Fix by J. Mann (highly illogical behavior .TXT) 📕

right now.

Fear overwhelms me. And just as my sweaty hands slip from the bar, the PTs rush into the room and grab my arms, righting me.

Nineteen degrees? Who the hell cares.

I’m shouting. Or screeching. My voice needing to mimic the pain.

The PTs try to calm me down as they shove my arms back into my gown. I won’t be calmed. That wasn’t me. How could anyone live looking like this?

The old lady howls profanity while the PTs haul me past her toward my bed. I’m sobbing and hyperventilating at the same time. Every breath yanking mercilessly at my staples.

Martin, the nice nurse, is behind me. He has a needle in his hand. My needle.

When they roll me onto my bed, it feels like someone is ripping my spine right out through my neck. Martin sticks me even as I scream into his face.

I keep on screaming until the morphine turns my screams into hoarse moans, and then finally into nothing at all.

“Martin,” I gasp. “I didn’t pee.”

“Yes, you did, sweet baby.” He laughs. “I’m gonna go clean it up off the bathroom floor right now.”

“Martin,” I say, clutching him. My throat burns. Somehow, he knows, and he shovels in a spoonful of ice chips.

Holy Mother of God, that feels good.

God

The first time I

officially heard His name

was in school.

The Pledge of Allegiance.

Although I’d certainly

seen churches—for me

they were curious buildings with doors

I’d never walked through.

In this pledge,

which I was asked

to repeat each morning, we were

under Him.

I didn’t get it, so

I asked my mother.

“God doesn’t like women,”

she said.

In my mother’s defense,

I probably asked while

she was in the middle of grading undergraduate papers

or

composing feminist verse

and I’m sure she didn’t consider

for a second

I’d take her statement

and think about it

for as long as I did.

God didn’t like me much.

The weird thing was,

I felt Him

not liking me.

I was diagnosed with scoliosis at eight.

By twelve, my spine was twisting

into the squirrely shape

of a loopy S.

A band of muscles

was beginning to collect

on my back.

It wasn’t a hump

yet.

My shoulder blade

hadn’t protruded—

awkwardly stretching my skin tight

in one place

while folding it into elephant-like wrinkles

in another. My rib cage

didn’t scrape my hip. And

my life of being

photographed from behind,

faceless,

had not begun.

But it was coming.

It was all coming.

And I wanted it to stop.

One evening my mother caught me

in front of my bedroom mirror

standing in my underwear and

holding myself in such a way

that I might look

straight.

Ashamed,

I tried to explain.

“That imperfect reflection,”

she said, “is

all in your head.”

Was it?

This imperfection.

All in my head?

Of course

I thought about Lidia.

Was Lidia’s

missing hand

all in her head?

But Lidia was missing something.

That was real.

I wasn’t missing anything.

I had a spine.

Two facts Dr. Sowah

gave me when I was eight:

1. In most cases of scoliosis

there is no known cause,

and

2. In all cases,

there is no cure.

This second part brought me back to

God.

I prayed.

Lidia prayed,

too.

For my spine.

Not her hand.

Spines having

nothing to do

with hands,

back then.

By the time I turned thirteen,

I prayed only that He stop

the twisting.

Lidia prayed

harder.

And I thought,

Who wouldn’t listen

to Lidia?

I always listened

to Lidia.

He didn’t.

By fourteen, I was begging for a miracle.

Lidia begged, too.

For my spine and

for her hand.

Spines and hands being equal

when it came to miracles, and

breasts and hips beginning to make miracles

more necessary.

By fifteen Lidia said,

“God can

fuck himself.”

I couldn’t help feeling

fucked, too.

I once read that females are eight times more likely than

males to progress to a curve magnitude requiring treatment.

Maybe my mother was right.

The Telescope

THE FIRST THING I SEE WHEN I OPEN MY EYES IS THE STREETLIGHT shining through my bedroom window. The second is my mother. She’s holding a glass of water and saying something about running to the office for a couple of hours. She won’t be long.

The office?

She slides my phone closer to me on my bedside table while she talks about her staggering workload.

She’s going to work?

How it’s been piling up because of all the time she spent in the hospital.

She’s leaving me?

But it’s only my second night home. I’ll be alone. Though not totally alone. My mind drifts to the box under my bed. But then my mother picks up my orange bottle and my heart jumps along with the Roxanol tablets as she removes the cap and hands me a smooth pill.

So light.

Sticking it in my mouth, I sip from the straw my mother holds to my lips and swallow, already caring less about boxes or being alone. The chalky Roxy sticks in my throat for a second, making my eyes tear up. She lowers my shade—halfway, due to her hurry—and I watch her go through a weepy blur.

I listen to her bumping about, getting ready to leave.

The apartment door closes.

A few moments later there is the rumble of a car motor. The crunch of gears. And then her engine fading away.

How long did she say she’d be gone?

I glance over at my phone. It sits next to a bell my mother placed there yesterday so I can ring it if I need her. How many things do I need to call someone who isn’t there?

Reaching out, I pick up my phone, squinting at its bright blue light.

Hitting Messages, I stare at her picture and name sitting second from the top. It’s not at the top because Thomas Aquinas is at the top. Again.

I delete his text.

Again.

I should put my phone down, but my thumb hovers for just a second… and then I’m doing it. Typing her name.

Lidia.

And swooshing it out into the universe.

Staring at the screen, I’m not really waiting. I know what will happen. Nothing. Nothing will happen.

Nothing happens.

Not being able to stand the stillness of it, I press call and listen to it ring. Listen to the mailbox-is-full message.

I call again.

This time, the ringing seems to go on forever. When I hear the click of the robot voice as it comes back on to tell me what I already know, I snap the phone off, not wanting to hear its soullessness.

Instead,