sick hero

an inexperienced midnight phlebotomist using a larger needle than is necessary, misses the vein and has to reinsert the needle several times, moving the needle around inside the vein, and meanwhile i'm supposed to hold a meaningful conversation with my assigned doctor who is in scrubs that have neon cats all over them, and she reminds me of my American identities professor, the conversation being about whether the salsa i ate was mild or medium or hot, she’s not doing a very good job distracting me from the reality of the crook of my right arm. all I can think about is wanting to yell fuck, and really yell too, tell it like it is. I wait to fuck until they leave, I don’t want to offend the inexperienced midnight phlebotomist with the caked-makeup face, I knew when I saw her she was going to leave me with a big red thing on my arm, a sore vein, even after she tapped around, tourniquet on, and said nice vein. I get this a lot: nice vein. thanks. reminds me of the time my gynecologist said gorgeous cervix in the middle of the exam. I just laid there, really. I didn’t know what to say. I think I said: yeah. in my experience a dentist will never compliment you under any circumstances. dentists like to make you feel inadequate.

going to meet the man, by James Baldwin. we read that in American identities. my doctor is not my American identities professor. I keep forgetting. the mantra becomes I need this thing out of my fucking arm, and mom says shhh there’s a little boy next to us. there is, and he has bug bites all over his body from what I understand. his mother is wearing black loafers that move back and forth beneath the teal curtain, and they both fall asleep when the nurse leaves to do some things. I know this because after they wake up, she says to her son mommy fell asleep too. I’m hooked up to some machine that won’t stop beeping when I go to pick my cuticles, and that’s all I want to do, and move my arm so I don’t have to know there’s something in it. sometimes I think being squeamish is all mental. tonight with the plastic tube in my arm I think again. something in my body rejects this thing, fills me with a violent anger, like I have an itch that I can’t scratch or I need to stretch but I can’t move, I fantasize about ripping it out and walking out and going home and continuing to fail to sleep, resenting the indifferent lines that rearrange themselves to confess the time on my digital alarm clock, and they do it so quickly, I think, it is impossible to masturbate in the presence of any cat, or else the phone vibrates wildly on the night stand (“you awake?” “yes”), or else a sibling starts hissing into his microphone in the next room, recording in the wee hour, high. back to the hospital. my mom tells me about a dream she had, there was a fish tank teeming with fish and frogs. my grandmother takes the tank and dumps it out in the woods behind her old house. my mom is on her knees, collecting the fish from the dry leaves, stuffing them into her denim pockets. fish on dry leaves. I remember there was a time I went to the ER for something or other and there was a man behind some other emergency curtain screaming that the ER staff was plotting to kill him and that they were all insane.

a few days have passed and I’m making the long trek back from western Massachusetts. three hours through mountains and then nothing but the darkness opening before me, some lightning ahead, a wonderful playlist. then I’m at a gas station/burger king. there is a small child on the sidewalk, alone, furiously spraying an upside down june bug with a bottle of windex. i've never seen someone want something to die so much, and just for existing in a close proximity. the bug's legs plead in an upward motion, it's futile but i feel disappointed. back on the road, thinking why am I so shy, awkward, sometimes not at all but then ultimately regrettably shy. back on the road, trying not to think about june 29th, and so, naturally, thinking about june 29th. people want to visit me. I don’t want them to. people want to visit me and I won’t want them to leave. people want to visit me and I won’t be able to entertain them. and people want a sick hero. people want you to be lance fucking armstrong. maybe i will be. a phrase comes into my head: more spiders for your buck. instant kinship; I write it down in my little book. but where can I possibly use this line. are there any circumstances in which this would be an okay thing to say, and why not, and so are there better circumstances to be had? I can do nothing with this line except hear it over and over, imagine variations (more spiders/ur buck), fit it at the end of a blog post.