My Heart Is a Drunken Compass (12 page)

That first morning, at 4:30 a.m. in Seattle, sitting on the edge of my bed after Robert's phone call, the idea was growing in my head that my younger brother was dead.

My mind was lacerating my soul. Derek was dead. Dying. Hovering somewhere in between.

– No, came another voice. We don't know that yet.

– An unguarded moment, and he slips by.

– No, he hasn't. He hasn't slipped by.

– When was the last time you talked to him? Was that the last time you'll ever talk to him?

– No. Don't think like that.

– A gin-soaked boy. Dead on his feet.

– Stop it. Stop thinking like that.

– That poor kid. We did this to him. You, me, and Dan.

– No, he made his own choices. He would never listen to you or Dan. He was a pigheaded little prick after he went to college. You couldn't stop this. So stop this.

– Hardheaded. Hah. Hope that helped him.

– He's a Martinez boy. He can take more than most. Even him.

It was my reptile brain and my higher functions engaged in spiritual warfare, in a competition to make it somehow my fault, my responsibility that Derek was in the hospital with his brain pan crushed in. It was hand-to-hand combat, from the deepest Catholic catacombs and programming, and totally biological: Your basest impulses fighting their governors as two independent voices, in vicious disagreement, one determined to make you carry the guilt of the consequences of the actions of others, and the other trying to maintain your sanity, your social function.

These two forces slowly erupted into war, raging barbarically on one another like fighting, snarling dogs, as my mind tried its best to get wrapped around the idea of a world with my younger brother no longer in it. Two voices, two impulses who could each hold a disparate and contradicting idea and believe it wholly, at exactly the same time.

And my mind was never the same, after that.

Back in my apartment, and on the edge of that same bed, at 4:45 a.m., the explosions continued:

– Derek's soft. You know that. He's the third boy; they're usually weaker, effeminate.

– It's my job as his older brother to constantly check his toughness. It's what older brothers do.

– We did this to him. Me and you and Dan. We gave him this need, this idea to fuck himself up like this, fuck himself up to this point.

– How do you figure that?

– The nights you went down there, down to Texas, and played like you were some sort of guru? You did that, didn't you? When he was a kid? The way you and Dan drank in front of him? How Dan drank during the football games, and you'd come home and tell him about your life in Seattle, appealing to that hero-worship?

– Fuck you.

– How you told him that it took all of that one-hit wonder band from Seattle to replace you at the
Stranger
, after you quit? How was he not going to be amazed by that, and follow your lead, or feel entirely intimidated by his older brothers?

– Goddamn you, you bastard.

– Remember that night you were drunk and Dan passed out, and you drove Derek to the Whataburger, all the while in character, and then had a 3:00 a.m. picnic on the tennis courts of the apartment complex Mom was living in, and you and Derek sat there eating your Whataburgers with jalapeños, and he listened to you, enraptured, while you told him to follow his own impulses, his own ideas, because he was smarter than everyone here? You think he wasn't going to listen to you?

– Just fucking stop it.

– Do you remember later when you told him to rescind that first command and do what people were telling him, to get through school and get a degree, but it was kinda too late?

– Just fucking stop. Just stop. Now.

– Remember how he poured the soy sauce on the pad thai, when he was a kid?

– Fuck you.

– And you yelled at him?

– Fuck you. Please stop.

– He was just a kid.

– Stop.

– He was . . . what? Nine? Ten? In Seattle? Eating Thai food for the first time. No distinction in Texas, is there? It's all Chinese. He didn't know any better. So he did what he always did, with Chinese. Poured the soy sauce, ruined the noodles.

– Please.

– Poured the soy sauce, and you yelled at him. You fucking prick.

– Please.

– Now he's dead.

– Jesus. You fucker.

– And you put him there. All he ever wanted to do was to be a part of your little club, you and Dan, his bigger brothers' club. And now he's dead.

– Jesus.

