“I heard about you,” the man said. He had spotted my jacket, the back of which simply read HAVE HOPE, and stopped me outside the IGA. “You’re the guy that got cancer clean out of someone over in Pine County.”
His stringy grey hair was pulled back. He had a smoker’s cough, an alcoholic nose. Immediately, I thought of him as Ponytail.
Ponytail stared at me expectantly, nerves radiating from him in waves. “I’m wondering can you help me?”
“What is it?” But I already knew. I could smell the metastasis.
He stared at the ice-covered blacktop. “It’s all over my insides.”
I said nothing, made him wait.
“I have money. I know it ain’t cheap.”
I exhaled. Salt-painted cars entered and exited the lot.
“I got cash.”
I let my eyes linger on him, nodded slowly, then smiled. The way his face broke was everything I wanted.
Three daughters were with him. One seemed slow. The two good ones started in about who was I and was I going to help their daddy. One reached up and pulled my beard, the other my wallet chain. But the slow one stayed behind Ponytail, shuffling around his legs.
I knelt down to her. “I’m going to help your daddy,” I said.
The two good daughters clapped, but she turned away.
“Tomorrow—9:00 am out on Wilkes Road, the old Standard station,” I said.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Ponytail shook my hand with both of his, his eyes wet.
Back on Wilkes Road, I covered my surgical table with bright white sheets, positioned lights around it, and hung blackout curtains. I cordoned off an area for the daughters, filling it with secondhand toys and one thing that was authentically mine: a handsewn doll named Jenny. She was from a former life I lived, one I had shut into darkness. I held her, taking in her smell, traces of home in the fabric. But when the ghosts started to appear—the smiling mother, the laughing child—I dropped her. Keep pushing it down, Clay. That’s what you do best, I heard the child’s smiling mother say. Keep living like you’re your own hero. I shook my head, and her voice turned down, down, down until, finally, it was inaudible.
I had only a few Vicodin pills left, but I took two anyway. I lay on my cot staring into the black, listening to the silence of snow. I tried not to think about how grief, how desperation can erode the edges of where you touch the rest of the world. I tried not to think about Jenny and the girl she once trailed behind, about the smiling mother who had given the doll to the girl. I thought only of hope, of giving it to others. You don’t know what it feels like to give someone hope: you’re like a demi-god, suddenly less mortal.
I woke at 6:00 am. I had much to do—unthawing the package of pig innards that rested in a snowbank, setting out bowls, towels, alcohol pads, the water I swore was holy. But most importantly, I had to empty myself of burdens and fill myself with hope. An hour before Ponytail arrived, I closed my eyes, let ambient music lure me into a semi-conscious state. The girl who Jenny trailed behind appeared running across a meadow. Her mouth formed words I could not hear; then she evaporated. In her place was Jenny. Hope, I chanted. But then another face burst into my mind: the slow daughter. Her expression, in the space between ignorance and damnation, chilled me. Hope, I chanted, struggling to push the picture away.
“Don’t be scared,” I said when Ponytail arrived. He handed me a wad of cash. I patted his back, sent him to undress, and led the girls to the waiting room. “Your daddy is going to be just fine,” I said. The two good daughters cooed and smiled at me. The slow one grabbed Jenny and began to suck her thumb, staring as I walked away. Electricity ran down my neck.
“Are you ready?” I asked Ponytail.
“I’m ready to get better,” he said.
He smiled, but his lower lip quivered. I placed a cloth across his eyes and swallowed a Vicodin with vodka I kept in a water bottle.
Then I began.
I rubbed his torso with alcohol prep pads. I hummed. I picked at his skin; I made it hurt. His mouth knotted. I let swine innards thump into a metal bowl. I hummed harder. I was waiting to disappear into hope. My hands formed points that dug into his stomach. I smeared pig’s blood across his skin. He writhed. The stink of iron cut the smell of alcohol. Still I was unconsumed. I worked at him more intensely with my nails. I pushed deeper. I ground into his scalp, pinched down his arms. His legs trembled. I felt no relief. I knew I’d have to do more, so I retrieved a thick sewing needle. I began pricking him over and over rhythmically, moving around the outside edges of his torso. Finally, a perfect blankness spread over me. I pricked him harder, watched glass beads of blood appear. His feet moved involuntarily at odd angles. A pattern emerged on his torso—something coiled and alive. My blankness ascended. I moved back up his body toward his throat, which twitched every so often. I chose an even thicker needle, tested it against the tip of my finger, pushing until tension turned to blood.
As I was about to resume, the slow daughter appeared across the table. Her eyes lined up over mine like rifle sights. Her face became a flickering screen, the pixels caught between channels. As they shifted, I saw the girl who Jenny trailed behind. Her mouth worked against the air. Stop, she said. Stop, she said. Stop.
Then she began to scream.
I closed my eyes. I breathed deeply. I didn’t stop.
Darci Schummer is the author of Six Months in the Midwest (Unsolicited Press), The Ballad of Two Sisters (Unsolicited Press), and The Book of Orion (Bottlecap Press). Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Ninth Letter, Folio, Jet Fuel Review, MAYDAY, Matchbook, Necessary Fiction, Sundog Lit, and Pithead Chapel, among many other places. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Colorado State University Pueblo. Connect with her on Twitter and Instagram @darcischummer or at www.darcischummer.com.