The Egotist Read online

  I realize I’m hanging upside down.

  I can feel the force of the straps, barring gravity, crossing my chest, stomach, and thighs. Amazingly, I’m not going out of my mind, and I make the assumption that I’m on some pretty heavy tranquilizers. My back is hurting like a son-of-a-bitch, though, and I still have no idea where I am. I hear voices in the room, and panic to make my presence known, as if I might be forgotten, left dangling like ripe, bleeding fruit.

  “Hello? Who’s in here?” I say loudly as I can, and again it comes out in muffled croaks of verbiage, indistinguishable and useless for any purpose other than simply making noise.

  A shadow penetrates the floor below me just before John Liggins’ face drops into view. A big, stupid smile is on him, and I don’t know whether to laugh or throw him out.

  “Thanks for wiping my mouth,” I say sarcastically, seriously bitter that he would allow me to digress to some sort of slobbering vegetable.

  “Oh yeah, sorry about that. Beth, could you hand me that box of Kleenex?” he says, motioning off to his right.

  My God, is Beth here? My mind begins to spin, and for a second I think I’m going to vomit again. Clarity comes a little too quickly now, and I can remember so many things: Beth looking like a vampire, me throwing her against that car, the sound of a knife opening, screams, blood, urine, panic . . . oh shit, what happened to me?

  John Liggins grabs a clump of Kleenex and begins to wipe my mouth. I panic, sensing a rush of emotions coming to a head.

  “John, who’s in here?”

  John looks at me, a ripple of concern passing through his features, and he turns quickly serious.

  “Um, just me, Donnie, Beth, a nurse . . . and your dad.”

  My eyes widen and I convulse within my restraints, my back screaming sharp cries of pain inside of me. I can no longer suppress myself.

  “Get everybody out, now!” I spit at him, my eyes already beginning to burn with what feels very much like terror. “You stay, everyone else out!”

  John nods quickly and stands out of my view. Hating myself, I begin to blubber horribly, drips of tears, snot and saliva decorating my view of the white linoleum tiles below me. I hear him emptying the room, and there are only slight voicings of protest. I hear the door close, and John pops back into view. I notice for the first time that he is sitting on the floor.

  Knowing now they are all out of the room, I feel immediately better. John Liggins was always a great control guy.

  “Okay, W., they’re gone. Are you hurting bad? Do you want me to get the nurse?” he says as he continues to wipe my face.

  Feeling suddenly very childish, I make a move to suck it up a bit and decide to make the effort to try and find out what the hell is going on around here. I have a feeling I know the majority of it, but the rest needs telling. What is my dad doing here? How long have I been out of it? Where was the punk that stabbed me?

  “No,“ I answer him. “No nurse. Get all this stuff off my face, will you?”

  “I’m trying killer, but it keeps coming out.”

  I see that he’s right, and, with an effort, close my mouth and swallow a few heaping teaspoonfuls of saliva, trying to stop the flow. I sniff back a good part of the outburst, and he cleans up the rest. He pops out of my view again, then reappears with a cup filled with ice cubes.

  “Here,” he says, and sticks one in my mouth.

  I close my eyes and suck on the ice, trying to calm myself down, trying to block out the pain in my back. John leaves again, coming back with a bunch of paper towels. He wipes my spit off the floor, does one more wipe of my face, and puts down the cup.

  “Do you want another one?”

  I shake my head, trying to keep the nausea in my stomach under control as the liquid settles down the sides of my throat. I’m feeling much more under control now, and I open my eyes slowly, trying to breath through my nose so I don’t drool anymore.

  “What happened?” I say through clenched teeth, not knowing quite where to begin.

  “Well . . .” he begins, then turns toward the door as it opens. “Hold on, kid, it’s the nurse.”

  I see the nurse’s face as she drops down into view. She’s not a bad-looking woman, I think immediately. Doesn’t appear to be one of those hard-core commando nurses who sticks the needle in you without even a warning and the like. She seems very nice.

  “Hello, Mr. Buhner. I’m Nurse Thomas, how are you feeling?”

