Brain Damage, page 6
part #2 of Prescription: Murder Series
Amy holds up a finger so that the old man will stop talking, but it doesn’t work. Surprise, surprise. He’s still babbling about Dave when she goes to open the door.
“I’m sorry,” she says to the man. “We’re in the middle of doing the orientation group.”
The man smiles and dimples pop up on his cheeks. Jesus, he’s handsome. My heart flutters in my chest.
“I’m here to see Charlotte,” he says.
Me?
“I understand,” Amy says, “but we’re right in the middle of group. Do you think you could wait fifteen minutes?”
“I cancelled an important meeting to see my wife,” the man says. “Are you really going to make me sit out here and wait?”
My wife.
He called me his wife.
Oh, so that’s why he looks familiar.
I look up at the handsome man again. Could he really be my husband? He’s certainly really attractive, but he seems much too old for me. He is probably at least forty. Except I keep forgetting that I’m not twenty years old. How old did Dr. Greenberg tell me I was? Fifty-seven, I think. So that means this man is much too young for me.
“I’d really prefer if you’d wait outside,” Amy says. “We’ll only be another fifteen minutes. I prefer not to distract the members of the group.”
“I wouldn’t distract anyone,” the man insists. Then, without being invited, he moves towards an empty chair in the corner of the room. “I’ll just sit right here.”
Amy doesn’t look happy, but she doesn’t say anything else to the man. But after that, it’s very hard for me to concentrate on the group. The man is mostly looking at his phone, but I can’t stop staring at him. As a result, I can’t answer most of the rest of the questions on the ball, and at one point, the ball hits me right in the nose. If it wasn’t made of plastic and filled with air, it could’ve seriously injured me.
When the group ends, usually Amy takes us back to our rooms one by one. But since the man (who is apparently my husband) is here, she says to him, “Would you mind taking Charly back to her room?”
The man blinks his eyes a few times. He has really nice eyes. They are blue like the hand soap. “Oh. I didn’t realize she could walk.”
“She can’t,” Amy says with a frown. “You’ll have to wheel her. She’s in Room 201, right by the nurses’ station.”
The man nods and steps behind me, seizing the handles of my wheelchair. He tries to push me around the table, then through the door to the room, but he misjudges the width of the doorway, and the footplate of the wheelchair bashes into the doorframe. “Sorry,” he says.
Okay, that really hurt. But I guess since he’s my husband, I’ll forgive him for being clumsy.
He pushes me down the hallway for a while in silence. When we get to the nurses’ station, he stops and comes around the side of my chair to face me. He smiles at me, which makes his dimples widen. Why am I married to such a handsome man? And why is this the first time I’m seeing him here?
“You know who I am, don’t you, Charlotte?” he asks.
I nod. “You’re my husband.”
I’m rewarded with an even wider smile. “Right. And what’s my name?”
His name? Doesn’t he realize that I was in that group because I barely know my own name?
Except then, all of a sudden, it comes to me. “Clark.”
He nods, still smiling, but somehow he doesn’t seem quite as happy anymore. Amy sometimes shows me drawings or photographs of faces with different emotions and tells me to identify them. If I had to identify this man’s emotions, I would say that he’s nervous.
“Listen, Charlotte,” he says. He rubs his palms together. “I’m sorry I haven’t visited more. I’ve just been really busy. With work and all.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
Except I’m not sure if it is okay. If he’s my husband, shouldn’t he be here all the time? I always see husbands and wives visiting other patients.
I just stare at him. I’m not really sure what to say. I know he’s supposed to be my husband, but he’s really handsome. It’s throwing me off. Actually, the whole thing is making me super nervous.
“Anyway,” he says. “You look great, Charlotte. Honestly.”
I smile at the compliment. Except when I smile, his eyes widen.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
“Your face…” he says.
My face? What’s wrong with my face?
He continues, “It’s just… well, just a little bit lopsided. It’s not a big deal. Hardly even noticeable.”
My face is lopsided? What does that mean? I’ll have to try to remember to ask Dr. Greenberg in case it’s something important. Maybe it’s something we can fix.
My husband, Clark, glances down at his watch. “God,” he says, “I didn’t realize how late it was. I actually have to get going.”
Get going? Didn’t he just get here? I thought he canceled a whole meeting to come here. Maybe I’m confused though. Maybe he’s been here a long time and I didn’t realize. That happened to me before. Although usually it’s the opposite. I feel like I’ve been in therapy for hours and they tell me that I’ve only been there for like two minutes.
For a moment, Clark leans in like he’s going to kiss me, but then he hesitates. Instead, he reaches out and pats me on the head. Except I’m wearing my helmet, so it just make this loud rapping noise that reverberates in my ears even after Clark has waved goodbye and walked down the hall and gotten into the elevator.
He didn’t even bother to take me all the way to my room.
“He’s gone already?”
I look to my right side and see the old man from my group has been placed beside me in his wheelchair. He’s frowning so that his thick, bushy white eyebrows are bunched together.
“He didn’t realize how late it was getting,” I explain.
“But he just got here!”
I don’t know what to say to that one.
