The Perfect Memory

My reflection is so vivid this morning. December 18th, 2012 and I’m looking at myself in a way that I never have before. My hazel eyes, which sometimes on any given day switch from clear blue to light green, have never been this apparent before. My hair, which always gives me problems with dandruff and just never looks right in general, has never sat on top of my head with more conviction. My stomach has never been considered a six-pack of muscle, but today it is looking extremely firm.

I’ve been taking care of myself for this one moment. My parents raised me for twenty-four years with their own rules and regulations that would lead me to this one moment. I should be a nervous wreck right now. My eyes should be bloodshot, my hair should look worse than Einstein’s, and my stomach should be growling so loudly you’d think the cowardly lion was inside hiding from the great and powerful Oz.

Everything seems okay, though. It seems better than okay. I don’t want to continue to brag, but I could use the self-esteem booster today so with that I’ll tell you that my shirt has never fit so perfectly. I have broad shoulders so any shirt that I wear never seems to cover my ass. Every time I bend over I’m giving the world a look at my checkered boxers. I don’t know why they are checkered, but I do seem to have a lot of that pattern. Whether it’s red and blue, orange and grey, or red and white, they are all checkered. The only other brand I have is a couple of tight briefs when I work out. Those are all solid colors.

Enough about my underwear, I’ll just wrap up by saying that today feels good. I’ve held a job for almost fourteen months now. I say “held” like I’ve been fired on more than one occasion, but that’s not the case. I’ve never been fired. Sure I’ve had a lot of part-time jobs, but this was my first full-time position. It was the first job I got coming out of college and it only took me four months to get it. In this economy, you can consider that striking gold…but in this economy, gold is considered silver, or a wealthy bronze.

I work at a news station in Indiana. My job is simple. When you’re watching TV, I’m the guy making sure everything comes out the way it’s supposed to. I edit the shows, I plug in the commercials, and I make sure it goes to and from a commercial break at the right time. It’s a lot of work, it gets repetitive, and my pay is…a low bronze. But that’s okay with me for now. That is more than okay.

Why?

My parents moved to Arizona last year. Last September to be exact. My dad was promoted and had to move out to their corporate office that is just west of Phoenix. He was excited and he needed it. I’m the youngest of three children, and when the baby isn’t considered a baby anymore, well ask my mom and I’ll always be her baby, but it’s time for dad to start thinking about his future and his retirement. So he took the job. We were all excited. We were going to be headed from Indiana to Arizona. A major change but we were all excited to see what our lives had in store for us out west.

This leads me into my pickle. About six months before we knew we were moving I started seeing a girl. I knew there was a possibility that we would be moving, though, so I hadn’t planned on getting serious with anyone. I was getting out of a long relationship, too. She was getting out of a long relationship. We were neighbors, too, during those long relationships and never took the time to get to know one another. We ended up both being single and finally hung out, but not just us. It was me and my four roommates and her and her three roommates. We all became close friends, but there was something about this girl that caught my eye.

I don’t think either one of us wanted to get into a serious relationship, although I don’t remember ever clearly laying those ground rules. So, while leaving all the details out, we decided to just have fun. That changed quickly. I started to fall for this girl quicker than a hiccup.

There was something about her. She had short blond hair that barely grazed her shoulders. She wore it cupped around her face so you could still see how amazingly beautiful she was. “Cupped” is the only way I can describe it. Give me a break. I’m a guy. She was tall and not chicken leg skinny. She had spent her whole childhood and teenage years as a dancer so she had a nice muscle tone. The way she moved you could tell she was a dancer, too. The way she mixed a drink or walked to her room, or even packed her book bag was so graceful that she could only be a dancer.

When it came time for my family to move, I remember looking at her and just knowing that I would never be able to walk away. I couldn’t just leave her. But I needed to find a way to support myself if I stayed. So one morning I sat her down and told her, “I will spend the next three months looking for a job. If I find one, I’ll stay. If I can’t find one, I have to go. At least for a while.”

