Left-Handed

That night, each minute that lay so woefully out of my forlorn grasp brought with it another of life’s many mysteries. How did most people escape collapsed lungs when the amount of gravity and air pressure pushing against our chests was absurd? Was the lump in my chest not actually the aching end of a rib and really male breast cancer? Was male breast cancer even possible? And why was I sitting in the middle of the floor when I could be trying for sleep in a more reasonable place?

The answer: I was feeling stupid, and so had to act it. Not an excellent argument, but it didn’t have any excellent arguments against it so I was pleased.

I was so pleased, in fact, that I rolled from out of my position and promptly fell on the floor, scratchy carpet already cutting a design into my face. I would get my pillow whenever my resolve to not move failed me. Seemingly I had more faith in myself than I should have, because it was less than five vaguely uncomfortable minutes before I finally cracked.

It was a harrowing journey to the foot of my bed. Once in possession of the pillow I crumpled into a shape fit for someone who’d just freefell from a relatively high window. It was undignified and quite close to crippling.

The floor being my territory, I flipped myself into a spread eagle. I’d just been shot to death by an automatic weapon and upon impact with the sidewalk my head had released an even greater spurt of blood, a thin trickle from my mouth and an expanding halo behind.

After growing tired of looking surprised at my own mortality I resignedly grabbed my pillow and crawled dejectedly back to my bed, where sleep might have hated me most. I was just jealous that it hated me more than I hated me.

Cousin Bradley was ruining me. All I’d wanted to do on Saturday was be horribly dispirited; I’d even reserved it immediately after the whole crazy Drew fiasco.

I called him Cousin Bradley because it sounded nasty and officious and reminded me of men in business suits sipping tea condescendingly in my living room, which is precisely what Cousin Bradley did. He made sure to come visit no more and no less than once a month, precisely so that he could be condescending and officious and nasty and get a free meal of it all at the same time.

A highly successful entrepreneur at the age of twenty-three, Bradley James Condor was the very light of my life and witty to boot. “Why Thomas, it seems you’ve grown since I’ve seen you last! Finally hit puberty, you young thing?” he greeted me disgustingly from the doorstep.

“I’m seventeen, Bradley, not twelve.” I was defending myself only halfheartedly, deflated from fatigue and energy lost wallowing.

Cousin Bradley had made it just in time for a homely dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. I’d planned on skipping this, but now that we had company my mom was sure to make eating inescapable.

This proved true and I was wrested into joining the table to shove food down my throat that would surely only make it harder to breathe. Asphyxiation was my new cause of death.

Appallingly flat conversation coupled my torturous consumption and I seethed at my cousin and his stupid champagne-colored head with every sticky swallow of pasta. He was taking away my only chance for refuge between the twin terrors of the night before and upcoming Halloween. Cousin Bradley was demolishing all the hope I’d managed to collect earlier that tomorrow would be okay. That was all I was asking for, okay.

I miscalculated how the asphyxiation would be triggered; it would not come from too much food in my stomach but from too much in my mouth. I realized my airways were constricting due to an improperly chewed meatball. I didn’t like meatballs anyway, and now I was dying.

The danger passed quickly the moment my gag reflex suddenly decided to kick in. Nobody had witnessed the meat trying to do me in, but they did notice when I coughed violently into my napkin. I retreated from the table hurriedly before I had to explain myself to anyone, much less Cousin Bradley.

As soon as I’d left the kitchen, he remarked, “Well that was certainly rude, not excusing himself.” Cousin Bradley had a large mouth.

“Leave him alone, Brad. He’s having a hard time lately.” I was starting to appreciate my dad, recently.

“Oh, what, did he get stabbed in the neck or was that a hickey? Doesn’t seem so bad if you ask me.”

I inhaled from my location on the stairs. How could I have not seen a hickey? I never turned on the bathroom light in the morning and often avoided my own reflection. But how could Drew do that to me?

I raced to the nearest mirror to examine this phenomenon. There was a small deep red oval on the left side of my neck, near the jaw line.

My heart skipped a beat when it occurred to me that one doesn’t give a hickey unconsciously; he’d done it to mark me. Like a wolf marking its territory, though, it had its shortcomings (visibility), but at least he hadn’t peed on my face.

I was mortified and also curious as to his intentions.

But mostly mortified and so I spent the next hour or so planning to regain entry into the kitchen, where I could perform the town whore’s tried and true method of making hickeys disappear. All I needed was a frozen spoon and perhaps another mirror so that I could aim.

