Erased

by Margaret Chatwin

  “Get me a box and I’ll do it,” I tell him.

  With that, he spins back around, snatches up the box he just brought in and dumps out the contents onto my bed. Then he slams the cardboard hard against my chest.

  “Good luck, F–er.” And he’s gone.

  I can’t keep up with him. He’s been ordered by Dad to take down my boxes after he brings up his own, but he’s three to my one. And he keeps dumping everything right in the center of the room and the pile is getting pretty big. I know this act of rebellion is meant to make him feel in control, but I can’t physically move around it. It’s like a land mine to me. One wrong step and I’m going down.

  Dad finally comes up, yells at Luc about the mess, and carries me downstairs. One pain pill later, I’m in the car with Mom and Dad and they’re taking me out to eat. We bring back a to-go order for Lucas, and around nine o’clock I go to bed in his old room.

  _____

  “Luc,” I say his name as he passes me in the great room the next morning. He’s leaving for school – moving for the front door with his back pack flung over one shoulder. His hair and clothing are perfect and he smells like cologne. I’m sitting on the same chair I did the day I first got here.

  “I just wanted to say thanks for the bedroom. It’s really helped me out.”

  His blue eyes were hard before, but now they’ve grown more solid. He flips me the bird, then is off for a day of learning.

  THREE

  Mom. Sometimes I just want to call her Wendy. It’s because I don’t have any of those childhood memories that transforms a woman into mom. I know very little about her because I only met her a few months ago. And as she drives me from my hair cut to PT, I know I should be asking her things like: what’s your favorite color, or do you like pizza, but I don’t.

  “Do you guys always treat Lucas that way?” I ask instead.

  She glances over at me, then back at the road. “What way?”

  I shrug, “Like he’s second best.”

  “Do you think you’ll feel like eating after therapy? Maybe we should grab a burger now.”

  “It’s hard enough to endure their torture on an empty stomach, if I were full I’d hurl.”

  “Okay.”

  I study her face, trying to find the answer to the question she’s left hanging, but she gives nothing up and so I turn and look out the window.

  I’m hurting severely when I get home. It’s pain I can taste. It’s pain that consumes me. I lay on the couch in a ball and cry and my dad rubs my back and says, “Remember the time you pulled your hamstring playing freshman ball? That was painful, wasn’t it? But you toughed it out. If you can make it through that, you can make it through this, too.”

  His comment is meant to encourage me, but right now it comes across as irritatingly ignorant. Of course I don’t remember the pulled hamstring, and even if I could, I doubt it hurt anywhere close to as badly as this. He has no clue.

  When I can, I move to my room, smoke some weed and fall asleep.

  Lucas comes home after school with a friend. Mom has gone shopping and Dad has gone back to work. As for me, it’s one of those often occasions when I’ve out stood my limit. I was closest to the stairs when it happened, so that’s where I’m sitting. Second to bottom step – elbows resting on my knees.

  Lucas enters the house through the front door.

  “Hey,” I say and nod a hello to him. He pretends he doesn’t see me and tosses his pack over the back of the couch. It doesn’t stay put and ends up on the floor, but he doesn’t retrieve it.

  His friend is looking at me. He’s trying hard to study me, but every time his eyes bounce to mine and he finds me looking back at him, he quickly averts his gaze. Something keeps calling him back for more, though.

  What’s his name? What’s his name? I find this question repeating in my mind a dozen times. Things like this always go on inside my head when I struggle to recall parts of my past that may very well be lost forever.

  “Jake?” It’s not a memory – it’s a guess, based on the name I heard Luc use the first day I was here.

  “It’s not Jake, you brainless wonder, it’s Connor,” Luc says while leading the way toward the basement door.

  I’m told there’s an entertainment room down there, but I haven’t gone down to check it out, there being stairs and all.

  “Sorry. Hi Connor,” I say.

  I think the kid might have actually said hi back had Lucas not stopped him by saying, “Don’t talk to my friends, Ryan. I don’t talk to yours.”

