F*ckface

by Leah Hampton

  “Is this anything to do with that awful period I had? The bleeding?”

  “No,” said Dr. Philip. “Well … I don’t think so.”

  “Do I have cancer?”

  “That’s unlikely, but we’re just going to check and see.”

  Dr. Philip said the Knoxville Breast Center would re-scan the spot. If it turned out to be a lump, they would do the biopsy. He said they were very nice at the Knoxville Breast Center, and after her appointment there, Dr. Philip would give her the news one way or the other.

  “How much is all this going to cost?”

  “Depends on what they find,” said Dr. Philip. “But again, it’s probably nothing.”

  Iva’s neck began to sweat.

  “When will I know?”

  “It’ll take a while to get you in for a referral. A few weeks.”

  “Can’t you do it? Can’t you check me?”

  “I don’t have the resources here,” he said. “This is a small town, Iva.”

  “Well,” she said.

  “Iva,” asked Dr. Philip, “did you ever work at Twitchell?”

  The dryer buzzed in the background. She leaned against the laundry room door.

  “Because if you did,” he said, “they might pay for some of your treatment. There was a big case a while back. Class action. There’s a settlement fund.”

  “I remember,” said Iva.

  “Well, that might help some.”

  They both breathed into their phones.

  “All that poison,” he said. “It’s a real shame what they did over there.”

  “Hank’s gonna flip out,” she told Dr. Philip, who told her not to worry.

  * * *

  The dingy breast clinic sent her a CD of her mammogram images to take with her when she went to Knoxville. She was curious and tried to look at them, to see inside herself, but the files wouldn’t open on her laptop. A few days after that, she got a terse, official letter in the mail notifying her she had “high density breast tissue.” State law required them to tell her that unlike average women, her boobs were mostly boob tissue, not fat, which made them hard to see through, so legally they couldn’t be held responsible for any faulty images or future errors in diagnosis.

  “What in the world am I supposed to do with this?” Iva Jo asked Hank.

  Hank frowned at the letter. “Frame it,” he said. “Means you got real knockers.”

  Iva Jo laughed, and Hank put his arm around her.

  “Maybe I’ll give it to Margie,” she said.

  Then she and Hank sat down and cried and prayed for a while.

  * * *

  Hank drove Iva Jo to Knoxville on a Tuesday near the end of summer. They stopped for breakfast at a diner and ordered mushroom omelets and talked about what they would do if she had cancer.

  “I’ll be right there,” said Hank. “The whole way.”

  Iva Jo stared at the abstract watercolor on the wall above their booth. It looked like a sea.

  “I don’t think I want to be friends with Margie anymore,” she said.

  Hank opened a vial of creamer and poured it into his coffee.

  “And I don’t think I want Dr. Philip to be my doctor anymore. I shouldn’t have had to wait this long to get all this sorted out. Lady at church told me she got all her results inside a week. All her tests and everything. And you know he hasn’t called me back once? Not once. I’ve been going to him six years.”

  Hank nodded, sipped his coffee.

  “We’ll do this however you want, Iva,” he said. “But I don’t think we’ll have to.” He pointed his coffee cup at her chest, moved it back and forth. “I think everything’s all right in there,” he said, and took another sip.

  “That Russian girl went home. Margie waited until she was gone to tell me.”

  Hank raised his eyebrows and poked a fork into his omelet.

  “I guess I shouldn’t have told her we broke her bowl.”

  “It was your bowl,” Hank said. “She gave it to you.”

  Iva picked up her soda, took a sip. “How many people do you know have cancer?”

  Hank swallowed a bite of omelet and raised his eyes to the ceiling to count. He rattled off names under his breath. “A lot.”

  “You think it’s Twitchell? Everybody I know from those days got something.”

  Hank cleared his throat. “Does it matter? It’s too late now. That was thirty years ago.”

  Iva drew her shoulders back. “Well, I never would’ve … If I’d known. I might’ve had a baby, even.”

  “Honey,” Hank said. “You can’t blame it on that.”

  “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” she said. “Whole town suffering, breasts coming off everywhere, your brother’s liver, lost babies, and nobody talking about it. They should tell us. The state. Doctors. They should investigate.”

