Noggin

by John Corey Whaley

  “Damn, Cate.”

  “It was a while ago. It’s fine now. I’ve got it under control.”

  “A while . . . like . . . five years ago?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Six months?”

  “First they tried meds . . . but they gave me headaches. You know I don’t like taking medicine. I don’t even take aspirin. Then I saw someone for a while, and I got to where I could stop them before they got too bad. Like what I told you in the car . . . you just have to close your eyes and breathe. As long as you know it’s gonna pass, you just have to stay calm and wait it out.”

  “Can you stay for a little while? I guess Mom and Dad are working or something. I can’t keep up with them anymore.”

  “Yeah. I guess I can stay. But look, Travis. I don’t want you getting the wrong idea either.”

  My girlfriend who used to dare me to make out in public places and play footsie with me at the dinner table and park down the road to sneak into my house in the middle of the night didn’t want me getting the wrong idea. My girlfriend who hadn’t seen me in half a decade, who had come to save me from my breakdown at Arnie’s, that girlfriend needed a little more convincing. I wasn’t sure I could keep this up for much longer. Being her friend was fine, but I needed things to go back. I needed them to be the same as before, and the longer I waited, the less possible that seemed. Maybe that’s why I freaked out in the car. Maybe, like some transplanted organ in an unfamiliar body, I was being rejected by the world around me. I had to fix things before I ran out of time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  OUT OF TIME

  I should probably tell you about my last Christmas. I mean, the one I thought would be my last Christmas. And, well, to tell you about it means that I also have to tell you about my last New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Halloween. Because they were all on the same day.

  You’ll remember that Kyle and Cate came with us to Denver so they could say good-bye to me. But what I haven’t told you is that we arrived there about six days before my actual surgery. For fear that I wouldn’t make it much longer, Dr. Saranson flew us all out and put my parents, Kyle, and Cate in a couple of suites they had at the hospital. I call it a hospital, but this place, the Saranson Center for Life Preservation, was more like the starship Enterprise. The walls were all shiny metallic or foggy white, and all the doors were glass and moved silently out of the way whenever someone approached them. My room was designed to make sure my (very probable) last days of life were more comfortable than all the ones before them. The mattress had all these settings that I could control with a touch screen, and I could use that same screen to completely shut out the light from outside and make the ceiling glow with a million little digital stars. It was beautiful. I usually made fun of things like that, but they got it right, I think. It was peaceful without being creepy like those weird clown murals you see in some children’s hospitals.

  I’d already said my final good-byes to the few family members we’d told about my procedure because you don’t need an audience to die and, plus, we knew how uncomfortable it made them feel. My grandmother especially had a hard time understanding why I’d want to take such a big risk and lose even one extra second of the life I was living. She kissed my cheek for the first time I ever remembered, and she told me that if it came to it, I should probably tell my grandfather hello for her. I thought that was sweet, the way she said it like I was just going to visit a foreign city or something.

  We got to Denver and I settled into my room. Cate helped me while my parents and Kyle went to put their things in the guest suites across the building. She and I played around with the touch screen that the nurse had shown us, opening and closing the curtains, making fake stars twinkle one second and then turning the room into a bright, almost blinding white the next.

  “So if you see a bright light, it’s not you dying. It’s me playing around in this room,” Cate said, both of us squinting at each other.

  Soon enough it was the early evening, and I noticed that this was the time when everyone always got the saddest. I think there’s something about the sun going down that maybe pushes you just over the edge if you’re standing too close to it. Mom was crying because she was always crying, and my dad was holding her hand and trying to make casual conversation with everyone. But I think it had hit us all at once that we were suddenly there. We had reached our final stop on the Travis Coates Is Dying Express, and now no one knew what to say.

  “It’s a shame,” I said. “What is it, like, September?”

  “Yeah. School starts next week,” Kyle answered.

  “I thought I could at least squeeze in one last holiday before I had to go.”