– All he wanted was to impress you and Dan, and look at where that put him.

It went on for hours, the razor blades flying through my head as I sat on the side of that bed, alone in my apartment while the sun rose outside and people began moving around, and it was a Saturday morning outside and life out there went on, while it stopped for me, that morning, waiting for news, waiting to know if he would live or die. And if he lived, in what way.

My sisters called, in rotation, exchanging information, the latest news, holding onto hope, trying to keep from thinking the worst. I sat on the phone that morning mostly with Mare, a new mother, and I could hear Mare sniffling, also recently awoken with the shock, and we just sat there for minutes at a time, not saying a word, just listening to each other's silence as we sat and processed what had happened to one of us, needing not so much to have anything to say or hear, but only to have the other person in immediate contact, nearby, just the warmth of familiar beasts, even if it was over a cell phone.

Every member of my family was making their way to Austin, to St. David's Hospital, from every compass point within Texas. (Texas has its own compass, as a part of its joining the Union.) Even my oldest sister, Sylvia, who disapproved wholesale of Derek's “lifestyle” in Austin, was driving there with her husband and youngest child, meaning it was no longer a secret. Our little brother's addictions had grown completely out of control, and a permissive mother could no longer hide the harm he was doing to himself, and he'd ended up here, in a hospital, in intubation, with everyone descending into Austin on an emergency Saturday morning.

Everyone, that is, except for me, in Seattle. I never made it there.

The neurologist had to wait to perform the surgery because Derek's blood alcohol level—on its own—would have killed most people, he said.

My family was gathered in the waiting room and it was now morning there, and I received text messages every few minutes from everyone, but no news.

Someone was finally able to reach Dan, and he made the hour drive from San Antonio to the hospital, and even from the distance, I felt a little better because hospitals are what Dan does best; Dan and Marge together can translate indicators and shrugs and insinuations and the non-promises the doctors and nurses have down to . . . well . . . a science, and they're able to read the medical tea leaves better than anyone else. The family was serving its function. Except for me.

I don't remember the next few hours, or I didn't remember them, until I finally found a letter that I'd written to Derek that day. I don't remember writing it, and it wasn't because I was drinking or on any sort of drugs. I just don't remember writing it, because when I break, writing is what I seem to do. It's become my new home, my new place of security. Instead of praying, instead of asking for help in moments of crisis, I now write.

Here is the letter I wrote to Derek, edited for readability, and so that I don't piss off the
Virgens de Guadalupe or San Juan
. Or that other guy,Jesus, and his Dad.

You're unconscious right now, still. It's like, 10:00 a.m. there. 8:00 a.m. here. This is the same unconsciousness that took you since your fall earlier this morning. Lots of stories being told about how it happened, but who really knows what the truth will be, when it surfaces. And you just came out of surgery—brain surgery, Derek—where a neurologist removed a blood clot from the interior of your skull to relieve the pressure it was putting on your brain. And still you're unconscious, hopefully sleeping through this hell you've put us through.

It's a sort of revenge, isn't it? This is how you choose to tell us how severely you resent us. Because we tried to groom you to be the best of us. To hoist you on our shoulders too soon and be too smart and too strong and too much better than what we felt we were. You're making us pay because what we know to be “love” is instead toxic, and it poisons whoever we get in its crosshairs. Do you think we don't know that already?

You're unconscious as I'm writing this. In a way, I'm glad, because just outside your door is the congregation of the whole family Martinez, except for me, who has been sitting here in Seattle in a cringe since 4:30 this morning, unable to stand fully erect because I will vomit from the nerves and the anxiety I feel, and I'm thinking Syl might be the only one of us who might not be there, back in Corpus Christi. She's the only one whose whereabouts I have not heard. Even Dad and Gramma are driving up from Brownsville, Mare told me.

