024 clean the wound pt 1 1854

The man drapes his arm around my shoulder and I help him into the washroom. It's exactly what you'd expect for the price I'm paying for the apartment, that is to say it's dingy and drab. It's a compact room with a shower over a chipped and stained five foot bath. The small vanity mirror has a crack running almost perfectly horizontally through its middle. As I flick the light on I catch my fractured reflection and I'm shocked. I look much worse than I thought. The cut on my forehead looks awful. I now understand why Sukee and the pharmacist reacted the way they did. If I saw someone with a cut like this in the middle of their forehead I'd baulk also. 

'Help me get into the bath.' The man orders and I do my best. It's an awkward process. He's got to be at least twice my size and weight. I weigh one hundred pounds soaking wet. I'd guess this guy weighs in at around two hundred and twenty pounds. As I hold his body, helping to lower him into the bath I notice that he's in a lot better shape than I thought. I can feel hard muscles through his clothes. I thought he'd be like most men his age and have several inches of pudgy visceral fat.    

When he's finally in the bath he says, 'Get my shoes off, then take the scissors, start at the ankle and cut your way up my trouser leg.' I unthread his laces then pulls his boots off. I then remove the scissors from their pack and stop and stare at the wound. It's really a disgusting sight. The ten inch piece of metal protruding from his leg looks almost comically strange. It's as out of place as tits on a bull, as my father would say. The wound is still bleeding, though the blood flow is now far less than it was earlier. I'm not new to the sight of cut flesh, I see it every time I butcher a side of beef into its various cuts. But to see a human leg wounded in such a way is completely different, it gives me pause.

'What are you waiting for? Get it done.' The man says. 

'Are you sure you don't want to do it? You know what hurts and what doesn't. I wouldn't want to cause you any more pain than you're already in.' And that's the truth. I don't want to cause him pain. But with that said, there's a part of me that wants to take this pair of scissors and jam them into his throat, not to cause him pain, simply to debilitate him so I can flee. Only problem is that he's got a tight grip on his gun that's aimed at my chest. Sure, I might get lucky and stab him once, but he'd shoot me, and the silencer on his weapon would ensure not one of my neighbors would hear the gunshot, not even Sukee.

The man smiles, 'Don't placate me Susan. You'd love to hurt me, I know that.'

'I don't want to hurt you. I'm not like you. I just want to be away from you.' I say. 

'You'd hurt me to get away from me.'

'Yeah, I would.' I say, quickly. 'Switch seats with me, wouldn't you do the same?'

'I'd do a hell of a lot more than hurt you.' The man says flatly, like the act of killing is banal to him. 'Now cut my trousers. Start by the ankle.'

I swallow dry then do as he says. The scissors are surprisingly sharp and slice through the material with ease. 

'Now make an insert a few inches above the wound, then cut down to it.' He says. 

I'm careful as I cut a nick in his trousers not to catch his leg below. They're fairly tight fitting and I have to pinch the material to make the incision. When I've done as he asks he says, 'Now pull the trouser aside so you can clearly see what we're working with.'

I do, revealing the four inch by three inch wound, out of which protrudes the ten inch tall, two inch wide piece of metal, blood pooling at its base. I'm amazed the man is still conscious. I sure that if it were me I'd have passed out by now.  

'Fill one of the hypodermic needles with Benzocaine.'

He watches me closely as I do. It's an action I'm all too familiar with. He evidently notices my deft use of the needle as he comments, 'You a nurse?'

I shake my head. The man nods slowly. Understanding where my affinity with needles comes from.

'You clean?' He asks. 

'What do you care?'

'I don't, I guess. Just asking. You don't look like a junkie.'

I always hated that word, junkie. I never considered myself one even when I was using regularly. To me it was always a recreational habit. But as I was to come to learn, you only know you're truly addicted when you think you're not, when you think you've got your habit under control. 

'Put half of it an inch below the wound and the rest an inch above.'

I do as told, the man clenching his jaw as I inject the aesthetic. 

'Just give it a minute to take effect.' He says.

I put the needle aside on the washroom sink and we wait in silence for it to do its job. It's an awkward moment. This is the first time since I laid on eyes on him that we're not both actively doing something. My curiosity gets the better of me and I break the quiet by asking tongue-in-cheek, 'Are you a doctor?'

