Short Stories About You

by Jeffery Martin

  “What happened to your arm?”

  It’s Kathy, the hostess. She’s a grotty little high-school girl who can’t figure out how to sit a four-top. Her hair is kinky curly gross and her chin is riddled with acne pustules. You hate it when she tries to engage you in conversation.

  “Nothing,” you say. “I scratched it.”

  “Be careful with that,” Kathy says. “You don’t want it to get infected.”

  “I know, Kathy,” you huff. Like you would really want it to get infected. That’s so nasty. Gross.

  The last hour of your shift is spent doing side work and politely declining offers from the guys to go home with them. It’s fun turning them down. You watch them from the corner of your mouth as they slowly sidle up to you. Whatever cockiness they originally exhibited around their bros dissipates when they get close enough to you to smell your hair. They all become little boys, hemming and hawing shoe-gazers who can’t remember how to construct a simple sentence.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to date the customers.”

  This is a lie, but it deflects everything off of you. It’s the company’s fault. You remain perfect in their eyes, although bound by rules that preclude them ever having a chance with you. You are Andromeda, chained to the rocks.

  You dream of your mother that night, a grey dream filled with finger-pointing and sweat. She lies in her mechanical bed, surrounded by machines and needles, waggling her bony finger in your face, mouthing the word, “No,” over and over again. You try to get away from her, but she you grabs you by the arm. When she lets go, you see scabs and moles sprouting from where she held you, growing larger as you watch, spreading down your arm, to your elbow, your wrist, your fingertips. You scream silently, and when you look at your mother again, it is you in that bed, skeletal, sunken in, eyes cloudy and filled with fear.

  You awaken startled, and half-convinced the dream is real. You check your arm, but everything is fine, except for the mole. Your melanoma. Your birthright.

  Half a pack of cigarettes and a pot of coffee later, you are a jittery wreck. You can’t stop touching it. You run your fingertips over the new growth. What is it? You can’t go to the doctor. You’re a server. You don’t have health insurance. Any kind of medical procedure would destroy you financially.

  Besides, you’re not entirely sure the doctors didn’t kill your mother. All those treatments, the chemotherapy, another machine for every organ that shut down, more billable hours, more money for the health care industry that runs on death as surely as the military runs on war. No, fuck them. Fuck doctors.

  Get it out, you think. Get it out.

  It’s so late it’s early, and you are manic. You’ve managed to work yourself up into a frenzy, but you know you’re right. This is the right thing to do, you think, as you break apart your old razor, the one you used before you started waxing. You’ll never go back to shaving, you think, as the pink plastic shatters in your hands.

  Holding the blade gingerly yet firmly, you take a deep breath. You look into the bathroom mirror, making sure you’ve got the angle correct. Then, you begin slicing the mole out. You had considered just shaving the damned thing off, but what if it’s grown roots, like one of Kathy’s pimples?

  Your flesh doesn’t want to accept this intrusion. For a second, it refuses to give. You add more pressure. The blade itself is dulled with age and force is required. Then, it is in, with a stinging tear. The pain shoots from your arm down your spine and into your leg. You almost lose your balance. You steady yourself with your cutting arm, leaving the blade in your diseased arm, and the blood runs down into the sink in a steady stream.

  When your feet have steadied themselves, you brace your hip against the counter to keep from falling. You take the blade in your fingers and begin sawing. You try to keep to the outside of the mole, like a pre-schooler trying to cut out the perfect string of paper dolls, but it’s not possible. Tears blind your eyes, and you take huge gulps of air to breathe through the pain.

  You’re bleeding faster now but you’re at the halfway point. The upward arc is harder, especially with the blood covering your cutting hand, making it slippery. You wipe it off on the hand towel. It’s one of the nice ones, too. The white ones, which look so good against your deep, dark tan. Now your hand is just tacky and sticky, but it helps you hold on to the razor blade.

  Your hand is swinging out from the outline of the mole, like a child coloring outside the lines, but it can’t be helped. You try to cut more slowly so you can minimize the damage, but the wound is going to be bigger than you had hoped. You only have a few slices left, and you try to hurry it up, but that just makes things worse.

