Page 21 of Be Not Far From Me

I know there are blood vessels all through my foot, probably some arteries too, but I don’t know where, or how long I should leave a tourniquet on in the first place. I stick my fingers—already shaky, I notice—along different spots of my foot and leg, hoping to find a place where my pulse is stronger. But I’m such a swollen mess everything feels lumpy, and I think I could find my heartbeat in my big toe if I pinched hard enough. In the end I pick a spot above my ankle and tie off my shirt tight, ignoring the rush of pain as it sinks into the puffed flesh.

I straighten up the line of necessities beside me on the floor: the oxy and whiskey, the flint, Erlenmeyer of water, two granola bars, and Davey Beet’s hat. I position the only pillow I could find right where I’m assuming I’ll fall over afterward and take a good, hard look at my foot.

Some more digging had turned up a Sharpie and more Baggies than a second grader’s momma needs. I drew a line on my foot so I’d have something to aim for. I want to take off about a third of my foot at an angle. I’ll lose three toes but should be able to keep everything from the arch back to the heel. The problem is that it’s my left foot that’s crushed—on the outside—and I’m right-handed.

I’ve got to strike fast and strike hard, hopefully hitting in the right place and doing everything in one go, because oxy or not I don’t know if I’m going to be able to take another chop after the first one. I pick up the flint, adjust it in my hand so that it feels right, and turn my foot inward. It’s awkward as hell, and I’ve never felt so lonely, but I’m the one that’s going to die, and there’s no one here to stop that from happening but me.

“So fuck it,” I say to Davey’s hat, and I strike.

Something rolls across the floor, and my first thought is that I missed entirely and dropped the flint, and my second thought is that this camper is sure as hell not set plumb because it rolled pretty far. Then I see it’s my foot that’s gotten away from me, all the way down to the door, and the flint is sticking up out of the linoleum, stone teeth buried deep.

Then I start bleeding.

It took a second, like my brain had to catch up with what was happening and tell my veins to bleed, but once they get the message they take it seriously. Blood’s everywhere, and I’m trying to ignore how quick it’s spreading, like it was just me on the floor and then before I could blink there’s me and half my blood down here too.

I don’t have time to be scared. I don’t get to.

Because I’m only half-done.

I grab the whiskey, glass slick against my bloodied fingers, and before I lose my nerve I upend it over my foot.

I thought I knew pain. Thought that after years of getting cut and punched a few times and falling out of trees and once getting backed over by a cousin’s Chevy and breaking my collarbone that I knew what it was to hurt.

I didn’t know shit.

All those pains were familiar, things I’d already experienced that I could file away as something I lived through. A burn, a bruise, a solid smack in the head that left me dizzy for days one time when a scree went out from under me and I landed on rocks. Even though they hurt I could put any of those up against something that came before, compare it and say I made it once, I’ll make it again.

This I don’t know. This is everything I have inside of me singing at a pitch that’ll break your eardrum. This is life-changing pain. This is why animals kick.

I’ve seen it often. A rabbit in a hawk’s claws, a mouse in a cat’s death grip, a dog that got clocked by the driver in front of me, and the groundhog that I shot because he kept coming into my 4-H garden. They all kick, a reaction to the pain like maybe they’re still trying to run because all they want is to get away from the hurt.

I’m kicking too, my good foot going right through a cupboard door and sending pill bottles everywhere. I kick and I kick and it doesn’t help, but I keep doing it anyway because it’s all I know. I don’t even have sounds, just air in my throat that I can’t pull in or push out because I’ve stopped breathing, and then it does come, all in a rush, every sound I’ve kept inside of me since I found Duke with Natalie and my friends left me behind, all of it rushes out, and I swear it could lift the roof right off this thing but it doesn’t. And I’m screaming and I’m kicking and my good foot is scissoring through my own blood, and I keep hoping I’ll pass out, but I don’t.

Because I was born with teeth and fingernails, and both of those were made for hanging on.

Davey Beet told me once to call for him if I got lost.

So I try it.

I call for him again and again, losing volume as I go, his hat a filthy ball in my hands that I’ve been kneading at in my pain. I move on from Davey to my dad, and I even try God and Jesus, but nobody shows.

There’s nobody here but me, so I’ve got to sit up and do what needs to be done. I get onto my elbows and let the wave of black in my vision settle before going the rest of the way up, leaning forward to see what’s left of my foot.

Somehow, someway, I got it just right.

Everything’s cut off clean as a whistle. I take what’s left of my shirt and soak it in whiskey, then bandage my foot. It burns again, bright and sharp, but I’ve already been through it and know what to expect. I take a deep breath and lie back for a minute until it passes. Then I undo the tourniquet and watch the bandage soak through with blood.

I’m fading fast, so I take another oxy and a swig of whiskey, followed by water. I got it into my head that maybe if I drink enough the alcohol will chase the infection right out of my veins. I doubt that’s good medical advice, but I also don’t give much of a shit as I crawl through my own blood to the mattress. All I want is sleep, and the comfort of my moldy blanket.

A patch of sun is coming through the window onto the mattress. I lay in it, my head fuzzy and the pain very much still there but somehow less important than it was a minute before. I don’t know if I’m dying or getting better, but I do know that I put Davey Beet’s hat back on, so I put my hands on both sides of my head and curl into a ball.

There’s no kick left in me.

I am a dying animal, alone in the sun.

I am the deer skull I found forever ago, beside the trail.

I am so very tired.