  “There’s always Labor Day,” Dad suggested.

  “I think that only requires resting. I’ve got that down to an art,” I said. “It’s a real shame. I like how people act on holidays. Everyone just seems . . . I don’t know—lighter, maybe. Like they’re allowed to have fun all day long and eat anything they want and do silly things, and no one cares because, hey, it’s a holiday, so why not?”

  “When you were little,” my mom started up, her tears still flowing, “you had that calendar. Remember that? Remember your big calendar?”

  “Yeah. With the marker.”

  “That’s the one. He had this big calendar on his wall. Thing must’ve been, oh, probably about the size of a movie poster, and he used to use this green marker to fill in some made-up holiday for every single day of every month. Every single day. So I knew when the first rolled around, Travis would be tearing off one sheet and starting on the other.”

  “What were the holidays?” Kyle asked.

  “Oh, things like Squirrel Day or Dad’s Ties Day,” I said.

  “What about Talk While Breathing In Day?” Dad said. “That was my favorite.”

  “And you’d celebrate them all?” Cate asked.

  “He would. He’d try to get us involved in any way possible, but it wasn’t always very successful. How does one celebrate The Way Porcelain Figurines Make a Popping Sound When You Move Them on a Shelf Day?”

  “That was a good one,” I said. “Probably my favorite.”

  “Do they really do that?” Cate asked.

  “They do at my grandma’s house,” I said.

  “So it was basically just everything you liked, right?” Kyle asked.

  “I guess so, yeah. I was a weird kid.”

  “The best weird kid,” Mom said.

  Then she walked out of the room because I think she wanted to spare us some pretty ugly crying. Dad followed after her, and we all watched some TV until I felt like I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. Eventually Kyle headed back to his room and left Cate and me alone for a few minutes.

  “What would you call today? I mean, if it had to be a holiday?”

  “Hmm . . . maybe Travis Gets Lucky in Denver Day?” I laughed.

  “Okay, rock star.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Oh. Denied. That’s pretty harsh, considering.”

  But she didn’t laugh. She just bent down and quietly kissed me on the forehead and then paused for a second with her eyes really close to mine, looking right into them. You ever feel like you know someone so much that they can breathe for you? Like when their chest and your chest rise and fall, they do it together because they have to? That’s how it felt. That’s how it always felt.

  The next morning I was feeling pretty good for a guy who couldn’t sit up by himself and had to pee into a bag. Mom and Dad brought in a huge thing of doughnuts, and the three of us watched some TV while we smothered our emotions with sugar and lard. I asked where Cate and Kyle were, and my parents acted like they had no idea. Dad said maybe they’d slept in.

  “You’d think they could wait a few days, huh?” I said, a little miffed.

  About an hour after we’d eaten, the door opened and in walked ten nurses, all dressed in homemade costumes. Dracula, a princess, the Hulk, Batman, Superman, a zombie—I think one of th
em may have been a hooker, but I was afraid to ask. These were maybe the worst costumes I’d ever seen. They were made mostly of paper and hospital gowns that someone had used Magic Markers on. But it didn’t matter because they were laughing and holding out their hands, fists closed. Kyle and Cate walked in behind them, both wearing surgical masks and scrubs.

  “TRICK OR TREAT!” they yelled in unison, followed by some laughter. A couple of them looked very visibly uncomfortable with all of this.

  They took turns coming up to the bed and putting handfuls of candy in my lap. Each one smiled at me, and the young guy dressed as Batman gave me a high five and shouted “YES!” afterward. The last two trick-or-treaters were my girlfriend and best friend, and they lifted their masks to reveal sneaky grins. Then they all yelled, “HAPPY HALLOWEEN, TRAVIS!” and walked back out.

  “That was awesome,” I said, sad it was over.

  “Just be patient,” Dad said.

