The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon
Darrin sets up the electronic scorekeeper. He puts me first, then Chris, and then him. I get my shoes on and walk out into the middle of the lane.
No pressure. No pressure. I don't like the way these shoes feel. They feel all sweaty and they hurt my heel. I pick up my ball with both hands and walk to the line. My arm feels stiff. This is much different than bowling in the hospital. There's so much more noise here. A guy next to me whips one down the lane and the pins clatter everywhere.
I roll my ball down toward the pins and it looks for a second like it's going to hit the headpin, and then it goes off to the right side and knocks down a couple. I look back at Chris and Darrin and they nod.
Chris says, “Go for the headpin.”
“I was.”
“Oh. Okay.”
My second ball goes down the left side and knocks down only one pin.
Chris goes next and gets a strike. How did he get so good?
Darrin gets a strike too. What the hell is going on?
It's my turn again. I get up. The ball feels heavier this time. Chris says, “Just relax.”
“Okay.”
I let the ball roll and it hits the ten pin and just barely knocks it down. I roll my second ball, but it just drifts right into the gutter. I sit down before it even gets to the pins.
Back home, Mom says, “How'd you do?”
“Okay, I bowled an eighty-two.”
“How'd everybody else do?”
“They're good. They bowled up in the hundreds.”
“Was it fun?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it nice to see Chris?”
“Yeah.”
“How'd he do?”
“I told you, a hundred and something.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. And was it fun to see him?”
“I told you, it was fun.”
“Okay. Did you guys make any more plans?”
“No.”
“Do you think you'll see him again soon?”
“I don't know.”
“Would you like to?”
“Sure.”
“Great, honey, I'm glad you had such a good time.”
“Okay. I'm gonna go watch TV.”
“Okay. Have fun. Do you need anything?”
“No. Thanks.”
When my skin is really itching, I have to get Mom or Dad to rub my back. I lie facedown on the brown corduroy couch and breathe through the cushions while they scratch my back with the palms of their hands. They still can't use their nails because the nails might tear the new skin, so they just use the palms of their hands.
Dad is much better at back scratching, probably because he likes his back scratched so much. He moves his hands really fast all over my back, and it feels great. When Mom does it, she's much more gentle and careful, but the itch is so down deep that she hardly even reaches it.
They're both pretty good at back massages. Dad rubs deep in the muscle and Mom rubs softly.
For back cracking, Dad is the one. I lie on the floor and put my head to the side. Dad and I have figured out that if he puts his hands on the sides of my spinal cord and pushes down hard, we can get a few of the vertebrae to crack. Sometimes he pushes down so hard that it feels like my rib cage is going to snap. Mom gets freaked out when we do that, but when they crack, God, it feels so good, it's like a little drug being released right into my brain.
We're going to meet Magic Johnson today. He's in D.C. doing a basketball camp. I've been waiting for this for so long.
Craig doesn't want to come. I don't know why. He says it's not his thing. I don't care.
I was going to wear my orange warm-up suit he sent me, but it's too small now. I never got to wear it. Not once. I'll just wear my signed T-shirt. That's good enough.
Dad's wearing a Michigan State T-shirt because both Dad and Magic Johnson went to college there. Maybe he thinks that Magic will like that. Dad brought two Magic Johnson official basketballs for Magic to sign. They're pretty cool. He got one for Craig too, even though Craig didn't even want to come. I wonder why he didn't want to come.
Dad parks the car. This must be the place. How do I look? I look stupid. I look really stupid. I'm wearing a Magic Johnson signed T-shirt to go meet Magic Johnson. Why am I doing that?
Dad goes into the building first and sees someone he knows. Dad always knows somebody. There are all these kids running around shooting baskets. Oh my God, there's Magic. He's showing some kid how to shoot.
Dad whispers in my ear, “Brenner, do you still want to play one-on-one with Magic?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I'm sure.” God, he's so tall. I've never seen anyone that tall. I didn't realize there were going to be other people here.
This guy leads us up some stairs into a private room. There's some cold cuts and cheese on the table and two giant buckets shaped like Pepsi cans filled with ice and soda.
The guy says, “You can have anything you want. Magic will be up in a few minutes.”
My hands are shaking. Why do my hands always shake when I'm nervous? Why am I so nervous? This is no big deal, just meeting my idol. My hero. The guy I've wanted to meet my whole life.
The door opens. There he is. He's so tall and sweaty. I can't think. I can't talk.
He comes right over to us and shakes my dad's hand first. He's smiling just like he does on TV. He says something to Dad about his Michigan State T-shirt.
Magic's looking at me. His hand is out. “Nice to meet you finally.”
“Hi. Nice to meet you.” His hands are so big. I can't believe it.
Magic leans down to me and says, “Your dad and I both went to Michigan State. I want you to go there too.”
“Okay.” Why does he want me to go there? Why does he care where I go to college?