I spent day after day looking for a job. I was offered a dream job as a coach, but the money wasn’t right. I was offered a nightmare job, too. Turning that one down was still hard though because I knew I was taking the risk of not finding another job and having to leave her. But I knew, I knew, there was something out there waiting for me to find it. So I kept applying places.

I was scheduled to leave for Arizona on November 2nd, 2011. My family had been out there for over a month and I stayed back in Indiana with her. I was a couple of days away from buying a plane ticket when I got a call about a job opening.

First of all, I don’t pick up the phone when I don’t have the number. If it is important, then they’ll leave a message. And that’s what happened. I listened to the message as I was sitting in my car outside of the psychology building on campus waiting for my girlfriend to be done with class.

“Hi, Brandon. This is Brad from the station. I saw your resume and I’d like to talk to you about the job. We'd love to have you working for us. Give me a callback. Thanks.”

I was so ecstatic I couldn’t wait to replay the message to her. I was going to put on a sad face and hand her the phone and then smile when she heard it. Perfect plan. And then I...wait…Brad from where? I had no idea what he said. I had applied to countless…and I really mean countless…job openings that I don’t remember applying for this one. I didn’t want to call this place without knowing what I had applied for. That’s rude and quite embarrassing.

She listened to it. Then I listened to it. She listened to it. I listened to it five more times and neither one of us understood what the hell he was saying. Where the hell did this man work? Luck must have been on my side because after twenty minutes of searching online websites and backtracking through my search history I finally found the station he worked for and called him back.

I got the job. I stayed in Indiana.

Can you guess why I’m looking in the mirror today with a smile on my face knowing nothing can go wrong?

It’s her. She is the reason why today is going to be a perfect day. I feel like every moment in my entire life has led me to this one day. Tonight I ask Jenny to marry me.

As I drive to pick her up at her apartment, all I can think about is what I’m going to say. I planned the evening, I planned how I’m going to ask her, but I haven’t planned what I’m going to say. How do you plan something like that? How do you tell someone how much they mean to you in a few short sentences? I love you? Yea, it’s nice, and when truly meant they are the greatest words any person can hear, but it needs to be more than that. And here I am driving my 2001 black Honda Civic about five miles under the speed limit because I don’t know what I’m going to say.

The evening will be perfect, though. That I know. I wanted both of our parents to be there, well not in the room when it happens but close by because I know when…if…no, when she says yes one of the first things she’s going to want to do is call her mom. When she goes to do that, I can bring out all the parents and it’ll be a nice surprise. Her parents live in southern Indiana close to the Ohio-Kentucky border. My parents are flying back from Arizona. I’m proposing to her in northern Indiana so I’m sticking the parents at a nearby restaurant until it happens.

I’m taking her to Applebees. I know, I know. Not very romantic for such a special occasion, but I don’t plan on proposing there. I am keeping this evening as normal as can be so she doesn’t suspect a thing. Then when we are walking through the park looking at Christmas lights that’s where I pop the question. It’s a great plan. It is a great plan, isn’t it? Ok, good.

Even though I’m driving under the speed limit it seems like I’m getting there quicker than I usually do. It takes me about an hour to get up to her apartment. She’s in her second year of grad school and I live closer to Indianapolis so I need to make this drive every weekend to see her.

I pull up to a red light, the light that is just off the highway’s exit. That is a bright light. Red. Telling me to stop. Stop proposing? Is it a sign that I need to turn around? Oh, damn it. Stop messing around in your own damn head. There is nothing more I want to do than to marry this girl and I haven’t had any doubts about it, so I guess I am entitled to one brief moment of doubt. But that’s over now and just as I thought that the light switches to green. I am free to go.

Everything goes dark. So dark like I cup my hands perfectly around my eye sockets and block out all the light. I keep driving but don’t really seem to know where I’m going anymore. The last hundred times I made this trip I remember having about six miles until I turn right after the Walmart, and that there was a gas station up here on the right, but it’s not there. Nothing is there. It’s just dark.

