The Burn Journals (4 page)

Mom says I had a punctured lung from something they did wrong in surgery and my lung collapsed and that's why they had to put the tubes through my rib cage, but I'm better now and that shouldn't happen again. I hope that never happens again.

Everybody is worried because my temperature is so high, but forty doesn't seem very high to me, or maybe it is because it's not Celsius or it is Celsius, I'm not sure which.

The tube in my throat is out, and my voice works again. But my voice sounds so scratchy and old now. It hurts to say too much, so I'm not going to say much. I sound like a smoker.

Dad is here, Mom's not. I want to talk and I want to tell him about what I did and that I'm so sorry, but I can't figure out how to say that, so I ask him if he ever wanted to kill himself, and he says that he must have once, a long time ago, and I feel better because even if he's lying, then it's nice of him. I try to tell him about what happened, but it's so hard to say out loud. I don't even remember why I did it now. Because of school and because of my friends, but those don't seem like good reasons anymore. Because I was going to be expelled, but I think I'd rather be expelled than be here. Dad seems like he understands, and he cries and I cry. I'm so sorry, Dad. I'm so sorry.

Craig still hasn't come to visit me. I ask my mom why and she can't really answer me and I ask if he hates me, and she says no, of course he doesn't hate me, but the way she says it, I can tell he really does.

Barbara the nurse who calls me Gorgeous is here. I like the way she says that because it sounds like she really means it. She's going to clean my wounds. She puts on some music, she says it's from
Dances with Wolves
and that I should imagine I'm in the middle of a field with horses and buffalo and there are wide-open spaces and mountains in the distance and I should explore the field in my mind and tell her what I'm seeing. I tell her I see a field with grass up to my waist, everything is waving in the wind and I can sort of float through it like I don't have any legs, and the mountains in the distance are huge icy peaks with sharp rocks sticking out. There's a beautiful black horse in front of me that looks like he wants me to ride him, and I float over to him and I see that someone has shot him and there's a big hole in his side from where the shotgun blast was, and the hole goes all the way through so I can see the mountains out the other side.

I open my eyes and look down and I see everything. I see the purple skin and the big open wounds. I lay my head back, close my eyes, and try to think of something else.

Mom says the night Maggie died I saw angels in my room. She says that Tina was there changing my ventilator and I looked up at the ceiling and said, “There are people flying around my room looking for someone who died, but it's not me.” Now Mom and Dad wear little angel pins on their shirts every day.

Craig is here and Mom and Dad are going to leave us alone for a while. He doesn't seem so mad at me anymore. He talks about his job at the movie theater and his new girlfriend, Valerie, who works at the movie theater with him. He thinks I'll like her. She thinks he wears too much blue, and every time he doesn't wear anything blue, she gives him a kiss. So now, every time he goes to work, he gets a kiss. That's nice for him, that he's getting kisses. He says he hasn't had sex yet, but they're going to. It's too bad that no one will ever want to have sex with me, but I don't really care. I hope Craig can love me again.

Mom sits by my bedside and I can tell that she wants to talk about the fire and everything about it. So I start by asking her the same question that I asked Dad, and she says she wanted to kill herself too a long time ago when she was a girl, which I don't think is true, but I know she's trying to make me feel better. And I try to say why I was so sad, and how I thought that the principal was going to expel me and how I didn't want them to be mad at me because they both wanted me to be so smart and I'm sorry I couldn't be what you wanted. And she says, “You are everything we wanted.” And we both cry together.

Surgery. They took part of my scalp and moved it to my left leg, over that big gaping wound, the one as big as a mailbox. They almost didn't take me in because my fever came back and I've got a lot of stuff in my lungs, but then they changed their minds and took me. They had to shave my head to cut the skin off. Then they put this stuff on my scalp called scarlet or crimson, I can never remember which, and they say it will help the skin grow back in a few weeks. I'm worried about my hair. My parents are happy that I'm not on the ventilator anymore.