Someone takes a picture and we shake hands again. That's it. He's leaving. It's over.
I'm in the basement playing Super Mario 2. I'm having trouble getting past the egg guy on level two. It's so cool down here, and there's no sun to make your scars even more purple and disgusting.
My hair is all long and shaggy and stupid looking. I really need it cut, but I don't want to go to one of those beauty salons because what if they start asking me questions? I asked Mom to call Craig and see if he'd cut my hair this weekend.
“Brent?” Mom calls from the top of the stairs.
“What?”
“Craig's on the phone.”
“Tell him I'm playing Super Mario 2.”
“All right.”
God, every time I get to the egg guy, he jumps on top of me and kills me. Maybe if I use the princess, I'll have a better chance of killing him because she can fly.
“Brent?”
“What?”
“Craig said he's not sure if he can cut your hair.”
“What? Why?”
“I don't know. I think he's worried he might cut you.”
“What?” Jesus, what a dork. All I wanted was to get a haircut from my brother. I thought it would be something we could do together. Dick.
I'm going to the Hair Cuttery. Mom says she'll drop me off and come back in a half hour. I really don't want to do this.
It smells weird in here, like bananas and hair spray. Someone's in the back, sweeping hair. The woman behind the counter is chewing gum and reading Redbook.
“Hi.”
“Can I help you?”
“Um, I need a haircut.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
“All right, I think Jill might be able to take you.”
A woman calls out from the back, “I'm on my break.”
“You've been on your break for an hour and a half.”
“Oh Jesus, all right, I'll take him.”
“She'll take you. Go on back.”
“Thanks.”
Jill is dressed in a black-and-white jumpsuit and wearing a hat with rhinestones and
“Um, I don't know, maybe take an inch off and cut around the ears.” My mom told me to say that when I was in fourth grade, and I still say it.
“Okay, so you want kind of a layered thing?”
“I guess.”
“Great. Why don't you come to the back and we'll give you a shampoo.”
I always used to love this part, where they massage your scalp and use that shampoo that smells like dessert, but now it's kind of a hard stretch on my neck. It doesn't feel very good.
She's rubbing that stuff into my hair, and I can tell she's gearing up for some small talk. Shit.
“So, do you go to school?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Where?”
“Um, I'm homeschooling right now, but I'm going to go to Marshall High School.”
“Oh, really? I went to Marshall.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, graduated in '86. Do you know Mr. Mensch?”
“No, I don't go there yet.”
“Oh, right. If you get a chance to take his class, you definitely should. I think he teaches biology or chemistry or one of those science things. He's great.” She's about to start asking me about my face. I can feel it, any second.
“Okay.” Maybe if I think of something for her to talk about, I can stop her from talking about me. Maybe if I ask her about her kids. I think I saw a picture of a little girl in a cowboy hat at her chair.
“So what happened to you?” Fuck, I missed my oppor-tunity.
“What do you mean?”
“What happened to your face?” I'll say the house fire.
“I was burned in a house fire.”
“Really? That's terrible.”
“Yeah.”
“How'd it start?” Oh Jesus.
“Um, it was electrical.” Did my voice just crack?
“Electrical?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you mean?” Shit.
“Something happened in the electricity circuits.”
“Really? How?”
“Um, the toaster.”
“The toaster?”
“The toaster shorted out and the whole house just went up in flames.”
“Did everyone in your family get hurt?”
“No. Just me.”
“Just you? That's terrible. Did you sue?” Did I sue?
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don't know. I didn't ask.”
“Oh. Well, I had a cousin that was burned really badly in an accident at the gas station where he worked, and he sued the company and got, like, a million dollars.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, and he also said it was the worst pain imaginable. Was it really bad?”
“Yeah.”
She's cutting around my ears now, and I'm sure she's going to cut me. She's just cutting and talking the whole time.
“My cousin said when he was on fire, he could really feel himself burning up, but then he found the fire extinguisher and put himself out and drove himself to the hospital.”
“Oh.”
“The doctors said it was a miracle he was still alive. He got this great tattoo of this bird on fire, what is that thing called?”
“The phoenix?”
“Yup, that's right, he got a tattoo of the phoenix on his right shoulder, which is so cool.”
“Yeah.”
Now she's got out the electric shaver to shave the back of my neck, and she's talking about her cousin the tattoo artist who does designs for all sorts of people. He did one for the drummer from KISS.
I wonder if it's okay to use that shaver on my scars. I'm not sure that she should use that on me. When she gets near the big hypertrophic scar on my right cheek, she stops talking and tries to be careful. I try not to look at what my face looks like, but I'm sitting here right in front of this mirror, and when she turns the chair, I can see all different sides of my scars that I've never seen before. There's so much redness on my face. So red and so heavy. The scars are so heavy they're pulling my eye down.
I don't really believe that it's me. Except for my eyes. I recognize my eyes.