  When the thing finally falls out of your arm, it’s more skin than tumorous growth. It lands with a soft “plop” in the sink. For a moment, you consider cursing it and flushing it down the toilet, but you have to clean yourself up first. You wad some toilet paper up in your hand and hold it against the open spot. It turns red instantly, and you are glad for the tile floors in your apartment. Imagine trying to get all this blood up out of carpet. Gross.

  You don’t have any rubbing alcohol, no kind of medicine to put on it, but you do have vodka. You hurry to the kitchen, trying not to bleed everywhere, and open the freezer. You uncap the bottle and pour the ice cold liquid directly into the gaping wound. You fall to your knees, surprised at how much agony you’ve put yourself in. It hurts too much to scream. All you can do is focus on a tiny spot on the wall, focus on it hard so you can separate yourself from the pain.

  When you can walk again, you make your way back to the bathroom. It looks like you’ve painted the sink red. You look for a bandage, but all the ones you have are too small and too flimsy for this kind of work. You roll your eyes at your lack of forethought. This kind of home surgery is more of a spontaneous decision, though.

  You unwrap a maxi-pad and stick it over the wound. Heavy day, indeed. The blood, still copious, makes the cotton covering adhere instantly. It won’t stay, though, so back to the kitchen you go. In your junk drawer are push pins, old coupons, twist ties and a half-roll of masking tape. You wrap the masking tape around your arm, around the maxi (with wings!), not tightly enough to cut off your circulation, but firmly enough to hold for a while.

  The sun is coming up and you’re exhausted. Everything has worn off. The coffee and the adrenaline are gone. You sit on the floor in your kitchen, slumped up against the oven door, and pass out.

  It is late afternoon when you come to. The throbbing pain in your arm has not subsided. You stand up, shakily, and knock back three or four aspirins, chased with some cold coffee. You need to be at work in an hour. You wash the dried blood of your hands and arms as well as you can in the kitchen sink, using a pot scrubber to get up under your fingernails.

  You wince all the way to work. Steering hurts.

  Work sucks, too. The trays are heavy, and you end up trying to carry them with your weak hand. You knock over a couple of drinks, but you spend a little extra time mopping up the spills out of your customers’ laps. That, to say the least, distracts them, and your tips are even better than usual.

  No one has noticed your bandage under your shirt sleeve. In fact, the only person who sees anything wrong is stupid little Kathy. She comes up to you, all concerned.

  “Hey, are you okay?” she whispers. “You seem a little bit off tonight.”

  “I’m fine, Kathy,” you answer. “I pulled a muscle in my arm. No big deal.”

  “All right,” she says, “but if you need any help with anything, you just let me know, m’kay?” She walks back to the hostess stand and doesn’t see you sticking your tongue out at her. You weren’t that awful when you were in high school.

  You drop into bed when you get home. It’s a busy sports weekend, and you picked up some extra shifts. Two doubles in a row. That’s a rough schedule, but the money will be outstanding. You could use it.

  Of course you oversleep the next day, goddammit. You hustle into the bathroom a
nd sponge off with the loofah. Whore’s bath. Just enough to get rid of the stink. You make sure not to get your bandage wet. You pull on some work clothes and break a few traffic laws getting to work on time.

  It’s a nonstop day. You have no idea how many beers you’ve slung, how many baskets of fries you’ve thrown down on tables, how many rabid baseball fans have tried to finger your asshole through your tight shorts. Everything just passes by in a blur. People at a table leave, you clear it off, grab your money, and by the time you turn around, there are new people there. Fourteen hours of this, and you are beat.

  You remember to set the alarm on your phone before getting about five hours of shallow sleep. In your dreams, your mother is reading one of the magazines from the break room. She folds it in half and shows you a picture.

  “Can you believe she’s wearing this?” your mother asks. In the picture is a woman in a pair of tight black bike shorts. She has a fake arm with a bandage around the bicep area. Her hand is a sharp metal hook.

