Charlotte Had A Boyfriend : 1

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

 

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I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage.
— Peter Brook

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It was like watching a play. Up goes the curtain, and you see... something.

Or, it's like turning the TV to a random channel, where you happen upon... a scene, already in progress.

You don't have any preparation for what you see. No one hands you an explanation. There's no summary; no scorecard. No list of players. The story unapologetically kicks off at a certain point: Maybe it's the beginning. Maybe it's the end. You don't know. Even so, you don't mind. It's perfectly fine: you're confident that as the situation unfolds you'll understand. You'll piece together who's who and what's what.

Everything will click.

In the meantime, your only clues are the things you see and hear. So you pay attention.

Of course, the scene in front of you, right here, right now, isn't a play. It isn't a TV show. It's not even a documentary. It's one big slice of real life: real people, real events, as they happen. And you are there.

I watched, expectantly, puzzling over it... trying to put it together... asking myself Am I a part of this? or just an observer? At the moment I found myself sitting, watching, at a medium distance, waiting for a gestalt to form, expecting an ah-ha! moment to light up my brain.

What I could see were two cars, both of them badly smashed up. One blue, one white. The aftermath of a car accident, a car crash. That much was clear.

A long, straight road separated the two cars: one car sat off the road on the far side, the second car ended up off the road, but nearer to me. The road itself was empty -- clear and unencumbered, completely devoid of traffic. Clearly, what happened before, what I'd somehow missed, was that the two cars were driving on that road, heading toward each other, and somehow couldn't avoid smacking into each other.

When the two cars hit, one went this way and one went that way, like two billiard balls that collided.

Unlike billiard balls, the cars left a lot of debris on the roadway: broken glass, mostly. Skid marks. Odd bits of metal and plastic.

The road itself was a thick, dark-gray line, stretching off to infinity in both directions, as straight as if you'd laid a ruler down on that flat, empty landscape and traced along that ruler with a big fat grease pencil.

Because, yes, aside from the cars and the road, there was nothing but brown, flat, desolate landscape, as far as the eye could see. No trees, no grass -- no plants at all, except for an ugly tuft of scrub grass here and there.

In a word, a desert. I was sitting on the ground in the middle of a desert. Not a desert of sand, though: there wasn't a single grain of sand. Just death-dry dirt, hard-packed dirt, dirt cracked by days, weeks, months of relentless sun.

Of the two cars, the blue one was closer to me. It looked by far the worse of the two. Even though it stood square on all four wheels, it had obviously rolled over, at least one complete tumble, but judging by its distance from the road, it most likely rolled over twice. The roof was uniformly flattened, pressed down into the car, all its windows reduced to horizontal slits a couple inches high.

The motor was roaring, as if someone's foot was heavy on the gas, but the car wasn't moving.

The white car sat farther off. As I said, the crash had obviously blown the white car off the road as well, although it somehow managed to remain upright. It seemed, at least from my vantage point, that all the damage was taken by the front end, which was crushed, smushed, pressed like an accordion -- and then peeled open, ripped back, baring the left front tire completely.

The windshield, on the other hand, was intact, with nary a crack or chip.

The airbag had deployed, filling the driver's window, hiding the driver, if the driver was still in there...

Where *are* the drivers? I asked myself. There are two cars; there must be two drivers.

Right on cue, the door of the white car popped open, just a bit... only slightly ajar. The bent metal held it, requiring more effort on the driver's part. He struggled with the airbag, wheeling his arms. Then he leaned into his door and pushed, hard. I could him grunting with effort, and after a particularly loud expletive, the door gave way, squealing and screaming as it slowly opened, but only far enough that the man could venture one foot to touch the ground.

He made quite a lot of noise, groaning and swearing; whining and nearly crying. I followed his progress with interest. After his foot, one hand emerged, then his head, followed by the other foot. Soon he stood upright, wobbling unsteadily next to his car.

