"You should have heard that hijo de...
"You should have heard that hijo de puta
hollerAnd you should have heard meThe maddest
shit you can imagine, including accusations -
shouted at the top of my lungs - about his
preference for ladies' underwearAnd like the
thing about the security guard's father, I think
that may well have been trueFunny, no? And,
crazy or not, valued legal mind or not, that was
the end of my career at Findum, Fuckum, and
Forgettum
426
"I'm sorry," I said
"De nada, all for the best," he said in a
businesslike tone"As the lawyers were wrestling
me out of his office - which was trashed - I
pitched a fitThe grandest of grand malsIf
there black and white chanel hadn't been a legal aide handy with some
medical training, I might have died right there
As it was, I was out cold for three daysAnd hey,
I needed the sleep
He opened the folder and handed me three X-rays
They weren't as good as the cortical slices
produced by an MRI, but I had an informed layman's
understanding of what I was looking at, thanks to
my own experience
"There it is, Edgar, a thing many claim does not
exist: the brain of a lawyerHave any pictures
like these yourself?"
"Let's put it this way: if I'd wanted to fill a
scrapbook"But who'd want a scrapbook of shots
like theseDo you see the slug?"
"YesYou must have been fendi spy holding the gun I
held up my hand, tilting the finger at a pretty
severe downward angle
427
"That's about rightAnd it had to've been a
partial misfireThere was enough bang to drive it
through my skull-case and deflect the bullet
downward at an even steeper angleIt burrowed
into my brain and came to restBut before it did,
it created a kind of
"Bow-wave?"
His eyes lit up"Exactly! Only the texture of
brain-matter is more like calves' liver than
waterWireman can be eloquent, he admits it
The slug created a downward bow-wave that caused
edema and pressure on the optic chiasmThat's the
brain's visual switching-pointAre you purse logo getting
the richness of this? I shot myself in the temple
and not only did I end up still alive, I ended up
with the bullet causing problems in the equipment
located back here He tapped the ridge of bone
above his right ear"And the problems are getting
worse because the slug's movingIt's at least a
quarter-inch deeper in than two years agoI didn't need Hadlock or Principe
428
to give me that information; I can see it in these
pictures for myself
"So let them operate on you, Wireman, and take it
outJack and I will make sure Elizabeth's okay
until you're back on your He was shaking his
head"No? Why no?"
"It's too deep for surgery, fake fendi spy bag amigoThat's why I
didn't let them admit meDid you think it was
because I've got a Marlboro Man complex? No way
My days of wanting to be dead are overI still
miss my wife and my daughter, but now I've got
Miss Eastlake to take care of, and I've come to
love the KeyAnd there's you, EdgarI want to
know how your story comes outDo I regret what I
did? Sometimes sí, sometimes noWhen it's sí, I
remind myself I wasn't the same man then that I am
now, and that I have to cut the old me some slack
That man was so hurt and lost he really wasn't
responsibleThis is my other life, and I try to
look at my problems in it as
"Wireman, that's balenciaga giant bag bizar