Jamie shows some improvement over the next few days. The chest tube collects blood and drainage from his punctured left lung and the lasix (diuretic) helps Jamie drain the excessive fluids into his urine bag. His lungs sound better, the doctor says, and they begin to "wean" him off of the ventilator until he's able to breathe on his own. Satisfied with what the chest tube has done for him, they remove that too.
An article about Jamie's beating appears in the Sacramento Bee. It describes his injuries in grotesque detail and accuracy. At press time, "no suspects have been arrested".
Reporters try to sneak into the ICU to spy on us, to ambush us and try to gather juicy info for their rags and their six and eleven reports. Thank God for the nurses. They're like dogs with bones.
During these several days, I talk to him constantly, wondering if he can hear me. I pray to God that these medical efforts aren't all in vain, that he hasn't suffered some irreversible brain cell death from all this trauma. He looks so small. He looks dead, lying there. Is he really in that shrunken grey shell before me? What's on his mind as his body struggles to recover and mend? What was on his mind during those long, cold hours in that orange grove?
Why wasn't I there for him? Why did he have to go through this alone?!
Unable to stand another minute without some respite, I decide to take a walk around the ICU floor. But that's not enough. Please, God, I pray continuously, don't let him die while I'm gone... and if he wakes up, keep him awake until I get back. I have to stretch my legs. I have to move. I feel grimy, my own body ash a second skin holding in my heat. I need a shower in the worst way.
In the main lobby, I spy two elderly women, one small lady with short, curly silver hair sitting in a wheelchair, the other, taller, white-haired, kneeling before the wheelchair and stroking the silver-haired woman's face. I think they're lesbians, but they might just as well be sisters or close ladyfriends. I pretend I know for sure, because I like to imagine they're in love, and in it for life, whatever life has in store.
Mom limps up beside me and takes my hand. "How's Jamie?" she asks.
"Same," I murmur, my eyes not leaving the lesbian couple.
"Do you know them?" Mom asks.
"No, I think they're lesbians."
"Aw, you don't know that for sure, Tammy."
"I'm pretending that I know for sure," I say softly.
Mom watches the two women for a long time. Then she says, "That's what it's all about, honey. Staying together through it all, never giving up."
I'm never giving up.
If... when Jamie wakes up, I'm going to marry him.
Around January 8th, I get a call from my landlord in L.A. I haven't paid January's rent and it was due on the fifth, so it's either pay or get out. I hate the idea of leaving Jamie, but the doctor says Jamie can only stay the very same or improve. I know better. I may not be a nurse or a doctor, but I know anyone can suffer sudden reversal and die. I've listened too closely to Jamie's horror stories to be naïve.
Stacy and Mom both promise to keep a close eye on him, that one of them will be by his bedside at all times. Stacy gives me her key to Jamie's house, and on the ninth, I drive down to my apartment and pack my things together. The stuff I can't take with me, like furniture, I donate to the Salvation Army and to the Purrfect Peace Cat Sanctuary. As I help them unload the van I've rented, I ask them how my old friends Wonka and Teddy are doing. Neither of them have been adopted, so I buy two cat carriers and adopt them both.
But Teddy has attached himself to a pretty female cat named Pepper, a long-haired tortoise shell who looks like Mom's cat Tillie. It doesn't matter that Teddy and Pepper are both fixed. They're inseparable, so on the eleventh, I bring all three kitties home. Between the gas, the van rental, the adoption fees, cat food and cat caddies, I'm out at least six or seven hundred dollars, and just about as broke as the ten commandments. Mom can't stop laughing when I call her to tell her about adopting three new "children".
I call a guy to come change the locks and have new keys made. I am moving in without asking Jamie first, but there's no way I'm letting him stay alone after this. Besides, his house is perfect for us. It's two bedroom, one bath, with a nice, fenced-in back yard and a secluded front yard. There's hardly any traffic on his street.
I carefully introduce our new family members to Misty, Sam, Tigger and Ginger, and linger a little while, watching how they interact. The two "groups" are receptive, but not overly friendly to each other. Tigger and Ginger lie together on the couch. Misty and Sam, as always, hog the two beige recliners. Teddy and Pepper, anxious over the smells and sights of their new home, retreat under Jamie's bed. Wonka, the odd man out, is as confident and easy-going as I remember him. He decides the coffee table is his domain, and proceeds to stretch out over the autumn leaf table runner that, according to Jamie, has been there since before Halloween.