  My eyes rove from the nurse to John, who is now sitting a little behind her. He looks at me and gives a coy little rise of his eyebrows, indicating his appreciation of our new friend.

  “I’m okay,” I say, smiling pathetically. “My back hurts like a bastard.”

  “Yes, well, it’s going to feel like that for awhile, I’m afraid. We’ll be keeping you on . . .”

  Both John Liggins and Nurse Thomas turn toward what I believe is the door opening again, and John gets up. Nurse Thomas continues.

  ”. . . pain killers that should help. We’ll be giving them to you interveniously, so you don’t have to worry about swallowing any pills.”

  As she finishes her sentence, a man in a white coat pops down into my view. I look at him and recognize him to be a doctor. He looks pretty cool, a little older, and he has that air of goodwill and confidence that all good doctors have.

  He interrupts Nurse Thomas smoothly, a smile coming onto his face.

  “Hello W., I’m Doctor Barlow. You all done being stabbed, now?” he says jokingly, and my mind settles down smoothly onto the landing pad as I finally put together all of the fuzzy pieces. Of course! I throw Beth, her punk-ass boyfriend stabs me, John and Lemus jump in, I’m taken to the hospital, they’ve probably already operated, and now I’m sitting here recuperating. Somebody, probably Lemus, called my father, which is weird because Beth is standing right there with him. Does he even know about her? He must, he absolutely must.

  “Yes, Doctor,“ I say dryly. “I sure hope so. That is, unless you still have to operate . . . I’m not really sure what’s happened.”

  “Well, let me clear a couple things up for you. What I know, anyway. You were brought here in an ambulance, which I assume one of your friends here called. You were rushed to the E.R., where I took over. You have a mild concussion and two puncture wounds in your back, both near the bottom there, one in the middle, and one through that fleshy part on the side. Now, the knife that was used wasn’t that large, only about two-and-a-half inches, but the guy’s heart was in it, and he used the majority of the blade.

  “The first puncture wound was harmless, really. It severed one of the muscles in your back, which I have already repaired in surgery. That’s going to need some time to heal, but you shouldn’t have any permanent or long-term effects. Now, unfortunately, the second puncture wound went directly into your right kidney, and it did some damage there. We had to remove the kidney, and we did some minor repair to the muscular tissue. This all making sense, so far?”

  I nodded in stunned amazement. My kidney? Removed? What did that mean? “My kidney?” I repeat, this time out loud, not really sure what my question is.

  “Yes. You shouldn’t worry too much, there are millions of people with only one kidney. Many people even donate kidneys, you know. Of course, there are some things you will have to be aware of as you go through your life.”

  “Like?”

  “Like . . . drinking, smoking, a certain type of diet. We’ll have to keep an eye on certain types of infections the body is known to develop. Essentially, now that the spare’s gone, we want to make sure your good tire doesn’t, um . . . go flat.”

  I can think of nothing to say. For one of the first times in my life, I have no thought, no retort. I’m not angry, confused, or really all that sad. I sort of drift off into a nicer space inside my head and decide, for now, just to heal. I’ll worry about the drinking part later.

  “I see. Thank you, Doctor. Thanks for helping me out.”

  Doctor Barlow smiles graciously at
me. “Oh, no problem. It’s what we do here, Mr. Buhner. You should be sure to thank your friends, and your father . . .”

  “My father? Why?”

  “Well, he’s the one who provided insurance for you. Did you know you were on his plan? He said you probably didn’t. Your friends were great. After all, if they hadn’t helped you, you’d still be bleeding out there on the street. Anyway, goodbye, Mr. Buhner. I’ll see you again tomorrow, most likely. If you need anything, just ask one of the girls here.”

  With that, he got up and left. I was still being amused by him referring to the nurses as “the girls” when a question struck me.

  “Doctor . . . Doctor?” I say loudly.

  He doesn’t come back into view, but I hear him reply from somewhere just above, or behind, me.

  “Yes?”

