Can't You See I'm Covered in Blood?
By Marianna Nash
I’m not going to put it in ice. There’s no point. My skin is notoriously inexplicably thick; I know they won’t be able to put it back on. I’ll just wait. Alone in the kitchen, listening to the sounds of the freeway, I stare at the top of my finger where it lies in the diced onions like a felled giant.
We’re out of paper towels. I don’t know where Steve hides the extra. Our house is and has always been disorganized. We keep our silverware on the drying rack. An anemic red lamp gives the living room a brothel feel, even when we’re sitting around watching “Newsies.” We work in sales.
Steve went to Tbilisi last year and brought back a quilted blue tea towel, sweetly embroidered with white roses. He says the white rose is Georgia’s national flower. The towel is shitty at soaking up blood, though, even after I’ve wrapped it around my hand twice.
Outside, the sky is a cadaverous gray. A crack in the window keeps the apartment cold. I try to focus on the cold instead of the pain, which is breathtaking. It is, clinically speaking, the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. It bullies me quiet.
I stand by the window and watch for the ambulance as my mind hurtles forward, imagining the story I’ll tell. I’m a dreamy person even when not losing blood. I imagine playing Never Have I Ever and shocking new friends. I imagine straphangers gawking at the pole until I catch them out with a wink. There will be something gentle and disarming about my foreshortened finger that will make people warm to me, secure in the knowledge that it cannot scratch them. Steve sees me and screams.
Sorry, I say, swaddling my hand in a second tea towel, a white one that says Buckingham Palace on it.
It’s OK, says Steve. Do you want some whiskey or something?
It is just like Steve to play the practical one. He needs that. Good idea, I tell him. But will having alcohol in my blood, like, affect my insurance? Like, will it cost more if they think I was drunk when I did it?
Do you have insurance?
Sort of?
It probably won’t matter. But it’s your choice.
Can’t I just make one less choice today! I’m yelling.
I can’t believe your gall. Can’t you see I’m covered in blood? As such, I’m feeling very depleted! I am in no condition for decision-making! Do I look as though I am ready to weigh the pros and cons and offer my considered opinion? No! The very thought is positively scoff-worthy! Now give me that bottle of Jack.
I put my phone down next to the cutting board and hold the bottle to my dry lips. A crazy person is ringing our doorbell. The medics.
Still holding the bottle, I hurry over to the door to let them in, warning them about the broken tile. The first one is a short lady with graying hair who immediately asks if I’ve been drinking. The second, following close behind, is a 40-year-old man with a harp earring.
I like your earring, I say, thrilling at the sight of Steve’s marshmallowy face seizing up in horror.
You should own a First Aid kit, says the small woman.
We have towels, I say.
Connie, do you want me to come with you to the hospital? Or should I call your parents?
Steve, I say. The medics busy themselves with my wound. Hey, Steve. Do you want to touch it?
No. God no.
Fair play.
Put it in ice, says the woman. The harp man nods and fills a Tupperware container with ice. There, he entombs my fingertip.
Jesus Christ, says Steve. The woman finishes winding me up in bandages. The man throws out our bloody towels. They lead me downstairs like a shellshocked victim and I’m pointing out the original 20th-century moulding over the door, all the vicious cracks in it.
The ride to the hospital is pleasantly warm and mercifully loud. A siren shears away the whole world so that I can’t even hear Steve’s performative gurgles of distress next to me. We’re spared the sight of roadways choked in smoke, the Regal where I first watched “Mean Girls,” the Sam Ash, the post office, the decrepit edge of Willow Lake, all the landmarks of my life banished from view at last.
Dr. Woubbie takes one look at my hand and thanks the medics for saving my fingertip, which she sews back onto my hand with aplomb.
When Steve tells this story, it is a happy one about how the world conspired to save me from myself. What made you think you knew how to make beef bourguignon? But I hate my new finger. My clean line is nowhere to be found. The stitches are fat and bloody. The tip is a different color, like it’s wearing a hat. Instead of a conspicuous absence that might have subtly conveyed the truth of my life, I am now attached to a crass piece of junk, a cheap souvenir of my own ineptitude.
I am afraid there is no remedy for this loss. All I can do is stand by the door and greet you with my bloodless words. All I can do is smile fondly and eat microwaveable meals. All I can do is tape up the window. All I can do is reach out to you with both hands, palms wide, ever-ready to accept more of your knives.
THE END