When I'm satisfied our family of seven will coexist without tearing each other to pieces, I head back out toward the hospital. On the way, I stop at Wal-Mart and spend my last hundred dollars on a bill of groceries. His cupboards will be full for the first time in ages. I also buy a soft, plushy, light blue velour throw blanket that catches my eye.
I return to his side and beg him to wake up. For three days, I talk to him, inveigle him, even browbeat him a few times. When he begins to cry while still in the invisible fist of his coma, I mutter to him, "Jamie, if you think I'm mad at you, I'm not. I'm not! This isn't your fault. Don't pay any attention to me. I'm tired, that's all. I want you to come back to me, but if it's too much for you..." I can't bear what I am about to say. "If it's too much, if your body is too damaged... go where you need to go... I don't want you to suffer. I don't want you to hurt anymore..."
I stop and let a huge sobbing jag pass over me. "...but Jamie, if you die now, after all we've been through... I don't know if I'll make it."
It's a good old fashioned guilt routine, and I'm a shithead for using it. He's had enough guilt in his life without me adding to it. But I can't help myself. "If you die, I won't make it, Jamie. I can't lose you now. Besides, I moved into your house without your permission. I adopted three kitties in L.A. They're waiting to meet you. They get along real well with Tigger and Ginger and them! Please come back to me, Baby. Please..." I kiss and coax him. His mouth is gummy and his breath is stale, but I don't care. "Come home. Come back... come back to me..."
Three days after my return from L.A., my prayers are answered.
forty:
jamie
(january 14 to 27)
My surgeon, and a throng of doctors and nurses gather around my bed excitedly as I gaze into Tammy's eyes. I can't stop smiling. I'm so happy to be home, I just kiss him over and over, clasping his hands, refusing to let go. Not being able to talk doesn't matter to me at the moment. I can't stop touching him as I make inaudible little "Mmmm, mmmm" vibrations in my parched throat, swollen and raw from the breathing tubes.
It matters to everyone else, including Tammy, and as they pipe one question after another, I notice that I still have pain, an ache, a spasm, inside of my neck, in the membranes and muscles. They're so sore I can picture them, blood red, raw, like a fresh slab of steak.
They do swallowing tests and though it's difficult, I'm able to gulp both solids and liquids without choking. They check for vocal cord and nerve damage, and find nothing.
"Do you know where you are?" they ask loudly, thinking maybe my hearing is damaged, and I nod, but I can't tell them.
"Do you know your name?" Again, I nod.
Tammy asks me, "Can you write, Jamie?"
I nod yes and he gets me a notebook from the nurse's desk. My right hand, arm and clavicle are broken, along with my right wrist. I can write very sloppily with my left hand. "What's your name?" asks a nurse.
James Michael Pearce, I write.
"Do you remember what happened to you?"
A jumble of transient faces and words... I see people with half their faces covered... I hear someone telli
ng me Tammy's not coming to help me.
But he's here. I smile up at him.
I write, I don't remember.
"What's your last memory?" my surgeon asks.
I happily scribble, Tammy is right. I met him in a grocery store when I was a baby.
The doctor steps back in confusion. "What's he talking about?" he asks Tammy.
"Baby! You remember now?"
I think I dreamed it. When I was out.
"What's your latest real memory?" a nurse asks flippantly. Tammy scowls at her.
That was a real memory, I write. As for my latest waking memory, I put down, Tammy and me eating breakfast. We had toast and jam. We talked about him having to go to L.A. soon to get his stuff moved up here.
"That was the morning of the attack," whispers Tammy to the doctor, but I hear him. Attack? I envision faces, half-covered in the collars of sweaters, jackets, hoodies. I write down what I see and everyone nods thoughtfully. That's it.
"What do you do for a living?" asks my surgeon.
Nurse.
They all nod at each other, looking relieved. Yes, I'm in here. My brain isn't damaged. I just can't talk.
"Why?" they ask.
I don't know.
Just to be absolutely certain, they give me vision tests to see if I can correctly identify colours and shapes. They have me do basic and intermediate math problems. Don't bother with calculus, I write, and they chuckle. They do a CT of my brain and see no bleeds, no herniations, no lesions.