  “That plant’s been there since before we were born, Iva,” said Hank. “We’d know by now if it was anything dangerous.”

  “Well, Margie should have told me, anyway.”

  “About Twitchell?” said Hank. “You want her snooping around those old silos?”

  “No, about the Russian girl. Elena. I’d have gone to see her. Helped her. Found out what she did about her baby.”

  “Eat up,” said Hank, crinkling a paper napkin. “We’ve got to get across I-40.” He looked out the window. “All that traffic. I don’t know how people live like this.”

  * * *

  The Knoxville Breast Center looked like a spa. They had a fountain out front and valet parking. Hank kept his hand in the small of Margie’s back while she filled out paperwork at the check-in desk. The check-in nurse told them to wait, Iva would be called back, no men were allowed beyond the lobby.

  They had sleek leather chairs in the waiting area. They had real coffee and fishing magazines. The lobby was full of husbands.

  “Iva Hocutt?” a woman in lavender scrubs called.

  They both stood.

  “OK, honey,” said Hank. His voice tightened. “I’ll be right here.”

  Iva Jo grabbed his hand.

  “We’ll know, Iva girl,” he said. “At the end of this, we’ll know. That’s the main thing.”

  Iva Jo nodded and kissed his cheek. Hank gripped Iva’s arm so hard she thought it might leave a bruise. Then she followed the lavender nurse through a thick wooden door.

  The nurse brought her to a changing room. The doors to each room were slatted mahogany. It looked like a fancy department store.

  “Everything off from the waist up,” she said, “then pick your color!” The nurse waved to a wall of shelves stacked neatly with folded scrub vests. Pink, blue, some with moons and stars. “Find one that fits, and just tie it in the front. You can put your things in a locker outside. No purses. Keep your locker key with you.”

  Iva followed instructions. She chose a royal blue vest, a small locker. She put her purse, her blouse, and her bra inside, then pulled the key out of its lock and stretched its spiral lanyard around her left wrist. Her breasts flopped and swung as she walked to the waiting area. They felt soft, full. She pushed her arms against them to hold them in place, feel their warmth.

  She waited. A tall woman in a pencil skirt led her into a white corner room and gave her a 3-D mammogram. The 3-D machine was fancier and cleaner than the one she’d danced with at the dingy clinic.

  “We might let you go after this,” said the 3-D woman. “Or they might call you back. Depends on what we find.”

  Iva waited. They called her back.

  Ultrasound. A sage room. Warm and quiet. The sonographer wore pink scrubs and had a name tag. Mei. Thin face, a perfect sheaf of dark hair. She sat quietly with her hands in her lap.

  “Just lie down. They’ll be here soon to explain everything,” said Mei.

  Another woman arrived, then another. A fourth.

  “Is all of this for me?” asked Iva Jo. “Y’all are making a fuss.”

  Everyone chuckled. “I’m Pam, and this is Janell
e, and that’s Maria. We’re gonna walk you through your biopsy, Miss Iva. You ready?”

  Mei would find the lump on the ultrasound.

  Janelle would perform a needle biopsy on the lump.

  Pam would watch over everything. The needle would hurt.

  Maria would hold Iva’s hand and help whoever needed assistance. A doctor would look at the ultrasound, a lab would test the biopsy sample. Iva would know soon, in a few days at most, whether it was cancer.

  Hank couldn’t be with her. No men. Not even the doctor. Not for this part.

  The room was dim and cozy. Iva lay on a soft exam table covered in gray blankets and tried not to cry. Maria surrounded her with pillows and dimmed the lights even lower.

  “When it’s all over, I’ll give you this,” said Pam, producing a small pink disc encased in gauze. “It’s a little ice pack. We’ll put it on the spot where the needle goes in.” Pam scrunched her nose and smiled. “I think it feels good. Nice and cool. You can keep it.”

  Maria put a foam block under Iva’s shoulder and positioned her for the ultrasound. She untied the royal blue vest and pulled Iva’s hand over her head, then stood behind her. Maria rubbed Iva’s hand and forearm. Mei squirted warm goo on Iva’s exposed breast and started looking for the lump.

  “Will I be all right?” Iva said.

