The Burn Journals (5 page)

I say, “Hello?”

“Hello, is this Brent?” It's a little hard to hear what the guy on the phone is saying.

“Yes. Who's this?”

“It's Magic Johnson. How you doing, buddy?”

“Magic Johnson?”

“Yup, how's it going, man? How you feeling?”

“Okay.”

“I want you to work real hard and get better, okay, buddy?”

“Okay.”

“If you're gonna play ball with me, you're gonna have to work real hard, okay?”

“Okay.”

“All right, I've got to go, but keep working hard and get better soon. I'm sending you a pair of my shoes and a workout suit. What size shoes do you wear?”

“I don't know. Nine?”

“Okay, man. Good luck. See you this summer.”

“Okay. Bye.”

He hangs up and I look up at Tina. She's laughing. I can't believe it. I really can't believe it. Magic Johnson.

Tina says that I'm eighty-five percent burned and I don't really have enough good skin on my body to cover the burned-up parts. She says they're going to shave my head and take the skin from my scalp because that's good thick fresh skin.

She says they'll cut the skin off my scalp in a big rectangular chunk, about as big as an envelope, and put it on a meshing machine. The machine pokes holes in it and spreads it out. They can change the settings on the machine so it'll spread the skin out a lot or a little. Like for my hands, they spread it only a little, that's why the little holes on my hand are only as big as the dimples on a golf ball, but the ones on my shoulders are as big as raindrops. Then they staple it in place, probably with a big old staple gun like we used in Boy Scouts to build those baskets for Mother's Day.

After a week, it's healed enough to take out the staples and see how well the grafts have taken. That's the only part that hurts really because for the rest I'm asleep. But when they take out the staples, they have to push really hard on the skin and kind of pop the staple out with this tool they have. And there are always one or two that are in so deep, the nurses have to really work at them, bending them back and forth, like pulling bent nails out of a two-by-four. That's the only part that hurts.

Dr. Rubinstein, that short psychologist woman, is back. I like her even less than the first time. She asks, “Brent, was this your first suicide attempt?”

“No.” I hate her accent.

“How many times have you tried to commit suicide?”

I say, “I don't know, maybe three or four.”

“And what were the circumstances of those attempts?”

“Once was before they caught me for stealing school supplies in algebra. And another time when my parents were about to find out about me failing science.”

“And are your parents aware of these suicide attempts?”

“No. I don't think so.”

“Do you understand that you must tell them about these attempts?”

“Why?”

“You must tell them because it is imperative that they understand the condition of your mental health in order to prevent you from attempting suicide again.”

“But I'm not going to do that again.”

“Regardless, you must tell your parents about your previous attempts at suicide.”

“Why?” I'm starting to get upset.

“Brent, as I've already explained to you, this is absolutely necessary for your recovery.”

“Why?” I'm starting to cry.

“Brent, you must understand this is for your own good. And for your parents' good.”

“Why?” I'm really crying now.

“Your parents must understand how critical your mental health was at the time of your suicide attempt.”

“But they don't need to know. Will you tell them?”

“You have to tell them. It's very important.”

I can't talk anymore. I'm just crying and crying. I want her to go away and leave me alone.

My favorite part of burn care is when they put the morphine into my blood. I know that they're supposed to drip it through the IV, but when they do it that way, I can barely feel it at all, and it just sort of makes me sleepy. Some of the nurses do me a favor and push the shot all at once into my bloodstream. That's the best feeling in the world, the way it comes into my body and warms me up from the inside and all of a sudden my eyes don't work anymore but I don't care and there's pleasure all through my body, nothing but pleasure for miles and miles, and then it starts to fade and they tear into my skin and there's nothing but pain forever.

Tina says they're going to reduce my medication during burn care because they're worried that I'm going to get addicted to the stuff. She says I should start to work on meditation and relaxation techniques to help with pain management.