Having to use my left hand to write and do calculations, I tire easily. Actually, everything is wearing me out, ergo my temper is volatile. I spend most of my days and nights trying to sleep on the inhospitable hospital bed. I bitch at the nurses nonverbally when they wake me up to get my blood pressure, to walk the hallways or to take a shower.
I try to be nicer to Tammy, bless his heart, but when my right arm throbs or my head aches, I answer more snidely than intended. When a nurse tells me my IV is infiltrated and I have to be stabbed with another damn needle, I throw things—empty kidney basins, a hairbrush, my notebook a few times—-and aim silent screams at the ceiling. I get overly hysterical when Tammy tries to be of help by raising the head of my bed and all it does is make me feel dizzy and nauseated. When I'm particularly tired, my left leg drags, and the doctor says that might be from brain injury. So they take me all over again to do a CAT scan of my head and of course, they find nothing.
Please get me out of here, I write.
Tammy says, "Soon, Baby," in his sweet, saintly way. Argh!
The day I'm discharged to home, January 27th, they sit all of us down, me, Tammy, Stacy and Peggy, and tell us that aside from some short term memory loss, they deduce no discernible permanent damage. I've simply become a mute. "We're pretty sure the cause isn't physical or organic," they say. "We may be wrong, but we believe the cause is psychological."
I keep seeing a towering figure with a face obscured by a dark-coloured hooded pullover. I keep seeing flashes of light in a dim background, like lightning in a coal black sky. I write all this down again, but again, no-one remarks.
"It's likely he'll speak again," the doctors say. "But it will have to be in his own time. With the emotional trauma he experienced, his muteness might be elective."
"You mean he wants to be like this?" Stacy asks.
What are you guys talking about? I write, and hand my scribbles to Stacy.
But they go on talking like I'm not there. I cut my eyes in silent outrage and resolve not to communicate with any of them for the rest of the evening.
"Not necessarily," replies the doctor. "The mind is tricky, delicate. More than likely, Jamie will be able to speak after he processes what happened to him."
"He can't even remember what happened to him," Tammy sighs.
He's wrong. It's coming back, in jigsaw pieces.
"He's probably repressing," the doctor says, his voice low, but I hear him. How noisy does he think this office is anyway? "In which case, you," he indicates Tammy, "Need to be prepared for him to need your emotional support. He's probably going to have nightmares, night terrors, hallucinations... He'd benefit from counselling. There are wonderful support groups too, for gays and lesbians who have been harassed."
"Harassed," Tammy snorts bitterly. "He was bludgeoned nearly to death!"
I simply sit there, seething at them. Physical therapy for my smashed right hand, wrist and arm is arranged, and I fume all the way out to the car. I won't even talk to Tammy, and naturally, he keeps asking me what's wrong. Finally, I take my pad and pen and write, Why should I talk to any of you? You all acted like I wasn't there every time I asked a question!
"You are a firecracker," Tammy chides me, hoping his smile will enchant my anger away. "You don't remember what happened to you, Jamie, so anything we said probably didn't make sense anyway."
You're an ass, I write. I suppose remembering some creep in a hoodie means nothing to you?
"Oh, Jamie. Please don't be mad at me. It's so awful, I don't even want you to remember."
It's coming back, sorry.
"I know, and I'll tell you everything when the time comes."
Why not prepare me now so I don't have to be so traumatised?!
Instead, he invites Stacy and Peggy, who I'm going to call Mom—no, Ma, from now on, out to eat with us at the Sizzler-type restaurant. Then he has them stay all evening with us at the house. He rents a bunch of dumb new movies that Stacy thinks will be great. If we were alone, we'd be watching Father Goose or Arsenic and Old Lace.
I ignore all of them and spend the night silently pouting and petting our new kids, Wonka, Teddy and Pepper, who are crowding around me adoringly. Misty, Sam, Ginger and Tigger sulk over in the corner for a while, then decide to join the family.
Halfway buried by seven fluffy felines, I look up every now and again to see Tammy smiling at me, sadly, hopefully. "I love you," he mouths.
I snub him.