  Sooner than I could unwrap a piece of the candy, the lights in the room dimmed to almost pitch-black, and I couldn’t really see anything until the first nurse walked in, holding a lit candle. Several more filed in behind her and there were some doctors, too. Then, of course, Kyle and Cate. My parents stood up, took candles out of their pockets, and lit them on Kyle’s flame.

  “Guys . . . I don’t know what to—”

  “Travis Coates,” a middle-aged male nurse said. “Merry Christmas.”

  Then he counted, “A one . . . two . . . three . . . ,” and they all started singing. And it was “O Holy Night,” and my mom and dad were crying, but they were still singing. Cate and Kyle, too. And the yellowish glow on all their faces was maybe the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  When it was done and they’d all walked slowly out, my parents followed behind them. But not before I felt something being put on my head. I sat in the darkness for a little while until I felt someone walk up to me.

  Then the room lit up with stars, and all the nurses were dancing around to music that started piping out of a black boom box in one of their hands. And they were cheering and blowing on party horns and wearing hats, just like the one on my head. Kyle ran into the room wheeling an IV cart and said, “Who’s ready for the countdown?”

  He knelt down and disappeared for a second in the dark. Then a faint glow suddenly illuminated the room—he’d haphazardly wrapped an empty IV bag with little twinkling lights, like the ones you see on miniature Christmas trees—and now we all started to count down from ten as he used plastic tubing to raise the bag up from the floor. When we got to one, everyone cheered even louder and started singing “Auld Lang Syne.” I joined in because how could I not, and we all laughed when my dad started dancing in the middle of the room with a nurse who was still very much dressed up like Dracula.

  They kept dancing and the music kept playing until the room was clear of everyone. But the stars were still covering the ceiling, and I laid my head back on my pillow and watched them, waiting to see what would happen next, hoping it wasn’t over. Kyle walked in a few seconds later and handed me a bouquet of flowers.

  “Why, thanks, Kyle,” I said.

  “No, no. These are not for you.”

  He walked out quickly and pushed play on the little boom box that the nurse had set by the door. It was some beautiful violin music, something romantic. And Cate walked in smiling at me. She was still wearing her jeans and a hoodie, but her hair wasn’t in its usual ponytail. It was flowing wild around both sides of her face. She was beautiful. Of course she was.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day,” she said, leaning in and kissing me.

  I handed her the flowers and she acted surprised, throwing her head back and being really funny in her dramatic way. “You shouldn’t have, darling. Why, I must be the luckiest girl in the world.” We laughed and kissed a little more, and I think maybe we were both crying when she finally said it wasn’t quite over yet.

  Suddenly the lights were back on, and before I could protest or even think about protesting, she and Kyle were helping me down from the bed and into a wheelchair. My parents were smiling in the hallway as we wheeled past them, and every time we approached a nurse or doctor, I got a head nod or a high five or a little cheer. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.

  We took an elevator down to the ground floor, and Cate told me to close my eyes, which I did because, at that point, there was no telling what was about to happen and I couldn’t stand the thought of ruining the surprise.

  “Okay, open up!” Kyle shouted.

  We were in the center of a beautiful green courtyard. There were flowers all around the edges, reaching up to the windows of the first floor. I looked up and even though it was cool out, the sky looked like a bright blue triangle, shaped by the sides of the buildings around us.

  “You’ll notice, Travis, that there are Easter eggs all around you,” Kyle said.

  I did notice. There were bright plastic eggs scattered all around the yard, the grass just short enough not to cover them completely. I couldn’t keep quiet anymore. I had to ask how they’d done all this.

  “We had all night. You go to sleep at, like, six p.m., dude,” Kyle said.

  “Yeah, but the costumes and the eggs and the Christmas candles. I just—”

  “We’re not done, Travis,” Cate interrupted. “In each of these eggs you’ll find something special. Not candy, though. These eggs are magic.”

  “I don’t think I can really get to them.” I felt a little defeated, like I was screwing this all up.

