Free Brainquake by Samuel Fuller Page A

father knew the shack was Paul’s castaway hut, the lot his island, the weeds his trees, the skyscrapers his clouds. His mother was already sick by then. Where would they move?
    In the end, the builders didn’t build. The seventies came, and the city’s brush with bankruptcy, and his mother died, and then his father, and here he was. Nobody had ever come to bother them again about buying the lot.
    Paul carried his bag and gun into the shack, placed them on the table in the small living room, went into the bathroom, turned on the light. In the mirror, he stared at his bandaged face, his torn clothes, and wondered if he’d ever see Michelle Troy again. His fingers fumbled as he undressed. Exhausted, he was asleep in a minute.

13
    “So you drive a cab, Paul? Jesus.” Dr. Adson held his cigar above the X-ray of a brain on his desk. “If I pushed a hack, I’d blow my stack in a week.”
    Paul was waiting for the long ash to drop on the X-ray.
    “You picked a good word for your sickness,” Dr. Adson went on. “Brainquake’s a pretty fair description for your attacks. Like an earthquake, only in there.” He tapped his own skull.
    The ash dropped on the X-ray. Dr. Adson blew the ash away, shook the X-ray. “I’ll study this, probably need to take some more. How old are you?”
    “Thirty.”
    “How long’ve you been driving a taxi?”
    “Ten years.”
    “When did you have your first attack?”
    “I was fourteen.”
    “Heard a flute, you say, saw everything in pink?”
    Paul shook his head. “Not yet. Just headaches.”
    “Then over the years you heard the sound of the flute and began seeing things in pink?”
    Paul nodded.
    “Were you born a mute?”
    Paul nodded.
    “Ever institutionalized?”
    “No.”
    “Who taught you to talk?”
    “My parents.”
    “They deserve the Nobel Prize. Most parents drop kids in institutions. Out of shame, or they just don’t have the energy to deal with it. Are your parents alive?”
    “No.”
    “Did you mother have a brain disease?”
    “No.”
    “What did she die of?”
    “Cancer.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Ten.”
    Something in his voice. Dr. Adson said,
    “Did you see her die?”
    “Yes.”
    He jotted a note.
    “What did your father die of?”
    “Brainquake.”
    “I want to see his X-rays.”
    “He didn’t trust doctors.”
    “Terrific.” Dr. Adson shook his head. “Could’ve done you a favor if he had. Though who knows, plenty that goes on in there you can’t see on an X-ray. The brain’s a tricky rascal. Nerve cells and fibers that are a feast for jackals. That’s what I call the little bastards an X-ray won’t catch.”
    He slid the X-ray and his notes into a manila folder.
    “It’ll take weeks of treatment, more X-rays, more questions before I make up my mind about surgery. And if I do go into your brain, that’s no guarantee I’ll find that jackal. You understand?”
    Paul nodded.
    “Did your father see his brain split open like a quake hit it?”
    Paul nodded.
    “And did he hear the flute playing before the quake hit?”
    “No.”
    “What did he hear?”
    “Galloping.”
    “What kind of galloping?”
    “Horses.”
    “What did he do for a living?”
    “Bookie.”
    “How old was he when he died?”
    “Forty-nine.”
    “How do you know he died of a brainquake?”
    “He died in my arms.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Seventeen.”
    “Did he say anything before he died?”
    “Red explosion.”

14
    The noon sky was being darkened by thunderclouds. In her small walkup, Michelle changed the water and carefully placed six long-stemmed red roses in the vase by the window. The nightmare still clung to her.
If she hadn’t fainted when Frankie was shot dead…if she had picked up her baby from the carriage…
    Thunder brought rain. She glanced at her baby sleeping in the crib, sucking tenderly on some tiny toy, then from the fourth-floor window looked down at moving umbrellas hammered by rain and, thank God, saw no police cars