Philip A. Gonzales
A true story.
Billy Was in a Coma
Billy was in a coma. Billy was an artist and a writer leading a tenuous way of life. That Camel-straight voice coming from his 5-ft, 2-inch frame and those darting, manic eyes had a way of getting everyone’s attention. About 2 o’clock in the morning, Billy was coming home from a good number of hours in active pursuit of his muses. He was riding an old motor scooter, stopping for a red light in the unforgiving summer humidity. Billy was not the kind of guy who used his rear-view mirrors, so he had no idea what hit him from behind. To the drunk driver, Billy must have felt like a bug on the windshield. Then Billy was in a coma.
Mama came right away. She had just the two boys: Billy and Danny. Their father had passed away when the kids were 10 and 12 years old. She couldn’t reach Danny for a couple of days. He lived in California. His girlfriend said that she wasn’t sure; he might have gone to Reno.
Billy’s mother would not leave his hospital room through the first few days and nights. His condition was unchanging; desperate. She prayed while she took a detailed inventory of her younger son’s life. Damn, I wish those boys got along better. she repeated to herself. Danny used to torment Billy into a frenzy. Every day there would be some kind of bloodshed, mostly Billy’s blood. The climax incident between the two boys found Billy punching his fist right through a plate glass window. Danny wheezed out his spasmodic laughter on the other side. After that, Mama was able to attain an uneasy brand of peace. You boys will put me underground.
, she declared whenever she saw them together. But her two sons never wanted to have much to do with each other from then on. Danny left home. Billy turned inward.
It was getting near lunch on the fifth day when Danny burst through the door of his brother’s hospital room. Hi Mama. What did that idiot do now?
She welled up and tucked her trembling chin into the folds of scarf. Not a word to Danny. Danny reared back and gave the fully-adjustable, $14,000 bed a karate kick that knocked Billy’s IV bag onto the floor. Billy was in a coma.
Danny picked up precisely where they had left off. You stupid motherfucker, Billy! You made me come all this way, and you won’t even talk to me. I always told Mom and Dad that you were just a steaming turd.
He jumped up on Billy bed and straddled him just around the ribcage. You’re a worthless asshole. Look at you lying there!
Danny made a trampoline. That’s it. I’m pulling the plug. It’s about time we were done with you, Billy.
Danny performed his amateur wrestling body slam directly on Billy’s solar plexus. Mom couldn’t hold herself back any longer. She howled, Danny, stop it! You boys will put me underground!
, moaning as she teetered backward two steps. Danny initiated a series of viscous bitch-slaps across his little brother’s face and neck. Glowing hand prints bloomed across Billy’s pallid skin. Danny was piloting his rant to a stall up at that hoarse, howling, foaming altitude.
Billy’s eyes popped open. An eerie, wet rattle reverberated down his tracheotomy tube. Danny froze. His chin began to jump and dimple. Mom withered to her knees. A nurse barreled through the door and dodged around her to see what was happening. Billy’s eyes glared, mired in his limp face. They fluttered. He went under again.
Now it’s three years since the accident. Billy walks with a limp and a cane, but he walks. Billy talks with a profound slur, but he talks. Billy loses track of things around him, but he gets through his day. Billy is alive, and Billy is not in a coma.
Your brain directs the life in your body, but your body let’s your brain know that you are alive in the world from moment to moment. If your body is deprived of sensory stimulus for an extended period of time, then it will die. But first your central nervous system – brain and spinal column – will sink into a coma. Sensory stimulus is what keeps you conscious; what keeps you alive in a sequence of moments. In a coma, your brain can deliver a generalized aliveness to your organs, but with no sense of the variations in stimulus that provide a sense of the moment. That’s the reason for the rapidity of sleep: there is no sensory stimulus in moment-by-moment sequences.
Danny came to jump-start Billy’s nervous system. Danny’s antics applied high voltage to Billy’s proprioceptive system, awakening Billy’s brain to the fact that his body was still alive in the world. Then Billy’s brain knew that there was a sequence of moments in which to be alive.