Books
My publisher just sent me the cover for my new book. I’m very pleased with the work their artist did.
11-11-11 will be published and available world-wide on June 1 through Melange Books out of Minneapolis, MN.
My first novel is From Thailand With Love, and it will soon be out in print through World Audience Publishing (New York) as a two-book set. Until this official release, it can be previewed and purchased inexpensively as an ebook . . .
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/7605
http://ebooks.ebookmall.com/title/from-thailand-with-love-rachel-ebooks.htm
My second novel The Man Who Loved Too Much is unpublished. Highly knowledgeable literary agents and publishers have declared it too long. Maybe it should have been titled The Man Who Wrote Too Much. Ha ha! Interestingly, 18 short stories excerpted from this unpublishable tome have appeared in over 20 different magazines. One story “Guerilla Warfare” alone has been published in print three times. Here are some links to a few of the stories to give you a flavor for the irreverent tone of the book . . .
“Spider Man” – http://www.fullofcrow.com/fiction/2010/04/spider-man-by-john-rachel/
“Make Love Not War” – http://twinenterprises.com/the_fear_of_monkeys/issue_six/make_love_not_war.htm
“Baby Fever” – http://scars.tv/cgi-bin/works_e.pl?/home/users/web/b929/us.scars/perl/text-writings/g2698.txt
“Dr. Gender Bender” – http://www.hobopancakes.com/divisionofinfrastructure2.html
“The Tunnel of Love” – http://www.troubadour21.com/short-stories/johndrachel/the-tunnel-of-love/
“Apocalypso” – http://www.millionstories.net/JohnRachel.html
“Renoir Albertine Toulouse, Thumb Painter” – http://thedirtynapkin.com/issue/034/06/
“The Crush” – http://www.troubadour21.com/short-stories/johndrachel/the-crush/
In January of this year, I completed my third novel 11-11-11 and will be published June 1st through Melange Books (Minneapolis, MN). 11-11-11 is the tragicomic prequel to my next book 12-12-12. But it stands on its own as a demented but very plausible vision of contemporary America and its fear-driven preoccupations. Here is how 11-11-11 begins . . .
PROLOGUE
The world would finally end. For sure this time.
Not like all those other times.
Really.
Chapter 1 May 5 . . .
BAMBI MEETS GODZILLA
Noah was watching Bambi Meets Godzilla on YouTube.
He loved that little film. How many times had he seen it? Fifty? A hundred?
Almost the entire length of the three-minute film consisted of opening credits rolling over an idyllic animation of Bambi eating and frolicking in the forest. Gentle spring flute music playfully accompanied the chirping of birds. Finally the credits finish and to a thunderous, forest-shaking kaboom!, Godzillas giant foot comes down and squashes the innocent little fawn. All we see is Godzilla’s grizzly leg and Bambi’s four tiny twig-like limbs sticking out from under the giant reptilean foot. The music and birds have stopped, and as the kaboom! trails off in a long tail of reverberation, The End fades up on the screen and the film is over.
What a perfect metaphor! thought Noah. Especially for life in this stinking town.
As many times as he had watched it, it never failed to put him in a great mood. Of course, the first twenty or thirty times left him rolling helplessly on the floor in convulsions of laughter. Now it just left him pleasantly amused. Bouyant. Hopeful.
He knew he wasn’t alone. Like minds. Somewhere out there.
When the clip finished, he clicked on the Today’s Recommended Videos link.
The Featured Video was called “11-11-11 – The Pleiadians Warned Us!!”
What was this all about? Some fat loser with greasy hair flopping in his face offered a five minute rant based on alleged alien visitations from the Pleiades constellation. Filmed with a hand-held camera, it was replete with photos of flying saucers and very weird mathematical symbols scribbled on a white board. The presentation concluded with a wildly unhinged catalog of every imaginable catastrophe and collusion of spiritual forces, a cosmic fusillade of supernatural cataclysms all occurring exactly at 11:11 am on November 11, 2011.
Right.
What a pile of kaka!
11:11 am. What time zone?
Jokers like this annoyed him. All of these prophets of doom, conspiracists, rapturists and various peddlers of paranoid poop ___ and that included gurus, televangelists and faithhealers, even parish priests and local Bible-thumpers if they were mongering fear from their bully pulpits ___ really pissed him off. Whether they believed their own nonsense or not, these lunatics went around spewing this ridiculous crap, scaring the hell out of people and actually getting paid for doing it, while real people like himself actually had to work for a living.
Speaking of which . . . he had a job to go to.
Noah threw on his work clothes. He didn’t have to be to work for three more hours but this was a perfect day for riding. He hated it when he got sucked into the internet and wasted such beautiful weather geeking out.
