This one is personal. Almost never published here for many reasons. Took a long time to be ready to share…
It’s dedicated to my wife, Aspen.
When I first wrote it, I hadn’t met her. I had no idea where my life would go or how I’d change. Going back to read it, I realized my entire outlook has evolved.
For many years I was obsessed with what could have been. In my career, relationships, and life. These days? I’m just grateful. For the choices I’ve made. Grateful for the dimension I’m in. Grateful for Aspen.
This story means a lot to me. It comes from hard experiences. An earlier draft once got the attention of a hero of mine, a showrunner who wanted to adapt it into a film with me. Maybe that happened in another dimension — but not this one.
That’s okay. Now, all I hope for is that even one person out there connects with it and it means something to you. Thanks for reading and commenting.
“Where are we?” she says.
“The hospital,” Ben says.
“Good! You got it right! Now - why?”
“I don’t know.” Ben frowns. “To make new versions of me?”
She shakes her head, worried. “Do you want to go back to sleep?”
“I have to write this report on free motion in outer space.”
She smiles. “Maybe you’ll be an astronaut when you get out of here.”
“I don’t need to be,” Ben says. “But I have experience in that kind of thing. I blocked the monsters with no big effort. Then reaching down to write the report was actually more of an effort.”
“Well, sometimes it is,” she says – as if everything Ben’s saying makes perfect sense.
Ben tries to sit up for the first time, but he feels the halo brace screwed down into his skull. He can’t move.
“Can I take a sip of your Dexadream Dreamer?” he says.
“You mean this?”
She holds up a bottle of Diet Peach Snapple.
Ben nods. She lifts it to his lips and gives him a few gulps.
After, Ben takes a deep breath. “Am I excited?” he asks.
“Do you want to be?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you want to be excited about?”
“The future.”
“What about it?”
“Running through the jungle at a vast, cranial, animal speed.”
With that, Ben shuts his eyes.
She touches his face tenderly and shakes her head again.
He’s been like this for hours.
Later. Night in the city. Hospital machines drone on. She’s still by his side. Holding his hand. He opens his eyes again.
“Are you worried?” he asks her.
“No,” she says. “Are you worried?”
“No.”
“Good. You shouldn’t be. You’re gonna be okay.”
“Press the button and undo it,” he says.
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Sure it does. Can you please just press the button and undo it?”
She doesn’t know what else to do, so she just claps her hands.
“No!” Ben says. “The actual button!”
“Okay…” she says, humoring him. “I’m pressing the button! But I think we have to finish the machine, you know? Before it’ll work? It’s not built yet.”
“Oh, great!” He takes a deep breath. “Zoey, I wanna call Drew. It’s 914-738-2939.”
“Okay…” She holds up her phone. Playing along.
“And... cancel call!”
She’s looking at Ben in the eyes now. “You do know I’m Emma. Not Zoey, right? Emma. Your wife?”
Ben knows her face well – but that only makes everything more confusing. His wife?
“Emma!” he finally says, smiling for the first time. “Emma the alien!”
“I am an alien aren’t I, Ben?”
“Yeah, you are.”
“Where am I from?”
“Planet Zobotar.”
She laughs. “Obviously.”
Emma can’t help but be amused by all of her husband’s crazy talk.
The nurse, Jules, comes in to check all the machines. Ben sees her standing over him, the black skin of her shaved head glistening in the cold fluorescent hospital light. She looks futuristic to him.
“Benjamin,” she says.
“Do we have any more Dexadream Dreamer?” he asks.
“Never heard of it. But I see you’re back with us again. That’s good at least.”
Ben sighs. “I’ve been on adventures, but I’ve come back home.”
“What kind of adventures?” Jules asks.
“Well, the cat was a Nazi and was very hard to follow around in training. It was very ‘Eins! Zwei! Drei!”
“Did you not like the cat being a Nazi?” Emma asks.
“Well, I’ve played out several war scenarios before. War crimes. Malta and the Australian coast. African continental. Islamic republics. Vietnam and Thailand.”
Emma looks at Jules. “I mean... is this normal?”
Jules laughs. “Nazi cats? Well, it depends on your definition of normal. Benjamin has experienced severe trauma.”
“Call me Ben, please. Only my grandma and my teachers call me Benjamin. It’s dorky!”
