Spaz They called him Spaz because he damaged his brain shooting up Preparation-H.
Somebody told him it would get him off like nothing else and Spaz couldn't resist trying it. So he went into his bathroom, loaded a syringe with the gooey material and shot it into a vein on top of his foot. Within ten minutes he was lying on his face on the linoleum. His mind was someplace else.
"He's had a stroke," the doctor explained to his folks. "The material he injected blocked a major artery in his brain. Part of his brain is dead and he will never be the same again."
"That could be good," said his father. "He wasn't much at best and he couldn't get any damned worse."
"He was my little boy," his mother said, trying to weep.
"He was a fuckin looser," his father growled. "At least now maybe he can get on disability."
Lying in bed listening to all of it, Spaz couldn't do anything but roll his head back and forth and mumble. White spittle ran out of his mouth. But he heard and understood some of what was being said.
***
They sent him to a rehab center for six months. There, the therapists taught his muscles to work again after a fashion. With the aid of two canes, he began to walk again. His legs jerked and his whole body shook. Sometimes he fell on his ass. But he could get around a bit, even if his head did still jerk and his attempts at speech yielded nothing more than guttural grunts and a renewed flow of spittle.
"Uck!" he said, pointing at the window. "UCK!"
"Yes, that's the window," the young lady smiled. "Someday you will be outside again, doing things and enjoying life."
"UCK!"
Spaz had a word in his mind when he looked at the window. But he thought the window was a truck, just as he believed the bed to be a bell. Sometimes at night, he played with his mountain. His mountain was inside his bird, which were on his potatoes.
Something didn't seem right about all this shit, but Spaz couldn't put a finger on it.
***
His folks had to take him home finally. That was O.K. with his mom, but his father hated him. Nothing new, he had always hated him, even when Spaz was Paul.
"You goofy son of a bitch," his father said.
"What the hell did I ever do to deserve you?"
"GARF!" Spaz said.
"Shut the fuck up!" the old man responded, throwing an empty beer can at him. It hit him in the forehead and knocked him out of his chair. That seemed to have a positive effect on Spaz's brain. For the first time in a long time he heard a word inside his head and knew exactly what it meant.
"GURZ!" Spaz cried out. "FOZ GURZ!"
"You simple minded asshole," his father said, shaking his head.
***
That night Spaz laid down to sleep and he had a vision. He saw himself go into his parent's bedroom. He saw himself pick up this object propped in the corner of his parent's room. It was shaped somewhat like the things he held each day. He saw himself put the thing to his father's head and then he heard a loud sound. He felt wetness. Spaz woke up and he had pissed his pants again.
He hobbled down the hall, leaving a wet trail on the carpet. He eased the door open. His father was growling softly. Spaz didn't know what stealth was, but he exercised it. He found the thing he had dreamed about, just where it was in his vision. He did something and the room lit up and rumbled. The thing jumped out of his hand. There was a spray of red and gray all over him . . . all over everything. His mother was screaming, drenched. His father had quit growling.
"ARGH!" Spaz said, his face twisted in a smile. "ARGH ZARG!"
***
He was in another place now. Everything was different but it was O.K. None of it mattered, except there was no light from outside. But nobody hit him with things or yelled at him and that was good.
"UCK!" said Spaz to the other one near him. The other one looked at him and nodded.
"Right," the other one said. "Uck is right."
Spaz liked the other one. He liked everything. Everything was cool.
I thought that, Spaz thought suddenly. I thought that everything was cool.
That was not so cool, he decided. He said that to the other one, but it didn't come out right. The other one looked at him strangely.
"Yeah, whatever you say," he said. "I can't make heads or tails of it."
Spaz didn't know if that was good or bad. He only knew it didn't seem to matter.
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