With a wifebeater under his open work shirt, a pair of jeans tucked into his riding boots, and his backpack buckled on, Noah kick-started his 140 cc Kawasaki off-road bike. It fired up on the first try and he did a decent enough wheelie out of the garage under his tiny studio apartment. Without looking back, he knew his landlady was at her window cursing him and his errant youthful ways. She would go back to mumbling prayers for God’s forgiveness and His blessing for her abominable existence here on Earth.
Pulnick was one of the three main “cities” along a corridor that ran diagonally through Monroe County, Missouri. Monroe City sat in the very northeast corner of the county, Paris was dead center, and Pulnick midway between them just north of the artificial lakes that were the recreational foundation for Mark Twain State Park. Pulnick’s surrounding landscape was a mixture of farms, woodlands, and open fields, and showed both the growing and shrinking pains of development, successful and otherwise. The area bore witness to the indecision of a region of middle America which could not make up its mind whether to jump on the freight train of industrialization and modernization, or to just lean back as it had for many decades and watch the corn grow.
As the crow flies, Noah’s job was exactly 18 miles east and slightly south of Pulnick. If he went straight across town on Main Street, hammered it along 24, then took some back roads east around Mark Twain Recreation Area, he could be there in less than twenty five minutes. Frankly, this was a pretty boring way to go. He had done it way too many times.
Today he had the time and wanted a little variety and challenge. That either meant heading north on the county roads where he could open up his little screaming metal monster for some serious speed, or south of town past the Monroe County Industrial Park, out toward Swinkley Lake. The lake was surrounded by woods, and there were lots of hiking and biking trails. It was fairly hilly and if he could avoid the mud holes from the recent rains, he could do some great off-road riding.
Noah opted for speed. He banked a right on Dillinger, left on Smithers, then right on Gandolph, which turned into County Road 171 at the outskirts of town. Two more lights and a stop sign and he’d be looking at thirty miles of pedal-to-the-metal open road. He could pull around any cars and trucks without blinking.
Just as he was approaching the last four-way stop, he suddenly heard a strange sound. It was coming directly from his left and behind him. It sounded like a combination of the roar of a truck engine and the blast of air brakes.
Then nothing.
THE LONG WEEKEND
When Noah came to, he was inside of an ambulance. He heard the long shrill whine of a siren and as the fog partially cleared could see he was not alone. Next to him looking out the side window was a man wearing an anticeptic mask. He gently held a breathing apparatus over Noah’s face. He turned back and noticed that Noah was regaining consciousness.
“Darn good thing you were wearing a helmet.”
“Wha . . .?”
“Don’t try to talk. Just be calm. You were in an accident. We’ll be at the hospital in a few minutes. You’re going to be alright.”
Noah went back under, off into whatever world of dreams or metaphysical suspension is the temporary hospice for a traumatized body.
Next thing he remembered was feeling like someone was shoving something down his throat. He gagged and it felt like he tried to struggle. He couldn’t be sure. Again the blank screen and autonomous hum of nothingness descended on him. Everything dispersed in a dreamless void. Time stopped. Then . . .
Faintly he heard moaning. Who was it? When he licked his lips it stopped.
Noah felt a cool damp cloth on his face. It gently patted his forehead. Brushed over his eyelids. With some effort he opened his eyes. Everything was a blur. He heard a soft voice. A female.
“Mr. Tass.”
“Where am I?” Which came out as ‘Wuh uh ah?’
“You’re at Monroe County General. The hospital. And this is the intensive care section.
You’re going to be fine. You’ve had a bad accident but you are going to be okay. Just rest.”
He was going to be okay. That’s what the lady said.
He just had to rest . . .
BONES
They moved Noah out of the Intensive Care Unit after three days. His attending physician was a real comedian.
“Chances are you’ll live. But in case you don’t, we’re moving you into a regular room, so you don’t muck up the outstanding record of ICU this year. So far, they’re batting a thousand, if you don’t count the people they dragged out into the hall before they drew their last breath.”
Noah was in a semi-private room. The other person in the next bed was about 127 years old and if he had regained consciousness at any point during Noah’s stay there, no one seemed to notice. Noah had all of the privacy he could desire or handle.
Not that he could do very much.
Watch TV. Eat. Sleep. Watch TV. Eat. Sleep.
Even when he was awake, the pain medication floated him in the weightless cloud of a semi-conscious stupor. Considering the quality of the television programming, this was probably best.
Soap operas would segue into cooking shows into weather reports into heroics on the basketball court into crime scene investigations into talk shows. Somehow it made sense without making any sense at all.
Days went by. At first he couldn’t count them. Then he started to recognize a definite pattern to the way things were done. How often they would take his blood pressure. How long it took for him to use up the contents of his IV bottle. Which nurses were on days, which ones on afternoons, who had the night shift. There was only one on nights. Her name was Eleanor.
