Jason Starr - Twisted City

I looked over and saw he was holding a pad and a pen out to me. I hesitated before taking them from him.

"Who shot you?" he asked.

I wrote on the pad, I don't remember.

"What were you doing in the park?" he asked.

I underlined what I had already written.

"Were you going to meet somebody? Maybe a friend, a drug dealer?"

I underlined the words two more times and added, Leave me the fuck alone.

Romero continued to question me, but I stuck to my story that I didn't remember anything that had happened after I left my office. Romero finally got frustrated and said he'd come talk to me again in a couple of days, and then he left.

I knew Romero hadn't bought my amnesia story, but I was going to stick with it anyway. The idea had come to me earlier in the day if I kept my mouth shut about who had shot me, Kenny wouldn't be able to blackmail me anymore. Now we had something on each other if he tried to blackmail me, I could have him arrested for attempted murder. As for the police, I'd just continue to play dumb about everything and eventually they'd leave me alone.

I slept miserably. I woke up every few minutes with a dry, irritated throat, and they must not've been giving me enough Percocet, because my entire body killed. In the morning, after my first solid food in nearly three days, my strength started to return. Around noon, a short-haired, very thin, dykey-looking woman came into my room. She said she was a neuropsychologist. After she asked me to say my name, my age, what city and state I was in, the date, and a bunch of other things, she made me repeat numbers and words back to her.

"Okay," she said. "Now turn over the paper, hand me the pen, and point to your nose."

I handed her the pen, pointed to my nose, then turned over the paper, but I only screwed up because I was bored stiff and just wanted her to leave me alone. After asking me some more dumb questions and having me identify pictures and shapes, the woman explained that I was suffering from the aftereflects of anoxia. She said my memory would probably improve over time, but that I'd continue to exhibit on-going symptoms, such as irritability, impulsiveness, and disinhibition. As she spoke to me, I just stared at her, half smiling, thinking, Who the hell did she think she was kidding? She wanted to bill my insurance company for as much as she could, so she was making it out like I had brain damage.

There was nothing wrong with my brain. My brain was perfect.

Later, a doctor examined me and checked my charts and told me that, assuming there were no complications, I'd be discharged from the hospital in a few weeks. I'd have to do about a month of rehab, and then I'd be back home, as good as new.

In the afternoon Aunt Helen visited. When I saw her wrinkled face and maroon hair, I remembered what an annoying old bitch she was. I didn't feel like getting her sympathy or listening to her nagging me to see psychiatrists and grief counselors so I lied and told her I was too exhausted to see her. Thank God she left quickly.

A few minutes later I started to panic when I realized I didn't know where my wallet was. My pants had been taken off and I feared that my wallet had been lost or stolen.

"Where's my wallet?" I screamed. "Where the fuck's my wallet!"

An aide, an old Chinese woman, came into the room and said, "What's wrong?"

"My wallet," I said. "Where the hell is it?"

"Your personal items are in this drawer," she said.

She opened the night table drawer and handed me the wallet. I immediately opened it and checked behind my driver's license and, thank God, the picture was still there. I kissed it twice; then I propped it up against the phone on the night table so I could look at it all the time.

After the dinner trays were collected, the fat, ugly nurse entered my room to give me my medication.

"Hey, where the hell's my juice?" I said. "I asked for more apple juice an hour ago."

"I'll bring it right away," she said.

A few minutes later Angie arrived. I immediately noticed the weight she had gained in her face and that her mustache looked darker than ever. I wasn't in the mood to see her.

"How're you feeling?" she asked.

"Exhausted," I said, hoping she'd get the message.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I'll let you rest. I just wanted to say hi and see how you were doing, and I wanted to give you this."

She handed me a large envelope. I slid out the card and opened it. It read, Get well soon! with some other crap below it, and was signed by people from the office. I looked at a few of the signatures, noticing Jeff's, larger than anyone else's, and then I tossed the card onto the floor.

Angie gave me a funny look, as if I'd done something to insult her.

"So," she said, "how are you?"

"Can't you shave that fucking thing?"

She saw that I was staring at the area above her upper lip. She backed away a couple of steps, looking hurt.

"What?" I said. "You know you have a mustache, don't you? And what did you do, gain ten pounds? You really need to hit the gym big-time."

"I should go now," she said. "I mean, I just came by to see how you were doing, but I… I really better… What's that?"

She was looking toward the night table with a shocked, disgusted expression.

"What does it look like?" I said. "It's a picture."

"But who is it?"

"My sister."

"Come on, that isn't really»

"Sure is. Can't you see the resemblance?"

"But… but she's naked."

"So?"

Angie leaned closer toward the night table and looked back and forth at me and at the picture a few times.

"Oh, my God," she said.

"Nice rack, huh?" I said. "And look at those legs not an ounce of flab on 'em. Yeah, Barb had a great bod and she knew how to use it too."

Angie backed away farther, stumbling on her heels; then she turned and rushed out of the room. I shook my head, wondering what was wrong with her, when I noticed the empty cup on the tray. I pushed the call button until somebody answered on the intercom, and then I screamed,

"Hey, where the hell's that fat bitch with my apple juice?"