Mare called me at 4:45 a.m. 6:45 a.m. your time. You're still unconscious, alone in a hospital in Austin, TX. Mom and Robert can't find any flights out of Houston at this time; it's too early in the morning for the decent folk. I finally talk to Mom. She is crying, and I am crying. I am whimpering, because I feel I need to prepare myself to let you go. For you to die. To peel off the planet first. And I'm so sorry for you. And I love you so very much. The way I know you love me. How you would feel if you were getting the news that I had been killed, here in Seattle. And so we're crying and I hear Robert in the background talking to people and there's no one around, really, so they make a decision to drive from Houston to Austin instead.

I get up from my bed. In the bathroom, I turn the light on. I want to pray right now, but to do so, to earnestly make a petition to God, that would be totally dishonest. I resist. But I do, eventually.

I'm shaking, sitting on my couch, crying and trying not to cry, staring at the TV for an hour, not knowing what to do. I can't move. You're going to leave me today. It's 3:30 a.m. or so. Maybe 4:00 a.m. I have no sedatives, nothing to take to calm down. I start to sip on a beer. Mom and Robert will be in Austin soon. I turn the TV on to a PBS station and I can take in about 5 percent of the program, something about the Medicis and Florence, Italy, watching the camera explore the naked form of Michelangelo's David, and I'm trying not to think too negatively, hoping against hope that the phrase “. . . they want his family there” is because some decisions should not be left to punk college friends like your skinny little nothing friend Matt, whose wee little head I want to beat in at this point.

And that they weren't really indicating last rites. That's what I was thinking, Derek. That they needed Mom to decide whether to pull you off the respirator or not. You're unconscious. Not asleep, but unconscious. I'm sitting there on my couch, shaped like the top part of a question mark, unable to breathe, imagining the world without you in it anymore. Maybe you just need the peace of unconsciousness right now. I force myself to stop from thinking this line from Hamlet that's racing through my head: “And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,” but it's cycling through my head like a mantra. Instead I try the Our Father, but it doesn't help, because it leads into the Hail Mary, but that prayer to me has always been about accepting death, so I try to stop thinking in words, try to start thinking in images, in memories again.

How I loved you so, since you were born, and we waited in the hospital for you just like this, twenty-two years ago. I was thirteen. Nothing has changed in twenty-two years. We're still waiting on you.

This is going to be one of those nights, I start to recognize. The sort of night that separates your life into one of two categories: Before this night, and After this night. This is when I have to let you go. There are tears on the keyboard right now, on my hands and fingertips as I write this. I've been crying since 2:30 this morning. I don't think I've ever cried like this in my life.

I take four Benadryl at about 4:30 a.m. and force down another beer, play a loud epic movie just to have something to look at while I wait for sleep. It comes hard, slow, and painful because I don't want to wake up thinking about this, do not want that clarity of hypno-logic sleep where your heart, your subconscious, and your superconscious all align and give you great symbols for a clear few minutes, and you look into the mirror of your soul, because I don't think I can handle that today you're going to leave us—so maybe it's better to simply stay awake?

I crawl pathetically back into my messed-up bed around 5:30 or so and I lie there, and try to send my mind to you, in your unconscious state, and I grip the bedclothes like I'm holding your hand, and try to guide your way back home. I really think I can do this. You're not ready to leave yet, Derek. I'm “dreaming,” like the aboriginals in Australia. You're not done here. I imagine you in the darkness, and I'm grabbing your hand and I'm going to bring you home, Derek. You're not going yet. We're not ready. You're not ready. And I fall asleep with your hand in mine, and you're still unconscious in Texas.

