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| Please don't be scared. I'm not crazy, I promise. This is what happens when you mix a literary mind with a forensic pathology class. I'm hoping to make it into a novel. This would be the introduction. KRM The bass and drum pound through my skin like my own pulse would if I were nervous. I look down from the balcony at four aging rock musicians, playing their last show before reclaiming what is left of their wasted garage band lives. Dedicated fans scream out requests, not caring about the typed play list that is taped at the foot of each performer. The lead singer shouts how much he loves the city he is playing for, which, as always, is received with screaming and cheers. I wonder if he will ever admit that he hates the rush hour traffic and the radio stations that won�t play his favorite songs, or his songs for that matter. I wonder if any of these adoring fans care that he throws his empty soda cans on the streets of the city that he loves so much or that this is not the little hole in the wall club that he wanted to end is career at. Will he ever admit that in college, before he changed his major for the fifth and final time, he counted down the days he until he could leave the city-and the state- he was now tied to? What does a washed-out aging musician do with his life, I wonder. Teach? The bass player plucks a few cords to a readily recognizable song. Yet another cheer erupts from the easily amused crowd. I clap for no other reason than to be polite. A small group of kids start slamming into each other in a mosh pit. Little boys, every last one of them. By the time they reach twenty-three or twenty-four, I would think they�d be grown up enough to listen to a band without trying to batter and bruise each other. Maturity is lost on men. A woman is hit on the outskirts of their rampage. Her loosely coifed French twist falls as a twenty-five year old boy pushes into her. She flashes a rude and annoyed look at him, then returns to the band. Moments later, she is again slammed. This time, I see her push her way through the crowd in a hurry. I notice that her wrist is bleeding. She rushes out the emergency door, and I see her mouth screaming something at a security guard. He stands, baffled, stupid. She exits. I turn my attention once more to the band. I think about that woman, her fake tan and fake blond hair. I can�t help but wonder if her breasts are fake as well. I set my empty plastic cup on a banister and walk to the bar. The bartender looks at my legs as I approach him. I place my order and act like I flirting with him. Another boy. He refuses my attempt to pay. I thank him by brushing his arm lightly with my hand. Men are easy to manipulate. This one is no exception. I take my drink and stroll away from the bar and down the stairs. I explain to a guard that my injured friend needs something to drink as I press up next to him. He nods and lets me leave with the drink. I wonder exactly how many laws one can break if she flirts enough. The woman who left would be very effective at this task if she would stop screaming at men and use her artificial beauty to exact what she wants from the men who clearly lust after her trim figure. I can still hear the emotional, yet banal, droning of the band as I hurry up to her. I slip the pills I always carry with me into the cup I�m carrying. She is twisting her hair with terse, quick movements. "Are you all right?" I call out to her. Her right hand clutches the strings of her purse. "Who the fuck are you?" She is facing me now. This woman, I think I�ll call her Midge for now, has smudged mascara and lifts her wounded arm as if she is ready to attack me with it. I put my empty hand out, so she won�t think I�m reaching for a weapon, the poor fool. "I�m a doctor." I am not. "I saw what those guys did and thought you might need someone to look at your arm. I�ve seen girls get their wrists broken and not even realize it at places like this." I have, twice. One girl got too rough with her boyfriend in a bathroom stall and tripped, the other took three lines of speed and just fell on the floor in the middle of a mosh pit. She was not pretty after that. "I�m fine. It�s a cut. That asshole cut me with his bracelet." I knew to which she referred. The boy was permanently frozen in the eighties with his punk jacket and spike bracelet. "Would you like a drink?" I offer her the plastic cup. "It�s a Cape Cod." It is not. "Thanks." She grabs the drink from my hand and takes three quick gulps. "Those cuts can be deeper than they look. At least let me take you to the emergency room. I work at the hospital. You won�t have to wait in triage." "Whatever. I just want to go home." "I understand. Here, at least let me give you my card. I you notice any pain in a few days or if you have and infection, please call me." "What are you, some kind of dyke. I don�t need your help." She threw the card back at me and finished the last of her drink, dropping the cup on the cracked pavement before leaving. I am disappointed. I did not get her name. She will have to remain "Midge," the less popular and not quite as pretty best friend of Barbie. I see Midge hurry down the alley, trying not to trip in her spike heels. She coughs once, then again. I can hear her perfectly over the music. Her sharp, staccato cough followed by a sudden gasp for breath ring clearly in my ears. I notice her looking into her hand after the second cough. She stops short and turns around. "Hey doctor." I pretend to look surprised as I run up to her in feigned concern. I feel my combat boots slap against my feet as they hit the pavement. She holds out a blood and mucus filled hand. "I think that guy hit me pretty hard. Can you take me to that hospital now?" I take her by the waist and she puts an arm around my shoulder. I support her weight and walk down the alley, behind the club. After a few steps, she screams in searing pain and doubles over. "It�s OK," I whisper in her ear. It is not. She collapses to the ground, coughing up blood. I jump back before she can get any on my shoes. I turn away quickly and grab the plastic cup and the business card that I actually got from my doctor. I slip both into my bag. She is screaming at me, calling me a bitch and asking why I am not helping her. I stand at the corner of the club and the street to make sure no one comes to her aide too quickly. She stops screaming. She is now wheezing. She breaths in, heavily, slowly, painfully. Her hands are on the ground, in the pool of blood she, I, created. She bends her head down as she breathes out. Midge sounds like bellows blowing on a fire. Her hair is falling around her face. Blood soaks the front of her white tank top. I glance quickly down the street once more before slowly walking toward the crumpled Midge. I turn her onto her back with the toe of my boot. Her tanned face is red with blood, which has stopped streaming from her nose, eyes, and mouth. I know that her throat will be partly eroded away and grin slightly at this fact. I kneel beside this still warm body of the deteriorated prom queen and pull back the neckline of her sweater. I can still see the incision scar. Not a very good surgeon. I pull out a Swiss Army knife from my boot and cut along the scar. A small pillow of silicone drenched in blood falls to the pavement. Midge�s last breath escapes from her lungs with a bubbling of blood and mucus. Blood is no longer flowing freely; her heart has stopped. I ponder for a little while, squatting next to this little plastic princess, contemplating which I would like more, the nose or the implant. I cut slowly over the bridge of her nose, pressing on the bone so as to leave a nice mark. And just as I thought, it, too had been re-sculpted. I punch her once in her bloody face, shattering the bones of her nose. I pick up the largest chunk and slide it and my bloody knife into my boot. I stand and turn slowly and make my way back to the street. A homeless man is walking to me, or rather, to the girl I have left in his nightly shelter. "Any change, ma�am." I hand him five dollars and tell him the name of a good shelter. Blood from Midge�s perfect body streaks the bill I�ve handed him. I�ve made sure to hold the bill a little longer so I could smudge my fingerprint, just in case. I hope he uses the money on food, but I know that speed or heroin will control his cravings for any nourishment for at least a few hours. "God bless," he crackles. I smile wryly at him. I doubt it. Click to return to the poetry page |
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