The Mentor (39 page)

“DUDE, YOU
ARE FREAKING me the fuck out!!”

Pavan’s
face filled my eyes as I opened them, in my ears a jingling like a ringing was
coming closer.

He blinked
and looked up then back down at me.

“Are you
back?  Are you okay, man?”

Nodding
hurt my head, and I said, “Yeah.  Yeah, man.  Blacked out, I think.”

Professor
Marsh burst into the room with a woman carrying a black, soft sided bag.
 Before I could say a word, she was kneeling at my side, lighting shining
in my eyes, eye to eye, eye to eye.

“Hi, how
are you feeling?  How’d the head, Mr--”

Pavan said, “Dexter.  My friend’s
name is Dexter.”

“You okay,
Dexter?”

Sitting up,
I left a damp patch on the tiled floor and felt cold.  My body was wet, my
sides streamed with cold droplets.

“Easy,
easy,” she said.  “You worked yourself into a sweat here.  Are you
epileptic, Dexter?”

“No,” I
said, not moving much more.  Close to a migraine.

“Okay,” she
said, turning to Marsh. “No medical bracelet and getting fine pupil response.
 Can you tell me what happened?”

Marsh and
Pavan filled her in while I tried to stop the Earth from moving from side to
side.  Once the school medical assistant was satisfied, she told me to go
straight to the emergency room to get checked out.

As she
left, I smiled at my friend.

“She was
pretty.”

Pavan,
still shaken, said, “You were all Linda Blair and shit for a minute, man.
 Shaking and stiff at the same time.”

“Gave us a
scare, Dexter.  Has that ever happened before?”

I shrugged
but said nothing.  For months after the accident, my head injuries had taken
time to heal and there had been a couple episodes.  But, I'd learned to control
them because they'd always lead with the onset of a migraine.

Just nip
that in the bud and, for years now, I'd been okay.

Until
today.

The episode
had ripped away some callus or retaining wall, whatever, and it was all coming
back-- a steady stream now in dribbles and bursts.  Still, it was too much at
once.  I was struggling a little with holding it all in place, making sense of
it.

Taking a
breath, I calmed myself, and let the memories wash back over me.  Most of it
was a jumbled cacophony of sensations, but I could feel it begin to slowly
settle in place.  Like custom marbles for some mental Chinese Checkers board…
just all rolling around until they find their exact, cozy little spot.

“Listen
guys,” Professor Marsh said, “My office is on the next hall.  In the back
storage area, there’s a cot where I take naps between classes sometimes. If you
want--”

Holding my
hands up, I said, “Very cool of you, but no, I’m good. Thanks, though.”

As I stood,
the dream sloughed off me faster, and I took another couple deep breaths.

I assured
Marsh-- and my friend-- that the episode was over and left me no worse for the
wear.  Still, the Professor's face was tense, pained.   

Knowing a
hell of a lot about guilt, I made sure he knew he'd done nothing wrong.  It was
on me: just my wiring.  

Then I had
a thought, “You didn't say what you were a professor of, professor.”

“Chemistry,
biology.  But mostly Chem.”

Before the
crash, before my sister’s scream, Jepson had me listen to this odd, long list
of... well, facts, sort of.  No, more like a
sequence
, all strung
together for some purpose. 

A lot of it
was jumbled, but I told it to Marsh-- at least the part I could recall at the
moment.

“It’s some
sort of process or formula, I think.  I’m not sure.”

He frowned
and a crease formed between his eyebrows.

He said, “Hmm.
 Do you remember more of it?  It’s hard to tell exactly what you’re
talking about...”  I shook my head (Oh, and regretted
that
, as the
pain spiked at me).  He added: “Sounds like part of a recipe for some sort
of hydration process.”

“You mean
like water?”  Pavan said, wanting to be a part of the cool science
conversation.  

“Yes, could
be,” Marsh said taking a professorial tone now.  “A big part of the problem
with post-surgery and even long term illness can be simple hydration."  He
stopped, tapping his lip.  "You'll also have to consider, Dex, that in the
jumble you may be hearing your doctor's words after the accident.  His
instructions to you, keep hydrated.  And for whatever reason your brain is
putting your old professor's face on it."

I nodded
and said, "I hadn't thought of that."

Pavan
chimed in, “So, that… it's not the cure for cancer?”

Marsh
laughed.  “No, sorry.  But, Dex, I am worried about your episode
here.  I can recommend a good doctor to take a look at you, or if you just want
to talk… free to ring me up.”  He took a step to the table.  “There
should be a pen around here, I can write my number down.”

I smiled
and said, “Nah, It's just a number.  I can remember that simple enough.”

A few
minutes later, we said our goodbyes to the professor and traced our steps back
to the car.  

I took a
few moments to try and put some of the pieces in place, but my mind kept coming
back to the sequence Jepson had given me.  It seemed…

Out of the
corner of my eye, I watched Pavan glance around the campus and wondered what he
was thinking.  He'd been such a good friend, never complained, despite this
little adventure being my adventure, my problem.  Still, he's right there
walking beside me.

"You're
a good friend, Pavan."

A big smile
pulled across his face and he nodded.  He said, "You making some sense of
it, now?"

I breathed
out, sighing.  "Trying.  The sequence is stuck rolling around my head, but
Marsh might be right.  I could be jumbling it with what the doctor said when
I'd recovered after the accident."

"Makes
sense, I guess."

Looking up,
I saw Pavan's car in the student lot, now half empty.

"Sorry
I scared ya, man."

"Nah,
I'd seen seizures before, just worried about you."

"How
long was I out?"

"Uh,"
he said and blinked slowly.  He was tired.  Hadn't smoke a joint in more than
an hour.  Must be exhausting for him.  "Maybe ten or fifteen
seconds."

