Me Again (10 page)

Again Brandon surveyed the room, focusing primarily on the ceiling. “They don’t have any microphones or cameras in here, do they? You know, to monitor your health or whatever?”

“No. I’ve got a call button by the bed, but that’s it.”

“Okay, good.” Brandon pulled a handkerchief out of his coat pocket and mopped his forehead.

“A lot has changed at the firm,” he began, reinforcing what Teddy had told me. “Hell, a lot has changed in the accounting business, what with Enron, WorldCom, and all those other idiots who were dumb enough to get caught.”

This was the second time I’d heard these company names. I made a mental note to do some searching on the Internet about them, to see what all the fuss was about.

“But that was all while you were in a coma,” he said. “Back when you were at the firm, things were different. We had a lot more freedom, without all the scrutiny. It gave us more, you know,
artistic license
with how we handled our clients.”

“Artistic license?” I asked. “In accounting?”

Brandon laughed. “Well, maybe you never thought of it in those terms, but I’ve got to tell you, you were a real artist with some of the schemes you came up with.”

“I never thought of myself as an artist,” I said honestly.

“Well, I did. I’d round up the right kind of clients – you know, people who knew how to play our kind of ball – and then you’d work your magic with all the details. I swear, you could make your computer stand up and do tricks, and when it came to SEC regulations, you could smell a loophole a mile away. Man, we pulled some sweet scams, you and me – it was a match made in heaven.”

Great. So I wasn’t his lover – I was his
accomplice
?

“Things were just starting to get good,” Brandon said, “and then you went and had a stroke.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “That screwed up a few things for me, too.”

Brandon went on, my sarcasm leaving him unfazed. “It sure as hell screwed up
our
operation, that’s for sure. Like I said, I was the people person. You were the brains.” He laughed bitterly. “And now you’ve got brain damage – ain’t that a kick in the balls?”

Wow – even Leon wasn’t that direct with me.

Brandon lowered his voice, finally getting to the point. “So what I need to know is where’s the money?”

“The money?”

“The money we scammed, Jon-Jon! We had just gotten things moving when you went all Terri Schiavo on me. I brokered the deals, but you handled the mechanics. So you had all the money.”

Brandon glared at me, his voice dropping an octave. “And half of it is mine.”

Chapter 11

T
HIS HAD GONE FAR ENOUGH.

“Brandon,” I said, “I have to tell you – I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I guess I was expecting him to register some surprise. Instead, his eyes narrowed.

“Well, isn’t that convenient?” he said.

“Convenient?”

“This was just what I was worried you might do. Play the coma card.”

“Coma card?” I stammered, apparently unable to do anything but repeat his words.

“Yeah. Pretty fucking convenient. You’ve got the money, you have a coma, and
voila
– you just can’t seem to remember where that money is.” Brandon shook his head. “I can’t believe you’d pull this on me, after all I did for you.”

“I’m not pulling anything,” I protested. “I don’t remember anything about any money.”

Aware that I was becoming a bit shrill, I softened my voice. “Brandon, I have major memory loss.
Major
. I barely remember anything. Or anybody.”

“Yeah, but you remembered me,” he said, his face growing red as he spoke. I realized then that my earlier tactic of trying to conceal my memory loss was backfiring.

“Well, no – not really,” I said. “Teddy mentioned you, but other than that, I really don’t remember you.”

“This is bullshit!” Brandon was out of his chair now. For a moment I thought he was going to hit me, but instead he began pacing back and forth on the small stretch of open floor.

He stopped, pointing at me. “So you expect me to believe you don’t remember a fucking thing from our past?”

“It’s the truth,” I said, offering a lame shrug.

Brandon lowered his voice – and his finger – attempting a calmer approach. “Look, Jon-Jon. I can understand not wanting to admit to anything, particularly with what’s been going on in our line of work recently. But this is you and me talking. We’ve been through a lot together. I’m not asking you to confess your sins to the world.”

He edged closer to me. “I’m asking you where you put the fucking money. Before you took your little siesta, we should have racked up around three hundred K, maybe even four hundred. So I figure you owe me at least a hundred and fifty K.”

I saw that straight denial was getting me nowhere with the man, and his tone suggested that these were large numbers. So I looked for a way to stall.

“Brandon, I’m sorry. I do have brain damage, and I’ve suffered a lot of memory loss. But it’s coming back, bit by bit.”