I hate Dr. Rubinstein. My problems aren't anything to do with her. I don't even have any problems, now that I think about it. I'm happy and I've got friends and family and they understand me and I don't need her to understand me or to ask me questions and I wish she'd just leave me the fuck alone.

I got another tape in the mail. This one is from Alida, this girl that used to go to Kilmer with me. She's in high school now, but we always had this kind of special connection. We had gym together, and instead of playing dodgeball we used to walk around the field and talk about our feelings. Anyway because we had this special psychological connection we called each other Psycho.

The tape is marked
Psycho's Mix
. Mom raises her eyebrows at the title. I'm not going to explain it to her. That's stupid.

She puts it in the tape player and presses play. Alida's voice is the first thing I hear. “Hi, Psycho. This is Alida, or Psycho, or whatever. And I'm just here with a bunch of friends, and we're all really hyper because we've been eating ice cream like all night.”

A bunch of girls giggle in the background.

“And we all brought our favorite music over, and we're making you a tape. So, Jenna's here, remember, you helped kidnap her? Say hi, Jenna.”

“Hi.” That girl sounds nervous.

Alida says, “Louder.”

“Hi!”

“That's better. And Katie's here. You don't know her.”

“Hi.”

“And Cecilia.”

“Hi.”

“Louder.”

“Hi!”

“And my mom's here too. She misses you at the school store.”

A lady in the background with a Southern accent says, “Hi, Psycho.”

“Mom always really liked it when you came and visited her in the school store because even my brother doesn't visit her. Anyway, we're going to put on a bunch of songs and stuff. So enjoy.”

The tape clicks and then there's the sound of a needle on an old record, and this piano, and a voice singing that sounds so clear and beautiful, like water.

When you're weary, feeling small,

When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all;

I'm on your side. When times get rough

And friends just can't be found,

Like a bridge over troubled water

I will lay me down.

Like a bridge over troubled water

I will lay me down.

I close my eyes and listen to the music because I feel tired and because the music sounds so good to listen to.

They're bringing in a burned kid to see me. His name's Tony, and he's a few years younger than I am, maybe ten or eleven. His right arm is amputated above the elbow.

He walks into my room. He's got a big limp and he holds his amputated arm really close to his stomach, like he's afraid it'll bump into something. He's got a little sock over the end of his arm. I wonder if that's to keep it warm or what.

He says, “Hi.”

I say, “Hi.”

He's looking at me, down at my skinny legs all wrapped in bandages and then up at my stomach and chest, but he doesn't look at my face. I think maybe he's just shy.

He says, “I got burned too.”

I say, “Yeah.”

“I grabbed on to a power line that fell when a tree hit it.”

“Yeah?”

“It shocked me and burned up my whole arm and that's why they had to amputate it.” He says everything like it happened to someone else.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He pulls up his sleeve and shows me the graft sites and how they stretch up to his shoulder. He's black, but the graft sites are a bunch of different colors like tan and off-white. They aren't purple or oozing like mine. They swirl up his arm and stop near his shoulder, almost like they belong there. “It hurt, but then it stopped hurting.”

“Hmm.” I can tell he wants to hear my story, about what happened to me, but I can't say it because if I told him, then he'd want to know why and I wouldn't know what to say.

He says, “You got burned real bad too.”

“Yup.”

“But you're getting better?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“That's good.”

We're quiet for a long time.

“Hey, it was really nice to meet you, Tony.”

“Yeah. Nice to meet you too.”

He walks out and shuts the door behind him with his
one arm.

I'm calling Alida because she made me that great tape.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Alida?”

“No, this is her mother. Can I ask who's calling?”

“This is Brent.”

“Oh my God, Psycho. How are you, sweetie? We've all been thinking about you and praying for you. All right, you just hang in there. You just hang in there, all right, honey?”

“Okay.”

Her mom yells, “Alida, it's Psycho!” I can hear some moving around in the background. They're whispering something I can't hear.

“Hi, Psycho.” She sounds cheerful. Not too weird.

“Hi.”

“Did you get our tape?”

“Yeah, I got it. Thanks. It was great.”