  You know you look a little haggard when you arrive at work. The eye makeup is a little smudged, but hell, some people like that. You might lose a few tips, but nothing serious. You’ll still come out ahead for the week.

  An hour into your shift, you start feeling weak, but that stands to reason. Long days, and you were already tired when you got here.

  It’s one of the patrons who notices. “Hey, sweetie, you got something bad wrong.”

  You plaster on a smile as you set down his beer. “What are you talking about, baby? There’s nothing wrong with this body.”

  The guy has a grim look on his face. “I’m an EMT, baby. Paramedic. You see those streaks going down your left arm? That’s a sign of blood poisoning. You need to sit down and let me take a look at you.”

  “I’m on the clock,” you say, trying to shrug it off.

  “Honey, I don’t give a fuck about your clock. I have a duty to help you. I’m sworn to do so. And if I don’t have a choice, you don’t either. Now sit down.”

  You look at your arm. Angry red marks spread down like ancient roads in an outdated atlas from underneath your shirt sleeve. You look at the EMT, your mouth open with nothing to say.

  “Your cheeks are flushed. You’ve got a low grade fever, I’m betting.” He turns to his friend sitting next to him. “Marty, call a unit out here.”

  Marty pulls out his cell phone and turns away from you. You can’t hear what he’s saying over the baseball games and background music.

  “I’ll be fine,” you say. “I just need some rest. It’s been a long weekend.”

  “No,” the EMT says. “You need medical attention.”

  Kathy, sensing a kerfuffle, rushes over to the scene.

  “Oh my god,” she says. “Are you okay?”

  “Could you get her a jacket or something, Miss? A hoodie?” Marty asks.

  “Yeah! Sure! Of course!” Kathy hustles off to the break room to tell everyone what’s going on and half-heartedly look for a windbreaker.

  Sirens whoop and then shut off in front of the bar. Two men come in pushing a gurney. Marty stands and waves them over to the table, to you. The EMT starts explaining what is happening to the paramedics, and for a second, you consider running. Just getting the hell out of there. You don’t want anyone to see what you’ve done. You don’t want anyone to notice anything about you that’s less than perfect.

  Kathy comes trotting back with the shift manager. Marty takes the boss aside immediately and tells him the situation. That was kind. You couldn’t imagine having to explain to that shit heel why you have to leave on a busy Sunday, during the playoffs. You see your boss raise his hands. He turns slightly to look at you, but leaves without addressing you directly. Asshole.

  Then strong hands are lifting you up onto the gurney, laying you flat on your back. Jesus, the ceiling is dusty in this place. Gross.

  “I’ve never ridden in an ambulance before,” you tell Marty. He laughs. Sweet. Even with blood poisoning, you’ve still got it. A needle slips into your arm, and you relax instantly. You feel one of the paramedics rolling up your left shirt sleeve. You want to stop him, but you can’t. You’re too tired now. All you want to do is sleep.

  The last thing you hear before you fade out is Marty’s voice. “What the fuck is this?”

  You come to in the hospital. There are IV needles in your wrist and a new bandage over the hole in your arm. You can barely make out through your bleary eyes a couple of nurses leaning in the doorway, staring at you. They are whispering, but you can make out certain words.

  “Sepsis.”

  “Toxic shock.”

  “Maxi-pad.”

  You sigh and try to hide your face, but you can’t roll over far enough with all the tubes sticking out of you.

  When the doctor comes in, he seems concerned and a little confused. “We’ve got an IV of strong antibiotics running through right now, trying to kick out that infection, and some fluids just to keep you hydrated. So tell me, was this a suicide attempt of some kind?”

  “No,” you moan, and then you tell him the whole ridiculous embarrassing story. He nods attentively, takes notes. When you finish talking, he is quiet for a moment.

  Finally, he says, “So let’s get this straight. You were afraid you had skin cancer. And instead of getting it checked out by a professional, you decided to excise the mole yourself, without seeing whether or not it was benign or cancerous. Then you dumped vodka on it, slapped a maxi over it and didn’t check on it for three days. Is that right?”

