The Redeeming Power of Brain Surgery

by Paul Flower

  The bills were all fifties; there were fifteen of them.

  His head felt light, pumped full of air. Elvis returned the shred of paper and the money to the wallet and held the thing up. He stared at the shiny alligator hide and pictured a skinned gator lying on the bank of a swamp in Florida, pictured something—someone?—else, something he couldn’t see clearly. Again, a sliver of ice, this time it knifed through his breastbone.

  He dropped the wallet on the counter and scuffed around the kitchen, examining the stuff in his brain, seeing the pictures of the memories but not acknowledging them, feeling the jolts of pain and understanding, hearing the voices of life as it was, but not sensing, not accepting, not translating anything at all. He stopped at the window over the sink and studied his faint reflection. The license. Jesse. Jesse Tieter? No. Don’t go there. Why not? Just. Just what? Just. Jesse. Just don’t. Ohhhh. Oh what? It. Oh it hurts. Leave the bad thoughts alone. Can’t. Can. Yes. Stop it. You idiot. You maggot. You nothing. Please. Please, what? Please. Don’t. Fight. No. The note. The handwriting. Not that. Why not? Just not now. Then, Harvey? Could he be? The card said. Sure. Maybe it’s a lie. Maybe. But what about the wallet? That’s your start right there. Yes. And the house. But wait. Could she be? Alive? Why do you think that? Don’t know. Well don’t. He said go all the way back. Wait? What was that? A noise? Maybe. Are you alone? Sure. Are you sure? Yes. No. Yes, well, no. Find out. Yes. Just go. Go easy. He turned slowly and walked like a drunk to the door leading to the next room, pushed it open, found the light switch and flicked it on.

  Elvis leaped back into the kitchen and tripped over the trash can. It made a crash that could have woken the dead, which was appropriate because in the next room there was a man slumped in a chair at the head of a table. And the man appeared to be dead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jesse struggled to chin himself on reality, tried valiantly to get up to it, finally managing to open his eyes wide enough to see his surroundings. In a second of panic, he straightened in the chair and tried to place the room. Then, oh, wait. Yes. He was in Michigan, in the present, in his new house.

  Elvis felt a rock in his throat. This was turning out all wrong. It was so out of control; all of it was out of control. He thought again about the day, about the man at work and Lavern and Donnel. Harvey Monahan. Again, a spasm of a memory of his mother’s eyes, black marbles in her face, rattled through his brain. Why Mom? He wasn’t sure. Lavern would know. Lavern would help. He ached for her.

  Elvis turned again to face the door to the dining room. With a foot, he nudged the kitchen trash can back into place. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, one hand resting against the door.

  Jesse’s stomach turned. The door was edging open. Someone was in the house. He pictured the grisly job he’d left unfinished—the remains wrapped in a blue plastic tarp in the garage. He scratched a hand. This whole thing was becoming a mess. He closed his eyes and saw his mother’s face. Had she made him do this, this harebrained scheme? And what about all of it? Was there something he’d missed before? After he was done in the woods, he’d come home and gotten stoned and drunk, then what had he done? He’d called her; that much he remembered. He’d wanted to tell her off. But, in his gut, he had a suspicion that he’d failed to do it. He couldn’t remember what he’d said. This worried him.

  Elvis pushed the door. A hinge squeaked. He froze.

  Jesse’s mouth went dry.

  Do it, Elvis thought, do it. Go. Into the room. See who. Go. Now.

  The door edged open. Jesse grabbed the edge of the dining room table, trying to will himself to stand. His brain felt huge and useless: a slab of cold and lifeless meat. Who was this? Police? Maybe. Or who? Who knew? Had Mom done this, too? Had she called someone?

  Elvis stepped into the room. Jesse stood, frozen.

  Oh.

  Lightning. Flies. Millions of them hummed through his brain.

  His brain.

  His. Brain.

  Move. Get out. Get out. Now. Now. Move. Go.

  Elvis stumbled backwards out of the room and fell to the kitchen floor.

  This isn’t right. No. Stop. Please. Wait. No. Know. Yes. Know.

  Jesse bolted past him through the kitchen, the back door, and ran outside.