Sometimes he would look out the window. The windows were sealed. One day he asked a nurse if maybe they could get some fresh air but in the controlled environment of the hospital it was not allowed. Day after day, the weather continued to be beautiful. Great riding weather.
By the beginning of the second week, Noah was allowed ___ in fact he was encouraged ___ to get up and move around a bit. Slowly. Carefully. Always with a nurse at his side. And with his IV bottle and rack in tow. They told him that the more he moved around, without of course aggravating his injuries, the faster he would heal. It was important to work his muscles, flex his joints, get his blood flowing, and jack up his metabolism. All good for the body.
Moving around might have terrific things going for it. But unfortunately it hurt like hell.
He frankly could not believe how bad it hurt. What had he done to himself?
Exercise notwithstanding, most of the time that second week he still spent in bed.
Noah had seven broken bones. Three broken ribs. A broken collar bone. His left leg broken in two places. His right arm, down near the wrist. The good news was they were all clean breaks, none requiring surgery, truss rods, bolts, or screws.
He had also gotten pretty bruised up. His chest where he took the impact of his handlebars. His legs, feet and ankles which had whipped around and broadsided the grill of the 18-wheeler. His right arm and shoulder from the rear tire of his motorcycle as it landed on him.
Naturally, he had some scrapes and superficial gashes as well. His face, hands, knees and elbows had a number of abrasions and shallow cuts. But despite their gruesome appearance and blue puffy swelling, especially the first three days in ICU, none of these injuries were very serious and the doctor assured him he would have no scars. It could have been much worse.
Darn good thing he was wearing a helmet.
Noah never got clear in his mind all of the details of the accident. Partly this was because his mind still was not very clear. And partly it was because he frankly couldn’t remember anything about what had happened that day. Not a thing. When the body is severely traumatized, the mind always protectively blocks any recall of the incident. That’s what his doctor told him. That certainly seemed to be how it was. He couldn’t remember leaving his apartment to go riding that day. He couldn’t even remember breakfast. Or lunch. Nothing.
What they told him, however, was that a truck driver from out of town didn’t realize that there was a four-way stop intersection on that stretch of road, got distracted by something inside the cab of his truck, then when he glanced back up immediately saw he was going to plow into one to four vehicles waiting their turn after stopping at the intersection. He initially swerved across into the oncoming lane but a school bus full of kids had just made a right turn onto the road. He cut his wheel hard back into his own lane, making the choice of lesser evils. That was when he nailed Noah, on his way to taking out two other vehicles.
Amazingly, no one else was seriously hurt. The drivers of the other two automobiles were a little shaken up, but even though their vehicles were totaled, they and the truck driver himself came through it virtually unscratched.
Noah got it all.
Bad luck and motorcycles.
Of course when you ride a bike you know the risks. But you rationalize. It won’t happen to me. I’m a good driver. I’m a safe driver. I’m a lucky guy.
Bad luck and motorcycles.
It could have been worse. He could have been killed. He could have . . .
He was rowing a boat. The water was like oil, a thick shimmering pool of impenetrable black. The boat felt like it was being pulled, and regardless of how hard he rowed, slipped sideways away from the shore. A girl at the other end smoked a cigarette and gazed off.
She laughed and turned to him. Her lips and hair were black but she had piercing blue eyes. “Your friends told me this was how it would be.” He felt humiliated and was overwhelmed by a desperate need to defend himself. “I’m doing the best I can.” Then one of the oars slipped out of his hand and disappeared into the lake.
He reached for it and banged his head on a length of tubular metal. It turned out to be the safety rail on his bed.
Noah was awake again. Painfully awake. He felt a small lump on his forehead.
The glare of the overhead florescent lights made him wince. He threw his arm over his face and tried to roll over.
He suddenly heard the acid-washed whine of his kid sister Gretchen.
“You look terrible!”
Noah’s sister never was up for the Miss Congeniality Award and never would be, especially in her relationship with her brother. Whether prompted by envy or intimidation ___ she was three years younger and failed in every way Noah excelled ___ she always made it clear that she thought Noah was a loser and things could only get worse for him.
He didn’t feel like fighting with her. Not now.
“I asked for my bandages to be in mauve with yellow and silver embroidery. Look at these. And what’s with cosmetic surgery these days? I wanted a subtle sculpturing of my naturally beautiful chin, not this Jay Leno demolition bumper.”
“You are so gay.”
“Shhh.” Noah pointed his bandaged thumb toward his 127 year old roommate. “Let’s just keep it between the two of us. I think he’s a homophobe.”
Noah started to ask where his mom was. But then he saw her standing by the door.
“Hi mom. Gretchen here was just trying to lift my spirits. She always sees the bright side of things. That’s why she’s so popular.”
His mother had an unlit cigarette in her mouth, the filter caked with red from her lips. She removed it with her white gloved hand and waved it in the air as she spoke.