Jules nods. “Ben has experienced head trauma. He had a brain bleed for about three days. The doctor thinks he may have had a seizure. Maybe multiple seizures. He’s also on some serious meds.”
“Dexadream Dreamer?” Ben asks.
Jules shakes her head. “Dilaudid.”
“That’s the stuff.”
“Jeez,” Emma‘s eyes widen. “Isn’t that basically heroin?”
“No comment,” Jules says.
Ben knows it’s basically heroin. He’s never understood Kurt Cobain until this accident. He’s told his doctors to keep that stuff away from him. It’s too damn good.
Jules hands Ben some apple sauce. He’s mindlessly spooning it into his mouth before he notices what it is.
“Apple puree?!?” he says. “What have we been eating for the last few days? See Zoey, this is what happens when you’re in charge of what we’re eating – this baby stuff!”
His wife frowns. “Okay. Who is Zoey?” she asks. She turns to Jules again. “He keeps doing that!”
Jules studies him. “Ben, do you know what year it is?”
“We’ve been over this and over this. 2025.”
“Okay. And can you name who the Governor is?”
“Gavin Newsom,” Ben says. “Great hair!”
“He’s actually the Governor of California,” Jules says. She rolls up the scrubs on her right arm and shows him her tattoos. There’s one of an orca and one of Amy Winehouse. Next to that, Ben can make out a New York Yankees logo in black ink.
“We’re in this state,” she says. “Our Governor is Governor Hochul. Do you know what state this is?”
“Duh, Jules. It’s New York. I was born in New York.”
“Good,” Jules says.
“But I have to say the food at this Hotel California sucks.”
“We’re in a hospital!” Emma says. “Not a hotel. You just said it! You should know. You broke your neck. In New York.”
“Bullshit. You’re lying.”
“When have I ever lied to you?”
“Zoey, you know when you lied to me.”
Emma frowns.
With that, Jules takes the applesauce container and heads for the door.
“I’ll give you two some privacy,” she says.
Three weeks later, they’re putting Ben in a wheelchair and rolling him down the hall for physical therapy twice a day. From the chair, the various glass buildings out the window in the PT room look like they could be in any city. For a while, Ben convinces himself it really could be Downtown L.A. But one day, when he’s able to stand up, leaning against a bar — like the ones ballerinas use — he notices one of the buildings peeking through. There’s really no mistaking it: The Chrysler Building.
“New York fucking city,” Ben says.
“The Greatest City in the World,” comes the immediate response from Freddy, the physical therapist, a ripped Puerto Rican gym bro holding an old school stopwatch.
It’s like all New Yorkers are trained to say that, Ben thinks. It’s beyond Pavlovian. It’s like they’re all walking, talking chatbots and that’s the pre-programmed response. You type in “New York” and “Greatest City in the World!” pops out within a millisecond. Not even a “...” typing bubble hesitation.
“You know, I used to say that automatically too,” Ben says. “I think it’s a defense mechanism.”
“Defending what?” Freddy says.
“New York! New York’s fucking hard. It’s a hard life. Crammed into tiny apartments. The subways. It’s inhumane, man. And it’s either hot and humid as fuck or freezing cold. No inbetween these days. It sucks to live in New York. So, everyone has to tell themselves that they live in the Center of the Universe! and The Greatest City in the World! to justify living here.”
“You can always leave, brother.”
“I did leave. I live in Los Angeles.”
“Right, I forgot,” Freddy laughs. “Man, didn’t they cut down the opioids you was on?”
“Yeah, only ‘cause I told them to!” Ben says. He levels his eyes at Freddy. “Remember. You’re laughing at a cripple with brain damage right now.”
Ben’s still holding himself up on the ballerina bar, looking out the window. He could stare at the Chrysler Building until his body gives out, he thinks. It’s important to stare at it. To see that it’s real.
“Come on. That’s enough for today,” Freddy says. “Let’s get down on the floor and stretch.”
Ben thinks it’s important to stare at Emma too. To hold her hand. To touch her face. To see that she’s real.
“I forgot what you looked like,” he tells her.
The Emma he’s staring at now is the same person he dated ten years ago – only now she’s in her mid-thirties. How did this happen? He’s still trying to wrap his mind around it.
“We’re all just glad you pulled through,” she says.
“Wait, who’s we?” Ben says in a sudden panic. “Do we have kids!?!”
Emma laughs and says: “No. Not yet...”
He takes a deep breath and notices something.
