by S. G. Browne
So in order to combat my insomnia, I’m taking Somnata, which comes with its own host of side effects. These include dizziness, nausea, cotton mouth, loss of appetite, headaches, problems with memory or concentration, mild skin rash, agitation, aggression, thoughts of hurting yourself, anxiety, and depression.
At least I’m already taking Norvox.
One of the other side effects of Somnata is the possibility of hallucinations, which makes me wonder if pharmaceutical companies make sure their drugs have side effects that require the cross-pollination of their other drugs. Fortunately the only side effects I’ve experienced on any regular basis have been indigestion and some occasional nausea.
And I can’t help but think about Vic.
I continue along First Avenue for another few blocks until I come to Stromboli Pizza and look through the window. Past midnight on a Monday, most of the customers are ordering slices rather than entire pies, and there’s a line of about six ahead of me. While I’m hungry and looking forward to sneaking in a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza without Sophie knowing, that’s not the main reason I came here.
I know it probably won’t make a difference and that I’m just going to leave here feeling worse than I did before, but after staring through the window another moment, I walk through the door and get in line.
Vic stands behind the counter, taking someone’s order; then he rings them up and gives them their change before helping the next customer, then the next and the next. While I know not to get my hopes up, by the time I get to the front of the line my heart is pounding.
“Hey,” Vic says. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” I say. “How about you?”
“Couldn’t be better,” he says, flashing a smile that looks genuine rather than forced, like he’s happy to be working here. For all I know, he is.
I still don’t know what happened to Vic after his encounter with Blaine. I don’t know if he ended up on the streets or in a shelter or got married. But no matter how many times I’ve come in here, he hasn’t told me where he’s been or what happened. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because he doesn’t know who I am.
I ran into Vic about a month ago on my way home from work. When I saw him, I was so happy I started crying and asking him where he’d been all this time, but he just stared at me and shook his head and told me he didn’t know what I was talking about before he asked if I wanted to order some pizza. It didn’t take me long to realize that Vic doesn’t remember anything about me or his life as a guinea pig or what we went through together. None of it.
Whatever Blaine did to him, it seems to be permanent.
Even so, I stare at Vic another moment, looking for some glimpse of recognition in his eyes, some hint that buried deep in the recesses of his psyche he knows who I am. But like every other time I’ve come in here for the past month, there’s nothing more than common courtesy lurking behind his expression. To Vic, I’m just a guy who comes into Stromboli’s a few times a week to order some pizza, and the extent of our conversation revolves not around our shared history but what’s on the menu.
“So what’ll it be tonight?” he asks.
I know what I want but I look at the menu anyway, stalling for time like I always do, hoping that something somewhere in Vic’s memory clicks into place.
“Two slices of pepperoni pizza and a root beer,” I say. “And while you’re at it, how about throwing in a couple of douche bags.”
Vic gives me a sideways look. “I don’t follow.”
For just a second I convince myself that I catch a flash of recognition in his eyes. A spark plug trying to fire up his memory. Then it’s gone. Or maybe it only existed in my imagination.
“Nothing,” I say. “Just making a joke.”
“Got it,” he says. “Two slices of pepperoni and a root beer, coming up.”
He rings up my order and I pay him like we’re just a couple of ordinary guys living ordinary lives who never did anything out of the ordinary together. Once my order is ready, I take it to a table and sit down, eating my pepperoni pizza and drinking my root beer in silence without enjoying a single bite or sip. When I’m done, I stand up and walk outside, pausing at the door to raise a hand in the air to Vic on my way out, but he’s preoccupied with another customer and doesn’t see me or return the gesture. So I head home hoping that maybe next time he’ll remember me.
Hey CB,” I say. “What’s shakin’?”
Charlie smiles and his left eye fills with tears when I walk into the room. Unlike Vic, Charlie still remembers me, and I can see the combination of familiarity and pain in his expression. But whereas Vic and I are at least able to hold a meaningless conversation, Charlie still isn’t able to form an intelligible sentence.
