The Day My Brain Exploded Read online

  It took a long while, but I finally understood that my skull butchery was nothing to despise. Phil, my barber, was absolutely right when he told me that the marking on my head confirmed I was a survivor, and although he hadn’t mentioned it, it also showed that I was blessed.

  Discovering the power created by my scar, I opened my eyes to the conditions of all disabled, handicapped, sick, diseased folks in my walks though the streets of Manhattan.

  Some were blind and wore sunglasses and walked with canes, some were in wheelchairs, some were amputees, some defaced by sarcoma.

  Before my hemorrhage, I used to look at folks like these and think, Oh, poor things. But everything changed after I joined the club. Except that my situation was different. My numerous handicaps were internal. Unlike the others, with the exception of my scarred head, I looked perfectly fine to the world. When I bumped into somebody, or even tripped, folks just thought I was being rude or clumsy. Nobody guessed my brain was damaged.

  When I tried to learn to walk properly again, it was hard work. When I tried to enter a room without knocking over objects or smashing my face against a wall, I had to work at it. I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for me; I just wanted to function as best I could.

  Pity is useless. Pride is another issue altogether. When I see a blind man maneuvering through a subway station, I want to say to him, “Good for you! Enjoy the day!” Or, as the saying goes, “You better work, bitch!”

  Handicapped men and women have enough to handle without coping with condescension and unasked-for, piss-poor mercy doled out from the hands of anonymous passersby.

  One single restaurant meal finally changed my mind entirely about the world of brain patients. I learned that we survivors are not only serious, dark martyrs who have lived through a nightmare and have, like Moses, found the Promised Land. I learned that we could have fun, too, just like everybody else. We could enjoy the big, wide, wacky world and be as ridiculous as our non-skull-scarred brethren. What magic to behold.

  These realizations came when Nancy, from my support group, treated me to dinner after one of our meetings. Because it was in the height of a sticky New York City summer, we were skimpily dressed in tank tops and shorts. I could see her postmenopausal varicose veins; she could see my fur-infested arms. At just under six feet, Nancy was what one might call “statuesque.” Although at five foot nine my height is probably considered average, in my mind, I’ve always felt too short. So, being arguably Napoleonic, I preferred to think of her as, simply, an Amazon. Nancy’s long, gray-brown curly hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her face was lightly painted. She wore appropriate-hued foundation to keep her pale skin dry, and decorated her mouth with subdued pink lip gloss. Quite foxy, actually. Nancy brought along Jim, not a member of the group, but a sixtysomething brain-injury survivor nonetheless, having suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed in his left arm. He was an elderly, plump white gentleman with gel-dried, side-parted silver hair. His chest was laden with a couple of tacky gold-plated necklaces, reminding me of those slick older men who produced movies in Hollywood’s heyday.

  Together, we looked like a trio from Diff’rent Strokes or Webster: a nice white couple with an adopted minority child.

  Nancy, Jim, and I headed to a divey Burmese restaurant in Chinatown. As we sat down in the stuffy, windowless hole, we perused our ratty paper menus. After choosing our cheap meals, each under six bucks—quite a steal for Manhattan cuisine—we got to talking. Jim, it turned out, had indeed been a producer in the sixties. But not for movies. For Broadway musicals.

  Let me explain here that brain damage affects victims in many different ways, and frequently manifests itself in what may seem to others as inappropriate and distorted behavior. For example, there is the anger that I felt, extreme anger, often directed toward anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby. That anger was most often sudden, quick to rise and just as quick to dissipate. Once your brain explodes, I suppose it’s natural to feel a little bit of rage now and again.

  Also characteristic—and this is by way of explaining and justifying, in part, the story that follows—is a lack of self-awareness and a lack of self-censorship in talking about our own actions. My rudimentary grasp of these altered personality traits, though, did not prepare me for the shocking lack of modesty that Nancy displayed in telling her story, a story that, while stunning in the brilliant crudeness of its details, was also revelatory to me in making me finally accept the fact that pain and anger aside, there still was a potential world of fun out there for me to enjoy in this life. Fun that could involve breath mints, perhaps.

