Pissing in a River

by Lorrie Sprecher

  “Fuckin’ hell!”

  “Honestly, you have no idea how much it would hurt if I tried to put it back in,” Melissa said in an even tone. “And without a proper exam, I could cause further damage. Nicky, help me get her in the car.”

  I screamed as they got me to my feet and again when they put me in the front seat. I said, “This really fucking hurts!”

  “I know, love.” Melissa started the engine and shifted into first. “It’s incredibly painful. Hold your arm against your body. Keep it as still as possible.”

  As we sped through slick streets, I told myself to stop acting like a baby. But it was agonizing every time the car stopped or went over a bump. Nick, seated behind me, held my good arm and said, “Hang in there, mate.” Melissa took me to hospital where I had a bit of an excruciating wait, during which Nick tried to divert me from the pain by asking me to list every band I’d ever seen.

  Through the fog of my misery, I remembered having forgotten to remember seeing Hazel O’Connor, Judy Tzuke, and Toots and the Maytals. I liked the Toots song “54-46 Was My Number” because it reminded me of being in jail. “Did I remember to tell you I patted Iggy Pop’s head when he sang ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’?” I murmured absently.

  When the triage nurse reached us, Melissa told her I was her patient. I had x-rays taken then lay on a trolley in a cubicle waiting for the doctor to arrive. Melissa stayed with me. I thought, at least I’m not lying in hospital in Basra, Iraq, where there are no anesthetics or clean water because of what we’ve done. Melissa must have seen the look of grief on my face because she held my hand and told me I would be all right.

  The casualty doctor looked at my x-rays and examined me. It was a simple shoulder dislocation with no fractures or nerve damage. I got a jab of pethidine and Stemetil in the bum for pain and nausea while Melissa looked on sympathetically. It hadn’t occurred to me until then to wonder how Melissa would handle being with me around people from her professional life. But she didn’t act any differently. That shouldn’t have surprised me in the slightest.

  The ward sister came in to assist. They had me sit up on the gurney with my uninjured shoulder against the upright part of the bed. The doctor stood behind me and manipulated my shoulder while the nurse provided downward traction on my arm. There was a brilliant flash of pain then amazing, immediate relief. I was left with a very achy shoulder but not the wailing sort of agony I’d experienced earlier. I was given a sling to hold my arm steady, and Melissa helped me back into the waiting room.

  “Alright, man?” Nick put her hand gently on my back. “You were pale as a ghost, you. I’ve never seen nowt like it. It was mental.”

  “Let’s get you home,” Melissa said.

  Arriving at the flat, Melissa took me upstairs and put me to bed. She brought up the tea and said to Nick, “We’ll bring in your gear from the car later.”

  “Leave it,” Nick said. “I needn’t stay here after all. Atom doesn’t scare me anymore.”

  “Not now, you’ve kicked the crap out of him,” Melissa said.

  “And you. What about you?” Nick marveled. “You probably fractured his whole leg with your brolly. Who knew you had it in you? I mean, mate, you cry at meat.”

  “I know. Part of me can’t believe we just left him lying there in the road. Do you suppose someone found him and took him to hospital?”

  “Who cares?” Nick said. “I know. You can’t stand seeing anyone in pain. You’re a saint. But he was screeching like a car alarm. Someone will have found him if only to shut him up.”

  “You should stay here anyway until it’s completely sorted,” Melissa said.

  “I think we just sorted it,” Nick said.

  “Stay.”

  “Alright. Cheers, Melissa.”

  When I felt tired, Melissa carefully arranged a pillow under my injured shoulder and sat next to me stroking my hair. As I was dozing off, I heard Melissa say, “I would have done anything in the world to keep this from happening to you,” and thought something awful must have happened to me. I remember wondering what it was as I crashed into unconsciousness.

  TRACK 50 I Wanna Be Sedated

  I must have cried out in my sleep because when I jerked myself awake, Melissa was beside me saying, “It’s alright, love. I’m here.”

  “Am I still in one piece?” I cried.

  “Whatever’s the matter, kid? Of course you’re in one piece.”

