“What kind of accident.”
“A… bus accident.”
I search my memory. The last woman I was with. She kicked me out. A conversation with a cop. On the side of the highway. Shit, that must’ve not been a dream.
“Is everyone okay?” I ask.
“Sorry, is who okay?”
“Was anyone else hurt?”
“…No, everyone else is fine.”
“What about the cop?”
“Which cop?”
“There was a cop. That talked to me.”
“Officer Rainier? He’s been visiting since you were airlifted here.”
I gulp. Damn, I should remember an accident bad enough to warrant a helicopter flight to the hospital.
“Am I… is anything broken?”
“Mr. Novak, just about everything is broken. Or was. Your surgeries went well, but it will take time to rehabilitate.”
“I want to see.”
The nurse takes a diplomatic breath and musters her most authoritative tone.
“There’s no way I’m having this conversation again. Get some rest now, Mr. Novak. We’ll brief you fully tomorrow.”
I get the sense that I should do what she says, which is easy because I’m exhausted. I’m afraid because I might wake up again to a fresh place. My sleep is dreamless, or maybe I am still awake, but the conversation outside my door bleeds into my consciousness and forces images to emerge, images that are probably a re-creation of the room that I’m in. A long window with a set of blinds. Twinkling moonlight that’s too bright to be from the moon. My bed on a hilltop.
“Any change?” I hear a male voice.
“Well, he didn’t try to yank out his catheter with his one good arm today. Also, he knows what year it is. And mentioned the cop.”
“Should be any day now, then. Did you get a hold of the parents?”
“I did. They were pretty shocked, said that they haven’t heard from him in over a year.”
“Are they coming here?”
“They were in Granada last I heard. Had to cut their vacation short.”
“Long as the check clears.”
“Also, he’s having nightmares. Clonidine?”
“Ask me again tomorrow.”
Maybe it’s the next day. Days feel more like scenes. It’s been a few scenes since the nurse told me to lie down. Another nurse came and told me there was an accident. I asked if everyone was okay and she said: “You’ll see.” Then my parents were here. They talk about me like I’m not here, like they usually do. They’re talking about a thing called Halcyon, which my brain knows. I was on my way there. It was something good and something bad. Sex and boot camp. Disneyland and college.
My parents are gone and another person enters the scene. I don’t recognize him, but he’s a cop. And a cop is one of the last things I remember. He must be that cop.
“How ya feel, Hank?” he says. He calls me Hank, which isn’t my name, I know that for sure. Nice guy. Interested in me for some reason, like we did something together. We didn’t just meet and become friends, I know that. He’s not like anyone who I would ever befriend or vice versa. A nurse comes and takes me and bathes me since I can’t do anything. I hope I can get out of here soon but I’m not sure why yet.
“We recommend moving your son back to Napierville where his rehabilitation will be much more cost-effective for both of you. I’ve contacted Dr. Krueger out of Lawrence Medical. A colleague of mine. He’ll be expecting you.”
My parents are back again in their recurring roles. I woke up yesterday knowing where I was, and why I was there. And the cop. But not much else. Meanwhile, a nurse has my right leg in her arms.
“How long until he regains his memory, Doctor?”
“His long term memory appears to be intact and his short term memory shows signs of recovery. He’s missing what happened the night of the accident. The officer maintains that it was a suicide attempt.”
“Impossible. My son would never do anything like that.”
“Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I say this would happen if you cut him off?” my mother scolds dramatically.
“Cliff still doesn’t have a memory of that night and honestly it would be a lot to expect of him.”
“He didn’t come home after leaving Halcyon. We couldn’t even get his discharge information from them. They wouldn’t give us anything. Now, he doesn’t even remember ever being there?”
Shit, that wasn’t a dream either. I was there? I feel anxious when I think about it, like it’s about to happen. I’m about to be taken there and left alone.
“My suspicion is that whatever happened there is related to his accident.”
“My son did not try to kill himself,” my dad says, like he’s in a movie. I don’t remember if I did or not, but I probably did, based on the context of my charmed life, that which I do remember. And the strength of my father’s telltale denial. I do remember my fiancee… dropping out of college… that I remember quite well. That was real. I was hurt, but I was getting over it. I wouldn’t have tried to kill myself over her. Not all at once. It didn’t do anything but solidify my bad opinion of women. How do I remember that and not Halcyon?
“Be that as it may, if the two incidents are linked, it may contribute to his inability to retrieve that information.”
“Who’s going to put my son back together?”
“We’ll do our best. We can nurse his body back to health. But ultimately the rest is up to him.”
Felix
Even though he’s now an hour out of the way, I’m still visiting this kid faithfully on weekends at the St. Lawrence Rehabilitation Center.
I’m starting to look forward to our visits. In any other universe, the two of us would probably never like each other. He’s a trust fund kid, although I think technically to be considered that you have to leave your parents’ house, which he apparently only did when forced. Me, I’m the kind of guy that knows how to talk to everyone. I always liked helping people. Always liked being the life of the party. Police work mellowed me out a bit, but otherwise, my wisecracking and jovial nature goes a long way with a lot of perps who end up going to jail anyway. But they’re always in a good mood when they go.
Cliff’s parents are loaded. The father’s in natural resources. Fairly old money. Clean coal, whatever the fuck that is. From what I’ve had to glean, Cliff’s the only child. Spoiled. Basically they raised a loser who leeched off of them. They would never use those words, of course. But I would. And I’m not leaving them off the hook either. Even with his memory still fuzzy, Cliff’s a bit of a blank slate. No direction, no ambition, no real passion. Not even for the girl that drove him to the ledge where I found him that night, the girl he can’t remember anymore.
But I’m working on changing that. For some reason or another, the kid’s got some kind of psychological damage. I got a chance to really imprint something on this guy that could have a lasting effect. Cliff was a crazed, sobbing mess of a man when we briefly met. Now he’s doing physical therapy, learning to walk, simply because he can’t think of what else he’d previously planned to be doing. On the off chance he hasn’t just faked this whole thing out of boredom or for attention, I hope, for his sake, the memories never come back.