What Hides Within

by Jason Parent

  Clive stared at the clock on the wall, the same creepy cat clock perched in Dr. Allen’s waiting area, which always seemed to be glaring demonically back at him. It read nine thirty.

  Right on time. No one else here. What does that mean? A fifty-minute wait in this room and a three-hour wait in the next? If I’m lucky, I may get out of here before work tomorrow.

  Missing work one more day wasn’t such a bad thing. It would probably take him a half hour to get caught up. Certainly, though, he had more enjoyable, albeit less important, things he’d rather have been doing. He leaned back into a hard plastic chair and let his mind wander wherever it chose.

  Thirty-seven minutes later, a nurse came in to escort Clive to an examination room. All right! Ahead of projection. Clive snickered. He fixated on the nurse’s plus-sized ass as he followed her to the last room down a short hallway.

  In the room, Clive took in his surroundings. To his delight, another hard plastic chair like the one that had just numbed his buttocks sat against the wall of the room. Jackpot! he thought, taking a seat. Forty-two seconds later, he was already bored. I have to start downloading more games on my phone or something.

  As the seconds combined into minutes, Clive’s mind went vacant. The cooling, peaceful, pastel-colored walls began to tremble as his eyes grew tired from staring at them. Like a Dali painting, the world began to melt.

  What do you hope to accomplish with this?

  Clive snapped back to the here and now. He anxiously glanced around the room. He hoped to see someone, anyone—a real living person—standing beside him. The voice brought about a sickness within him, the same feeling he always had when he looked into his rearview mirror and saw flashing red-and-blue lights. He tired of his solo conversations, feeling far too old for an imaginary friend.

  Seeing no one, Clive clammed up. It became hard to swallow. Everything froze around him. Clive stood as still as the dead.

  A bead of sweat plopped off his temple, landing in a small splatter on his thigh. As it dropped, the world resumed its torpid tempo.

  “Is someone there?”

  Stop being an idiot. You know where I am. I’m just reminding you that you’re wasting your time with this stupidity. You’re going to end up with a lot of unnecessary heartache and expense. You’ll see. Maybe then you’ll start paying more attention to me.

  “I don’t know who or what you are, but this ends today.”

  Ha! That’s what you think. You amuse me, Clive. I think I’ll stick around, see how this plays out. That means I’m here to stay, my friend. The sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be. In the immortal words of Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?”

  Clive leaped from his chair like a man gone berserk. He swung his fists wildly at the air around him, flailing like an alpha-male gorilla whose leadership had been challenged. He wouldn’t let his grasp on reality slip away without protest. Ironically, it was his manner of protest that made him appear insane.

  “Fuck you!” Clive bellowed. “You’re dead. You’re so fucking dead! I’m going to tear you from my head, stomp the shit out of you, and skull fuck your momma.”

  The air around him seemed to thicken. Disorder smothered him like a coarse blanket. The voice, the room, everything went silent. Almost immediately, Clive felt aware of another’s presence hovering behind him.

  “That would not be a nice thing to do to my mother. She’s eighty-three years old and confined to a wheelchair.”

  Clive slowly turned to face his addressor. “Heh.” He laughed awkwardly. How much of his unique behavior had the man witnessed? Clive’s face turned hotter than a ginger kid’s after falling asleep under the summer sun.

  A tall, shrewd-looking man with a deathly serious ex-pression stood silently with arms crossed. Black narrow-rimmed glasses hung at the edge of his nose, threatening to teeter off. His hair appeared to have been doused in grease, a style straight from the 1950s. It was dark, thinning, and slicked into a parted comb-over from left to right. His image was one with which Clive was intimately familiar, right down to his air of superiority.

  “Dr. Allen! I didn’t see you there. You’re…” Clive started, glancing at his watch. Early, was how he intended to finish his statement until he realized more than two hours had passed in what for him seemed like only two minutes.

  Shit! How long did I space out for? Was that a blackout? I don’t remember passing that much time in here. Crap! Don’t tell me I’m having those now too.