He blinked and winced at the sun, as though he'd just woken up, or had crawled from the darkness of a cave into daylight. He was dressed well. He must have been on his way to someplace important. Even at this distance I could see the shine of his shoes. His clothes were clean. His pants had a sharp crease, his shirt bright-white and wrinkle-free. A dark blue tie finished off the look.

He looks like a lawyer, I told myself. Every inch a lawyer.

The man ran a hand through his thick mop of hair as he took a few uncertain steps. His head swiveled anxiously, this way and that. Then he stopped for a moment, stock still, and covered his face with his hands.

He's frightened, I told myself. He's afraid. He's very afraid.

The lawyer took a few more steps before he bent down and rested his hands on his thighs, staring at the earth between his feet. I thought he might pass out, or throw up, or maybe start to cry, but he didn't do any of those things. Maybe he'd only stopped to gather his wits?

Then it came to me: He's drunk, I told myself. Very drunk. It's early in the day, but he's already drunk.

I didn't judge him. I didn't know him. I only watched him. Every movement in his pantomime told me something.

He was one of the drivers. He was driver number one, the driver of the white car.

He stood with his back to me, surveying the damage to his car, gesticulating with open arms, emitting gasps of disbelief.

He's upset about his car, I observed to myself. It seemed pretty obvious, but as it turned out, I was wrong. Or at least, he was far more upset about something else.

The driver made a half turn, clasped his hands, and folded in on himself, bending his elbows and knees. Was he hurt? Was he about to fall over?

No -- neither. He was overcome with emotion. He let loose a litany of laments, curses, cries, and imprecations. Jesus figured heavily in his tirade, but not in a good way. He finished up by exclaiming over and over that he was fucked, totally and completely fucked. "This is the end!" he cried. "I'm through! I'm done!" After he poured out the cup of his bitterness and desperation, he heaved a heavy, heart-breaking sigh.

That done, he turned toward me. His eyes large and liquid, his mouth partway open, his eyes ping-ponged between me and the blue car.

"Were you the driver?" he shouted.

"I don't think so," I shouted back. Then I clutched my head and squeezed my eyes shut, tight. Pain, like bolts of lightning laced with lava, shot through my skull. Ow-wow-ouch!!! Shouting made my head hurt! It made my head hurt a lot, a hell of a lot, for some strange reason.

My answer seemed to puzzle him. "If you're not the driver--" He muttered fretfully as he crossed the road and came closer to where I sat. As I said, I was sitting on the ground. I don't know why, but there I was.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I laughed. "Of course I'm okay. Are you okay?"

"No," he replied. "Well -- physically I'm fine, but-- are you hurt? I mean, apart from those bruises. They must hurt like hell." He pointed to my arms and legs. "And you were clutching your head."

I took a look at myself, astonished. My left leg, my left arm, were well-covered in bruises. "What the heck?" I asked aloud. "Where on earth did those come from?"

He pointed to my forehead, and was about to speak, but first his eyes swept over me, from my feet to my... chest. The expression on his face changed from despair to alarm. He froze for a moment, then asked in a soft, cautious voice, "Are you... are you... a cop?"

"No," I replied with a scoff and a frown. "I'm not a cop. Why would I be a cop?"

"Your shirt," he explained, pointing first to his own heart, then to mine.

I checked my chest, and sure enough, there was a design printed in white on my enormously oversized shirt: it was a perfect drawing of a police badge surrounded by the words ROBBINS POLICE DEPT.

"Huh!" I exclaimed. "Where did that come from?" Clearly, the shirt wasn't mine. It was way too big for me. Way, way, too big. It was practically a dress. A mini-dress, at least.

"So, if *you* weren't driving...," he began, and glanced over his shoulder at the blue car. Its motor was still roaring.

"I'm going to check on your friend," he told me. "My name's Wade. What's yours?"