  “Don’t let them take my arm! I need it to play guitar. Don’t let them. Please,” I begged her. My mouth was dry, and I was terrified.

  “Shh, honey, you had a nightmare. Your arm is fine. All you did was dislocate your shoulder.”

  “Oh, God. I thought I was in hospital in Basra being operated on without anesthetic. And they—it was horrible. All those people. It’s our fault.”

  “Calm down.” Melissa knew one of my main torments was the obsessive fear that parts of my body, especially my hands, were coming off.

  “But it really is happening. It really is our fault. All those people that we’ve killed and maimed—and we cannot make it stop. No matter what we do.” I continued to weep.

  “I know,” Melissa said. “How’s your shoulder?”

  “My shoulder’s okay, but my arm!” I felt a dreadful, OCD panic.

  “Listen to me,” Melissa said, holding my good arm securely. “Your arm is fine. You dislocated it. It is not coming off. Your arm is not coming off. I am telling you, as a medical doctor, there are plenty of things holding it on. It is not possible for it to suddenly fall off. It is not coming off now, nor will it come off at any time in the future.”

  I wiped my eyes and thought about Ernest Hemingway writing in A Farewell to Arms that the world breaks everyone, but that some grow strong at the broken places. But just thinking about the title freaked me out. A farewell to arms, Jesus Christ! Why the hell did he have to name it that? Arms safe, hands safe, fingers safe.

  “Where are you?” Melissa asked.

  “I’m right here,” I mumbled, barely hearing her. I was unnerved, thinking that maybe I had to specifically mention “thumbs.” Didn’t God know that in my heart when I said “fingers” I also meant “thumbs”? Couldn’t God actually see into my heart?

  “No, you’re not. You’re off on some other OCD plane. I can tell now, you know.” She held onto me as frantic sentences raced through my head and I only saw blood spurting out where my hands should be. And it felt like being knocked down by a giant wave and churned beneath the cloudy, choppy sea, unable to breathe, not knowing which way was up to the salvation of air and sky. “Amanda, do you want me to give you something to sedate you? Has it ever been this bad before? I hate to see you in so much pain, love.”

  I saw her frowning with concern, and her words finally registered. I experienced a sudden, acute freak-out in my heart and blurted out, “Do you really?”

  “What do you mean, really?” Melissa asked.

  “You’re always so calm.” I realized how daft I sounded, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  “Oh, love.” She kissed my forehead. “That’s just my training. My first priority is to make sure you’re alright and that I’ve done everything I can for you to keep you safe. I react afterwards.” I don’t know how she knew what I meant. “Love, you wouldn’t really want me to fall apart instead of helping you. And who do you think is going to sit here watching you sleep?”

  “You are?” I nearly wailed.

  “Amanda. Look at me.” She held my head with both hands, making sure that I was really seeing her. “Do you know where you are?”

  “Fucking hell, of course I bloody know where I am,” I snapped, offended. “Do you really react afterwards?” I was unable to let it go, which describes OCD in one sentence.

  “I’ll be right back.” When she sat next to me again, she gave me Valium and water. “You’re having a really bad pa
nic attack. Shh.” She tried to get me to lie down, but I was too agitated. “Take a few deep breaths.”

  Gradually, my thoughts slowed down. I still felt haunted but didn’t care as much if the nightmare I was running from caught up with me. My brain felt deliciously sludgy. I scrunched down under the covers, my eyes closing. Before I fell asleep, I started dreaming out loud. “I was listening to Stiff Little Fingers in my Walkman. I’d tried to get the driver to take the prison bus through the drive-thru at McDonald’s.” In my mind, I was standing at the empty site of an earlier ACT UP demonstration after my release, listening to “Johnny Was” in my earphones and remembering how mad the cop driving the prison bus had been when all the other prisoners started chanting that they wanted McDonald’s, too. I remember Melissa laughing softly as I conked out.