“What’s with the pantsuit?”
“I just came from work.”
Ben looks perplexed. “There’s no way you to wear that. To an office? Aren’t you a punk rocker or something?”
Emma frowns.
“No. Psych rock. You’re a psych rocker, Emma.”
“Wow.” She sits back and studies Ben. “Wherever you’ve been? Planet Zobatar? You’ve missed some stuff.”
“But why the pantsuit? Don’t get me wrong, it looks great.”
“I’m in politics now. I’m an aid to probably the most badass young Congresswoman there is. She represents the Bronx and Queens.”
“Politics?” Ben says. “I’m just… I just can’t believe it. When did that happen?”
“You actually inspired me.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. When we went canvassing in Philadelphia.”
“Canvassing in Pennsylvania?”
He takes a minute to let it all sink in. “Oh wow, Em. You’re a different person.”
She’s running her hand through his beard. It’s been itching the fuck out of him, but he can’t shave thanks to the halo. He broke his C2 vertebrae in two, but the pieces didn’t move apart, so they didn’t disrupt his spinal cord. Now the halo brace is drilled into his head in four places. If he doesn’t move his neck for six months, the two pieces will heal back together. Like nothing ever happened – or so the doctors say.
“I know we’ve been over this, but I have to ask you something,” Ben says. “And don’t mess with me, okay? My mind is fragile.”
“I would never do that,” she says.
“After my mother died...”
“Your mother?”
“Yeah. After she died, I didn’t go to Las Vegas with my dirtbag friends? And the last Sunday of the trip, I didn’t decide to go to XS at the Encore for the pool party? The Mecca of Douchebaggery Worldwide? And I didn’t get caught on the security line with cocaine and get locked up in Clark County for the night? With a Black dude with a tattoo sleeve who turned out to be the nicest guy in the world who was in jail for selling bottled water on the Strip without a license and told me, ‘Man, you need to get your life together?’”
Emma looks at him like he’s talking about Nazi Cats again.
“I’m not on Dilaudid anymore,” Ben says. “My brain isn’t bleeding. It’s working just fine.”
“I really don’t know what to tell you, Ben.” Emma shakes her head. “Is that what you seriously remember?”
“I remember a lot of things… But you’re telling me I really never went to Vegas?”
She shakes her head. “Not that I’m aware of. You hate Vegas.”
Ben’s head is starting to hurt. “And you’re telling me I drive a Vespa?”
She nods. Like: Of course you drive a Vespa.
“So, basically I’m a Brooklyn cliché,” I say. “I drive a fucking Vespa? And this stupid hipster beard?”
She laughs. “That was always your dream!”
“A beard?”
“No, a Vespa. We’ll shave the beard when you can move your neck, I promise.”
Emma rubs Ben’s head. Touches the gashes where the screws go into his forehead.
“You have to answer a serious question for me, Ben, okay?”
“Of course, honey.”
In his memory, he never called anyone else “honey” in his life. And hadn’t called her that in a decade, but it came out of his mouth naturally now.
“First, you should just know. After all of this,” she says. “After what we’ve been through together. I love you more than ever. I just need you to be honest with me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Who is Zoey?”
Ben takes a long beat to think about his answer.
“You would never believe me if I tried to explain it to you,” he says. “But actually? I don’t think she’s any more real than Planet Zobotar.”
Emma looks at him. Dubious.
Ben always thought when it was time to take off the halo, they would put him under. He would wake up and it would be gone. Easy peasy. But the giant team of doctors had expressed concern that Ben was over-medicated and couldn’t handle more anesthesia.
Recently, they yanked the IVC filter right out of his inferior vena cava without any sedation. Something about stopping blood clots. It felt like they were pulling a wire with a metal box on it through his biggest vein the entire length of his body. Being awake for that was fucking harrowing — body horror.
Now, on the morning they’re going to remove the halo, Ben finds the spinal surgeon just standing there with what looks like a common garage wrench. During the “procedure,” Ben is standing up, wide awake as they unscrew it from his head.
“Really?!? This is how you’re gonna do it?”
He almost passes out from the un-wrenching. The shock and speed of it. So matter of fact. Like a tire change at Le Mans.
After, he stumbles back — like he’s been punched in the face. He’s relieved his nurse Jules is there to help him to his wheelchair. He shudders as she rolls him to his room.