  She settled her neck into her pillow. She didn’t know what to do with her free hand, so she reached for her thigh, pulled at the pocket on her jeans. The ultrasound wand coasted around in the goo, beeping and looking.

  Maria asked, “Are you cold? We’ve got extra socks.”

  “No thank you,” said Iva. “Just don’t let me get too hot. Might pass out. That’s what started all this.”

  The wand glided to the side of Iva’s breast.

  “Uh-oh,” said Pam. “Do you have a history of fainting?” She leaned over to look at Iva’s chart. “Did we know that?”

  She sighed and told the story of Margie’s pottery lecture. Of the Russian girl. The tablecloth, the bowl. Meanwhile, Mei found the lump, and she and Janelle worked in tandem, cleaned her, marked a spot. As iodine sighed across her skin, Iva stared at the foam tile ceiling and felt herself sinking into the blankets, the pillows, into the goo.

  “And I just…” said Iva. “I never understood. All that bleeding. There was so much.”

  Pam laughed softly. “I hate it when that happens.”

  Maria squeezed Iva Jo’s fingers. “Yeah, I’ve had that, too. The Flood.”

  She tilted her head back to look at the women behind her. “It happened to you?”

  “A couple times, right before I hit menopause,” said Pam. “Nobody tells you about that part.” She shrugged and smiled.

  And that was all. Pam’s lips were full, and her hair was coarse and unruly. From Iva’s upside-down vantage point, everyone looked so plump and full in their pink and purple scrubs. They looked like berries. She thought about the Russian girl, her impossible ponytail, her impossible bright skin, her pouty lips. So I bled, thought Iva Jo. It happens.

  “Pam?” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “I used to work at Twitchell,” said Iva. “A long time ago.”

  Another cold wash of iodine doused her breast. She winced.

  “Oh,” said Pam. She whispered to Mei, “Is that the petrochemical place over the mountain?”

  Mei nodded and lowered her head.

  “It was only a few years,” said Iva. “I quit when I met Hank. Then I was a secretary.”

  “All right, honey,” said Maria. “All right.”

  “Do you see a lot of patients who worked there?” asked Iva.

  “A fair number,” said Pam.

  “It was good money,” said Iva. “I don’t tell people. Our town’s pretty divided about it.”

  “Here comes the needle,” said Janelle.

  Maria squeezed Iva Jo’s hand. “You might not even feel it. Some of us don’t.”

  The pillows around Iva Jo felt thick and lush. She did not think of cancer, or of those years at Twitchell, distant years full of acrid smells and thin, clanging doors, or anything but the moment as it was.

  Iva turned her head away so she wouldn’t see the needle going in. A dull, distant bite pinched somewhere deep in her chest. Someone patted her shoulder, every woman hushed, and together, all together, they took a breath.

  MINGO

  I bought a three-dollar film camera outside Matewan the morning after Howard’s daddy crashed The Box. I came out of the Rite Aid gripping it in my left hand, white plastic satchel of necessities swinging off my wrist. Howard’s F-350 hulked nearby, its tires squatting wide over the line into the handicapped space. My free arm pulled the door handle above the stout red lettering: “FIELDS CONCRETE & PAVING CHARLESTON WV.” I climbed in the truck and held up the throwaway.

  “Clearance bin,” I said, and clacked a shot of Howard holding the wheel.

  “I thought you were wanting Monistat,” Howard said.

  He always waited in the truck when I shopped. I crinkled in the bag, past the mini-toothpaste and travel soaps, to fish out his spearmint gum. “That was last week,” I said, handing him the pack. “I’m cured.”

  Howard stared out the windshield and opened a piece of gum without looking down. His fingers saw through packet and wrapper on their own. He laid a fine thread of cellophane in the cup holder between us and rested a powdery stick on his tongue. His gut pushed close to the steering column as he rubbed a gray patch in his goatee. Howard’s face appeared meatier than usual, like he was filling out, him swelling instead of me.

  “Are you old enough to remember how to use a film camera?” he said.

  I balked. I’d been thirty-two since March, and Howard knew my granny never left the house without her Brownie Flash. He’d even seen some of the prints.

  “You don’t need to take pictures of Dad’s car,” he said. “Insurance’ll do that.”