"Mason," I told him. Mason? It sounded right. Mason, I repeated to myself. Again, he seemed perplexed by my answer, but he turned away and dashed to the blue car. He bent down and peered into the slit that used to be the driver's window. "Hey, buddy. Hey. How are you doing in there, man?" he called. "Can you hear me? Are you alright? Are you conscious? Are you awake? Are you in pain?"

After a moment, a weak voice answered, nearly crying. "I'm banged up pretty bad." A soft sob followed, then the question, "How is Deeny?"

"Deeny?" Wade glanced at me. "Your name is Deeny?" I shrugged. It didn't sound right.

"She looks okay," Wade said, "She's got a big lump on her forehead. Must have banged her head." Wade pulled out his phone. "It was just the two of you in this car, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm calling 911. What's your name?"

"Amos Casshon."

"Can you turn off the engine? And tell me: what kind of shape are you in?"

Amos, after some coughs and whimpers, shut off the engine. The roaring stopped, but even in the silence that followed, I had to strain to hear Amos' weak, almost whispered, replies. "I'm banged up pretty bad. I think my left arm is broken. My legs are pinned under the steering wheel, and it hurts like hell. I can wiggle my toes, though. I guess that's a good sign. I'm all doubled over and the roof is pressing down on my head and shoulders. It's really tight and uncomfortable in here. I'm trying to stay calm, but..."

Wade got on the phone and asked for two ambulances. "You'd better bring the jaws of life," he told the dispatcher. "Amos is trapped inside his car. The roof is crushed flat on top of him. I'm going to try to get him out, but I don't think--" He stopped; the dispatcher was talking to him. His shoulders sagged. "Yes, alcohol was involved. I've been drinking. Yes. Yes. A lot. No, I'm pretty sure the other parties were not. Not at all. No. No." He pressed the phone against his chest and groaned, "I'm fucked. I'm completely, totally fucked. This is it for me. This is the end. This is the fucking end. I'm done."

"Hey," I called to him, in as loud a whisper as I could manage, "Wade! Try to keep it together! You're doing all you can right now!" Talking still hurt my head, but less than before, especially if I was careful not to shout. Once the pain of talking passed, I tried to get up. I meant to go to Wade, to put my hand on his shoulder, to encourage him, and to see if somehow together we could pry Amos out of the wreck. I rolled to my side and got up on my hands and knees.

Before I could straighten up and stand, the world began to spin around me, violently. It was like a kaleidoscope, a calliope -- what was the word? Merry-go-round? Tilt-A-Whirl? The earth beneath me pitched and yawed. I feared for a moment that the whole scene would flip over and I'd fall into the sky. "Whoa!" I shouted, "whoa, whoa, whoa! Turn it off!" and held steady on all fours. I clutched some scrub grass with each hand to keep from rolling off and away. Squeezing my eyes shut, I did my best to keep still... I didn't want to fall... in any direction. Panting and huffing, it became crystal clear that if staying on hands and knees took so much energy, standing would be completely out of the question. The spinning didn't stop or even let up, so I gingerly rested my hip back down on the ground, and carefully lowered myself onto my side.

"Oh my God," I cried once everything stopped moving. "Did somebody slip me something? Holy mother!"

"Hey! You better take it easy," Wade cautioned. "You're pretty banged-up, in case you haven't noticed."

"What the hell happened?" I cried out. "Were we at a party? Did I take something? Did somebody give me something? Was it roofies? I don't remember a goddamn thing!"

"Are you out of your mind? A party? What the hell are you talking about? We were in a car accident! Just now!" he shouted back. "Look around you! What do you *think* happened?"

"A car accident?" I gasped, clutching my head. "A car accident? That much I know, thank you very much! But what about *before*? What happened before?"

Wade groaned with disbelief, and turned his attention back to Amos.

Muttering defensively and huffing impatiently, I said, "I want to get up. I want to help. I just have a few questions, that's all."