  “How long am I going to be hanging upside down like this?”

  “Well, that depends on how quickly you heal. We have to let the wounds mend a bit before I can have you rolling around on them. Let’s say . . . a few days for now. We’ll see how it goes after that. In the next day or so we’ll also see what we can do about getting those tubes out of you. Good?”

  Days?

  “Okay, Doctor. Thanks,” I grumble, and begin to fill the dark holes of my thoughts with seeds of hate rather than self-pity, deciding that hate is the strongest of the emotions. I actually begin to feel the hate slide through my body, filling the crevices and coating my soul. I hear a voice above me, and recognize it as Nurse Thomas. Everything seems to be getting rather . . . relaxed.

  “I’ve given you something to soothe you, Mr. Buhner. This will help you sleep and help with the pain.”

  Bitch stuck me, I think. I guess she’s like all the others after all. They’re all the same. Insurance . . . what a putz.

  I close my eyes and drift off to a solitary place. In the deep pockets of my mind I hear a song that I used to listen to over and over again as a little kid, laughing at the lyrics and the childish nature of the melody, only finding out much later how very dark the White album had really been.

  Paul McCartney’s soothing voice caresses my brain as the words come at me in the dark. I can still smell the dusty carpeting of my childhood home and see the record player spinning a large white disc. It had seemed so odd at the time . . . sing to me Paul, sing to me . . .

  Doo doo-doo-doo-doo da doo-doo,

  Doo doo-doo-doo-doo da doo-doo . . .

  The Mind Is Soft

  Over the course of the days and weeks that follow, I begin to heal.

  People come to visit me. My father, my sister, Lemus, Marie, John Liggins (who keeps me updated on the prosecution of the freak who stabbed me), some of the girls from work and a couple of old girlfriends who I had long forgotten about. They all come visit me as I lie on my face in the hospital. It’s a beautiful thing.

  I find it so peculiar that they are all so eager to see W. Buhner, the piece of hung meat, rather than see W. Buhner, the living, breathing thing - it’s amazing and hard to understand.

  My father? What a joke. He comes in here, talking about how good it was I finally met my sister, how all these years he’s wanted to tell me, but couldn’t. He tells me how this experience is finally letting the two of them get to know each other. I can’t believe the amount of goodwill that’s been sweeping through my room like a big crap-wind.

  Doesn’t anybody here realize that I’ve been stabbed? Yeah, it’s great that you’re happy, I’m glad I could help. Maybe next time I’ll get shot and then maybe mom could come down, too. I could be put into a full body cast while you all have champagne tossers and talk about what a blessing the whole experience has been! That sounds perfect. It sounds fantastic.

  Or hey - maybe I’ll kill myself! Can you imagine the crowd that would bring? Holy cow, can you dig that? Dark days borrow our door no more, for the angel of mercy is shining her light down on our lives; for today, W. has shot his head off, and I can finally get that car I’ve always wanted, build that tool shed I’ve had my eye on, see all of my old friends and just . . . reminisce.

  Well, I say you can all go straight to the devil! Why doesn’t somebody else get shot in the head, and I’ll come to their hospital room, and I’ll pick up on the nurses and talk about old times with some relative that I’ve had in the closet that you didn’t know about. How’s that sound, dad?

  I never asked for a sister. I never wanted her, I told her to stay away from me. I told her I never wanted to see her. So, what does she do, the contemptible little imp? She dresses up like a whore, grabs Charles Manson from the conga line and parades out in front of me like bait on a hook. So, of course, I try to help her, Manson knifes me, I’m hung out to dry, and now dad and sis can’t believe the good luck of it. It’s all great, just great.

  I can feel myself unraveling here. Every morning, I wake up and see the floor. Every afternoon, I spend my time looking at the floor. Every night before I pass out from the drugs, I stare at the floor. I haven’t tasted food in more than three days, my mouth feels like paste; I stink like rotted Old Spice, I’m crapping through a tube, and it’s beginning to hurt when I swallow. Not to mention I lost a kidney!