  Conversation between the three of us, basically strangers, each of us damaged in some way by brain injury, had been rather routine—until we started talking about sex. I unintentionally sparked the discussion by telling them about my fateful hotel orgasm. Soon my two dinner-mates began sharing their sexual history with me.

  Only I would get myself in this mess, I thought as the conversation took a decidedly graphic and raunchy turn.

  The restaurant was noisy, with booming, wildly out-of-place music playing over staticky speakers: Bon Jovi songs. After Jim talked about his teenage masturbation sessions (thankfully I went to the bathroom during most of his speech), Nancy filled us in on a story that could be considered too cringeworthy for even a brain-damaged dinner party like ours. Picture your mom telling this:

  “The weirdest thing happened to me last month in Brooklyn,” she said. “This guy I was dating went down on me.”

  “Then what happened?” I asked, straining to be polite. Jim was obviously enraptured by her story, sitting with his mouth agape.

  “After he got me all wet and juicy . . .”

  I felt like cutting off my ears. Then burning them in a basement furnace.

  “. . . he decided to go further back, into my crack.”

  The waiter came by with complimentary orange slices. Having caught a part of the last comment, his face projected a blend of curiosity and the onset of nausea.

  “And now here’s the grossest part . . .”

  What the fuck? There’s an even grosser part?

  “After ten minutes, he slowly moved up, higher and higher, and tried to kiss me! Could you imagine his breath?”

  In addition to losing the superego—losing all self-censors and inhibitions—many brain patients lose some hearing. That meant Nancy was basically shouting this entire story, which, in a way, was fine given the loudness of the music.

  In an appalling coincidence, however, the blaring music stopped abruptly, just as she finished saying “eating me out at both ends!”

  Jon Bon Jovi’s urgent big-hair vocals were now suddenly replaced by Nancy’s big, big voice. Everybody heard, loudly and clearly, this lady roaring about getting her salad tossed.

  The Burmese restaurant had become so unexpectedly quiet that the light jangle of Jim’s golden bling sounded like vases shattering against a brick wall.

  Being the mentally mishmashed folks we proudly were, we continued talking as if we had just been discussing a Seinfeld rerun. The crazy music started again, and sound filled the air once more. The restaurant soundtrack had replaced Bon Jovi with, insanely, the Supremes.

  That was when we noticed a cute elderly East Asian man and woman sitting at a table next to us. They must have been in their seventies. I was so embarrassed. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t seen them earlier. At least we would have had a different conversation.

  As we continued eating our orange slices, we were surprised as the sweet old lady leaned toward our table. With a look of bubbly excitement, she spoke to Nancy: “So then what happened? Did you kiss him or not?”

  Becoming How the Brain Became: Present (II)

  Tenth Avenue

  One balmy Sunday spring afternoon, I walked down Tenth Avenue and across Twentieth Street to the nearest Gristedes grocery store, desperately in need of my latest regular home cuisine: nonfat pineapple-flavored cottage cheese. I was wearing my typically nondescri
pt, standard May wardrobe selection: plain white tee, khaki cargoes, and five-buck flip-flops. Walking past a rather empty intersection, I noticed a stolid thirtysomething lady pushing a young boy in a wheelchair. Looking to be maybe ten years old, he appeared severely developmentally disabled, head erratically jerking and cocking far to the right, wide grin contorting his mouth, and with glazed, empty eyes aiming toward the heavens. He looked bald in the sunlight, with his blond hair neatly shorn into a presummer crew cut.

  As they passed by, I witnessed the most astounding thing. Above the headrest of his wheelchair, the back of the boy’s nearly hairless head came into view.

  It was completely scarred.

  It looked like it was stitched together with patchy horsehide. It looked like it was a tic-tac-toe board. It looked like it had been destroyed.

  I ran after them, suddenly intent on talking to them.

  “Ma’am,” I said to the woman. “Sorry to bother you, but can I please ask you a question?”

  I didn’t wait for a reply. “Did this child have brain surgery?”

  She stared at me with a look of panic and irritation, as if I were a deranged terrorist attacker, or at worst a telemarketer. I couldn’t tell if she felt anger, curiosity, surprise, or, most likely, a combo of all three.