My car isn’t here. I’m not driving my car. I’m not sitting in my car…I don’t really remember what my car looks like. I think…I think it was black, or no, maybe it was white. Anyways, I don’t see why that matters right now, I was walking anyways.

I keep walking through the darkness; at least I think that I’m walking. My feet are moving but there are no signs, buildings, or any objects of realism to prove that I am walking. Maybe I’m not even standing on anything. No, that can’t be. If I weren’t standing on anything, I’d be falling, and that I would feel. I think I would feel it, but again I’m not sure because I don’t know if I can feel anything in this place…wherever and whenever the hell this place is.

I need to test myself. Like when you wake up real foggy and you think you’re still dreaming so you pinch yourself. Yea, I need to pinch myself. I reach my left hand over, which is strange in the first place because I’m usually right-handed, and pinch my right arm. I don’t feel anything. I don’t feel any pain or even any skin between my fingers.

I look down at my hand and it is by my side. Straight at my side, both of my arms are. The backs of my hands are pointed in the direction that my body is facing. I notice my feet are square to my body like a soldier after the general screams “ten-hut!” My legs were pretty damn straight, too.

It hits me. I’m lying down. I was too much inside my own damn head that I never bothered to look at my body. I was thinking about walking but didn’t check to make sure I was actually moving. Then I wanted to pinch myself but forgot to see it happen.

I look down at my feet ready to give the order. Ready to see my feet start walking.

“Let’s walk,” I thought about saying. I don’t say it, though. I’m not moving. I’m not speaking. The blackness around me isn’t doing anything and I am starting to panic a little bit. At least, I think I am. I just can’t tell the difference anymore.

I start to relax for a second because off in the distance I see a small glare. A glare could only be happening because of light. Yes, that is what it is. I see light. I send the message to my body to head for the light and sure enough, it finally works. The light gets bigger so at first, I think I’m gaining on it, but I’m not. It’s gaining on me.

I don’t know how many times now I’ve played mind games with my own mind and haven’t been able to beat them. I am not moving at all, but the light gets bigger. It looks like headlights in the distance as a car moves toward me, but there was only one light, not two like on a vehicle.

I start to feel a gust of air hit me in the face. I haven’t felt the sensation of a breeze in…god, I don’t even know how long anymore. It doesn’t feel like I’m caught in a tornado, or even standing outside on a windy day. It feels like I took a small air pump and pumped one shot of air into my face. It is a small, aimed pipe of air. I only feel it for a quick second.

I feel my eyes open. It feels good like when you wake up after a good nap and feel rejuvenated. Not like one of those two-hour naps when you are more tired coming out of it than going into it, but a quick twenty-minute nap. I feel good, but I don’t think my body is reacting the same way as my mind is.

I have no strength in my muscles. I ball up my fist but am having a hard time squeezing. My toes are wiggling, but even that takes more energy than I can remember using in some time. This is a different feeling than being in the pitch black. In that world, I felt my body going through progressions, but nothing ever happened. Now it’s work. I need to focus all my energy just to wiggle a couple of toes.

I haven’t noticed the people in the room until now. There is an older man sitting in one of the chairs off to the left of my uncomfortable bed. All of his concentration is on the TV that hangs from the ceiling. He looks tired and uncomfortable. It is a crappy chair. The back cushion doesn’t look cozy, the arms are wood with no cushion, and the back is straight-up that it could probably cure anyone’s Scoliosis if they sit in it long enough.

A woman sits on the bed next to me. I can feel the side of her hips pressed up against mine as if the bed isn’t big enough for two people. I can also feel her hand on top of my forearm. Either her hand is freezing, or mine is. I think it is her hand because I am pretty comfortable. If I’m cold then I need more than this itchy wool blanket.