This seemed to encourage Brandon, who took a slightly more relaxed stance in front of me.

“It’s just taking me a while to get my brain back together. I mean, remember, I was ‘switched off’ for a long time. I need to... recharge my batteries.”

I saw this was going over fairly well, and once again noted how I seemed able to speak much more eloquently when I was trying to deceive or manipulate somebody. But as I gained more awareness of what sort of man I’d been, this was starting to make sense.

“So, how long until you’re fully recharged?” Brandon said.

I gave another one of my trademark shrugs. “Nobody knows. Hell, nobody’s even figured out why I’m even awake. They say it’s a medical miracle.” I know, I was pushing it, but they
did
say that, after all.

Brandon smiled bitterly. “That’s great, miracle boy. But how much
do
you remember?”

I pondered this. I didn’t think I wanted this man to be aware of the full extent of my problems – it seemed like that could make me more vulnerable, although I wasn’t sure just how. So once again, I let the falsehoods fly, marveling at how easily they flowed from my lips.

“I remember the basic stuff,” I began. “Who I am, my family, my girlfriend. Well, my ex-girlfriend.”

Brandon cringed. “Yeah, I wondered about that – that’s gotta be awkward as hell.”

“You knew Victoria left me?”

Brandon gave me an odd look and tugged uncomfortably at his collar. “Yeah,” he said, “I think maybe Teddy mentioned something about that to me.”

“She moved on,” I said. “And I really can’t blame her. I guess she has some new boyfriend now.”

“Yeah, that’s what I hear.” He was still staring at me. “You seem to be taking it well.”

Again I shrugged. “What can I do?”

Brandon stared at me a moment longer, then sank heavily into the chair. “How about work? What do you remember from Fisk and Tucker?”

“That part’s really foggy.”

His eyes narrowed. “You said that already. How foggy are we talking?”

I tried to lighten things up a bit. “Let’s just say O’Hare is still totally fogged in,” I said, pulling a phrase out of God knows where. I’d probably heard it on a TV weather report. Slang, cliché, metaphor – all of it was right there, as long as I was lying. But trying to say something halfway intelligent to Rebecca in words that contained more than a syllable was still a major effort. The way my brain worked really worried me.

“But the fog is going to clear up, right?” Brandon said, again leaning forward.

“It’s clearing,” I said, “slowly but surely.” Well, the slowly part was accurate, at least. “But there are still a lot of patches of fog.” At this point I reflected that I had probably wrung as much mileage as I could from my fog metaphor.

Brandon said, “Speaking of O’Hare, is all your stuff still up in Chicago?”

“What stuff?”

“The stuff you owned when you lived there. Your car, your clothes, your furniture.”

“Oh. My mother said it’s all in storage. I haven’t seen any of it yet.”

“Down here or up there?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your stuff – is it down here in Springfield, or up in Chicago?”

“Chicago,” I said. A month or so into my coma – back when there was still some hope that I would recover – my parents had decided to pack up and store all my belongings in Chicago, thinking it would make it easier for me to get back to my life up there. So much for that plan.

Brandon’s face brightened. “Well, maybe I could look through your stuff when I go back home. You know, to see if there’s any sign of where you put the money. Maybe you wrote something down. I mean, you probably stuck the money in a safe deposit box or something, right?”

I didn’t know. But what I did know was that there was no way I’d let this guy look through my belongings unsupervised.

“Actually,” I said, “the first thing I’m going to do when they let me out of here is go check on my storage space. If you want, I can let you know, and we can go there together.” This was not going to happen, at least not on my first trip to the warehouse. But it seemed to placate him.

“Yeah, well, I guess that would be okay,” Brandon allowed. “Any idea how soon that will happen?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know yet. I’m hoping to get out of here in a few weeks, but it may be a while before I’m ready to make the trip to Chicago.”

“But you’ll let me know when you do, right?”

“Definitely,” I lied. “Make sure you give me your number before you go.”

* * * * *

After Brandon left, I closed the door and sat back down on my bed, replaying the conversation. His visit had chipped away more of the stone in which my past life was encased. But the fossil that was being unearthed was beginning to frighten me.

I’d had my suspicions, to be sure. But now I was finding out that not only was I a jerk; I was a thief. A crook. Some kind of embezzler or something. I needed to look up the names and terms Brandon had used, to find out just what sort of trouble I’d been getting myself into. But it didn’t look good.