 

---

 

So... a car accident. I mean, sure, I'd already gotten that far on my own. But before the accident... before the cars were crumpled and thrown, they must have been moving, one going from A to B, the other going from B to A. I was in one of the cars. Probably. I must have been going somewhere.

I had so many questions. Questions... about... pretty much everything.

While we waited for the ambulances to arrive, nothing changed much, at least for Amos and me. He was still trapped inside his car, while I was, essentially, glued to the ground. I tried several times, without success, to get up, but each time the world aggressively swirled around me like my own personal tornado, pushing me back down to the ground again.

"Just stay down!" Wade told me, several times, each time a little more impatiently. "You don't want to fall. That will only make things worse."

"I want to help!" I protested. "Maybe together we could get one of the doors open... get Amos out of there."

"You don't look especially strong," Wade objected. "And these goddamn doors are crushed shut. I've been trying. You've seen me. They will not open. Except for that one..." He pointed to a blue car door, lying on the ground, off on its own, apart from the wreck. Wade explained that the passenger door in back, on the far side, had been torn off when the car rolled over. It didn't leave much of an opening, though: Wade was able to stick his head and shoulders in, but little more than that. The insides were so compressed that he could only see bits and pieces of Amos: the side of his face, his hip, his elbow.

But he did find a large black umbrella in there, on the floor. He unfurled it with a snap, and presented it to me.

"It's not raining," I told him. "In case you hadn't noticed."

He knelt down, took my hand, and wrapped my fingers around the umbrella's handle. "You're getting badly burned," he countered. "In case you hadn't noticed."

He was right. My thighs, my legs, my arms, and even the tops of my feet, were a fiery red. I needed the shade. After I curled my legs into the new-found shadow, I looked the umbrella over, and was struck by sudden recognition. "Hey, this is mine!"

"Good for you," Wade commented in a distracted tone. He ran his hand through his hair. I looked up at him, at his face. His expression was easy to read: Wade was worried. Very worried.

"You're a very responsible person," I observed.

"I'm glad *you* think so," he scoffed.

"And it looks like you've sobered up."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"No, I mean it. Before, you were stumbling and slurring your words a little. Now, you look all... here... now. Attentive. Responsible, like I said."

"Please stop saying that word."

"Which word?"

"Responsible."

I shrugged and nodded.

"It would be wonderful if you were right," he confided, "But there's no way I'll pass the breathylizer or a blood-alcohol test. And I can't pretend I wasn't driving."

"Maybe they won't do the breathylizer," I offered. I wasn't sure what a breathylizer is, but I managed to say it right.

"No, they'll do one for sure. I have a record. There's no point in trying to lie; it would only make things worse. I'm a lawyer... I'm supposed to be at a hearing right now, representing a client. Clearly, that's gone to hell. Worst of all, this will be my third DUI. I'll get disbarred for sure. I'll lose my law license, my drivers license. Everything in my life will go to shit..." He gestured across the road. "My car is totalled. I'll be found at fault. There's no two ways about it: I'm about to lose everything. Everything. My life was a wreck already; now the disaster will be complete."

I scratched my head. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to tell him to look on the bright side, but for the life of me Wade's bright side was pretty hard to find.

He stared at a the ground for a few moments. Then he lifted his head and looked at me. "So what about you?"

"What about me?"

"Do you really not remember the crash?"

"No. Not at all. I mean, for all I know, I was just sitting here minding my own business when the two cars collided."

He scoffed, and almost laughed, but not quite. His lips bent back down to a frown. He rubbed his chin. "Okay...," he said slowly, drawing out the vowels. "You must know that that's not what happened. I mean, there's no way you were just sitting here when the crash occurred."

He studied my face for a bit. "And did you seriously think we were at a party? Were *you* at a party?"

I tightened my lips. Was he making fun of me? Aggressively changing the subject I asked, "How is Amos?"

