her eyes tightly, counted to three, then opened them again, hoping against hope that that hideous vision would go away. But it persisted. “Wh-what happened to his brain?” she cried.

  “Oh, that.” The nurse glanced over her glasses at Dylan. “Just your basic DBS.”

  “DBS?”

  “Dope brain syndrome.”

  “WHAT?”

  “Dope brain syndrome. Dysgenic occi-parietal encephalation. We see that from time to time. It’s from mothers who did a lot of TNT when they were younger. Take enough of that stuff, and it discombobulates the chromosomes,” she added while straightening out Rachel’s sheet. “But, you know, except for the minibrain, you almost never see any funny physical stuff—flippers or webbed fingers or extra toes. Really, just the ole dope brain.”

  “Dope brain,” Martin said simply, his voice without inflection. “He takes after you.”

  Then they both looked at Rachel and in unison said, “DOPE BRAIN DOPE BRAIN DOPE BRAIN—”

  “Stop!” Rachel screamed. “Please stop.”

  “Nothing to get upset about,” the nurse said, and poked her fingers into Dylan’s skull and pulled out his brain as he continued to suckle. “Pardon my French, but you musta done a lot of shit, if you ask me, ma’am.”

  Paralyzed with horror, Rachel stared at the poor pathetic little thing in the palm of the nurse’s hand. Like all the pictures of brains she had seen, it was yellow and split down the middle and wrinkled with convolutions. But so small. Like a peeled chestnut.

  “See? It doesn’t even bother him,” the nurse said, and she dropped the thing back into Dylan’s skull. “There you go, little guy.”

  Dylan burped and went back to the nipple.

  “He’s awfully cute, though,” the nurse said, grinning expansively. “Aren’t you, you little monkey.”

  “Don’t call him that,” Rachel protested.

  Suddenly the nurse’s face shifted as if the flesh were re-forming across her skull. Her eyes narrowed shrewdly and suddenly she was Sheila MacPhearson. She pressed her face to Rachel’s until it filled her vision. Her lips were big and rubbery and they muttered something.

  “What did you say?” Rachel asked and woke herself up.

  For a long spell, she looked around the room. The maternity ward had turned back into Dylan’s room, still lit by the little night-light. The book they had been reading had slipped to the floor with a thud. Dylan stirred but did not wake.

  A dream, she told herself as she sat in the dim light. No, nightmare. A wretched, brutal nightmare that has left my mind tender and begging for forgetfulness.

  She closed her eyes for a minute, Sheila’s voice still humming in her head. She had said something that had gotten cut off.

  Rachel got up to adjust Dylan’s blanket when in the dim light all she saw staring up at her from the pillow was a dark little monkey head. She nearly fainted in the moment before she recognized Curious George. Suddenly she hated that thing with its insipid grin and stupid blank eyes.

  She folded back the sheet to expose Dylan’s face, and covered George with the blanket.

  As she leaned over to kiss Dylan on his head, Sheila’s voice cut through the haze.

  “He can be fixed.”

  22

  There were two things that Lilly Bellingham’s mom told her that day: Don’t go in the water just after eating; and when you do, don’t go in above your waist.

  Lilly wasn’t that good a swimmer, so she understood the second Don’t. But she had trouble with the first. “Why do I have to wait an hour after eating?”

  “Because you’ll get cramps.”

  “How can I get cramps?”

  Lilly was only six, but she was very persistent. And smart. That’s what all her teachers said. But there were times when Peggy was caught off guard. “Because,” Peggy said, and took a swig of her diet Mountain Dew.

  “But why because? I want to go in. I’m hot as hell.”

  Peggy shot her a hard look. “I don’t like you using swear words, little missy, ya hear?”

  “You use it all the time.”

  “That’s different. Children aren’t supposed to swear. Period.”

  “But hell’s not a swear word. Not like taking the Lord’s name in vain, or the f and s words which Daddy uses all the time with Uncle Art.”

  “Well, he shouldn’t. He knows better,” Peggy said, knowing how feeble her response sounded, even to her daughter. “I don’t want no daughter of mine using any of those words, including the h word. Period.”

  “So how come I can’t go in the water?”

  “Because you’ll get cramps. You just ate and your tummy is full, that’s why.”

  “Then how come I don’t get cramps on land but will get them in the water? And how come I don’t get cramps in the bathtub after eating?”

  Damnation! Peggy thought. She was right. How come you didn’t get cramps on land but were supposed to get them in the water? Lilly was looking at her for an answer, something that was supposed to make the sweetest sense and sit her little girl’s fanny on her towel. But the best Peggy could come up with was, “Because that’s what the doctor said.” An even more feeble explanation and instantly Peggy knew Lilly wouldn’t fall for it.

  “What doctor? Not Dr. Miller. I never heard him say that. Not ever ever.” And she stamped her foot in the sand. “And you know why? Because it doesn’t make any sense. Standing in water can’t give you cramps just like standing in air can’t give you cramps after you eat. Besides, all those other kids just ate and they’re in the water, and I don’t hear any of them hollering about cramps.”

  Peggy sighed and glanced at all the kids goofing around in the shallows. Lilly was right: They had all just had lunch at a nearby picnic table and not a one of them was doubled over.

  “So how come I can’t?”

  “All right, all right! Go in the damn water.”

  Lilly’s face lit
up.

  “But if you get the slightest cramp, don’t come whining to me, ya hear?”

  “Mom, you said the d word.” And she dashed down the sand and into the water.

  “And not too far,” Peggy shouted. “You hear?”

  Lilly waved.

  Peggy watched Lilly run in up to her waist then plop down to wet her upper body. For a second she submerged herself then shot up because the water was cold. In her yellow bathing suit she looked like a canary. She had picked it out herself last week in Kmart. They were having a sale on kids’ swimsuits, and it was marked down to $7.99. Lilly loved yellow. Half the T-shirts and other tops in her closet were yellow.

  After a few minutes, Lilly wandered toward a group of kids about her age or a couple years older. They were tossing a Frisbee a few yards away. One kid overthrew and Lilly retrieved it. Although she didn’t know the kids, it didn’t take her long to make friends. In a matter of moments, she was tossing it with them, leaping in the air and splashing down to catch it. That was just like her—outgoing and sociable. Miss Chatty-Charm as Uncle Art had dubbed her. “She could sweet-talk the quills off a porcupine,” he’d say. That was just the problem, Peggy thought. She was too friendly.

  When she was satisfied that Lilly wasn’t going to go in above her waist, Peggy stretched out on the blanket with her magazine. Every so often she’d look up to see how Lilly was doing and that she was keeping in the shallows.

  But the warm sun made her drowsy, and after a while Peggy dozed off.

  Several minutes later, she woke with a start. It was nearly three-thirty, and she had to get Lilly to her four-thirty interview with Smart Kids, a summer-school program for gifted children at the local high school. She was one of five selected from her elementary school. The announcement was in the newspaper and even on the Internet.