  When I get out of this I’m going to be a very dangerous person. I’m going to be the one to watch out for, not the one watching out. The first thing I’m going to do is buy a gun, just like John Liggins. The next thing I’m going to do is sell Lemus’ book and retire. Oh wait, there was something else . . . something before all of that.

  Sister.

  Sister’s going to get the ass-kicking of her life. If she knows what’s good for her she’s left town already, because when I’m up again, it’s all over.

  I’m going to quit my job and collect some sort of medical pay that John Liggins and the girls from the store were telling me about. Between that and Lemus’ prison money, I should be aces for at least a few months. Then, I’m going to write a book about how much I hate everyone, and dedicate it to myself.

  When this is over . . . things are going to be different. I swear it.

  It’s been almost a week and I’m up on my side now. In a normal bed. They’ve taken the tubes out of my arms, and I get the first taste of real food I’ve had in days. With the nurses’ help, I can stand up and move to the bathroom. I can’t sit down, but I don’t have to - not for what I want to do.

  I stand in front of the open bathroom door. On the inside of the door is a full-length mirror, and I can see my pale, worn refection. I quickly open my robe and let it fall to the clean, linoleum floor. The nurse turns quickly, letting out a surprised little “oh”, which under any other circumstance would have been a little amusing. I turn myself so my butt’s facing the mirror, and look over my shoulder at the damage for the very first time since the incident.

  I nearly gag at the sight. The skin at my hip is covered with football-sized bruises which have developed around a dark spot the size of a quarter. Stitches prick out of my skin making me feel like a bug, and my body looks to be about half the weight it was when I got in here. Sure, I could see how I might’ve lost around five or ten pounds, but I look like I’ve lost about twenty! I say this out loud, and the nurse assures me it’s more like seven or eight. But what does she know.

  I ask for my robe and throw it loosely over my grotesque form.

  I hope never to be stabbed again, but if I am, I’ll be sure to shoot the bastard before I black out.

  Lemus bounds in good-humoredly and tells me I’ve got to get out of here because he’s finished his book. I tell him to bring it to me, tell him I’ve got nothing better to do in here but read his prison romance stories, which is true.

  He laughs, sits down, and turns on Jeopardy!

  I watch half-heartedly, not feeling like talking. I feel a deep red burning growing inside me. Even worse, I can’t answer any of the questions, or question any of the answers, or whatever the fucking thing is.

  Reflections

  I think life works in stages. For a certain part of your li
fe you look forward, always forward. Then, for a short time, you’re content to live in the present, absorbing each day and wishing it never ended. Lastly, there is a time in your life when you’re always looking back, over your shoulder, and contemplating the things and events that have already occurred.

  People reflect - like bodies of water reflect, like mirrors reflect. We look at ourselves and see the reflection, not of our bodies, but of our experiences. Experiences not just of the past, but of the present, and of the future.

  I write this not knowing what my future will be, only knowing what I can see in my own reflection. All of the sadness, hardship, madness, joy, love, and lust are reflected here, within me. I know that I will never be the kind of person I should be. I know that I have not had, nor will have, experiences that will welcome me into a lot of people’s arms, or a lot of people’s lives.

  I know what I think and feel are not the norm, nor do I want them to be. I just . . . I just find it so spectacular the things we can do, the things we can see, and touch, and feel. I know my choice is to push myself into places and things most people would find problematic, or rude. I am just being. It’s all I know how to do.

  When it comes my time to reflect, I want to see bright colors and vivid designs, not powdery, dull scenery. I want my times of love to be bold, powerful, emotional, and savage. I want my times of joy to be unheralded, mischievous, cautionless, and uncontrolled.

  If my friends and family mean nothing to me it is because I cannot see them in my refection.

  Perception becomes reality.

  No one is there but myself: past, present, and future. I stand alone and create designs upon the largest canvas. I stand alone and create only what I see. When I’m gone, my reflection will be also, and no one will feel remorse, or pity, or anguish, or loss. How many can say that? How many have the strength, or the courage, to create such a life?