“Wait a minute,” she says, stopping in the middle of the hall. “What am I thinking? You officially don’t need this wheelchair anymore.”
“Yes, I do!” Ben says. “Please. It’s been an intense day. I don’t mind the ride.”
“Stand your ass up, Benjamin,” she says and hands Ben a cane. “You got this.”
“Okay, but you can walk with me, right?”
“Yeah, sure, I can walk with you.”
Her hand is much stronger than his. She’s got a firm grip on him as he uses the cane with his other hand.
“This feels like a big deal for someone who might have never walked again,” he says.
“Yeah, you’re killin’ it.”
Jules helps him back into the hospital bed. She notices something’s up. Leans in.
“You still havin’ those… memories huh?”
“Nonstop.”
“Eventually they go away,” she says. “For most people, anyway.”
Ben looks her in the eyes.
“You remember when you told me about the people you know? The ones who might be able to help?”
Jules avoids his look, checks some charts in the room.
She sighs. “Yeah, I kinda hoped you forgot about that.”
“Why?”
“Look, man. It’s like the doctor told you. If you took your hand and put it against the wall. And I walked to that side of the room and threw ninja stars at your hand, it’s like they went in between your fingers! That’s how lucky you are! Maybe the best thing to do? Just be grateful for this life and leave it alone,” Jules says. “You’re blessed. I’ve seen your girl. Emma? I mean damn. She loves you, Ben.”
Ben thinks about how Emma has been there every day in the hospital in a different colored pantsuit, wearing a wedding band he’s never seen in his life.
“That girl has been by your side for hours, even when you’re passed out.”
Ben’s eyes return to Jules’ face. He’s about to say something, but there’s no need. She gets it.
“But you’re not tryin’a hear any of that are you?” she says.
Walking the streets of New York after being in the hospital for months, Ben is overwhelmed now. The dog walkers. The food trucks. The bike messengers. The people walking fast, but only looking at their phone. They’re all keeping him off balance.
If Ben really never left Sunnyside and really did own a Vespa, if he drove it every weekend to see Emma in Brooklyn until they got married, then the Greenpoint Avenue Bridge — which crosses between Queens and Brooklyn — should feel more familiar. But as Ben crosses over on foot, he doesn’t have any memories of it at all. He’s not sure he’s been on this bridge once in his entire life.
On the other side, he can see the place Jules talked about. He’s supposed to meet her outside a blue glass building directly across from the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.
“I almost didn’t recognize you!” Jules says to him, noticing his clean shave. “You know, without the Ayatollah beard.”
He tries and fails to throw back whatever cool handshake combo she offers him. “You look pretty different yourself,” Ben says. She’s wearing a black hoodie, a bright red fisherman’s beanie, and gold designer Nike Air Maxes. Not exactly nursing scrubs.
Jules smiles. “You sure you’re ready for this?”
“I really have no idea what it is, so yes?”
The treatment plant is reflected in the windows of the building, but all warped, giving everything a hallucinatory feel. Jules doesn’t lead them in the front door. Instead, she unbolts a metal latch on an exterior cellar door and they disappear down into a basement.
“Riiight,” Ben says, as they walk through the darkness. He can make out a bare lightbulb swinging at the end of a long hallway. Jules walks him past several closed doors. One of them is open a crack. A sign says: DMT LAB. Rows of glass tubes appear to hold piles of drowned frogs.
Jules quickly ushers him along. When they turn a corner at the end of the hall, there’s a pink neon sign that says: MEDITATION IN PROGRESS.
“What the hell is this place?” Ben says. “A Psychedelic Meditation cult?”
Jules just holds her fingers to her mouth to shush him.
Inside, six men and women of all walks of life sit around cross-legged on hippie beanbag chairs, deep in meditation. The guy in charge looks like Isaac Hayes in Escape from New York or an African warlord. He lifts his head up from meditation, nods to Jules over dark sunglasses, and waves them into his office.
Ben’s starting to regret everything when he gets inside. It’s a mad scientist’s lab meets a serial killer’s basement. There’s a “vision board” with insane images pinned to it that make zero sense: The Hadron Particle Collider, Kama Sutra poses, Amy Winehouse again for some reason, and, disturbingly, photos of the torture at Abu Ghraib.
“You mentioned these people have similar experiences to mine?” Ben whispers to Jules.
“That’s right.”
“In other words, brain injuries?”
“Specifically, brain bleeds that resulted in seizures.”