Once Cousin Bradley had guiltlessly left without a thank you, I scurried to stick my spoon in the freezer. Footsteps could be heard leading my way, and I began whistling the tune of a catchy little folk song that had been stuck in my head the whole day. I sure knew how to be inconspicuous.

“What are you doing down here? I thought you’d had it in mind to waste away up there for the rest of your life.” It was my mom, meddling in her meddling way as usual.

She’d made me break in the middle of the chorus. “Nothing, just waiting for my spoon to freeze.” It was best to give her an explanation that needed to be explained in of itself.

She sniffed. “Well, as long as you’re not planning on chucking it at a window.” And she left.

I really had to commend myself for my own brilliance on that one, and started up whistling again. I determined that my spoon was ready as soon as I grew bored and took it out. Back in front of the bathroom mirror I pressed the biting metal into the bruise of my reflection and slid it back and forth several times.

A short while later and the collected blood was gone, but in its place was a greenish spot. I frowned at it and then shrugged; it looked like a normal bruise now.
My mission completed, I returned the silverware back to its drawer after rinsing it and headed to my den, where I could sleep until I had to wake up.

I have an insecure habit, a nervous tick if you want to be more accurate. It’s simple to figure out just by brushing over the following excerpts of thought and sonant word.

“Oh my Jesus—“

“Christ Jesus—“

“Lord Jesus—“

“Fucking Christ—“

“Jesus fucking Christ—“

“Jesus Christ—“

And the afternoon of Halloween: “Almighty Jesus, please let Drew not be at Russ’s. No, wait, let him be there. No, that’s no good. Not there. Jesus Christ I’m going insane!” I shouted, pacing frantically across my closet-size bedroom and tugging at my hair.

I made up my mind. “Aha! I’m going to die in a car accident on my way over there!” Could I have done it without killing myself ahead of time, I would certainly have leapt upward and clicked my heels together.

All I had to do now was warn Russ that I wouldn’t be able to make it, but I’d put forth my best effort to arrive late as a ghost. I dialed bravely, apathetic to his sure reaction of shock and horror.

“Thom, this is the last time I’m gonna ask you. Are you on crack?” he asked clearly, enunciating each of the last four words carefully and with slim pauses in between.

“No. It’s okay that you don’t believe me, but when you get an ‘I told you so’ from the afterlife, don’t go apologizing to my headstone.”

“Yeah, okay, see you tonight then.”

It wasn’t like I needed his approval for death anyway. It was a job for one. Solo.

My stomach gave a sharp cry of distress and I had to force the bile back down with my willpower. If I was going to the grave I wasn’t taking any sickness along with me.

It’s strange how sentences come out cushioned in an envelope of air when you’re trying to sound cheerful. “Turns out I’m still alive after all,” I informed the tonberry when he opened his door. Pufffff.

“Hah, come in. My mom’s actually happy we turned out to be the party hosts, now she gets to show off all her tattoos. Seems to be her new favorite pastime, actually...”

I was hit with a massive blast of heavy metal upon following him inside and saw that Mrs. Walker was indeed pointing at one of her ink covered arms and shouting above the music to some girl I wasn’t acquainted with. Russ nodded to what I’d already seen unnecessarily.

What seemed like my whole abdomen was disturbed in another sudden upheaval. I grimaced and again tried to think it away. “Ugh, my stomach feels funny,” I informed my robed friend.

“Well you know where the bathroom is if you need it, buddy.” He patted me on the back and added, “Have too much candy already?”

“I wish.”

We stood there awkwardly for a spell, my stomach talking to me in some unknown but understood language. I was listening intently when Mel, wearing normal clothes like me, came into the room and spotted Russ and me. She sidled up to the two of us and yelled something to deaf ears. The bass swallowed her higher voice.

I looked at Russ for a sign that he’d heard a syllable or two but he only looked back in bewilderment. What?” he asked, commanding his vocal chords with the expertise gained from constant exposure to high volumes.

Once again Mel’s mouth moved on mute. When neither of us responded she rolled her eyes exasperatedly and grabbed a handful of Russ’s robe and the end of my right sleeve and pulled. She dragged us directly through a circle of five people I didn’t know either; I looked back to check their annoyance level but they seemed thoroughly undisturbed by the miniscule intrusion.

Before I could process where she might be taking us, we walked through a side door and into the garage. The door closed and all that could be heard was the remnants of a drum beat and screaming coming from a gaggle of children across the street. Mel breathed. “Okay. Now that you can hear me—you can hear me, right?”