Who else knew about this?

I couldn’t ask Teddy – if he had known about it, I didn’t want to expose how little I remembered. And if he hadn’t, I didn’t want to give him any new artillery to use against me.

Maybe Victoria knew, but I couldn’t see any graceful way to ask her.
Hi, Vic. Yes, your boobs look great. Hey, listen, back when we were dating, was I by any chance, you know, stealing money?
No, probably not the smoothest approach.

My God – could I be arrested? For a crime I couldn’t remember committing? Was there some kind of statute of limitations for this sort of thing? If so, I prayed it was less than six years. I could see the headline now:
Man Wakes from Coma Only to Go to Prison
.

No, this didn’t look good.

I went to the PT room, and worked out my frustrations on the leg press machine. I was eager to show Rebecca how much my walking had improved over the last few days. Thinking about her raised my spirits somewhat, and I was feeling better when I finished my workout.

The feeling was short-lived. After a shower, I went to the computer room to find out what this Enron stuff was all about. And of course, to check for email from Rebecca. I struck out on the latter, but found plenty of information on the former. Soon I was even more freaked out.

Apparently during my six-year nap, the accounting world had gone crazy, with accountants, auditors, and corporate executives colluding with each other, playing all sorts of games with other people’s money. I couldn’t understand the more technical descriptions of their malfeasance, but one thing was clear: some key people in my line of work had let their greed take over, and had violated the trust their profession had historically been afforded.

And they had done it at the expense of people helpless to stop them, burning up their pensions and investments and leaving them with nothing. Some of the worst offenders had been sent to jail, but that didn’t really solve their victims’ problems, did it? I was appalled, unable to imagine what kind of person could do something like that.

Then I looked in the mirror, and saw the answer.

Chapter 12

I
T WAS TUESDAY, AND I FELT LIKE CRAP. I hadn’t slept well, troubled by recurring dreams of police officers raiding my room and leading me off handcuffed to my walker. It figures that the first time I actually had dreams I could remember, they were nightmares.

At breakfast I nibbled half-heartedly at my
I Can’t Believe They’re Not Eggs
and doubled up on my coffee dosage. Then I put in a hard morning of physical therapy under the watchful eye – and colorful commentary – of Leon. Still, even after a shower and a hot lunch (Tuesday was Sloppy Joe day), the man who faced me in the mirror looked haggard and guilty.

I sat down on my bed, killing time by idly flipping through one of the photo albums my mother had brought. By now the faces in the photos were familiar to me, but the people behind them remained a mystery.

“Anybody home?” a low-pitched female voice said.

Startled, I opened my eyes and realized I was lying on my bed. I sat up awkwardly, adjusting my glasses and looking around for the source of that voice. Rebecca stood in the doorway.

“Sorry if I kept you waiting,” she said.

I shook my head and blinked, still groggy. “No, I’m sorry,” I said, “I must have dozed off. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Rebecca walked into the room, her cane tapping on the linoleum floor. “Yeah, you look pretty tired.”

Great. I wait for days to see her, and when she finally shows up, I look like death warmed over. Then again, in many respects I really
was
death warmed over.

“How are you?” I asked, trying to at least rise to my usual level of conversational ineptitude.

“I’m good,” she said. “Bruce wasn’t here, so instead I did my PT with Lucinda. Have you ever worked with her before?”

“No, I’ve only worked with Leon. Is it just me, or does Lucinda look like she could bench-press Leon?”

Rebecca smiled. “I think you’re right,” she said, “but she was actually really good to work with. I may try to set my schedule so I get her every week, instead of Bruce.”

“That will give Bruce more time to watch sports on TV,” I said.

“So it’s win-win,” she said. “Listen to me – I’m sounding like Big Bob. He’s always talking saying things like
win-win, big picture, think outside the box
. You know, stuff like that.”

“Outside the box?” I asked.

“That’s probably one you slept through,” Rebecca said. “Every year there are more buzzwords and clichés.”

Realizing she was still standing over me, I said, “Please – have a seat.” I gestured towards my chair.

“Actually, I’m dying for a soda. Want to go down to the cafeteria?”

“Sure,” I said, although I’d been hoping to have a more private visit with her. Forcing a smile, I said, “It will give me a chance to show off my formidable skills with a walker.”

