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Amnesia by Azriel Johnson
I'm Crazy Tom.
I remember everything.
I'm sitting across a cold, metal table from my wife of five years. I'm giving her the dumbest look I can muster. She thinks I'm suffering from memory loss. Her look at me is just as dumb as mine is to her, just for different reasons. Her dumb look is also associated with ugliness. She is so ugly to me. That perfect skin. That soft, brunette, wavy hair. Her pearly white teeth. Her crystal blue eyes. Lips that look like roses and feel like silk.
Bitch.
The left corner of my mouth is cracked open a bit and I'm manufacturing enough saliva that it starts to roll out onto my chin. I need to do whatever I can to maintain that I'm an amnesiac who has just had a psychotic episode. This particular episode happened to include running around the mall with my dick hanging out and pissing all over the floor. It was epically perverse if I do say so myself. Certainly not the best image for children to see, so I didn't do it until about an hour before closing time. I thankfully wasn't seen by any children, their parents were all quite astute observers. It's hard to miss a man in a red t-shirt waddle-running down a mall hall with a floppy dick and yellow urine streaming out.
The kids were spared. The janitor, not so lucky.
They caught me, because as part of a psychotic episode you're not supposed to be thinking clearly. So instead of fleeing like a rational person would, after I was finished and had escaped out the rear exit, I trotted around to the front with penis safely ensconced in my jeans.
I heard the deep, musical wail of the sirens coming to the mall. I had to get caught. I had to get away from the wife again. Going to jail would be the perfect way to...
"Mister Leto, you're free to go. The mall manager said that under your special circumstances that you were not accountable for your actions. He has, however, requested you seek psychiatric help."
Mister Leto is me if you haven't guessed. My dumbfounded look betrayed nothing, "Who is Mister Leto?"
My darling wife smiled patiently at me, "That's you honey, I thought we were past this. You know your name."
I looked distrustfully at her and crossed my arms over my chest. She sighed and turned to the officer, "We will do our best to have these sorts of things resolved. And we'll stay out of the mall until they are."
"Thank you, Missus Leto," the police officer said as he walked out, leaving the door for us to follow.
My wife said, "Toby (that's my real name), let's go home." I allowed her to lead me to our red convertible. I picked it out before I became an amnesiac. It matched nearly everything in our home. If you walked into our house it would look a little like diet Hell. I absolutely loved red. Maya, my wife, didn't mind much either. She was part Latin and had a firey temper and passion that was only matched by her affinity for lies.
The convertible was the only working car we had left. As we pulled into the concrete driveway I looked at the ruined red family wagon. I bought that when we were expecting our first child. I was so excited to be a father that I ran out and bought the car outright on our way home from the doctor's office. I'm not sure why Maya kept the car. It had been in a horrible accident with me. It was originally the means of my escape from this life.
~ * ~
You see, I'm a writer, or at least I was. I was a pretty lucrative one at that. Being a writer you get many imaginative ideas that you just have to try out and when I saw... well... let's just say Maya's affinity for lies showed its ugly head... the whole idea to become an amnesiac showed itself.
I was coming home from a day out writing in the park when I saw someone else's car parked in my spot in our driveway. I didn't think much of it. Maya is a homemaker and had a lot of friends who would come to keep her company when I would go out to write. This car was not any that I recognized, but I figured it was just a new friend. She had a lot of them.
I parked on the street in front of the house and made my way inside. I walked through the living room, no Maya. I peeked into the kitchen, but Maya wasn't there. My heart beat a little nervously as I ascended the stairs. I heard no sounds and our bedroom door was closed. I stopped breathing. My ear pressed against the door and I heard something that sounded like snoring.
Maya doesn't snore.
I opened the door slowly, I saw the late afternoon light pouring red through our window. It bathed Maya's naturally darkened Latin skin. Her brown left nipple poked out from the white blanket. Her face caught in the serenity of an afternoon nap. I opened the door further to see the source of the snoring.