  Wait, he thought. The key fob for the Mercedes. Was it in the house or in the car? He couldn’t think.

  He stumbled to the beater of a car parked in the driveway. Elvis’ car. His. Yes. His. Jesse looked through the dirty driver’s-side window. Keys, in the ignition. You found him, he heard his mother’s voice saying. You found him. You found him. He heard the cadence of the voice as he wrestled the door of the wreck open—the engine caught, the transmission engaged and the wheels spun him back, away, away, away.

  “You found him, didn’t you.”

  “Yes. Yes, he did,” Jesse heard his boy-voice say, as the trees of the woods approached with the smell of macaroni and cheese and the past rushing at him from the night.

  “Found who?” Elvis said and looked up at her from his plate, his spoon frozen in air over the steamy yellow glob.

  “You found him.”

  Elvis shook his head. “I didn’t find nobody.” He spooned up a helping of mac and cheese and opened his mouth.

  Mom’s hand was a blur; she sent the spoon flying, clattering into the wall of the kitchen. Mac and cheese splattered across the room, some sticking to the sleeve of Elvis’ t-shirt. Elvis jumped to his feet.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Mom said, her black-marble eyes telling Jesse to take charge. “Tell him. Remind him,” Mom said to Jesse.

  “You found him, and you are going to forget him,” Jesse said, now looking toward the rear-view mirror of the battered old car. “You hear me? You have to forget. You have to.”

  Elvis stumbled to his feet, staggered across the kitchen and fell against the counter. He looked out the window over the sink. Elvis could see things in his memory—long buried things—things he wanted to forget. He wanted to run from the house. Now, as then, he wanted to find the other boy, the reflected boy, in the greenish surface of that scummy pond. He’d found him that day, right when he needed him. What he’d talked to that boy about had hurt a lot, but the other boy had understood. He’d said the same things Elvis had said. He’d nodded when Elvis nodded. He’d cried too—just like Elvis. Oh, he’d known it was a little silly. But he’d found something, something worse than horrible. And he’d needed to talk about it. The reflected boy had listened.

  “You know he’s going to talk about it. To someone, he will, unless you tell him more,” Mom said. “Unless you tell him again what he needs to know.”

  Jesse opened his mouth, but the words congealed in his throat with the taste of macaroni. He gagged. He wheeled the Cordoba off the fire lane and onto the road toward town, her voice hissing now in his head. “Don’t you make me do the dirty work.” Her face, wild-eyed and wrinkled and real, rose like a fog on the windshield. “Don’t make me take care of everything.” He knew that she saw the weakness in him; she’d always seen it. It was the weakness she saw in his dad and brother, what made them failures in her eyes. “You trying to muck this up, boy?” she said, her voice now a near scream. “You want to muck this whole dang thing to hell just like you did the other?”

  “But I didn’t,” he said, his boy voice a high tenor, shrill and wobbly. “I didn’t muck anything up. I didn’t.”

  “Don’t you sass me. Are you sassing me?” She backhanded his plate of food, sending it into his lap.

  Jesse leaped to his feet. The plate clattered to the floor. Macaroni clung to his cheek and chin and chest; a wet mess of it dripped down the front of his jeans. “What is wrong with you?” he said to his mother. He plopped back in the chair, brushing at the mess on his face and shirt.

  “With me?” she said, laughing now.

  “I’ve done e
verything you wanted me to do. Everything,” Jesse said, tears in his eyes. He lost his grip on the wheel of the Cordoba and it snaked off the road, rumbled and rattled, slewing gravel. He seized it and muscled it under control, skidding to a stop on the shoulder. He felt a brick in his throat and a flame of anger in his chest. Smack. Mom hit the side of his face and his ear with the hand holding the cigarette. The brick broke loose; the flames in his chest blossomed. “I’ve done everything you asked,” the words poured out of him. “Every stupid thing. And it’s not enough, is it? It’s still not enough.”