  TRACK 51 Dream Time

  When I woke up, the room was dark and Melissa was sleeping beside me. I shook her gently. “I had the weirdest dream. I was raped, and then the man who raped me abducted me and took me to Iraq. He made me marry him. I couldn’t get away because his entire extended family was watching me to make sure I didn’t escape. I was married to him for twenty years, during which the part of me that was really me went to sleep, and I became a different person. It was the only way I could survive the marriage—all the times he’d fuck me. Then you came and let me know secretly that you loved women. And I woke up and became conscious again. You had to kill him in order to rescue me. You didn’t understand why I was sad. ‘He was my husband,’ I said. Part of me loved him. I had lived as his wife. It was like there were two of me, and you had to save me twice, first physically then mentally.”

  “And what did I do with you then, after I’d rescued you?” Melissa yawned.

  “You brought me back with you to London where I’m recuperating nicely from my ordeal.”

  I fell asleep again and dreamed I was tracking a serial killer. He was dragging me up the side of a mountain on a rope. He took out a knife and slashed me in the ass. I must have shouted.

  “Jesus Christ.” Melissa sat up in bed in her black-and-white “The Only Band That Matters” Clash T-shirt. I could see the outline of her breasts and wished my arm wasn’t in a sling. “You dreamt that ’cos you got a jab in the bum,” Melissa said when I told her.

  “I prefer to see it as a commentary on the state of the world.”

  “A sort of biblical commentary? As in, ‘turn the other cheek?’”

  “You’re very entertaining.”

  “That’s the best I can do after being screamed awake.”

  “Since we’re supposed to drink of the blood and eat of the body, shouldn’t Jesus be our Lord and Savory?”

  Melissa started laughing.

  “And shouldn’t I talk about Jesus, my Lord to Savor?” I couldn’t help myself. “And shouldn’t it be father, son and holy toast? Anyway, I’m sorry I screamed you awake.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Melissa said. “Besides, you got hurt trying to protect me.”

  “And you stabbed a geezer in the leg for me. You, a professional healer,” I said, pretending to be shocked.

  “Don’t remind me. I should’ve sent the police and an ambulance back for him.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I was too concerned about poor you to think properly. And I didn’t want to put Nick through all that. But if he turns up again, I bloody well will go to the police, and no one’s gonna stop me.”

  “After seeing you wield an umbrella, mate, no one would dare.” I sang, “‘She’s a Venus in bovver boots, / she’s a Venus in bovver boots, / she’s a Venus in bovver boots, / bloody great Doc Mar’ins, / Venus in bovver boots,’” from a song by the Nipple Erectors, Shane MacGowan’s band before the Pogues. He was a raging, almost completely nonfunctioning alcoholic. There was a website dedicated to him called “When a Coma Sang.”

  “Do you need more pain medication?” Melissa asked.

  I smiled at her. “You’re so beautiful. I’ll bet you were beautiful when you stabbed him with your umbrella.”

  Melissa laughed. “Go back to sleep.”

  Her breathing had slowed when I had a thought and nudged her back into consciousness.

  “What? What is it? Are you alright?”

  “Melissa?”

  “What is it, love?”

  “Is God a food group?”

  TRACK 52 Rescue

  My arm was out of its sling, but my shoulder was still sore.

  “What’s the matter with Melissa?” Nick asked, as I was showing her one of my all-time favorite Nirvana CDs from Kiss The Stone in Italy. Her jeans had one black and one red leg.

  “What do you mean?” I asked in a carefully neutral tone. I knew what she meant. After the initial shock of my injury wore off, Melissa returned to being distant and uncommunicative.

  “She’s got a lot on her mind,” I said. “But look at this.” I held the KTS CD Saturday Night Sonic Attack in front of her face. “Soundboard Nirvana from a 1990 concert in Lincoln, Nebraska.” The cover was a picture of Kurt Cobain, bathed in orange light, playing a Fender Mustang and standing in front of an angel mannequin. It was taken during the later In Utero tour, and it looked like Kurt had wings as he stomped his sneaker on an effects pedal.

  “I’m serious, mate. And stop waving that bloody CD at me.” Nick held up her hands.