“Ha. Just like your father, young lady. Always trying to be funny.”
Gretchen chomped on her bubble gum and sneared.
“Dad was never funny.”
“Sometimes. I think so . . . I don’t exactly remember.”
“Then why did you say it?”
“Say what?”
The soft subtle electronic sounds of the medical monitoring equipment next to Noah’s bed sounded like an industrial roar compared to the uncomfortable silence which now filled the room. The Tass family was clearly out of its element. Whatever that element was.
His mother stared at Noah like he was a stranger. She always had. But it was worse today. She seemed to be looking at a spot six inches above his head and three feet behind him.
He himself had been staring at her as a stranger since his father left. Since her coronation as Queen of Trailer Park Chic. That was fourteen years ago. A long time. And these days he couldn’t remember the good old mom that raised him. There she stood in a full-length fur coat. In the middle of spring. Layers of pearls. Layers of makeup. Earrings that looked like Christmas tree ornaments. Thick amber frame rhinestoned glasses. Old lady cleavage swabbed with an orange base powder that couldn’t hide the age spots and moles. Lipstick like the Joker.
Menopause was a bitch.
She always looked both frightened and aloof. Her best days behind her but hoping no one else would notice. Not a chance.
She was 49 going on 99, a poster lady for the never-was-never-will-be. It was like she carried a sign that said: Ye who enter here abandon all hope.
In some strange way, his mother and sister were two of a kind. There was obviously a contrast in individual style. They were after all separated by a huge generation gap. His mother was Victorian pseudo-chic. His sister was Gothic ultra-geek.
But if you looked beyond the particular outrageous choices each made to mock herself and send a ‘Hazardous Substance Warning’ to the rest of the human race, essentially they were both doing the same thing. Tragically, that was putting a wide forbidding psychological moat around themselves, guaranteeing that no one could get close enough to get a good look and see how woeful and self-loathing they were, consequently barring any help from the outside.
Noah never played head games with his mother but he loved baiting his sister.
“Hey, Gretch. You look pretty stunning today yourself. How are things at the coven?”
Gretchen dismissed him with a snarling aside to her cell phone which she was pointlessly checking for non-existent text messages. “So pathetic!”
“Come on now. Don’t you two get started.”
Mommy dearest. The peacemaker. Never deterred by her complete and total failure to keep them from tearing into one another at every available opportunity.
“Aw, mom. It’s just healthy sibling curiosity. I like to know what’s going on with my little sis. I was just going to ask if they had set a date for her exorcism yet.”
“Noah! Enough. Be nice! Obviously you’re feeling much better than when they brought you in.”
“I am I am! Doctor says I can run the marathon this weekend. Besides I am being nice.”
“Well, then . . . be nicer.”
A nurse walked into the scene of smoldering family warfare.
“Time to check his vitals. I’ll just be a minute. You both can stay put, if you wish.”
After taking his blood pressure and temperature, then annotating his chart, she started to leave but Noah stopped her.
“Eleanor! You haven’t met my family.”
“No, I missed out on that.” She turned and flashed a beauty contestant grin, extending her hand to Noah’s mother. “You’re Noah’s sister?”
“Why, thank you!” Giggle giggle. “But I’m his mother.”
Noah couldn’t believe it. His mom fell for that cheap bit of flattery.
“Well, Mrs. Tass. Noah is doing quite nicely. And this here . . .” She then started to offer her hand to Gretchen but since the girl was totally preoccupied with her cell phone, she skipped it and went into her oft-repeated but always enthusiastic official visitors spiel.
“Visiting hours are over shortly. It is very important that nothing upsets Noah and that he gets lots of rest. But you are certainly welcome to visit whenever you can. The comfort of family is very crucial to his full recovery. If you have any questions, feel free to ask for me.”
The comfort of family is very crucial . . . that was a good one. He liked Nurse Eleanor.
Wickedly wry, understated sense of humor.
His mom and sister had only been there ten minutes, most of it passed in the silence of a strained detente. Noah wondered if they intentionally came this late in visiting hours to avoid spending more time with him. Whatever the reason for their brevity, he was grateful.
His mom bent over to kiss him good-bye but rather than risk smearing the artlessly applied red gunk on her lips, which he assumed was lipstick though it could have been some designer calking compound available now in all shades of the rainbow, she stopped several inches short. She puckered and floated an air kiss toward his forehead.
“Get well, my boy. The world is an oyster.”
“And I am the pearl.”
“You have been listening all these years.”
“Only because I am a sucker for metaphors. Thanks for coming, mom.”
Gretchen stood up and still staring zombie-like at the screen of her cell phone, headed toward the door. Noah’s mom poked her in the back, prompting her to say something.
“Good-bye, loser. I think you should fuck Eleanor.”
