Brainstorm

by Robert Wintner

  Oh, say, can you see?

  2

  Happily Ever After

  You think a story has a beginning and an end, but it doesn’t. How can we live happily ever after, knowing that we die at the end? Well, we can because we make the best of a difficult situation, which is life with a few lovely passages if you’re lucky. One problem resolves. Others form like thunderheads on the horizon.

  We move forward a few years, moving in the meantime from Hawaii to Seattle, from dating to shacking up to marriage, moving as well through the ups and downs of happiness. We processed, as married people must do, all the niggling irritants so willfully caused by the other. Like being left to wait when she knows I’m so busy and hardly have time to waste in a decent bar much less a foul-smelling sports bar with bad service. Yet I learned long ago that dissatisfaction conveyed by facial expression is too easily ignored. You must verbalize your irritation.

  “Listen. Are you listening to me?” She lolls her head my way, but who can tell if it’s a perk or a flop? I think she’s been drinking, and I can’t tell if she’s listening. She can piss me off, but I also learned long ago to get unpissed at the end of the day—better to relax and ease on into the evening. So I keep it brief: “If I call you to come pick me up, and you’re drunk, all you have to say is, ‘I can’t. I’m drunk.’ That’s all you have to do. Okay?”

  She neither nods nor flops back, and now I know she’s drunk. Her driving had me fooled for a while, because she kept it fairly straight until she casually drifted over the yellow line. You hate to grab the wheel at fifty miles an hour, but you can’t very well help jolting from your seat and thrusting your hands in that direction with a semi coming at you. She drifts back to our side of the road, casually ignoring me and overly correcting to within an inch of the shoulder. I would tell her to pull over, but she’d resist, and we’d argue, and we have only five miles to go. So I merely take the beer from her cup holder. We make it home, and there’s no point in yelling now. Still, I’m upset. Now she can’t hide her condition at all, half-staggering and driveling nonsense.

  “Esh . . . Esh he can’t scoll a prasht.”

  “What?”

  “A prasht. He can . . . can . . . t! . . . shcoll a . . . ”

  “I can’t understand you. You’re not making sense. You’re not speaking in sentences.”

  “Ish. Ish him prasht an . . .”

  “What did you have to drink?” She can’t remember. She doesn’t actually say that she can’t remember, but her face slowly twists in the cornered agony of a sauce-head, busted. “Tell me how many drinks you had. I want to know. You had plenty. I know you did. What was it? Did you drink a bottle of wine? Two bottles? Or was it vodka? Don’t tell me you got this sloshed on beer.” I’m not yelling. I’m admirably calm. I don’t want to stick her nose in it, but she should at least see the consequence of drinking and driving.

  “I din . . . I din . . . dring . . .”

  “Yeah, right. You had a beer open when you picked me up. And here’s another one in your hand. That’s two. Two beers. What do you call two beers? Lawn furniture? I’ve seen you soak up four or six and stay clear. So I know you had plenty.”

  “I din . . . I din . . . Shum . . . shumsing . . . wrong wiss me . . . I hah . . . I hah . . . diss pain . . .”

  “You have a pain?” She nods. “Where? Where is the pain?”

  She rubs her temple, left side. “Here. Reay bah. Shafternoo. I randa gate when everybuy one time, an’en shree time . . .”

  “Hey.” I set a hand on her headache. She lowers her head as if to let me feel the pain. I don’t think something is amiss, but that’s because I’m hungry. And it’s late, nearly eight o’clock already. “Sh. Go lay down. I’ll make dinner. We’ll check it out tomorrow.”

  “Ish wrong. Li’l shings.” Her arms rise weakly. Her fingers flutter. “I shee. Buh whe look it. Goh. Shumshing wrong wiss . . .”

  “It’s okay. We’ll take care of it. Tomorrow morning. Go relax now. I’ll make dinner. Okay?”

  “Oke . . . Okay.”

  “You’re telling me you had nothing to drink?” She half nods in response. “Nothing? Not one thing?” She nods again. “Except for two beers.” She stares.

