The Burn Journals (12 page)

Barbara is here to watch
Ben-Hur
with me. It's that one about Charlton Heston on the chariots, but it's not
The Ten Commandments.
I tried to watch
Ben-Hur
on TV during Easter, but I fell asleep. Barbara said she'd get the video and we'd watch it together sometime. So, today's the day.

She starts the movie and we start watching the previews, and my skin starts to itch. Like seriously itch. Like all over my body, insects burrowing up through the dermis kind of itch. Everyone always said it would feel this way, but I didn't know what they meant. I always thought itches were kind of annoying, but this is a weird pain deep down under the skin, like a buzzing inside my body.

Barbara gives me some Benadryl and says that'll help quiet the itching. She starts the movie.

There's the MGM lion and some music. God, these credits are taking a long time. I'm just going to rest my eyes for a little while until the movie starts.

I wake up and it's dark again. The movie is gone. I don't remember anything about it. I wonder if it was on the whole time while I was sleeping. Barbara,
Ben-Hur,
and Benadryl. I'm going back to sleep.

I've got one more surgery scheduled. No big deal, just a little patch-and-cover job on those few little holes I've still got on my back and butt, but I won't have to lie on my stomach afterward, thank God. After that, about two weeks and I'm out of here. Heading up north to that rehab hospital my parents visited in Delaware. The one with the pool and the basketball court and the bowling alley.

That'll be good. I'll be happy to go. Make new friends. Try new things.

The only thing is, I don't want to leave. I don't want to go anywhere. I could do rehab here, with all my friends. Don't make me leave.

Fuck it, it's fucking useless.

Dr. Rubinstein sends Mom into my room to talk about the stuff I don't want to talk about. The other suicide attempts and stuff.

I don't want to tell Mom that stuff. I don't want to upset her.

And I'm different now. I don't do those things. I'm sorry. I was making mistakes. I didn't know what I was doing and I couldn't stop.

But Mom is here and she looks like she's ready to talk. If I just say it, then maybe I'll be able to stop feeling so bad inside.

So I'll say it. What will I say? I'll say, Hey, Mom, guess who tried to kill themselves a bunch of other times besides the one you know about? That's right, me. Hey, Mom, remember the Band-Aids on my wrist? Well, I didn't really scrape it on my locker. I cut it with a knife that I kept under my bed.

And remember all the black clothes, well, I liked black because it reminded me of death.

And you know the furnace in the basement, I thought about pouring gasoline in there and blowing up the whole house. And remember the time I got caught stealing supplies from Mrs. Loftus, the algebra teacher, well, that night I lay in bed, dressed up in my best suit, and sliced my wrists open. And you know how I got the book on how to make knots? It was so I could tie a noose and hang myself from the closet pole.

And a lot of the time I used to spend in my room alone, I was writing my will so you'd know who to give all of my stuff to.

I can't say any of this. I can't say any of this. So I say, “Mom?”

“Yes, honey.”

“When I . . . when I tried . . . to hurt myself, before . . .”

“Yes, honey.”

“That wasn't the first time that I tried to do something like that.”

She doesn't look surprised, but she's starting to cry. She puts her hand on top of mine. “I know, honey. I figured it wasn't the first time.”

“You did?”

“Yes, honey, I'm sorry I didn't know you were so sad.” She's crying hard now, and I'm crying too. “I didn't know, honey, I didn't know you were so sad.”

“I know. I'm sorry, Mom.”

“It's okay, honey. It's okay. We didn't know you were so sad.”

We cry together some more.

“Brenny?” she says. “About a week before your accident, we got into a fight at the dinner table and you stormed up to your room, and I remember, I said, ‘Where are you going?' and you said, I think I heard you say, ‘I'm going to set myself on fire.' Do you remember that?”

I think about it. “I don't think I said that. I mean, I might have, but I didn't mean it.”

She's crying harder now. “Okay, okay, because I thought you'd said that, and I just wish I'd been there to try and help you, and I wish I'd been there, and I just wish I'd known you were so sad.” She can hardly get the words out, she's crying so hard.