Wade blew out a long breath before answering. "I wish the ambulance would hurry up and get here. Maybe I should have told them to send a helicopter."

"We should go over and sit by him," I suggested.

"What am I supposed to do? Drag you over there? I might be able to carry you, but it's not a good idea, moving an accident victim. It would only increase my liability."

We looked at other for a few moments. Then he said, "I'll go back to Amos in a minute. It's hard, though. I don't have anything helpful to say to him."

"Okay.""

He rubbed his hands together, and after searching for a topic of conversation asked, "So tell me, what's the first thing you remember?"

I gestured at the two cars. "I was sitting on the ground here, and I saw the two cars. It was just like turning on a TV and seeing a show already in progress, you know? Then you got out of your car, and... you know the rest."

"Amos told me that he picked you up hitchhiking. Do you remember that?"

"Hitchhiking? No. Me, hitchhiking? Where? Like, out here, in the desert?"

"Yeah, maybe a dozen miles west of here."

I tried to put it together, but the pieces didn't fit. "Hitchhiking... dressed like this? Barefoot? With an umbrella? What-- did I drop out of the sky? Like Mary Poppins, with the umbrella?"

Wade shook his head and shrugged.

"Did I tell Amos anything? Did I explain? Did I tell him where I came from?"

"No. He said you didn't want to talk much. You told him your name is Deeny. You asked him the name of the next town, which is weird, I guess -- not that any of this isn't weird."

"What is the next town?"

"Going that way, which is west--" he pointed left "--is Aldusville. That's where I was headed. That direction, which is east--" he pointed right "--is Robbins. That's where you were going."

"Robbins," I repeated. "Like my shirt."

"Yeah," he said. "Which probably means you were heading back to Robbins, but, uh, if you didn't have amnesia back when Amos picked you up, before the accident, it's weird that you didn't know where you were heading."

A shiver ran through me when he said the word amnesia. "Fuck," I muttered, mainly to myself.

The two of us sat in silence for a quarter of a minute, when Wade got up and visited with Amos for a spell.

 

---

 

I watched Wade struggle with the doors again. Without success, again. He conferred with Amos for a while. Time passed. I must have been in some kind of a daze because I couldn't tell whether the minutes were moving quickly or slowly. I can't say I was thinking, though. My brain seemed full of fuzz, static, stuffing. A line from a song came to mind: If my head was full of stuffin' / I could be-- I could be what? I didn't know. Eating muffins?

I tried to look into my own head. There was nothing there. No thoughts, no memories, no worries, no words. It didn't feel like I was waiting for anything. No active processes running.

The blue car started up. It roared for a moment, then dropped to a normal idle and kept going. Wade conferred with Amos for a half minute, then returned to me.

"Amos was getting cooked in there," he explained, "It was like an oven, so I suggested he start the car to get some AC."

"Did it work?"

"Yes."

"Good for him."

"He managed to move his foot off the accelerator. It's a good sign, that he was able to do that."

I nodded.

Wade seemed a little more animated after his conversation with Amos.

"I think I know how the accident happened," he told me, nodding. His eyes were sharp. He had the hint of a smile. "I assumed it was all my fault, but, uh, Amos played his part as well. Not that it helps me much."

"Okay," I said, noncommittal.

"AND, now I know why you were in the back seat, instead of up front with him!"

"How do you know I was in the back seat?"

"The door that got ripped off when the car was rolling -- it was the rear door on the passenger side, okay? So, you were thrown out, or fell out, or got out, or something. Maybe you crawled a little. It doesn't matter.

"The thing is, Amos says that the passenger seat belt in front is broken. If you sat there, it wouldn't be safe. In fact, if you HAD sat up front, you'd probably be dead right now. Or worse. Besides that, Amos could have gotten a ticket if a cop saw you without your seat belt. Last of all, the alert, the beeping, would never stop, because you wouldn't be able to lock your seat belt. That's why he told you to climb in the back."