“Thanks, Gretch. Have a great evening with your vibrator.”
My publisher just sent me the cover for my new book. I’m very pleased with the work their artist did.
11-11-11 will be published and available world-wide on June 1 through Melange Books out of Minneapolis, MN.
§
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/7605
http://ebooks.ebookmall.com/title/from-thailand-with-love-rachel-ebooks.htm
My second novel The Man Who Loved Too Much is unpublished. Highly knowledgeable literary agents and publishers have declared it too long. Maybe it should have been titled The Man Who Wrote Too Much. Ha ha! Interestingly, 18 short stories excerpted from this unpublishable tome have appeared in over 20 different magazines. One story “Guerilla Warfare” alone has been published in print three times. Here are some links to a few of the stories to give you a flavor for the irreverent tone of the book . . .
“Spider Man” – http://www.fullofcrow.com/fiction/2010/04/spider-man-by-john-rachel/
“Make Love Not War” – http://twinenterprises.com/the_fear_of_monkeys/issue_six/make_love_not_war.htm
“Baby Fever” – http://scars.tv/cgi-bin/works_e.pl?/home/users/web/b929/us.scars/perl/text-writings/g2698.txt
“Dr. Gender Bender” – http://www.hobopancakes.com/divisionofinfrastructure2.html
“The Tunnel of Love” – http://www.troubadour21.com/short-stories/johndrachel/the-tunnel-of-love/
“Apocalypso” – http://www.millionstories.net/JohnRachel.html
“Renoir Albertine Toulouse, Thumb Painter” – http://thedirtynapkin.com/issue/034/06/
“The Crush” – http://www.troubadour21.com/short-stories/johndrachel/the-crush/
In January of this year, I completed my third novel 11-11-11 and will be published June 1st through Melange Books (Minneapolis, MN). 11-11-11 is the tragicomic prequel to my next book 12-12-12. But it stands on its own as a demented but very plausible vision of contemporary America and its fear-driven preoccupations. Here is how 11-11-11 begins . . .
PROLOGUE
The world would finally end. For sure this time.
Not like all those other times.
Really.
Chapter 1 May 5 . . .
BAMBI MEETS GODZILLA
Noah was watching Bambi Meets Godzilla on YouTube.
He loved that little film. How many times had he seen it? Fifty? A hundred?
Almost the entire length of the three-minute film consisted of opening credits rolling over an idyllic animation of Bambi eating and frolicking in the forest. Gentle spring flute music playfully accompanied the chirping of birds. Finally the credits finish and to a thunderous, forest-shaking kaboom!, Godzillas giant foot comes down and squashes the innocent little fawn. All we see is Godzilla’s grizzly leg and Bambi’s four tiny twig-like limbs sticking out from under the giant reptilean foot. The music and birds have stopped, and as the kaboom! trails off in a long tail of reverberation, The End fades up on the screen and the film is over.
What a perfect metaphor! thought Noah. Especially for life in this stinking town.
As many times as he had watched it, it never failed to put him in a great mood. Of course, the first twenty or thirty times left him rolling helplessly on the floor in convulsions of laughter. Now it just left him pleasantly amused. Bouyant. Hopeful.
He knew he wasn’t alone. Like minds. Somewhere out there.
When the clip finished, he clicked on the Today’s Recommended Videos link.
The Featured Video was called “11-11-11 – The Pleiadians Warned Us!!”
What was this all about? Some fat loser with greasy hair flopping in his face offered a five minute rant based on alleged alien visitations from the Pleiades constellation. Filmed with a hand-held camera, it was replete with photos of flying saucers and very weird mathematical symbols scribbled on a white board. The presentation concluded with a wildly unhinged catalog of every imaginable catastrophe and collusion of spiritual forces, a cosmic fusillade of supernatural cataclysms all occurring exactly at 11:11 am on November 11, 2011.
Right.
What a pile of kaka!
11:11 am. What time zone?
Jokers like this annoyed him. All of these prophets of doom, conspiracists, rapturists and various peddlers of paranoid poop ___ and that included gurus, televangelists and faithhealers, even parish priests and local Bible-thumpers if they were mongering fear from their bully pulpits ___ really pissed him off. Whether they believed their own nonsense or not, these lunatics went around spewing this ridiculous crap, scaring the hell out of people and actually getting paid for doing it, while real people like himself actually had to work for a living.
Speaking of which . . . he had a job to go to.
Noah threw on his work clothes. He didn’t have to be to work for three more hours but this was a perfect day for riding. He hated it when he got sucked into the internet and wasted such beautiful weather geeking out.
