5: Brain Event
Droog and I walked half a block along Cedar Street and cut down a side street to Pacific Avenue. And here was Mahalo Gelato, my favorite ice-cream parlor. A Hawaiian-themed place, managed by a plump woman who invariably wore overalls. Her name was Mercedes. I put the leash on the dog and tied him to a bicycle rack. I took some comfort from these ordinary things.
The parlor was an airy place with soft steel guitar music playing. They had fully forty flavors of gelato, made with fresh cream and fruit every day. An unfamiliar clerk stood behind the counter—a tan, medium-sized woman with a goofy smile and brunette hair in a messy, recently made ponytail. She was in the process of tying on her apron. Though her eyes were worldly-wise, she looked to be about thirty. Perfect for me.
“I’m here because of you,” she said, looking right into my eyes, which felt way spacier than anything I was ready for. Sensing my unease, the woman giggled. “I began this employment one minute ago, following a two minute interview.”
“You were right to sign on,” I said, hoping to steer the conversation back towards normal. “I’m a regular here. Jim Oster.”
“Weena Wesson,” said the woman, miming a curtsy. “I’m tickled to be back.”
“Back from where?” I had to ask.
“Let’s not delve into that as yet.” She wrinkled her nose in a smile—or maybe she was sniffing at me across the counter.
It had already crossed my mind that this Weena might be the unseen woman who’d run out from that tunnel under the green Victorian. But—had that scene been real? It didn’t fit with any other part of my life. Better to focus on the now. On the ice cream.
“I’m here for a medium cup,” I said. “With a scoop of pineapple and scoop of coconut.”
“This treat will reconfigure your existence,” said Weena assuredly.
“Sell it, Weena,” interjected Mercedes the manager lady. “You go, girl.” She thought Weena was cute too.
“And you’re familiar with this man?” said Weena to Mercedes. “He’s an upright citizen?” She had an odd, old-fashioned way of talking.
“You’re wild,” Mercedes told Weena with a laugh. She liked kidding around.
“For sure I need to be reconfigured,” I remarked. “I’m in a deep rut. Deeper than the Grand Canyon.” Gathering my courage, I decided to test Weena. “Just now I thought I saw a ghost house with a magic door and an Egyptian coffin and a big, creepy sea lion. Some woman I didn’t see came through the door.”
Weena twinkled at me, but didn’t say anything. Moving with awkward grace, she dug out two exceedingly large scoops of ice cream. And then, with a quick gesture, she scattered sprinkles onto the scoops—twinkling, colorful specks. I didn’t quite see where she got the sprinkles from.
Normally I’m a purist when it comes to ice cream—that is, I don’t like chunks of candy junking it up, and I don’t like glop on top.
“An amplified ice for Jim Oster,” said Weena, handing my serving across the counter. She smiling so sweetly that I wasn’t going to bitch about the sprinkles. And never mind that her eyes were calculating and hard.
I paid Mercedes, then ate my gelato rapidly and greedily at one of the sidewalk tables outside the store. The memories of the magic door and the blue sea lion were already fading.
The surf punks had just brought a sea lion home and dyed it for a goof. And Skeeves was living in their basement with his stolen gold sarcophagus. With a bunch of plastic. The sea lion was probably back in the ocean by now. Why get all bent out of shape? Why keep imagining I’d find a way back to Val?
The ice cream was great, and the sprinkles weren’t bad either. They were very high quality, faceted like miniscule gems, and carrying the intense flavor accents of essential oils. I identified cinnamon, spearmint, clove, eucalyptus, violet, and bergamot. For a moment I almost thought the sprinkles were slowly crawling across my ice cream—but surely that was slippage from the melting. A remarkable treat.
I was filled with well-being, in tune with the world. I watched the Santa Cruzans go trucking on by. Bums, students, hipsters, bumpkins, and bossy bohemians—I felt as if I could empathize with each and every one them, as if I could hear bits of the ongoing thoughts in their minds. Or maybe the thoughts were coming from somewhere else. It was almost as if the sprinkles themselves had been full of voices.
I considered going inside to talk with Weena some more, but now she was busy with other customers. And there was, after all, no huge rush to get to know her better. I came to this ice cream parlor nearly every day. I could flirt more with Weena tomorrow. As if sensing my thoughts, she flashed a warm smile at me through the window-glass and tapped her wrist as if she were wearing a watch. She was miming that she’d see me later.
As I got to my feet, I thought once more of the blue slug that had taken on the form of a sea lion. Try as I might, I couldn’t push that particular image away. I decided to try getting another look at the dark green Victorian house.
Droog and I found the same alley we’d followed from the back yard of the house to Cedar Street. But when we walked down this alley, I saw only a vacant lot where the surf punks’ house had been. Wow.
We picked our way through the empty lot. It was scattered with cans and rags, and overgrown with dried brown weeds. The roots twined around little chunks of rubble from a house that had been bulldozed years before. Thick overgrown eucalyptus trees ringed the property. Had I only imagined the old Vic?
