Somewhere along the line, Scott was born.  It didn’t even take very long.  He was a healthy boy with a lot of kick in him, and his mother was glad he popped out when he did.  The only problem was that Scott was defective.  It wasn’t an obvious defect, otherwise his parents might have considered returning him, or at least considered giving him away.
“Oh, well,” his father had said, and then slipped out for a vasectomy.
    Scott’s defect was on Chromosome 22, in a gene referred to as the tumor suppressant gene.  It isn’t uncommon for puberty to suddenly accelerate growths within, and in Scott’s case it took the form of a sudden loss of sensation in his right arm one morning when he was pouring milk into his mother’s cereal, that was the day they realized that Scott had a problem.  Needless to say the spilt milk was enough to spark his first of many trips to doctors.  It also was grounds for his mother to cry—and she did.  A lot.
    Despite all of his parent’s crying, Scott was a happy boy.  He adapted to any side effects that came of his condition, and excelled at his favorite sport, soccer.  For Scott surgeries were about as common as him noticing the existence of his belly-button—that is to say, the operations were not always expected, but they happened on a rather regular basis.  He survived laminectomies of his spine, head surgeries, cosmetic surgeries, and even the installation of a shunt or two into his cavernous sinuses.  These were just peachy to Scott, and he generally recovered ahead of all expectations on the part of his doctors.  This was all before Scott was even 21.  When Scott was 21, one of the meaner-spirited meningiomas in his head grew 3 centimeters, giving Scott some rather nasty seizures.  400 milligrams of Dilantin a day, kept the convulsions away, but the doctors suggested radiation therapy to counterstrike the errant colony of brain sheath cells.
    Pow-pow.
    Scott, was excited.  Though, ahead of him was 6 months of daily Proton Beam radiation therapy stuff at the clinic in Chicago, Scott focused on the cross country road trip.  After making arrangements for a place to stay, he packed all his stuff into his little car, and set off for Chicago the next day.  Scott, forgot his toilet paper.
It was on this trip, driving for as long as he could safely keep his eyes open each day, that Scott found God.  Hello, God—that, and burnt toast, was how he began every morning.  The finding-God-revelation was pretty cool, but the coolest revelation happened when Scott stopped at a gas station in Sedona, Arizona, because he was tired of shitting in the forest and wiping up with leaves.  In the restroom there was a sign regarding the spiritually healing effects of the many “energy vortexes” in Sedona.  Scott, thought that sounded suspiciously hippie like, but ever since he found God, he couldn’t help but take notice of all the suspiciously meaningful coincidences that kept occurring to him anyhow.  He figured it may not be too far a leap to suppose that God gave him chapped****so that he would find these vortexes.  So the second cooler realization came when Scott was sitting on a bluff feeling the torrents of a nearby energy vortex.
Hello, Vortex, Scott said.
Hello, Scott, replied the vortex.
Why am I here, Vortex?
Why are any of us here, Scott?
Uhh, Guys?  God interrupted
Hello, God, Scott replied.
Why am I here, God?  the energy vortex asked.
God ignored the vortex.
Scott, your brainwaves have shifted.
Scott thought about this delicately, but only shrugged.
God?  The energy vortex was developing a shade of invisible purple.
Please Vortex, I told you how I feel about double-voiced questions, maybe I’ll tell you in the next millennia when you’re old enough to know.  But for now you just have to understand that I’m using you as a focal point so I can deliver a message to Scott, God replied.
The energy Vortex crept away to sulk.
Scott, do you understand?
No, Scott rubbed his temple, I’m sorry.
You’re hearing things, Scott.
Scott laughed.
Look Scott, remember that you’re on 5.  If you do, you will never be lost.
Cool, Scott replied.  No heads up on how this Proton Beam stuff is going to go?
Fine, God said.


