Basket Case

"Do you have the time
To listen to me whine
About nothing and everything all at once?
I am one of those
Melodramatic fools
Neurotic to the bone
No doubt about it
Sometimes I give myself the creeps
Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me..."
Green Day, Basket Case



I haven't slept in a week or so.

Let me start over.
Last night, after my shift ended I went and hung out with Mr. Della'Alba. After the other day, he apologized and told me to stop by any time. Something about me being better looking than Nurse Ratchet.
So I went by to talk to him, and he asked me the weirdest question.
"What's haunting you, little girl?"
I felt my brow furrow and my head quirk a millisecond before I felt my throat close and my eyes start leaking. Tears, I mean. I started crying. God, that sounded a little dramatic. He wasn't trying to kill me like Darth Vader or anything, the guy can barely get out of bed. And I'm hedging.
Big girl breath here.

I told him everything. I told him about my dead dad. I have a picture of him and Mom, just after they were married, that I took from Mom's wallet.
"Devastating" doesn't begin to cover it. He could have leveled the hearts of a nation with a look. Mom said I got that from him. I told Mr. Della'Alba about how, even though I never knew the guy, I missed him. Mom told me about him sometimes, his temper and his brilliance: "Just like the sun," she'd say. "Bright and burning. Sometimes you couldn't stand too close without feeling like you were going to melt and plummet, screaming into the sea." Mom said I got his temper too. Yay?
I told Mr. Della'Alba, who told me his name was Harold and to call him Hal, about how my dad was great with home remedies and knowing how to kiss in just the right spot and make the pain go away. His cups of tea cured everything from migraines to chicken pox. All of this, according to my mom. He could have been a neurosurgeon or invented the next synthetic heart, she'd said. Instead he went to fight in some conflict in the Balkans and never came home. Two months later, I came screaming into her world. She said I got his eyes, dark sometimes but always with a hint of gold around the edges. Weird eyes, that just get brighter. She missed him too.
I told Hal about how my mom wanted me to study medicine, how I wanted to study medicine myself.
"It's something I just picked up," I'd shrugged. "And it always made me feel better knowing that someone else's pain was lessened. Just because I was lucky enough to be there with the bandage or the aspirin. It was mind boggling, Mom said, how I always managed to find the wounded birds, especially in the fall when the crows would come. Neighborhood cats hated the crows, and they'd always fall flapping into our backyard. I'd carry them into the house, bleeding and squawking. Mom would scream everytime, until I cried long enough that she'd let me set up a nursing station to mend it. I probably picked and nursed twenty birds over the years." I grinned a little, remembering how comforting the sound of wings used to be.
"Then," I went on, "Mom got sick." The statement hung there for a moment, heavy as a loaded gun.
"So I stopped praying at the altar of Hippocrates, because he stopped listening. She'd finish a round of chemo, she'd get better long enough for her hair to start growing back - grey now, and thin - before the ultrasounds would show new tumors. Mom kept it up for four years: tumor, treatment, remission, relapse. Tumor, treatment, remission, relapse. Repeat.
Then we started to fight. Graduation loomed and I didn't want to go into pre-med anymore. I didn't see the point. All the technology and treatment in the world couldn't seem to help her body from turning against itself.
We kept fighting. I had a gift, and she wanted me to share it. I didn't want to help a world that couldn't help my mom. Then she died.
I guess an accurate description would be to say that I snapped. I finished high school - barely. I'd been poised to graduate 6th in a class of 2,000. I stopped doing homework. College level Biology was the only class I kept attending, and I went from 6th to 282nd in my class. I spent the last week of school taking makeup tests that I just barely passed. At least I didn't need a job. Mom had taken out a massive insurance policy to take care of me and the house. Enough to put me through med school, her last letter to me said. What a shame that I decided not to go."
"Is that all?" Hal interrupted my pity party. "Mom died, and now you're taking it out on the world by mopping floors? I remember being your age, peach. Every death is a tragedy, and when the deaths were at home, shit. The world ended. But this was in high school, right? It's been a while, peach." I don't know why he called me peach.
"Yeah, Hal. It's been a while since she died. It's been one year, six months, eight days, six hours and twenty-four minutes. But that 'wisdom' about time healing all wounds? That there," I mimicked his down-home accent playfully, "is horse shit. Because I'm still counting every minute that she's gone."
"Alright, it still hurts. So what? It probably always will. Get fucking used to it, cuz that's what people do when they're done living. They die." He looked at me intently, unapologetic for the razor edge to his voice. "You know and I know that's not what chases you in those hallways. It's not why you take the extra time with the battered women and children." His voice softened a little, soothed a lot. I was glad that he wasn't being gentle with me, treating me like I was going to break.
Part of me wanted to wonder who the hell this guy even was and why the hell I was spilling my guts to a man with no testicles and one lung, but I was here and I just kept talking. Some switch in my head said I just needed to talk to someone, and this felt like the right place to do it.
"No, Hal. She's not the reason why."
Another big girl breath.
Doctor Thrace, I know this is a long entry. So you're welcome to take a break and make a sandwich, or some tea. Or drink some whiskey.
Better? Ok, onward and upward.