A man. A white man. Very pale. Certainly beautiful in his own right. He had to be. Maya was only attracted to white men, hence her white husband. The father of her children. Or so I had believed.
Maya stirred as I watched them from the door. Her beautiful blue eyes opened. "T-Toby?"
I couldn't speak.
The man beside her stirred and saw me, "Oh shit!" He fell out of bed and hid his bits behind the bed. Maya sat up and clung the blankets to her body, still bathed in the glow of the red sun. Still so beautiful.
"Toby, I can explain," she started. I held up my hand and shook my head. I pointed to the man behind my bed and said, "Out." He complied faster than I expected him to. He took care not to brush past me as he exited the room. I heard the door slam and his car start as I stared at my wife in the darkening dusk.
Maya rose out of bed, "Please, Toby, let me...."
"No Maya, there is no explanation. You did it. There's nothing to say. I thought those days were behind you."
Yeah, I know what you're going to say, 'She's done this before to you? How could you be as stupid as to go back to her after that?'
Truth be told, I loved her. I loved her with a deep affection that can only matched by how much I hated her now. You can't hate like that unless you've loved like that. Thankfully the love always comes first.
I turned from her, "I'm going out."
"Are you coming back?"
"I... don't know."
And I left. I got back into the family wagon and drove. I didn't cry. It seemed pointless. Fool me twice, right? I stopped at a coffee shop about 20 miles from home. The night wore on and clouds collected. I was about to drive home when it started pouring down rain. The roads got slick in a hurry. A summer storm will do that. I left anyway, I figured if I were to die on the road then that would be Fate's way of reprieve from having to deal with any of this shit.
I was about ten miles from home and the roads were unimaginably slick. Under normal circumstances I would have been worried as my car hydroplaned into the guard rail, but I must have been going 20 miles over the speed limit for a reason. The car flipped as it struck the guard rail and flew over a short embankment. Nothing major, maybe ten feet or so to the rocky ground. The car landed on the tires, which exploded upon landing. The air bag kept me crushed to the seat for the entire flight. When the car finally stopped moving I was fine. I had no ill feelings other than the brief glimmer of remorse about the car, then I remembered that I wasn't going to need the car anymore.
I wasn't going to stay with Maya.
~ * ~
Finally tears came. I didn't sob, but the windshield had broken in and rain struck my face to mix with my tears. The airbag deflated. I had to get out, get free. I knew that moving now might be a bad thing, but I felt fine. I could wiggle my big toes. I could squeeze and release my fingers. I had worn my seatbelt and the car was made to be child safe.
I unlatched the seat belt and worked the door open. My legs swung out and I stood in the rain for a moment doing a mental inventory of my state. Was I okay? I felt fine physically.
Then my brilliant flash of mind came. I took the money and the ATM card out of my wallet and threw it into the fold up console. My cell phone followed. I looked around for witnesses and saw none. The emergency lights on the car were flashing as they would after an accident so I knew someone would find me with the car fast if I didn't get out of there. So I started away.
I wasn't sure where I was going, but I went there. As I walked, the rain ceased to fall. As I walked, I thought of my story. The easiest story I could think of.
Amnesia.
I walked and thought of all the things I could say. I ripped my clothes. I punched myself in the face a few times. I scraped myself with rocks. As a writer I really committed myself to the details of the story. I had to make sure everything was right. I couldn't leave one thing out. People had to believe I had no idea who I was.
Amnesia is hard to pull off certainly. But I did it. Anyone I came across met a guy who had no idea who he was. The first ATM I came to I pulled out the maximum 500 dollars then scampered in a random direction. There was no way I'd let them trace me and I could live quite astutely on 500 dollars for a long time. I cut up my card after withdrawing the money. Let my wife think someone robbed me as I lay injured in the car. What did I care?
I found my way to a small town about 2,000 miles away in the Southwest. I had always wanted to go there since I was a kid and I finally made it. The weather was warm and it seemed like the perfect place to start a new life. I still had about 300 dollars by the time I got there. Unfortunately, it was the Southwest that got me caught.
