The Totem Hole by Paul Shannon

Author:Paul Shannon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742287874
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2011-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

8

‘We’re going to graft, Jesse, that’s the only way it can mend.’

They stood together at the end of the bed armed with each other in their allegiance. Staples and Josie. She’d turned on him.

‘Graft?’ he asked.

‘Yes genius, we’re going to take some skin from your inner thigh and graft, sort of like iron it on to where that wound of yours is,’ answered Dr Brian Staples.

Jesse stared at him as though he tried to comprehend but drew a blank.

‘We’re getting in a guy from Auckland to do the operation. He’s going to skill me up at the same time, makes your little stay here not a bad effort at all.’

Jesse stared harder. Now he must be taking the piss.

‘So tomorrow morning we’ll take you into theatre at eight. You will be under general anaesthetic so it will be quite painless for you. You won’t feel a thing,’ smiled Staples.

‘Wait a second doctor, there’s something I don’t quite get,’ said Jesse, leaning forward with his now customary tilt to the left. ‘What is going to replace that skin on my leg?’

‘Oh that will grow back. You’ve no worries there.’

Jesse looked at Staples and then Josie, seeking some solace in her eyes. She calmly stood there, arms crossed like nothing in the last week had happened. He’d felt it, he knew it. Perhaps it was that she was so different. But she still had a pussy like Abby, and even though he idolised the pussy of Abby’s, he’d never made it there anyway. He had a much better chance with Josie. She’s already told him, hadn’t she? That he could visit her when he got out and she didn’t have to nurse him any more.

But then he’d gone and fucked it up, scared her. He’d told her that she had made the rest of his life possible. She freaked. She didn’t want that, he’d discovered and she went all cold on him, a situation he’d borne the last two days.

It was subtle torture of a kind not even he would be capable of. She came on all brusque and official. When she changed the bandage, where the night before she’d played coy and interested in his plans, the next day she hardly spoke and Jesse tried to put his hand on her arse but she pushed his arm down and stung him right through, like the bloody capillaries had ripped deep in the wound.

She didn’t speak. When she did, it was only in response to questions, as a detached parent or a fed-up teacher might behave.

He tried to mitigate the damage, but she wouldn’t have a bar of it. She became lost to him, as he saw her now. Diffident and matronly. It didn’t suit her.

‘Thing is though, Jesse,’ said Staples leaning in on the iron rail at the end of the bed. ‘It’s going to cost us $5000 to bring Dr Fogarty down to perform this delicate piece of work.’

‘Well isn’t that what hospitals are for?’ asked Jesse. He was tiring

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