  You nod.

  “Huh,” the doctor says. “Well, okay. We’ll patch you up as best as we can. Although your course of action probably wasn’t the best one. You realize that now, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” you say.

  He starts to leave the room. “Doctor?” you call. He comes back over to your bedside.

  “I can’t really see because of this bed,” you say, “so can you tell me if my legs are getting pale?”

  “Your legs are fine,” he says before walking away, shaking his head slowly.

  You spend a week in the hospital. The food is terrible, but not as bad as the lighting. Kathy brings you some things from home. She is the only one from work who has even checked on you. Your boss hasn’t even called. So mean.

  When you get out of the hospital, you quit that shitty job and find another bar and grill to work at. You take Kathy with you. She’ll be old enough to serve in a couple years. Maybe you can show her the ropes.

  Three weeks after you leave the hospital, you go back to the tanning bed. It’s time to start that routine again. You look like hell anymore, skin all blotchy, your perfect tan fading away.

  You go in for an hour. God, how you have missed it. The heat and the sound of the fan, the way the goggles feel right against your eyes. It’s like being back in the womb, except it makes you even more beautiful than you were as a baby.

  Ten weeks later, and you are a completely different person. You get into fights at work. The other girls make fun of you. You look terrible. It’s obvious you don’t sleep anymore, and your teeth are starting to get that fuzzy pill head look. To be fair, you are giving a lot of your tips to a very nice man named Chuck, who has some of the best drugs in town. Always uppers, no downers. Sleep is when the dreams come, and your mother comes to speak to you. You don’t want those conversations anymore.

  You live on cheap noodles and soup. You buy speed and tanning sessions. But no matter what you do, that jagged, sort-of-round white scar on your arm will not change color. It stands out stark white against your brown beautiful skin.

  It’s a reminder. A reminder of your mother, that legacy she passed on to you, because surely nothing you have done would have caused that horrid dark spot to appear. That cancer. You hate that spot. It drives you mad, and you’re fixated. You blame everything on that puckered lily-white scar. You would do anything to get rid of it.

  Anything.

  You’re in the kitchen, opening a package of ramen
noodles to eat. It’s three in the morning. You open the silverware drawer. An entire set of steak knives lies in there, gleaming with promise, entrancing you.

  Maybe you can do it right this time. Maybe you just didn’t dig deeply enough last time. Maybe the skin will grow back right this time. You can fix this.

  Yeah. You can fix this.

  You can almost hear the blade singing as you pick up the sharpest, shiniest knife and walk to the bathroom.

  Last Rites (There is No Sky)

  You took your vows on April 5, 1994 at the age of twenty-four. After all the pomp and circumstance of the ordination, when it was just you and the radio, you learned that Kurt Cobain had killed himself. It was a bad sign, and it was too late to do anything about it.

  “… and my next door neighbor has a dog, you see, and the dog won’t stop barking and pooping in my yard, and they don’t keep it on a leash, you know, and so on Wednesday when I saw that little rat dog in my azaleas, doing its business, I called the Animal Police and had that little monster put in a shelter, and I feel guilty about that, Father, but I don’t know if it’s a sin or not, but either way, I figured I better bring it up…”

  They say confession is good for the soul. They didn’t clarify whose soul it’s supposed to good for. Your soul is heavy, weighted down by the sins of an entire community. Mortal sins, sins of omission, venial sins, impure thoughts; you have become the off-loading point for everyone else’s guilt. It gets old and you get older.

  “Six Hail Marys, and I want you to volunteer at an animal shelter a couple of hours a week for a month.”

  “Really, Father?” The old woman behind the screen is stunned.

  “Faith without works is dead, sister,” you say. “That dog is probably dead by now, and you are not. Your neighbors grieve the loss of that pet without knowing you are the cause of it. You sit at home and drink decaffeinated coffee and watch talk shows and worry about poop in your yard. You should be worried about the casual blackness of your heart. It’s a disease, sister, and it’s contagious. Now, go. Take off. ‘Go and sin no more,’ which means I’ll see you next week.”