Black Hole Son
Published in Wordgathering Journal.
The black debris clouds began to accrete immediately after I was diagnosed with a chronic illness. The disease wouldn’t kill me, the doctors informed me, but it would make my life miserable until something else did. When I woke next morning, a black hole a meter in diameter was floating silently beside me. I stood up and tip-toed around the unfamiliar bedroom and the anomaly followed, completely ignoring the woman in bed just now stirring. The black hole ravenously hoover up time, space, and random physical items in my wake, as if desperate for the sustenance of my lamp, alarm clock, and a dog-eared copy of the Martin Amis classic, Dead Babies. The thing followed me to the office and home again. No one seemed to notice or mind, which I found odd. I wondered if there was such a thing as a benign black hole.
If there was, this wasn’t it. This black hole was hungry and employed its diabolical power to devour my memories like a runner tucking in to a steak and egg breakfast after a marathon. I recognized each memory from the preceding 24-hours up until the moment of spaghettification. Then they were gone and meant nothing to me. Less than nothing. I watched myself kissing the woman beside me goodnight, then we vanished into the event horizon. The remains of the day were smeared across my vision like a colorful tropical bug on a cosmos size windshield. Assorted thoughts, insights, lessons, reminders, and prompts for the future were mercilessly derezzed from my brain. Important conversations. Knowing glances. Subtle subtext. My every memory from the previous twenty-four hours was gone.
I scrutinized the room for clues to last night’s adventure. The room delivered the physical fragments I needed to gin up a story that might resemble reality. Only they didn’t fit together. My right brain went to work deciphering the room. Black jeans and t-shirt reading, “Bucky’s Best BBQ” with a red plastic name tag engraved with the name “Sarah” were the first objects in my sites. I recalled Bucky’s was across the railroad tracks from this apartment, which I would assume was mine until I learned otherwise. My guess was based on the joint being filthy and decorated in a more masculine manner than I’d expect to find in any woman’s apartment. Unless there was woman with a framed Detroit Red Wings jersey with Steve Yzerman’s autograph in her living room, this pad felt like home. You could take the boy away from hockey, but not even a black hole could make him forget his love for the game. I was home.
I tried to hazard a guess at the events of the previous evening. I must have gone out alone. At Bucky’s, Sarah overserved and undercharged me. We made witty banter and, after my third beer, she agreed to go out with me if I waited for her shift to end. She must have smiled at me in that particular way that very few girls do, giving me the green light with her eyes, telling me that my advances were welcome. We teased each other and joked around. Once she had her tables handled, Sarah couldn’t hold back and dragged me downstairs to the tap room, where we had a quickie with our clothes on. Slowly waking, she sat up in bed and smiled beatifically, as if our relationship meant much more to her than a one-night stand, as if reading my soul through my eyes was a skill she perfected over time. Her smile encapsulated graduation ceremonies, birthdays, vacations, baptisms, and holidays, even sweaty-palmed middle school dances. “Morning, baby. How’d you sleep?” She asked, her body radiating the warmth of pleasant dreams.
I repositioned myself to confirm that she was, indeed, the waitress I thought I remembered from Bucky’s. She was not. Was the quickie in the keg room a product of my imagination and too much Guiness? Had I even been to Bucky’s or did she just work there? Sarah had blonde hair but otherwise the two women shared little resemblance. Sarah was ravishing. Her blonde hair had a honey hue that gave her face a surreal glow. When we kissed, her morning breath tasted familiar. Like we’d kissed thousands of times before. Like home. We lay back and she snuggled me for warmth.
That’s when I saw the sign taped to the ceiling, jarring me far out of my comfort zone. Obviously, it was written by and intended for me. I had no memory of making it. There was a picture of a man who must be me, because accompanying text read, “Your name is Drew.”. Besides that, a photo of the woman in bed, Sarah, her face smiling coyly, as if she were contemplating the seduction of the photographer. “This is Sarah. You belong together.” Neither photo nor name rang a bell. My every nerve taut, I sat up straight and the room immediately began spinning. The black hole made me feel its presence. Memories presented themselves in a cyclone of individual snapshots. No sounds accompanied them. My breathing accelerated, like I was on a fun run but not having anything close to a good time. Finally, I felt Sarah’s warm, reassuring hand rub circles on my chest. My heart magically calmed, my anxiety dissipated. She knew how to reach me despite the black hole devouring my memories. She pretended not to notice when our clothing and shoes flew up in the air and into the swirling black abyss.
“Take a deep breath.” She cradled my head in her lap. I struggled to inhale without wheezing. When I caught my breath, she asked in a cautious tone, “Are you you yet, love?”
I opened my mouth to assure her that I was one hundred percent myself again but realized that I couldn’t be sure of that myself. My mind worked chaotically at the best of times and now was clearly not one of them. Had I suffered a head injury? I desperately wanted to proclaim that I was the same loving guy I had always been. That I made sure she got her coffee every morning. I was the type of guy who never missed a birthday party, let alone a bank or Hallmark holiday. Sarah desired a man to love her completely, whom she could count on to fix the refrigerator when it broke, or open a pickle jar when it needed opening. Plus, a long list of other duties I couldn’t hope to provide in my current state.
Even if I was unsure of my occupation, I felt like a provider. A recipe book on the kitchen counter with notes in my handwriting told me that I put dinner on the table for Sarah nightly. Between us, she had the higher paying job. It was only fair for me to be a supportive house husband. Inspecting the apartment with a husbandly eye, I saw that the lights were in working order and felt heat emanating from the register - I must pay the bills on time. There had to be more to me than that. I knew I was broken and somehow considered less than a human by most other people. That I rarely left the house on purpose. That the cold, hollow feeling in my chest was self-pity taking up permanent residence.