  He flings open the basement door and as the two of them descend downward, I overhear Connor say, “Are you out of your mind, talking to him like that? He’s gonna kick your ass.”

  “He’s a F–ing pussy.”

  “Can’t believe he tried to kill himself.”

  “Can’t believe he didn’t succeed.”

  There’s a stab in my chest and I find myself wondering why my own brother hates me so much. It genuinely bothers me.

  Luc and Connor hang out downstairs for about half an hour and then the fridge calls them up. I’m in the kitchen, too, when they come in, but I’m invisible to Lucas. He keeps right on talking to Connor as if I’m not even there. He’s laughing and it’s the first time I’ve seen a real smile on his face.

  There isn’t a smile on Connor’s face. Not anymore, anyway. It gave way to nerves when he saw me standing next to the sink. I’m holding what’s left of the glass of water I’ve just used to swallow down my regularly scheduled meds. The kid’s eyes are all over me again.

  “What are you looking at?” I ask him.

  “Sorry.” His apology is timid and it immediately causes Luc to jump down my throat.

  “He can look at whatever the hell he wants.” The sharpness in his eyes exceeds that of his voice, which is pretty damn sharp.

  “I wasn’t being rude, Luc.” I try to explain. “I just . . . I want to know.” I guess what I really want is someone to talk to. I want someone to have the guts to answer one of my questions.

  “Well, you don’t need to know. It’s none of your business,” Luc says.

  “None of my business? It’s me he’s looking at. I think I have the right to . . .”

  “The scars.” Connor says this quickly, bringing a halt to me and Luc’s squabble. “And . . . other things. I guess it’s just . . . weird seeing you after . . . I mean . . . like this.”

  I don’t want him to be so uptight around me, it makes me feel like a monster, so I set down my water, extend my scarred left arm and hold it out for him to examine without reserve – which, he takes a step forward, and does.

  “Damn, that looks like it hurt,” he finally concludes and then looks me in the eyes.

  “I guess. It was already starting to get better by the time I came out of the coma. My leg though . . . holy shit!” I tug on the leg of the loose fitting sweat pants I’m wearing, crinkling the letters of our highschool name that is written down the side. I expose the flesh and Connor winces. Luc is watching too, but he doesn’t want me to know this, so I pretend I don’t.

  “Most of these scars are from the surgeries. But see this one?” I point to a rounder shaped one above my knee cap and he nods. “It’s from the bone. It broke just above my knee and sliced right through the muscle and flesh. It was sticking out of my leg about six inches when they found me.”

  “Oh, that’s messed up!” Connor cries with a visible shiver. “I heard you died – like twice on the operating table while they were trying to get all the internal bleeding to stop.”

  “That’s what I hear, too,” I tell him and give a shrug. “But it’s nothing I remember.”

  “Dude, your car. I can’t believe you wrecked it. That was a sweet ride. Jake and I went to see it at the wrecking yard, it’s munched!”

  Luc is not happy at all and he lets me know it by saying, “Why is this bullshit the only thing anyone ever talks about anymore? Everywhere I go it’s Ryan this, Ryan that. I’m sick of it. And you
know what else I’m sick of?” Within a second he’s grabbed a kitchen knife and is coming toward me.

  Instantaneous fear shoots through me and makes my heart pump wildly.

  Connor is freaked out, too, and is shouting, “What are you doing? What are you doing, Man?”

  I push off of the sink and try to move away from Lucas, but I have two major things working against me. Obviously my leg is one of them, but the other is the overwhelming amount of adrenaline throbbing through my system. It has my still healing head pounding so fiercely that I’m starting to see flashes of black. I feel like I’m going to pass out.

  I can’t get away. I just can’t. And what I find even more terrifying than this is that, once he has me cornered between the fridge and counter top, I’m not physically strong enough to push him away. I’m sure I used to be, but I’m not anymore. I try – I really do – but find it absolutely useless.

  I can’t move.

