Leave a Scar

Letting out a low growl, I picked up the microphone stand, raising it above my head. In the background, I could see John smashing his guitar to smithereens. It would be nothing but a pile of toothpicks by the time he was done.
I dropped the microphone, letting it crash and roll a few feet. Picking up the lighter fluid from the top of Twiggy’s amplifier, I doused Ginger’s bass drum and sent a heavy spray onto the rest of the drum kit. I made sure to our some on the microphone stand, the discarded remains of John’s guitar, and one of the old amplifiers, too. Tonight was the last show of the tour, and it was time to get rid of all of the equipment we’d overused, anyway. It wasn’t like we couldn’t afford more, or that some company wouldn’t donate more. We never needed anything, really.
Picking up the lighter, I flicked it a few times, held up the flame, and then watched the drums ignite. I set fire to the microphone stand, and was holding up a piece of John’s guitar when I heard a strange sound behind me. I turned, still holding the guitar. The entire drum kit was ablaze. I panicked for a moment, until I saw that Ginger was safe on the ground, whacking a hole through the cover of the bass drum with one of his drum sticks. He was laughing.
We were having a good time destroying everything short of each other. John and Pogo and Ginger and I were leaving everything in ruins. Pogo’s keyboard was in pieces. I picked up a few parts, and added them to the fire burning down the drum kit. Vaguely, I gazed at our handiwork, thinking that one of the stage crew had better be showing up with a fire extinguisher soon, lest we accidentally burn down the arena.
Some of the crowd had left, some still remained. John was throwing out splinters of his guitar and whatever picks he had left. I picked up a large piece of his flaming guitar, breaking it up into smaller chunks when I heard a loud, heavy creak coming from behind me. I turned just in time to see the drum riser collapsing, right over Twiggy, who was swinging the electrical cord still attached to his bass around his head like a lasso.
“Twiggy!” Ginger shrieked.
He looked up for a moment, suddenly aware that he was in danger.
“MOVE!” Pogo yelled.
So, he did. He ran away from the flaming, falling structure. But he ran too far too fast. He skidded at the very edge of the stage, realizing what he’d done, but it was too late. His boots skittered across the stage floor, catching on the ledge. He flipped over, and plummeted down.
John wailed. I saw him run to the edge of the stage.
I think I was in shock. I don’t remember moving, but I remember seeing Twiggy, bent in a completely unnatural position, lying motionless on the concrete floor.
“Oh no,” someone murmured.
Fans were backing up, hurrying to get out of the venue. Finally, they were putting out the fire.
“Marilyn, he’s not moving. Why isn’t he moving?” John asked me, and I realized that he was standing beside me, looking down.
I stared hard at the blood on the security fence. My eyes wouldn’t see the pool of blood surrounding Twiggy’s head on the hard, unforgiving ground.
The paramedics we always had on standby for my benefit were down on the floor, but no one was touching Twiggy. No one did anything for a good ten minutes, while everyone waited for the paramedics to arrive.
John, Ginger, Pogo, and I all sat on the edge of the stage, looking down at Twiggy.
“Do you think he’s dead?” John asked softly.
“No, John. He’s perfectly fine,” Pogo rolled his eyes.
“But, there’s so much blood. How much blood does a person have? I mean…”
Ginger reached for John’s hand. “Let the paramedics do their job, okay?”
“What happened?” I asked no one in particular.
“He hit his head on the metal bars. Hard. Then, he flipped over. He hasn’t moved since,” Pogo informed me.
“We killed Twiggy!” John moaned.
Ginger was rubbing his back, trying to calm him down.
I watched helplessly as the paramedics put all kinds of restraints and boards and equipment on, under, around, and over Twiggy’s small body. It took three of them to lift his little weight and carry him out to the ambulance.
“See, John? No body bag. He’s still alive,” Pogo said in a very smart-assed tone that really wasn’t called for. I would’ve been angry, but really, what would’ve been the point? The only thing that mattered now was how Twiggy was doing.
“We should find out where they’re taking him,” I said, carefully getting up.
The others followed. We received directions from one of the venue’s staff, and took our bus to the hospital. I silently cursed myself for having brought the bus tonight. We were home, we could’ve driven.
Fans waited in huddles outside of the doors. Great. Just what we needed.
“Is Twiggy okay?” A small blonde girl asked, her eyes wide.
“We don’t know. We’re going to the hospital to find out. I’m sorry, there’s not going to be a signing or a meet and greet tonight. We need to be with Twiggy.”
The girl nodded.
By the time we were all on the bus and it was pulling away, nearly all of the fans had left. I hoped that no one was too upset. Surely, they could understand a thing or two about priorities. As much as I loved our fans, all of them combined couldn’t hold a candle to how much I cared for my best friend, and he needed me -us- now more than ever.
When we got to the hospital, we all changed and removed our makeup while we waited to find out how Twiggy was doing. I worried, slightly, that he was dressed in drag and covered in sweaty makeup. Would the hospital staff treat him differently for it? I hoped not, but I knew the sad truth was that they probably would. But, then, this was LA. There were a lot of people much weirder than we were.
Finally, a doctor came out to see us, four hours later.
“How is he?” John asked nervously.
“Jeordie has a severe concussion, but that’s not news, is it? He hit his head hard on that metal gate. His skull is fractured, and there’s a massive amount of swelling. It’s too soon to know the extent of it, but it’s quite likely that he has brain damage from the accident.”
“His head…is it…” John couldn’t even form a logical sentence.