"I barely graduated high school after she died," I repeated. Stalling. "I just didn't feel like going anymore, or talking to anyone. I stayed home and read, rather than put on something besides pajamas."
"What'd ya read? Please tell me you're better than Danielle Steel and trashy romances." He was jabbing at me to make me angry, make me laugh. Anything but make me cry. Good. Anger's always kept me stronger.
"Nah, I'm not that kind of girl, " I laughed. "I mostly read anatomy books, bio stuff. Some of the old Greek myths Mom used to read to me, like the Odyssey. But I was just killing time until high school ended. On graduation day I went to the enlistment office for the army and signed up. Threw away my acceptance letters from UCLA and Berkeley and some from the East Coast and started basic training as soon as I could."
"You learn anything helpful? What I hear, the army is better at fuckin' people up than fixin' them." He had another coughing fit. I should keep doing the talking.
I shrugged. "It taught me a few things. I learned how to shoot, how to throw a solid punch, how to handle a knife, how to throw it if I needed. I learned how to take orders, and how to give a few. I learned how to cut a man open without killing him, how to sew him back up before he bled out and how not to let him die from shock in between. But some of that was after I got deployed." I took a breath and got us both some water, hedging again.
"Mostly, you're right. I got messed up. I was assigned to be the medic for a troop in a village south of Kabul. We were evacuating the area one night in preparation for a rather disappointing raid, and my company found some stragglers. Six women and nine children who'd been unable to leave when we first issued the order. So my company requested orders and suddenly we turned into an evac detail. The orders were pretty straightforward. Get to a safehouse, like a jail or something, and hole up for a little less than a week. A rescue transport will be on its way, they promised us. It would just take a while because it was on its way from Logar Airport." I think I started getting misty-eyed here, the room got a little blurry. "Five nights into the mission, one of the kids started crying. He was maybe three years old. He was tired, hungry and starting to get sick. He started crying early in the day and wouldn't stop. I didn't have any medicine to give him, I couldn't figure out what was wrong..." I leaned forward and something dropped from my face to my hand. Water. Tears. I sniffed and the words kept coming, like they'd been locked behind a floodgate.
"At midnight some patrols passed by and must have heard him crying. They busted in the door. It splintered and flew off its hinges. The militants screamed at us in a language I didn't know. It could have been Arabic, or Farsi or anything, really. My buddies didn't understand or didn't move fast enough because we all got shot before we could even ready our weapons. I fell down on my stomach, my side all blown to Hell." I'd set my water down and was hugging myself, the fingers on my right hand running over where I knew the round, puckered scars covered my left side. I kept going.
"They lined up the kids against the window, the crying one first. One guy took a handgun and shot each kid between the eyes. I couldn't move. I couldn't turn my head, I couldn't look away, I couldn't stop seeing their tiny terrified faces beneath the muzzle flash." I was shaking now, not cold but shivering.
"Then they stripped the women. Each one of them was stripped naked, and I remember thinking that they were all beautiful. They were terrified and cold, but they were beautiful because they were alive. And I realized that, the being alive, was why I'd always wanted to do the medicine thing. Life is something that should be protected."
I paused to pick up my water and empty the small cup. I fidgeted with it as I continued, turning it over and splattering droplets on the floor. "Then the fuckers raped them all. They noticed I was conscious, and leered. They um... they thrust harder, more violently and the women ...screamed for help I couldn't give them." There was a long pause. I didn't say anything and Hal didn't say anything.
Hal finally broke the silence. "Goddamn, kid. That's rough."
Another moment passed before he continued, "I get it. People are vicious these days. Fuckin' monsters."
"Yeah," I murmured. "Then they just... watched the women cry for a while, curled up on the floor, before they shot them. Some in the back. Some in the chest. I lost track. They turned to go, spit on me, kicked me in the ribs a few times and left me alone in that house. Nothing but gurgles and the smell of people... what used to be people, losing control of their bodies to keep me company." I paused again, waiting for the breakdown to come. And I waited. And waited. And I was ok, so I went on with the story. "They threw in an incendiary of some sort, as a parting gift. The house burned to the ground with me in it. As it fell apart, something fell on my legs, and broke them. And I was trapped. I remember thinking that I wished I would die. Not that I thought I would, but I wished it. It would be easier."
"I'm not sure how much later, but the rescue transport finally arrived. The house was just smoldering at that point. I was in shock, and I looked like hell warmed over, they tell me. Babbling and bleeding but not really responsive. A friend of mine was on the transport, said he didn't know how I still had blood to lose when they found me. I was the only survivor and got the honor of id'ing the rest of my buddies. I spent some time in the hospital, mending physically. My legs were in casts, and I had to have several hours of surgery to find all of the bullets stuck in my torso. Two of my ribs were broken. It took some time, but they fixed my body, more or less." I sighed, a long and draining sigh. "But lots of shit was going down simultaneously so no one was really able to worry about poor little Laurel's mental breakdown. They did have time to find me unfit for duty, though, and ship me back home to an empty house. Doctor Thrace contacted me afterward, and I was tired of feeling like I'd eaten shrapnel so I started working with her."
"And here y'are, peach. Little worse for the wear."
"And here I am," I spread my hands. "Been through Hell and got the scars to prove it," I stood and started to raise my shirt a little. His heart rate went up slightly.
"Easy grandpa, they're on my side." I showed him the mass of scar tissue that wrapped from just beneath my left breast, down to my hip around the left side of my torso, and his heart rate went back to normal.
"Christ on a fuckin' bike," Hal muttered.
"Indeed," I nodded. I looked at the clock and figured even if I couldn't sleep, he probably should. "I'll pop by tomorrow, Hal." I smiled a little.
"Alright, take care of yourself, peach."

And I realized I was feeling a little bit better. Maybe I'll be okay, after all. Or maybe I'll just be okay with being a headcase forever.