With a wifebeater under his open work shirt, a pair of jeans tucked into his riding boots, and his backpack buckled on, Noah kick-started his 140 cc Kawasaki off-road bike. It fired up on the first try and he did a decent enough wheelie out of the garage under his tiny studio apartment. Without looking back, he knew his landlady was at her window cursing him and his errant youthful ways. She would go back to mumbling prayers for God’s forgiveness and His blessing for her abominable existence here on Earth.
Pulnick was one of the three main “cities” along a corridor that ran diagonally through Monroe County, Missouri. Monroe City sat in the very northeast corner of the county, Paris was dead center, and Pulnick midway between them just north of the artificial lakes that were the recreational foundation for Mark Twain State Park. Pulnick’s surrounding landscape was a mixture of farms, woodlands, and open fields, and showed both the growing and shrinking pains of development, successful and otherwise. The area bore witness to the indecision of a region of middle America which could not make up its mind whether to jump on the freight train of industrialization and modernization, or to just lean back as it had for many decades and watch the corn grow.
As the crow flies, Noah’s job was exactly 18 miles east and slightly south of Pulnick. If he went straight across town on Main Street, hammered it along 24, then took some back roads east around Mark Twain Recreation Area, he could be there in less than twenty five minutes. Frankly, this was a pretty boring way to go. He had done it way too many times.
Today he had the time and wanted a little variety and challenge. That either meant heading north on the county roads where he could open up his little screaming metal monster for some serious speed, or south of town past the Monroe County Industrial Park, out toward Swinkley Lake. The lake was surrounded by woods, and there were lots of hiking and biking trails. It was fairly hilly and if he could avoid the mud holes from the recent rains, he could do some great off-road riding.
Noah opted for speed. He banked a right on Dillinger, left on Smithers, then right on Gandolph, which turned into County Road 171 at the outskirts of town. Two more lights and a stop sign and he’d be looking at thirty miles of pedal-to-the-metal open road. He could pull around any cars and trucks without blinking.
Just as he was approaching the last four-way stop, he suddenly heard a strange sound. It was coming directly from his left and behind him. It sounded like a combination of the roar of a truck engine and the blast of air brakes.
Then nothing.
THE LONG WEEKEND
When Noah came to, he was inside of an ambulance. He heard the long shrill whine of a siren and as the fog partially cleared could see he was not alone. Next to him looking out the side window was a man wearing an anticeptic mask. He gently held a breathing apparatus over Noah’s face. He turned back and noticed that Noah was regaining consciousness.
“Darn good thing you were wearing a helmet.”
“Wha . . .?”
“Don’t try to talk. Just be calm. You were in an accident. We’ll be at the hospital in a few minutes. You’re going to be alright.”
Noah went back under, off into whatever world of dreams or metaphysical suspension is the temporary hospice for a traumatized body.
Next thing he remembered was feeling like someone was shoving something down his throat. He gagged and it felt like he tried to struggle. He couldn’t be sure. Again the blank screen and autonomous hum of nothingness descended on him. Everything dispersed in a dreamless void. Time stopped. Then . . .
Faintly he heard moaning. Who was it? When he licked his lips it stopped.
Noah felt a cool damp cloth on his face. It gently patted his forehead. Brushed over his eyelids. With some effort he opened his eyes. Everything was a blur. He heard a soft voice. A female.
“Mr. Tass.”
“Where am I?” Which came out as ‘Wuh uh ah?’
“You’re at Monroe County General. The hospital. And this is the intensive care section.
You’re going to be fine. You’ve had a bad accident but you are going to be okay. Just rest.”
He was going to be okay. That’s what the lady said.
He just had to rest . . .
BONES
They moved Noah out of the Intensive Care Unit after three days. His attending physician was a real comedian.
“Chances are you’ll live. But in case you don’t, we’re moving you into a regular room, so you don’t muck up the outstanding record of ICU this year. So far, they’re batting a thousand, if you don’t count the people they dragged out into the hall before they drew their last breath.”
Noah was in a semi-private room. The other person in the next bed was about 127 years old and if he had regained consciousness at any point during Noah’s stay there, no one seemed to notice. Noah had all of the privacy he could desire or handle.
Not that he could do very much.
Watch TV. Eat. Sleep. Watch TV. Eat. Sleep.
Even when he was awake, the pain medication floated him in the weightless cloud of a semi-conscious stupor. Considering the quality of the television programming, this was probably best.
Soap operas would segue into cooking shows into weather reports into heroics on the basketball court into crime scene investigations into talk shows. Somehow it made sense without making any sense at all.
Days went by. At first he couldn’t count them. Then he started to recognize a definite pattern to the way things were done. How often they would take his blood pressure. How long it took for him to use up the contents of his IV bottle. Which nurses were on days, which ones on afternoons, who had the night shift. There was only one on nights. Her name was Eleanor.
Sometimes he would look out the window. The windows were sealed. One day he asked a nurse if maybe they could get some fresh air but in the controlled environment of the hospital it was not allowed. Day after day, the weather continued to be beautiful. Great riding weather.