It sounded complicated, but since I didn't remember, I didn't comment.

Wade actually smiled for a moment, which was nice, and I was just about to ask him what he'd worked out about the accident, when the ambulance siren cut through the air.

Wade had requested two ambulances, but they only sent one, along with a police car, and a pickup truck from the fire department.

The firemen set to work right away, prying Amos' car open with the jaws of life. I wanted to watch, but the EMTs popped me onto a stretcher and pushed me deep into the ambulance, where they checked me over. "Gotta get you out of the sun," they said. "You're pretty red already, and you're going to get redder." Blood pressure, temperature, blood oxygen... They checked for broken bones, cataloged my bruises, and... "You've got a nasty bump on your head there," one of them told me, pointing above my right eye. "It's about the size of a golf ball." I cautiously felt around the edges of the thing, and told him, "Hopefully it's only half a golf ball, right? I mean, I don't want half a lump inside, going the other way, am I right?"

The EMT laughed, told me I was "a trip," but he didn't answer my question.

While one EMT looked me over, another checked Wade, who sat on the edge of the open back door. While the EMT treated Wade's cuts and scrapes, a policeman stood nearby, watching, as if he expected Wade to jump up and run off. I could have told him that Wade wasn't going anywhere -- and not only because there was nowhere to go. Wade's body language read dejection, resignation, acceptance of his fate.

Outside, out of sight, the jaws gave off a noise like a big electric mixer, punctuated with loud and soft pops. The pops were the doors being pried off, and the roof being pried up.

I kept asking for progress reports, but the EMTs pretended not to hear me. Before they were done extracting Amos, a medevac helicopter landed, and in the midst of the roar of the rotors the policeman bent forward and spoke into Wade's ear. Wade nodded. He gave me a grim wave goodbye, his lips pressed together in a tight line. Then he offered his wrists to the policeman, who cuffed him and led him away.

The EMTs waited for the helicopter to carry Amos up into the sky before they closed up the ambulance and drove me to Robbins.

 

---

 

The ride was pretty quiet. The EMTs talked basketball. Every so often they'd shine a penlight into my eyes and have me squeeze their hands. "Neuro checks," they explained. I closed my eyes for a moment, and one of them nudged me. "No sleeping!" he said.

Everything changed the minute we hit the city. "Time to make some noise!" the driver sang out. He switched on the sirens and lights. He kicked the ambulance into high gear, driving faster through the city streets than he had along the desert highway. He also seemed to favor sharp turns, twists, swerves, and bumps. I'm sure he drove over some curbs, and he leaned heavily on the horn -- a horn that didn't toot or honk. It let off a rock-splitting, get-the-hell-out-of-my-way blast.

By the time we arrived at the Emergency Room, my heart was already racing, but if we were in high gear before, we were in overdrive now. After a whip-sharp turn, the ambulance driver violently jerked the transmission into reverse and backed rapidly toward the admitting doors.

One of the EMTs kicked open the back door of the ambulance. In response, two enormous, lead-weighted Emergency-Room doors flung themselves open. Happily, no one stood in the path of those doors; they would have been tossed aside like rag dolls.

Six people dressed in blue scrubs streamed from the opening, converging on me, everyone talking at once -- each of them talking with each other, over each other... none of them talking to me. But then again, I had nothing to say. I was overwhelmed. I felt, more than anything else, like a freshly delivered package. Grabbing hold of the sheet beneath me, they shifted me with a one-two-three, sliding me sideways from the flimsy ambulance stretcher to a more solid hospital gurney. They didn't give me a word of warning or so much as a by-your-leave. Zip! There you go!

But it was fine. I mean, no one was unkind or unprofessional. It was all very quick, impersonal, unemotional, efficient. They wheeled me into a small, curtained-off area and hooked me up to a heart monitor. They snapped a clothespin-like thing on my finger to track my blood oxygen level. And of course I still had the IV that the EMT had started in the ambulance earlier.