“Huh. My people, I guess.”
Suddenly the boss himself walks in. Jules introduces him as Big John. He’s a former patient of hers, she says. He shakes Ben’s hand tightly and sits behind his desk.
“You brought me fresh meat,” he tells Jules.
She smiles. “Ben, I want you to tell Big John what’s going on with you. Starting when you woke up in my hospital. Don’t worry. We’re all friends here. Nothing you say will sound crazy. John’s heard it all before.”
“I’ve experienced it before,” Big John says.
“Right,” Ben says. “So, when I woke up in the ICU. I was talking all kinds of nonsense about free motion in outer space. War scenarios in Malta. Cats speaking German.”
“Broken C2 vertebrae, hip shattered in seven places,” Jules adds. “Three-day brain bleed. Suspected seizures.”
Big John nods.
“And I keep calling my — I guess my wife — Emma by the name Zoey. Here’s the thing. In my mind, I live with a girl named Zoey in Highland Park, in Los Angeles. I had this notion that I got hit by a car on my bicycle in L.A. That I must be at USC hospital downtown or something. Not New York.”
“Have you tried to find Zoey? You hit her up on Facebook?”
“As far as I can tell, she doesn’t exist. At least, no social media, so...”
“So, she doesn’t exist,” John chuckles. “Right, but you know who your wife is?” he asks. “You remember her from before the accident?”
“Yeah, of course. She was my girlfriend for a few years. But we broke up awhile back. I met Zoey. She’s a French singer. She wrote a song. About me, actually. Went viral on TikTok. Went on tour. I quit my job. We moved to California together. To my knowledge, I haven’t even seen Emma for years.”
Big John looks at Jules. “And have we located a split?”
She nods. “I think so. Ben, tell Big John about your 30th birthday.”
“Okay. So, in the life I remember, I was hoping my Mom was going to give me a Vespa for my birthday.”
Jules and Big John share a look at that.
“I know it’s a big gift. I’m not usually a spoiled brat or anything. But Emma was living in Brooklyn and I was in Queens and there’s no good subway between our apartments.”
“What about the G-Train?” Jules says.
“Fuck the G-Train,” Big John says.
“Exactly. So, it became a kind of fantasy. My Mom was going to meet me and Emma at Cafe Bar in Astoria on my thirtieth birthday and she was going to give me a Vespa.”
“Gotta love white people,” Jules says. Big John smiles.
Ben blushes. “I know. It was ridiculous. But that’s the thing. In my memory, it never happened. She showed up and had a present. But it was a Kindle Paperwhite.”
“What the fuck is that?” Big John says.
“Like an e-book? An e-reader? Doesn’t matter. It’s not important. The point is, I remember taking it with me the next weekend to a bachelor party in Las Vegas.”
“You brought an e-book to a bachelor party in Vegas?”
“Where I was arrested for felony cocaine possession,” Ben says. “My Mom died that weekend. I went crazy. Things were never the same. Later, I moved to Los Angeles.”
John frowns. “You got a felony cocaine charge and didn’t go to prison?”
“Yeah, I know. White people.”
John levels his eyes at Ben. “But all these memories. That’s not the reality you’re facing right now, is it?”
“No, it’s not. Emma tells me: of course I got the Vespa that day. I never went to Vegas. Now we’re married.”
Jules speaks up. “Ben was brought to my hospital suffering injuries from a Vespa colliding with a Chinatown bus.”
“It’s always a Chinatown bus!” Big John says. “Goddamn those things are dangerous.”
“Apparently…” Ben says.
“You’re lucky that shit didn’t catch fire,” John says. “They always catch fire.”
Ben nods. “I heard about that.”
“So, let me guess. After you wake up here, you don’t know what to make of the memories. Was it the brain bleed? The drugs? Are you fuckin’ nuts?”
Ben looks to Jules, gratefully. “He gets it.”
“We deal with this kind of thing here a lot.”
“This ‘split’ you’re talking about?” Ben asks. “That’s like the space-time continuum? Two parallel realities diverging?”
John squints. “I don’t know if I would categorize it like that exactly.”
“But we’re talking about a multiverse? Parallel dimensions?”
“What do you know about it?” Big John asks.
“I’ve seen movies. I’ve read books.”
Big John just laughs at this. “On your Kindle Paperwhite,” he says.
