Big Sur...

Big sur, California. April 2000

Stories always get better with time. Embarrassing ones more than any other. We change little details to shine/emphasize certain dramatic tropes. To add tiny dots in the painting to that adds a bit of color, to bring out the background and give it more of a sense of being whole. Sharpen the knives and plunge them a little deeper with each stab, so to speak. So given 20 years of space between then and today I’d like to claim that my memory is as bright with the same details of the day just as it happened. But I’ll admit I’ve shaped this story, consciously or somewhere else in my mind like a clay cup I made and gave to my smoker mother as a child. So here I go, trying to empty the ashtray of my mind by telling this story.

I took my wife and sons to big sur national park in California to camp for our vacation. Any info on my family is unimportant for our purposes but I’ll say that me and my wife were still young and in love and the boys were not long-ago babies and every day was a new and odd experience. Things were tough but our hopes for the future always eased every problem.

We planned on a week in the woods. We all needed to see and hear something different, a little less of everything. We unpacked the truck, set up the tent and the wife began to make us lunch. My son had been showing an interest in baseball, so I found the gloves, got a ball, and told him to follow me. We found an open space, and each stood at the edge of some bushes. Faced each other and began to throw the ball back and forth. He hadn’t had a lot of practice throwing to any one person or to any spot, so my glove was mostly an illusion. Every ball hit 2 feet in front of me and bounced off my shin or stopped by a shoe. he laughed like hell, he thought it was hilarious me twisting and diving for every throw. I didn’t care if he tossed it to me, I was glad to see him smile.

‘come on now…. you can get one in my glove…’ His face straightened and wore a face of concentration. he leaned back and threw a wild missile wide left and over my head, so far out of my reach I didn’t even lift my gloved hand, I just slowly followed with my eyes its slow journey over me and into piles of bushes. I stared at him as he laughed like a hyena. ‘go get the ball’ as I tossed a thumb in the direction of the ball, now hidden like easter egg. He spun back and forth letting his arms go faster and farther each turn as his feet only slid during the recoil. His head shook no slower than his body. I didn’t want to get upset or argue with him and spend a whole week feeling like an asshole, so I turned and hopped and went wading thru the bushes, bending over when I thought I saw the ball. 10 steps in I finally saw the ball sitting like a pearl, covered with green and red leaves, brushed them out of the way, grab the ball called to my boy and tossed him the ball, then begun making my way back thru the brush, as thick as water, my legs scratching with each step until I made it out of the tip of the forest and back to dry land. As I hopped out of the jungle, I saw my legs now looking like a scratching post for a cat, all up my calves, past my knees and up my thighs to the cuff of my shorts. My legs didn’t burn, and I didn’t feel a tingle so went back to playing catch with my boy.

A few throws later he tossed another one over my head. I stared at him again, but he refused to make eye contact with me, so I made the same trek as before, except this time, I never found the ball. I kicked branches; tosses leaves but nothing. I never found it. I turned around to tell my son to come help me, but he was gone. I looked back down into the foliage and yelled ‘forget it!’. Wherever it was, I wasn’t going to find it, maybe a bear will pick it up one day and learn to throw a curve ball, I hope he doesn’t have a son, I thought. I marched back out onto the clear path and headed back to the campsite. When I walked back to our spot, they were eating lunch.

‘johnny said you lost the ball.’

‘I lost the ball! YOUR son tossed it over my head… twice…he did it so well the second time I never could find it’ I said tossing the glove on the ground and sitting next to my smaller boy and grabbed a drink. They all smiled at each other, each enjoying my difficulties for a second before going back to their sandwiches. ‘I think he did it on purpose.’ The little bastard laughed. I ignored him and took a bite of the bologna and bread, scratching my legs in between bites. (The color started to return, and the itch subsided) I finished my sandwich and then continued setting up the rest of our camp. I got the tents up, the rest of the truck unloaded and then relaxed.

The night came quickly, I started a fired and We all dressed for the evening, long pants and sweaters and sat around the flames, burning marshmallows and watched the smoke pour out from the teepee of firewood. A clear sky could be seen from our spot, the tear in the trees (above us) slit open enough to tease moonlight. The air was only cold. The later it got the more the family faded. I put out the fire and she put the boys to bed. I zipped up their tent and we went to sleep in the camper on the back of the truck. I was glad we were here. I itched my arms as I fall asleep.

The next morning, I could hear young birds outside the camper window and the pots of pans of a breakfast being made and the tone of two boys arguing. I laid there, not moving a muscle, just enjoying the noise of the family for a moment. I opened my eyes but only a little light came in. I felt like I was squinting to read instructions, but they would open no wider. I reach my hands to my face and felt a deflated balloon. As I searched my head It felt like I was wearing snow gloves. This is not good, I thought, and rolled out of the camper and slowly steeped out towards the noise. My eyes opened open a bit more and the light that came in revealed my hands, my arms, and my legs to be puffed.

My wife turned from the table. She stood there in shock. I must have looked bad because I didn’t hear the boys laugh, and as long as we’re not hurt, we laugh at each other all the time. My wife walked over to me and put her hand to my face. ‘We got to take you to the hospital’. I didn’t argue. As she packed up what she could I walked up to the ranger station a quarter a mile away to get an idea where the nearest hospital was. I as walked up to the door its opened and out walked a ranger, he held a small smile, which actually eased my mind.