“It's okay, Mom. It's okay. You didn't know. I didn't tell you.”

She sniffs hard, and all of a sudden, the tears stop. “But if you ever get that sad again, you have to promise to tell someone so they can help you.”

“Yes. Okay. I'll tell someone.”

“And know that we love you so much and we don't ever want to lose you.”

“I know. I know.”

So the last surgery is today. I wish they'd stop talking to me about it. Just do it and get it over with and stop talking to me about skin and mesh and graft sites and scarlet and Silvadene and morphine and bacitracin and Eucerin and total body surface area burned and antimicrobial and cultural epithelial autograft and range of motion and all of that shit. Just do it and shut the fuck up about it. Please.

I'm awake. This is the first time I've been completely covered in skin since I got in here.

When I'm better, Tina and I are going to go out of the hospital together. We've got it all set up. We're going to Ben & Jerry's to get some ice cream and then to the movies to see
What About Bob?
which I've seen commercials for on TV, and it looks really funny. Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss. They're so funny.

I was in fourth grade the first time I heard the word suicide. I remember exactly where I was, I was walking down the hall in my elementary school, and I was talking to my friend Chris B., this kid who had cystic fibrosis and was always pale and skinny. He said, “Maybe I'll commit suicide.” I don't remember what he was talking about or why he said that, but that's what he said.

I said, “What does that mean?”

“You know, kill myself.”

That was the first time I'd heard the word, and I just kept thinking, Why would someone want to kill himself? Why would anyone do that? I couldn't stop thinking about it and it got inside my head and started squirming around in there like a worm in the dirt, and then it seemed to disappear. But when it came back four years later, it was so big and so powerful, and it seemed like it ate up my whole brain and it was the only thing I could think about.

I just keep wondering, What if I'd never heard that word? I wonder what would've happened.

Dawn's taking me down to the cafeteria for a little exercise. She says if I can walk all the way there, then she'll buy me a Coke, but she's bringing the wheelchair just in case I get tired.

I can do pretty well getting around, but my right foot is still kind of hard to walk on. Dawn says it's because when I had to lie on my stomach for ten days, the muscles contracted and that's why I can't stretch out my toe anymore. She's designing a special strap that I can wear to stretch my toe while I walk. That'll be cool.

It's a long walk, so I entertain Dawn with stories. I tell her about the time I was in the cafeteria at Kilmer, my junior high school, and everybody was supposed to clean up all the trash before we could be dismissed, and the janitor came up to me and told me to pick up this fork that was on the floor. I said, “It's not mine,” but he didn't care, he just told me to pick it up and don't talk back. Anyway, by the end of lunch I still hadn't picked it up and he came back to check on me and the fork. I saw him coming and I put my foot down over the fork. He said, “Where's that fork?” And I was like, “I threw it away.” And he said, “I didn't see you.” And I said, “Well, I did.” And he said, “Scoot back your chair.” And I did, but I kept my foot over the fork and slid it back at the same time. He said, “Lift up your foot.” And I did, but I lifted up the one without the fork under it. And he goes, “No. The other foot.” So I did, and I got three days of eating lunch in the Box, the room for in-school suspension.

Dawn says I'm a good storyteller. And now she has to buy me a Coke. I made it.

Reggie, the tall skinny black guy who used to help me out of bed, says that when I leave here, I'm going to forget all about him. That's not true. That is so not true. First of all, the people here are my best friends in the entire world and they love me for who I am and they don't care about anything I did before, they just love me. Reggie bet me that I won't invite him to my high school graduation. I said, “Reggie, that's only four years away, of course I'll keep in touch with you, man.” He said, “We'll see.” He's so wrong.

There's less than a week left here at Children's. Less than a week. The twelfth of June, that's next Wednesday. Then Mom and Dad are going to drive me up to duPont.

Mom asked me if I wanted to make a trip home before they take me to Delaware, and I had to say that I didn't really want to. I think she was disappointed because she knows that I'm going out to the movies and ice cream with Tina.

