wednesday (concussion protocol)
The neurologist is looking at me. In his eyes I see a mix of confusion, concern and bemusement. His mouth is covered by a mask.
What do you mean when you say vertigo? he’s asking me. Is the room spinning?
No, I reply. I don’t know how to describe it…
Is everything moving in slow motion?
Something like that.
You can tell me in English if you want.
I wouldn’t know how to say it in English either. When I forget a word in Spanish I usually also forget it in English, the concept vanishes from my memory.
Later I’m sitting on the examination chair, putting my shoes and socks back on. I don’t have a concussion. It’s like — it’s like everything around me suddenly becomes enlarged and I’m falling inexorably towards it.
I sit in front of him. He gives me the same look.
So the room isn’t spinning?
No. Everything just gets huge and I’m falling towards it. Usually I get a panic attack as a result, like this morning.
He told me my blood pressure was perfect, the panic attack was over. I still felt weird, though. He told me I was fine, I didn’t have a concussion, there was nothing that stood out to him as risky. You’re almost certainly fine, he said. I don’t expect anything to get worse. I still felt weird, though.
In the morning I sat talking and drinking coffee with my neighbors. I excused myself to have breakfast, the coffee was making me feel insane. The walk to where I wanted to eat breakfast, the tlayuda place, felt like forever. I sat down and tried to pretend everything was fine, which made everything worse. I ordered enmoladas, which was stupid if I was already having an adverse caffeine reaction, that is to say a panic attack. At some point I looked up from my plate and felt myself, not my body but my vision, my consciousness, fall forward towards the other side of the restaurant, where a pale blond girl sat impatiently waiting for someone to give her a menu.
The enmoladas were delicious but I’d lost my appetite. My original plan was to stop by the queer bakery and get a big delicious queer babka and eat it joyfully on my way to the supermarket. Why didn’t I do that?
Saturday night, at the drag bar or on the way home, we always walked each other home, adorable honestly, he said, I’ve never had ceviche, let’s get ceviche tomorrow for dinner. Let’s go to that place you mentioned. I thought this was a great idea and I think I said — I hope I said, smiling — you want to go for a romantic dinner with me?
Then I forgot. Why did I forget? I woke up, he came over, we laid for a while on the beach, talking quietly with our heads on each others’ shoulders. Let’s get tacos, he said. Let’s go to that place! I said. I was thinking of that for dinner, he said. No, let’s go now, I insisted.
When we arrived the place was empty. He said, it’s packed. I looked down at my phone for some reason, to check the hours maybe but I already knew the hours, and looked back up. I heard a thwack and saw the heavy wooden sign for the restaurant come undone from its post. It sat at a diagonal. He asked, are you ok? The restaurant owner asked, are you ok? Yes, I said.
As we sat talking my head slowly started to, I don’t know, feel. I could feel it in a way that wasn’t necessarily painful but was uncomfortable. It felt heavy. My food, which I’m sure was delicious, was a struggle to eat. I had ordered grilled octopus, he had ordered grilled shrimp. I told him about the dream I’d had once where an octopus ate me. Our conversation turned to parents, family, I mentioned how my dad had died. I feel a little weird, I said, talking about my skull. He put his arm on my shoulder. Aww, he said, talking about my dad.
Later, at the drag show, I started having a panic attack. I felt like I was trapped in the back of my head. Now it was hard to concentrate. I felt like I was having to force words out. I feel a little woozy, I said. He looked at me. You must be really enjoying the lights and the sound, he said. I realized neither the lights nor the sound were bothering me. My panic fell away. We went for a walk. We sat down by the ocean. A wave snuck up and soaked our asses as we kissed. We walked back to the bar, sandy salty and wet.
We parted ways. We both spent the night shivering and sweating, he in his bed and me in mine. Somebody pointed out later that this indicated fever. Why would we both have a fever? From the wave? A couple days later, in the airport, I said to Pako, enfermos de amor and he rolled his eyes. I couldn’t sleep. The whole day when I mentioned to people that I hit my head they said, don’t sleep. So I didn’t sleep. To be honest I haven’t been able to sleep since.
A few days earlier I stepped on a bee. Everyone asked me, are you allergic? So I started to wonder if I was allergic. I can count on my hand the number of times I’ve been stung by a bee, or actually I can’t because I don’t remember if it was once or twice. I said to Nico, what do I do? and he brought me back to the hotel, ordered me a drink, and took out tweezers and disinfectant spray. Later we couldn’t even find the stinger. I had already taken it out walking down the beach, I could see it sticking out from a thin layer of sand along the bottom of my foot. We were sitting on a bench, naked at the nudist hotel, him with my foot cradled in his hands, looking for the stinger, looking for a bump. There wasn’t even a bump. I don’t think I’m allergic to bees, I said. We had another drink and watched night fall as my anxiety subsided.
The neurologist is looking at me, telling me he expects my symptoms to subside and that in all likelihood nothing serious happened.
We should do a CT scan anyway, though, to check to see if a busted vein may be slowly leaking blood into your brain. It probably isn’t, he says, this is something that only happens to older people, alcoholics, and people who are taking a lot of painkillers. I think of asking, how many drinks a day makes me an alcoholic? But I know the answer to that question. My grandfather drank a fifth of whiskey a day. He woke up, poured whiskey into a mug and topped it off with coffee.
The neurologist says, look. If you start having strong symptoms, like persistent vomiting, your body suddenly feeling very weak, or not being able to speak or understand language, go to urgent care immediately. But this makes no sense. I live alone, if I lose the ability to speak or understand language how am I going to call a friend, much less an ambulance, I’ll just collapse on the floor. Like Jonathan all those years ago, he had a seizure and died on the floor of a mall outside Buffalo, New York. He was an alcoholic. We drove to his funeral through a blizzard, silent and sad, packed into my grey Toyota Echo. It was eerie to see him, already ash, in an urn on a shelf. So much vitality sitting in such silence.
I often imagine telling people, I’m ok with dying because I’ve already done everything I dreamed of as a teenager. I’ve put out records with my own music under my own name, I’ve been reviewed and profiled in local and international publications, I’ve met several different versions of the love of my life, I’ve had a dog, I’ve played concerts of my own music on every continent except for Africa and Antarctica, I’ve lived in New York, I’ve lived in LA, and now I live in Latin America. When I was a teenager I thought it would be Buenos Aires (I was a Borges nerd) but I’m glad that it’s Mexico City. I’ve studied with and/or performed with many of my heroes, I’ve been published as a writer, I’ve even shown artworks in galleries. I can die tomorrow. I can hear Berenice telling me, and you might!
But I don’t want to. You might have noticed, O Dear Reader in Your Infinite Grace, that the tone of these posts has shifted from the morose to something else. In the last month — honestly since eating that mushroom and especially last week, basking naked in the blazing sun amidst smiling eyes and gentle caresses — I’ve made a series of aggressive and positive decisions about what I want my life to be and where I want it to go. I want it to go there. I don’t want it to stop because I hit my head on a fucking heavy wooden sign because I checked my fucking phone for information I already fucking knew. And I especially don’t want it to stop because some little saboteur, I can see RuPaul saying “inner saboteur” over and over again in my mind’s eye, ha ha ha ha ha ha she laughs that unmistakable laugh, ahhh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha — I mean if we’re talking saboteurs what about my sense of space that leads me to walk into things and step on bees — anyway I especially don’t want it to stop because somebody asked me on a date and I forgot. I wonder if he’s tried ceviche yet.