She's brushing off my neck now. I guess that means we're done. She takes the twenty-dollar bill Mom gave me to give her and hands back a pile of ones. I'm supposed to leave a tip. I hand her two dollars, turn around, and walk out without saying anything.
Mom's waiting for me in the car when I come out. She says, “Your haircut looks good.”
“Thanks.”
“How was it in there?”
“Sucked.”
“Why?”
“Let's just say, never get a haircut from a woman wearing a hat.”
“What do you mean?”
“It's a joke. Can we go home?”
Today we're starting my new schedule. Mom's taking me to an elementary school for physical therapy. I'll do it twice a week here and twice a week at Children's. I have to go to see a therapist this afternoon, and next week I have to start with a tutor.
Mom walks in with me. School is in session, and it's only eleven o'clock, so all the kids are in their classrooms. I can smell the lunch cooking. Green beans and mashed potatoes.
We walk into a room down the hall from the cafeteria. There's a girl in a helmet drooling on a mat. This must be the place. A blond woman in tight jeans walks over to us. She's way too old to be wearing jeans that tight.
“You must be Brent. I'm Cathy, I'll be your PT.”
“Hi.”
Mom says, “Well, I'll be out in the car. Come out when you're done, okay?”
“Okay, bye, Mom.” All of a sudden, I don't want her to go. Never mind, I'm not a baby.
“So, Brent, what kind of exercises have you been doing?”
“Um, well, I guess, up at duPont, this place I was at, I was doing a bunch of dorsal flexion to release the bands on my trunk. I'm a little tighter on my right side than my left.” I show her how I can lift my left arm pretty high above my head but my right arm doesn't go as far. “With passive motion I can get almost a hundred degrees out of my left shoulder but only like eighty, eighty-five out of my right.” I bet she didn't expect I knew all those medical terms.
“Well, that's pretty good. I guess we've got something to work on. How are your lower extremities?”
“About the same. My right leg's tighter than my left.”
“Okay, why don't you take off your shoes and lie down on the mat, and we'll do some stretching?”
“All right.”
She starts with my ankles, doing some heavy stretching on my right ankle. She's kind of straddling me with her legs, and she's got her butt facing me. That's nice.
After she's done stretching me, she goes and cuts some dark blue Thera-Band, that's the stretchy plastic band that you use to stretch and strengthen yourself. The different colors mean different strengths, like black is the thickest and white is the thinnest. So dark blue is pretty good.
She shows me my exercise I'm supposed to do at home, wrapping the Thera-Band around my foot and pulling up on it. She shows me how to stretch it over my shoulders to work on my arms, and how to push against the tension to make me stronger. Yeah, right, like I'm ever going to do any of this shit. I might take it home and make a slingshot out of it.
Mom takes me to the appointment with my new therapist. He meets me in the waiting room.
“Hi, Brent. I'm Mark Nusbaum, you can call me Dr. Nusbaum.” Another Mark, another mustache.
“Hi.”
“I'm glad you could be here. We're just going to have a short session today, nothing too intense. How does that sound?” We walk into his office and sit down.
“Fine.”
“Great. What I'd like you to do is take this Magic Marker and this paper and draw a few pictures for me.”
“Oh yeah?” He must think I'm a total idiot.
“I'd like you to draw a house, a tree, and a person, okay?”
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“Great, go ahead.”
I shouldn't say anything, but I can't help myself. “Dr. Nusbaum?”
“Yes.” He tilts his head like my dog when she wants a treat.
“You don't really expect this to tell you anything about me, do you?”
“Hmm?”
“You don't really think that these drawings are going to tell you anything about me, do you?”
“Well, Brent, all I'm asking you to do is draw some pictures. What they mean is up to you.”
“Oh, come on, you and I both know that whatever I draw on this paper is supposed to tell you something about me.”
“I think it's interesting that you think it's going to say something about you.”
“I don't think that. You think that.”
“Brent, all I'm asking you to do is draw a picture of a house, a tree, and a person, all right?”
“How about a boat, a bush, and a dog? How about I draw that?”
“Well, I'd really appreciate it if you'd draw a tree, a house, and a person, but afterward you're welcome to draw whatever you like.”
“Does this work on little kids or something? Because it's pretty obvious to me what you're doing.”
“What am I doing?”
“You're trying to figure out stuff about me.”
“What am I trying to figure out?”
“Oh, Christ, just give me the paper.” I sit down and draw a nice little house with a door in the middle and a chimney. I draw a tree that kind of looks like a lollipop and a normal-looking person, standing off to the side.
“There,” I say when I'm done, “how's that?”
“That's fine, thanks. Now, please draw a man and a woman.”
“Fine.”
They look like a bride and groom on top of a wedding cake and also a little like the drawings on the signs for restrooms.
I wonder if I tried hard enough if I could be an artist. Probably not, I've never been able to draw too well. Maybe I could be a writer, though. I'd like to write something, like a book or something.