“I don’t like him,” the old man says. “He reminds me of that guy who was president before Dave took over. That guy was a really bad president. He did a lot of things that hurt poor children and he wasn’t good to his wife. His wife was played by that woman who looks like a man. You know who I mean?”
“Sigourney Weaver,” I say, and a nurse at the station who had apparently been listening to our conversation looks like she’s about to fall over in surprise. Sometimes I surprise myself. Maybe my brain isn’t completely broken. Although it’s definitely pretty damaged.
Chapter 12
Two and a Half Months After
I have the dream again.
It’s clearer this time, less foggy. I am walking down a long hallway then come across a door. The door to my apartment. I fit my key into the lock, and open the door. And someone is waiting for me.
Then: a gunshot.
I’m lying on the floor, bleeding, dying. I feel myself choking on blood. I cry out for help. Please help me.
Then I hear the footsteps coming from the void that’s on my left. Everything on the right is so clear: my bookcase, the television… but the left is a blank space.
And even though it’s a dream, I feel the hot breath on my neck, and the whispered words. Only this time I can hear the words clearly:
“You deserve this.”
I wake up in my bed, my hospital bed, and I’m shaking. I’m drenched with sweat. It takes me a few moments to reassure myself that I’m safe now. I’m not lying on the floor of my apartment, dying. I’m alive and safe in a hospital.
And then I see that a strange man is standing in my room.
Unfamiliar visitors are not completely unusual around here. Actually, it’s entirely possible that I have met him before, maybe many times before, and I just don’t remember him. I know, at least, that he’s not my husband. I assume he works here, based on his blue scrubs and ID badge hanging off his chest pocket. But there’s something ominous about him.
I squint at the ID badge and read off his name: “Chris.”
Then underneath his name, I read off his title: “rapist.”
Oh my God.
This man is a rapist. A rapist is in my room.
I look up at Chris’s face, at the stubble of a beard on his chin, and his dark, foreboding eyes. To say that I am terrified would be an understatement.
I suck in a breath, hoping that the rapist will lose interest in me. Maybe Amy will come here and he will like her better. Any man in his right mind would prefer Amy to me. She’s very pretty, after all, and she doesn’t have to wear a helmet on her head. The rapist would certainly want her over me.
Not that I want Amy to be raped either. I don’t. But Amy could make a run for it and probably escape. I can’t.
“Hello, Charly,” Chris, the rapist, says to me. “You feel like getting dressed?”
That’s when I realize, to my horror, that the rapist has actually been sent to see me. They have sent him here to rape me.
I guess this is part of my therapy. It’s been a long time since I’ve had sex. Months. So I guess maybe they feel like part of getting better is getting back in the swing of things. Sexually.
The rapist approaches my bed and I feel my heart starting to race in my chest. I don’t care if this is part of my therapy—I don’t want to be raped. First someone tries to murder me and now this? But I don’t think I can fight this man off. So what can I do? I can’t just lie here and let him rape me, can I?
There’s only one thing I can do:
Scream.
Chris looks incredibly startled. I guess other patients are more accepting of their therapies. He takes a few steps back, and looks around nervously. I think I have deterred the rapist for now. Hopefully, somebody will come rescue me soon.
A minute later, a nurse that I know named Nicole comes running into the room. Nicole looks as panicked as I feel. I didn’t even realize I was still screaming, until Nicole puts her hand on my shoulder, and says, “Charly, what’s wrong? Why are you screaming?”
I snap my mouth shut, and take a deep breath to calm myself. I am shaking.
“He was going to rape me,” I tell Nicole. It’s all I can do to keep from bursting into tears.
Hopefully the rapist won’t want to rape Nicole. I don’t think I can protect her.
Nicole whips her head around and stares at Chris accusingly. His evil black eyes widen and he holds up his hands.
“I didn’t do anything,” he says. “I’m supposed to be doing her occupational therapy, and I asked her if she wanted to get dressed. Then she just started screaming her head off for no reason.”
Occupational therapy. Yeah, right.
“Is that so?” Nicole asks, folding her arms across her chest. She looks back at me, and says in a gentle voice, “What did he do, sweetie? Why did you think he was going to rape you? Did he touch you in a way you didn’t like?”
“I didn’t touch her at all!” Chris interrupts. “I didn’t even lay one finger on her!”
Nicole shoots Chris a dirty look, and she takes my right hand in hers. She gives me a comforting squeeze. “Tell me what he did, Charly. Tell me why you thought he wanted to rape you.”
“It says on his chest that he’s a rapist,” I explain.
Nicole just looks confused for a minute. Finally she squints at Chris’s badge. “Charly,” she says, “the badge says ‘occupational therapist.’”
“No it doesn’t,” I cry. “It says rapist!”
Nicole furrows her brow then, all of a sudden, she starts to giggle. “Oh my gosh, the right side of ‘occupational therapist’ is ‘rapist’! She can’t see stuff on the left. That’s why she thought you were rapist!”
Nicole and Chris both start to laugh, but I don’t really see what’s so funny. They explain it to me about how I didn’t see the left side of the word, so I misunderstood what it meant. But honestly, I don’t see why it’s funny that I thought that he was going to rape me. I was really scared.