“Ay Llld. S gd tcu,” he says.
Listening to Charlie talk is like hearing a teenager’s text message spoken phonetically.
“It’s good to see you, too,” I say.
After Charlie came out of his coma, it was obvious the stroke he’d suffered had caused some significant permanent damage, so he was transferred to a long-term care facility in Queens, where he’s been a resident for the past couple of months. I don’t know who’s footing the bill or how much it’s costing, since Charlie doesn’t have any health insurance or the ability to pay for any of this, but I’m guessing it’s not going to be cheap.
I sit down in the chair next to his bed and Charlie reaches out with his left hand, his right hand motionless and curled up next to him on top of the covers, his fingers halfway curled into a claw, a patch covering his right eye so he looks like a pirate in a nursing home. When I take his good hand he smiles at me, or at least he tries to. The right side of his face still droops, as if someone turned up the gravity on one side of his body.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
Charlie’s mouth twitches and his left eye blinks, like he’s trying to answer in facial Morse code. He mumbles something that I can’t make out, which only seems to make his mouth and eye work harder. Finally I hand him the pen and pad of paper on the bedside table and he scrawls out something with his left hand.
When he’s done I look down at what he’s written. Charlie is right-handed, so his penmanship looks like that of a six-year-old with cerebral palsy, but I can still make out his answer to my question.
I hate being like this.
Charlie never was one to hide his feelings. And I’m so struck by his honesty that I don’t know how to respond, so I just give his hand a little squeeze and tell him that I’m sorry.
We sit in silence for a few minutes before Charlie lets go of my hand and wipes away the tears that have coursed down his cheek. Then he takes a deep breath and seems to get himself under control.
“Hss ic?” he says.
I’ve only seen Charlie a handful of times since he regained consciousness, and I feel guilty about not coming to see him more often. Part of my absence stems from my own work schedule and the fact that it’s tough for me to get out to Queens, since the long-term care facility is all the way over in Whitestone. Plus most of the spare time I do have I try to spend with Sophie. But each time I’ve come to visit him, Charlie has asked me the same question.
How’s Vic?
“He’s good,” I say. “He seems happy.”
I’ve told Charlie about Vic, about how Blaine blew away his memory and how Vic now works at Stromboli Pizza and doesn’t remember anything. I haven’t told Charlie that I’ve seen Vic several times a week for the past month in the hopes of triggering his memory. Instead, I just keep my answers simple because it’s easier that way.
Charlie nods and gives a half smile, which is a trick no one should ever have to learn how to do.
“I iss I ood c m,” he says.
Seeing the pain on Charlie’s face and knowing how much he hates being like this makes it that much harder to be here. Plus there’s the awkwardness of not knowing what to say that makes visiting him an exercise in learning how to manage my own guilt,
which makes me wonder if maybe Blaine didn’t do Vic a favor by erasing his memory.
“Nn hss ank?”
“Frank’s good,” I say.
Frank’s been at a weight-loss boot camp in Long Island for the past six weeks after ballooning up to over three hundred pounds. Apparently he had some rainy-day money stashed away that he decided to use to get his weight under control after he hit bottom and couldn’t manage to get through his bathroom door.
“I’m going to see him next week,” I say.
Charlie nods again and I can see his lips twitching and his left eye filling up with tears again, so he grabs the pen and writes another note.
Tell him I said hey.
I sit with Charlie for a while and try to think of things to talk about, telling him about Sophie and my job at Westerly and how I’ve started volunteering one day a week with Sophie at the SPCA, which, in addition to the bacon, seems to have improved my relationship with Vegan. I try not to make it sound like things are all that great, but I know that no matter how much I downplay my life, it’s an all-expenses-paid trip to Tahiti compared to Charlie’s.