  “It’s Dr. Severn,” the doctor said, hinting at impatience.

  “Always the kidder, huh, Dr. Allen? I’m not falling for another one of your jokes. I know it’s you.”

  The doctor peered down his nose at Clive. “I’m Dr. Severn. I have no idea why people are always confusing the two of us. I don’t think I look anything like him.” Dr. Severn seemed genuinely angry, so much so that Clive felt the need to step back.

  “I’m sorry.” Clive was hesitant to apologize, not entirely convinced this wasn’t another of Dr. Allen’s misplaced gags.

  “We’re not related. We don’t even style our hair the same way. And he wears glasses made by some cheap imitation company.”

  “Okay, I got it. I’m sorry. Can we just move on now?”

  Dr. Severn let out a sigh. “In any event, let’s see what we can do about those voices you’ve been hearing.”

  “I’m here about my ear,” Clive said.

  “But I see you’ve got time to rhyme,” Dr. Severn replied. “It’s no trouble. I’ll get to your ear on the double. Just let me grab my stuff. It’ll be over soon enough.”

  Great. Another joker. Who knew doctors found themselves so gosh darn witty? Seuss was a doctor too, I suppose. Clive was not impressed. Dr. Severn seemed to pick up on it.

  “Ahem. You did tell me… excuse me—you did tell Dr. Allen that you were hearing voices?”

  Strange mix-up. I swear to God, if this guy tells me he’s really Dr. Allen, I’m going to knock his ass out. “Well, it’s just the one voice,” Clive said.

  “Um-hmm.”

  Um-hmm? What’s that supposed to mean? “It’s gone now.”

  “Okay. Let’s get started, then, before it comes back. First, I’m going to conduct a simple neurological exam. Basically, this involves routine procedures that test your reflexes, coordination, muscle strength, eye movement, and responsiveness to pain, my favorite part.” He snickered. “Just kidding.”

  “Your sense of humor resembles Dr. Allen’s,” Clive said smugly.

  “A failing in any of those categories could but may not be a sign of a lesion, tumor, or other abnormality. Regardless of the results, we’ll then perform either a CAT scan or a PET scan. So if you don’t like cats, you can always get a different pet. That’s a little medical humor for you.”

  Clive faked a smile. Yeah, it was fucking brilliant. It did, however, briefly distract him from the doctor’s main point. Briefly.

  “Wait a minute. Are you saying that I might have brain damage?”

  “Possibly. Or it could be tumor. Or it could be nothing. We won’t know until we get some images taken. You shouldn’t stress about it until at least that has been done.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Clive muttered, barely audible.

  “We could also do an MRI—magnetic resonance imaging scan. I haven’t been able to work that into the whole animal thing yet, so we probably won’t go with that one.”

  “Monkeys, rabbits, and iguanas. MRI.”

  “What?”

  Clive focused on the idiotic mnemonic device. He wasn’t ready to discuss the possibility of cancer. “You got broader in your animal categories going from cat to pet. Why not make MRI stand for three alternative pet types?”

  “You sure you’re not a doctor? You’re starting to think like one.”

  Dr. Severn gave Clive a firm, congratulatory pat on the shoulder. “Monkeys? No, that won’t work. No one actually owns a monkey except Michael Jackson, or his estate anyway, but I think you�
��re on to something.”

  Is that all it takes to be a doctor—I just have to be a complete jackass?

  “Either way, the result is the same. All three are designed to give us a depiction of whatever might be going on beneath that skull of yours. If there is something in there, we’ll find it, even if it’s just your brain.”

  “That’s reassuring. So, when do we begin?”

  CHAPTER 13

  A million thoughts raced through Clive’s mind. His knuckles strained, turning bone white from his vigorous grip on the steering wheel. He bit down hard into his lower lip, nearly drawing blood. His heart galloped along, and he couldn’t stop shivering. The voice was back, and it wasn’t helping matters any.

  Don’t go through with it. Not only will you be wasting your time, but you’ll end up scarred, unhappy, and a little poorer.