By the beginning of the second week, Noah was allowed ___ in fact he was encouraged ___ to get up and move around a bit. Slowly. Carefully. Always with a nurse at his side. And with his IV bottle and rack in tow. They told him that the more he moved around, without of course aggravating his injuries, the faster he would heal. It was important to work his muscles, flex his joints, get his blood flowing, and jack up his metabolism. All good for the body.
Moving around might have terrific things going for it. But unfortunately it hurt like hell.
He frankly could not believe how bad it hurt. What had he done to himself?
Exercise notwithstanding, most of the time that second week he still spent in bed.
Noah had seven broken bones. Three broken ribs. A broken collar bone. His left leg broken in two places. His right arm, down near the wrist. The good news was they were all clean breaks, none requiring surgery, truss rods, bolts, or screws.
He had also gotten pretty bruised up. His chest where he took the impact of his handlebars. His legs, feet and ankles which had whipped around and broadsided the grill of the 18-wheeler. His right arm and shoulder from the rear tire of his motorcycle as it landed on him.
Naturally, he had some scrapes and superficial gashes as well. His face, hands, knees and elbows had a number of abrasions and shallow cuts. But despite their gruesome appearance and blue puffy swelling, especially the first three days in ICU, none of these injuries were very serious and the doctor assured him he would have no scars. It could have been much worse.
Darn good thing he was wearing a helmet.
Noah never got clear in his mind all of the details of the accident. Partly this was because his mind still was not very clear. And partly it was because he frankly couldn’t remember anything about what had happened that day. Not a thing. When the body is severely traumatized, the mind always protectively blocks any recall of the incident. That’s what his doctor told him. That certainly seemed to be how it was. He couldn’t remember leaving his apartment to go riding that day. He couldn’t even remember breakfast. Or lunch. Nothing.
What they told him, however, was that a truck driver from out of town didn’t realize that there was a four-way stop intersection on that stretch of road, got distracted by something inside the cab of his truck, then when he glanced back up immediately saw he was going to plow into one to four vehicles waiting their turn after stopping at the intersection. He initially swerved across into the oncoming lane but a school bus full of kids had just made a right turn onto the road. He cut his wheel hard back into his own lane, making the choice of lesser evils. That was when he nailed Noah, on his way to taking out two other vehicles.
Amazingly, no one else was seriously hurt. The drivers of the other two automobiles were a little shaken up, but even though their vehicles were totaled, they and the truck driver himself came through it virtually unscratched.
Noah got it all.
Bad luck and motorcycles.
Of course when you ride a bike you know the risks. But you rationalize. It won’t happen to me. I’m a good driver. I’m a safe driver. I’m a lucky guy.
Bad luck and motorcycles.
It could have been worse. He could have been killed. He could have . . .
He was rowing a boat. The water was like oil, a thick shimmering pool of impenetrable black. The boat felt like it was being pulled, and regardless of how hard he rowed, slipped sideways away from the shore. A girl at the other end smoked a cigarette and gazed off.
She laughed and turned to him. Her lips and hair were black but she had piercing blue eyes. “Your friends told me this was how it would be.” He felt humiliated and was overwhelmed by a desperate need to defend himself. “I’m doing the best I can.” Then one of the oars slipped out of his hand and disappeared into the lake.
He reached for it and banged his head on a length of tubular metal. It turned out to be the safety rail on his bed.
Noah was awake again. Painfully awake. He felt a small lump on his forehead.
The glare of the overhead florescent lights made him wince. He threw his arm over his face and tried to roll over.
He suddenly heard the acid-washed whine of his kid sister Gretchen.
“You look terrible!”
Noah’s sister never was up for the Miss Congeniality Award and never would be, especially in her relationship with her brother. Whether prompted by envy or intimidation ___ she was three years younger and failed in every way Noah excelled ___ she always made it clear that she thought Noah was a loser and things could only get worse for him.
He didn’t feel like fighting with her. Not now.
“I asked for my bandages to be in mauve with yellow and silver embroidery. Look at these. And what’s with cosmetic surgery these days? I wanted a subtle sculpturing of my naturally beautiful chin, not this Jay Leno demolition bumper.”
“You are so gay.”
“Shhh.” Noah pointed his bandaged thumb toward his 127 year old roommate. “Let’s just keep it between the two of us. I think he’s a homophobe.”
Noah started to ask where his mom was. But then he saw her standing by the door.
“Hi mom. Gretchen here was just trying to lift my spirits. She always sees the bright side of things. That’s why she’s so popular.”
His mother had an unlit cigarette in her mouth, the filter caked with red from her lips. She removed it with her white gloved hand and waved it in the air as she spoke.