  “Who the hell are you, and why the hell do you care?” she said warily.

  “My name is Ashok. It’s just that I had brain surgery, too.”

  I could tell she didn’t believe me, but she answered right away. “Yes, he did have that.”

  “Can I ask what was the reason for his surgery?” Whereas at first she looked defensive, she now seemed grateful, as if discussing the boy’s situation, even to a complete stranger, brought her some relief. Perhaps, I thought, her friends and family avoided any discussion about the child’s situation.

  “Well, Ashok,” she said (she pronounced it “choke,” which was better than 98 percent of folks did), “I’m Sara, and this is my son Kevin.”

  “Hi, Kevin!” I boomed at the kid. “You having a good time?”

  Of course, he said nothing.

  I turned to Sara. “I’m really sorry to disturb you, though. You must be on your way somewhere, and here I am, bothering you.”

  “Not at all, we were just taking a leisurely walk. It’s so nice out.”

  I gave her a reassuring smile.

  “So I suppose I’ll tell you what happened. I have nothing else to do anyway.” She laughed.

  I nodded slowly. “That’s real nice of you, Sara.”

  She started speaking in a barely audible murmur. “Well, he had something called an AVM. It’s a birth defect of screwed-up veins in the brain. He was getting headaches all the time, so the doctor tested him. Found out this AVM thing was the problem. So they did the surgery, took the thing out.

  “The surgery made him paralyzed from the waist down. And he’s been left completely retarded. But everyday I thank God that he survived . . .” Her quiet voice paused before continuing. “. . . And he is still here. My baby is alive. My Kevin is alive, alive, alive.”

  Sara began crying gently. She dried her tears with a tissue from her oversized handbag.

  “He looks fantastic,” I said.

  “Thanks. He’s getting better. He really is.”

  Her face suddenly hardened. “So what do you mean you had brain surgery, too? No you didn’t. That’s a disgusting thing to lie about.”

  “I’m serious,” I said, as I turned my head around, carefully parting the hair on the back of my head, near my right ear, to reveal my once grotesque but now lucky horseshoe-shaped scar. “And I have something else surprising for you, Sara.”

  “I doubt it,” she said. “The way you look is surprising enough.”

  Taking a deep breath, I spoke. “I had an AVM, too. That’s the reason for my brain surgery.”

  “Oh my God!” she yelled, her eyes opening wide, wider than I thought possible, before she hugged me tightly. And then, a surprise high five. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I thought only one in a kazillion kids get that disgusting thing.”

  “Well, I suppose Kevin and I are among those lucky folks!” I said. “Remember, someone’s gotta win a raffle or a state lottery or a Powerball, even though the odds are crazy, slim to none. But someone always wins. I guess Kevin and I won this specific lottery.”

  “I suppose. But I’m his mom. I want to kill myself for doing that to him.”

  Thinking of my own past adventures in blaming my mother, I said, “Stop thinking like that. You had no control over it. Like I said, someone’s gotta win the lottery.”

  She continued dabbing her eyes with her Kleenex.

  “Sara, don’t worry. I promise you, he’ll be okay. I, too, couldn’t walk and my mental state was in tatters. Kevin will get better. Maybe not next week or next month, but it’ll happen. I promise you. I’m doing great. So will he. Take my word.”

  Sara smiled through her tears. “Well, we should get going now,” she said abruptly.

  “Sure thing. Thanks so much for the talk. Bye guys.”

  “Thank you, Choke.”

  Looking at her boy one last time, I whispered quietly, only to myself, “You’ll make it, Kevin.”

  I stood still as mother and son strolled past me, headed up the avenue. There was no exchange of numbers.

  For some reason, just then the Burmese restaurant outing popped into my head. I couldn’t help but think of Kevin, and my fellow brain-injury survivor-warriors around the world, specifically the little battle-scarred craniotomite girls and boys. Regardless of how altered their conditions might have become, they were still alive, in a world with so much joy for them to experience.

  And so many of life’s ridiculous wonders to look forward to.