  “But at least I’ll be rid of you.”

  You see? That’s where you’re wrong. Why won’t you believe what I keep telling you? You’ll come out of the operation with your head all bandaged up, and here I’ll still be, ready to greet you with a smile. I’m not going anywhere.

  “Oh, yes you are! You’re a cancer, and I need to cut you from me.”

  Are you always so dramatic? Why did I have to end up with such a bitch?

  “Who’s being dramatic?” The pitch of Clive’s voice grew higher in his excitement. “You are a cancer. Nothing more. All I have to do is remove you, and everything will go back to normal.”

  I’m not what you think I am. I’m so much more than cancer cells, and I’m not so easily removed. And anyway, what’s so good about normal? Your life has been pretty damn pathetic up to this point—totally ordinary and uneventful. I can change all that for you if you’d only stop being a little girl and start paying more attention to me. For now, though, you should start paying more attention to the road.

  The uncovered Dunkin Donuts coffee cup poured its contents all over Clive’s dashboard as he swerved his vehicle back into the right lane. He narrowly avoided oncoming traffic in the form of a large Dodge Ram piloted by a highly agitated and unpleasant individual.

  “Asshole!” Clive heard the word clearly as the driver of the Ram passed him by. The extended middle finger was a nice touch, one that Clive felt inclined to share, but he resisted the urge to do so. He kept all road rage in check, knowing he was at fault.

  More properly, it was all the voice in his head’s fault. “Now I know I need to get rid of you. You’re definitely all harm and no good.”

  Ingrate. I just saved your life. I could take it just as easily.

  “I wouldn’t have been in the situation in the first place if it hadn’t been for you.”

  What a harsh thing to say. I’m hurt, Clive. Really, I am. Can’t we be friends and move beyond all this bullshit?

  Clive scowled at the coffee congealing on his dashboard and dripping onto his floor mat. “I’m afraid not. In fact, I don’t even know why I’m talking to you. I have better things to do than waste my time talking with a figment of my dysfunctional imagination.”

  Is that all you think of me, Clive? And here I was, thinking we were finally starting to bond.

  A high-pitched vibration rumbled lightly through Clive’s head. He soon realized that the voice was laughing. You’re breaking my heart.

  Clive refused to pay his conversation partner any more attention. His mind was fragile and ordinary, but it was still his. He wasn’t going to lose it without a fight. He picked up his cell phone and dialed the first person he thought of. Clive needed to hear another person, the voice of someone real.

  A warm, familiar voice answered. “Hi, Cli. How did everything go?”

  “Oh, you know. As well as can be expected, I guess.”

  Clive was rattled, his thoughts unclear and his uneasiness noticeable to anyone paying attention. Morgan, who knew him better than anyone, would easily notice.

  “Clive, are you okay? You sound stressed.”

  “This probably isn’t something I should tell you over the phone. Can you meet me over at Chili’s or somewhere? I’ll fill you in on everything there.”

  “Chili’s sounds fine. Are you on your way there now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  Morgan glanced down at the tangible reflection her face cast in her chicken tortilla soup. She couldn’t make out her features in the reflection. It bore no signs of her worry and her fear for Clive.

  Across the table, Clive poked his now-cooling fajitas with a fork. He had barely eaten more than a bite. He sat in silence, giving Morgan time to mull over the news he’d unloaded on her.

  “A tumor?” Morgan wasn’t prepared for this information. How could anyone prepare herself for the news that her best friend may die at the hands of some unseen biological menace?

  Clive took her hand as it rested on the table. She pulled away.

  “I know how it sounds, but I’m fine.”

  “And they have to open your skull for that?”

  “How else are they going to get to it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry, Cli.” She looked away, holding back her tears.

  “Well, to be fair, Dr. Landenberg—”

  “Who?”