I told her I didn't want to come home yet because I
didn't feel like I was ready, which is partially true, but also partially untrue. I don't know, I just can't really imagine going back there with the bathroom, and my old room and all that stuff, and the neighbors outside welcoming me back home. No, I don't want to do that.

Dad asked me if I thought I'd ever want to come home, and I had to lie and say, “Sure, sure I will. Of course I will. I just need a little more time to get better.” The truth is that I don't know when I'll be ready to go home again.

They're having a telethon downstairs in the atrium for the benefit of Children's Hospital. Rosemarie, one of the social workers, asked my parents and me if we wanted to be featured on it. I said yes.

But then I thought about it, and I didn't want to walk all the way down there and stand up under the lights and have someone shove a microphone in my face and ask me what happened. So, anyway, Mom and Dad have gone downstairs to do it by themselves. I'm staying in bed and watching it on TV.

It's pretty boring actually, the whole TV show thing. They just keep talking in circles about how important the hospital is, and then they tell you how much money they've raised, and how important everything is, and how much money they've raised.

But there's Mom and Dad, oh God, they look nervous. That's so funny. Dad's so stiff and Mom looks like she's going to faint. The woman's asking them something. I turn it up.

“Your son's name is . . .”

“Our son's name is Brent and he's a burn patient up on the Burn Ward.”

“And how long has Brent been a patient here?”

“About four months.”

“And how has his care been?”

“It's been absolutely tremendous.”

God, this is cool. I wonder if anyone I know is watching this.

“And how did Brent get burned?”

Oh shit.

“Brent was burned in an accidental house fire a few months ago.”

“And how is he doing?”

“He's just doing great. He was burned over eighty-five percent of his body and he's had numerous skin-grafting procedures and he's doing so great now and he's going to be released from the hospital next week.”

An accidental house fire. Right. Okay. Okay. We can say that. We don't have to tell anyone what really happened. An accidental house fire. Why did they lie? I mean, I don't blame them, but did they have to? But I'm glad they didn't say the truth. I don't know.

“That's great. Thanks very much, Mr. and Mrs. Runyon, for talking with us today.”

Oh God, I have this sudden tightness, this sticking feeling in my chest like I've been breathing Krazy Glue.

This strange woman with a tackle box is knocking on my door. She comes over next to my bed and starts talking to me. She says she's a representative from a cosmetics company and she helps people like me, who've suffered severe injuries to their face, overcome their self-consciousness and go on to lead happy and healthier lives. She says that with just a little bit of base, chosen especially to match my particular skin tone, something between Light Olive and Lady Fair, I'll look as good as new.

She has this little girl with her who's been burned by some hot oil or something, and she shows me how good she looks. She looks fine, and she's smiling a lot. The woman also has the little girl's parents with her, and they tell me how the girl's self-confidence has already started to increase. She feels so much better about herself.

The woman gives me a big smile. She's pretty in the way mannequins are pretty. She asks if I'd like to try a free sample. I say, “No.” She asks if I'm sure because the products can really make a difference in your self-confidence and make social situations that much easier. I say, “No.” She asks if I am sure. I say, “Yes.”

I'm not going to cover anything up. This is me.

Becky and Dawn and I are making a video today for the people up at duPont, describing all the things we've been doing in OT and PT so they know what my limits are.

Here we go. Becky says, “Hi, my name is Rebecca Bernhardt and I'm an OT here at Children's National Medical Center. This is Brent Runyon. Say hi, Brent.”

“Hi.” I give a little wave.

“Brent is a fourteen-year-old patient who has received second- and third-degree burns to over eighty-five percent of his body, of partial and full thickness.”

She's not going to say how I got burned, is she? God, that would be terrible. She wouldn't do that.

“As you can see, Brent has been wearing pressure garments on his head, torso, and hands. At this time, Brent has trouble with the range of motion and strength needed to put on his garments, but he's done well getting them off, with just a little help.”

Becky's voice sounds tight and nervous. She seems like a different person.