Once all that was settled, they drew curtains around me and left me alone. There were curtains on three sides, and a solid wall behind me.

I listened. The flurry of activity I experienced on arrival seemed to have calmed down, died down to nearly nothing. Behind the curtain on my right, a man coughed softly. Probably an old man. I didn't hear anything behind the curtain on my left. I turned my head every which-way, looking for a clock, listening for any tell-tale sounds. I didn't see a clock. I didn't hear any noise that I could try and decipher.

What was supposed to happen next? I didn't know. Did they expect me to call out? To volunteer some kind of information? There wasn't any button or signal near me, that I could press and ask for help. But then again, it wasn't help that I needed. It was information. Clarity. Explanations.

After a few minutes a young woman with an honest-to-God clipboard ambled in. "Deeny Mason?" she asked.

"I guess so," I replied. She gave me the stink eye, so I amended my response to "Yes."

"Date of birth?"

No answer came to me. "I don't know," I told her. "Honestly, I don't know."

She lowered her clipboard and fixed me with a baleful look. I shrugged. Her expression didn't change.

"Do you have your insurance card?"

"No."

"Do you have insurance?"

I licked my lips thoughtfully, then: "Sorry, but-- I don't know. I swear."

She cut me off by handing me the clipboard and a pen. "Sign down here."

It was a brief paragraph stating that I would be responsible for the payment of whatever treatment I received not otherwise covered by insurance. I hesitated a moment, then did a quick series of scribbles. It would have to do.

To my surprise, she seemed satisfied by my meaningless scrawl. Now that she had it, she pushed her way out through the curtains and was gone.

As soon as she left, the curtain parted again and a small blonde nurse walked in. "Hi, I'm Emma," she told me, and gave me a quick smile. "How are we doing today?"

"Fine," I replied, automatically.

"Good. Are you in any pain? Do you need anything? Is anyone with you?"

So many questions! "I, uh, yes. I have a headache. It seems worse now that I'm out of the sun. And I have these bruises on my left arm and leg. They don't hurt. I mean, they don't hurt yet... anyway. And I'm really really thirsty."

"Okay, I'll get you some water. Let me just get your vitals first."

She took my blood pressure. Jotted down some numbers from the machines on the wall behind me. Then, "So... Deeny Mason. What's Deeny short for? I'm guessing Denise."

"Oh!" I exclaimed. That kind of made sense. Deeny, Denise. I could see it.

"Is that right?" she asked, her eyes bright, thinking she'd hit on the right answer.

"I don't know," I replied. I felt a little guilty, as though I'd let her down.

In fact, her face fell, a little bit. "Sorry," I told her. "I don't remember."

She gave me a concerned look. Her eyes went up to my forehead. "You have quite a bump on your forehead," she said. "Does it hurt?"

"I have a bad headache," I repeated. "I don't know if it's from the bump or from the sun. Can you give me something for it?"

"The doctor will have to write a prescription."

"I'm not asking for anything serious," I told her. "I don't need a prescription. I just want aspirin or tylenol, that's all."

"Sorry -- the doctor will have to see you first." As she spoke, she slowly stretched her hand out toward my face. "Can I--" and she touched the bump.

A blinding flash of pure white light and a searing, red-hot pain drove through my head. It felt like a madman lifted an axe, hot and fresh from a blast furnace, and drove it with all his might, slicing my head neatly in two, from forelock to brain stem.

It was not as much fun as it sounds.

"MotherFUCKER!" I screamed. It was completely involuntary on my part, I swear. Emma, her face gone white, jumped backward, throwing herself into the curtains and nearly falling. The old man in the next bed, the man behind the curtain, jumped. I heard him bodily lift off his gurney and drop back heavily to earth. "Language!" he exclaimed.