I think I slept about an hour. From 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. Mom and Robert arrived at the hospital and talked to the doctor. He has CAT scans, and there's bleeding in your head, Derek. Your blood alcohol level is so high, they can't operate until you metabolize further. You're five times the legal limit in Texas, and the doctor scares the family by saying, “. . . He was two to three drinks from dying from alcohol poisoning.” Which might be fair to a normal person, but you're a Martinez boy. That translates to another twelve-pack, probably. I don't know how to compare that with real statistics. Perhaps it's ten times in a nanny state like Washington, especially with what I imagine your tolerance is now. I'm sure I've been there, too, and often. But I never took a dive off a stage on my head, Derek. The most damage I think I ever did was call some ex-girlfriends and mope, hoping for sex in the future. Stupid things that didn't involve Mom graying further and your family thinking that you were going to die today. I've never done the stuff you do, have such disregard for yourself and the people who love you. Doctor says this isn't a life-threatening situation, but they'll have to go in and remove the clot, for fear you might stroke. They're getting a neurological team together to cut a hole in your head.

Marge calls. And they're preparing to travel to Austin. I call Mare and Mark, and they are there, sturdy, reliable. Traveling with a very cranky Madison, who's imitating everything Mare says to me from the backseat.

I can't sit upright. I can't stop crying. You remember my friend Camille. Even she calls finally from Chicago, having received my message, puts the wood under my feet: Remember, the doctor said it wasn't life threatening. They don't say that if they can't mean it, she says. Millions of people have brain surgery every year. I don't mean to downplay it, she says, because it is serious, but it's survivable. He's going to pull through. This phrase, I have heard twice already this morning. Once from Mom: “He has to pull through. He has to pull through,” though in her tone I could hear she was making herself believe it, and then I heard it a second time from Amy, who strangely always knows what's going to happen, even when I insist I KNOW the outcome, whatever Amy says is usually the case (we call her “the Queen of Everything”), and she had said, at 5:00 that morning: “He's going to pull through. You Martinez boys are of hearty stock. Look at what happened to Dan's knee, how he's recovered. Plus Derek's really young. People are made out of rubber at that age. He's going to pull through. Stop killing yourself. Besides, he fell off the stage at a Public Enemy concert. That's not even a good story. Derek is better than that.” I think I smiled a little through my tears. Because I didn't want to spend my life trying to kick the shit out of Flavor Flav and Dr. Dre. Though I really think I would have.

Derek, you're the bloom on the Martinez tree. I'm just bark. All bark.

I remember to call and cancel my ride to work this morning with Bob and use my “cool” voice. We had planned to work at 7:00 a.m. and do a full shift this Saturday because we're that far behind. But I'm a complete mess here. And it's what? 8:00 a.m. now. Been up since 2:30. No point in going to work. I can't concentrate. I can hardly write this now.

Please wake up, Derek.

Please wake up. We have so much to do still. We've got to get started. It's getting late for us.

I love you so very much.

june

PS

I left messages for Andy McCarty, for Philippe in Los Angeles, hoping they don't call back because it's pretty unsettling to cry in front of your male friends. But I'm thinking I need to talk to Philippe's wife, Christine, because she's a psychiatrist and I think I might be breaking down now, think that I might be undone, that I might now, really be crazy, that this was actually it, that I might need evaluation, need help, need to be kept from feeling what I'm feeling. That I won't be able to integrate further, or ever again.

When I woke up again earlier, at 6:00 a.m., I looked out the window and started writing you a letter in my mind—not this one, another one—letting you go. It began like this:

“It's not raining today, the day you died, Derek Allen Martinez. For some reason, I always thought it would be raining.”

I couldn't get past that line.

Do you know that you're the one person—no, that's not true; one of two or three people—in my life that I always think about, to impress? That when I think something “smart” or do something extraordinary, that it's you that I'm working for? “Derek will like this.” “Derek will get this.” “Derek will think this is funny.” “Derek will understand how tough I am if I do this.” Do you understand that you're my unterhero? Reverse hero?

Destruction is easy, Derek. It's too simple. Though you've done a great job of it.

Let's grow up now. Please. I'm really tired. And I want to go home. But I have to grow home first, and then I can get us there. No matter where I am, no matter how small my apartment, you can always be a part of it. You have a safe place to come home to.