Monday, May 17, 2010

Broke...broken?

Wouldn't you know, the week I decide to put the breaks on my trucker mouth and be a little gentler as a human being, especially with the kids, is shaping up to be the week that my shell (physical and emotional) will harden and dry like mummy skin. I am the taught bit of flesh stretched across the 5000 year old cadaver of a f*cking king.
Perfect.
Morbid, you bet. True, I hope not. I was really looking forward to softening a little, maybe smiling a bit more, being more trusting and "sunny" (yeah, I'm gagging on that one, too), but by 11 o'clock this morning that plan nearly ate itself alive. In an effort to make some cash (which is in terrifyingly short supply around here, food stores may follow this vein) I did some major landclearing (i.e. felling trees, hauling limbs the size of trees, hefting wood twice the size of me, burning brush illegally, you Berkshire folks get what I'm saying) with the Sisco kid. I was moving way too fast and chucked a log into a pile of logs just as another log was rolling down a hill. Wow, lotta logs. Anyway the piece I hucked met the falling one at just the right angle, we can call it wood kizmet, and bounced back catching me right in the face. My stomach rolls when I think about that noise. My nose took the hit, and of course, the thing busted open right there. Blood and snot everywhere, it was like a bad Rocky movie, 'cause there are so few of those right? Caught most of the blood with my work gloves, let the rest poor out into a handkerchief.
Now, mind you, I need this cash. So, I got some napkins from the car, took a deep breath, and stuffed the thing, and continued to work. There were a few moments during the day when I thought I was going to puke, or maybe pass out if I was lucky. But I wasn't lucky and stayed painfully cognizant up until this very moment.
And it throbs on. My teeth hurt, the side of my face is black and I just extracted what I hope is the last nasty chunk of dried blood, out of my angry nose. The skin between the two nostrils is split open.
Guess where I'm going tomorrow? Back to clearing and hauling and burning. Hopefully no bleeding. I finally went to the gas station halfway through the day to get some more tissue and Neosporin. The very kind Indian man at the register took one look at me and asked if I wanted him to call the police.
"Um, no. Do you have a restroom? I need to clean up a little." He gestured, his hand still on the phone. I didn't want him to worry that I was some kind of coke addict, so I just wet down some paper towels and brought them out to my car. And there I sat, in the Stewart's parking lot, cleaning out the gush and splinters and pain from my nose. That's when I started laughing and crying uncontrollably.
"You got to be f*cking kidding me." That was all I could muster at the dirty, bloody face in the visor mirror. Not a gentle image. All I can say is thank God I didn't ruin my smile. In all the years that the smile has waxed and waned it has been the thing on my face that always manages to break through.
Oh, that reminds me, I need to go clean out the puncture hole in my thigh from the barbed wire that nobody saw.
And just as an aside, when I opened my email tonight, the first message to greet me was a nice little note from Baby Daddy #1 saying that he was not sure that he could send child support (he's sent it three times within the almost 10-year span of Anna's life) this month.
I didn't know that was a choice thing.

2 comments:

  1. you can swallow a pint of blood before you get sick...well at least no one can say you don't have any balls.

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  2. I don't think anyone would say I don't have balls. Thanks for the...compliment? I just wish I didn't have to use my balls so often!

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