  The sobs were bobbing in his throat, making it hard to talk and think. He gripped the steering wheel and the wheel became her shoulders and he was shaking her. Her shoulders were thin and bony. Her head was bobbing wildly like a doll’s head and her mouth was hanging open, forming a crooked “o” outlined in pink. Her eyes were wild with fear and something else, something stronger. Jesse realized he better stop; he was stronger than he thought he was. Besides, whatever was in her eyes didn’t look good.

  Elvis began to sob. He was suddenly cold and exhausted. He knew it didn’t make sense, that he should try to solve this, this mess he was in. But he’d had enough. For now, he had. He was overwhelmed by the need to sleep until things maybe made sense. He turned and tried to shuffle from the kitchen.

  “Stop right now, you idiot.” Mom’s voice slapped them both.

  Elvis froze. Jesse released her and fell back, tripped over his feet, and fell hard to the floor. Mom pounced on Jesse and grabbed him by the ear. Jesse’s ear was on fire, little burn spots pulsing on his head from the cigarette ashes. She pulled his face into hers. With tears in her eyes, her head tilted to one side, she stroked the side of his face with the hand that held the cigarette. “You think you been a good boy,” she said, speaking not to him but to the hand that was being gentle. “You think you been a man, really, don’t you?” She flicked a glance into his eyes, tightened her hold on his ear, then turned her attention back to the caressing. “Well, you’re right. What you did was a man’s work. You mucked it up some but you did it—you. You remember that. It was you that done it.”

  Jesse tried to struggle free. Elvis walked in a circle, wobbling in wild anxiety, around and around the kitchen, like a dog chasing his tail, until he was dizzy. Then he stopped and swayed, his hands over his ears and his mind stumbling. The tears were coming again, and it seemed there was no way he could stop them.

  She tightened her hold on Jesse’s ear, all the while caressing, caressing, caressing. “I tell you what, baby,” she said to the good hand. “One day, you’re going to get your reward for all this, that I promise you. Just do this one last thing, then there ain’t going to be no going away, no one having to leave. We’re going to live in a nice house with shiny things, pretty dishwashing machines and those oak cupboards in the kitchen. We’ll have lots of that wall-to-wall carpeting, too, baby.” Her hold on his ear relaxed ever so slightly. She stared at the hand stroking his face, continuing the litany Jesse had heard over and over; it was the dream she’d rocked him to sleep with when he was younger.

  “We’ll have a nice place, baby—just you and me. We’ll have one of them big houses in the woods, know what I mean?” Her gaze drifted to his eyes. Yes, Mom, Jesse nodded obediently, tears rolling down his cheeks.

  “But first you got to look inside yourself and find a way to be a man one more time. You got to do it, you hear me?” she said, now staring into him, her words going stronger as she made a final effort to change him. “You got to take care of the one last thing that stands in our way. Know what I mean? Know who I mean?”

  Yes, Mom, sure, Jesse thought as he nodded and the tears flowed. He pictured his father’s face; heard that voice say, “Please, no.” The face became his brother’s.

  “Please, no,” Elvis repeated. He turned from the horror and ran from the kitchen, through the dining room, barely noticing the elegant living room as he floundered up the stairs, found a bedroom and fell onto the bed. It seemed stupid, being there in someone else’s bed, but his brain was racing and he was so, so, so tired. He lay, eyes open, begging for the will to get up and for the past to retreat. Elvis could see the dresser, a chair, and a picture on the wall. His eyes stopped on the picture. It was of Jesse and someone else.

  “Not now.”

  “Not. Now.” Jesse whispered the words. And he knew by the look in Mom’s eyes that she didn’t like what he was saying. She could see his weakness, Mom could. She knew he’d maybe try to kill his brother, for sure he would. But he would fail, because when it came to murdering people, he was basically a one-trick pony.

  “If you don’t do it, you know what you’re going to do, right?” Mom continued, gripping his ear harder still, the caressing all but forgotten. “You know where you’re going to go live and be nice and mind your aunt and keep your mouth shut while I stay here and take care of this mess, just like I took care of the other? You know that?”

  He nodded, the tears flowing now unchecked. “Yeah, Mom. I know,” he murmured. With that, finally, she released his ear.

  Jesse stared out the windshield of the Cordoba.

  Elvis stared at the ceiling.