Rebecca stepped back, making room for me. “As Lucinda says,
show me what you’ve got
.”

Armed respectively with cane and walker, Rebecca and I made our way down to the cafeteria. Midway between meals, it was virtually empty, affording us more privacy than I’d expected. We seated ourselves across from each other at a table in the far corner of the room, she with a diet cola, and I with a light brown flavorless drink that a chrome-plated dispenser claimed was iced tea.

Rebecca had seemed fairly cheerful when she showed up, but now was looking more serious, so I tried to set a light tone.

“So, it must be great to finally be home,” I offered.

She took a moment to respond, considering her words. “I guess so. I mean, I’m glad to not be in a hospital anymore. And I’m feeling a lot better. But it’s still pretty weird.”

“You said that in your email,” I said. “Do you mean it’s weird to not be here anymore?” I know for me the concept of leaving here was a very strange one – it was the only home I had known.

“No, that’s not it,” she said. “I was definitely ready to get out of here. But what’s weird is, well, going home.” She hesitated. “Home to Bob. To my life.”

I wasn’t sure how to answer, so I didn’t.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” she said. “I mean, he’s really working hard to be nice to me. Maybe he’s working too hard – I don’t know. He keeps on bringing friends around and dragging me all over town, to all the places we used to go. It’s like he wants to remind me of who I used to be.”

“Well, in my case,” I said, “I need a lot of reminding.”

“That’s just it,” she said. “In your case, that’s true. You’ve forgotten a bunch of stuff, so you need people to remind you.”

She leaned forward, her voice simultaneously more soft and more serious. “That’s what Big Bob doesn’t seem to get. He keeps trying to remind me of stuff, but I haven’t forgotten anything, not like you have. I remember him. I remember all our friends, all the people from church.”

She paused again, choosing her words. “What I don’t remember is... is why I felt the way I did about some of them.”

While I tried to process this bombshell, she went on.

“I mean, maybe it’s because I’ve talked so much about you and how you lost so much of your memory. Maybe that’s why Bob thinks I’ve lost mine, too.”

“You talk about me to Big Bob?” I asked, unable to contain my surprise.

“Well, yeah – of course,” she said. “You’re my friend, and one of the people who helped me the most while I was here. Plus, the stuff that happened to you is pretty weird, so it’s interesting to talk about.”

Once again her lack of diplomatic filters had come shining through, but again, I wasn’t offended. Her candor continued to refresh me. And perhaps some not terribly noble part of me was simply glad to learn she had been thinking about me.

“But it’s different for you than for me,” she said. “I know I’ve changed, but it was my personality that changed – my feelings. But I didn’t lose my memory. For you, it’s the opposite. You did lose your memory, but you didn’t change as a person.”

“I kind of hope I did,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m starting to get the impression that I wasn’t a very nice guy. You know, before my stroke.”

“Why would you think that?”

I decided not to get into it right now.

“Never mind,” I said, “let’s talk about you. You keep talking like you’re not as good a person as you used to be. But you’re smart, you’re logical, you work really hard, and you help people – at least, you helped me.”

This was one of my lengthier remarks, but I was getting more and more control of my speech these days. The trick was to talk very slowly. That gave me time to think and also to concentrate on not slurring my words. When I was either too tired or in too much of a hurry, my L’s still got pretty mushy.

I went on. “I mean, sure, sometimes you’re not the most diplomatic person. But is that really such a big deal? Is that all this boils down to?”

Now Rebecca shook her head. “I wish that was all it was. You’ve only seen this side of me.”

“I like this side of you,” I said before I could stop myself.

She didn’t smile, but her face softened perceptibly.

“Thank you, Jonathan. I like you, too. And I appreciate that. And no, it’s not like I got meaner, or stupider – although sometimes I say stupid things. It’s just that I don’t act the way I used to.”

“Bubbly?” I said.

“Yes. I was bubbly. I was really outgoing. I’d wear all these really stylish clothes. And I put a lot of time into my appearance. I’m talking a
lot
of time.”

I wanted to tell her how beautiful I thought she was, even right now. Even with her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. Even in her t-shirt and sweatpants. But I didn’t want to focus on her looks. Instead, I said, “Well, is it that you were such a different person, or that you just had a different, I don’t know,
style
?”

