Less Than Hero (33 page)

Eventually I say good night to Randy and walk along Fourteenth Street to First Avenue, where I stand at the corner in front of Papaya Dog, trying to convince myself this is a bad idea and that I should double back and walk down Second Avenue, instead. Or walk down one more block and go home through Alphabet City. But I was never good at listening to my common sense.

As I walk down First Avenue, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window at Subway and stop to take a look. Even though my hair has begun to reclaim some of its natural color and the wrinkles and bags around my eyes have cleared up, sometimes
I still catch myself looking in the mirror and wondering who the stranger is wearing my skin and my face. At moments like this, when I see my faint image looking back at me, I feel like I’m just a ghost of the person I used to be.

Or maybe that’s just the Zeprocol, which in addition to drooling, slurred speech, trembling, clumsiness, unsteadiness, and difficulty with swallowing and breathing, can cause blurred or impaired vision along with a mask-like face.

I stare at my unfamiliar reflection a few moments longer, then continue along First Avenue.

Another side effect of most antipsychotics is insomnia, which is a bigger problem for me than it is for your average person, since insomnia causes my inner Dr. Lullaby to want to come out and play. And that’s something Sophie and I have agreed isn’t a good idea.

So in order to combat my insomnia, I’m taking Somnata, which comes with its own host of side effects. These include dizziness, nausea, cotton mouth, loss of appetite, headaches, problems with memory or concentration, mild skin rash, agitation, aggression, thoughts of hurting yourself, anxiety, and depression.

At least I’m already taking Norvox.

One of the other side effects of Somnata is the possibility of hallucinations, which makes me wonder if pharmaceutical companies make sure their drugs have side effects that require the cross-pollination of their other drugs. Fortunately the only side effects I’ve experienced on any regular basis have been indigestion and some occasional nausea.

And I can’t help but think about Vic.

I continue along First Avenue for another few blocks until I come to Stromboli Pizza and look through the window. Past midnight on a Monday, most of the customers are ordering slices rather than entire pies, and there’s a line of about six ahead of me. While I’m hungry and looking forward to sneaking in a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza without Sophie knowing, that’s not the main reason I came here.

I know it probably won’t make a difference and that I’m just going to leave here feeling worse than I did before, but after staring through the window another moment, I walk through the door and get in line.

Vic stands behind the counter, taking someone’s order; then he rings them up and gives them their change before helping the next customer, then the next and the next. While I know not to get my hopes up, by the time I get to the front of the line my heart is pounding.

“Hey,” Vic says. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” I say. “How about you?”

“Couldn’t be better,” he says, flashing a smile that looks genuine rather than forced, like he’s happy to be working here. For all I know, he is.

I still don’t know what happened to Vic after his encounter with Blaine. I don’t know if he ended up on the streets or in a shelter or got married. But no matter how many times I’ve come in here, he hasn’t told me where he’s been or what happened. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because he doesn’t know who I am.

I ran into Vic about a month ago on my way home from work.
When I saw him, I was so happy I started crying and asking him where he’d been all this time, but he just stared at me and shook his head and told me he didn’t know what I was talking about before he asked if I wanted to order some pizza. It didn’t take me long to realize that Vic doesn’t remember anything about me or his life as a guinea pig or what we went through together. None of it.

Whatever Blaine did to him, it seems to be permanent.

Even so, I stare at Vic another moment, looking for some glimpse of recognition in his eyes, some hint that buried deep in the recesses of his psyche he knows who I am. But like every other time I’ve come in here for the past month, there’s nothing more than common courtesy lurking behind his expression. To Vic, I’m just a guy who comes into Stromboli’s a few times a week to order some pizza, and the extent of our conversation revolves not around our shared history but what’s on the menu.

“So what’ll it be tonight?” he asks.

I know what I want but I look at the menu anyway, stalling for time like I always do, hoping that something somewhere in Vic’s memory clicks into place.

“Two slices of pepperoni pizza and a root beer,” I say. “And while you’re at it, how about throwing in a couple of douche bags.”

Vic gives me a sideways look. “I don’t follow.”

For just a second I convince myself that I catch a flash of recognition in his eyes. A spark plug trying to fire up his memory. Then it’s gone. Or maybe it only existed in my imagination.

“Nothing,” I say. “Just making a joke.”

“Got it,” he says. “Two slices of pepperoni and a root beer, coming up.”

He rings up my order and I pay him like we’re just a couple of ordinary guys living ordinary lives who never did anything out of the ordinary together. Once my order is ready, I take it to a table and sit down, eating my pepperoni pizza and drinking my root beer in silence without enjoying a single bite or sip. When I’m done, I stand up and walk outside, pausing at the door to raise a hand in the air to Vic on my way out, but he’s preoccupied with another customer and doesn’t see me or return the gesture. So I head home hoping that maybe next time he’ll remember me.

H
ey CB,” I say. “What’s shakin’?”

Charlie smiles and his left eye fills with tears when I walk into the room. Unlike Vic, Charlie still remembers me, and I can see the combination of familiarity and pain in his expression. But whereas Vic and I are at least able to hold a meaningless conversation, Charlie still isn’t able to form an intelligible sentence.