He begins flicking peanuts, M&Ms, and Crunch 'n Munch popcorn at me. I bite off a hunk of Red Vine and sling it at him using my good arm, putting remarkable strength behind my throw.
"Ouch!" he grins.
I stick my red-dyed tongue out at him.
"Mustn't fight, children," Stacy mutters.
"Don't be mad at me," mouths Tammy, his eyes drilling into me.
I respond by looking back down at Wonka, who is purring like an outboard motor, snuggled against my breast. I stroke the rich, coffee-brown fur over his face and kiss his forehead softly.
"You know?" Tammy muses boldly. "I wish I was a cat. I wish I was a furry brown and white cat right now. And I wish a certain someone was doing to me what he's doing to that cat!"
Ma laughs. Stacy grumbles, "Hey, we're trying to watch a movie here!"
Tammy winks at me, and my mean determination to give him the cold shoulder disintegrates. I smile back at him and shake my head. No fair.
That night he gives me a present. It's the softest, cuddliest, most luxurious little velour blanket in the world. It's baby soft as I brush it against my cheeks, and I knead it like a contented cat. In fact, I'm sure the kids would love to confiscate it.
"You can lie on it when your elbows are sore, and when those scars on your back hurt. Sheets can be kind of abrasive," he says gently. He looks a little leery, as if he expects me to lash out at him for mentioning my scars. I grab him and hug him hard, and cry a little.
Why are you so good to me? I ask him.
"Because I want to be."
I'm rotten. I never do anything nice for you.
"You do lots of nice things for me," Tammy whispers. "Especially in bed."
I mean I never buy things for you!
"Well, then, buy me stuff!"
I don't know what you'd like. I'm a very un-creative shopper.
"Get creative. Surprise me," he murmurs, kissing my ear. "I'll love anything you get me."
I never shopped for Lloyd either. I barely even told him I loved him. I'm awful.
I don't deserve you.
"Oh, shush," Tammy says into my hair. "You loved Lloyd and he knew it."
I think I saw him when I was out, I write. I think he talked to me.
He smiles, "Maybe."
I love this blanket.
But with my right arm in a sling, I'm in no mood or shape for sex.
"I'm not either," Tammy agrees. He laughs very softly. "But soon—very soon—and this blanket... it's sooo soft! It's better than velvet."
I can't wait. I'd love to lay my bare ass on that velour heaven. I want to feel it against the back of my balls while Tammy's fucking me.
But tonight, we watch an old VHS of Our Gang shorts instead, and I comb my fingers through the blankie's obscenely soft fur while I swallow two Tylenol with Codeine, prescribed for the painful, fragmented mess of bones inside my plaster cast.
Pen and paper are inadequate media, to explain to Tammy that I'm recalling it all now, and that what happened to me in that orange orchard literally scared my voice away.
It's returning to me, swiftly, tumbling onto me, overtaking me, like a rogue wave.
forty-one:
tammy
(january/february)
The nightmares are terrible, and useful, and Jamie names Lydia Rocha as the woman in the white sweater who was in that orchard on December 30th. He recognised her voice, he says, and when her apartment in San Ramon is searched, they find not only Jamie's car keys, but his cell phone and his wallet. The dumb bitch didn't even bother to hide them. Jamie says that someone named "Ray" carried out the physical beating. Ray Battle denies it of course, but Lydia, in hopes of getting a lighter sentence when trial time comes, fingers Mr. Battle none too subtly. As Yvette did with Steve Cantrell, Lydia and Ray turn on each other, each naming the other the "mastermind".
Yvette and Cantrell both plead guilty to possession and distribution of child porn, but nobody is going to cop to the abduction and attempted murder without trying to reap whatever benefits are available to them. Ha! The D.A. isn't interested in lightening anyone's sentences, for any reason. She's disgusted with every last party who had any knowledge of, or involvement in, Jamie's bashing. When Lydia talks, she weeps big crocodile tears about having been in love with me since high school, and how Jamie made her feel stupid for once having a thing for him. "They're fags!" she sobs. "I liked both of them and all this time, they're fags!" Though she pleads "not guilty" to the charge of kidnapping and conspiracy, her statements incriminate her as a bitter, bigoted bitch who orchestrated this, along with a pair of chicken livers who hate homosexuals.
Crush Page 30