“Ha. Just like your father, young lady. Always trying to be funny.”
Gretchen chomped on her bubble gum and sneared.
“Dad was never funny.”
“Sometimes. I think so . . . I don’t exactly remember.”
“Then why did you say it?”
“Say what?”
The soft subtle electronic sounds of the medical monitoring equipment next to Noah’s bed sounded like an industrial roar compared to the uncomfortable silence which now filled the room. The Tass family was clearly out of its element. Whatever that element was.
His mother stared at Noah like he was a stranger. She always had. But it was worse today. She seemed to be looking at a spot six inches above his head and three feet behind him.
He himself had been staring at her as a stranger since his father left. Since her coronation as Queen of Trailer Park Chic. That was fourteen years ago. A long time. And these days he couldn’t remember the good old mom that raised him. There she stood in a full-length fur coat. In the middle of spring. Layers of pearls. Layers of makeup. Earrings that looked like Christmas tree ornaments. Thick amber frame rhinestoned glasses. Old lady cleavage swabbed with an orange base powder that couldn’t hide the age spots and moles. Lipstick like the Joker.
Menopause was a bitch.
She always looked both frightened and aloof. Her best days behind her but hoping no one else would notice. Not a chance.
She was 49 going on 99, a poster lady for the never-was-never-will-be. It was like she carried a sign that said: Ye who enter here abandon all hope.
In some strange way, his mother and sister were two of a kind. There was obviously a contrast in individual style. They were after all separated by a huge generation gap. His mother was Victorian pseudo-chic. His sister was Gothic ultra-geek.
But if you looked beyond the particular outrageous choices each made to mock herself and send a ‘Hazardous Substance Warning’ to the rest of the human race, essentially they were both doing the same thing. Tragically, that was putting a wide forbidding psychological moat around themselves, guaranteeing that no one could get close enough to get a good look and see how woeful and self-loathing they were, consequently barring any help from the outside.
Noah never played head games with his mother but he loved baiting his sister.
“Hey, Gretch. You look pretty stunning today yourself. How are things at the coven?”
Gretchen dismissed him with a snarling aside to her cell phone which she was pointlessly checking for non-existent text messages. “So pathetic!”
“Come on now. Don’t you two get started.”
Mommy dearest. The peacemaker. Never deterred by her complete and total failure to keep them from tearing into one another at every available opportunity.
“Aw, mom. It’s just healthy sibling curiosity. I like to know what’s going on with my little sis. I was just going to ask if they had set a date for her exorcism yet.”
“Noah! Enough. Be nice! Obviously you’re feeling much better than when they brought you in.”
“I am I am! Doctor says I can run the marathon this weekend. Besides I am being nice.”
“Well, then . . . be nicer.”
A nurse walked into the scene of smoldering family warfare.
“Time to check his vitals. I’ll just be a minute. You both can stay put, if you wish.”
After taking his blood pressure and temperature, then annotating his chart, she started to leave but Noah stopped her.
“Eleanor! You haven’t met my family.”
“No, I missed out on that.” She turned and flashed a beauty contestant grin, extending her hand to Noah’s mother. “You’re Noah’s sister?”
“Why, thank you!” Giggle giggle. “But I’m his mother.”
Noah couldn’t believe it. His mom fell for that cheap bit of flattery.
“Well, Mrs. Tass. Noah is doing quite nicely. And this here . . .” She then started to offer her hand to Gretchen but since the girl was totally preoccupied with her cell phone, she skipped it and went into her oft-repeated but always enthusiastic official visitors spiel.
“Visiting hours are over shortly. It is very important that nothing upsets Noah and that he gets lots of rest. But you are certainly welcome to visit whenever you can. The comfort of family is very crucial to his full recovery. If you have any questions, feel free to ask for me.”
The comfort of family is very crucial . . . that was a good one. He liked Nurse Eleanor.
Wickedly wry, understated sense of humor.
His mom and sister had only been there ten minutes, most of it passed in the silence of a strained detente. Noah wondered if they intentionally came this late in visiting hours to avoid spending more time with him. Whatever the reason for their brevity, he was grateful.
His mom bent over to kiss him good-bye but rather than risk smearing the artlessly applied red gunk on her lips, which he assumed was lipstick though it could have been some designer calking compound available now in all shades of the rainbow, she stopped several inches short. She puckered and floated an air kiss toward his forehead.
“Get well, my boy. The world is an oyster.”
“And I am the pearl.”
“You have been listening all these years.”
“Only because I am a sucker for metaphors. Thanks for coming, mom.”
Gretchen stood up and still staring zombie-like at the screen of her cell phone, headed toward the door. Noah’s mom poked her in the back, prompting her to say something.
“Good-bye, loser. I think you should fuck Eleanor.”
“Thanks, Gretch. Have a great evening with your vibrator.”
