Injury
I find myself outside Scott’s trailer in Lu’s blue Tercel. He wears the
green wool jacket that I loaned him last winter and paces his tiny lawn,
nodding into his cell phone. He spots me, flips off the phone and
approaches my open window.
“You found it this time?”
“Yea.”
“So, what do you want to do? I’m up for anything so long as it doesn’t
cost more then 15 bones.”
“I’ve got a little money. We could have a beer at the ‘Bis at least.”
Scott climbs into the passenger side and we roll back unto the road.
Scott’s curiosity is soon peaked.
“Let’s pull over and check this out.”
I pull over into a Christmas tree lot, where Scott jumps out and
wanders off. I trudge around, and stop to watch two Mexicans wearing
latex gloves. They are behind a chain link fence, delicately pruning X-
mas trees. To my right there is a rack of the little, shiny stainless steel
snips they use. But, mindful of the sore on my left index finger, I also
don a pair of latex gloves from a nearby box before trying the devices
out.
As I reach for the shears they practically seem to leap into my hand,
stick to the gloves and dig into the sore. The Mexicans watch as,
trying to yell, I rip the shears and the gloves off my finger. One
Mexican shrugs:
“That always happens the first time.”
Scott returns as I squeeze out the pus.
“Oh, fuck!”
The finger is red and swollen, and the sore, adjacent a healing blister
is now cavernous, it is so large—
I think I can—
And then try and can, put a finger into it. I grimace, knowing the solid
bottom of the wound is the finger bone.
“I need someone to look at this, Scott.”
But I regret this statement even as it leaves my mouth—I’d rather
attempt to heal it myself then have a doctor amputate it…