I kept my spending to a minimum. I bought only food. I knew that my money was going to run out eventually so I started looking for general labor. Everyone called me Crazy Tom because my beard and hair had become quite scraggly and my clothes were disheveled. Anyone who asked got the same story, I didn't know who I was. And if anyone asked I simply changed the subject, sometimes in a slightly psychotic manner talking about anything at all to distract them.
I was good at playing the psychotic.
A woman I knew from a grocery store was walking home just after dark. I didn't think much of it until I saw three men following her sneering and cackling. I didn't like the feeling I got when I saw them so I started following them. When they cornered her and started becoming a bit rough with her I ran at them babbling insanely. At first the men laughed, but soon they became annoyed and tried to beat me up. This gave the woman time to run away and phone the police. I ended up with some bruises, but the men were all taken in and they took me to the police station to get my side of the story.
I repeated the story I'd said many times. The first thing I remembered was rain and a crushed up car. Eventually I my story reached my home in the Northeast and my wife was notified.
I was elated.
Please note the sarcasm.
~ * ~
So after a couple flights, I was back home. It was nearly winter by then and cold. I couldn't let on that I was miserable, but I vowed to myself that I wouldn't come out of my amnesia. My wife tried everything. She took me to doctor after doctor and none of them saw any brain damage at all. One particularly astute doctor asked if there had been any emotional trauma before the accident that may have triggered the amnesia and Maya admitted to her infidelity.
The doctor looked at me with a sympathetic glance.
That's how our lives continued on. Every night I would hear Maya crying next to me as I pretended to sleep. Every night she would apologize for what she had done. Every night she would pray to god for my memory to return so we could return to a normal life. She told me that she had miscarried the night of my accident. The stress was too much especially after discovering I was in an accident and missing. I almost felt sorry for her, but my face kept its dumb look and drool occasionally dripped off my chin.
I often called myself Tom as the people in the Southwest did. Maya tried to get me to respond to Toby, but I fought her on it whenever it was convenient for me. Whenever I could muster, I made believe that the amnesia was frustrating and how I longed to remember the beautiful life she and I had. These moments would send Maya into fits of crying unlike any other. She could feel my frustration, or so she said.
Never had a lie felt so good.
I guess by now you're wondering how I ended up running through the mall. Well, things finally came to a head. My parents had just left after their weekly visit. They showed me old photos from my childhood. They showed me old prom pictures with Maya and me standing and smiling holding each other closely. One of the less sympathetic doctors had told Maya that maybe an extreme emotional outburst would shake me out of the amnesia. I don't know what that quack was trying to pull, but Maya tried it.
"I can't believe this is happening! This is tearing us apart Toby!"
"Tom. My name is Tom."
"Toby. Your name is Toby Leto! You are my husband. I did you wrong, I know it. Why do you keep punishing me?"
"I didn't ask to be like this! I didn't ask to not be able to remember who I am."
"Gods! Why can't you remember Toby? Why can't you remember your own wife!"
"I don't know! I don't know!"
Maya grabbed me by my shirt and slapped me, "Remember dammit! Remember!" She slapped me.
I shook my head in disbelief. "What are you- what." I shook her off of me and ran out of the house.
I made my way to the mall. The air was cold and I only had on the red shirt and jeans. All the while I was thinking of how to reign her back in. It had been a while since I'd portrayed a 'psychotic episode' and now was the perfect time to do it. Snow started falling as I stood in front of the mall. It was just over an hour till closing. The perfect time. I unzipped and walked in.
The rest as we say, is history.
Maya's face was mottled red. I could see it in the headlights as she drove us home. And still, I felt no sympathy. What she had done was unforgivable. I reached over and clasped her free hand as she drove. She looked at me. I squeezed her hand and smiled at her. She smiled at me with a pity struck in her eyes from these months of torment at my memory loss.
I'm Crazy Tom.
And I remember everything.
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