Toast
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“Can I have a mirror?” I said impatiently in a garbled voice, my throbbing teeth bound in wires.
“You just had surgery so don’t panic at what you’ll see,” he said, signaling to a hovering Rhoda to bring a mirror. “You’ll feel depressed and a little ugly for a bit but things will get better.”
“How long will it be?” I said, my jaws pounding.
“Things take time, David,” he said. “You certainly know about that.”
“Where the fuck is my face?” I cried out when I saw the reflection. I was entirely black and blue beneath the eyes, jowls swollen, nostrils engorged, chapped lips covered in sores. I looked like an angry, bedridden cousin of a blowfish.
“Don’t panic,” Rhoda smiled at me, white teeth against ebony skin. She patted my arm and gave me some medication. Dr. Scottelli squeezed my hand and said he’d check in with me later. He was quite tall, about six foot five, and had to dip his balding head when he exited the room.
“He’s cocky,” I said.
“The man cuts into mouths with precise, electric saws three days a week,” she laughed. “You need someone cocky! Just relax and drift. This will make you feel very good, very positive.”
So, I listened to Rhoda and floated out the door, away from my body and the oxygen machine, away from the linoleum floors and the canary-yellow Slippery When Wet signs. I came to a turquoise, oval pond with scrumptious tulips and massive pines, but couldn’t find a friendly face. There were other swimmers in the water, their eyes closed reverently as they floated. I dove in and found the water silky, delicious, and I twisted and pushed myself off the sandy bottom and sprang to the surface.
A woman was doing naked cartwheels in the water closer to shore, her splayed legs and genitals glistening in the sunshine. When I reached her, we wrestled in the shallows. I tried to kiss her and she opened her mouth wide and swallowed me. “It’ll be easier this way, my friend,” she said and took off into the sky.
We went up beyond the tree line, then rose above some seagulls and geese and she hummed something sweet and rhythmic. “You know, I’ve never been inside a woman in this capacity,’ I said, adjusting to the sensation.
“Just be quiet and enjoy the view,” she laughed.
*          *          *
When things were particularly excruciating all those years ago, I’d call Dr. Laney’s voice mail and leave these rambling, relatively incoherent messages. I’d call from emergency rooms or out of state hospitals and talk about how much I wanted to get rid of the blackness inside of me.  I saw it as an infection of sorts, a collection of shit and angst and all the weakness and hell sucking me up from within. A lot of times I’d run away from institutions and do unfortunate things to myself; burning, cutting, punching myself like some spastic monkey until my lips bled.
Another time I convinced myself what I really needed was a simple tattoo to solve my problems. I found my way to a rundown parlor in West Haven, right on Campbell Avenue near the veterans’ hospital. There were samples on the wall of all the wares – exploding bombs and missiles, bleeding hearts, butterflies, day-glow swastikas, excessively buxom girls with rainbow nipples. I decided on something I’d been thinking about – something related to that infectious blackness inside. I walked out with three ebony teardrops on my shoulder.