Her mouth moves but I can’t hear anything she’s saying. Her eyes are big. Sizes of quarters and she looks deep into my eyes with a bit of shock. She stops mouthing whatever it is she mouths and the man gets up from the chair and practically leaps to my side. He grabs my arm pretty tightly like he wants to take it off and use it himself.

I start feeling something inside my head. It’s like something is coming back to me, but I’m not sure what it is, yet. It feels like I’m sitting on an airplane, or driving through the mountains and my head is being squeezed and thrust into a fishbowl.

“Hep…nse…tor,” I hear. It makes no sense to me, but it’s all I hear. The woman keeps screaming it too, “Hewp…nuse…docor.” A tear falls from her eye and her smile stretches from ear to ear. She’s a pretty woman. I wonder if these two are married. They look happy.

The man lets go of my arm, finally, and walks to the edge of the door and yells, “Help! Can we get a nurse or a doctor in here?”

Hmph. I don’t know.

A couple of people walk into the room, which I can only guess is my room. I mean I am the one in the bed that this lady seems to want to have more than anything. The first guy in is some sort of meat man or butcher. He must have come straight from work because he forgets to take off his white coat. A lady ninja follows behind him. I think pink is a bad color for a ninja. She doesn’t even have a hood, or a colored belt to go with her outfit, but he clothes do look comfy.

“How are you feeling?” the butcher asks me.

I don’t know what to say to him so I just stare at him. I don’t know if I want to talk to him. I have never seen him before and the way he asked me how I was feeling was just rude. When you meet someone ask them how they are, or what’s going on, but to ask me something as serious as my feelings on a first encounter is downright impolite.

“Brandon, are you ok? Can you hear me?” the lady spoke up.

Brandon. Hmph. That sounds familiar. Maybe that’s me.

“Are you in any pain, Brandon?” again the butcher crosses a social boundary.

I don’t know why but I feel like smiling at this woman. Although she has tried to take over my bed, she’s been nice about it. Her questions are acceptable too because I am ok and I can hear her. Not like the meat jackass. “How am I feeling?” Kiss my ass.

She wraps her arms around my neck and falls down on top of me. I pat her on the back a couple of times and can hear the weeping from behind me. All this treatment because I threw her a polite smile?

“Brandon, I missed you so much.”

“Brandon,” hey my vocal cords work. “That’s me?”

“What?” she lets go of me and looks at me with a blank face. “Doctor?”

Hmph. Doctor? Strange name.

“Brandon. Brandon, do you know who I am?” he asks.

“Doctor. Mr. Doctor,” even though he isn’t the most polite, I know I have to be the bigger man. Mr. is a sign of respect.

“No, Brandon, I’m a doctor.”

“I’m a Brandon,” I respond. Maybe I’m not Brandon, though, because when I say that the lady quickly covers her mouth and nose and more tears crawl onto her face.

“Brandon, do you know who this is?” he nods towards the nice lady.

Of course, I know who she was. She is the lady that woke me up. She rescued me from the dark place. She’s nice. Her hands are cold but gloves could certainly fix that. But who is she?

“No,” I say.

She puts her lips back into her mouth and bites on them. Weird. She blinks out a couple more tears and smiles at me. Even in such a tough time she delivers me a warm smile. I like her a lot.

“What were you watching?” I decide to involve the other man in the conversation, but I wasn’t going to say anything to the ninja. That could be dangerous.

“A football game. You like football,” he says to me.

I can’t tell if he is asking me a question or telling me I like football. I don’t care either way, because I think I am going to like football. It sounds like an exciting…thing? I mean I don’t know what it is. I know eggs are food. Football…oh, right. It’s a sport. See I knew that. It comes back to me when I look at the TV. It’s a sport. And I know my favorite team.

“Are the Pacers winning?”

“No, son, they aren’t playing,” he looks sad when he answers me. He must really want to watch the Pacers’ game. I wonder why they aren’t on.

Wait. Son? Hmph. Ok.