“Your name is Drew.” Sarah said and sat up next to me in bed, stroking my hair back behind my ears. “My name is Sarah. I’m your wife. You got hit on the head. But we can talk about it later,” She showed me a blue photo album labeled “Drew’s Memories.” I must have looked as crestfallen as I felt because she kindly explained, “You’ll ask the same questions tomorrow, the next day, next week. Let’s focus on what you need to get through the day.” I felt myself being infantilized but could only accept her help. The black hole sucked in the memory album.
Sarah gave me a rapid recap of my life and yesterday. As she narrated, I watched the imaginary movie play inside my head. It was excruciatingly familiar, but unrecognizable. My predicament reminded Sarah of a film that was once her favorite, the classic Groundhog’s Day with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Still, Sarah was compassion and kindness personified. There must be a reason that an amazing woman like her spent time with a broken deadbeat like me. When her efforts failed to break through my brick façade, she held a mirror up to my face and insisted I take a deep look. I took the handle reticently and peered inside.
Behind me, I saw the black maelstrom that was my personal black hole slowly rotating and drawing clothing and smaller items into its gaping maw. I saw a man on the wrong side of fifty with bloodshot eyes. His nose was far too big for his face and bore a garrison of pregnant black heads, ready to fire like cannons from the deck of the tall ship that was his mighty schnoz. His teeth were all accounted for, even if they weren’t all the same color. Perhaps the silliest thing about this man in the mirror was his hair and its omnipresence - he was a casting call, picture perfect image of a hairy mammal. Bleach blond hair extending halfway down his back that was tied into a thin ponytail. In front, his blonde beard reached his chest. The rest of him was covered in coarse brown fuzz. He wore white boxers with “Kiss Me, I’m Irish” splashed across the front. The old man - that is, me - was sporting a real Gandolf vibe. I reached out to touch the mirror with my other hand and when I did, my most recent memories came flooding back. Sarah could instantly see the difference in my eyes. She felt recognized. “You good?” She asked, sounding status quo herself.
“Yuppers, my sweet.” I took a deep breath, and we performed the awkward morning choreography of finding the appropriate clothing for the events of the day and eating breakfast while a mini black hole sucked in the couture from our closets.
“Glad to hear it. I gotta go. I’m running late for class.” Sarah bounced out of bed. Moments later, I heard the shower turn on. She hadn’t noticed the black hole.
Sarah had informed me of an appointment with my pain doctor that morning, so I got out of bed and dressed. Meanwhile, as I noticed objects in different rooms and on television, memories - sometimes memories plural - began returning to me. Even if I only held on to a memory for a day, I somehow felt it there, waterproofing the ramshackle tin-roof of the surfer’s shack that was my mind. Somehow, that felt worthwhile. In the living room, something on the bookshelf caught my attention - a giant chunk of polished obsidian functioning decoratively as a book end. The rock lured me deeper into the room, which was a discombobulation of books, various types of rock, fossils, bones, stacks of paper, and empty milk crates doubling as shelves and chairs. If the ark of the covenant were present, this apartment could easily be mistaken as belonging to Indiana Jones. Bookshelves full of time worn tomes, ancient papers rolling like tumble weeds across the dusty hardwood floor, walls of disorganized scrolls, and more geological samples dominated the apartment. These are my books. These are my rocks. My rocks. I let out a deep, satisfied sigh as it came back: I’m a geologist. My master’s degree hung on the wall but there was no indication of a PhD. Now, I was getting somewhere.
“Bathroom’s yours!” Sarah hollered for me to begin my morning ablutions. She stepped out of the shower and began drying off. I jumped in wearing boxers, which both Sarah and I found hilarious. Something warmed within me, telling me that laughter was the way to make the best of the situation. The black hole would go away on its own. Loosen up so you can laugh. At anything, anyone, especially yourself. And I did. Having a laughing partner in Sarah made the process of learning to live with a black hole immeasurably easier.
Prepared for the day, thanks to Sarah, I headed to my appointment with the pain doctor. Someone needed to give me refills of the pills keeping me out of constant pain. He was Russian and as subtle as your average Soviet MiG. When I explained my memory problem, he said we would try switching medications to something with fewer side effects. He made cross eyes at me when I told him about the black hole.
“You’re lucky. If you were this sick in Russia your only choice would be to become a drug addict or bite the bullet,” He laughed at his own dark joke, mistakenly believing that he was the funniest thing to come out of Eastern Europe since Yakov Smirnov.
I nodded along, if only to keep him on my side and writing prescriptions. “You’re telling me they just get on with their lives and somehow manage to live successful lives through this much pain? Forget the memory problems, you honestly think a Russian could soldier through daily kidney stones?” My face felt beat red, pins and needles exposed my fear and ignorance. I wished I could turn the black hole on him. Somehow, like everyone else, he was unphased by the swirling monster behind me.
The doctor chuckled again and shook his head. “No, bite. Bite. The. Bullet.” He repeated the punchline and made a toy gun with his first two fingers for a barrel and his thumb for a hammer to pantomime suicide. “Bite the bullet. Bite - the - bullet, see?” His smile was ghoulish yet gleeful. I didn’t pretend to find any humor in his joke. “Am saying wrong?” He asked, still grinning.
I stood up, turned around, and walked out of the room - forever spaghettifying Dr. Bite- the-Bullet and heading home to Sarah. Tomorrow would be another day.