Warhead

by Jeff Henigson

  “Good morning, son,” he said. Amiga was next to him, her tail wagging along the carpet. It was unusual for him to wake me up. Mom would, and only if my alarm hadn’t done the job. Dad was normally down at the track with Amiga anyway.

  He asked me how I’d slept, another thing he didn’t usually do. I began wondering what was up. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “Seven,” Dad said.

  I groaned, grabbing a pillow and covering my face. It was like he’d never heard of summer.

  Dad tugged the pillow away. “You’ve got a busy day, son,” he said. “And you should get started with a nutritious breakfast.” That’s when I remembered it was Choose Your Own Brain Surgeon Day.

  I followed Dad and Amiga upstairs. The second Mom saw me, she hurried over and gave me a big hug. “Good morning!” she said, much louder than normal, even though Ted’s bedroom was ten feet away and he had to be asleep. She pointed eagerly to the counter. “There’s your breakfast.”

  Since I was twelve, it was pretty much understood that I could put together my own breakfast. The only time Mom did it was when I was home sick or when she was making brunch on a weekend. But there it was: scrambled eggs, bacon, and three slices of slightly browned white toast on one of Mom’s nice plates with a folded cotton napkin next to it. Nice, but weird.

  Just then, I heard the toilet in the bathroom around the corner flush, the sink turn on, and the door open. Ted was actually up. “Morning, dude,” he said, plopping himself onto a kitchen stool next to me. “I can come to your appointments, if you want.” He grabbed the carton in front of him and motioned toward my cup. “Want some OJ?” It seriously felt like I’d fallen into a Leave It to Beaver episode.

  The three of them were convinced I was on my way out.

  I leaned down and rubbed Amiga’s back, my eyes shifting from Mom to Dad to Ted. “Just so you guys know,” I said, “I’m not planning on dying.”

  Mom dropped the pen she was holding, and her jaw fell with it. “No one is saying that,” she said with her hand pressed against her chest. I was about to point out everyone’s completely abnormal behavior, but I saw Dad’s lips press together as he slowly nodded, his jaw slightly flaring the way it did when he was proud of something.

  “You’re going to fight,” he said.

  “I’m going to win,” I said back.

  Dad smiled broadly, like he was proud. I must’ve smiled back. Mom’s shoulders dropped, and she finally bent over to pick up her pen. I turned to Ted, who was still holding the orange juice carton. “Okay for some OJ,” I told him, “but you don’t need to come to my appointments. You’d die of boredom.” Ted instantly looked relieved.

  * * *

  •

  One thing I really liked about Dr. Kathleen Egan, the first of three appointments we had scheduled that day, was that she actually started on time. Mom, Dad, and I were sitting in her waiting room for my 11:00 appointment, and she walked in at 10:58 to welcome us. She came straight to me, a smile on her face, and introduced herself. It wasn’t one of those plastic smiles some adults pasted on their faces when young people were around, but a real, genuine one. She gave me a solid handshake, too.

  She invited us into her office. It didn’t have the pastel colors from Dr. Gourevik’s that made me want to puke, and she didn’t have every degree and award she’d ever received on the wall behind her. Instead, there were some nice pictures of a sailboat in the ocean. Her med school degrees were on a wall off to the side, and I nudged my mom when I saw she’d gone to the University of Southern California—Mom’s school. Things were off to a good start.

  Dr. Egan said she needed to take a look at my CT scan and the report. Dad handed over everything, including a letter from Dr. Gourevik. She said she’d need a few minutes to review it all and told us to chat away if we liked. I didn’t feel like talking.

  While she reviewed my charts, I reviewed her. She used to have completely blond hair, I figured, but whitish-gray had taken over everywhere. Her hair was a little longer than my mom’s, but without any curls. Each strand was perfectly straight. Her posture matched. She sat with her shoulders back and her head held high, her hands and forearms planted firmly on her desk, with a posture that communicated confidence. Compared to my parents, she looked like a giraffe. Watching her was calming for me.