“He’s undergone emergency surgery. There are pins in his skull to hold it together, and his head is heavily bandaged. There’s nothing graphic to look at.”
John sighed heavily, his fingers gripping tightly onto Ginger’s sleeve.
“Can we see him?” I asked.
“Well, I suppose it would be all right. Please don’t touch him, and only one of you at a time.”
No one objected to me going in first. They watched from the window as I hovered above the bed, looking down at Twiggy. He looked so small and fragile, lying there. His head was bandaged, as the doctor had said, and there was some sort of contraption around it. I wondered if it was holding his brain in, and the thought made me so queasy that I nearly fainted. I had to get out of the room. I was going to be sick.
Sure enough, I barely made it into the hallway before I puked my guts out at Pogo’s feet. Instead of being rude like I’d expected, he helped me to a chair while Ginger went to get me something to settle my stomach and John tried to find a janitor to clean up the vomit.
No one else went in to visit Twiggy that night. I guess they assumed that if I couldn’t handle it, they couldn’t, either.
It was the middle of the night, when a nurse came and gently woke me. I looked up at her with tired eyes.
“Mr. Warner, I thought that you might like to know that Mr. White is awake.”
I sat up straighter. “Already?”
She nodded.
“I thought the doctor said that it would be days.”
“Well, his eyes are open.”
“Can I…”
“Yes. I’ll go with you.”
Careful not to disturb the rest of the band who were still sleeping, I stood, and followed the nurse into Twiggy’s room. Sure enough, his dark eyes were open.
“Hi, Twiggy.”
He stared vacantly through me.
“Is he…”
“I don’t know. I thought that perhaps he’d react to you. He hasn’t said anything to me. I just came in to check his IV, and his eyes were open.”
I put a hand on Twiggy’s forearm, and gently rubbed it. “Twiggs? Do you know where you are?”
His eyes never changed focus from the white walls. He never blinked. It was as if he was catatonic.
“He’s been through a lot tonight. It’s normal, if he doesn’t show much interest or understanding right now. There’s still a lot of swelling, and that’s probably making things harder for him. It’s like having your head in a very thick fog. Don’t force him too hard to talk to you right now.”
I nodded.
“It will be a couple of days before the swelling’s down enough for him to show more signs of improvement, if there’s going to be any.”
I looked at her with confusion. “Are you saying that he might not ever talk again?”
“There’s no way to know how severe or permanent the damage is. We just have to wait and see.”
I sighed, and sat down in the chair beside Twiggy’s bed. Now that he was awake, the nurse didn’t seem to have a problem with me staying. So, I did. I stayed in his room all night, watching him stare blankly at his surroundings until he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
I, on the other hand, did not sleep. I’d had maybe an hour’s nap in the chair in the waiting room, but now that I was able to be with Twiggy, I couldn’t sleep. A part of me was afraid that if I did, something bad would happen. Like, he would suddenly die, and I’d sleep through it and he’d be alone.
Days came and went. Twiggy never seemed to really grasp what was going on. Every day, I would sit with him, holding his hand, telling him stories, trying to get him to acknowledge me. But he never did.
Days turned into weeks. Every day, a little bit more of the hope I clung to faded away into dust. At the end of the second week, the hospital staff asked that I please not spend the night in Twiggy’s room any more. I think they only forced me into agreeing because I looked so awful. I had lost all care in anything to do with me. I hadn’t bathed, shaved, changed my clothes, or even eaten, in days. All I did was spend every possible moment doting over Twiggy.
I felt completely responsible for what had happened to him. I should’ve watched out for him. I should’ve seen the drum riser collapsing, I should’ve pulled him to safety. But I hadn’t. And now, my best friend was possibly facing a life of permanent brain damage. What kind of life would that really be? Perhaps it would’ve been better for us all if he’d just died.
That thought haunted me. It tore apart my insides. I felt so guilty. Twiggy didn’t deserve this. He really didn’t. I had let him down.
I went home, stripped out of my clothes, took a long shower, and shaved. I had to admit, I felt better. I even cooked some pasta, but just looking at it was more than enough for my queasy stomach. I dumped the food into the trash, and put the plate in the sink with some water on it. I was used to Twiggy doing the dishes.
I got into bed, and stared at the dark walls. There was no light at all in my room. Still, I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. Every cell in my brain and body was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep, thinking about Twiggy. I had ruined his life.
When I went back to the hospital in the morning, the nurse told me that it hadn’t been a good night for Twiggy. He’d thrown a fit when an orderly had tried to feed him, refused to take his medicine, and hadn’t bothered to tell the nurse when he’d needed to use the bathroom, so he’d soaked himself and the bedding with urine.
Maybe they wouldn’t be so anxious to send me home tonight.
John was sitting with Twiggy when I got to his room. Only the two of us visited him. We’d decided that having the rest of the band in there might be too much for him.
“Hey, Twiggy, look who’s here,” John smiled brightly. It was the same phrase I used when John came in for the day to visit.
Twiggy’s eyes were open, but he didn’t look at me. He didn’t even look at John. He just looked at nothing. It was all he ever did.
“He blinked, a while ago. Is that good?”
I sat down in the chair next to John. “I guess.”
“Maybe he’s coming around.”
“It’s been two weeks. I don’t think he’s going to come around.”
John frowned. “We can’t give up. He’s going to be okay.”
I wanted to argue. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to argue that he would or wouldn’t get better. I knew that the window of opportunity was closing rapidly. The doctors had said so. If Twiggy didn’t snap out of this soon, he likely never would. I knew that I had to try my best to do something to help. I owed my best friend that much.