I stopped. 
"Really?  That quick?"

"Yep. 
Quick, and scary as a motherfucker to watch."

"And,"
I said, "In ten or fifteen seconds you told him I'd been in the accident? 
Maybe to explain the seizure, I guess.  But, in ten or fifteen sec--"

"No,"
Pavan said and started walking toward the car again.  "Come on, man.  I
got a doobie in the car that's getting stale."

I stood for
a moment, then followed.  I said, "You
didn't
tell him about my
accident?"

"No."

"How'd
he know… then?  You sure, Pavan?"

Still
walking, man on a mission, he called back over his shoulder.  "I dunno.  I
don't think so.  I may have said something but, you know, that's your
business.  Not my place."

"But,
how--?"

Like a cat,
Pavan quickly opened the door, climbed over the passenger seat and within
seconds I saw a small flame light his face.

And when he
exhaled, the massive cloud that rose from the car may have actually hastened
global warming by a three years.

My mind
went back to my unanswered question:
But, how…?

MARSH
ENTERED HIS OWN classroom and closed the door.  Putting his hand up to his
chest, he rifled through his desk drawer for some antacid.

As he
searched, he dialed the phone.

A voice on
the other end, said: “Yes?”

Professor
Marsh found the packet and said, “He remembers.  He remembers the procedure.
 Just one part of it right now, it seems, but it’s coming back.”

“Are you
sure?  
You’re sure
?”

“Yes, I’m
sure, goddammit.  It worked, okay?  You all were right: Eller was too
arrogant to let it die with him, so he told the kid.  He knew the kid wouldn't
ever have to write it down.”

“Incredible.”

“Well, this
is what you wanted,” Marsh said and plopped the fizzing tablets into an empty
glass.  “Bring him in.  Do it now.”

SURPRISINGLY,
THE HEADACHE FADED fast but when it did I became very aware of how much my
entire body ached.  It’s like when you get one of those awesome sneezes,
you feel like you’ve blown yourself back in time, and when you just want to sit
and bask in the wonder of it all, fat nerves around your body, every inch,
raise up and seem to stop mid-throb and everything is sore and tight.

I had no
intention of going to get poked and prodded at the urgent care.  I still
had burns under my legs from volcano gases, burst capillaries from nearly
drowning and nerve and muscle damage from electrocuting myself.

Body aches
were nothing at this point.

Still, I
could feel the memories filtering back-- not quite the flood but certainly no
trickle-- and, more importantly, each seemed to be slowly settling into its place:
tinkle-tick
,
tinkle-tick
.

Pavan was
hungry and I had an idea about a quick stop to see a friend downtown.  At
the Network Center, we tackled both.

In the
atrium, the food court of the Net Center is geared toward tourists who are
visiting the Zoo or Centennial Olympic Park downtown.  It’s also
aggressively supported by a staff of more than a thousand coffee-addicts and
sandwich junkies who work on the floors above at the News Network.

At the
sorta-Greek place Pavan got a gyro after finally working out how to say "falafel"
without laughing hysterically.  I asked the nice man with hound-dog eyes
behind the counter to double the order and I paid for both.

“Hey man,
you don’t have to do that.  I got dough.”

“My treat,
no biggie man.  I owe you much more than that.”

My friend
took a moment to process what I’d said and, whether he understood completely
what I’d meant, he smiled and nodded.

After he’d
taken a huge, unnaturally huge, bite of his gyro, he asked about my friend who
worked upstairs.

“Can I meet
the hot anchor babe who does the morning show?”

“She's at
the sister network.”

“What? 
Sister
network
?  They've got a black lady channel in this building, too?”

“They--
no.  What are you talki--?"

"Oh,
I've got a touch of the
Jungle Fever
, Dexter!" Pavan said taking a
massive bite out of his falafel.  "I didn't even know she was black. 
Oooo, sexy sister!"

"Put
more food in so you stop talking, please," I said.  "I said she works
for the sister network-- It's like the news-lite channel.  We're going to the
other
one."  He was a bit obsessed, but, I couldn't fault him for his
fascination with her-- the woman was gorgeous.

If my
friend were around, I just wanted to ask if she knew anything about the piece
they did on Marion Bluth, the titular second half of Solomon-Bluth.

The guard
at the security desk sent an email “upstairs” to see if my friend was around.

“You don’t
have an appointment?”

“Do
you
make an appointment when you go see your friends”

He shrugged
me off.

A moment
later, his head snapped to the screen and he told me to stand for a picture for
my temporary visitor’s badge.

By the time
Karen Wainscott drifted downstairs, Pavan was on his third attempt to get a
picture where he didn’t make a face, close his eyes or give some sort of finger
gesture.

“Dex,” she
said smiling, but her eyes were more guarded.  She searched my face.
 “Oh my Gooooddd!”  

I couldn’t
help myself; I laughed out loud, remembering that when she was happy or
surprised she’d sing the last word of that phrase.  It was nice to see her
but, selfishly, I was happy because up until that moment, that memory--
“Oh
my Gooodddd!!”--
had been buried for more than two years.

Simply put,
I was happy to have another small piece of my clunk back into place.

Hugging
her, I whispered, “You look fat.”

She snapped
her head back, and I thought tears would fall from her eyes at that instant.

“Oh, oh...
oh, Dex,” she said, her face finally lighting up, her eyes smiling.  “You
remember me now?   Really?”

“Karen, I remembered
you before.”

Pavan
finally got his badge and stuck it to his shirt.  Karen led us toward a
long escalator after I’d made proper introductions.  In the safety of the
elevator, she spun toward me.  Then, gave me a crooked smile.