Scars

My body reads like a battle map drawn by a crazed general, his syphilitic brain overheated, poor decisions costing life and limb. The scars represent decades of overconfidence, klutziness, and ill-fated attempts at glory. Olive skin, luckily, hides most evidence of physical mishap. If my body were plasticized and on display like the unfortunate Chinese “orphans” on exhibit worldwide under the guise of science, visitors could read the neatly printed “history” placards accompanying each visible ghostly, puckered scar and take them as cautionary tales.
Left eyebrow Disconnect: Slumber party, 8 years old, thunderstorm. Four girls ran amok upstairs, pillow-fighting with the lights off. Each lightning flash briefly lit up the entire scene. Like a group of partiers under a strobe at a rave, we would be briefly illuminated – laughing, wild-eyed, wearing Scooby Doo and David Cassidy pajamas. My sister had almost fallen down the stairs already, teetering with her weight half on one foot and saving herself by gripping the banister. Still, mom and dad, Spock devotees, slept through or simply disregarded the thuds and squeals. At one brilliant burst of lightning, I took a running leap at my bed. I was in the dark in midair, but had seen the bed and known where it was. I overshot the mattress, and landed forehead to headboard. The pillow fight continued while I staggered dizzily toward the head of the stairs. “It’s hot,” I thought. “I am sweating all over everything. Mom must turn on the air conditioner.” My Scooby Doo pajamas were sticking to my skin, in fact. I padded down the stairs and knocked on my parents’ bedroom door. Mom, groggy in a chiffon nightgown, opened the door, turned on the light, and screamed. “What happened?” I looked down, surprised to see that my pajamas were wet with blood, not sweat. This was my first of many experiences with “head bleed.” A ghostly scar from the slumber party leap punctuates my eyebrow, forming a zigzag design impossible to cover with a brow pencil. I imagine it makes me look surprised.
Metal Mouth: In 1979, I was sitting in the back seat of crazy Bill’s Mustang returning from a Van Halen concert in Springfield, Illinois. My best friend Tracey sat beside me in the back seat, and Kristen in front next to Bill. A summer rainstorm pounded the windshield. Crazy Bill, an older boy known for recklessness who always had a generous lip full of tobacco, seemed to want to impress us with the car’s ability to handle tight curves at high speeds under adverse conditions. Luckily, I hit my head so hard during the crash that I am spared anything but brief flashes of memory: Blood on my white shirt, a man carrying me to a truck, waking up in the hospital with my mouth sewn shut except for a small hole through which I could drink milkshakes. What Mengele of a dentist had invented metal braces, so brutal against the softness of children’s lips? My mother’s worried face at the hospital, a familiar sight by that time, was worse than the pain. One side of my mouth turns down, the other up, and I imagine that this makes me look undecided. The bright side – the monstrous braces were removed in pieces a full year early.
Cycling: One torrid afternoon with a monsoon storm on the way, I was cycling helmetless on Camelback Road in Phoenix. The mercury was pushing 115. It was one of those windless days when the heat radiates in undulating waves from the concrete, enclosing the cyclist in a close bubble and heightening the senses. Sweat ran down my spine in a steady little river. My handle grips felt especially spongy. Some events happen so quickly that in retrospect one realizes that animal instincts are all one has to rely on for protection. I felt the heat of a vehicle close behind, too close. It’s dragon breath almost singed the back of my legs. In my rearview mirror, I saw the huge grill of a vintage Thunderbird approaching which appeared to have no driver. These ghostly vehicles are more common in winter in Arizona, but sadly a few still remain during the summer. They belong to snowbirds shrunken with age driving on pure instinct. The seemingly disembodied knuckles gripping the oversized steering wheel belonged to one of these, a woman who had shrunk to the extent that she could no longer see must except for tree tops and sky. As the T-Bird bore down on my bike I thought about a recent news story about a confused old man who had plowed into a farmer’s market in California, killing nearly a dozen pedestrians. I veered over the curb at high speed. My racing tire, no more than a couple inches wide, spun off the concrete and sent the blue Fuji bike one way, my body another. I landed in front of an enormous plate glass window in front of the Bank of America building. I could see the shadows of employees inside rising slowly from their desks as I lifted my head from the pavement. I put a gloved hand to my temple. Another head bleed, I realized. Pressing my gloved palm to the wound, I stood up slowly, reeling from the heat and trauma. I looked for my bike. There it was, lying like a downed soldier under a little tree which must have cost a fortune to irrigate. Several Bank of America employees rushed out of the building. My bike was twisted, the front wheel still turning slowly. The back wheel was bent beyond repair. My shirt was streaked with splotches and wet streaks of blood. A high-pitched hum drowned the voices of the bankers and little silver sparkles danced in front of the scene.
At the time I had no health insurance and refused to pay for an ambulance. In fact, I carried my light racing bike home on my shoulder. The Bank of America folks had been appalled and concerned, but my house was only a few blocks away. Carrying my broken bike was difficult because I was wearing cycling shoes which made walking a clumsy business. I also kept my glove pressed to my temple as the head bleed continued to flow. On the way to the hospital with my roommate Bubba, we stopped at a red light. He had no air conditioning in his little Honda and the windows were all open. My face, neck, and upper body were sticky, covered in blood. My hair was matted with it. An old woman, who looked, I imagine, like the one behind the wheel of the Thunderbird, sat in her vintage car, staring at us in horror. Bubba turned to me, raised his right hand as if poised for a slap, and shouted “Shut up or I’ll hit you again!” His face, visible only to me, was smiling. Behind his head in the car beside us, I could see her horrified face, eyebrows lifted, mouth working in shock. “Oh my God!” she mouthed. I laughed so hard I spit a mouthful of 7up out the window. Bubba was good for moments like that.
Knees: 1999, Greece, the island of Naxos. My best friend Tracey and I had rented motorbikes so that we could explore the island thoroughly. The small mopeds had all been rented, so I wound up with a 70 hp 2-stroke dirt bike with more power than anyone would need on a sleepy Greek island. The learning curve for these bikes is steep, and I thought I had figured out when to power out of a tight turn. The brake and clutch were confusing…at some point near the marble mine where Michaelangelo had obtained the opaque white stone he had used to sculpt David, we took a wrong turn descending a steep hill. At the bottom was a cobblestone street and a group of stone houses, probably built for the miners. A tight turn. I hit the gas instead of the brake, sadly, and my shiny red and white motorbike shot out from under me. My knees took the brunt of this mishap. Back at the cycle shop later, I went to return the bike. It’s rearview mirror dangled uselessly and the handlebars wobbled. Both of my knees were wrapped. The proprietor, who held my passport, walked slowly around the bike as I smiled innocently. “You had a good time, didn’t you?” he asked facetiously. “I did.” He then did the most amazing thing; he handed me my passport and smiled back.