How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets (31 page)

H
E ISN’T IN a recovery room, which is good. He’s in a private room with lavender walls and tasteful sconce lighting, a television suspended from the ceiling by a large bracket, and a tray table with some food on it: green Jell-O, oatmeal, cottage cheese, juice. Invalid food.

He doesn’t feel differently. He feels angry.

His parents aren’t there. No nurses, no doctors. He climbs out of bed, which is difficult because his right arm is immobilized in a sling that’s held tight to his body. He feels a drug-induced hangover. He’s still got an IV in his wrist and a bladder catheter slithered up his urethra. He checks the label on the IV drip. Saline, thank God, no more narcotics. He reaches underneath his gown and slides the catheter out slowly, not an especially pleasant sensation, but something that has to be done.

He tries the phone, but he can’t get an outside line. He buzzes the nurse’s station. A pretty Hispanic woman soon arrives.

“You’re awake. How do you feel?”

“Did they operate on me?”

“Operate? No.”

“Where are my parents. Are they in the waiting room or something?”

“No one was here when I came on duty. Are you sure you have visitors?”

“Trust me. I have visitors.”

“They must have gone home.”

“Their home is in Seattle. Kind of a long trip.”

“I don’t know.”

No. She wouldn’t know.

“This phone doesn’t work.”

“You have to get it turned on.”

“Is there a payphone around here?”

“There’s one in the basement, right next to the cafeteria.”

“Forget it, ” Evan grumbles.

He looks around the room and immediately spots the cabinet. He’s been in enough hospital rooms to know that in each there’s a secret cabinet with all the good medical stuff. Cotton balls, bandages, rubber gloves, face masks. He opens the door and digs around. Alcohol swab, cotton ball, and a Band-Aid.

“What are you doing?” the nurse asks, concerned by his pillaging of her secret cabinet.

“Removing my IV, ” Evan says.

“You can’t do that.”

Evan ignores her and takes a moment to assess the difficulty of his project. He could ask the nurse for help—she could do it in a second— but she doesn’t look like the type, if he can divine her character from her appearance: all business. His right arm is held tight to his body by the sling, but his hand and fingers are free, so he should be able to manage. It’s like a sequencing test in kindergarten. First, he tears open the Band-Aid wrapper with his teeth and holds the Band-Aid between his lips while he removes the adhesive backing. Next, he holds his left hand to his right and disconnects the vein catheter from the IV feeder tube. Then, he peels the tape off of his wrist, exposing the tube entering his vein. Slowly, he eases out the thin plastic straw. Ah. It feels like someone’s squeezing a balloon inside his arm.

“You can’t do that, ” the nurse says, but she says it without authority; clearly, she’s fascinated by Evan’s sequencing abilities.

With the tube removed, he holds a cotton ball over the bleeding wound. Finally, he takes the Band-Aid from his lips and applies it to his wrist, holding the cotton ball in place. Finally, he takes the catheter and drops it in the red bio-hazard box on the wall.

“I could be in Cirque du Soleil, ” he says ironically.

“I’m calling security, ” the nurse warns.

“Why?”

“You can’t remove your own IV.”

“First of all, it was saline, ” Evan explains.“Nothing vital. Second, I’m checking out and I don’t think the hospital would want me to walk out with its precious portable coat hanger. It probably lists for four hundred fifty dollars or something.”

“You can’t check out.”

“Why not?” With his good arm, he rummages through the closet next to the night table. His clothes are rolled up on the top shelf. He removes the roll and places it on the bed.

“The doctor has to sign off.”

“That’s your problem, not mine.”

“You can’t leave without the doctor’s approval.”

On the one hand, Evan feels like an asshole, but he’s also a little mad that no one ever teaches these people anything. You can’t keep someone in a hospital against their will. It’s unethical and illegal. If a patient wants to leave, he can leave. The doctor does not have to approve.

“Do you have my insurance imprint?” Evan asks.

The nurse shrugs. That’s a yes.

“That’s all you need. If my insurance chooses not to cover this because I left the hospital AMA—against medical advice—they know how to find me, I promise. The hospital will get its money.”

