theMystery.doc

by Matt McIntosh

  ★

  I followed two men up a hill but I don’t remember where we were going, or how we had come together. They were dressed in fatigues and carrying packs, on their way out of town. I think they were going to jump the trains and travel east to New York City. And find a boat to India. We parted too, and I continued up the hill on foot.

  I fell asleep in a bumper car, in the amusement park, at what they called the Center, in the City of Seattle, in the State of Washington, the United States of America. I walked into the porno shops and flipped through the magazines. I drank wine with the swollen-faced Indians. They said: Hey-o, Pilgrim! Two men in business suits late one night they asked me if I was working. A man—a creature with a scabby red face and thick glasses a small man a dwarf a shrunken fetal monster a broken troll in a wheelchair he rolled up to my knees by kicking his feet out along the sidewalk and pulling himself along by his heels he had no arms no his hands came right out of his shoulders his fingers fluttered—they really did, I swear—begged to sit upon my lap.

  ★

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  And it took an art,

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  it took an art

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  to do

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  that…

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  uh, to be able to uh, talk somebody straight, and uh, you know you, you always, go around the other way and say, you know, I don’t know anything about that or uh I’m not in that or, but uh……

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  Pleathe, he begged. Pleathe… Pleathe, he begged. Pleathe… Pleathe, he begged. Pleathe… Pleathe, he begged. Pleathe… Pleathe, he begged. Pleathe…

  and then began to weep. I fell asleep beneath an orange sky on top of a polished marble table outside the Westlake Shopping Mall and some skaters woke me up, leaping over, leaping over, like flying fish.

  I found a note, a tiny slip of paper, pressed into the street, and in the center of it was my name… I put it on my tongue and was told to look up, I looked up, as a plane was arcing over my head, flapping its wings against that blacksky so beautifully, its lights drippppppped reddddd and whiiiiiiite and blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack, and sighing, crying, said: Hey! Are you Jeeeeeeeesuuuuuuuuuuuuuusssssss yet? I stretched…… and fell asleep.★

  ★ When are you coming baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack?

  And when I woke I was on a bus, and there were people in suits all around, clutching tight the briefcases and purses on their laps. I fell asleep in a bumper car. I fell asleep beneath a tree. I fell asleep in the enormous auditorium of the old UA 150 discount movie theater, it was always nearly empty late at night…………… a curtain parted before the movie began, and in the few moments before the first frame flipped on you saw the field of white we once knew, before we came to life. (And how did we end up here anyway?)

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  Just took a lot of training.

  M: What did you learn about… about people from doing that sort of work?

  I found a lot of people…

  would release…

  innocent information…

  that they thought was innocent,

  and you picked up the

  vital… signs…

  Uh, I found that uh it’s easier to talk to somebody… and walk away with the information, than it would be to argue… the point. Uh… because you’re not there—like—we said—

  you’re not there to analyze it—

  you’re there to report it…

  get the information uh

  and and then just—

  whatever it was—

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  KETTLE FALLS

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  get it down on paper.

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  ‌

  8/05/93

  S: ‌ Patient says he sustained a head injury on Tuesday. He was seen by PA who obtained an x-ray of the patient’s nose and no fractures were seen. It was judged that he had a nasal contusion and he was given ice, rest, and Tylenol, and head injury instructions. Since that time he has felt “kind of spacey” and has felt somewhat difficult to concentrate. Oftentimes he has to think about what he is going to say in order to get the words to come correctly but he does not speak jibberish or saying anything that is “off the wall.” His speech is not garbled either. He is having headache in the entire head area, both frontal and occipital as well as coronal and temporal. He denies any numbness, tingling, paralysis, or paresthesias. He denies any visual changes. He denies any rhinorrhea from either nostril. He is not having excessive drowsiness and he is not having any difficulty waking up.

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  ‌

  8/25/93

  S: Patient says he is having continued headaches since he had the head accident. He has been taking 600mg of ibuprofen anywhere from 2-3 times a day and says it is not really helping much. He denies any numbness, tingling, or paresthesias. He denies any blurry vision or change in hearing. He denies any neurological sx, such as paralysis or decreased function of a limb or other bodily part. He says that he has had more episodes where he has felt “spacy” and his spatial relationships for a little while seemed to be “off” in that occasionally he would rise up—like from lying to sitting—and strike his head on the bunkbed above. At no time did he hit his head very hard, however.

