John Fell.
I don't want to write about smoking. I don't need that to be the focus of my freakin' blog. What I want to write about is how shitty the last couple of weeks have been. How horribly angry I am at certain people, but it's not a normal anger, it's a sad anger. It's that kind of anger when you've just realized that you're alone, and sometimes being alone is wonderful and othertimes being alone sucks. This is one of those times.
I work too much.
I study too much.
I don't get enough sex.
And I sure as fuck don't get enough love.
I decided today that in a past life I was not a very nice person. I am being punished.
What I want to write about is this:
John Abrahams.
His empty ghost eyes followed me last night.
I was in the steam room, eucalyptus and lavender and sometimes-suffocating steam, purifying, cleansing, de-hy-dra-tion. This is the steam room that I always go to after I swim laps. I go to make sense of my thoughts. I go to breathe deeply again. I was talking with a Vietnamese guy, a man who could curl his toes like a monkey, a man who spread his legs too wide -- unAmerican wide -- a man who was wearing Army fatigue pants, cut-off at the legs. A man who asked me if I "come here often?" Well yes, I try, I respond. "Is it working?" he asks and I get angry because I realize that he is referring to my weight, something I cannot hide, especially sitting in my swimming suit in the steam room and I think about Vietnam, and think about all the people who are not fat in Vietnam. And I think about traveling in Cambodia and Thailand and realizing just how much space my body takes up in this world. And I realize that he was just being nice, and I wondered what refugee camp he stayed in years or months or another lifetime ago. And now, he was sitting in a steam room in St. Paul, MN with some fat girl, trying to show concern for her health and well being, or possibly grab ahold of her back fat and get a taste of fat, white American pussy, and I wondered how he became acclimated to American culture and I wondered if he sees ghost eyes of a past life.
But we were interupted by a scream -- the injured ape, a growl, a yearning so organic, so foul. screams of labor or after birth of the stentch of rape and Satan.
I imagined a seizure. I imagined a crowd of hyenias.
I imagined a fight, an argument from the old country, tribal conflicts.
I heard a scream, a yelp, a barbaric yawp. A piercing moan. A Drone.
I open the steamroom door and I saw his body lying on the side of the swimming pool. He wasn't moving. I got closer. He still wasn't moving. Two Mexican dudes were standing around. Three Somali refugees were watching attentively, their feet still dangling in the hottub, I imagine them flashing into memories of civil war and blood shed, but not me. I come from the crowd of people who only feel pain, they don't see the kind of pain connected to blood.
But that's what I saw: blood, crimson, forming a circle the size of the earth around his limp body. Blood mixing with chlorine and slowly dripping down into the thin slots on the side of the pool, designed to capture water overflow, not this man's blood. It's captures water, the water I swim in, but not tonight, tonight it was blood.
"Oh God! Is he conscious?" I asked one of the Mexican dudes.
"Yo no se," he replied. He was afraid, really afraid. They, like me, do not, did not, see blood in real life.
"Don't touch him," someone screamed at me from a distance. Fuck you I thought. I didn't listen. I rarely do. Oh God! His fucking head is cracked open and his brains, and his childhood memories are seaping out, chunks of blood covering the tiles.
"Sir?" I stared into his eyes, they were alone and hallow, twitching somewhere in a darkplace I needed an invitation to enter. "Can you hear me."
His entire body twitched. "Did someone call a fucking ambulance?" I screamed.
"Si, we did."
He kept twitching. What the fuck is happening. Broken spine. Keep him still. I think I saw this in a movie once. "Sir you need to stay down. You're ok." I put my hand on his back, to touch the would-be could-be soon dead and another gush of blood escaped from his wound on his head. I imagined his body as a large zit or boil, pressing one area of his body would force the fluids up and out.
He tried to get up, his motorskills were weak, he didn't have the ability or the strength to lift his own body. 20 minutes ago he was finishing a forty-five minute cardio workout, and now, he is laying by the side of the pool, next to some chunky girl in a swimming suit, who has a towel pressed to his head, trying to connect, to speak, to understand.
What the hell do I say? Of course I can't ask him if he's ok. He is NOT ok. He is surrounded by a pool of his own blood and empathetic spectators. "What's your name?"
He's pupil-less eyes still twitching,"S-ej-ean."
"Sean? or John?" I repeated my question and he grunted when I said John.
"Oh great. John Good. You're doing good. I need you to stay on the ground. The ambulance is on its way." He didn't listen. He remembered again, suddenly, that he was helpless, that he was confused, that he was not in control. He fought it. "No I need you to stay down." I forced more of my weight on his back, trying to avoid the blood that covered his body, the floor, my body.
A gym worker entered the pool area. "I don't know, should we clear out this area for the paramedics?"
"Yes."