He unrolls his belongings. He raises his boxer shorts by the waistband. The leg holes have been cut up the side, rendering them unwearable.

“You need to sign an AMA release form, ” the nurse says.

“No, I don’t. Did they cut
all
my clothes?”

He unrolls his jeans, which are sliced up the outside seam of each leg.

“Do I get reimbursed for these?” he asks.

“You have to sign a release.”

He flaps his jeans, exasperated.

“No, nurse, ” he says, “I don’t have to sign anything. Listen, I’ve gone through this before, I know my rights. I’ve walked out of bigger hospitals in bigger cities. There’s nothing you can do to keep me here short of trying to kill me with a scalpel, and then
you’ll
be the one security is looking for. Okay? So, could you do me a favor and help me with this?”

He grabs a roll of medical tape out of the cabinet. He slips into his ripped jeans and tries to tape the seams together as best he can. The nurse doesn’t help. He manages to get them strapped on, but they look pretty silly. He reaches for his T-shirt, but it, too, has been shredded beyond repair. So he takes a pair of scissors from the cabinet and crops his gown at the waist. His socks are cut, as are the laces of his sneakers.

“What is it with you people always cutting my clothes off?”

“Standard procedure in cases of seizure, ” the nurse says. She hasn’t moved to help Evan, but she hasn’t moved to have him arrested either, so that’s a step in the right direction.

“Well, it’s a stupid standard, ” Evan says.

“Have you ever been an emergency medic?” the nurse snaps. “Have you ever been on the floor of an ER? There’s a lot of tension and a lot of stress. The last thing you need to worry about is someone’s blue jeans.”

Evan looks at her coldly. There are a lot of buttons you can push with Evan; that’s not one you should try.

“Have you ever had a status seizure?” he asks her softly.

She shakes her head.

“Then what can you tell me about tension and stress that I don’t already know?”

The nurse withdraws momentarily.

He glances around the room one more time. His wallet and money and keys aren’t there. His parents must have them, or they’re in the hospital safe. There’s nothing else of his here. He’s ready to go. He walks toward the nurse.

“Are you going to call security?” he asks.

She doesn’t answer.

“When I was twenty, ” Evan says, “I had a seizure in a restaurant. A status seizure. Someone called nine-one-one. The medics came. They thought I was choking on a french fry. They thought I was seizing because I was in shock. So they gave me a tracheotomy—they were excited, it was probably the first tracheotomy they’d ever done.
After
they got the tube in, they saw that I was wearing a Medic Alert bracelet.
After
they had cut my throat open, they decided to check to see if I had any jewelry identifying my medical condition.”

He pulls down the neck of his gown and reveals to her his tracheotomy scar, the one Mica was so desperate to know about. A thin, two-inch line of scar tissue just below his Adam’s apple.

“Every night, when I wash my face before I go to bed . . . every morning when I shave . . . every time I button up a shirt in the mirror, I look at this scar. And do you know what I think? I think:Why do they need to cut my shoelaces? Why can’t they just untie them?”

“I’m sorry, ” she says, surprising Evan.

“You don’t have to be sorry, ” he says.“But please let me go and find my son.”

She doesn’t respond. He walks past her and she doesn’t say a word. He reaches the elevators and pushes the button. When the doors open, he looks back. She’s standing in the doorway to his room, watching him.

H
E RIDES THE clean, spacious, brightly lit elevator to the ground floor and marches down the disinfected hallway. He makes his way through the main lobby, newly remodeled, full of local artwork, large acrylic-on-canvases of tomato fields. He sees the outside beckoning him, the bright sunshine, the air that has not been filtered through the hospital’s superior air-filtering system. He is almost free.

But he’s stopped short. Before he can escape the hospital, he’s stopped by his mother and his father, who are entering the lobby together. They have come for him, but he’s already left.

Evan sees the look of surprise on his mother’s face and the look of anger on his father’s face so clearly, he’s sure he could paint them with acrylic on canvas if he wanted.

“Where are you going?” Carl asks.

“Where were you?” Evan asks in return.