  It went on so long, I started fantasizing that Dr. Egan was going to finish reading and say, “I’m not sure how this happened, but your scan is perfectly normal.”

  After the longest few minutes of my whole life, Dr. Egan set everything down and lifted her head. The three of us tensed. “I agree with Dr. Gourevik’s recommendation for surgery,” she said. Mom and Dad sighed. They’d been stuck in the same fantasy.

  Dr. Egan asked me if I knew the difference between a benign tumor and a malignant one. I said a benign tumor was like a golf ball that you could carve out and it wouldn’t come back, and a malignant one was more like a weed that could extend roots deep into your brain, which was pretty much how Dr. Gourevik explained it. She said that was a good analogy.

  She asked if I had any questions.

  I glanced at my parents. They were both looking at me. I definitely had stuff I wanted to ask, but I also didn’t want to destroy my mom.

  I looked back at Dr. Egan and exhaled. “How do you—you know—get in there?” I tapped the side of my head.

  “This might sound unpleasant,” Dr. Egan said. I motioned for her to continue. “After shaving the surgical area and cleansing it with alcohol, we make an incision through the muscle and tissue over the skull. It’s basically a large upside-down U. That allows us to access the skull.”

  Mom and Dad swallowed at the same time. Dr. Egan’s description was definitely gross to hear, considering we were talking about my actual head. I also didn’t like the idea of having a scar on the side of my head.

  She continued. “Then we use a small saw and remove a rectangular section of bone plate from your skull. We make an incision through the dura—a tough membrane that envelops the brain—and from there, guided by the scans, we proceed to the location of the tumor. We remove the tumor, close the lining, replace the bone, and then reconnect all the tissue we had to penetrate. That’s it. Did that answer your question?”

  I imagined what my head would look like, all cut up and everything. “It mostly did.”

  “Jeff, I find my patients feel best after they get the things they’re concerned about out in the open. Is there something specific that’s on your mind?”

  It was like she’d seen right through me. “Well, okay. For starters, with you cutting in there,” I said, motioning to the left side of my head, “am I going to end up looking like a freak?”

  “You won’t,” Dr. Egan said, without the slightest doubt in her voice. “The procedure will leave a scar, but your hair will ultimately cover it.”

  That was better than I thought it would be. I didn’t want to walk around and have people pointing at me.

  “Anything else on your mind?” Dr. Egan asked.

  I did have something. It would freak out my mom. Still, I had to ask.

  “What are my chances of coming out of this, you know, a vegetable?”

  Mom sighed, quietly. Dad cleared his throat. I avoided looking at either of them.

  Dr. Egan stayed completely calm. “At this point, we’re working off the CT scan. We won’t know what we’re dealing with until we actually go in. But I feel confident that we’re going to get you through this in one piece—that is to say, get the tumor out and minimize any negative effects from the surgery.”

  That sounded mostly good. “What do you mean by ‘negative effects’?”

  “Any disruption to your normal brain function. The area where the tumor is located is responsible for language processing. The worst-case scenario would be your losing certain abilities to communicate, whether that’s und
erstanding language spoken to you or formulating words. At this point, I just don’t anticipate that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the tumor’s location. My gut feeling is that we’ll be able to separate the tumor from any surrounding brain tissue, which would make complete tumor removal possible.”

  I noticed how she didn’t grip her hands together the way Dr. Gourevik did. She didn’t wear a fake smile, either. The whole time she spoke, she kept that stable posture, her shoulders completely relaxed.

  Dad stepped in with some questions—how long the surgery would take (“four to eight hours”), how quickly I could be out of the hospital (“two to three weeks”)—and then Mom, with her hands shaking slightly, asked if I’d feel any pain.

  Dr. Egan’s face warmed. “The very good news about that is there are no pain receptors in the brain. As strange as it may sound, the brain itself can’t hurt.”