“What do you think, Droogie?” I asked, hunkering down beside him in the litter of narrow eucalyptus leaves. “Where’d they go?” I felt close empathy with my old pal. He wanted to lie down in the shade.
We took the most direct route back to my house and then I vegged out on my dusty Goodwill couch, reading a paperback fantasy novel.
It was a peaceful summer afternoon, with the sunlight lying across the roof and yard like heavy velvet.
After awhile I began having the feeling that I could read the pages of the book without actually looking at them. But I was having trouble making sense of what I read. Thinking I needed a nap, I laid down my book and curled up on my side. I dropped off to sleep.
The next thing I knew, I was lying on the living room floor, very confused. It was dark outside. I felt like I’d been—gone. I ached all over, in every muscle and joint. My tongue was bleeding. Something very bad was happening to me.
I crawled across the room to where my cell phone sat with my keys. I didn’t trust myself to walk. It took all my concentration to dial 911. And then everything went black again.
I awoke in a hospital room. It was still night. A nurse was standing over me, a woman with a calm, sympathetic face. She had short dark hair, dyed blonde. Smallish breasts and nice wide hips. It’s funny how, even on his death-bed, a man can still focus on women that way. We’re incorrigible.
The nurse said I’d had two seizures. They weren’t sure why. The doctors had scanned my brain and it looked normal. Maybe I’d be okay. They had me on an IV drip with painkillers and an anti-seizure drug. I needed to rest.
I slept fitfully. In the morning I was able to think a little. I could hardly believe I was in the hospital. Yesterday I’d been fine. And then I’d had that odd experience with the abandoned house. Maybe that’s when my brain had started screwing up.
How disturbing to think that I’d been to death’s door and back. I hadn’t seen any white light or spiral tunnel or dead relatives while I’d been out—none of that cool, trippy stuff. Saddest of all—I hadn’t seen Val. I’d been nowhere and I’d seen nothing. It just felt like I’d had a couple of time-sequences snipped out of my life. Discouraging.
There was something else disappointing me. No friends. Somehow I’d always imagined that if I had a major health crisis, some of the people I’d lost touch with would magically appear to comfort me. But that that wasn’t panning out. Nobody at all was visiting me. I didn’t have any relatives left. And my friends were hopeless flakes. As for Dick and Diane, my asshole landlords—surely they’d seen the ambulance taking me away. But they were probably hoping that I’d die or move into a nursing home. Then they could up the rent.
I was in the hospital for three days, having tests and being observed. When I wasn’t thinking about death, I was obsessing about that strange scene at the crumbling green Victorian house, trying to figure out what it meant. Had it been a warning vision sent from beyond?
On the second day in the hospital, I asked my nice nurse with the big hips to wheel me to the ward’s walled patio. She wore her skirt full-cut, it swayed enticingly as she walked. The tag on her shirt said her name was Alice.
I sat on the patio watching the clouds change shapes in the high summer sun. The leaves of a potted palm tree rocked chaotically in the gentle airs, with the fronds clearly outlined against the marbled heavens. It struck me, in a deep kind of way, that the world would keep right on running if I died. An obvious fact, yes, and I knew it in a theoretical way from seeing Val pass away. But, now that it was personal, it seemed horrible.
“I feel like death is stalking me,” I told nurse Alice as she wheeled me back to my room. “My wife died last August. Her name was Val. We thought she was pregnant, but it was cancer.”
“I remember that case,” said Alice after a pause. “I was on duty that day.”
“They incinerated Val and the baby,” I said, my voice catching. “I never got to say good-bye.”
“The hospital’s public safety precautions can be a little zealous,” said Alice in a calming tone. “But sometimes it’s for the best.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” I said, wanting to prolong our chat. “I feel like anything at all can fall apart. From one moment to the next.”
“You’re going to be okay, Jim,” said Alice, patting my shoulder. “You’re a strong man. You’re recuperating very fast.”
By the morning of the third day, they’d decided that my seizures could have been an isolated fluke. I wasn’t very eager to be leave the hospital. I felt safe in there. But they said that I should go home that afternoon and taper off the antiseizure drugs on my own. And we’d see what happened next.
Lunch came and went as I lay there worrying. And then, just before it was time for me to check out, nurse Alice led a woman into my room.
“She says she’s your new wife!” said Alice, her kind lips parting in an innocent smile. “I didn’t know.”
For a crazy instant I thought Alice was bringing the dead Val back to me. But, no, my guest was a tall, well-formed young woman with her curly brown hair in a ponytail. A woman with aged, knowing eyes. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite—
“Weena Wesson?” said the woman. She mimed eating ice cream with a spoon. Of course. The new clerk from Mahalo Gelato. The woman who’d possibly come from the basement of that crumbling Victorian house.
“How did you know I was here?” I challenged Weena, suspicious and afraid.
“Pull yourself together, Mr. Oster,” said nurse Alice reprovingly. “Be glad you have a partner who cares for you.”