“Ay Llld. S gd tcu,” he says.

Listening to Charlie talk is like hearing a teenager’s text message spoken phonetically.

“It’s good to see you, too,” I say.

After Charlie came out of his coma, it was obvious the stroke he’d suffered had caused some significant permanent damage, so he was transferred to a long-term care facility in Queens, where he’s been a resident for the past couple of months. I don’t know who’s footing the bill or how much it’s costing, since Charlie doesn’t have any health insurance or the ability to pay for any of this, but I’m guessing it’s not going to be cheap.

I sit down in the chair next to his bed and Charlie reaches out with his left hand, his right hand motionless and curled up next
to him on top of the covers, his fingers halfway curled into a claw, a patch covering his right eye so he looks like a pirate in a nursing home. When I take his good hand he smiles at me, or at least he tries to. The right side of his face still droops, as if someone turned up the gravity on one side of his body.

“How are you feeling?” I ask.

Charlie’s mouth twitches and his left eye blinks, like he’s trying to answer in facial Morse code. He mumbles something that I can’t make out, which only seems to make his mouth and eye work harder. Finally I hand him the pen and pad of paper on the bedside table and he scrawls out something with his left hand.

When he’s done I look down at what he’s written. Charlie is right-handed, so his penmanship looks like that of a six-year-old with cerebral palsy, but I can still make out his answer to my question.

I hate being like this.

Charlie never was one to hide his feelings. And I’m so struck by his honesty that I don’t know how to respond, so I just give his hand a little squeeze and tell him that I’m sorry.

We sit in silence for a few minutes before Charlie lets go of my hand and wipes away the tears that have coursed down his cheek. Then he takes a deep breath and seems to get himself under control.

“Hss ic?” he says.

I’ve only seen Charlie a handful of times since he regained consciousness, and I feel guilty about not coming to see him more often. Part of my absence stems from my own work schedule and the fact that it’s tough for me to get out to Queens, since the long-term
care facility is all the way over in Whitestone. Plus most of the spare time I do have I try to spend with Sophie. But each time I’ve come to visit him, Charlie has asked me the same question.

How’s Vic?

“He’s good,” I say. “He seems happy.”

I’ve told Charlie about Vic, about how Blaine blew away his memory and how Vic now works at Stromboli Pizza and doesn’t remember anything. I haven’t told Charlie that I’ve seen Vic several times a week for the past month in the hopes of triggering his memory. Instead, I just keep my answers simple because it’s easier that way.

Charlie nods and gives a half smile, which is a trick no one should ever have to learn how to do.

“I iss I ood c m,” he says.

Seeing the pain on Charlie’s face and knowing how much he hates being like this makes it that much harder to be here. Plus there’s the awkwardness of not knowing what to say that makes visiting him an exercise in learning how to manage my own guilt, which makes me wonder if maybe Blaine didn’t do Vic a favor by erasing his memory.

“Nn hss ank?”

“Frank’s good,” I say.

Frank’s been at a weight-loss boot camp in Long Island for the past six weeks after ballooning up to over three hundred pounds. Apparently he had some rainy-day money stashed away that he decided to use to get his weight under control after he hit bottom and couldn’t manage to get through his bathroom door.

“I’m going to see him next week,” I say.

Charlie nods again and I can see his lips twitching and his left eye filling up with tears again, so he grabs the pen and writes another note.

Tell him I said hey.

I sit with Charlie for a while and try to think of things to talk about, telling him about Sophie and my job at Westerly and how I’ve started volunteering one day a week with Sophie at the SPCA, which, in addition to the bacon, seems to have improved my relationship with Vegan. I try not to make it sound like things are all that great, but I know that no matter how much I downplay my life, it’s an all-expenses-paid trip to Tahiti compared to Charlie’s.

After I’ve run out of things to say, Charlie and I sit there in silence for several minutes, staring at each other and pretending to smile. Charlie’s lips twitch again like he wants to say something, then he picks up the pen again and starts writing. When he’s done, I see a new question that he hasn’t asked on my previous visits, but one that was inevitable.

What about Isaac?

“He’s still out there,” I say.

For a week or so after my encounter with Isaac there were a few reports in Brooklyn and Staten Island about people suffering from hallucinations or exhibiting delusional behavior, but other than that the news around New York City has been hallucination-free. However, over the past couple of months, there have been reports about people having hallucinations in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh, with a slew of them cropping up a few days ago in Columbus, Ohio.

From what I can tell, Isaac appears to be working his way west.

W
ould you like some more asparagus?” Sophie asks.

“No thanks,” I say, then take another bite of my Tofurky kielbasa.

While Sophie’s not a big fan of fake meat, she’s okay with me eating veggie sausages and hot dogs and sandwich meats, so long as I don’t eat Boca Burgers, which contain
hydrolyzed wheat protein
,
disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, methylcellulose,
and a bunch of other ingredients I can’t pronounce. Not to mention that they’re owned by Philip Morris. But she’s okay with me eating Tofurky, since it contains organic, non-GMO ingredients and hexane-free soy. And Sunshine Burgers, which contain only ground raw sunflower seeds, brown rice, carrots, herbs, and sea salt.