  “Hey!” some guy in a suit shouted from the sidewalk. “You guys can’t be on that grass. What’re you doing?”

  “We have permission,” Cate said.

  “From whom?” he asked.

  “From God,” I said.

  “What?” He wasn’t amused at all.

  “I’m dying.”

  “Oh.” He looked down at the wheelchair and then up at our faces. “Okay.”

  “Happy Easter,” Kyle said, waving as the man walked away.

  “I think I want down,” I said. “Can you help me?”

  They did and I lay there in the grass, looking up at the blue triangle and then over at each of them. Kyle walked over and grabbed a purple egg, opened it, and unfolded a tiny slip of paper that was inside.

  “What’s it say?” I asked, not even able to lean up to see him all the way.

  “It says: Travis, do you remember that time we beat the final level of Zelda and we both teared up?”

  “It was you. I didn’t cry. I never cry. Read me some more.”

  Cate opened a pink egg and began reading.

  “Do you remember that Halloween when I locked you out of the car in that grocery store parking lot when those kids were throwing eggs at you?”

  I did remember that. And even though I was laughing with her and Kyle, I need you to know that those hooligans could’ve put one of my eyes out.

  Kyle started reading another note before I could say anything.

  “Do you remember that time Seth Martin heard you talking about how dumb he was?”

  They kept on like that for a while, and we laughed and told jokes and made fun of one another. But that’s why they were there, I guess. Even though I was almost gone, they were still there to remind me that I wasn’t quite dead yet. And to be honest, I wouldn’t have minded just closing my eyes right then and letting go. Wouldn’t that be perfect? Just dying right there with your two best friends helping you remember everything you loved about being alive?

  And that’s how, five days before having my head sawed off my body and carefully placed in a cryogenic freezer in the basement of the Saranson Center for Life Preservation, I got to have the best day of my life. Isn’t that something? Isn’t that the greatest thing you’ve ever heard? I bet most people don’t even get one person who cares about them that much. And me, I got four of them. Yeah, maybe I got a bad deal the first time around. Sure, it wasn’t fair to be dead at sixteen. But you know what? At least I got to live every s
ingle second before they finally turned off the lights.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE LIGHTS

  I woke up with Cate’s elbow stabbing me in the ribs at about three a.m., the house dark and cold. There was a blanket on us—evidence that someone else had come home and quietly left us to sleep side by side on the couch.

  “Cate,” I whispered, gently pushing her away from me.

  “Hey. What time is it?”

  “Three in the morning,” I said.

  “Oh shit,” she said. “Your folks home?”

  “Blanket came from somewhere.” I sat up and stretched a little, and wiped the sleep out of my eyes.

  “You feeling better?” she asked.

  “I am. Cate, I—”

  “You’ll walk me out?” She got up, walked over to the window by the front door, and peeked outside.

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t see your dad’s car. It’s the same one, right?”

  “Yeah. Weird.”

  “Travis?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why isn’t your dad home at three a.m. on a Tuesday?”

  “I don’t know. He’s been working really late since I’ve been back.”

  “Could he . . . never mind.” She sat back down and yawned. I liked it when she looked sleepy.

  “You think he’s having an affair or something?”

  “No. Forget I said anything. Your dad is not that kind of guy, Travis.”

  “I’m sure everyone who’s ever had a cheating father has said the same exact thing.”

  We sat there in the dark for a few minutes. We could hear neighborhood dogs barking somewhere, and we looked at each other with surprise when we heard a car drive past. It wasn’t my dad. When she got up to leave, Cate pointed at me with this funny look on her face, like she was trying to end this quiet moment in the dark before things got uncomfortable.

  “I’ll see you after Christmas.”

  She was going to spend the holidays at her grandparents’ house in Dallas. She hated Dallas. She said the lack of cowboy hats and Wrangler jeans made it seem like it had misrepresented itself to the entire world. She didn’t like things that weren’t what she thought they’d be. But who does?