The thing about being in the hospital is that people come into your room in the middle of the night, take your blood and urine, and leave again. People stick things to your chest, hook you up to machines, and don't even introduce themselves.

Becky is here to stretch my arms and hands. She tells me about an episode of
Monty Python's Flying Circus
that she just saw, about a guy who buys a dead parrot. She's very funny and does a great English accent. I wonder why I thought she was a Hispanic boy.

Dad wants to stay during burn care because he wants to see what I look like, but I don't want him to see what I look like. I'm afraid he'll get sick or get scared and he won't want to come visit me anymore.

I think we used to say we loved each other too much. Mom and Dad used to make us say we loved each other every night before we went to bed, and since we said it all the time, it was like it didn't mean anything, but now when we say it, it feels like we really mean it.

This short woman just came to visit me, her name is Dr. Rubinstein and she's a psychologist. I don't like her. The first thing she did was sit down at my bedside and start asking me questions about what happened in the fire and what I was thinking about. She asked me about drugs and my friends and whether I told them I was going to do it. Most people who come to visit me lean forward in the chair, but she leans away.

Surgery. They took more skin from my stomach and moved it to the spots that were open on my arms and legs. When I wake up, the tubes are already out of my mouth, extubated, which is good, I hate those fucking tubes. Everyone says I'm becoming an old pro. I've done this five or six times already. They said I'll have at least ten before I'm done.

Today is the day that Tina and I will eat Ben & Jerry's together. Mom and Dad are here too, but they're not going to have any. Tina brings her favorite flavors—Heath Bar Crunch, Cherry Garcia, and New York Super Fudge Chunk. She pushes a button so the bed makes me sit up a little bit and gives me a spoonful of Heath Bar Crunch. Oh God, that's good. I forgot how good ice cream was. I'm feeling a little dizzy, but I ask Tina for another bite, this time New York Super Fudge Chunk.

I forget that people are watching me for a second while I'm enjoying the ice cream and then I remember and so I try to ham it up and look really, really happy. Everyone laughs when I raise my eyebrows and look like I'm going to faint from pleasure. But then I realize that I actually am going to faint from sitting up so straight and I make them put me back down flat.

The doctors are here to look at my hands. Mom and Dad are here too, and a couple of nurses, and everybody seems really excited to see how my hands are doing. The doctors unwrap the bandages. They're purple and spotted and covered with blood and staples. They start talking about how great my purple skinny hands look and how I'm going to get full range of motion back. It makes me feel sick to look at them. God. I close my eyes.

When all the doctors leave, Mom sits close to my bed and starts talking really softly and quietly to me. She says, “This is just the first day. Everything is going to look so much better in a few weeks. And in a few months your hands will almost be back to normal. You're going to be okay, honey.”

I'm crying a little, but it's not because of my hands. It's because of this other thing that I'm afraid of, that I haven't said to anybody yet. “Mom, no one's ever going to love me, are they?” And I can't help it, I just start crying all over the place like a baby.

But Mom puts her hand on my fingertips and whispers, “Brent, listen to me, honey, you are so smart and so kind. You will fall in love, and someone will fall in love with you. I promise.”

It makes me feel better to hear her say that, but I can tell that she's not really sure. It'll be okay, I tell myself, I can live in the basement when I get older so people don't have to look at me.

Carol, the social worker, got me a phone so I can call my friends. I can't use a regular phone because of the bandages over my ears, so they had to get me this bear speaker phone. When the person on the phone talks, the bear's face lights up and its mouth moves like it's talking. It's pretty cool.

The first person I want to call is Stephen, to see how he's doing and to see if he's dating Megan or what. Carol sits the bear on a table in front of me and moves the head of my bed up a little. When she pushes the dial tone button, the bear's eyes and mouth open and it looks like it's ready to talk. I tell her the phone number and she dials for me. I'm excited. I haven't talked to anyone at school since I got into the hospital. Stephen answers the phone and I try to think of something really funny to say, but I can't come up with anything, so I just say, “Stephen, it's Brent.”

