In the Course of Human Events by Mike Harvkey

Author:Mike Harvkey
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781619023963
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2018-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

TWELVE DAYS AFTER DYING, CLYDE LEFT THE COMA. THOUGH HIS MOM AND uncle had visited, twice staying all night, they weren’t there when Clyde opened his eyes. Only Jan and Tina were. Jan called for a nurse and the nurse found the doctor and the doctor said that this was a good sign. “Ya think?” Jan said, and the doctor explained that the length of post-hypoxia coma is a good indicator as to brain damage. Jan said, “What?” The doctor explained that a twelve-day coma was not such a long coma, the damage may not be as extensive as it could have been. For several minutes, Clyde’s eyes opened and closed, but he could not seem to focus on any one thing, even when both Jan and Tina leaned over him and said his name softly into his face again and again. Jan called Jay and Jay rushed in fifteen minutes later with a crisp blue belt in his hand, the next color in Clyde’s promotion cycle. Promotions didn’t have to run like clockwork and weren’t always in recognition of hard training. Some were about commitment and perseverance and guts.

They all stood over Clyde, watching him work his mouth like a fish without water. Jan feared that they were witness to a broken brain, a river trout stupor that would be poor Clyde’s life. An inability to talk or badly slurred speech, amnesia; the doctor had said any of this was not just possible, but likely. Physical incapacitation, partial or complete, trouble with simple tasks; this too could be expected. Worst-case scenario: a persistent vegetative state, the patient forever needing care. Jay would not let that happen; one day Clyde would simply vanish. But the doctor had explained that brain damage can take many forms. It can even manifest itself in a reduced emotional capacity, a change in the ability to feel or express oneself that can lie dormant, like a sticky bomb slapped unknowingly upon the skull, awaiting a trigger that may never even come. The doctor leaned over Clyde and called his name several times, the third person in twenty minutes to do so. Then Jay pushed past and said, “Let me do it.” His grinning, expectant face took up Clyde’s field of vision.

What Clyde said then, when he saw Jay and forced himself to make sounds in his horribly parched throat was, “I’m sorry,” and this made Jan and Tina sob.

The doctor said that this was all a very good sign, very promising indeed. The patient must be very strong, a determined young man, and Jay said, “You got no idea.” To Clyde, he whispered, “The hell you sorry for?”

There was some slurring in what Clyde said and Jay had to run the possibilities before settling on “I fucked up.” But minor slurring Jay could accept. He would by God learn how to listen.

“No, you didn’t,” Jay said. “No, you did not.”

“I did,” Clyde said.

“What’s he saying?” Jan said.

“Nothing, mama,” Jay said, squeezing Clyde’s arm and leaning in.

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