I didn't die, obviously. Otherwise, how could I write this all down? I am confused though, so it's more important than ever that I have this notebook, to know how I got here. The page is blurry, but I'm going to keep going.
A hospital bed
When my eyes opened again, the first thing I did was try to get up, but I couldn't move. I looked down. My body was still there, but the tubes and wires coming off it didn't give me a good feeling. Neither did the cramped hospital room I was lying in.
For minutes or hours, my brain zig-zagged in random paranoias. Reality and fiction mixed. Were they experimenting on me like the guy in Robocop? Was I paralyzed like the guy from Superman?
I put all my concentration into lifting my right arm, but it felt hella heavy. A noise distracted me, but it was my own voice making the constipation grunt of effort.
Finally, my arm lifted a little bit. It shook, but it was alive. I was just weak. I could come back from weak.
I flopped that arm across me, making it over to the sensors on my left wrist. I don't know how long I was unconscious, but it was time to get back to work. The tape pinched as I peeled something off.
Alarms all around me went nuts.
I wish I could say it took five guys to hold me down and make me stay in that bed, but the one guy who came in to check on me put the sensor back on and said something about taking it easy. Then I passed out again.
The machines in the room were monitoring my heart rate, making sure I didn't die, a different kind of system watching me even closer than the last one.
They wheeled me somewhere and used a giant machine to look inside my skull, the one place the cameras didn't already look. I bet they couldn't tell how much brain damage was the fall and how much was the drinking. I wonder if they saw my thoughts in there, if they could see Casimir like I do.
I spent so long in the company apartment, working so hard just to keep it, it doesn't make sense to just get a soft bed that they won't even let me leave. I have no choice but to lie here and do nothing. I'll probably pay for this all later. I can't even get a drink in here.
It gets so boring, I started tapping beats on my thighs with imaginary drum sticks, humming melodies, but the music in my head isn't the chaotic rhythms of Effective Disorder. For the first time, my mind is working out songs of my own.
They wheel a TV into my room sometimes, but it doesn't get the new digital signals, so all I can do is pick a movie from their handful of old VHS tapes. If I were stuck like that too long, I would turn into the Dude, but there was also an outbreak of Giants fever after they won the World Series last year. When I got well enough, a nurse started pushing me in a wheelchair to the room where they tune in the games.
That's been my one connection to the outside world, how I found out Amy Winehouse died at 27, just like Casimir. I wonder if the guys in her band will end up like me and Harry.
I had my birthday in here, turned 29 stuck in fucking rehab, one step further from going out on top like my hero. They said I would have died if I landed on the driveway, or if the emergency response vehicles weren't already on their way. I guess I'm glad to be alive, but Amy Winehouse wouldn't get stuck like this. I lost too much time waiting for someone else to rescue me.
Aug 5 | 7:07pm |
"Think we'll make the World Series again?" The nurse spoke extra slow.
I hated her talking down to me, but I smiled and gave the helpless act she expected. "Wheel me over. Let's see what happens."
The nurse used a big plastic scoop to shift me across the bed to where my ass would drop into the wheelchair, everything like normal. I didn't want her to know how well I thought I was.
It's been two months since I fell off the roof, but there's still a haze over everything I see and hear. Each movement takes all my strength, like the height of a hangover, but I'm used to that. I fight for focus, like I'm constantly about a bottle gone, but I have plenty of practice with that too.
As she wheeled me down the hallway, I waited for my view of the exit light. Knowing the exits are important, in case the building catches fire. When I saw it, I gripped my wheels, turned out of her control and started my big escape scene.
Another member of the hospital staff moved to stop me. He didn't know, but I was pretty sure I could use my legs.
I kicked him in the knee to keep him from following me, but it hurt me too.
When I made it through the door, I was out of the building, and I dumped the wheelchair into the bushes.
The hospital gown wasn't a great disguise, but I joined a group of patients on the same path and tried to blend in. My knees were wobbly, but I used my drum training to keep a steady pace and started looking for a getaway car. Mine was probably still stashed walking distance from the Dude's house.
Arms wrapped around my shoulders. The guy I kneecapped caught up to me. Another guy circled around in front of us to lead me back into the building.
My injuries gave me an advantage I didn't have during the fight on the rooftop. The world felt like I was drunk, and I fight with all my strength when I'm drunk.
I let myself go limp so the guy grabbing me had to support all my weight. Then I pushed off with my knees and flailed back with my skull.
He shouted in pain. I don't know what I hit, but it also hurt me like a motherfucker. My head was ringing. It didn't work like that in the movies. He let me go, but I wasn't ready to support my own weight again.
The ground hit me. I reached out, grabbed someone's foot and pulled. A crocs shoe came off in my hand. I needed shoes for my getaway, but I held it up as a weapon, ready to hit anyone who came at me. "I'm not going to let the system look in my brain anymore." I almost didn't recognize my own voice. The words were a dull mumble.
The bigger guy sighed and looked at the other one. "Fifty-one fifty?" I didn't know what that meant, but from the calm in his voice, this wasn't a matter of life and death to him, just another day at work.
"You don't understand." I tried to explain. "It can infiltrate. It's gonna watch everyone."
The first guy's hand covered his face where my skull hit. "We better call that friend. He told us this might happen."
I used everything I had to fight unconsciousness. I lost.
