The Redeeming Power of Brain Surgery

by Paul Flower

  Elvis sat up in the bed. It was a big bed—a king, like the ones you got in hotels, not like the double bed he and Lavern had. The bedroom was large, as big as his and Lavern’s living room. It was nicer than any hotel room he’d slept in: gauzy curtains at the windows and thick, deep-green carpet. Elvis suddenly felt a little creepy. This wasn’t his place. The bed hadn’t been made when he’d fallen into it the night before, had it?

  He got up and stumbled past the open suitcase on the floor and into a bathroom. He tried to ignore the shaving kit on the vanity, the toothbrush in the shiny gold holder, the glassed-in shower with the twin shower heads and all the reminders that this wasn’t his, wasn’t his, wasn’t his. Elvis relieved himself, showered under one of the shower heads, found a towel in a cupboard then toweled off. From his jeans pocket, he pulled a comb and ran it quickly through his hair, taking just a few anxious minutes at the mirror. Then he dressed in his dirty underwear and jeans and returned to the bedroom.

  For several minutes he sat on the edge of the bed, trying to distract himself, trying to decide what to do for a shirt. He glanced at the picture on the wall. It was a photo of what had to be a teenaged Jesse Tieter with some old gal who hardly had any teeth. Jesse and the old gal were standing in front of a shrub on a summer day. If you looked closely, you could see Jesse was holding two fingers up behind the lady’s head, giving her horns. The lady was grinning a big toothless grin like she had no idea what the guy was up to.

  Weak-kneed, Elvis stood and walked to a long dresser that hugged the wall opposite the picture. He opened and closed each drawer, pausing to stare stupidly at the contents. It dawned on him that this was a man’s room—no women’s clothes. Finally, he settled on a sweatshirt—a “fleece” was what Jesse probably called it—pale blue and expensive. He put it on, then sat again on the edge of the bed.

  Slowly the fog from the night before was lifting. This was wrong, he thought. Being here. Was. Wrong. Is. Wrong. Wearing this. Wrong. Someone could come back. Any minute, someone—he—could walk through the door.

  Elvis gawked at the wound on his hand, the one he’d gotten when he’d punched the mirror; when had it been—yesterday?

  The scab had hardened. The knuckle was red; you could barely see the feathery outline of the old scar beneath it.

  The smoke of a memory billowed through the room.

  Elvis covered his eyes. He felt pain, real pain, from a place he hadn’t touched in years.

  “He ain’t coming back, you just remember that,” Mom said. “And don’t start no crying. There’s no use crying over spilled milk, anyhow.”

  He could see her. She was standing in the kitchen, peeling potatoes, staring out the window at the station wagon turning out of the driveway. Her hands were working really fast on the potatoes, faster than he’d ever seen them work. A gallon of milk was next to her, right on the kitchen counter. Elvis wanted to dump it over. He wanted to see what she’d do about the spilled milk.

  The other boy had been all dressed and ready to leave when Elvis came in for supper that summer night. Standing there in the kitchen just inside the door, the other boy looked pale and uncomfortable, like he and Mom had just argued or something. It took Elvis a second to realize he was dressed in his best blue jeans and a shirt he usually wore to school. Then Elvis saw the dirty old suitcase and the beat up cardboard box overflowing with books and airplane models and stuff.

  Elvis stared again at the picture on the wall.

  “Where you going?” Elvis asked the other boy.

  “Away.”

  “Your books? Your books going, too?”

  Mom, behind Elvis, laughed.

  “Yeah, they’re going too.”

  “But why? Where? What’s going on?”

  “Just a change of living arrangements is all,” Mom growled. She danced slowly into his vision, clicking her lighter casually to the beat of the song on the radio.

  “Living... what?” Elvis took an uncertain step past the other boy and caught a whiff of something. His head swam and his knees went weak. He stopped and faced him. “Y...You’re wearing aftershave?”

  The other boy looked at the floor and coughed. “I took a bath.”

  “He took a bath and got all slicked up for his aunt and uncle,” Mom said. “Like how he smells all pretty?”

  “But...” Suddenly Elvis felt like he’d been slugged in the stomach. The aftershave was Old Spice and the idea of the other boy taking the Old Spice bottle down from the shelf in the bathroom—the idea of him splashing on that smell—well, it wasn’t right. “Y... you used the aftershave,” was all Elvis could say.