“You sound so good.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, you sound great.”

“Oh.”

“So, when can I come visit you?”

“I don't know. Pretty soon.”

“That would be so much fun. I could come and sit with you and we could have dinner and everything.”

“Yeah, and watch a movie.”

“That would be so much fun.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well, I'll tell my parents and they'll figure out when would be a good time to come, okay?”

“Okay. It's great to talk to you.”

“It's great to talk to you too. See you.”

“Bye.”

Wow, so I'm going to have a visitor. That's weird. At least she didn't sound scared. She sounded like she used to sound. We're going to have dinner and watch a movie, but I don't think we're going to have sex because I don't think I'm up for it.

They want to take me outside the Intensive Care Unit, but I'm not really sure how. First, Barbara with the short red hair slips a hospital gown over my arms and pulls it down over my chest and then wheels in a big blue chair that looks like a La-Z-Boy and puts it next to my bed. I think I know what they're going to do next because it's the same thing they do when they put me on a stretcher to go to the operating room. Barbara, Amy, Janice, and Kerry each grab a corner of my sheet and lift me all at once up and over onto the blue chair. I feel dizzy, so I can't quite say the words that I want to say, which are, Why can't I just lie in bed and watch television? Barbara grabs my IV and wheels me out the door into the hallway. My room is the last one in the Intensive Care Unit, the corner suite, and the whole unit is in front of me now. It's different than I pictured it, smaller and with less fancy equipment everywhere.

There's a picture of a bear with a stethoscope around his neck on the wall to my right, a bunch of patients' rooms on the left, and the nurses' station is up there on the right. Lisa is talking on the phone behind the desk and she smiles and waves as they wheel me by. There are two big double doors in front of us and my dad goes and opens them up so we can get the chair through. There's green carpet everywhere and a bunch of big Easter Bunny cutouts on the walls and a lot of people walking around wearing striped shirts. I can hear some kids playing together somewhere and a baby crying and lots of telephones and conversations all at once, like you hear in a train station. I sort of want to go back to bed.

They wheel me out into an open space and put the brakes on. Barbara adjusts my pillow and asks me if I'm warm enough. I say, “Sure.”

Carol leans down to talk to me. “Brent, we've got a very special visitor to the hospital today and she would like to meet you, if that's all right.”

“Madonna?”

She laughs, “No, it's not Madonna. It's Danuta Walesa, the first lady of Poland. She's married to the president of Poland, Lech Walesa.”

“Who?”

“The first lady of Poland.”

“Of Poland?”

“Yes. Of Poland. She's in town while her husband is meeting with President Bush.”

“So she's coming to meet me here, in the hallway?”

“Well, she's coming to tour the hospital and you're one of the planned stops.”

“Is she bringing Mrs. Bush?”

“No.”

“Is she bringing President Bush?”

“No.” I can tell she's getting kind of annoyed at my questions, so I stop and try to be nice about it.

“Oh, cool.”

We wait for a few minutes in the hallway like that. My mom is talking to Barbara, who looks really nervous and is saying something about how the kid that she adopted is from Poland. Finally a lady comes down the hallway with a bunch of Secret-Service-looking people and a translator and a photographer. The lady looks at me and says something to the translator, who says to me, “Mrs. Walesa is very pleased to meet you.”

I'm not sure what to say, and my dad pipes up, “He's very pleased to meet you too.”

Mrs. Walesa looks a little confused as to why my dad is answering when she spoke to me, but the translator explains and then Mrs. Walesa takes a doll from her assistant and hands it to me and says something in Polish. “Mrs. Walesa extends this gift to you and wishes you continued success in your recovery.”

I take the doll from her hand as best I can and look at it. It's a little doll made of plastic in a purple wool coat. I don't think the arms even move or anything. I try to look happy and to kind of smile at her and my dad says, “He's very pleased,” in a voice that is just a little too loud. I look at him and try to say with my eyes, She's Polish, not deaf, but he doesn't notice.