“Can I ask you something?” Ben says. “Do you know what Dexadream Dreamer is?”
John smiles. “I have some idea,” he says. “I’ll tell you one thing: It ain’t no Diet Peach Snapple.”
This shocks Ben into silence for a moment. “So… what do you do here exactly?” he finally says. “You jump me back into the dimension I came from? Some shit like that?”
“We do a lot of work here. We’ve made some real progress in our understanding.”
“Am I some kind of interdimensional being?”
“Slow down Spider-Man.” Big John laughs. “We’re all interdimensional beings,” he says. “Most people only see one dimension in a lifetime.”
“But you see more?”
“You’re goddamn right I see ‘em!” John says. “Hell, there’s a dimension I’m married to Halle Berry.”
Ben sits back in his seat, looks around. “What goes on here?” he says. “Meditation?” He motions to the Abu Ghraib and Kama Sutra pictures. “You waterboard people?? Or maybe it gets kinky down here? You expanding your chi here, or what?”
“Admittedly,” John says. “What we do is unorthodox. Not for everybody.”
“What goes on behind all of those doors? What’s with the frogs?!?”
“They’re toads.”
“So, a bunch a people with brain bleeds licking poison toads? Great.”
Jules shuffles in her seat. “Okay, I think that’s enough.”
“I’m sorry,” Ben says. “No disrespect.”
“I don’t take offense. Ben, I’ve lived through everything you’re going through,” John says. “Can I ask you one thing? In your memory of your life in Highland Park. Was Amy Winehouse alive?”
“No, man. She overdosed. On my 30th birthday actually...”
Big John writes something down on his pad.
Ben thinks of Jules’ tattoo. The photos on the board.
“What’s this obsession with Amy Winehouse? Who gives a shit about Amy Winehouse!?!”
At that, Jules stands up, severely offended — as if Ben just dissed Gandhi and MLK. “Okay, I think I’ve had enough. Wasted both your time,” she says. “Wasted my own damn time.”
“Maybe,” Ben says. “I have to admit, this is all a bit much.”
Jules turns to Ben. “No. This was my mistake. In your other life, you’re a convicted felon and you live in fucking L.A. Trust me. You’re better off forgettin’ all about that.”
Ben nods. He can’t really argue her point. He stands and goes to shake John’s hand.
“Felony cocaine charge?” Big John says. He starts to laugh. “You gotta get your life TOGETHER man!”
As they shake, Ben notices Big John’s tattoo sleeve for the first time. He’s seen those tattoos before.
A few hours later, Ben’s fiddling with the keys to his apartment in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. The door takes him a few minutes. He still hasn’t gotten a handle on it — the nuances of how to jiggle the key in there and get that old brownstone open.
Yeah, it’s a brownstone. Ben’s place sure beats the shitty one-bedroom he had in Los Angeles that he always said was Highland Park but was actually Frogtown. The hallway is full of photos of Ben with some mustachioed dude he doesn’t recognize. They’re doing all kinds of weird chef stuff together. In one shot, they’re walking a truffle pig through the forest. In another, they’re brining their own pickles. It’s all absolutely baffling to Ben.
The kitchen is beautiful. Hardwood floors. High ceilings. Marble and stainless steel everywhere. It even has one of those guacamole molcajetes — which Ben always kind of wanted but never had. Must be the wedding registry, he thinks.
He’s never had any use for a kitchen like this. He doesn’t really cook. Under his arm, he’s carrying a bag of take-out from the Ecuadorian restaurant called Tropical 2 in Queens. Emma’s favorite meal — at least back when they dated years ago. Chicken and rice with a spicy aji verde sauce unlike anything else in the city. He surprises her with it when she comes home from work.
“You still love this, right?” he says, studying her as she crunches on patacones.
“Yeah, it really takes me back to the bed bugs days in Queens.”
“When you were smoking cigarettes in dumpsters after your shows.”
“Another life,” she says.
Ben pulls out a bottle of cheap rosé they used to drink back then. Yes Way, Rosé.
“Oh, you’re really pulling out the stops!” Emma laughs.
“Cheers to this particular plain of reality!” he says. They toast to that, even if Emma still doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
In bed, their limbs fit together in a way Ben forgot. Like married people. But late at night, when he’s in that nearly dreaming state where the synapses are firing and free, memories of Zoey hit like fireworks.