After I’ve run out of things to say, Charlie and I sit there in silence for several minutes, staring at each other and pretending to smile. Charlie’s lips twitch again like he wants to say something, then he picks up the pen again and starts writing. When he’s done, I see a new question that he hasn’t asked on my previous visits, but one that was inevitable.
What about Isaac?
“He’s still out there,” I say.
For a week or so after my encounter with Isaac there were a few reports in Brooklyn and Staten Island about people suffering from hallucinations or exhibiting delusional behavior, but other than that the news around New York City has been hallucination-free. However, over the past couple of months, there have been reports about people having hallucinations in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh, with a slew of them cropping up a few days ago in Columbus, Ohio.
From what I can tell, Isaac appears to be working his way west.
Would you like some more asparagus?” Sophie asks.
“No thanks,” I say, then take another bite of my Tofurky kielbasa.
While Sophie’s not a big fan of fake meat, she’s okay with me eating veggie sausages and hot dogs and sandwich meats, so long as I don’t eat Boca Burgers, which contain hydrolyzed wheat protein, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, methylcellulose, and a bunch of other ingredients I can’t pronounce. Not to mention that they’re owned by Philip Morris. But she’s okay with me eating Tofurky, since it contains organic, non-GMO ingredients and hexane-free soy. And Sunshine Burgers, which contain only ground raw sunflower seeds, brown rice, carrots, herbs, and sea salt.
Still, every now and then, I need a slice of pepperoni pizza or a couple of pieces of bacon.
I glance down at Vegan, who looks up at me and licks his chops as if he can read my mind. For all I know, he can.
We finish our meal and do the dishes together, enjoying each other’s company as much as possible. Instead of letting Sophie cook, I do it with her. Rather, I help where I can. Sophie’s the one with the culinary skills. But I’m present instead of watching TV or reading the paper or surfing the Internet. And likewise after meals, she helps me clean up. It’s like we’re a team instead of two people with separate responsibilities. Maybe that was part of the problem before. I didn’t work hard enough to be part of a team.
At least not with Sophie.
After we finish cleaning up, Sophie waters her plants. She no longer sprinkles her pixie dust on them or throughout the apartment, which has made for healthier plants and a healthier Vegan. So at least my eruption of honesty wasn’t a complete disaster.
Afterward, we sit down on the couch to watch Annie Hall.
While Sophie and I get to spend a lot of our days together, we don’t get very many leisurely nights to ourselves, since both of us work six nights a week, so date nights are few and far between. The occasional night we do get together, we usually stay at home to watch a movie. At some point, foreplay and sex enter into the evening, but I’m not always able to hold up my end of the bargain, causing me to experience some mild anxiety, which is also a side effect of Somnata. So I’ve been prescribed Pacifix.
The side effects of Pacifix are similar to those of some of the other drugs I’m taking, including the inability to get an erection and loss of interest in sex. So taking Pacifix to help relieve my sexual performance anxiety makes about as much sense as drinking a beer to cure alcoholism.
At this point, I’m on so many medications that I might as well be popping Viagra or Cialis or some other drug for erectile dysfunction. Sophie suggests we consider trying a more natural sexual enhancement remedy or aphrodisiac, like ginseng or ginkgo biloba or horny goat weed. But the last thing I want to attract is a horny goat. Besides, I’m already a walking pharmacy. What’s one more prescription?
Vegan jumps up onto the coffee table and stares at me. He’s been doing this regularly over the past couple of weeks, staring at me for a minute or two and then walking away. While I am the giver of bacon, he’s still wary of me when I’m not at the table or in the kitchen. But tonight, rather than turning around and showing me the ass end of his feline disposition, he jumps onto my thighs, where he sits and stares at me for another thirty seconds or so before migrating to Sophie’s lap.
It’s just a drive-by lapping, but at least it’s progress.
Sophie laughs with delight at Annie Hall, even though she’s seen the film a hundred times, and then we retire to the bedroom, where Sophie attempts to coax me into an aroused state without much success. We still manage to get in some kissing and touching and I do what I can to please Sophie, but while my heart’s in it, the pertinent part of my anatomy is a disinterested bystander.