  Two beers my ass. Then again, this is either the most drunk I’ve seen her, or it’s something else. I’ve seen her slur but never mince. Well, we’ll check it out in the morning, first thing. We can’t do anything now, even if something is amiss. But I don’t think it is, and even if it is, she’s better off here than in a waiting room all night.

  Besides, her color is good, temperature normal, and look; already she lies on the sofa fast asleep, oblivious to Larry King Live and my famous barbecued chicken, coming right up. I prep dinner and go to the living room, where I cover her with the knit comfort. I proceed with yellow squash and an excellent salad with mixed greens, feta, olives, some thin-sliced purple onion and vine-ripe tomato, the first of the season. On top will be olive oil, fresh-squeezed lemon juice and crushed garlic. Oh, we do eat well. It accounts for the vitality around here, not to mention our natural immunity.

  I think she’s drunk. I quickly check the bottom cabinet under the toaster for an easy answer—for a pint of vodka or a half-dead soldier of moderately priced wine. I find none, but I think she’s drunk. Anyway, we can’t do anything now. She’s sleeping soundly. She’s warm and looks peaceful. I cover her again with another blanket. What the hell can you do at eight o’clock at night? Hit the emergency room for a nice six-hour chat with the winos, derelicts, crash victims, knife and gunshot wounds? Jesus. Sit in the fluorescence while a teenager behind a cheap desk drills you on the history of disease in your family and the fine-print caveats in your insurance policy? I don’t think so. Hell, that can’t be the same as quiet repose, and we wouldn’t see a doctor until morning anyway, so we’ll wait. Dinner will be ready in no time. But I’d bet a dollar to a donut she sleeps through, through the bake and last ten minutes, when I brush the sauce on. I think she might be drunk. It’s the only thing that takes her out like this.

  I’m right again; she sleeps through. Well, maybe she’ll wake up hungry, so I leave dinner on the stove. The barbecued chicken is one of my best.

  She wakens near ten. I monitor sobriety, and I’m affirmed, I think. She seems iffy. She doesn’t get hung over, ever, but she seems dazed, like after a nap on a hot summer day. “Dinner is excellent,” I say. “It’s on the stove. Are you hungry?”

  “Mm. Yes,” she says, rising and going, shuffling things around and coming back but not with dinner. She has only a cup of ice cream.

  “That’s all you want?”

  She smiles. “Mm. Hmm.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “I don’t know. I feel okay.”

  “No headache?”

  She shakes her head.

  We sit and watch the box. It babbles. I press the mute. “Rachel.” She turns. “I need you to tell me something.” She waits. “I won’t be pissed off. Okay?” She waits. “Tell me exactly what you had to drink.”

  “When?”

  “All day. All night.”

  “I already told you. Two beers.” She hits the volume control to restore the sound and hits the channel selector for 34, Real TV for Real Women, her favorite. Well, she only had two beers and that’s good, actually, because tomorrow is the seventeenth, St. Pat’s, and we’ve planned an outing to town to help fend off the fidgets of a tardy spring. We’ve frankly had it with the cold and wet, and a day of the blarney will remedy what ails us, at least in the short run. Then we’ll be that much closer to warmer weather.

  Tomorrow’s outing will be a spiritual exercise as well. Maybe I only justify a daytime drunk of my own; but I have a theory that the lost tribe of Israel may be Irish, and I think insight may be gleaned from a child of Ireland, a bartender perhaps, one with a brogue, who might have an opinion on the facts. To whit: Judah Maccabee and his sons rode for eight days and nights to fetch more oil for the Everlasting Light in the
Temple in Jerusalem, because the light must never go out, even if Philistines ransack the place and let the oil burn down to a single day’s supply. Today we have the Maccabean Games to commemorate the valor of Judah Maccabee and his sons, who rode eight days for more oil, and when they returned, the light still shone. This amazing ride against all odds reminds us that the light can shine everlasting, no matter what.

  Okay, drop an e from Maccabee; you get MacCabe. Okay, McCabe, which may be more Scot than Irish, but Ireland is the richest nation in all of literature and close enough to Wales. And Ireland presents a Jew as its most notable literary character. Does not the spirit of Leopold Bloom reach out to every man and woman who ever tilted a pint? Yes, I think yes, again yes.