  Mom’s shoulders dropped.

  I was sort of wondering how Dr. Egan became a neurosurgeon, since everyone on Dr. Gourevik’s list with the exception of her was a guy, so I asked. She said she’d started out as a surgical nurse. She worked for a famous neurosurgeon. Once, during a surgery, she watched as one of his residents—they’re like junior doctors—was about to make a mistake. She called the resident on it, which really angered her boss, until he realized she was right. After that he said, “Come hell or high water, you’re going to become a neurosurgeon.”

  She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms, and smiled broadly. “I’m really happy I did it.”

  I decided it was okay not to hold back at all. “Even if some of the people you’re performing surgery on die?”

  She nodded. “That happens sometimes, in some very complex surgeries. It’s extremely hard to bear. But I’ve also seen patients who started out with a tough diagnosis, and then they came out on top of things, and it’s felt great knowing that I was able to help them. That’s what keeps me going.”

  I allowed myself to look at my parents then. Mom, to my surprise, was actually smiling a little. Dad was nodding very slightly—practically his highest form of praise.

  We thanked Dr. Egan and headed to the car. Mom looked at her day calendar for the next appointment and then at her watch. She was calculating how much time we had.

  “I want to cancel my other appointments,” I said.

  “Why do you want to do that, Jeff?” Mom asked.

  “Well, what do you think of Dr. Egan?”

  Mom thought for a second. “I really like her confidence.”

  “Exactly—same for me. Not only that, she worked for a famous neurosurgeon and went to a great school, and she clearly loves saving people. I just know she’s the one.”

  Mom smiled, nodding. We were in agreement.

  Dad was standing by the driver’s side of the car with his arms crossed. An argument was coming.

  “I believe it would be prudent to consult other medical professionals,” he said, “and to only make such an important decision after assessing the entirety of their recommendations.”

  He wasn’t hearing me. “I trust her, Dad,” I said.

  “If she is best suited for this most important of exercises, our trust will be sustained after consulting the other candidates.” The more serious a situation got, the more he sounded like a lawyer in the courtroom.

  I matched his crossed arms and looked directly at him. “It’s my brain, Dad,” I said. “I want Dr. Egan to do my surgery.”

  I let that sink in. He looked away, toward the mountains, which for once weren’t hidden by smog. After several seconds, he turned back and nodded.

  * * *

  •

  The day before I was admitted to the hospital, instead of doing something fun with Paul or finally calling Lucia, who was back in town, I went to Supercuts to get my head shaved. I ended up with Jenna, someone who’d cut my hair a couple of times before. “What are we thinking today?” she asked after sitting me down in the barber chair.

  “A buzz cut,” I said.

  She frowned. “Seriously? You have beautiful hair.”

  It was probably the most depressing thing she could’ve said. Lucia had told me the same thing earlier that summer, just before she left on her trip, when we were making out in her bedroom until her mom came home early from work. “I totally love your hair,” she had said, running her fingers across my scalp and smiling.

  Jenna was looking at me through the mirror in front of us. “Just cut it,” I told her. “Super short everywhere. Like this long.” I held my fingers an eighth of an inch apart.

  Jenna shrugged and reached for the razor.

  In the run-up to surgery, I’d gotten fixated on my hair. It wasn’t just because Lucia was back in town and I dreaded the thought of her seeing me with a gruesome scar carved into the side of my head—so much so that I didn’t even call her back to tell her what was ahead. I also worried about the kids at school, like whether they were going to be pointing at me and whispering and all that kind of thing. But the image I just couldn’t shake, whether during the day with people around or alone at night in my bed, was Dr. Egan shaving my head. It was like she was going to strip me of something that was mine.

  That’s why on that last day before going to the hospital, I decided to take control of things. Dr. Egan might be cutting into my skull with a saw, but she wasn’t going to touch my hair.

  Jenna finished in half the time it usually took her. “How’s that?” she said.