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  ‌

  10/04/93

  S:The patient apparently jumped into a swimming pool in early August and hit his head and nose on the pool. He has seen Dr. ‌ for this and did not sustain loss of consciousness but since then has had a headache. Apparently he was advised to call in if some of his original symptoms came back and today he felt spacey at school and so called in and received an urgent care appointment. He feels like he is not hearing people talk but he really couldn’t be very specific about his symptoms. He also felt he was walking funny at school but his gait appears normal at this time. His headache is posterior. It occurs daily any time of the day. His vision was also blurred today but he is also wearing contacts. According to his mother, he is complaining of headaches every day. He really didn’t want to come in. He is a good student, not using drugs and not trying to get out of school.

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  7/25/94

  SUBJECTIVE:This patient comes back for check back on his headaches. He says they have gotten much worse since he was last here. When he was here before on the week prior to my seeing him, his headaches were ranging between 4 and 5 with an occasional 6. Right after he saw me they immediately went up to a 7 and a 7&½ for several days in a row and then they gradually dropped back to a 6 and 6&½. He also fell on Monday after having seen me but says that he did not hit his head. In discussing his pain at great length with him, he is extremely fidgety again and unable to concentrate. He is quite unhappy. Some of his anger spilled out in his responses to my questioning (I tried to be as gentle as I could with him).

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  ‌

  8/09/94

  SUBJECTIVE:The patient is an 18-year-old who is here today for follow-up as he was seen in the hospital at Tacoma General Saturday evening with a severe headache. He has had severe chronic headaches for a long time. On Saturday evening he emotionally lost it, as he states. His legs became weak and his arms became weak. He has been on 100mg p.o. q.h.s., 60mg t.i.d., and for his headaches. The Midrin has been working, but he is taking approximately six a day and it has lost its efficacy for him. Now he feels the same as ever. His headaches are always there and chronic and rather severe. He was out of school one or two months early this past spring and then has not been in school this summer so these are debilitating for him. He graduated two months early. These headaches began after a diving accident approximately one year ago and then he also had an MVA and the headaches have persisted. Right now the family states, in mother’s words, we are just checking up because they told us to and we want to do everything that they s
ay correctly. He was told to follow-up with primary care doctor on Wednesday in Tacoma General ER.

  ★

  And a few short years later, when I was living in a shoebox in the city, I would get very high and stumble down the hill, pay the dollar and sit there in those ripped-up cushionless seats, eyes closed and floating in the warmth of my watery skin…………… the curtains closed when the movie was over, and the usher would wake you, and tell you to move along.

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  The patient also cried at a couple of points during the interview and looked fairly depressed.

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  But when I was a kid, I used to wait until everyone was asleep, I would hang by my fingers from my windowsill, look down, take a deep breath, and let go:::and when I woke I had crossed a cement path which split a useless, brightly lit decorative pond

  —M: Where was I then?

  Where on earth were you? :W—

  ★

  I had crossed to the other side. I looked up. There was no dome then, just red sky and a handful of stars:::

  :::and a universe with no end.

  This was before I got hurt and the Period of Great Pain began.

  I didn’t know about PAIN then.

  I didn’t have the Slightest Notion.

  No, the world was WIDE and OPEN, and—

  ‌ ‌

  AUG 03 1993 BP: 130/72 L arm

  Hit nose when diving into shallow

  end of pool this pm

  pt alert — feels “woozy”

  Ice, rest

  Head injury instruction

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Giving a report. Why did that stick out to me like a sore thumb, like a plastic flamingo in a vegetable garden, like a piano in a room full of harpsichords? Giving a report. I have half a mind to type those three words over and over again, making the font size smaller each time as if to suggest the thought recurring while echoing away. But I will refrain from typographic tricks.

  Olive was dead. Eva was at work. Giving a report.

  The hospital was outside of town down a barren two-lane highway. I walked down a narrow rocky shoulder in the direction I’d come from. To each side spread fields of nothing. Well, hay. Which is as good as nothing. The sun was hot above me. I was sweating. I took a stick of gum from out of my shorts and chewed it. Now and then a car went by. I probably looked like a bum or an escapee. So imagine my surprise when a pretty girl came passing by in a little Korean two-door, honked her horn, and pulled over to the side. Then stepped out of the car and called back to me:

  “Daniel?”

  “Yes?”

  “What are you doing all the way out here?”

  I looked around. The highway was empty. “Walking?”

  “Are you headed back to town?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, do you want a ride?”

  “Sure.”

  “I need to make a quick stop a little further out, but then I can take you back.”

  It was cool and air-conditioned in the car. I sat in the passenger seat and tried to look out at the flat yellow scenery and not at the girl’s tanned legs in her extremely short shorts. Or pay attention to the way the strap of her bra snuck out from beneath her tank top and gleamed against her brown shoulder.