  “He’s the one performing the operation. I swear Dr. Severn’s role was just to add more money to all their pockets and another idiot to the equation. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Landenberg said that sometimes they can actually remove certain tumors by going through the nose with a tiny drill. It’s all computer guided, taking the brains out of brain surgery. Although from what I’ve experienced these last few days, there were never any brains in it to begin with.”

  “Sounds high-tech. Why don’t they do that?”

  “The location of the tumor makes it difficult. It’s a relatively small mass on the surface of my frontal lobe. My doctors say that this part of the brain is important. It controls my reasoning and problem-solving abilities, my impulse control—which is probably already damaged anyway—and motor control, and it plays some role in emotion and memory too. Don’t ask me how they know all that. But I’ve seen enough movies to know that people don’t do too well after they have their frontal lobes cut into. I believe it’s called a lobotomy. Needless to say, the slightest error could lead to catastrophic results, at least for me. Worst-case scenario, I end up like a drooling zombie… you know, like our last three presidents. Maybe I’ve got a future in politics.”

  “This isn’t something to joke about, Clive,” Morgan said. “I’m worried about you.”

  On the phone only fifteen minutes earlier, Clive had been nearly hysterical. Now, he had himself together while she was in turmoil. It was as though through her chaos, Clive had found peace, his hysteria left for her to inherit.

  “You shouldn’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be fine. I’m sure the doctors know what they’re doing. My chances of death are low.”

  “You could die?”

  If Clive’s intention was to soothe Morgan’s anxiety, he was failing miserably.

  Clive backtracked. “My chances of dying from the operation are slim—practically no chance at all. The alternative, leaving the tumor where it is, would allow the malignant cells to spread, multiplying until my grey matter no longer matters. That would be certain death.”

  “You aren’t making me feel any better about this.”

  Clive leaned back in the booth and flashed her an easy smile. How could he be certain his operation would be successful? Didn’t he care about his own life?

  “I’m telling you, Morgan. Don’t worry about it. If anything goes wrong, I’ll most likely just be brain damaged, not dead.” Clive smirked. “It’s not like one needs a brain to do my job, so life would go on as we know it.”

  “Oh—now, that’s a relief.” Morgan meant her sarcasm as a warning. “Smarten up, Clive. I don’t think you appreciate the seriousness of the situation.”

  “No, I do, Morgan. I just don’t care. What’s th
e expression? Que sera sera?”

  “Did it ever occur to you that someone else might care even if you don’t?”

  Around Clive, Morgan always left her heart exposed. She reached for his hand. He didn’t pull away.

  “Who’d care about me?” he said, goading her on. “What’s there to like?”

  “You’re an ass.”

  “I do my best.”

  “For that, you can pay the bill.”

  Morgan got up to leave. She trotted away without so much as a glance behind. In truth, she needed some time to herself. She needed to cry for Clive alone because she knew he wouldn’t cry with her.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Y

  ou’re not getting laid, Derek, so don’t even think about it.” Morgan set forth the rules of entry. Derek knew she’d keep the door firmly latched until he accepted them.

  “Still playing hard to get?” Derek smiled. As was his way, he refused to accept no for an answer. Some people found it off-putting. Derek saw it as persistence. “You’ll come around once you see what I have to offer.”

  “Are you trying to make me gag or just turn me lesbian?”

  Derek stepped inside, passing her slowly so that she could drink in his eight-dollar cologne. But her reaction was not what he expected. She covered her mouth with her hand and swallowed hard.

  “What the fuck are you wearing?”

  “Why?” Derek stepped closer. “Is it making you hot?”

  He extended his arm, intending to wrap it like a tentacle around his quarry. She stepped aside and shoved her palm in front of his face, commanding him to halt.

  “If by ‘hot’ you mean ‘deathly ill,’ then somebody douse me because I’m on fire. It’s disgusting, and it’s giving me a headache. Go sit at the kitchen table, at the far end.”

  Derek complied, not yet disheartened. Morgan disappeared. When she returned, she carried a can of Lysol. She sprayed it fervently into the air. Nearly half the contents of the can formed an all-consuming cloud of pine-scented fumes.