“We were getting lunch, ” Louise explains.

“Where are you going?” Carl repeats.

“I’m leaving. Where’s my wallet? Where are my keys?”

A moment of silence.

“Here.”

Louise has Evan’s personal affects. She hands them over.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

Evan hesitates. He doesn’t feel comfortable with them because they are the enemy. They want to stop him, make him stay in the hospital, keep him from doing what he needs to do. He doesn’t want to be near them. Still, they look so tired; they’ve been up all night.

“To get some clothes, ” he says.

“Where?”

“At Tracy’s house.”

“How are you getting there?”

“Taxi, ” Evan says.

“Let us drive you, ” Louise offers.

“No.”

“Please, Evan.”

“No.”

Louise moves to Evan’s side and touches his arm.

“
Please
.”

Evan would rather take a cab, leave his parents behind. But it’s hard for him to refuse his mother, especially to her face. So he nods, and they all go out to the parking lot to find Carl’s black Mercedes.

• • •

NO ONE SPEAKS as they drive to Tracy’s. He’ll take a cab to Walla Walla; he has no idea where his car is, but he imagines it isn’t in very good shape. And he really can’t drive now, anyway. It was pretty stupid of him to have tried it before. He’s lucky he isn’t dead. Look at the bright side.

Evan directs Carl to Tracy’s house and they park out front. Evan starts to get out of the car.

“Can we come in?” Louise asks timidly.

Funny, he assumed they would. Nice of her to ask.

“Yeah, ” he says, heading up the walk, his parents following.

They step inside.

“It’s quite nice, ” Louise says, surveying the living room quickly. Carl is silent, smoldering.

“Make yourselves at home, ” Evan says as cheerfully as he can. “I’m sure there’s some spoiled milk in the refrigerator, and I
know
I saw some Cheerios the last time I looked.”

Louise smiles painfully at Evan’s bad joke, while Carl ignores it, settling himself heavily on the couch.

Evan goes into Tracy’s room to change. Fortunately, he has a shirt in his bag that’s large enough to fit over his sling. After he struggles into his clothes, he calls Ellen. But as he anticipated, there is no answer at the Smith’s. Not even an answering machine. Which leaves him no other choice. He has to go and find Dean himself; he opens the Yellow Pages and calls a car service.

He returns to the living room in time to catch Louise examining a framed photograph she’s picked up from the mantel. It’s a shot of Tracy and Dean outside somewhere, a horse ranch or something. It’s a pretty recent picture. When she hears Evan approach, she guiltily replaces the frame.

“It’s a lovely house, ” she says.“Tracy did a nice job decorating it.”

Evan smiles. His mother is such a liar. Tracy didn’t decorate it, she used it. It’s a house of comfort and utility. It isn’t decorated. Not like Carl and Louise’s house with its color-coded rooms and door knobs that match the cutlery.

“Dean is very good-looking, ” Louise goes on, gesturing toward the photograph.“That’s him, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“He’s very handsome. Carl, did you see?”

“No, ” Carl grumbles, unmoved, making it clear to Evan and Louise that he has no intention of seeing.

“And Tracy took quite good care of herself, ” Louise blindly continues, pushing through Carl’s antagonism, ignoring Evan’s impatience, just trying to get a firm hold on the situation, which, after fourteen years of secrecy, is suddenly, awkwardly, writhing in her lap. “I don’t see a wrinkle on her face. It thinned some, didn’t it? Her face, I mean. It thinned out since you were in high school. She had a layer of baby fat then, didn’t she?”

She glances back at Evan, who stands motionless, struck by his mother’s odd presence. She seems old in a way that he’s never noticed before.

“Say, ” Carl blurts out, grabbing the attention of the room.“That sure was a fast one you pulled, Evan. Leaving the hospital before they could reset that bone. That’s a real ‘I gotcha!’”

“How’s that?” Evan asks.

“Well, you know, I made arrangements to keep you there. I wanted you observed. I’m a little concerned about this seizure business again. I thought your medication was handling it.”

“It is.”

“I suppose not.”