  Green beer, black beer, cloudy beer; you name it; we’ll raise it for the Light Everlasting and the spirit you come to love. I might click my heels. If the wife only had two beers, she’ll be all the fresher for a proper tribute to Ireland, home of our long lost cousins after all—mine by blood, hers by marriage.

  But worry plagues my sleep like a mosquito in my ear. If she only had two beers, then why? . . . Never mind. Give peace a chance, John Lennon said. Leave them alone, and they’ll come home, wagging their tails behind them, someone else said. Give it a rest, I think.

  Sure enough, she wakes up chipper as a meadowlark on a fencepost singing out for sunrise in springtime. Up with no doubt and down to feed the dogs and cats, she’s soon up again to announce a most extraordinary day. It’s clear and sunny. Put that with prospects for an outing in town and a lovely buzz from the freshest beer in the world, and the day shines bright indeed. “What time shall we go?” she asks.

  “I don’t know, but soon, I think. We don’t want to be late. You know what happens when we get a late start. We’re so pressed to catch up.”

  “Okay. So when? Nine? Ten?”

  “Maybe noon. I’m going to call what’s-his-name. Maybe they can slip you in. We’ll stop on the way.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “You know. He’s not a doctor but he’s like a doctor.”

  “What for?”

  “What did you have to drink yesterday?

  She slows down and looks sad. “I had two beers. And there was something wrong with me. I never get headaches but I had this terrible headache, and everyone was showing up at once, so I had to run out to the gate three times in a row. And I was staining the bookcase, and I think the fumes caused it. That’s all. I took two aspirin and it went away.”

  “You took two aspirin?”

  “Yes. And I had these things. You know. I could see things over to the side.”

  “You mean peripherally?”

  “Yeah. That’s what I said. But when I looked, they weren’t there.”

  “You’ve never taken aspirin in your life.”

  “Yes I have.”

  “When?”

  “I took it once.”

  “Ah, what the hell. What’s-his-name’ll take twenty minutes. If he takes any longer we’ll leave.”

  “What can he do?”

  “Bang your knee with a rubber mallet and ask you the same questions I asked.”

  “We don’t need to do that.”

  “I know we don’t.”

  “I’m fine now. I feel fine.”

  “You look fine. And you sound well.”

  She often accuses me of subtle manipulation to maintain control like this, agreeing with her but not really listening, as if my thoughts alone are valid. I assure her she taught me everything I know of passive control. But the day is too bright for petty argument, so we move forward with an herb tea for her and a double-tall latté for me, for the feeling.

  Bill Varne is a physician’s assistant, not a doctor, but he looks like, talks like and acts like a doctor. He bangs her knee and asks what she had to drink. He asks about the headache and the aspirin. He wants to know if she still sees movement over to the side and if neurological disorder runs in her family. She answers cleanly down the line. Strong goyishe stock sounds harsh, but the truth is often blunt. She can be knocked down, but she won’t stay down. I’ve seen her bounce back in hours from the flu. Cuts and bruises heal overnight. Oh, she’s a health nut all right. Bill Varne says she’s fine. Good, we’re on our way. I think I’ll skip brunch to better prime the system for an easier buzz and some world-famous corned beef and cabbage. Rachel can get some spring rolls or a salad. Or maybe she’ll try the cabbage.

  “I’m going to get you in down at Davidson Hospital in Bremerton, near the Naval Shipyard.”

  “Hospital?”

  “For a CAT scan. You really should.”

  “I feel fine.”

  “You look fine. So why not?”

  “Because. We’re going to Seattle. We have it planned.”

  He shrugs with a wry smile. “Wait here.”

  When he’s gone, she stands up and says this is a waste of time. She feels fine. Let’s go. I agree, averse to losing a day of healthful benefits for no purpose other than to generate some billings. Of course we’re cynical, but our jaded perception of the medical industry is ingrained from experience; moreover, we crave the day ahead, as planned. We manage to reach agreement on keeping this short and sweet. In no time Bill Varne returns with the good news: nobody gets a CAT scan around here in less than two days, but he got us in at two-thirty.