"Can you get some information so I can fill out this incident report?"
Are you fucking kidding me? "No, I know his name is John that is it," I can't be angry. She was 18. She was working a minimum wage job, she doesn't know what to do. Maybe she doesn't come from the blood-kind-of world either.
"Do you have a locker?" I asked John, thinking we could unlock it, and find all the information the we needed. He wore a silver ring on his left hand. Marriage. Someone will wonder why he's taking so long at the gym. Someone will think that he is having an affair. Someone, a man or woman, I know not, but someone will miss his warm body in their bed tonight. I don't have that person. No one would know if I had been the one who cracked open her skull at the gym the night before Thanksgiving. No one. The person closest to playing this role in my life told me that he wanted me out. He didn't want me to ask questions or worry or love.
"Nevermind. John do you know where you are?"
"Noh," he forced out. He struggled again, lost in the idea of being lost, fighting to find a bearing, something to hold him, to explain to him where the hell he was and how the hell he got there. Another gym worker came to us, carrying two sets of blue rubber gloves. I looked at my hands, already covered in John's blood. I attempted to slide the gloves over my bloody fingers, thinking of AIDs and disease and fuck. His blood was all over the right side of my body as I held him down, my knees, still kneeling on the tile were swimming in scarlet.
"Do you know what day it is?" I asked him.
"Ahhgh Wen-es-dah."
"Yea, that's right John, you're going to be fine. The ambulance will be here any minute. John what's your last name?"
"Abbraamshs."
"Good. Now just breathe," I told him as I tried to take my own advice. I'm tried to breathe to understand how decisions were made, how structures were built, how we all needed someone who was willing to hold the towel to our head when we fell, lost our balance, took a poor step.
The paramedics arrived. I stood up immediately. "What happened?" A man asked me as I stood.
"I--aumm-- His name is John Abrahams. He is from St. Paul."
"Did he fall?"
"I guess so. I was in the steam room. I was just... helping." I pointed to the guys in the hot tub, the refugees who didn't want to witness that kind of blood, again. ever. They didn't want fingers pointed at them. But I did. "I think they saw it all."
And I ran, carefully, stepped methodically, purposefully across the tile, into the locker room. I walked directly to the showers. I'm used to turning the water to the perfect temperature 1 and 3/4 turn to the left -- but not that time. The water pierced my skin, burning away at the stranger's blood that was slowly rolling off my knees, my chest, my mind. I faced the shower head and stuffed my face under the spout to help muffle the tears and sobbing, burning the image of blood and ghost pupils and falling.
I work too much.
I study too much.
I don't get enough sex.
And I sure as fuck don't get enough love.
I decided today that in a past life I was not a very nice person. I am being punished.
What I want to write about is this:
John Abrahams.
His empty ghost eyes followed me last night.
I was in the steam room, eucalyptus and lavender and sometimes-suffocating steam, purifying, cleansing, de-hy-dra-tion. This is the steam room that I always go to after I swim laps. I go to make sense of my thoughts. I go to breathe deeply again. I was talking with a Vietnamese guy, a man who could curl his toes like a monkey, a man who spread his legs too wide -- unAmerican wide -- a man who was wearing Army fatigue pants, cut-off at the legs. A man who asked me if I "come here often?" Well yes, I try, I respond. "Is it working?" he asks and I get angry because I realize that he is referring to my weight, something I cannot hide, especially sitting in my swimming suit in the steam room and I think about Vietnam, and think about all the people who are not fat in Vietnam. And I think about traveling in Cambodia and Thailand and realizing just how much space my body takes up in this world. And I realize that he was just being nice, and I wondered what refugee camp he stayed in years or months or another lifetime ago. And now, he was sitting in a steam room in St. Paul, MN with some fat girl, trying to show concern for her health and well being, or possibly grab ahold of her back fat and get a taste of fat, white American pussy, and I wondered how he became acclimated to American culture and I wondered if he sees ghost eyes of a past life.
But we were interupted by a scream -- the injured ape, a growl, a yearning so organic, so foul. screams of labor or after birth of the stentch of rape and Satan.
I imagined a seizure. I imagined a crowd of hyenias.
I imagined a fight, an argument from the old country, tribal conflicts.
I heard a scream, a yelp, a barbaric yawp. A piercing moan. A Drone.
I open the steamroom door and I saw his body lying on the side of the swimming pool. He wasn't moving. I got closer. He still wasn't moving. Two Mexican dudes were standing around. Three Somali refugees were watching attentively, their feet still dangling in the hottub, I imagine them flashing into memories of civil war and blood shed, but not me. I come from the crowd of people who only feel pain, they don't see the kind of pain connected to blood.