Flashes of her shows. Acoustic. Magnetic. Singing about him! Then she’s surrounded by a cadre of international Soho House-type friends. Flashes of a party in Paris. Riding a camel in Egypt. A speed boat off the Amalfi Coast. A very different life. A different world. A wide range of memories — or maybe they’re not memories.
Ben once knew a journalist who was embedded in Iraq. That guy saw stuff most men never have to see. He thought he’d be changed forever. But he told Ben that all it took was three weeks in L.A. and he was back to his shallow self. Caring about stupid, vacuous things. For Ben, there was the accident and everything after — the dilaudid, the IVC wire, the garage wrench. Way more than three weeks had passed and he still wasn’t sure the life he was supposed to “get back to” was even real.
He twists and turns in bed. Sees himself in a holding cell in Clark County jail in Las Vegas. There are camera crews everywhere. Shooting the reality show Clark County. He’s trying to cover his face. Next to him is the guy with the tattoo sleeves. He’s telling Ben: “You gotta get your life TOGETHER!”
There’s no mistaking it — it’s Big John.
Ben wakes up. Shaking out of control.
“Honey, you’re having a seizure!” Emma says. “I’m gonna call 9-11.”
“No, I’m okay. It’s over. It’s over,” he says.
He stands up and gets out of bed, almost trips over this shoes.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m calling Jules.”
“Your nurse?”
Ben walks into the hallway with his phone.
It rings and rings.
“Pick up, Jules. Pick the fuck up!”
He thinks: she must be on her shift in the hospital.
Finally, she answers.
“What the fuck is happening, Jules?”
“Do I know you?”
“Come on. Not funny.”
“Who the fuck is this?”
“Who do you think? Ben.”
“Don’t know any Ben.”
“Yes, you do.”
“You sure about that? I get a lot of crazy-ass calls.”
“I just saw you today. In Greenpoint. Please don’t fuck around.”
“You one of my Brain Bleeders?”
“Well, yeah...”
“This is why I stopped giving out my number. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. It’s against hospital policy. Please don’t contact me again.”
“Jules, what are you talking about?”
“Delete this number. Call a psychologist. You’re mentally ill. I can’t help you.”
The phone goes dead. Ben slumps down in the hallway. He looks up and sees wedding photos with Emma. He doesn’t even know the venue where he got married. He looks at the mustachioed chef, his best man, puzzled. Emma steps out from behind the bedroom door. She’s been listening the whole time.
“Emma the alien,” Ben says. “Do I really know how to brine my own pickles?”
“You’re an amazing chef, Ben.”
“I don’t think I even know how to make eggs over easy without breaking the yolk.”
She hugs him and he buries his face in her arms.
“What’s happening?” Ben says. “What the actual fuck?”
“Honey, we’re gonna get you some help.”
He pulls out of their embrace and looks at her in the eyes. This is not the Emma he knew, the psych rock bassist. She’s present in a way he doesn’t remember.
“What time is it?” Ben says.
“It’s three o’clock in the morning.”
Ben stands up. “I need to go to Greenpoint.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Emma looks at him. “Wait, does this have to do with Zoey?”
“It has to do with a lot more than her.”
“Then I’ll go with you.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m a responsible human. I’m not letting my husband get on the G-Train at this hour alone in this condition.”
“Whatever this is, Emma, I think I have to do it on my own.”
She slumps down next to where Ben is sitting. She isn’t going to budge. This older Emma. The one who wears pantsuits. Looks at him in a way that no one ever has.
“Serious question,” Ben says.
“What?”
“Is Amy Winehouse alive right now?”
Emma squints her eyes. “Amy Winehouse?”
“The singer? Back to Black?”
“Of course she is. She’s probably one of the most important people on this planet.”
Ben feels dizzy. He presses his fingers to the top of his eye socket on both sides of his nose.
“Are you questioning our marriage right now? Is that what this is?” Emma says.
Ben looks at her.
“No. I’m questioning the fabric of our universe.”
©️ 2020 max winter
This story was inspired by notes written by Abigail Tarttelin at the Intensive Care Unit at UCLA Medical Center in 2013, where she was caring for the author following an accident.
For rights information contact chris@winterlightpictures.com
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You left me speechless, Max. In a good way. In that weird state of mind where I feel pleasantly disturbed. I love when I come across a story (whether in books or films) that makes me feel this way. That level of confusion is just nerve-racking! Thanks for the experience :)
Wow.