  I didn’t even look at myself. “Fine,” I answered.

  Fifteen minutes later, Mom and I got back home. She let me drive, which was cool. As we walked down to the house, I saw Ted crossing toward the front door. He’d make a comment about my head, no doubt.

  “So, um,” he started as Amiga wiggled her way past him to get some attention.

  I knelt down to pet her as Mom slid by to the kitchen. “Yes, Ted, my hair is very short. They call it a buzz cut. Are we done?”

  He looked confused. “No, it’s not that. It’s…”

  I was getting irritated. I stood. “Can you just spit it out?”

  “Lucia. She called. I thought she knew about tomorrow and everything.”

  I slapped my hands against my cheeks. “No way, Ted. Did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t know it was supposed to be a secret.”

  I hadn’t even told Paul, let alone Lucia. “Jesus,” I said, closing my eyes and moaning.

  “There’s more. She’s on her way over here.”

  My jaw dropped. I looked back at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  He didn’t have to say anything more. The doorbell rang. He looked up the stairs, I spun around, and there, at the outer door, was Lucia.

  Mom, who I’m sure had overheard everything, called out to me from the kitchen. “Honey, shall I buzz her in?”

  Ted hurried off toward his room.

  I walked to the kitchen, throwing up my hands at Mom as she waited for my response. “Fine,” I said.

  Lucia walked down the steps. Something was in her hands—a big, fluffy white teddy bear. There was something tied around its wrist, a red ribbon that ran up to a helium balloon. As she got closer, I could see it said Get Well Soon.

  The teddy bear looked like he was being given an IV. It was probably the last thing I ever wanted to receive from a girl I’d been hoping so long to sleep with.

  When I appeared behind our glass door, with Lucia just on the other side of it, she raised her hand to cover her mouth.

  I didn’t want to open the door, but I knew I had to.

  “Jeff!” Lucia said. “You cut your hair.”

  * * *

  •

  Walking into the admissions area of Huntington Hospital felt a little like visiting an old folks’ home. That’s not to say that every incoming p
atient was grandparent age, just that all the elderly people in the room seemed to be twiddling their thumbs as a younger family member read through paperwork and filled out forms.

  Our last name was called, and Dad and I stood up. Mom had headed off to the bathroom. A lady in her forties invited us to sit down with her, and the first thing she did was smile at me and say, “It’s very kind of you to accompany your father.”

  Dad lifted his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. I rolled my eyes. “You owe him the compliment,” I said, thumbing in his direction. “I’m the one checking in for brain surgery.” The lady gulped. She was lucky Mom wasn’t around.

  Mom did show up a moment later, when the lady was handing Dad a stack of paperwork. My eyebrows shot up when I saw how thick it was. We were going to be there for a while.

  We went back to the seating area and got straight to work. At first I tried to help, but I didn’t know a thing about Dad’s health insurance policy, or my social security number, or whether I’d been vaccinated against measles, mumps, or rubella. In no time at all I was like the old folks in the room, tapping my foot and glancing at the clock on the wall, as Mom and Dad did all the reading, form filling, and consulting with each other. The only thing I seemed necessary for was offering my brain for surgery.

  A couple in their fifties came into the room, the guy on crutches, with a cute girl my age, maybe a little older, just behind them. They ended up sitting down near us but were summoned by the paperwork lady, and then returned with paper and pens in hand. The girl grinned at me. A bit nervously, I grinned back.

  Mom and Dad finished my paperwork. Mom asked me to look after her bag while they turned everything in. Almost like clockwork, the girl’s parents got up. That’s when the girl turned to me with an even bigger smile on her face. “It’s tough when one of your parents has to get surgery, isn’t it?” she said. I worried I was turning red, though she didn’t seem to notice anything strange. Luckily, Mom and Dad were making their way back. I motioned their way. The girl glanced over at them, then turned back. “Good luck to all of you,” she said.