  “I just want landscapes,” I said, and pointed above the strip mall to the ridge of ragged emerald behind it.

  “There’ll be a lot of waiting around, probably,” said Howard. He popped spearmint through his front teeth. “Might as well keep yourself entertained.”

  We were aimed for Kentucky. No interstates bind Charleston to Harlan. Just coal country, or what used to be, and a four-lane that changes names a few times on the doglegs. In West Virginia, we had to pass through Mingo County, where I came up. The Rite Aid was a pit stop before we faced the real road. Howard pulled out of town and chewed his gum.

  No surface mining wounds were visible from the highway, but I knew what was down the secondaries. Gutted mountainsides and holler fills loomed for me the whole way. Behind every ridge lay some smothered or poisoned creek, some thick scar of geological mastectomy. My chest slumped; the loss laid into me like it does everyone who knew the place before.

  I didn’t speak to my husband. Some gaggle of carpetbaggers was plotting an airport at a reclaim site here. Howard was going to pour their columns, pave two lots. When he got the airport contract back in April, I gave him a lecture against mountaintop removal mining. “Overburden,” I had reminded him. That’s what they called what they stole. I told him he’d be taking money from rapers of the land. It was stone-cold collusion, I said.

  “Well, they’re gonna pay somebody, why not us? Why not the people who’ve lost out?” he’d said.

  “You didn’t lose anything,” I said over and over. The baby was still in me then, and I was dreaming of curved earth every night. “I grew up there, not you.”

  I was appeased by the idea of coming down from Charleston with him. Usually I just stayed in our garage office and filed payroll. But when he took the airport contract, Howard said I could ride with him into Mingo County every now and then. I made plans. I’d walk in the weeds near my grandmother’s house, breathe homey air while he signed invoices and flagged mixer trucks. Mingo didn’t need an airport, just like it hadn’t needed a golf course, but they’d plow o
ne out anyhow for the few suits who still came through. Nobody had a plane, so this enterprise would surely fail and suck a little life out of the killers and capitalists. That I would watch.

  Only once, in early May, did I visit the airport site. High up, on a dusty, counterfeit expanse where hundreds of acres of lush mountain used to be, Howard flagged trucks and negotiated. The missing forest tingled in me like phantom limbs. Being there brought on my morning sickness. I knelt deep into the quease. My fingers touched chalky gravel instead of loam, and I shut my eyes to what they’d gouged out.

  Soon after, I had reason to stay home for Howard’s trips into Mingo. I didn’t even make it past my first trimester this time; I stayed in the city and bled through the spring. The second one was easier. It was simpler to fail early, to empty out without having yet felt a sense of fullness. Howard said again, we’ll try again. I pretended that was true and shut my mouth.

  * * *

  Over the Kentucky border, the view was less painful. Summer had come in thick this year. Howard eased us over the state line, and both of us sighed a full breath. Kentucky had cleaner money—at least by my standards. Years back some scrappy plutocrat, somebody Howard’s daddy hadn’t voted for, pulled strings in the capital and laced a web of bone-colored state highways through all the snaking hollers. On this half of our drive, there was more freshness in the hills.

  Kentucky hadn’t let their mountains alone. Mining companies blasted off just as many ridgetops here as in West Virginia, but here they kept the cuts hidden deeper, gashed hills farther from public view. With the preserved elevations and pale roads, any trip through Pike and Harlan Counties dizzies the rider. Highways in eastern Kentucky run low between mountains like half-buried bones. White gullies through the green. On 119, Howard marveled at all the concrete, the square bridges, the engineering. I looked up past numbered signs, up to kudzu on high, and imagined myself inside a hedge maze in some far-off, castle-rich country.

  Howard wasn’t going to talk about this accident, his daddy’s fourth in a year. Not to me. I’d already screamed my piece about Hassel still driving. Hassel had no business. Ever since he’d been widowed, his menace had amplified. The old man had torn up three sedans in the last half decade, dinging fenders, tumbling over berms, and once almost driving straight through the sliding doors of the Dollar Pik. Each time, Howard found a way to make excuses for not taking his father’s keys. With each crash, my knees locked tighter, and my voice got flatter when I fumed.