The bear lights up a little, blinks, and says, “Brent,” with an Australian accent, but I can tell from how he says my name that something's different. His voice is tight and he doesn't sound as excited as I thought he would.

I say, “What's up?”

The bear says, “What's up, dude?”

So I say, “How's it going?”

And he says, “How's it going with you?” The bear's mouth is a little behind the words and it blinks in all the wrong places, but it's still kind of cool.

“Going good. How about with you?”

“It's good. It's good. What's new?”

“Not much. What's new with you?”

“Nothing,” says the bear.

“How's Megan?”

“Megan's good. She misses you.”

“I miss her too. I miss all you guys.”

The bear blinks but doesn't say anything for a second, then says, “When are you coming home?”

“Soon. Soon.”

“Good. Well, get better.”

“I will. See you, dude.”

“Bye, dude.” When he hangs up, the bear's mouth closes, the eyes close halfway, and the little light inside its face
goes out.

Some girls from school made me a tape of their everyday life and sent it to me. It sounds weird listening to all the noises of school all smacked together. I wonder why no guys talk on the tape.

“Hi, Brent, it's Jennifer reporting from D hall and there's a bunch of us here who just want to say hi.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Hi, Brent!”

“You're my hero, Brent.”

“Hi, Brent, I hope you do well and we all really miss you.”

“Hi, Brent, it's Leah, your favorite person in the world. We're going to civics and we're really going to miss you there, so bye.”

“Brent, this is Mrs. Clagg. I sure hope you're feeling better. We miss you a whole lot. Remember the funny time you put all those rubber bands in your hair and you walked down the hall like that? You sure have a tremendous amount of confidence in yourself and I'm sure I'm going to see you again walking down the hall with the rubber bands in your hair. All right, take care, get well, we sure care about it. Love and prayers, Mrs. Clagg.”

“Hi, Brent, we're in algebra right now. Do you want to hear Mrs. Loftus's lisp?”

“Brent, come back and do your Elvis impression.”

“Hi, Brent, this is Julie and Jenny. Do the weasel. Every time we hear ‘Blue Suede Shoes,' we think of
you.”

“Hi, Brent, this is Victoria Key. I really miss you and really love you and I hope you get better soon.”

“Hey, Brent, get well, come back to us soon, Brent.”

“I got my brother some wrapping paper for Christmas. I told them to wrap it but in a different print so when he opens it, he'll know when to stop. Remember when you told me that joke? Now I get it.”

“I know this guy who has a car phone and an answering machine on the car phone. The message on the machine says, ‘Sorry, I'm at home right now, I'll call you when I go out.' Ha ha ha.”

“Nobody forgot your jokes.”

“Hi, Brent, this is Miss Guppie, it's noisy in here because we're working on conversation. Get well, come back soon, we miss you.”

“Hi, Brent, you're walking into the girls' dressing room right now. You're in the girls' dressing room. Hey, look at Jennifer. Hey, Brent, we're going to try and tape some Jane Fonda for you. Hey, Brent, we're all changing right now.”

“Don't look.”

“Yeah, don't look, Brent.”

“Are we boring you? I hope we're not boring you.”

“Hi, Brent. Well, I hope you've enjoyed our tape. We really, really, really, really miss you and we really, really hope you get better real, real soon, okay, so you can come back and tell us some more of your jokes that I don't understand but now I finally do and you can sing some more Elvis songs and put your hair in some more weird styles and just, you know, be yourself. Okay, bye.”

More surgery today. They're going to put that special skin on me, the skin that they took off me a couple of weeks ago and flew to Boston. It's been growing there, and now there are fifty postage-stamp-size pieces of skin and they're going to spread them on my right leg and my right shoulder and anywhere else that needs it.

I ask Mom if this means I can go home soon, but she says there's still a lot of work to be done and that it will probably be a few more months before I can go home again.

I've been here exactly one month.

Tina says there's a phone call for me and sets up the bear phone. She pushes the button on the bed to make me sit up a little.