‘let me guess’ he said as walked over the window and pulled down a paper.’ See any of these lately?’ he handed me the flyer that had 4 different pictures on them. Top right photo was a group of green and red snowflakes growing out of the little limbs of a bush. I pointed my clubbed hand at the photo and squeezed a ‘that’s the one’ out of the side of my mouth.’ya, I know…you’ll be fine’ he smirked. ‘poison oak’ he said and jammed the paper in my hand telling me there was a map with directions to the hospital on the back. ‘you just need a shot and you’ll be better’. I took the directions and headed back to finish packing up. ‘good luck’ came from the steps behind me. I made it back and we finished loading the truck and drove off to find me help. ‘I’ll drive’ my wife said seriously but I heard as sarcastic. ‘here’ I tossed he the keys. I wasn’t scared but certainly more sensitive and aware. We hoped in the truck and drove of to find the cure.

The small hospital was light on patients. No big city temperature, people walked in a calmed speed. We all walked in, me and the boys sat down in the waiting room as my wife went to the desk to get me some help. She came back and filled out the paperwork. I couldn’t hold a pen or see what I was writing even I could. The waiting room had a woman, sleeping on her hand, she was covered with 3 small children laying against her and across her lap. All their eyes were closed except the kid with his head in his lap. His large, round eyes stared wide at my swollen face and limbs. He didn’t blink or look away. I was a real-life cartoon character sitting across from him and he couldn’t dare take his eyes off of me.

A nurse appeared, her head down looking for the name on the paperwork. ‘Dennis Johannsen’ she said, looking up to see me slowly standing up, a puffed-up pumpkin head, eyes and mouth swollen shut with ski gloves for hands. ‘here’. Her eyes brightened as she quickly looked back down at my paperwork, turned and headed towards a hallway. ‘follow me’ she said, trying to dull her tone of surprise. I followed her for a minute until she opened up an exam room door, only looking up with a half-smile ‘wait in here sir, a nurse will be in with you shortly’. I walked over to the table as she shut the door leaving me alone in a white, quiet room surrounded my shiny silver, that seemed to reflect back to me a photo of the elephant man. I sat and waited.

The new nurse walked in and obviously she had been warned of what was waiting for her. She appeared holding a smile back, her large eyes refused to blink or look away. We discussed how I came to be in such a state, attempting to keep a state of levity present in my story, remembering that this was not the end of the world and it was not the end of my life. She turned to the cabinets to find some gloves and asked me ‘so just the arms and the face are swollen?’. This is the part of the visit I had been dreading. I felt a new sensation of tension wave over me. ‘I stood up from the table ‘Ya, I got one other problem’. I was dropping my shorts down to my ankles to reveal my true pain and embarrassment, my scrotum, the pocket of skin holding a man’s testicles was swollen up like a birthday balloon that had floated from the ceiling to bouncing off a floor, slowly getting pulled down by gravity. Her eyes turned into a surprised cartoon, both rows of teeth white as her freshly pressed uniform appeared. She seizured with laughter, no longer allowing professionalism or proper decorum to guide her. She leaned back on her heels and tried to cover her smile with her hand. ‘Jesus’, she said staring at my scrotum like a newborn, stunned with the surprise as if the sun was cooking a raw steak.

The nurse pulled her face straight ‘excuse me for a minute’ she said as she headed for the door. I bent over and pulled my pants up around my waist. As I leaned back on the table the door swung open walking in the nurse followed by another nurse and a doctor, both of them with handcuffed excitement dammed at their face. They walked in and all faced me with baby smiles. the nurse took a deep breath and asked my with a wavering tone…’sir…. can you show us what else is swollen; I stood back off the table looked at them through the slits of my eyes recognizing three white blobs with smiles/guts waiting to burst I took my swollen hands, grabbed the waistband of my shorts, and yanked them down past my knees. I closed my eyes and heard the held in laughter. All the sudden I felt the palm of a hand lift my sack and relieve the pressure. As he lifted with one hand, I could feel the other hand discovering/searching for a pair of testicles. The thumb pinched a ball between his ring finger softly pinching and then found the other ball and did the same.

Poison oak seemed to be an experience that was paternal. My father, growing up in Arkansas, before much was known about anything. He spent a summer burning bushes and shrubs and some of it was poison oak. He inhaled smoke from the pyre and burned his lungs so bad they were scarred even till the day they opened him up to remove some polyps and noticed to late the scars left behind from the hot, poison blaze. They closed him back up, he never woke up and died the next day.

The room cleared out except for the original nurse. The excitement died down and the nurse had stopped laughing and was only smiling. She turned around. I’m sorry for laughing… I know you’re in pain, and that wasn’t very professional…so I am sorry’. I nodded my head, accepting her apology. What else could I do?

She pulled out a shot and poked me in the arm. ‘cortisone’, she said. ‘you should be feeling better in a few hours.’ She had laughed herself straight. The humor of my costume had left the room, finally. She apologized again. And left. A half an hour later I left the room and the hospital, got my family whose faces lacked the fear they wore just an hour ago. We all got in the truck and my wife had started driving us home. About 100 miles into the trip home my swelling had gone done and I took over behind the wheel. I felt and looked much better.

It was not a story I enjoyed telling, but my kids love to embarrass me with any chance they get. I tired not to refer to things as the size of watermelons or camera crews coming in and out of my exam room taking photos. I tried to keep it as soft and free of over exaggeration as possible. but the story could have many more leaves of details, but I avoided that as much as possible. I can laugh about it now, 2o years later, because well, I lived through it and if it happened to anyone else it wouldn’t have taken me this long to tell everyone the story.

This is not about hailing the wrong cab or texting the wrong person a risqué message. This involves a deformity like no other. no, I only carried my burden for three days, but the memory lasts a lifetime.

This is not a story I should be telling, but here I go.