  He presses his body against mine, which grinds my spine into the lip of the counter and scrapes off skin. It hurts, but it’s the least of my worries at the moment. He’s going to slice me!

  He grabs up my right arm, jams the blade against my flesh and pries up, cutting through the hospital band around my wrist.

  “I’m sick of looking at that stupid thing,” he says as it falls free of my arm and to the floor at our feet. “What the F– is wrong with you anyway?”

  Me?

  He backs off, tosses the knife onto the counter top, then turns and walks away with a victor’s stride. Connor stays long enough to flash me an extremely confused look, then he ducks his head and hurries after Luc.

  “You’re insane! Why did you do that?” I hear him ask.

  “I’m sick of him.”

  “Yeah, but he was being cool – for once.”

  For once. I really want to focus on those two words, but I have a serious physical distraction. The ordeal has left my knees weak. I can’t remain standing. I slide down the side of the fridge to sit on the floor. I’m shaking and my stomach is upset to the point I think I’m going to vomit. I can’t take this kind of stress. Physically, I just don’t know how to process it anymore.

  I want to be angry. I want to get up, go into the next room and drive my fist into the most painful part of Lucas. But for reasons I can’t explain, it’s not anger that rises to the surface, it’s humiliation. How could he have done this to me – especially in front of someone else? I feel victimized, too. I didn’t do anything to merit that attack. I was just having a conversation with his friend. And worst of all, I feel fear. I’m afraid of my little brother.

  Good Lord, I am a pussy, just like he says.

  “I see you finally took off the ID band,” this is what my dad says as he takes his seat at the dinner table.

  The comment makes Connor, who’s eating with us, fidgety as hell. He’s bouncing glances between me and Luc like he’s on crack. I look at Lucas and find him looking back at me. He displays the persona of innocence, but buried beneath that is a layer of warning, and under that is the foundation of fear. He’s afraid I’ll tell.

  As I study his face and Connor’s too, I wonder what they know that I don’t. What is it that’s going to happen to Luc if I tell? Part of me really wants to find out.

  “Yeah, it was getting annoying, so I cut it off with a kitchen knife,” I say without breaking eye contact with Lucas.

  “A kitchen knife?” my mother nearly shrieks. “Couldn’t you have used something safer, like scissors?”

  “Scissors are for wussies. Sometimes you just have to prove your manhood by taking barbaric actions.”

  This makes my dad cry out with laughter and his big hand comes down a little too hard on my sore shoulder. Today’s PT session has really settled into my muscles by now.

  “Now that’s something I’d have heard the old Ryan say. Nice to have you back, Son!”

  I smile because I’ve pleased him, but really it’s Luc I’m after.

  After dinner I go to my room. Since it’s on ground level the window is only three feet above the grass of the back yard. I stand to the side of the glass, finger the ID band in my front pocket, and secretly watch Luc pass the football back and forth to Connor. He’s got one hell of a good arm.

  FOUR

  “Mom?” I approach her as she tosses clothing into the dryer in the laundry room. Piles of it lay everywhere.

  “I got way behind spending so much time at the hospital,” she says, a bit out of breath.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m just glad you made it.”

  “Should I help you?”

  She flashes me a look that tells me I’ve never asked that question before in my life, then she shakes her head. “No, I’ll get it. Not like the closets are bare. Everyone has plenty to wear.” She rips out a dryer sheet and tosses it inside then shuts the door. “What do you want, Ry?”

  “Umm, do we have any art supplies?”

  “Art supplies?” She’s turned to look at me. Her eyes are big and I swear she’s trying to hold back a snicker.

  “Yeah.” Why do I feel stupid for asking?

  “Well, there might be some old crayons downstairs from when you two were boys, but – what did you have in mind?”

  “I don’t know. Some good paper for sure, but maybe some water colors or colored pencils, or . . .” Hell, I don’t know what I’ll enjoy – all I know is, I want to try something more than a number two pencil.

  “For who?” she blinks at me in confusion.