“Scott, you’re on 5.”
“Which?”
“5, Scott, something wrong?”
“Not at all, Man.”  Scott smiled at John, and walked past the receptionist desk down the control hallway.  It was his last day of treatment, and the first day that he had been assigned to machine 5.  Whenever someone would ask him what Proton Beam radiation was, he’d ask them if they had any idea what a particle accelerator was.  When they said yes, because most people like to have some idea, he’d say, well, imagine that, and then imagine your head being at the end of one.  He liked that the listening party would wince every time.
In 6 months Scott had never met Clarissa.  She was on 5, and 5 was only for those who were about to be discharged.  The second part of the story that he almost never told anyone, since the initial wince seemed painful enough, was that radiation therapy was a lot like a microwave.  It cooks from the inside out.  The goal is to fry the inside of the tumor, and the rest of the tumor slowly dies on its own.  After his session, which takes 20 minutes, Scott asked his nurse when her shift let out.  She said 8, and he said, that’s fine, how’s Italian food?  You’ll get me fired, she replied.  Maybe, he said, but maybe it’s worth it.  She must have agreed, because at 8, Scott was outside waiting in his small car when Clarissa came out the door.  She tapped on his window, and told him to pick her up 4 blocks over at the bus station.
    At dinner, Clarissa choked on a meatball.  Scott jumped up and gave her the Heimlich maneuver, the ball rolled errantly down the restaurant stopping under a table and its white table cloth, landing where both Clarissa and Scott were relieved that no one would notice it.
    “You saved me,” Clarissa said still holding her throat.
    “You know, I almost said the same thing earlier today,” Scott replied.
    By the time they got back to Scott’s apartment, they were holding hands.  Clarissa nudged her face against Scott’s, and stroked his bald head.
    “Why’d you decide to take the chance seeing me tonight?” Scott asked.
    “These.”  She rubbed the red Sharpie cross-hairs on his scalp.  The waiting room at the clinic was a sea of bald people with red plus signs, they were the marks the technicians used to align the machines.
    “What do you mean?”
    “It’s a game.  I try to read the future in my patient’s alignment marks.  Don’t laugh.  My mom used to read the future in the bottom of a cup of tea.”
    Scott laughed.
    “I told you not to laugh.”
    “No.”  Scott put his hand on her thigh. “I was laughing about the tea.”
    “Well don’t laugh at that either.” Clarissa kissed his left cranial orbit.
    “So what did you see?”
    “You’re leaving.”
    “Yes.”
    “And, I saw myself with you.  Where are we going?”
    “Arkansas.”
    “God, I’m sorry to hear that.”
    “Do you know, Dr. John Dickinson?”
    “No.”  She shook her head.
    “Best there is.  He lives on a farm.”


     “I’m sorry Scott, the audiologists ran the test twice, brainwave V is absent on the left, and III is showing distortion on the right.”
    Scott grimaced.
    “I lost a brain wave?”
    “We won’t know for sure till the radiologists can look at your scans, but it seems that the schwannomas are starting to compress your 8th cranial nerves bilaterally.” The long doctor tapped on his long clipboard.
    “How can you just lose a brainwave?”
    “It’s not gone, Scott, just absent.”  The doctor paused, “look, Scott, you really need to think about learning sign-language now, it’ll be easier for you.”
    “But, Doc—“
    The doctor interrupted, “Scott, I know it’s difficult, but you don’t have time for denial.”
    “And the migraines?”
    “Not my field, Scott, but I don’t see how these tumors would be causing that.  It could be stress, and right now it makes sense.  But maybe you could ask yourself if there is anything that you could cut out from your life, and relax a little.”
    Scott gripped his fingers into the side of the faded leather beneath him, and sat up.  He no longer believed in the voice of God.

    Today was Friday.  Clarissa worked at the hospital.  She came home early on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and sometimes Saturdays.  Fridays she always worked late.  Scott hated to come home to an empty house, it always gave him an ominous feeling, the wood castings around the door frames seemed to enclose upon him.  He had a routine for Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays.  He lived on disability, 9 months before he had to quit his job building furniture.  Things had become tight.
    Friday nights and all the other nights that she never came home early, he slept past noon, woke up and had three eggs, toast, and a coke, and then went to the art museum.  From three to four he looked at the Rembrandts, four till five he looked at the Van Goghs, and five till five fifteen, that was when the museum closed, he always looked at the postcards in the gift shop to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.  Today he missed the museum because he had to see his doctor, Monday—he told himself—he would not miss it, and as for the rest of the day he decided he did not today want to sit at the soup counter and drink coffee.  Instead he used the pay phone outside of the Post Office.
    A lot had happened since Chicago.  They got married, and were happy to leave Arkansas when they could.  But, Scott’s health was getting worse, and they both knew it.  They didn’t talk about it, but they knew it, and Scott also knew that he was becoming a burden to Clarissa.  He knew that more and more of his life revolved and depended on her.  He loved her very much, and knew she loved him.  But still—it was too much.  Clarissa used to make a point about coming to all his doctors appointments with him, but lately when she would, they would bicker in the waiting room, and someone would end up crying.  Today’s appointment, he had asked her not to go, and she accepted quickly.
When Clarissa answered, she gave a very cheerful hello.  When Scott said hey, she asked him “what did I tell you about calling me at work?”
“I know, Clair, but I wanted to tell you what the doctor said.”
    “Later, Scott, tell me when I get home.”
    “Okay,” he replied, and she hung up before he was even sure she had heard his goodbye.
Scott walked three blocks further to The Paradise, a local dance theatre, sat in the alley, and pressed his ear against the brick wall.  His foot tapped absently with the music inside.

