a lobotomy but near enough I am in a white room in the Medical Center at the University of California, San Francisco, haunted by sonar monitors and kind nurses asking me if I can remember my name (I cannot) and the year (2015?) I have had a kind of brain scraping, a potentially lethal one, and I cannot recall my name and the year and yet I am not spared the worrying that only parents of a child on drugs—I suppose any parent of a child in mortal peril—can comprehend Is he in mortal peril? His beautiful brain, poisoned, possessed, on methamphetamine I wanted to remove him erase him elide him from my brain, but he is there, even after this hemorrhage We are connected to our children no matter what They are interwoven into each cell and inseparable from every neuron They supersede our consciousness, dwell in our every hollow and cavity and recess with our most primitive instincts, deeper even than our identities, deeper even than our selves My son Nothing short of my death can erase him Maybe not even my death What is his telephone number? Nic A monitor like a mallet hitting my skull "Get some." "What?" "Some sleep." A nurse Rousing me "Nic?" "Calm down, dear It's all right Your blood pressure is up." More pills and a paper cup of water with which to wash them down "Nic—" "Get some sleep It will help more than anything." "My son?" "Get some sleep." "Will you please help me dial—" "Get some sleep." I am agitated and—apparently—tearing at the shunt The nurse, looking fatigued and discouraged, is here, having rushed in She says she will give me another injection of pain medication The drugs do not allay my terror I want to call him to be sure that he is all right I need to call him I cannot remember What is his number? It begins with three one oh "Please, dear, go to sleep." In the morning, Karen is here A doctor enters "Can you tell me your name?" Once again I sadly shake my head "Do you know where you are?" I ponder this for a long time and then ask, "Is that a metaphysical question?" The doctor doesn't immediately respond When he finally does, he has decided that, no, a straightforward answer would suffice Karen is in tears "Who is the president of the United States?" I stare blankly I say: "Will you tell my editor about the suitcase? It is broken Tell him that the locks don't work." "The suitcase?" "Yes, the locks don't work The suitcase is broken." "All right I'll tell him." The broken suitcase, my brain Filled with everything I am I cannot remember my name and I do not know where I am and I cannot remember his telephone number, the digits have spilled from the suitcase with the noise and mess of an overturned bucket of Legos or Nic's collection of tiny seashells from China Beach when he was— was he four? They have spilled out because the lock has broken My son is in danger I cannot forget it even now, with my brain awash with toxic blood Nic "What is your name?" The nurse again "Can you dial my son?" "What's his telephone number?" "Three one." "Yes?" "I can't." The nurse injects me with a sedative and painkiller and a thick warm wash fills up my toes and legs and pours into my limbs and it bubbles up like oozing tar It fills up my belly and chest up through my shoulders and down my arms and into the base of my neck and up the back of my neck and up into my damaged head, soothing Deathlike sleep beckons like the descent of a dead man with a concrete block on his feet who has been thrown into a bottomless lake and I fall down and down and down and yet even now I wrack my injured brain, What comes after three one zero? I have my own room, but there is no privacy The door is open It is always light Once or twice I ask Karen or a nurse to open a window for air, but then I get ice cold Karen's sister visits when she has a few minutes between her rounds in other wards I feel better when she is here And mostly I feel better when Karen is here She rests on my bed under the neon tubes enclosed in plastic underneath the square white ceiling panels with a constellation of pin-sized holes She rests with me and she reads to me and I fall asleep She is juggling the kids, everyone else, everything, our lives, but I want her with me, need her with me When she is here, everything else falls away—worry, fear Lying with me, Karen holds my hand and we watch the only television channel that I can tolerate—the only plot that I can follow —a broadcast of an unchanging picture of a mountain I miss step-up day I miss Daisy's birthday A succession of doctors ask: What is your name? What is the date? Where are you? Who is president? They instruct me to hold out my arms, palms up How many fingers am I holding? Wiggle your toes Put pressure against my arm Now with your feet Test after test They reveal that there is no aneurism Ten percent of people who come in with a subarachnoid hemorrhage have no aneurism More tests Today I can answer the doctors' questions ... When she is here, everything else falls away—worry, fear Lying with me, Karen holds my hand and we watch the only television channel that I can tolerate—the only plot that I can follow ? ?a broadcast of an unchanging picture of a mountain I miss step-up day... "Do you know where you are?" I ponder this for a long time and then ask, "Is that a metaphysical question?" The doctor doesn't immediately respond When he finally does, he has decided that, no, a straightforward answer would suffice... my shoulders and down my arms and into the base of my neck and up the back of my neck and up into my damaged head, soothing Deathlike sleep beckons like the descent of a dead man with a concrete block on his feet who has been thrown into a bottomless lake