But that's what I saw: blood, crimson, forming a circle the size of the earth around his limp body. Blood mixing with chlorine and slowly dripping down into the thin slots on the side of the pool, designed to capture water overflow, not this man's blood. It's captures water, the water I swim in, but not tonight, tonight it was blood.
"Oh God! Is he conscious?" I asked one of the Mexican dudes.
"Yo no se," he replied. He was afraid, really afraid. They, like me, do not, did not, see blood in real life.
"Don't touch him," someone screamed at me from a distance. Fuck you I thought. I didn't listen. I rarely do. Oh God! His fucking head is cracked open and his brains, and his childhood memories are seaping out, chunks of blood covering the tiles.
"Sir?" I stared into his eyes, they were alone and hallow, twitching somewhere in a darkplace I needed an invitation to enter. "Can you hear me."
His entire body twitched. "Did someone call a fucking ambulance?" I screamed.
"Si, we did."
He kept twitching. What the fuck is happening. Broken spine. Keep him still. I think I saw this in a movie once. "Sir you need to stay down. You're ok." I put my hand on his back, to touch the would-be could-be soon dead and another gush of blood escaped from his wound on his head. I imagined his body as a large zit or boil, pressing one area of his body would force the fluids up and out.
He tried to get up, his motorskills were weak, he didn't have the ability or the strength to lift his own body. 20 minutes ago he was finishing a forty-five minute cardio workout, and now, he is laying by the side of the pool, next to some chunky girl in a swimming suit, who has a towel pressed to his head, trying to connect, to speak, to understand.
What the hell do I say? Of course I can't ask him if he's ok. He is NOT ok. He is surrounded by a pool of his own blood and empathetic spectators. "What's your name?"
He's pupil-less eyes still twitching,"S-ej-ean."
"Sean? or John?" I repeated my question and he grunted when I said John.
"Oh great. John Good. You're doing good. I need you to stay on the ground. The ambulance is on its way." He didn't listen. He remembered again, suddenly, that he was helpless, that he was confused, that he was not in control. He fought it. "No I need you to stay down." I forced more of my weight on his back, trying to avoid the blood that covered his body, the floor, my body.
A gym worker entered the pool area. "I don't know, should we clear out this area for the paramedics?"
"Yes."
"Can you get some information so I can fill out this incident report?"
Are you fucking kidding me? "No, I know his name is John that is it," I can't be angry. She was 18. She was working a minimum wage job, she doesn't know what to do. Maybe she doesn't come from the blood-kind-of world either.
"Do you have a locker?" I asked John, thinking we could unlock it, and find all the information the we needed. He wore a silver ring on his left hand. Marriage. Someone will wonder why he's taking so long at the gym. Someone will think that he is having an affair. Someone, a man or woman, I know not, but someone will miss his warm body in their bed tonight. I don't have that person. No one would know if I had been the one who cracked open her skull at the gym the night before Thanksgiving. No one. The person closest to playing this role in my life told me that he wanted me out. He didn't want me to ask questions or worry or love.
"Nevermind. John do you know where you are?"
"Noh," he forced out. He struggled again, lost in the idea of being lost, fighting to find a bearing, something to hold him, to explain to him where the hell he was and how the hell he got there. Another gym worker came to us, carrying two sets of blue rubber gloves. I looked at my hands, already covered in John's blood. I attempted to slide the gloves over my bloody fingers, thinking of AIDs and disease and fuck. His blood was all over the right side of my body as I held him down, my knees, still kneeling on the tile were swimming in scarlet.
"Do you know what day it is?" I asked him.
"Ahhgh Wen-es-dah."
"Yea, that's right John, you're going to be fine. The ambulance will be here any minute. John what's your last name?"
"Abbraamshs."
"Good. Now just breathe," I told him as I tried to take my own advice. I'm tried to breathe to understand how decisions were made, how structures were built, how we all needed someone who was willing to hold the towel to our head when we fell, lost our balance, took a poor step.
The paramedics arrived. I stood up immediately. "What happened?" A man asked me as I stood.
"I--aumm-- His name is John Abrahams. He is from St. Paul."
"Did he fall?"
"I guess so. I was in the steam room. I was just... helping." I pointed to the guys in the hot tub, the refugees who didn't want to witness that kind of blood, again. ever. They didn't want fingers pointed at them. But I did. "I think they saw it all."
And I ran, carefully, stepped methodically, purposefully across the tile, into the locker room. I walked directly to the showers. I'm used to turning the water to the perfect temperature 1 and 3/4 turn to the left -- but not that time. The water pierced my skin, burning away at the stranger's blood that was slowly rolling off my knees, my chest, my mind. I faced the shower head and stuffed my face under the spout to help muffle the tears and sobbing, burning the image of blood and ghost pupils and falling.
posted by Annette Schiebout at
7:57 PM
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