    “Clarissa,” he whispered, “I’m sorry to wake you baby, I just...”
    “What?”
    “I know it’s late, I’m sorry, we can talk in the morning, but—“
    “What is it?”
    “It’s just, I was laying down, and my head it just… it hurts, Clarissa, I don’t know what to do, I’m desperate.”
    Scott and Clarissa had slept in separate bedrooms for some time now.  She had said that it was better for them, and that she slept better, and loved him more for it.
    “God-damn-it Scott, I just fell asleep.”
    “I know baby, I’m sorry, it’s just, I haven’t had a migraine this bad, I don’t know what to do, I…”
    “Well I’m sorry that you have a f***ing headache, but I just fell asleep ten minutes ago, and you woke me up.  Don’t you f***ing care that I just got off a 16 hour shift?”
    “I don’t think you understand how bad—”  He clutched his head unevenly.
    “I’m sorry you have a headache, Scott.”  She interrupted.
    “The doctor said—”
    “Scott.” Clarissa growled
    “I just want to tell you something the doctor—”
    “I’m getting that frustrated feeling again, Scott.”
    “I know baby, look I just need your help, tell me what to do—”
    “Scott, could you just leave my room now?”
    “Clarissa, what should I…”
    “I’m sorry you have a headache, please go.”  She turned to her side, and pulled her blanket over her head.

    Clarissa slept late Saturday mornings.  Scott spent the night kneeling at the foot of their living room couch with his head sandwiched in the intersection of four cushions.  His sobbing went unnoticed.  When he awoke that morning his mind was numb.  Usually on Saturday mornings he went to the zoo to look at the monkeys.  This morning he didn’t go to the zoo, and didn’t do much of anything besides leaving a note on the refrigerator that read:  “Clarissa, Went to buy eggs.  Lost brain wave, love Scott.” and headed out the door.
    The girl at the grocers laughed when he brought his fifteen egg cartons to the checkout, and he replied with a dumb-smile.  Walking back home through the park he smiled at two-girls playing pat-a-cake and for forty-five minutes he sat next to a guitar player listening to the entirety of the man’s set.  He gave the guitar player every bill in his wallet, and left on the note of “Leaving on a jet-plane”, the song followed him home.
    By the door he found a note, it read, “Scott—I went to work.  I can’t be what you need me to be anymore.  I won’t be home tonight, I want a divorce.  Scott, I’m sorry.”  He noticed his note from the refrigerator was missing.  He turned over the new note, and found it. Scott put the eggs in the fridge, turned on the record player, flipped through the phone book, and dialed the first sign-language academy he found, while Beethoven’s 5th symphony led him through the tone of the digits.
    Scott found his wedding tape in the media-case under the TV, and put it in the VCR.  He walked to the piano striking an F sharp, took the remote on top of it, stopped the record, and took the screwdriver he kept next to the turntable.
    When he sat at the very couch that had heard all his late night confessions, he had already started the tape.  The sound of Clarissa’s laughter filled the room.  There wasn’t anything else that he’d miss, and it was the one thing that he couldn’t memorize.
    Blood began to drip from his right ear, and he pushed the screwdriver in deeper until his head exploded with wedding bells.  The pain was trivial compared to last night, and extinguished all together when he then inserted the bloody screwdriver into his left ear, and popped the drum.  He hadn’t expected deafness to be so loud, it was brainwave V that asserted itself, and it was then that he knew that his headaches were over, because he was on 5.