  “He can use what I tell him he can use,” Mom said.

  Anger welled in Elvis’ throat. “That’s not right,” he shouted before he could stop himself.

  Mom was on him in a heartbeat. Smack. The back of her hand caught him on the right ear.

  “You hush that bad thought right now, you hear me? There’s going to be no more of that from you. If I have to smack you every day, there’s going to be no more of that.”

  Through the rush of tears Elvis saw the station wagon pulling into the driveway, the other woman and that man with the hat—the toothless woman with the dumbnuts grin on her face and the hat-man nervous and joking—and the suitcase and box being picked up from the floor. Mom, for some stupid reason, not asking them to stay; she walked to the sink and started peeling the potatoes, fast. Elvis wandered away, out of the room, his addled brain struggling to understand what it all meant.

  He couldn’t get it. He didn’t want to get it. Maybe.

  The phone rang.

  Somehow he had walked downstairs to the living room. The clock on the mantle over the living room fireplace read quarter to eight. Who’d be calling Jesse Tieter, M.D. this early? The phone, phones, rang again. From the bedroom, from the kitchen, from the living room, too.

  He couldn’t decide what to do. Do I answer it? No. Yes. What do I say? Hello, Jesse’s house? No. Just hello. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe not. No. Just pick it up. Pick it up and see what happens. Say nothing. That maybe would work. Or just hi. Maybe just that. Hi.

  Another ring.

  Elvis walked to the far end of the living room and found the phone on a table against the wall. The table was nearly hidden by a tropical plant that hung over it. The plant reminded him of one Mom had always kept in the house. Elvis had hated that plant, and he hated this one, too. It blocked the phone so you couldn’t see it right away.

  Elvis pushed the plant back with his one hand and picked up the receiver with the other, cutting off another ring.

  ****

  “Jesse Tieter.” He groaned and unraveled himself, the cell phone to his ear. His neck ached. His head throbbed. He blanched at the pizza on the floor of the car. “Hello?” Jesse rolled down the window with his free hand, trying to get some air.

  “Yes, Mister,” the voice on the phone said. “Ah, hold on—sorry—it’s Doctor, Doctor Tieter, this is Detective Harvey Monahan calling, Michigan State Police. How are you this morning?”

  Jesse sat up. “What the f…?”

  “I said this is Detective Harvey…”

  “Oh, no, ummm, sorry, sorry, Officer…”

  “Detective.”

  “Huh?”

  “Detective. Not Officer. We detectives take offense.”

  “Oh, ah, fine, Officer—I mean detective. Um. What I meant was, what can I do for you?” With his free hand, Jesse tilted the rear-view mirror down and frowned at his image. He ran a hand through his hair.

  “Well, Dr. Tieter, it appears we have a friend of yours in custody, and we were just wondering how we could maybe have you amble in for a chit chat. He’s been singing your virtues to some buddies of mine here for half the night and gave them this cell number, but I figured you’d want your beauty sleep; I know I need mine, otherwise the ladies, well, they ju
st don’t respond like normal, know what I mean? You like the ladies, doc, or you one of them homosexuals? Listen to me, talking about a man’s sexual orientation at the crack of dawn. There’s a joke there somewhere, but I’ll skip that. Anyways, I don’t give a blind dog’s right eye about which side of the plate you whack it from, doc, but I sure could use your help here. This friend of yours is all giddy about seeing you.”

  “What? What friend? What friend? I don’t have any around here, not really.” Jesse was fully upright now. “Where are you? You’re here. Michigan? Right? Right. You said ‘Michigan.’” He stuck his head out the window and sucked in some air. Jesse was cold but suddenly he was sweating. He glanced at himself in the rear-view again. He looked like crap; his eyes were wide, his mouth was open like an idiot’s. “What are you, what is this all about?”

  “You feel friendless, Dr. Tieter? Well sit me up behind the anchor desk and call me Tom Brokaw, I got great news for you. This young man we’ve been talking to says you and him have been awfully close lately. Says you and him had a business proposition. And now there’s a man over at Bonner Wire—check that, isn’t at Bonner Wire anymore because he isn’t at all. He’s not among us any longer, this guy isn’t.”