“A breakthrough seizure is just that, Dad. It breaks through. Get it? You could keep me comatose on your medication and a breakthrough seizure would still break through. That’s why they call them ‘breakthrough seizures.’ Pretty simple concept.”

Carl nods, pursing his lips tightly. “Pretty simple concept, ” he repeats.“And now, suddenly, it’s
my
medication?”

“Did I say that?” Evan asks, oh so innocently.

“Yes.”

“Well. Mea culpa, Dad.
Mea culpa
.”

Carl blinks hard. Evan tries not to enjoy watching his father strain to contain his emotions.

Which is what his father does for a living, after all. He’s a containment specialist. Contain the disease. Isolate and remove. Slice and dice. Sew it up. You can do that with emotions, too, if you want. Don’t cry, don’t laugh, don’t get mad. Contain it. Lower the temperature of your emotion until it stops beating. Put yourself on an artificial heart, a mechanical pump. And there you go. Just once, Evan would like to see his father blow up. Just once.

But he doesn’t get the chance. Louise jumps into the conversation, hoping to head off any potential conflict.

“Where are you going now?” she asks Evan quickly.“Home? We could drive you. Maybe you could see this doctor of yours—”

“I’m going to get Dean, ” Evan interrupts.

“From his grandmother? From Tracy’s mother?”

“Yes. So if you’ll please excuse me . . . Stay as long as you like.”

Evan starts to leave.

“We can drive you, ” Louise offers. “Carl. We can drive Evan, can’t we?”

“I suppose we have to, ” Carl says, rousting himself from the couch.

“No, ” Evan says. He glances out the front window. No car yet. Damn. He really has to go.

“Well, you can’t very well drive yourself, ” Carl says sternly.“Not in your condition.”

“I’m not driving myself, I called a car.”

“We can save you the carfare, ” Louise pipes in.

“No, Mom, ” Evan groans.“Dean is in some trouble and I don’t want you two around. It’s nothing personal.” Or is it?

“What kind of trouble?” Louise asks.

Evan roars in frustration. “What part do you want to know about, Mom? The fact that his grandfather who beats him has just moved back into the house, or that he was picked up last night for possession of marijuana?”

“Tracy’s father? . . .”

“Yes. He’s a child-abuser. I have to go get Dean.”

“Well, your father—”

“No.”

“What about this marijuana?” Carl asks.

“Yes, ” Louise says, “does he have an addiction? Is this an ongoing thing? Maybe he should be in treatment. Your father knows many doctors who could help—”

“Mom!” Evan snaps.“It wasn’t his pot. It was mine. He stole my pot to show his friends. He’s never smoked pot before, he told me.”

“
Your
marijuana?” Louise takes an involuntary step back, horrified by this news.

Evan throws up his good hand.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Mom, you know I smoke pot. I’ve been smoking it for years.”

She holds her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide, looking at Evan in such shock.

“Dad, tell her, for Christ’s sake. I take it for seizures, Mom. I know you guys know about this. Dr. Melon is a New Age marijuana neurologist. Dad, you know. Everyone knows. Why do I have to deal with this now? I have to go get Dean.”

Evan looks to his father in a plea for sanity, but Carl rebuffs him, takes the opportunity to stick it to Evan, lowers his eyes and doesn’t say a word. A little dig at his own son. You can’t miss Carl’s son; he’s the one twisting in the wind.

But Evan knows that his parents know. They have to know. Carl, at least, has to know. He knows every doctor in Seattle. He even endorsed Evan’s switching to Dr. Melon. Certainly, Carl knows about Dr. Melon’s medicine of choice.

Evan looks again to his mother, who’s a quivering mass of near-tears, shaking, trembling at this unexpected news—that not only is her son a pathetic epileptic with a broken collarbone and a hidden fourteen-year-old son, but that he’s a chronic substance-abuser to boot. It’s too much for her.

He glances toward the door. The car has arrived, thank God.

“Look, I have to go get Dean. The car is waiting.”

“Evan, ”Carl says calmly but forcefully as Evan starts out, “before you go.”

Before you go.
There’s always something, isn’t there?

