Read Struck by Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel for Free Online

and I knew it wasn’t him. Were my friends really just standing there while this happened? “Goddamn it, help!” I shouted. They stood motionless and I noticed that Angela’s mouth was shaped in a perfect O and she had this wild, horrified look in her eyes. Her date simply threw his hands in the air, turned, and walked away. I fell to the ground. While I lay prone on the sidewalk, the attackers rifled through the pockets of my leather jacket. I saw Angela run inside the restaurant—I hoped she was looking for someone to come help. I managed to grab one of the men by the crotch and squeeze with all my might, then I bit him on the thigh. If I was going to die, someone was going to have a scar to remember me by. A different guy then kicked me in the back of the head in retaliation and shouted an antigay epithet. Punches rained down on me from all directions. It felt like my head was on fire. I didn’t know how many men were attacking me, as I couldn’t get far enough away to gain perspective. I thought it might be a gang.
    In the chaos of the mugging, they never once looked in my back jeans pocket, where I’d put my wallet with the two hundred dollars tucked inside. Frustrated, they settled for the jacket, ripping it off my body and then running down the street. I caught a glimpse of them and knew it was the same two men who’d been in the bar with us. I’d felt no fear while they followed us down the stairs—they towered over me, but they’d looked so clean-cut and strait-laced.
    I struggled to my feet. Not only was I in a lot of pain, but I was having trouble getting my bearings. The world looked different: off kilter, dreamlike. Everything that moved had trails of colored light following close behind it. There were triangles and squares in repeating patterns wherever I looked, from the windows to the lampposts to the street signs. Angela came back outside, and though she’d been frozen in place during the attack, now she moved toward me in bizarre, stop-action frames. I rubbed my eyes. The glow of the streetlights seemed amplified. I could see the cars going by, little chipped shapes bouncing off their hoods.
    I stumbled into the restaurant and managed to shout, “Call 911!” while I attempted to catch my breath.
    “If you want to call 911 you’ll have to go somewhere else,” said one of the waitresses. Angela was by my side and as frustrated and shocked as I was. Neither of us had a cell phone.
    Could this be real? I felt like it was a nightmare. I told the waitress that I’d just been attacked by two of their patrons and that they needed to preserve their plates and silverware and glasses for fingerprints. She told me to leave. I asked for the slips of paper from the karaoke registry that might have their names on it. She pointed to the garbage cans.
    I clearly wasn’t getting anywhere, and both my head and my back were killing me, but I had a little bit of good luck—it wasn’t far to Tacoma General Hospital. The doctors took x-rays and did CT scans and found a baseball-size bruise on my kidney. I would have blood in my urine for the next few days, they said, but they released me that night. They figured I had a profound concussion. Little did they know how profound.
    Angela had followed me to the hospital, and of course her date was long gone by then. She vowed never to see him again. I gave her a ride home even though the doctors had advised me not to drive. All the way there, I couldn’t believe the light show of shapes and colors before my eyes. It was all I could do to stay in my lane.
    When I got back to my house I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake reliving the incident over and over, but in my mind I killed them every time. In one scenario I had a box cutter from work in my pocket and slit their throats; in another, the cops showed up and shot them dead. It was totally unlike me to have violent thoughts but I’d never been so profoundly physically and mentally violated in my life.
    I was angry