“I’m going to make a couple of calls,” says the nice lady. I wave to her before I even realize that I’m moving my arm. Slowly I’m gaining control of my muscles. This place is a lot better than the dark place.

“I’m going to set up some tests and I’ll check on you in a couple of hours,” says the doctor. Even though he seems rude, I wave to him too. I use both hands this time. The lady, doctor, and ninja all leave the room so I need the extra hand, but also waving feels fun.

I watch football with the man for the next couple of hours. He has a black mustache and I keep wondering what he’d look like without it, but I don’t want to be rude so I don’t ask him to shave it. I don’t understand football. Two teams moving back and forth and back and forth. When they finally seem to be getting somewhere, the field ends. It comes to an abrupt dead end and then they kick the ball.

I close my eyes for a while because the game isn’t interesting if the Pacers aren’t playing. I leave the room for a while, but thank goodness it’s not back to the black place. I don’t know this place either, but it doesn’t seem as real as the black place or the bedroom I was in. It feels like an out-of-body experience. I see myself doing something above myself instead of inside my head. It’s kind of cool.

“I’m sorry. I left work as soon as I got Mrs. Q’s call. Is he ok?” I hear someone interrupting me.

“He doesn’t remember us. The doctor doesn’t know if it’ll come back,” of course, in my short time here I’ve learned the doctor doesn’t know much. “They said to just ask him questions and hope we’ll trigger something.”

I open my eyes again without ever realizing they were closed. I seem to be doing that a lot lately. This time I don’t wake up with the same energy. I am groggy from my nap, and when I see that football is still on the TV it doesn’t help my mood. I’m getting the feeling that this is indeed my room, so maybe I can ask the man to leave, or just change the channel. He seems nice enough.

I turn my head to ask him and a feeling of excitement shoots down my body. Like a wave of chills move from my head to my toes. I don’t feel hungry, but there is something going on inside my stomach. I think they call it butterflies.

“Jenny,” I say. “Jenny, come here.”

She doesn’t, though. She stands in the doorway and starts crying. The man looks like he’s seen a ghost. His mouth drops so far down that it might stretch his mustache out. They look at each other, first like they were accidentally in the wrong room, but then the man starts laughing. She cries more and covers her mouth, but he laughs. He looks at me and laughs. It wasn’t in mockery or to tease me, but he seems joyful. The kind of laugh you’d get when walking through the gates of Disney World.

She finally comes over to my bed in a hurry. I’d say hops onto the bed, but instead, she practically falls into me. She hugs me with such force that the sticky cord on my hand could pop off. Then she plants kisses all over my face. I tuck my chin and scrunch my face like I’m getting licked by a dog and trying to hide from it, but this I like. Small pecks land on my forehead, then my cheek, back to my forehead, one on my nose, and a big one on my lips.

“Are you ok?”

“I’m fine. I feel a little uncomfortable being here, but I’m glad you’re here now. Are you coming from school? How’s it going? How’s practicum?” I’m so excited to see her. Being away from her for as little as a week feels like forever.

She looked at the man behind her. She sits on the bed now next to me and I put my hand on her thigh to make sure she hears me. She smiles at me, again. Her smile is beautiful. Mesmerizing.

“Brandon, I finished school about six months ago.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been in a coma, sweetie. You’ve been asleep for almost thirteen months,” a teardrop slipped down her cheek. I put my finger to her face and let the tear roll onto my finger. “You were in a car accident.”

I think I could panic right now, but it’s best not to. After all, this makes sense now. I remember the last time I was awake I was in my car. I was looking in the mirror buttoning up my shirt. The blackness was all in my mind. It was me inside my mind. I was only in there for a couple of minutes unable to move, but the truth is that I was in there for thirteen months trying to find a way out.

I can feel my face lose all expression as I collect my thoughts. I look down to make sure there is a trashcan beside my bed because I honestly feel like vomiting. The man is on the same page and pulls the garbage closer to me.

