Danny's Mind: A Tale of Teenage Mysticism and Heavenly Power
Page 4
Chapter 3
We can be so picky about our physical comforts. Just think how a simple thing like a chair can suddenly become too hard during a long test and throw you into a frenzy of emotional opposition: Too hard! Annoying! Too itchy! Don’t like it! Can’t think! Too hot, too cold! Uncomfortable!!! For five seconds, just five seconds: DON’T THINK about it. Go into that space of headless, no-thought awareness. Be aware how much your opposition to a physical “what is”, is just a state of mind in your head. You see, even a cold, hard operating table can be comfortable, if your consciousness is bigger than your head. Or you’re dead.
- From His Recorded Words
My memory gets sketchy at this point, but here are some flashbacks:
First: Riding in an ambulance with a tube in my good arm…trying to figure out what the woman paramedic next to me was saying, but only hearing a slow-downed garble…noticing that my shirt had been cut off—“Damn!” —I didn’t have that many…looking around to find Danny and wondering if they’d forgotten to pick him up somehow…worried about my bike, and hoping no one would steal it.
Then: Struggling to wake up inside a really white, clean room with spotlights shining down on me…a tall doctor, dark-skinned with a slick beard, and some nurses around the bed, all in nice white jackets like the room…the doctor telling me something in a soft Indian accent about “Being lucky, very lucky.” I liked the accent.
Then: Waking up normally, propped up in a hospital bed. From the sun, figuring it was late the next afternoon. Sticking out of the wall in front of my bed was a TV with an old episode of MASH on it, but no sound. Dad’s favorite show. Then I heard him chuckle. He was standing against the wall with an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He knew all the MASH episodes by heart so he could enjoy it even with the sound off.
“How you feeling?” Dad’s face was stubbly, but he looked more awake than usual. Probably hadn’t been drinking for at least a day, which was amazing.
“Danny?”
“He’s in another room. You’re lucky. You’re injuries aren’t that bad. You’re gonna hurt for a while, but this is the only real damage,” he said tapping the cast on my arm.
I stared back silent, and wondered how all this had happened. I lifted the cast. Fortunately it was my left hand and I’m right-handed, and it was just the forearm with a hand wrap, leaving the fingers free to move. It would be tough to cycle if I couldn’t grab the handle.
“No more motorcycling for a while. You understand?”
“Sure.”
“Not that it would drive anyhow. You bashed it good.” Dad didn’t seem too shaken about the events, but I appreciated him showing up. In some ways, he had a pretty good life—no stress, no problems he couldn’t drink away…
“What about Danny, Dad?”
“I don’t know, Joe. All I know is he’s in bad shape.”
I put my free hand over my eyes. Tears were beginning to form and even Dad wasn’t allowed to see that. I didn’t want to believe what I had done. I felt hollow, as if I’d destroyed the whole world.
“I see you’re up,” an Indian accent said. I wiped my eyes. It was the doctor with the beard I remembered, standing over me. When he asked, I told him I was feeling sore all over, but basically alive. He explained in more detail everything Dad had told me about my condition. He added that “as you’d expect” I had a lot of bruising and lacerations, and some ligament trauma (which was doctor talk for being really beat up), but he said I’d be fine to go about my regular activities as long as I avoided strenuous stuff for a few weeks. They wanted to hold me through the night for observation since they didn’t need the bed immediately.
“What about Danny?”
The doctor looked at Dad, looked at me. “It’s impossible to know right now. He’s had a severe head trauma. We had him in surgery for eight hours last night and into the morning. We’re hoping for the best now. It’s a tricky business with brain trauma. You never really can tell what will happen.”
“So he’ll live,” I said, sighing. “I was afraid I’d killed him.”
“You did.”
“What?”
“He died on the operating table—while we were trying to relieve the pressure on his brain. His heart stopped. His brain functions shut down. That’s what dead is. It took thirteen minutes to get him back. Honestly, I thought he was lost. Not many people come back after that long. So you did, in fact, kill your friend.”
It took me a few seconds to take all this in. “What happens…now?”
“He’s in a coma. He should come out. But you never know and I can’t tell you when. Might be a day, maybe a week. Maybe longer. Sometimes it happens that people stay in a vegetative state permanently. They just lie in a bed forever hooked to intravenous feeds.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“I’m just saying, young man, be prepared. If and when he comes out, we don’t know how he’ll respond. Your friend may end up permanently damaged. There may be some physical problems, or perhaps more likely, mental.”
“Where is he? I want to see him.”
“No, not possible. His family is controlling visitation.”
“I can’t even look?”
He stared back.
“I guess…I can’t blame them.” Thinking about it later, I couldn’t even blame the woman who’d backed up the car. How could she have known I would be speeding down the street like a maniac?
A nurse came in and she and the doctor did some minor tests, like blood pressure, examining some of the bigger cuts, checking my cast. By the time they left, the MASH episode had ended and some talk show with a bunch of women came on. Dad hated that stuff. “Thanks for coming Dad.”
“Sure boy. Here’s some money to get home tomorrow. Take a cab.” He handed me a twenty a little reluctantly. This was more drinking money. He’d already paid for the amusement park.
As he walked out I said, “Dad, where is his room?”
He turned, smiled. “One floor up. I don’t know the number.”
I nodded. He left.
I decided to wait until later in the evening. I watched some TV and took a few naps. The nurses brought some really good food. A full lunch and dinner and some ice cream in between. I don’t eat that well at home. Although I missed my Maxwell House cause the coffee was weak. At about 11 pm, I slipped out of bed in my hospital jammies and, limping and wincing all the way, crept down the hall and up a stairwell to the next floor. There the nurse behind the big counter caught me. When I told her who I was and what had happened, she brought me to Danny’s window. My room didn’t have a window; but then they probably needed to keep a constant watch on Danny.
My heart nearly fell out of my chest. His little body was raised slightly. There were all kinds of tubes going in him, and a monitor was blinking by his side. His head was almost completely wrapped in bandages, with a tube sticking out of his nose. His arms looked okay, still scrawny and white. But his face—through the hole in the bandages—was so bruised and pulped that it looked like the goop at the bottom of a fast food dumpster. I could see his chest pumping with short unnatural jerks. That was his only sign of life.
The rest of the night I cried in my room, and took a taxi home the next morning.