Anyway, I still don’t like him. I definitely don’t want him to get me dressed anymore.
_____
I have to go to the bathroom.
The urge came on suddenly, the way it always seems to these days. I was sitting in my room, in my wheelchair, watching television. I like watching game shows. It’s sort of hard to follow sometimes, but I like how happy everyone gets when they win a prize. They should give prizes during therapy. That would make it more fun.
Before the nurse brought me to my room, she asked me if I had to use the bathroom. At the time, I said no because I didn’t. But now I do. I do so badly that I know if I don’t get there fast, it will be too late.
It’s too late a lot.
Since I’ve been here, the nurses keep putting me in briefs. If you didn’t know, “briefs” are another word for diapers for adults. I can stop wearing them as soon as I can make it to the bathroom on time. But the problem is that I often don’t have any idea that I have to go until I really, really need to go. Like now.
And the bigger problem is that I can’t find my call button for the nurse.
I look on my lap and it isn’t there. That’s where they usually put it. I look on the table to my right, and it isn’t there either. I know where it must be. It’s probably on my left. But it may as well be in another country for all the good it does me.
I really have to go to the bathroom. So bad.
The bathroom in my room is only about five feet away from me. I think I could probably make it over there on my own. It’s only five feet. I’m taller than five feet, so I would only have to go the length of my body.
I put my right arm on the push rim of the wheelchair. I’d like to go straight, but the chair just turns in the circle. If I could use my other arm, I think I could probably go straight. But much like the call button, my arm may as well be in another country for all the good it does me.
Okay, this isn’t working.
My only other option is to walk.
There’s a belt across my lap, strapping me into the wheelchair, but it’s actually very easy to undo with my right hand. In spite of the fact that I can’t figure out where my left hand is, my right hand still works very well. I’ve got the belt open in about two seconds.
Of course, then that stupid alarm starts going off. I try to ignore it.
I grab the armrest of my chair with my right hand and push myself into a standing position. It probably would have been smart for me to take my feet out of the footrest before I did that. It probably would’ve been even smarter for me to wait for the nurse to come help me to the bathroom.
In any case, in about five seconds, I find myself face-to-face with the floor of my room.
I have caused a great deal of excitement. Almost instantly, practically every nurse on the floor comes running into my room. They surround me on the floor, asking me if I’m okay, and trying to figure out the best way to pick me up again.
“Why did you do that?” I hear someone asks me.
“I had to use the bathroom,” I try to explain.
“Oh God,” a nurse says, “she’s all wet.”
I guess it’s too late to make it to the bathroom.
The whole thing ends up being a huge mess. Literally. They drape a bunch of towels over the seat of my wheelchair, and help me get back into it. Then I have to get back in bed and get cleaned up. The entire process takes at least twenty minutes.
After I’m clean and dry again, Dr. Greenberg comes into the room to see me. His arms are folded like I am definitely in trouble, and even the monkeys on his tie look angry. I drop my eyes. I feel bad about what I did. And the worst part is that I didn’t even get to the bathroom in time. I’m sure Dr. Greenberg will find out about that too.
“Charly,” he says to me. “Are you okay? Does anything hurt?”
“Only my pride,” I say.
Dr. Greenberg raises his eyebrows and laughs like I just said something really hilarious. He turned to the nurse sitting with me. “Doesn’t she have an alarm on her wheelchair cushion and on her belt?”
The nurse nods. “Yes, but she was too fast. By the time we got here, she was already on the floor.”
“Too fast, huh?” Dr. Greenberg strokes his chin. “I think we’re going to have to park you in the hallway from now on, Charly.”
I don’t want to be in the hallway. I’d rather be in my room. But I guess I don’t have a choice in the matter. And anyway, this way if I need to go to the bathroom, it will be easier to tell someone about it. So maybe that’s a good thing.
Chapter 13
Two and a Half Months After
Well, I am now a Hallway Parker.
That’s what everybody says about me. Like, constantly. When I got up in the morning, my nurse told the aide working with her that I was a Hallway Parker. When my therapist Valerie got done working with me today, she told the next therapist that I was a Hallway Parker. They should just write it on my helmet.
Basically, what it means is that when I’m in my wheelchair, I have to be in the hallway. That’s so everybody can watch me and make sure I don’t get up and fall on my face again.
Right now, it’s lunchtime, and because my mother isn’t here to watch me, I get to sit out in the hallway with my food with the other handful of Hallway Parkers. Technically, it’s not really the hallway though—it’s actually the intersection of two endlessly long hallways, both coated in sterile white paint that’s so bright, it hurts my eyes.
The “hallway” is more interesting than my room, at least. I’m just next to the nurses’ station, so I get to watch the nurses going about their work, and sometimes gossiping about patients because they think we can’t hear them even though we’re only about five feet away. I get to watch visitors coming and going with their big families and toddling children. And when it’s quiet, they roll out a television for us and use the finicky VCR to put on a movie. The movies are all really old movies that I haven’t seen in many years, like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation or Grease.