  “No. This can’t… I… he can’t be,” Jesse stammered. The pizza on the floor of the nasty old car, the smells from the upholstery, the hangover. Had he really called Mom? Then had he showed up—had he been in the house? Now, he was in his car? Suddenly, he felt the urge to vomit. He wrestled with the door. Open. Open, please.

  “You okay doc? Need a doctor? I know a dandy in town, you need one.”

  The door yawned, Jesse held the phone well away from his head, leaned out the door and puked.

  The siren, distant and mourning, didn’t register. He felt better now. His head was clearer. With the back of a quivering hand, he wiped his mouth, then rubbed his hand on his pant leg. Get control now, he ordered himself. Get control.

  “Breaker, breaker one-nine,” the cop said. “Hello. Knock-knock. You hearing me? Roger wilco, you got your ears on doc?” This guy was a real comedian.

  “I’m here.”

  “Doc, this man who isn’t among us? That would mean he’s dead. And there’s this deal, this state statute we got here in the wolverine state, against the taking of life? Well, let’s just say we need to clear some things up. To make this easy, mind if we just send a patrol car your way? Where you at right now? We’ll just put the Michigan taxpayer dollar to work for you.”

  Jesse turned the key in the ignition, glanced again at himself in the mirror and remembered. The house. Last night. Him. He’d found him. Yes. No. Yes. With a palsied hand, he adjusted the mirror to its original position. “Shit,” he said.

  “What’s that, doc?”

  Of the thoughts scrambling like hermit crabs across his tired brain, one was leading the pack: get out of the area for a little while, get some time to think about this. “I said, um, no… no problem. You just tell me where the state police post is. I’ll come on over.” He steered the car onto the road, heard the siren approaching but still didn’t think anything of it.

  “Now doc, now don’t you put yourself out, buddy. We’ll send someone to you.”

  “No. No, that’s fine. That’s just fine.” Jesse pushed the gas to the floor and the car ca-chugged its way to a top speed of maybe 45. Stupid car. Now there was a flashing light in his rear-view. A cop. Wait a second. A cop. The cop hit the siren again. He was pulling him over.

  Jesse braked and brought the car to an uneasy stop on the shoulder. He gawked at the rear-view mirror. There were two guys in the front seat, one in uniform, driving, the other on a phone, smiling. And talking. “Hey doc, you still there? Doc? You ever hear of that global positioning, doc? That G-P-S? Why, you got it right on your cell phone. Did you know that? Around here, your cell phones send out a GPS signal so emergency personnel can find you when you’re in trouble. Ain’t that good doc? Ain’t that so very good?”

  Jesse closed his eyes. This was going so wrong. So very, very wrong.

  ****

  “Jess?” A voice from far away hummed through the phone line. “Jess, honey. It’s me. That you?” The voice was old and familiar and, at first, it didn’t register.

  “Ah... ah... Hullo?”

  “I’m just calling to see if mister smarty pants doctor is going to get me soon,” she said, “or you gonna let me rot.”

  Something twanged in Elvis’ stomach, something he’d swallowed long ago.

  “I been sitting here at the bus station for half the dang morning. Like to starve or die of loneliness, ‘less you come and get me soon. Or you forget that you sent for your mommy? That it? You forget that you called last night and asked after all these years for her to come see you so’s we could talk?”

  A dream. Yes. Definitely. After all, she was dead.

  “Are you there?” The voice was shrill now. “Are you listening to me? You ain’t listening to me now, are you?”

  Elvis saw the circuit breaker go. Inside his head, he saw sparks shower—they were beautiful, really, like Roman candles—and he heard a snap, then blackness.

  ****

  The line between sane and crazy is thin. Some people say it’s not really a line at all, and they’re probably right. It’s more membrane than line; a milky, translucent membrane. You can see through it. You can know what’s over on the other side. You can push against it and stretch it to get an idea of what you’re in for over there, if you’ve a mind to know. He was doing that. He’d dropped the phone and had closed his eyes and fallen. Yet, inside his mind, he was standing and leaning, arms outstretched, feet apart and palms against the membrane. He was trying to see what was on the other side of sane, thinking maybe, just maybe, it was safer over there.