  He missed his life and his wife; he hoped he’d turn and she’d be there next to him, but he didn’t turn because he knew she wouldn’t be.

  He reached out, feeling her body although it wasn’t there.

  A truth was missing, and his brain knew it but stubbornly refused to see it. It was something about his mom, about the way she’d talked, something funky in what she’d said.

  He closed his eyes and could hear the flies. He told himself to stay awake, but the flies beckoned him to stay. And he slept.

  ****

  She came to Elvis as he was sleeping. She reached down, took his hand, and held it. In the strange way of dreamers, he hoped she was his wife and thought she was his wife, but at first she was not.

  Someone, another boy, was with her. He could see the other boy’s hand also holding Mom’s hand, but Elvis kept his head down, looking at the body, avoiding looking at Mom or the boy.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” his mom said, standing there beside him on the dewy, coppery-lighted grass.

  Head still down, he shook his head. The dead body at their feet looked ugly. This made him sad. He tried to focus on the grass instead.

  “Well, if you keep on acting this way, if you keep trying to muck things up, I’m going to have to do something about it, aren’t I?” He felt Mom’s eyes glaring now at the top of his head.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” the boy on the other side of Mom said. He could see the boy’s shoes, PF Flyers, and his bare, mosquito-scarred legs. “No one’s going to do anything now. No one’s gonna know anything.”

  “Darn straight no one’s going to. No one better know nothing or do nothing.” Mom’s body turned slightly as she shifted her attention to the boy on the other side of her.

  “You’re hurting my hand,” the other boy said, his voice soft and weak. His mom’s grip tightened and the other boy gasped. Elvis gasped too. Elvis finally looked up at her, wanting to tell her, “Hey, cut it out, that really does hurt,” but when Mom looked down at him again, almost daring him to say it, she had no hair, and he couldn’t speak. Hair was something she’d never not had before, and he didn’t know what to say about her not having it. He was just a boy, after all. When you’re a boy there are a lot of things you can’t do anything about. Hadn’t she told him that?

  He held his free hand out in front of his face, trying to block his view of her.

  “Being blind to something can’t keep you from getting hurt,” she said quietly.

  He stood like stone, trying to understand what she meant by that.

  “Put your hand down,” she said.

  Slowly, he did as she demanded. She was no longer Mom. She was his wife and she was sad but smiling. She opened h
er mouth and he knew she was going to explain it all. He was afraid of what she’d say, but he wanted her to say it. It was an awful, tortured feeling. But as she opened her mouth to speak, the other boy jerked free from her, forcing her to turn away. The boy was running off down the street, his tennis shoes kicking up behind him.

  His wife whipped her head around, shooting him a quick glance just to keep him in his place. She was Mom again, with hair. “He’s a good boy, but you make him feel bad. All the time, you do,” she said. She let go of his hand, flicked her red hair away from her face, then turned and walked briskly toward a car that was parked at the curb.

  “I better go catch up to him and see what he’s up to.” She was his wife again, and she was getting away—going to the other boy—leaving him alone. He watched, feeling helpless, as she stepped down off the curb and around the back of the car, the side of her face framed by a wave of that dyed-red hair.

  “Hey.” His voice squeaked.

  She acted like she didn’t hear, just reached for the handle of the driver’s side door and pulled, frowned, pulled again, looked over the roof of the car, gave him that sad smile, then ducked down and in and swung the door shut. The engine of the Cordoba started and she drove off down the street.

  He was left alone and reaching, wanting her back.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Elvis awoke smelling Lavern and realized it was morning. The sun was up; there was light in the room, although it was the grayish light of a cloudy day. The sheets and blankets were knotted around him.

  He reached out. The fact that the other side of the bed was empty surprised him. It made him think about a guy he’d met once at a bar. The guy’d been in the first Gulf War and told him that when you lose a leg, you wake up in the hospital and forget that it’s gone. You reach down to scratch your thigh, the guy’d said, only to remember that the thigh and the rest of your leg were cut off. It was tough, he said, imagining your leg wrapped in a black plastic bag and dumped in a big Rubbermaid trash can, when it’s still itching.