As soon as we’d noticed it wasn’t in fact a rhetorical question, we mumbled our assent. “Good. Anyway, Drew called my cell a few minutes ago; apparently he couldn’t get anybody to pick up the phone inside. I had to go out here to even hear him myself actually. So. He said he’s not coming and didn’t give me a reason. Figured I’d tell you, Russ, and Thom, you were there so I thought I’d tell you too.”

“He didn’t give a reason?” Russ frowned. “That’s lame.”

Feeling it was my duty to relay news of our previous fight, I did so.

“So he’s not coming purely to avoid you? What the fuck did you get him mad about?”

Mel was waiting for an answer too, but first it was time to acknowledge a subject of more importance. “Excuse me for a moment, would you?” I bowed out and speedily dashed back into the house and to the second floor bathroom for privacy. Ironically enough I never even thought to shut the door.

Upon entrance I staggered towards the toilet and collapsed in front of it. Just in time, for acid crept up my throat and I retched into the bowl, dispelling disease and purging the system. Afterwards I rested my newly sweaty forehead against the cool white seat, not daring to imagine the probability that it hadn’t been cleaned and disinfected before I came in.

Russ wrapped his neck around the molding. “That sounded nasty, man.” I stared at him from my sideways perspective. “Mel’s downstairs; she didn’t want to witness your throw up action.” I transferred my dangling arm to the toilet handle and flushed it. “Now why isn’t Drew here?”

I felt cornered, and certainly I was. I had the toilet, the window, and the shower boxing me in; not likely escape routes. I swallowed and tasted bitter and acrid saliva. “We had a fight.”

Russ cut in before I’d barely finished my sentence. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. So come on, spill.”

The leftover vomit in my system lurched unpleasantly. He was studying me intently, his eyes trained on my face. He knew he had something and wasn’t about to let it go easily.

I realized suddenly that I could manipulate the argument into something palatable. “All right. I told him I thought he should break up with Emma and he got pissed. Happy?”

“That’s it?” He looked disappointed. Soon his expression changed into one of curiosity. “Why in the world would you tell him that? I’m pretty sure that goes against one of the codes of guy friendship. You do not mess with girlfriends.”

I felt like vomiting again. “How can you possibly be taking his side on this?” I did take a moment to vomit. After wiping my mouth with the back of one of my wrists I resumed where I would have been looking at him incredulously were it not for the interruption.

“Hey, I’m just saying.” He put his hands up to convey innocence. “Besides,” he continued, “you haven’t even told me the full circumstances yet.” Russ looked at me pointedly.

I was at a complete loss for what to say or how to go about things properly. I said the best thing I could think of. “That’s not really any of your business, honestly.” I shifted uncomfortably, lifting my head from its rest.

“Hey, what’s that on your neck?” Russ pointed.

“Bruise,” I grunted, my discomfort augmented.

He shuffled toward me and bent over. “That’s no bruise; it’s a fucking love-bite!”
I slapped a hand to my neck to shield it from his prying eyes. “Is not! My mom whacked a ping pong ball at me.” It had to be the stupidest sounding excuse I’d ever come up with, even albeit the short notice.

“Hahaha! Oh my God, you tried the town whore’s removal trick, didn’t you? It turns green if you apply too much pressure. Oh this is too good. Who gave it to you? Come on, out with it!”

I could have lied to him. Some girl. But I couldn’t. I was literally sick of lying.

“Drew.”

Russ squealed like a girl who’d just head a particularly juicy piece of gossip. “No crack? That really happened? You’re not shitting me? He gave you a love-bite?” He shut his eyes and then opened them as if to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. “This is too good.”

“No kidding. Only now he won’t talk to me because I fucked it up.” I massaged my eyes and noticed how badly my mouth tasted again.

Russ was on his own, mumbling to himself. “Always thought you were too close for your own good...” He came back to me. “He shouldn’t have gotten mad at you for that; it was your right. You guys do like each other, right?”

I sighed. “I like him, though sometimes I have no idea why... He was the one who started the kissing, but maybe he was just assuming we were both horny. Maybe he wasn’t getting any with Emma...and where the heck is Emma, anyway? Nobody’s seen her for the past few days.”

Russ shrugged his shoulders. “No idea. But keep me posted on Brokeback New Jersey, all right?”

“That’s not funny.”

“I know. But I figured I’d make my one joke while you couldn’t slug me for it. You goin’ home to puke the rest of your guts there?”

“Yeah, I guess I should.”