I didn't bother to excuse myself. For one thing, I was speechless, as I waited, gasping, for the blinding pain to subside. For another, Emma was busy babbling effusive, barely articulate, apologies, more enough for the both of us.

"Yes, it does hurt," I assured her, once I was capable of speaking.

"Would you like some ice?" she offered.

"No," I said, feeling my patience wearing thin. "I just want aspirin, tylenol, ibu-pro-whatever it is. That's all I want."

"Okay," she conceded. "I'll... uh, go get you some water and make sure the doctor comes right away."

I closed my eyes and covered my face with my hands, careful to not touch the swelling above my right eye.

The sound of the curtain swished open and closed again, telling me that Emma was gone. Immediately after her departure, I heard the swish-open/swish-close once again, so I opened my eyes and peered through my fingers to see who was there.

A short, stocky man had stepped inside. He wore khaki pants and a shirt with red and white horizontal stripes beneath a long white lab coat. His eyeglasses had round, wire rims that blended into the wrinkles of his face. His hands were blocky, stubby, with thick fingers. A stethoscope hung around his neck, and his name tag read "Dr. Thistlewaite, Neurosurgery."

I smiled when I noticed he was wearing bright green sneakers. I liked him right away. He didn't exactly look like a garden gnome, but he put me in mind of one.

"Hi there, hello," I said, before he had a chance to open his mouth. I really wanted to get in there first. "Are you my doctor? Can you give me something for my headache? It really hurts. I asked the nurse, but she said she couldn't."

His smile broke a little. "I'm not-- uh--"

"I'm not asking for oxy-condone--"

"Oxycontin," he corrected.

"Whatever! All I want is, like, tylenol or aspirin. Something simple. My head is splitting, and when I talk it makes it worse."

He hesitated, but after looking me in the face a moment, he said, "Hold on. I'll get you something. Don't go anywhere." He left quickly and returned a few moments later followed by a tall, skeletally thin male nurse. He held a shallow pleated paper cup that contained two white pills. In his other hand he had a huge, big-gulp-size container filled with ice water. I tossed the pills in my mouth and drank mouthful after mouthful of water.

"You were thirsty, weren't you!" the nurse marvelled.

"I woke up in the desert this morning," I informed him. His eyes widened. I'm not sure he believed me. It hardly mattered, though: he took the empty pill cup from me, and left.

Thistlewaite nodded, smiling. "I hope that helps."

"Thanks. The water helps a lot."

"Good. I'm Dr Thistlewaite. I heard you're having trouble remembering things."

"You could say that. Yes, some things. Most things. Practically everything."

"You were in a car accident this morning?"

"It seems that way."

"But you don't remember being in an accident?"

"No. I remember the aftermath. I saw the crashed cars. I talked to the drivers."

"Do you remember anything that happened before the accident?"

I stopped and considered his question. I tried to look into my memory. Mentally, the effort is a lot like looking back over your shoulder, except that you're really looking behind your eyes. Usually there's plenty to see. This time, though, I came up empty. I looked. I really looked. I asked myself. I wondered. I looked up. I looked down. I searched my mind. It was like walking through a house, a big house, full of large, empty rooms. It was clear that things were missing -- there was no furniture; there was nothing on the walls. But I couldn't tell you *what* was missing. I had no idea what was supposed to be there.

"No, nothing," I told him, feeling the beginnings of a state of existential alarm.

"It's okay," he said, in a calming tone. "Don't worry. Memory loss like yours is usually temporary. When I say temporary I mean that it's usually brief, like days, or even hours. It will all come back to you."

"Is there any way you can speed it up?" I asked him. "Are there any pills I could take? Or maybe hypnosis? Or electric shocks?"

"Good lord, no!" he exclaimed. "Electroshock would likely have the opposite effect -- make you forget even more than you have already -- and hypnosis is not recommended. You'd be as likely to recover fantasies as actual memories. The best way to go is to simply let your memories come back on their own."

"And if they don't come back?" I asked.