Crash Night

Dedicated to Nina Elisabeth  


One night as we rode through the city in dark rain, my friends and I tried to turn left. The car was smashed into on the passenger side by a rapidly moving semi truck, and there was a concussion and neck injuries. But other than emotional and state trauma, there was nothing seriously physical. And something like that can have strange reach; let me explain.  I remember seeing for a split second, the headlights of the truck 50 meters back. Our driver’s view was blocked by a brown bank truck when she turned. Though I was leaning forward from the backseat I didn’t say anything. Neither did my girlfriend.

Everyone let out whatever noise they had time to before what felt like the collision of your front teeth into someone else’s.  No mouth to soften anything, just that sound. Shards of it.

The sixteen -wheeled truck sped up to get through a yellow when we were in the middle of the intersection turning left.  The impact sent us round and round, the car’s front end caving in and an attic’s worth of junk, chunks, bolts and hoses bounced out into all round directions of the 140° we spun in.  

I don’t remember things stopping or slowing down. I just remember people yelling about liquid coming out of the car as we all just sat still. I climbed out, just, to marvel at the size of the thing that had smashed us.  I felt a kaleidoscope of peeled open eyes from every direction. Witnesses, eager to volunteer testimony against the driver who was younger than my little brother.  No one present would have ever guessed that it was our driver’s fault.  

The fire department arrived first, then the ambulance, then the police. We were just trying to get to the movie.

We’re just trying to get to the movie. I told a paramedic as he shone a thin light into the center of both my eyes.  Siddown. 

They hoisted the remains of the Subaru onto a flatbed truck and we convinced them that it was time for us to see the movie about Hildegard Knef. I didn’t see much of it though.

After, we all hugged and split up. The taxi ride home was lurid and grim. I sat quietly terrified and flinched at every individual headlight that went by.

When I stood up to get out of the bathtub later I fainted. 

ER

It can’t take more than a few hours, I told her. Before I left the Vancouver General Hospital at 3:30am, there were ex-rays, MRI’s, a CT scan and all kinds of other tubes, wires and pads attached to me. They gave me whiplash tests, neck exercises, long questioners and the fizzy kind of apple juice I hate.  

I met with seven different doctors, most curt and uninterested.  I threatened to leave twice. At the end of nine hours, sitting with Hannah in a waiting room, a new doctor told me that my neck and shoulder appeared fine, that there seemed to be no permanent damage from the crash. He asked to see me alone.  

I sat on a small round stool in the middle of the empty iatric room. He studied his clipboard.

 Sooo the testsss weent wellll Jesuaaa. He dragged his syllables out, reading talk from the paper. Evvverythinggg lllooks ffinee regardinggg the accidentt. Sooo that’ss gooood. He stopped dragging and started speaking in beat. But, something we believe to be completely…separate from the accident is…we did find something wrong with your brain. 

CT Scan of Jesua's left hemisphere

Under

At 6:45am I signed into the hospital. A hurried, orderly brought me into a change stall. I was handed a giant plastic bag for my things.

When I had gone to meet the neurosurgeon, we started by listing the drugs I had been using recreationally. I told them about the heroin and the ketamine injections. And the GHB and the crystal and the pills. They recommended I stay away from the cocaine and speed. I could do that. I told them.   

Because you don’t smoke, the surgery will be quite common. We’re going to remove part of your skull in order to get between the two hemispheres. They told me. And though they were exceptionally nice, my request to video record the procedure was shot way down. After a long discussion they finally agreed to taking photos using tiny cameras on the tools that would enter my dome.  

The orderly joined me in the stall. Her presence felt comfortable. You’ve got the angels flyin’ with you, you know that? Dr. Speakinghead is the best there is…if anyone in my family had to do somethin’ like this, they’d be seein’ him too.  You’ve got the angels. Another kind of smile came, this one a little sinister maybe, that lead her plump arms to me. She bent and gave me a warm, immersing squeeze as I sat on the cold bench, pants at my ankles.

My girlfriend Nina waited with me at the bed. She watched them puncture me for more IV. She never tired of holding my hand.

Congratulations. I remember Dr. Speakinghead saying. You’ve got the biggest aneurysm in the ward. Almost 2 cm!

They wheeled my gurney into the lit OR. The hall made my body feel wet and soft. I wondered what all the industrial sized stainless steel machines did besides cut people up into sausage.  I wondered about the anesthetic.

The nurses and doctors talked to me with a controlled tension that could have split an atom, with again slowed drawn tone.

In my mind I was already at the exit. I hadn’t really been anywhere since they told me that an enormous, swollen artery in my brain threatened to pop my life off at any minute. The buzz in that hall was severe, every hurry with reeled control. Human life. Open brain. One of 10 today. No room for blunders. Adrenaline scores skyrocket.  So does caffeine. And nothing could be done but surrender, wait.

Frail, in a skimpy gown, I was instructed to climb off one bed onto another, one with a squishy, tiger-striped hologram pad. It held like paste.

After tiny explanations and no introductions, they put the plastic widget over my mouth. Please breathe deeply Jesua. And before the end of 3, I went far to sleep. 

Moving into my brain

Aneurysm and clip

 Aftermath

Nurses did tests to see how well my brain and body harmonized under the end of the propofol (the same milk they claim to have killed the Thriller).

I came out of that thing into the warm smile of my mother. She was there watching me, watching everything around be intolerably awkward, in the tired grey room. I didn’t understand yet. My eyes closed for me. 

 At first I couldn’t lift an arm and I was too far-gone to talk. But if I tried really hard I could remember my name and the date, and those motherfuckers woke me every hour to re-ask me the same goddam questions. My left eye was blacked shut and my head was swollen twice its size. I was covered in old blood, with a swollen line from the bottom of my ear to my widow’s peak in an adroit pink line. In the weeks before, I daydreamed of seeing all of my friends at once, but nobody came. My mouth was held shut by my own jaw. I couldn’t get food in. I couldn’t move my right toes.

There was this night nurse though that I swore I’d kissed. I knew her. Jeanine. I swear. She came in the stone dark like a seraph one night. I wished for her blonde with all my might, to jump with me on the trampoline again. I’d wear my Black Crows “Shake Your Money Maker” t-shirt.  And she’d kindly dole out another hand of liquid morphine. 

 On day 5 Dr. Speakinghead paid me a visit. He was wearing a handsome motorcycle jacket. I told him I wanted to go home. He said Ok.  I hazily recollect leaving, being at my house, on the couch in and out of consciousness for weeks. My girlfriend and my mother were there. I went out on Halloween without dressing up. People thought I wore a great costume. I dragged a pale, infirm skeleton to work at the barbershop tending other people’s heads. 

It took months for me to lay my fingers on the ground where they worked, closing over the hole in my skull with a titanium plate. It doesn’t set off metal detectors. What was left, was a mixture of total blur and clear, visible future. My mind had mostly removed me from the past situation, but I started to taste the salt of fresh ideas. I still get headaches that wake me up all night, or I find myself shaking scared from simple things like traffic, or the waterslides I watch 6 year-old girls scream and leap right down into.  And as hard as it is to admit, I actually fear the creeping hand of death now.

 I still wonder if the screw sticking out above my eyebrow is a Philips or a Robertson.  Ask me to feel it next time I see you, maybe you can tell. I still don’t believe in angels, or medical practitioners who do, but at that time, I was granted the right to walk in the footsteps of Christ.