  I watched as Sara and Kevin turned a corner four blocks ahead of me. I didn’t know where they went, just as I didn’t know where I was headed.

  Yes, my life has been restored, but what I am experiencing is not simply the refurbishing of my old existence. This is, in actuality, a brand new life. As much as I hate to admit it, a guy named Ashok, or perhaps I should say, Ashok 1.0, died on March 17, 2000. A long and difficult gestation followed, but Ashok 2.0 has risen, entering a land that, though familiar in many aspects, is unlike anything the first Ashok experienced before.

  I am now calmer and ready for a wide-open future. Oddly enough, even though I face epilepsy and multiple functional deficits in my sight, hearing, and memory, I’ve become more at peace, finding a new kind of harmony with the world.

  Of course, I never was, never am, and never will be a full-fledged “norm.” I will always be an involuntary outsider. My attempts to symphonize the melodies of my circumstances, from snowy cornfields to icy urban sidewalks, have never succeeded. And I certainly have no delusions that everyone will view me with undiluted acceptance.

  Even though the entire experience has raised my reincarnation GPA closer to a 4.0, I’ll always be confounded by the miracle of being granted two lives in this one Baby Buddha avatar. I dearly miss Ashok 1.0, with his holy- war-mongering, his unintentional arrogance, his liquid lunch-and-breakfast-and-dinner work ethic. The detonation of my brain, however, has thrust me into a freshly focused soul, one that realizes why creating publicity for a silly magazine means little, and why creating hope for anyone in a wheelchair means everything.

  I loved that old guy profoundly, but I think I love this new fucker just as much.

  Perhaps even more.

  Prakash drives me back to my Manhattan apartment after I visit one of my countless doctors in New Jersey. It is an unnaturally humid autumn afternoon, with leaves looking as if they’re falling not because of chilly winds, but from heat-stroked exhaustion.

  The car radio is blasting forgettable yet addictive dance-pop tunes.

  His wedding ring grazing the steering wheel of his aged Toyota Camry, Prakash tells me, “I still can’t believe what happened to you.”

  Chuckling, he adds, “And you thought scho
ol was tough.”

  “True,” I say, sounding far more solemn than I had intended.

  “Hey Dumbass, you’re going to have lots of problems because of all that metal in your head,” he says.

  “Like what, Numbnuts?”

  “When you go to the beach, your head’s gonna be surrounded by all the folks with mining detectors trying to find metal stuff in the sand!”

  He laughs loudly, forming his own boisterous cheering squad.

  His dorkiness, I realize with love and admiration, is fabulous, whereas mine, historically, is just plain embarrassing.

  “You do know the Showtime at the Apollo audience would boo your ass off the stage, right?” I say.

  “What are you talking about?” Prakash says loudly, deadpan and on cue. “I have a great sense of humor. That’s my gift from God.”

  “Some gift,” I respond, as the music thumps urgently.

  His tired joke will probably flunk Comedy 101, but it jars me into thinking about my odyssey, and the horseshoe engraved between my ears.

  My badge of honor. My unlikely badge of honor.

  I hum to the swirling bubblegum beats that vibrate in the car. Glancing at the side-view mirror, I see my reflection, that man who was/is Ashok. He is smiling back at me. Even though the sun’s filtered rays cast impenetrable black shadows, I can see that he is smiling back at me. Even though the car’s speed creates vibrations that jar the mirrored surface, I can see that he is smiling back at me.

  The brown guy in the mirror looks happy.

  I gently caress my carved warrior skull as the car accelerates past a yellow light, grooving ahead toward the future.

  Acknowledgments

  I AM FOREVER INDEBTED to my amazing editor, Chuck Adams, whose guidance, wisdom, and enthusiasm made this book possible, from beginning to end. Chuck, it has been a privilege to work with you, and I thank you for taking a chance on this unknown, brain-damaged, Indian American redneck.

  Thanks to the tribe:

  Prakash: You were my first responder and savior. Your little brother loves you.

  Mom: Words cannot express how much you mean to me. You never left my side, and I never could have survived without your encouragement, love, and strength. I’m truly blessed to have you as my mother.