Page 17 of Brain Damage

“I mean it.”

Any trace of good humor evaporates from his face. Out of the corner of my eyes, I see his hands clench into fists, and a thrill of fear runs down my spine.

Why did I invite him upstairs? I should have met him at the restaurant. That’s Dating 101, Charly!

I stand there frozen, hoping he’ll leave without a fuss. And if he doesn’t…

“Do you…” He takes a breath, clearly trying to get control of his emotions. “Do you want to do it another time?”

Hell no. But I need to get him out of here, and it’s better to be diplomatic. “Sure. Give me a call.”

He nods slowly. I’m not sure if he believes me, but he turns around and leaves my apartment without a fuss. As soon as he’s gone, I block his number on my phone. I’d be an idiot to ever agree to another date with that man.

12

AFTER

Honest to God, my head is so itchy. I don’t know what is making it so itchy. Maybe somebody is coming in during the night and putting itching powder on my scalp. Or maybe there are tiny little bugs crawling all over my skin. That’s how it feels anyway. And all I can think of is scratching my scalp over and over until the itch goes away. Right now, that’s my idea of heaven.

But they won’t let me do it.

Every time I tried to scratch the itchy spot on my scalp, somebody grabs my hand and says, “No, Charly! You don’t have any skull under there!” Which I guess explains why my scalp is so soft and squishy.

Also, I’ve got a huge helmet on my head, so just getting my hand in there is a challenge. I’ve tried to take off the helmet, but nobody is very excited about letting me do that either. I guess because of the no skull thing.

Aside from telling me not to pull off my helmet, people are constantly telling me I need to eat more. My mother is around for a lot of the meals, and she keeps saying things like “you have to eat, Charly” or “just one more bite.” Of course, after she tells me one more bite, then she says again that I have to take another bite. So it’s all just a big fat lie.

I might eat more if the food didn’t all look like mush. For example, last night for dinner I had steak, potatoes, and green beans. It sounded good when we ordered it off the menu, but when it came, the steak was a big pile of gray mush, the potatoes were big pile of white mush, and the green beans were… you guessed it, green mush.

All my solids have been turned into almost liquid, and my liquids have been turned into almost solid. I don’t know how they expect me to really eat this stuff. But I have to try. If I can get the feeding tube out, it will be worth it.

Right now, I’m not thinking about food though. All I can think about is how itchy my scalp is. It gets me upset because what if there really are bugs all over my scalp? You would think they would want to check and maybe try to get rid of them. But nobody seems to care.

Dr. Williams is my doctor here, and every day I try to explain to him about the itch in my scalp. I figure, if anyone should be able to help me, it’s a doctor. People tell me that I was a doctor before, and I know I could help myself, but that would involve taking off the helmet and scratching my head, which nobody will let me do. Since I’m a doctor, you’d think they’d let me treat myself.

“How are you doing today?” Dr. Williams asks me during his daily visit to see me in my room. I like it when he comes to see me. I like how he always has funny ties, like today he has balloons on his tie. He seems like a really nice man. Maybe he can help me stop being itchy.

“My head itches a lot,” I explain. I raise my right hand and try to snake it under my helmet, but earlier today, a nurse attached a thick white mitten to my hand, so I can’t really do much with it.

“I know it’s uncomfortable,” Dr. Williams tells me, “but you really can’t scratch there. You don’t have any skull covering your brain, so you could hurt your brain.”

“I wouldn’t hurt my brain,” I say.

“You might.”

“I already hurt it pretty bad,” I say. “How much worse could it be?”

Dr. Williams chuckles. I don’t know why that was funny. It’s true.

“Are you ready to do our questions?” he asks me.

I shrug.

“Tell me your name,” he says.

“Charly.”

“Charly what?”