Sharp by David Fitzpatrick

Author:David Fitzpatrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

“Why doesn’t anyone like me?” I screamed. I rose and wandered up a way and smeared some of the administration building walls with “FUCK, FUCK!” and “HELP, HELP!” Convinced that my left arm was made of rare fudge, I bit down and tasted something edible, sticky and thick. I tried to tear wounds open with my teeth—but they wouldn’t rip. The dance of laughter and shrieks became desperate, and I looked up for God, for anyone. I started howling, crying. I sobbed. I felt my way along a wall and then a sidewalk led me to an empty administration building, where I banged on the window. When no one answered, I stumbled on until I found an empty security Jeep at the gym and tried to blow the horn. But even when I slammed my fist against that thing, it wouldn’t sound!

“Luck of the fucking Irish,” I whispered and slashed myself again with a downward cut through my chest and left wrist. Blood spouted, and I hummed the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies: “And up through the ground came a bumbling crude / Oil that is . . . Texas tea.” I felt dizzy, nauseous. I heard voices shouting, and I turned a corner near the chapel and suddenly, came into brilliant electric light. That’s when I saw my parents and my friend Tony. After I’d been missing for hours, the Institute called them to come and help search for me throughout Hartford. Now I saw them step out of a gray Isuzu Trooper in the front parking lot. They rushed over. I crumpled to the ground and started cursing and pounding my fist on the gravel. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! I was yelling, weeping, my mother reached me first and whispered, “JesusMaryJoseph, oh Jesus, baby!” Soon my father had blood on his shirt as he wiped the cuts on my head. Sirens erupted. He cursed at the swarming nurses as they ran from nearby units to assist.

“Eight months! He’s been here eight fucking months and this is what we get?” he asked in a voice that was pained and hoarse.

Then I crumbled and collapsed like an infant, and a responsible paramedic inserted a needle into my groin.

I was rushed to a trauma room at Hartford Hospital. I lay there naked save for a washcloth covering my genitals, as they stapled, sutured, and glued me back together. For forty-five minutes it was silent save for the sounds of snipping, cleaning, and breathing. A new nurse entered the room eventually and said, “Did this guy cut his thing off?”

The washcloth was removed and she said, “Oh, man—thank God!”

Then, for each person who entered the room, they asked if my penis was severed and then removed the washcloth. Eventually an older-sounding doctor said, “Can we have some dignity for the patient, please? The genitals were left alone—let’s leave it at that.”

Then everyone was silent, and I felt stitches being tied, staples inserted. Before long, they placed me in a wheelchair, and my parents rushed in and kissed me, their shirts stained with my dried blood.

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