Burning Man

more than anything else. There’s an angry red patch of elevated skin that extends from my cheekbone almost to my chin. When I catch people staring at the scar I say, “You should see the other guy.”

Fake it.

My surgeons and doctors seem annoyed by this particular patch of scarring, perhaps because it’s so visible. Nowadays, after more than a few operations, there’s nowhere else on my body with as much hypertrophic scarring. Around my facial scar there are even a few nasty keloids. One cosmetic surgeon wants to try lipo-filling my face, while another thinks I might be a good candidate for laser surgery. Those potential treatments will have to wait.

Still, someone up high must have decided my face was good enough to be seen in public. Or maybe my facial disfigurement, he or she decided, would better serve the department. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Sirius and I were being used to combat a recent spate of bad press suffered by the LAPD. Months earlier the governor had announced that the two of us would be receiving California’s Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor, the state’s highest award for heroism. Not long afterward, the LAPD announced it was awarding me its departmental Medal of Valor. When I asked about my partner being similarly honored, higher-ups told me that a recipient of a Medal of Valor had to perform an act displaying extreme courage while consciously facing imminent peril. Apparently they didn’t think a dog could be conscious of peril. I did and threatened to skip the ceremony. When word of my potential boycott surfaced in the media, the department did a one-eighty better than Kobe Bryant and announced that Sirius would also be receiving a commendation. He was going to get a Liberty Award, the canine version of the departmental Medal of Valor.

Getting medals isn’t so bad; getting them in public is. There was a reason for the pomp and circumstance, though. One commander had confided to me that heroes were always good for getting extra departmental funding.

“Here we are!” Maureen said.

I had never seen a meeting room so large. It was like one of those aircraft hangars designed to house jumbo jets. What made it even worse was that as cavernous as the space was, it was filled with people. My heart pounded and my chest and throat tightened, making it difficult to breathe.

“I need to make a pit stop,” I said. “Is there a bathroom nearby?”

“There’s one just down the hall,” she said. “Why don’t you meet me back here in five?”

“Five,” I said and then took off with Sirius.

The bathroom had urinals on one side, stalls on the other. The stall side appeared to be empty. Sirius and I went into an oversized stall that was designated for the disabled. I qualified, even though I didn’t want to. I sat down and fought off the shakes.

The week before I’d met with the departmental shrink, a small man with a big, bald head named Dr. Lockhart. Cops forced to see him call him Doc Rock Hard. Rock told me he just wanted to have “a little chat.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m really encouraged. Every day I’m getting that much better.”

“Many people that sustain injuries such as yours suffer depression.”

“Not me,” I said smiling. “I’m grateful to be alive. All that physical therapy must be keeping my endorphins up.”

“Do you have any fears of what the future might bring?”

A shake of my head; an Alfred E. Neuman look of “What? Me worry?” “I guess I’m luckier than most. I have a very supportive girlfriend.”

That helpful and imaginary girlfriend was the same one that I had invented for the mental health professionals at the hospital. Her name was Patty Norville and she was an elementary school teacher. Patty helped me with my exercises. The only drawback in our relationship, I said, was that Patty was a cat person. I always laughed when I said that. Patty was supposed to be coming to the next burn patient get-together. I had this feeling that poor Patty would be coming down with a bad cold just prior to the party.

“How are you sleeping?” Dr. Lockhart asked.

“Like a baby,” I said.

“No insomnia or recurring disturbing dreams?”

For once, I was glad of the skin grafts on my face. There were no beads of sweat to give me away. If I’d been a pinball machine, I would have been going tilt, tilt, tilt, tilt.

“Not that I can recall.”

Fake it until you can make it.

My deception fooled Rock Hard, as it had fooled everyone else. They had all bought into my clown act. Smokey Robinson’s “The Tears of a Clown” had become my song.

I had investigated my condition on the Internet. According to the medical literature, I was a textbook case for posttraumatic stress disorder. During the day I can control my symptoms, at least to a degree, but not at night. That’s when all hell breaks loose in my dreams. During any given week, I have the same dream three or four times. That doesn’t sound so bad. The reality is that several nights a week I find myself burning to death.

The dreams feel real. Nothing in my mind tells me that I’m dreaming. I relive what happened. I smell the smoke and feel the fire. All my despair comes back; all my pain returns. My flesh manifests what I feel. When I wake up, my skin isn’t just hot, it’s burning.

When I was a kid I remember my friend Craig Steinberg asked me, “You want to see a match burn twice?” I told him I’d like to see that, so Craig struck a match, blew it out and then pressed the hot tip into my flesh. It hurt, but it didn’t quite burn the flesh. That’s how a match burns twice.

That’s how it is with me. I keep burning. I am the burning man.

In my research I had found one doctor who had written about this phenomenon. He called the dream sequences “mental metabolization,” and according to his research certain patients relived their burning again and again, “often very realistically.”

His conclusion was an understatement. On a few occasions I awakened from my dreams of fire and pulled back my compression garments only to find my skin red and blistered. No dream should be so vivid. It doesn’t help matters that I can’t talk about my dreams to anyone but Sirius. I know the LAPD wouldn’t give me my job back if there was any hint of lingering PTSD. It makes sense to err on the side of caution if your employee is carrying a gun.

That’s why I was working so hard pretending all was well. That’s why I had agreed to this public luncheon and ceremony. The truth is that most of the time I feel like the Martin Sheen character in Apocalypse Now. I am Captain Willard waiting for a mission in my hotel room in Saigon.

I took a few deep breaths. By this time Maureen would be looking for me. I reached out and scratched Sirius behind an ear, and he responded by leaning his head into my hand. His presence made the impending ordeal a little more bearable. We exited the booth, and I paused at a sink to splash down my face. As I patted myself dry, I avoided looking at my reflection.

We made our way out to the hallway. In the distance I could see Maureen standing in the midst of a circle of people. She was nervously wringing her hands and didn’t seem to be talking quite as much as usual. Her head turned in our direction, and when she caught sight of us her relief was visible.

Pointing our way she said, “There they are!”

Several photographers broke from the pack. I didn’t smile-with my scarred face, the result looks like a grimace-but I did my best to look affable.

One of the photographers directed me with his hands: “Can you turn this way, Officer Gideon?”

I did as he asked. Judging from the angle, he preferred my bad side over my good. I guess scars make for more compelling photographs.

“We need the dog in the shot,” another photographer said.

“Give the lady what she wants,” I told Sirius, and signaled him in his pose. My partner doesn’t think he has a bad side.

Maureen introduced me to Kent McCord, who was emceeing the event. For a time McCord had been the face of the LAPD, playing the role of Officer Jim Reed on the TV show Adam-12. We posed for a few obligatory shots and then chatted for a minute.

McCord wanted my opinion on a few cop jokes that he was planning to use on the crowd. “Shoot,” I said.