She thought about this. “Maybe a part of it is style,” she said. “But I get the impression my style was one of the main things people liked about me.”

I knew there was possibly some truth in that. Already I had absorbed enough – on TV and around the hospital – to realize that many men seemed to care only for a woman’s beauty, not her personality. I found myself susceptible to both.

“I like your style just fine,” I said. Appropriateness be damned – this woman needed to hear it from somebody if she wasn’t hearing it at home.

“Thanks,” she said. “But it’s more than how I look. It’s how I
feel
about things, too. That’s probably the biggest change in me. And I bet it’s what’s making me act different.”

Rebecca looked across the room, towards the kitchen. “Do you like orange sherbet?” she asked abruptly.

“Pardon?”

“The orange sherbet they serve here – have you ever had it?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “Want me to see if they have any in the freezer?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m trying to explain something. Did you like that sherbet?”

“No, not particularly.”

“Me neither.” She leaned forward, her voice growing more insistent. “Now imagine everybody telling you that you used to just
love
that orange sherbet. And that it’s really important that you start loving it again.”

I tried to imagine this, still baffled by the path this conversation was taking.

“That’s what my life is like right now. I don’t like orange sherbet, but I used to. And now everybody wants me to like it again, and tells me that if I don’t, I’m just not the person I used to be. And not the kind of person they want to be with.”

Again I marveled at her ability to explain concepts. She really would have been a great teacher.

“That’s what I wanted to tell you when I emailed, but I couldn’t find the words.”

“You just found them,” I said. “I understand.”

“Great,” she said, easing back in her seat. “But what am I supposed to do about it?”

I had no answer.

Rebecca said, “For now, I’m going with what seems to be the most popular approach.”

“What’s that?”

“Keep trying the orange sherbet, and hope I start liking it.”

She gave me a hard look. “How much luck do you think I’m going to have with that?”

Before I could reply, a voice called out, interrupting.

“There you are – I was looking all over the wing for you!”

We turned to see Lucinda striding towards our table. She was an attractive woman, given the fact that she looked like she could play linebacker for the Bears.

“Hi, Lucinda,” Rebecca said, smiling. “Do you know Jonathan?”

Lucinda eyed me coolly. “You work with Leon, right?”

I nodded, glad she wasn’t offering to shake my hand. I’d be worried about ever being able to use that hand again.

“Don’t you be paying no attention to Leon,” she said. “Boy has a dirty mind.” With that she turned to Rebecca. “Honey, your ride is here.”

Rebecca glanced at her watch and grimaced. “Wow, I really lost track of time. Thanks, Lucinda – I’ll be right out.”

Lucinda swiveled and walked away, her gait both appealing and frightening to observe. She was a lot of woman.

Rebecca shrugged apologetically. “I’ve got to go,” she said, standing up. “Big Bob is here.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, not wanting the conversation to end.

As if reading my thoughts, Rebecca said, “We’ll talk more about this next week.” She looked again at her watch. “Big Bob goes nuts if he has to wait.”

Giving me one last smile, she said, “It was nice getting to talk to you. Want to do this again next Tuesday?”

“Okay,” I repeated stupidly.

“Okay,” she said, and turned to make her way between the tables towards the exit. She called softly over her shoulder, “Don’t forget to email me.” Then she was gone, leaving only the rhythmic echo of her cane tapping down the hallway that would take her back to Big Bob.

I took a final sip of my iced tea, pushed back my chair, and pulled myself up on my walker. Then I began the long, lonely walk to my room.

Rounding a bend in the hallway on the way to the elevators, I encountered Mr. Samuels, being wheeled towards me by a burly orderly whom I didn’t recognize. The old man’s eyes brightened at the sight of me, and he laboriously lifted one shaky hand off his armrest in an abbreviated wave.

“Hi, Mr. Samuels,” I said.

“Ah, banjo poodle,” he replied agreeably. Then with a knowing nod he added, “Salami.”

On a whim, I said, “On rye, with provolone?”

Even with his partially frozen face, the change in his expression was clear. His eyes narrowed, then he shook his head in disdain and muttered “pelican,” in exactly the tone one might use when calling somebody an
idiot
.

The orderly shot me a look that suggested he shared Mr. Samuels’s opinion, then wheeled his elderly charge past me. I made the rest of the trip back to my room in silence.