“In light of all these recent events, your seizure—which carries with it an automatic license suspension—”

“I know, Dad. Dr. Melon has already suspended it.”

“Yes, well, with your car being totaled, and now this revelation that Dean has been arrested on possession and that you smoke marijuana regularly . . .”

“What’s your point, Dad?”

“I believe that we should revisit our earlier proposal that you and Dean move in with us. I don’t know what your relationship is with this girl of yours, but from what I gather, she’s very successful in her job. I’m sure she doesn’t want to spend her days looking after a fourteen-year-old boy.”

“
I’m
looking after the fourteen-year-old boy, Dad. He’s my son.”

Carl makes a face. He looks to Louise, who’s snapped out of her funk and is now glaring at Evan.

“I don’t see any other way, ” she says.“No other way.”

“You guys don’t change, do you?” Evan asks. “I don’t need you to fix it. All you do is try to fix everything in my life. But I don’t need you to fix it. What I need is your support, your faith. I need you to
help
me. I don’t need you to
fix
me.”

“We raised you, ” Louise says.

“What does
that
have to do with it?”

“She’s right, ” Carl agrees.

“She’s right about what? You get to run my life because you raised me? That’s bullshit.”

“That’s a shitty thing to say to your mother, ” Carl barks.

“But it’s not a shitty thing to say to you, is it, Dad? Because you know that it’s true.”

“Now you listen—”

“No,
you
listen! I’m leaving now to get Dean!”

He storms toward the door.

“Any concern for your collarbone?” Carl shouts after him. “They want to insert screws—but you have no concern about that, do you?”

“No concern.”

“How about your blood levels? Any thoughts about seeing your neurologist? Or
any
neurologist for that matter?”

“Nope.”

Carl nods slowly, angrily, chewing his lip. Evan reaches for the doorknob.

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” Carl asks.

Evan stops, hand on knob, and turns to face his father.

“Hey, Dad, ” Evan says sweetly, “see this? This is the front door. Be sure to close it on your way out.”

Carl seethes.

“I hope your son never treats you like you’ve treated me, ” he hisses.

“My son won’t treat me like that because I haven’t treated him like you’ve treated me, ” Evan fires back.

“You haven’t treated him like anything at all, have you, Evan? True to your colors. You back off and let someone else raise him, then step in when all is said and done. If it doesn’t work out, whose fault is it, Evan? Not yours, I guess.”

“Hey, Dad, let me show you something, ” Evan says, taunting. “See this? This is the front door—”

Carl rushes to Evan and sticks a finger in his face. At last, a reaction!

“Listen to me, you little shit—”

“Carl!” Louise shouts.“Evan! Stop fighting, right now.”

“We aren’t fighting, Mom. Dad is just trying to explain to me why it’s my fault that my life is worthless.”

“You make your own choices, ” Carl mutters.

“Like epilepsy was my choice, ” Evan snaps.

“You ran into the street!” Carl shouts.“You ran into the street, that was your choice. It’s too bad you have the personality of a daredevil, Evan, but you do, and you ran into the street because you thought nothing could hurt you. You never thought anything could hurt you.”

“I ran into the street for Charlie!”

“You made the choice—”

“I ran into the street for Charlie!” Evan yells again.

“You learned your lesson, didn’t you. A perfectly good life you had, and you threw it in the gutter, didn’t you. Almost out of spite, I think sometimes.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yes! Out of spite.”

“Yes, Dad, out of spite! Out of spite for you. Because I hated you. I never wanted to be a doctor. I gave myself epilepsy so I wouldn’t have to be the son you wanted me to be.”

“You were never going to be a doctor, Evan. Never. You’re too selfish. You don’t have empathy.”

“Goddamn you! Goddamn you, Dad! I have so much empathy, I
bleed
empathy. It’s you who doesn’t have any empathy. It’s funny that the world’s greatest heart surgeon doesn’t even have a heart!”

“Oh my God, ” Louise shrieks.“Would you two stop?”

“They both look at her.

“Stop it! Stop it! We’ll leave, Evan. Is that what you want? We’ll leave. Just stop fighting.”