My Living Nightmare/Before I Wake -mini-part three

I had almost walked out of the radiology unit when I realized: I didn’t have any clean clothes, so I said to Dough, “I don’t-my clothes are dirty.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, other than wear ‘em and bear it,” he replied through a foam of toothpaste.

“Sounds good enough for me,” I shot back, trying to sound macho, wondering for an instant, if he thought any other killer wouldn’t have minded wearing dirty pants. Then the suggested pride in destruction of the thought hit me, and I was silenced momentarily by its possible implication. I might as well have asked myself: do you care if your cousin expects you, having committed murder, to be a ‘tough guy’? I couldn’t bear the possibility that I did care—every moment I had my eyes closed, phantom images of red, rusty colored liquid danced on my retinas, the dark metal of tire irons contrasting the scarlet.

I went in the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, shivering in the air-conditioned office as the icy liquid ran down my neck. In the mirror, a gravened, tired-looking set of eyes stared back at me. I didn’t even know the face anymore—something behind those irises had made my being, my body, commit an act so horrendous, I hardly wished to be connected to its existence.

I put on the khakis and the polo shirt, marveling at how cheap but necessary such things could be. After finishing up, I walked slowly down the hall to the room where Dough sat in the glare of the fluorescent lights.

“Sit down, cuz,” he motioned to a chair.

“So…” I quipped, sitting stiffly into the straight-backed wooden seat.

“I, well, I’ve got news,” he said, his thumbs playing nervously with the edge of a piece paper.

“And that would be-“ I pressed him. Why was he so reluctant to speak? Did I have something seriously wrong with my head, or what? Knowing is better than not knowing, I told myself, bracing to receive whatever information he was about to present.

“You..your brain is astounding, let me tell you that first. It, well, I guess I could go into all the details, but the motor cortex, oh my gosh man. It is so active. Increased signal, the whole nine yards. Your speech center, prefrontal lobes…” Dough spouted off all sorts of medical terminology like it was what he’d had for supper or something, none of which meant a hill of beans to me. Hello, Neurologist’s Cousin speaking-but could you translate this mess into non-technical American English?

“Hey-Frank? Frank? What-do I have something stuck to my shoe?” Dough had changed his tone of voice from excited but concerned to annoyed and puzzled.

“Wha-no. I just didn’t get the Latin crap, is all,” I muttered.

“Frank? None of that was Latin,” he said, giving me a weird glance.

“And, what? I didn’t go to medical school,” I continued.

“Oh, sorry. But you didn’t hear the last bit?” He now sounded genuinely concerned.

“No. I sort of..zoned out, I guess,” was the oh-so-lame reply.

“So let me repeat. I guess I could tone it down some..okay, I think I know what I can tell you. Your motor cortex-the part that controls your physical actions, was way too active. Like, when you go to sleep, it should basically be turned off. But yours was wide open. Your visual and speech centers were less anomalous, turned on, unlike most sleepers’, but they didn’t show anywhere near so much activity. And the prefrontal cortex—you should have seen it! I mean the thinking part of your brain-it was so off. Like, hardly showing up, period. Your critical thinking skills are gone at night, so something is different there too. Most sleepers have theirs in semi-alert mode. Not on, but not off. ..” and on and on, he babbled in a strange mixture of intelligible and unintelligible gook.

When he finished, I just sat staring at the wall, trying to decode the meaning of the lecture, which had left my head spinning. Finally, I ended up asking flatly, “Dough, one more time. This one, though, just an overview.”

“Alright. Your brain ain’t normal, plain an’ simple. It ain’t normal.”

“Simply put, but comprehensible,” I replied.

“I want to do more scans tonight,” he said.

“Whaaat?” I screeched. “Dough, have you ever slept in a scanner?”

“No. Don’t want to, either. I know your sleep isn’t quality, but it’s important to find out what it is that’s wrong, and maybe even more importantly, how we can fix it.”

“I know that. I was the one that woke up with a bloody tire iron on my dashboard.”

“I didn’t say you were stupid, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Dough hissed, sounding miffed.

“Did I complain just then?” What a poor retort it was.

“Get over it.” He retaliated, slamming an open palm on my shoulder so hard it purely hurt.

“I get it. I’ll shut up now,” I muttered, rising from the chair and loping off through the door, into the lobby and out to my car.

“Frank, where are you going?” Dough yelled loudly as I ran in to the parking lot.

“Going to town,” I replied in a hoarse shout.

I got in, slammed the door and revved the engine, letting its roar fill my ears. I rocketed away, turning out into the traffic of early morning rush hour. Car horns honked, and tires squalled as two thousand other drivers attempted to make their way to their jobs.

The next days followed in a similar pattern, each night in the scanner more hellish and less restful than the last. After three days, one afternoon, I went into the office just after lunch hour and knocked on Dough’s door.

“Come in,” was his reply.

“Dough, I…I’m sorry,” I began.