“Has anyone called my parents? Do they know?” I ask.

“Brandon…” she begins. “This is your dad.”

Oh, no. Oh, no, how can I be so thoughtless? My dad, the guy I’ve been calling “the man,” “the man in the chair,” “the man with the mustache” is actually my father. Now I feel really sick to my stomach. All the tears he’s been crying were for me and I had been looking at him as a stranger. My own father has sat in that uncomfortable chair for, what I’m guessing, has been all thirteen of these treacherous months.

“The lady on this bed…my mom?”

They both nod. I can’t hold it back now. I feel it coming, but this was a different feeling than when I started hearing again. Tears fall from my face and drop to the mattress. I look away from them and out the window so I can collect my thoughts, but also I want to wash away the last couple of hours and look at my dad again and start over. I want to wrap my arms around him. I can feel my stomach and chest bouncing up and down as I reach a full-blown cry.

I look back at them and stare into the eyes of my father. I reach out and take his hand. As soon as I touch him he starts to cry as if I transfer it with the touch of our hands. I pull him into me and embrace him. I can feel his strong arms around me pulling me in as far as he can. Thirteen months built up into one hug. I’m sure he had hugged me before, but now he knows for certain that I feel it. I do feel it.

But I have to stop. It is one of the best moments of my life, I think, but Jenny catches my eye. It’s not the look in her eyes, or anything she says that catches me, but what she’s wearing. A ring.

A silver band. The diamond on top is a round cut just like the one I wanted to buy her. The one I think I bought her. I let go of my dad and let him stand up. He is a big guy and bending over to hug me can’t be good on his back, so I do him a favor.

“That’s mine,” I say to her.

“Funny, I thought it was mine,” she says with a mix of smiles and tears.

“Did I…” I couldn’t have. “Did I ask you?”

She shakes her head like she is embarrassed to be wearing it. Like she stole it and I am just now catching her.

“No, but I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.”

“Dad, can you help me up?”

“No,” his tears turn aggressive. “You stay in that bed.”

“Dad, please,” I beg him.

“Do you have to use the bathroom?”

“Just please help me up,” the look in my eyes must win him over because he lifts up my blankets and puts his arms behind my head. He slowly leans me forward and helps me out of bed. I can feel my muscles trying to move, but it’s still so hard. I rise to my feet and feel wobbly. Jenny holds onto my back but I need her to step away. I ask her to step back and whisper into my dad’s ear.

Jenny looks on nervous. I’ve always been stubborn and she is probably concerned I’m going to hurt myself. My dad smiles and kisses me on the cheek when I tell him what I need to do. He helps me to my knee. Jenny has more tears left inside of her, because when she sees what I’m attempting to do, with the help of dad, she starts crying all over again.

“Come here,” I say to her. I want to hold her hand, but she will also help me balance on one knee so I don’t fall over and break my nose.

“Brandon.”

“Jenny,” I cut her off. Selfishly, this is my moment. “When we met, I was going through a real rough time and I never thought that I would be able to love anybody, or even love myself, the way that I used to. I didn’t plan for ‘us’ to be a long run, but there was something about you that got me, that understood me,” I feel pain in my hips and a small muscle spasm in my back, but I don’t care. “You loved me for all the good, but you took my heart forever when I saw that you’d love me through the bad. I prayed every day that I’d find someone to protect me and someone to look after me and to make sure that I’m doing ok. Here you are. God sent me an angel to walk with me every day. He sent me you. You are my inspiration. You are my motivation. My angel.”

The lady…my mom walks in at this very moment and although I can see in her eyes right away that she is angry with me for being out of bed, she is so happy. She’s happy to see me awake and to see me proposing to Jenny. She puts both her hands to her mouth and begins to cry into them. My dad pulls her in close to him and kisses her on the cheek. They both watch me, with tears in their eyes and love in their hearts.

“Jenny, will you marry me?”