  “For me.”

  “You don’t draw.”

  “I wanna try.”

  This confuses her even further and so I try to make things very clear by saying, “Could you give me a ride to an art supply store?”

  I’m not a professional by any means, but I’m feeling pretty good about the charcoal drawing I’ve created of my left hand and arm. I’m touching up around some of the scars that I now think are kind of cool looking, from an artistic point of view, anyway, when Dad comes into the office. I’ve been working at the desk in there for the last, I don’t know how long, and I’ve enjoyed every second of it.

  “What ya doing, Bud?”

  “Drawing,” I smile up at him. He nears me and leans over the desk to get a better look at my paper.

  From the very depths of me, I’m expecting him to boisterously congratulate me on my success, like he does in PT. Maybe hurt me by rattling my shoulders proudly, but instead, he says, “You drew that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You wake up from a coma and all of a sudden you’re an artist?” There’s an ever so slight hint of sarcasm in his voice, and because I am so proud of my work, it feels like he’s punched me.

  “I don’t think it’s a brand new thing for me, Dad. I think I liked it before.”

  “You didn’t like it before,” he assures me.

  “I found some school work from last year in my room with drawings in the margins.”

  “Maybe someone else drew them.”

  Like who? I want to ask, but keep my mouth shut.

  “Anyway, it’s nice. Your mom has dinner ready, come on out.” He gives my head an affectionate push and then leaves the room without providing me with the acceptance I was eager to have.

  As I enter the great room and head toward the kitchen, a few minutes later, Dad calls out, “Ry, think fast!” And he hurls a football my direction. I try to catch it, but my reaction time sucks. I can’t move quickly enough. I miss it and it smacks the wall behind me.

  “Ohh! Awesome try, though. You’ll get it next time, I know you will. You’re so close. Throw it back.”

  You haven’t seen me scream with pain enough times, huh? I can’t even bend over to pick up the ball without discomfort – throwing it will kill me.

  “Not in the house, guys,” my mom saves me.

  “After dinner – me and you in the backyard,” he says, and it feels more like he’s calling me out for a fight, than for a game of ball.

  _____


  Someone thought it was a good idea to throw me a surprise welcome home party. It’s weird enough being in a foreign place, but now this place is packed with complete strangers that know more about me than I know about myself. Relatives whose names I don’t know. Friends that I’ve never seen before. Coaches I can’t recall. Neighbors I had no clue lived next door.

  Whoever planned this thing meant well, at least I hope they did, but I don’t like it. Too many people, plus, too much noise and movement equals mental chaos.

  I’ve felt this before. It was in the hospital, back when this whole memory loss thing was new to me and therefore freaking me the hell out. I was getting a lot of visitors then, many per day, and I just couldn’t cope with the fact that they knew me, but I didn’t know them. So, after several severe panic attacks, my doctor said, no more. Only immediate family was omitted after that, which basically meant only my parents because, as I’m learning, Lucas would rather gnaw off his own limbs than claim me as his brother.

  Speaking of Lucas, he’s nowhere to be found. He either wasn’t invited to this party, or refused the invitation. He’s upstairs in my old room with my old hard core metal CDs blaring. I hate stairs. I hate that music. And I’m still a little bent with him about the knife thing, but I’d rather be up there in his room with him, right now, than down here in this mess.

  Mom is laughing, trying to act modest as a group of women admire her. She’s a pretty woman anyway, but today she’s really outdone herself. She had her hair done this morning and she’s wearing the new dress she brought home yesterday. She’s holding a glass of champagne and is oblivious to my discomfort. Oblivious to me in general.

  Dad, on the other hand, knows exactly where I’m at and what I’m doing. He keeps a steady eye on me and keeps waving me over to talk sports with whoever will join him in his never ending conversation. Which, I’ve gotta say, is damn near every male in the room. They love it. They breathe it. They eat it up. They stand around in groups holding beers and grunting and groaning about the latest game, be it college, pro, or little league.