  “Two-thirty?”

  “Yes. Isn’t that great?” He doesn’t exactly smile but conveys that iffy, hopeful look.

  “Look. I can do this Friday. Okay?”

  Now he smiles, but it’s the smile of no smile. I sense a soft close on products and services based on apprehension/anxiety, but I go along with Mr. Varne. “Hey. It’s on the way,” I say.

  “On the way? It’s twenty miles south.”

  “But it isn’t till two-thirty. So we have time to get there. And I really do have some calls to make this morning. And we’ve never ridden the Bremerton Ferry. So big deal. Then we can take our time and relax. Besides, it’s fun to hurry and catch up. I think it could be my favorite.”

  Bill Varne leaves. “You’re so controlling,” she says. “I feel fine.”

  “Humor me,” I say, stepping away and out the door and down the hall to catch Bill Varne. I ask, “Is this critical?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “You didn’t see anything.”

  “That’s right. But you had a clinically significant event. You must do this.”

  I think Bill Varne is a good guy, but I bristle at the language of clinical significance, because I don’t consider us to be part of the statistical data set, because we eat extremely well and stay severely active, which, in its own right, seems at least removed and likely independent from and perhaps superior to the double-blind standard. I pause on the brink of telling him who we are, what we’ve done and the belief system we subscribe to. Ah, hell: he doesn’t care, and I’d just as soon be sure on this one rather than make another precious point. We’ve come this far, so we’ll go a bit farther. We’ve never ridden the Bremerton Ferry, and I do have some calls to make. We have the time. And she only had two beers.

  3

  Will You Get Away From Me?

  Just Get the Fuck Away!

  We are thirty miles down the road at the CAT scan place across from Davidson Hospital near the Naval Shipyard in Bremerton. I have made my calls and tidied my desk, tying things up for an indefinite distraction, perhaps, or maybe only preparing for an outing in town. It’s hard to pinpoint the time at which your life makes the turn from simple pleasure to ghastly surrealism—and it is a hairpin turn with no gentle curvature. We arrived at two-fifteen for our two-thirty appointment. Rachel went back for her CAT scan at three. I am not allowed back there but shouldn’t mind, because, well, just look: here is TV to engage, soothe and sedate me.

  I’m watching a renowned editor of a magazine for girl readers who want to look like, talk like and be like the exotic women on the pages of this magazine. The magazine has been an impulse item at gr
ocery store checkouts for decades. The editor is old and wealthy, and her opinion is presumed to be worthwhile.

  She explains her fundamental adherence to simplicity; she’s done nothing more than go the extra mile to compete successfully in a very tough market. She’s rouged like a working girl and every facial surgery available has stretched her skin thinly across her skull. Cavernous eye sockets are underscored, lined and highlighted in vampish blue green, and her cheeks glow with a bony haze. She bats her lashes with the old magic. No, it wasn’t power or money that drove her. It was simply simplicity, because she was only a simple girl who did her best, and frankly, she still is. She titters. She looks disinterred, dead these last few years but dug up for a heart-to-heart. She grins in ghastly flirtation, proving the Grim Reaper can be a femme fatale. Fabulous hair surrounds the death head like a bouffant in straw and spray lacquer. It’s simple and perfect, like her. This is why I avoid reflection on the world and its ways; they lead to such difficult inference.

  What must this old woman see in the mirror? Don’t her friends advise her on aging gracefully and letting go the foolishness? We take a break for these important messages, in which the actual moment, location, circumstance and my own denial creep in. I should have been drunk and well fed two hours ago. I should be clicking my heels on a happy stagger home for an afternooncap and blessed abandon with my wife, who still loves my attention and admires my stamina. Yet I sit in a waiting room while she is scanned. Twenty minutes later I stroll to the reception desk, where I ask, “Can you tell me how to get to the Bremerton Ferry?”

  “Oh,” the receptionist says, glancing at another woman who rifles the file cabinet.

  “Oh,” says the file cabinet woman. “They can give you those directions over there.”

  “Over where?”