  He could still hear the voice coming from the phone. And he could hear all the other voices behind that voice. It was like they were all lined up behind him, all in the sane world, and they were talking to him, laughing at him. All he wanted was to get away from them. The crazy side, he could almost see, was definitely possibly beautiful, like maybe a nice, cool pine grove on a hot day. From the sane side it looked peaceful, safe and good. The only problem, as far as he could tell, was this humming, this buzzing coming from the crazy side. As he stretched and pushed and strained, the membrane thinned. Then it weakened and tore just a little––it opened a hole about the size of a quarter––and he realized that something had gone bad over there. It smelled like something sweet, but way, way too sweet. He could hear the hum, too. It was rising and moving, undulating like a quivering, living thing.

  He squinted, looked through the hole and saw the other boy. The other boy was all alone, just standing there on the other side. Around him, on him—everywhere—were flies, black and mean, buzzing, darting, jabbing at his head, crawling up his shirt and over his face. But the other boy just stood there and stared at him with a calm, quiet look in his blue-gray eyes.

  He jerked away from the wall and the membrane snapped back, first against his face, then against his whole body, blowing a little of the smell back at him through the hole. With it came a single buzzing, darting, annoying demon fly. This fly dove at him, jabbing into his ears, on his neck, into his open mouth and out again. The smell was leaking through the hole, blowing back at him, a slow leak from the crazy side to the sane. He wanted to kill the fly and shut off the smell because now he wanted to stay here. He could cope with the voices, but he knew he couldn’t cope with that smell, that odor, and whatever had made it.

  “Honey, you okay?” One voice behind him spoke loudly and clearly above the others. “You stay right where you are. You’ll get it. Just reach out and let us help you. You’ll get it.”

  He turned slowly from the membrane-wall and looked. It was her.

  “Don’t you worry, baby. Just stay with it,” she said. “Just stay with it, baby.”

  S
he was right behind him, on the sane side of the leaking membrane. She was holding her hands out like she wanted to caress him. He felt like a little boy. He wanted her to kill the fly with a swatter, touch his forehead and make all the bad go away. Please, please, please. Hold me. Oh baby. He felt his lip tremble. And he started toward her with one heavy, weighted-down step, then another. The bad smell from the other side faded and the fly disappeared.

  Her hands moved slowly toward his face. Yes, oh yes, she touched him. She cupped his face in her hands.

  Her eyes were looking into his, telling him something. She was telling his brain that now it had to remember. Now, she said, he could no longer live a lie; he had to tell the truth. And next to her, leaning in and gawking at him with bug eyes was Harvey Monahan. Only Harvey wasn’t laughing at him; he was saying softly, “Yes. Yes.” And she was nodding and crying just enough to show him she still cared. This, she was saying, would soon be over.

  He wanted to hold her and say, “Hey, let’s go make an omelet or something.” Instead, he let her take his face into her hands. She leaned to him and kissed him, lightly, on his forehead. Then she was gone. He could hear her footsteps, the closing of a far-off door. He was cold and slipping back into this world, still sane but once again feeling the ache of her leaving.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Elvis awoke and sat up, confused. He looked at the phone, which was next to him on the living room floor, and remembered the voice. His bowels clenched.

  Stay with it, he told himself. Stay. Calm. Calm down. Elvis let his breath out slowly, got to his feet and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  There was nothing at first, then music and a voice, sounded like they were coming from a radio. Elvis strained to hear. “Mrrlmald riruffta degrees for a high,” a muffled announcer was saying. “Trealdnad a dalldd back to the music.”

  It came up weakly, some old country song, distant and soft, more like a memory than a song. It was the twangy kind of thing Mom had always listened to while she was cooking and fussing around in the kitchen. Waylon or Willie or someone—music from the white plastic radio that sat next to the stove and propped up the Betty Crocker cookbook. Sometimes, Mom would turn it up good and loud when a favorite came on. She’d sing to it and sway. That was the only time Elvis thought she seemed young and happy. Then the phone would ring, and she’d say something really quick under her breath, a little swear word or something. She’d take three hard steps to the radio and turn it down, not all the way down, just so it was murmuring. And she’d answer the phone.