'How many doctors you seen shoot someone?' He replies. 

'If you're a doctor, then I know one.' I slap back to him. 

The faintest smile crease his lips before he says, 'I've never studied medicine.' 

'That means you're not a nurse or a paramedic either.'

'Your powers of deduction are second to none.'

I gesture to our makeshift surgery and say, 'All this seems second nature to you.'

'So?'

'I'm justifying to figure who you are, what you do?'

He doesn't answer that. Instead he prods the flesh around the wound without flinching. 

'Okay, it's taken. What I need you to do now is gently pull the wound aside and look to see if the metal has cut the artery or not.'

'I'm not qualified to do that.'

'Neither of us are, but you're going to do it.'

'I mean, I have no idea what I'm looking for. I won't be able to accurately tell you if it's cut an artery or not. I don't even know what one looks like.'

'It's just a really big vein. You know what they look look like right?' He says snidely, alluding to my former habit, which annoys me much more than it really should.

'Okay, but if I get it wrong, don't say I didn't warn you.'

I place my fingers either side of the wound and gently pry the flesh aside. My stomach tightens as a mild nausea washes through me. This truly is a gruesome experience. I manage to pull the wound open enough to see something much darker than the surrounding blood and flesh. 

'I think I see the artery.' 

'Good. Does the metal touch it?'

'Yes.' 

'Does it look like it's cut it?'

'It's hard to say, there's a lot of blood.' 

'Help me lift my leg up to an angle so the blood drains away.'

I take his leg by the ankle and help him slide it up so his thigh sits at a forty five degree angle and the blood drains from the wound. 

'Now take a closer look.' 

I pry the flesh open again and lean close. 

'It's hard to tell if it's been cut or not. The blood seems to be coming from the surrounding flesh.' I say. 

'Good, that's promising. You're going to slowly pull the piece of metal out. But you need to watch that artery and make sure that it doesn't cut it as you go. Do you understand?'

I nod as my stomach tightens even more and the nausea ramps up a notch. 

I use one hand to pry the wound open and grip the piece of metal with the other. I lock eyes with the man and say, 'Okay, I'm gonna start.' 

The man's hand that's not holding the gun balls into a fist in anticipation of the pain that's to come. 

I pull every so gently on the piece of metal. At first it won't come up at all, but I can see from the man's face that what little movement I managed caused him considerable pain. I apply more force and am able to get the piece of metal to slide up about half an inch.

'Stop, stop, stop.' He orders. 'Check the artery, make sure it's not cut.' I peer into the wound, as close as I can get. 

'I don't think so.' 

"Is there blood coming from around the artery or not?'

I shake my head. 'It's all coming from the severed flesh. 

'Keep going.'

I continue pulling on the piece of metal and this time I manage to get it out a further inch. I stop again, and closely inspect the artery but it seems to be intact. I'm about to start again but the man raises a hand to me.

'Just give me a second.' It's only now I notice a fine layer of sweat has formed on his forehead. I figure it must hurt immensely. Far more than he's letting on. After a few seconds rest he says, 'Okay, keep going.'

This time I pull a little too hard and the piece of metal comes up about three inches in one go. This sudden movement causes the man to scream out loud in agony and hit the wall.

'Arrrgh! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!'

I let go of the metal and fall back to the floor, half expecting him to shoot me out of anger, fortunately he doesn't. 'The fuck is wrong with you? I said slowly!'

'I used the same force as last time, it just came out easier.'

The man draws long deep breathes until the pain subsides to a place he can manage. 

'Okay, do like the first time, check the artery then pull, slowly, gently.' 

I get up off the floor, kneel beside him again, take the metal and pull as gently as I can.

It slides up bit by bit. I watch the man's face, waiting for him to give me a sign to stop. He nods me on so I continue until it's all the way out, but at the moment it is he screams out loud again, 'Argh!'

'I was pulling as gently as I could.' I say in my defence. 

It's okay, I think it just hit a nerve or something.' He offers. 'Pass me a pack of gauze, I need to stop the bleeding.'

I open a pack of gauze and the moment I pass it to him there's a loud knocking on my front door and Sukee calls out, 'Susan! What going on in there?'