When we’re done, Sophie curls up next to me and wraps one of her legs over mine and tells me she loves me into my shoulder.
“I love you, too,” I say, then turn and kiss her on the forehead.
She lets out a contented sigh and snuggles in closer, like she’s trying to find a way to burrow into my genetic structure. After less than five minutes, her breaths start to slow and deepen and I know she’s fallen asleep.
I stare at the ceiling, thoughts chasing each other around inside my head, and I realize I forgot to take my Somnata. I don’t want to get up and disturb Sophie, so I close my eyes and take deep breaths, then slowly let them out, focusing on the field of black on the inside of my eyelids. I don’t bother counting sheep or backward from one thousand. Instead, I imagine the word sleep when I inhale, drawing the word into me like it has magical power—which, it turns out, isn’t too far from the truth.
Every time I inhale and imagine the word sleep, my lips start to tingle. I don’t even have to think about going to the dentist; my trigger is right there, waiting to be called up, and I can feel my superpower vibrating like a steady hum of electricity. Only it feels different than before. Stronger. More powerful. As if it’s been working out at the gym. Or taking steroids.
This isn’t something that’s been going on for the past few days or building up over a couple of weeks. This is, to channel my inner Randy, total INXS. A new sensation.
I don’t understand how this happened and spend the better part of five minutes trying to figure it out, until I remember how Blaine claimed to have taken a bunch of prescription drugs to increase the strength of his superpower, and I wonder if that’s what’s happening to me. I wonder if by taking all of these medications I’ve awoken Dr. Lullaby rather than tucking him into bed and singing him to sleep.
I’m still wondering this when the sun comes up the next morning.
Lloyd,” Frank says, embracing me in a bear hug. “It’s been too long.”
Once he releases me, I step back and check him out. “You look great.”
In the six weeks he’s been at the live-in boot camp, Frank has dropped more than a hundred pounds from his high of 310. While he’s stil
l a little chunkier than the Frank I’ve known for most of the past five years, he’s slimmed down to the point where I can almost imagine he was never a superhero named Big Fatty.
“Come on,” he says, opening the front door. “Let’s get some fresh air. I was just about to take a walk.”
We head outside into the late spring, the calendar about to turn from May to June, and it’s not lost on me that nearly a year has passed since all of the events that transpired were set in motion. It seems more like ten years. I don’t know if Frank feels the same way, but I’m pretty sure he’s aware of the upcoming anniversary, since most of the weight he gained after Randy’s death was the result of guilt therapy.
When it comes to Charlie, Randy, and Vic, I know Frank feels more responsible than I do about what happened to them. For all I know he even feels guilty about Blaine and Isaac, though he hasn’t said as much. As far as I’m concerned, he’s still the patriarch of our little guinea pig clan, even if there are only five of us left and one of us is partially paralyzed, another has amnesia, and a third is a supervillain.
Hey, every family has its issues.
“I still have another twenty pounds to lose,” Frank says as we walk along the grounds, which are located in Ronkonkoma, halfway to Montauk. “But even with the extra weight, I notice how much better I feel without the toxins of all those experimental drugs coursing through my system. It’s as if I’ve been cleansed. No. Purified. I tell you, Lloyd, I feel better than I have in years.”
I smile and nod and give him a congratulatory pat on the back, but I can’t relate. If anything, I feel just the opposite. I’m a walking pharmaceutical lab.
Frank continues to talk about how far he’s come and when he expects to get out of here and how excited and nervous he is to get back to living a normal life again.
“But enough about me,” Frank says. “How’s Lloyd these days?”
“I’m good,” I say, and elaborate with anecdotes about Sophie and my job and my volunteer work at the SPCA. I leave out the part about how I’m taking so many drugs that my side effects have side effects—including a really big one.