  “I told you. She’s preoccupied with an art project.” Since she was working on her paintings depicting rape, I thought that was really, almost, true. “Just be patient with her. Now listen.” I put on the Nirvana CD to distract her. “It has a killer version of ‘Here She Comes Now’ by the Velvet Underground and an intense ‘Love Buzz’ with extra-static guitar. You wouldn’t think a show in Lincoln, Nebraska, would turn out to be one of the great ones, but it has an electric, brain-crushing version of ‘Polly.’ He goes up an octave and screams out the final verse. It’s the most intense thing I’ve ever heard in my life, man.”

  I could tell Nick wasn’t satisfied, and I felt like she was gearing up for a confrontation with Melissa that I wasn’t sure I should try to stop. We went out and got some Indian for tea. Melissa came down wearing the most beautiful Clash T-shirt I’d ever seen. It was a picture of the Post Office Tower hanging over terraces and the words “LONDON CALLING” in yellow and orange. When she wore it, I just wanted to hold her.

  Nick opened up the sweating, steaming food cartons, and I got out plates. Melissa pulled a sweatshirt over her head and sat down, absorbed in her own thoughts. There wasn’t much conversation. Nick shot me meaningful glares across the table. I tried to signal with my own expressions that I was not in control of the situation.

  Finally Nick said, “Alright. I give up. Melissa, what the fuck is going on with you? What the hell is the matter?”

  “Oh, Nick,” Melissa snapped, exasperated, “for God’s sake, I was raped. Happy now?” She gasped, shocked by what she had just blurted out.

  “What?” Nick froze then looked from her to me. “You what? You were raped? Oh my God.”

  “It didn’t happen now, for fuck’s sake,” Melissa said, trying to sound casual. “It happened after Jake left for Canada.”

  “What? What are you saying?” Nick looked ill, like she’d been punched in the stomach, all the air gone out of her. My own eyes were wide with amazement, and I couldn’t utter a single syllable. Melissa didn’t move. Into the silence, we heard Nick say in a small voice, “Oh, God. Oh my God, no. Melissa, I’m so sorry. Why did you not tell us?”

  “I don’t know.” Melissa’s voice was resigned. “Jake had gone. You’d broken up with Emilia. I thought you had enough on your plate.”

  “Enough on my plate?” Nick stared at Melissa incredulously.

  “I didn’t want you to know.”

  “I would do anything for you.”

  “I didn’t want anyone to know. I
wanted to forget it ever happened.”

  Nick said, “You must have hated me, crapping on about—”

  “Don’t,” Melissa interjected.

  “A rape that wasn’t really a rape.”

  “Let’s not do this, shall we?” Melissa replied sharply. “There isn’t a hierarchy of suffering or of ways to be raped. This isn’t a contest. I should have told you so you would’ve known I understood. That I knew how scared you were and how bad it made you feel.”

  “What happened?” Nick asked quietly.

  “Paul raped me.”

  “Oh, sweet Jesus. I want to kill him.”

  “Me too,” Melissa and I both said.

  “I can’t believe Jake didn’t come back.”

  “Jake doesn’t know,” Melissa said. “And please don’t tell her. But I wanted you to know because it’s been doing my head in a bit and I didn’t want you to take it personally.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Nick looked like she desperately wanted to hug her.

  “It’s alright.” Melissa smiled, and I could see she was trying not to cry. “I need to get some air.” She pushed back her chair and rose abruptly.

  “Melissa—” I got up to stop her.

  “Please, just let me alone. Please.” She met my eyes. “I need some time by myself. Please don’t come after me.” She rushed out without a coat.

  I yelled from the front door, “You’ll catch your death!” It was raining and windy outside.

  “I cannot be arsed!” she called from up the road.

  I didn’t know if I should go after her or respect her wishes. Nick knelt on the settee and looked out the front window. I turned out the sitting room lights to see outside more clearly.

  “There’s no sign of her,” I said frantically. I paced between the window and the front door. “I shouldn’t have let her go.”

  “What were you supposed to do, hold her down? She’s an adult.” Nick flopped down heavily on the sofa. “Christ, I can’t believe Paul raped her.” She rested her face in her hands. “I just feel gutted. I can’t believe I didn’t know. That seriously is the worst thing I ever heard.”