  “I know the car’s a mess,” she said. “I’m not usually this disorganized.”

  The back seat was filled with books and papers and clothing and assorted junk. I’d had to remove a Modern Student’s Bible from the seat before I sat down.

  We passed the tended green hospital grounds and kept going.

  “What were you doing all the way out here?” she asked.

  “Visiting a friend.”

  She laughed. Then looked over at me. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you had any friends.”

  “Well, an elderly neighbor.”

  “Oh.”

  She drove with her hands at ten and two. She had long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Dark eyes and nice dark eyebrows. Shiny pink lip-glossed lips. She was wearing rainbow-colored flip-flops. Her toenails and her fingernails matched, pink. A thin gold cross hung down just over her tank top. From the rearview mirror hung a little medallion. It said:

  For God so loved the world…etc. etc. etc.

  I picked up a piece of paper by my foot. It was a report card.

  Name: Candice Johnson. Candice had a 4.0 average.

  “Nice grades,” I said.

  She glanced over at me strangely.

  “Thanks.”

  It was quiet for a little while.

  “I’m off to college tomorrow,” she said. “My dad’s driving me.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Tomorrow morning. Classes start Monday.”

  “Well, congratulations,” I said. “That should be fun. Do you know what you’re going to major in yet?”

  Candice sighed. She seemed almost irritated. “No. I don’t know what I’m going to major in yet.”

  We drove along in silence. I looked out my window. Mile markers went by, every so often a dirt driveway, a deer crossing sign. It was all the same and nothing much, like the background in a Road Runner cartoon, the way it cycles over and over again as the coyote gives chase—it’s all the same dirt driveway, the same cloud over the same field, the same deer crossing sign. Road Runner cartoons, it occurred to me, are boring. And I was thinking about that when I heard the sound of crying coming from the seat next to mine. I turned to young Candice and as I did she wiped a tear from her eye, an action which only caused more tears to fall. The same effect played out every time she wiped her eyes, and soon she was crying hard. Why all the crying today? There was something in the air.

  I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. After all, this girl was a total stranger, not to mention half my age. And though I didn’t know myself from Adam, from what I’d learned thus far I seemed to be the kind of person who probably had very little in common with teenagers, and while they say that all young people really want is just someone who’ll listen to them, I was pretty confident that I would rather do just about anything than listen to a teenager tell me her problems. It seemed that my advice would always be the same: You think you’ve got problems now, just wait until you’re older. And besides, who was this girl? Who was Candice? How did we know each other? I probably knew her parents somehow—though probably not as friends, judging by the fact that she told me she thought I didn’t have any friends. Certainly she was no relative, for I was pretty certain I had no relatives in Spokane, Washington. It was conceivable that she was nervous about going to college, but judging from her grades and medallion she was a pretty together kid, so I didn’t think it was leaving home that was breaking her down. Probably it was something over a boy—some football-playing meathead that she was too good and smart for. He’d probably told her all summer that they would always be together and then now that they were going off to different colleges he realized he wanted to leave his options open. Besides, he’d seen enough movies to know that the reason you go to college is to get laid and he certainly wasn’t getting any tail off of a girl with a For God so loved the world medallion. So he’d told her, probably just this morning, that he wanted to break up. All this went through my head at the speed of light. Finally, I knew I had to say something, because the more time that passed the more she cried, and the more she cried the harder she cried, and it was getting extremely awkward to be sitting there without saying anything. Not to mention it was a narrow road, and every time she took a hand off the wheel to wipe her eyes she swerved into the oncoming lane.

  “Something wrong?” I said.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said.

  I reached into my pocket and produced the wadded-up handkerchief I remembered was there.

  She wiped her eyes and nose with it. Then she said, “Sorry,” and tried to smile.

 
“No need to apologize,” I said. “Starting college is a pretty stressful time. But with your grades, I really don’t think you’ll have any problems.”

  She laughed with a tinge of bitterness. “I’m not worried about that,” she said.

  “Well,” I said, “it’s none of my business and I’m not really good with advice anyway, but if it’s a boy, then, well, you’ll find a better one. You should just be glad that you found out now what kind of lowlife he is instead of later when you paid a surprise visit to his dorm room only to find him swapping spit with some cheap blond floozy.”

  She looked at me like I was an alien, and then rolled her eyes and turned back to the road.

  It occurred to me that I had been right.

  I was no good with teenagers.

  She was nice to look at with her face all red and my hankie flattened and draped over her shiny brown thigh. It was nice to look at but I turned once more to the world outside.

  My phone rang. It was “my wife.”

  I smiled at young Candice and put a finger to my lips. Then pressed the talk button and said: