Vein Fire (14 page)

CHAPTER  20

Highlights

The amount of pills Hannah needed to swallow to make the trip to the women’s health center bearable was lethal. She knew this, so she only took a few. A normal examination was hard enough without a rape confession, being tested for sexually transmitted diseases, and the inevitable questions about her scars.

The receptionist handed her a clipboard with forms to fill out while she copied her insurance cards. The basic information was easy, but as she flip
ped each page, the questions became harder:

Previous Surgeries:
Multiple/ orthopedic/ both legs

Current Medications:
Percocet 10mg 1T TID; Zoloft 100mg 1T BID; Xanax 2mg QID

Are you sexually active?
Yes

Number of Pregnancies:
0

Number of Sexual Partners in Past Year:
(left blank)

Have you engaged in oral sex?
Yes (duh)

Have you engaged in anal sex?
(left blank)

Have you ever been raped? (left blank)

Are you a victim of domestic violence?
No

Current Method of Birth Control:
None (Does hope count?)

Reason for visit:
(left blank) (Fuck! Who writes these questions?)

Hannah took the clipboard up to the receptionist and pushed it through the short glass opening. As soon as it was taken from her, she sat down. A few minutes later, the receptionist called her to come back up. With a blue pen she tapped the form Hannah had filled out.

“You didn’t answer
all
of the questions. You have to
complete
the form.” The woman took a highlighter and stroked it across the blank questions before handing it to Hannah.

Great. Not only did I want to avoid some of these questions, but now they’re freakin’ highlighted.

Hannah answered the questions and returned the clipboard. Festering anxiety punched the inside of her stomach, and she considered leaving before they called her name, but she didn’t. Her feet danced over the carpet as her heart ran up-scales with its own beat until she was summoned by a young nurse dressed in pink scrubs.

“Hi, Hannah. C’mon back.” The well practiced, welcoming smile was billboarded across her face as she held the door open. “Follow me into the second room on the right and we’ll get your weight and blood pressure.”

Getting her blood pressure taken was something which always led to problems. Nurses liked to roll sleeves up and the old scars, as well as the fresh, raised, red ones, always brought questions. This nurse didn’t push Hannah’s sleeve up, but she did try to turn her arm palm-up and Hannah’s sleeve had slid up near the wrist, exposing horizontal and vertical embarrassments. The nurse kept trying to twist her arm, but Hannah resisted until finally the nurse left her arm as it was and finished taking her blood pressure.

“It’s a bit high. Are you nervous?”

“Yes.”

“Is this your first time? I was nervous my first time too.”

“Yes.” It was all the answer Hannah could mutter.

“You’ll be fine. We all have to go through it.” The nurse smiled and handed her a cup. “We need a urine sample. We give all of our patients pregnancy tests. The bathroom’s the next door up. Leave the sample in the recessed cabinet and I’ll be able to get it.”

Hannah faked a smile and went into the bathroom. The walls were covered with posters encouraging women to get help for domestic violence and to report child abuse. It was an additional dose of education which she didn’t want as she hovered over the toilet with her cup held between her legs. The urine splashed, leaving wet dots on the label.
Classy, Hannah.

She placed the cup in the recessed area and washed her hands. There wasn’t enough soap or running water to wash her anxiety away. She turned the cold water on and held her hands under it until they were painfully icy. In and out she breathed, trying to calm herself down. Again, she contemplated leaving, but she’d have to walk past the nurse and she was sure it would lead to questions.

When Hannah returned to the room, the nurse was waiting with her file. “All set?” She smiled an enormous, toothy smile. Hannah wondered if she peeked at her file, but she just nodded. “Great, follow me.” The nurse led her down the hallway to an examination room. She stuffed the file into a holder on the door and breezed in, quickly taking out a gown and another item. “Okay, I need you to take everything off, including your bra and panties; put the gown on with the ties in the back, and sit on the examination table. You can use this to cover yourself.” She handed the other item to Hannah, which was a blanket-sized paper towel. “I’ll leave you alone so you can get undressed and the doctor will be in shortly.” She produced another obnoxiously happy smile, but this time Hannah could see her gums as well. It was a bit disgusting, but Hannah smiled back.

The nurse left and Hannah took inventory of what she’d have to hide as she undressed. There were scars on her thighs, her arms and her stomach. They were blades of grass compared to the tree-like scars from her leg surgeries.
It will have to do.
She
will have to do.

Waiting naked, wearing a too-small gown, and being covered in a large napkin was humiliating. Hannah alternated between shivering and worrying about the sweat accumulating in her crevices.

The doctor knocked and opened the door without waiting for a response. She was engrossed in reading Hannah’s chart. As she stepped closer, Hannah could see she was looking at the page where the secretary liberally stroked the questions with yellow highlighter. She was a short woman with a blonde pixie cut and masculine shoes. She shook Hannah’s hand briefly, “Hi, Hannah, I’m Dr. Malvern.”

“Hi.” Hannah inhaled, but did not exhale.

The doctor sat on a stool and wheeled in closer to her. “So this is your first examination?”

Hannah responded quietly, “Yes.”

“Well, don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt and before I do anything, I’ll explain it to you.” The doctor plunged her face back into the file. “What do you take the Percocet for?”

“Um…I’ve had a lot of surgeries on my legs and they hurt from time to time.” Hannah began pinching her fingers into one another as a way to stop from crying nervous tears.

“And why did you have the surgeries? Were you in an accident or something?”

Hannah swallowed. “Yes, I had an accident.”

The doctor was losing patience. “What kind of accident? A car accident? Did you fall?”

Hannah pinched her fingers harder. “Someone smashed my legs with a cinder block when I was thirteen.”

The doctor looked at her with disbelief. “Someone smashed your legs with a cinder block? Who did that?”

“A boy who lived on my street.” The doctor’s look of surprise wasn’t unfamiliar—it was the same look she’d been given before by many different people in her life.

The doctor glanced at the file again. “And you’ve been raped recently? This past weekend?”

“Yes.”

“Were you seen at the hospital?”

“No.”

“Did you file a police report?”

“No.”

The doctor exhaled. “I’d like to use a rape kit on you. It’s not much more than a normal exam.

Hannah paled and bit her lip as she pinched harder. “No police.”

“It’s just taking a few samples, and we’d be taking most of them anyway for your standard exam. It doesn’t mean you have to file a police report or anything; we take samples, and pictures if necessary. Will that be okay with you?”

“Okay.”

“Alright then. I’ll get a nurse to assist me while I do your examination.” The doctor stood up, stuck her head out of the door, and spoke, “Patty, can you come here for an assist?”

The
gummy smiling nurse re-entered the room, but she was no longer smiling. Hannah didn’t appreciate an additional witness to her humiliation, nor the extra pair of eyes scanning her scars and cuts. She didn’t say no; she just cooperated with whatever the doctor did.

Dr. Malvern explained everything before
she did it—the hand inside of her, the lubricant, the pressure, the cold metal speculum ratcheting her open, and all of the swabbing. She asked questions and marked down the answers as she went. The pictures were the worst—the thought of an image of her with her legs spread open mortified her. Hannah wondered what there was to photograph. She flinched with each snap of the camera.

When it was done, Hannah took her legs out of the stirrups and lay flat as the doctor unpeeled the napkin and gown to give her a breast exam. Her eyes darted across the cuts on Hannah’s stomach, and then flashed to her arm, as the scars she had seen on her thighs must have suddenly made sense. Hannah concentrated on the divots in the ceiling tiles. She considered slowing her breathing down, but didn’t want to do anything obvious. She could feel the lubricant melting out of her, onto the examination table. The fluorescent lights were yellow, running in sunny tubes above her. If she floated above the table and rose to the ceiling, she could press against the lights. She imagined them burning her skin. These were the things she tried to concentrate on.

The doctor finished the breast exam and helped Hannah to cover herself.

“We’ll give you a few minutes to get dressed and then we can talk in my office about the exam.” Dr. Malvern was business-like as she excused herself and frowning-Patty.

These were the times when Hannah most regretted cutting herself—as long as it was a secret, she appreciated the dive into her bloody serenity, but when others found out, she was angry. She dressed and exited the room. Nurse Patty directed her to Dr. Malvern’s office, who sat at a large desk, waiting for her.

Once they were alone, the doctor spoke. “We’re testing for all STD’s as well as checking for the presence of semen and hair. It will take a few days to get the results back. You can call the office on Friday and see if they have come in yet. Here’s a pamphlet explaining everything we’re testing for.” Dr. Malvern handed Hannah a yellow pamphlet and a white pamphlet. “You have bruising on your thighs and some slight tearing at your rectum. This is what I took pictures of. The tears don’t need stitches, but you should watch for any signs of infection—redness, swelling or if the area starts to feel hot. I’ll give you a pamphlet on that as well.”

The doctor dug in her desk as Hannah arched an eyebrow—
monitor a red, swollen, warm spot for redness, swelling, and heat?
She almost rolled her eyes. The doctor handed her another pamphlet.

“We have tested you for pregnancy—it was negative, but if you miss your next period, you should come in and be retested. We’ll need some blood work from you, and we can draw it here…if you’d like?” Dr. Malvern locked eyes with Hannah.

“Sure, here is fine.”

“Now, what about birth control?”

Hannah shrugged.

“Are you interested in it?”

“I—I thought about getting on the pill.”

“Okay, I can write you a prescription for that as well.” Dr. Malvern started scribbling on a prescription pad. “Now, about your cuts…”

Hannah could almost feel her spine flinch. She stared at the carpet—variegated strands of green and tan in no particular pattern.

“Do you see a counselor or a psychiatrist?”

Hannah started counting the carpet loops. She shook her head.

“I see you take an anti-depressant and medication for anxiety. Who prescribes them for you? Your family doctor?”

Hannah continued to count the carpet loops, but nodded her head.

“Hannah, after all you’ve been through, I’d like to suggest you see a counselor. We have one in-house here who specializes in working with rape victims. Her name is Iris. Would you like to set up an appointment to speak with her? She’s in her office on Thursdays.”

Hannah nodded again.

Hannah took the papers and followed the doctor to the room where she was to get her blood drawn. Dr. Malvern patted her arm and said, “Good luck,” before scurrying away.

The blood work was quick, and the nurse was content to use Hannah’s left arm instead of her butchered right arm. Hannah scheduled her appointment to see Iris, paid her co-pay, and left with eager steps. Once in her car, she started crying and shaking, swallowing two pain killers for the ride home.

CHAPTER  21

Lunch

Matt did the shit labor at his job. He carried the shingles up to the roof, loaded and unloaded the tools, and if something needed dug, he was the one to do it. He liked the crew he worked with, and most of them were his customers as well. Bob treated him like a younger brother, and gave him rides to work most days, so it was convenient.

Matt never bothered to wash the dirt off of his hands before he ate lunch. He sat on a bucket of joint compound and unwrapped his sandwich, leaving black fingerprints on the white bread. His soda was warm, but it was another thing he didn’t care about. One by one, he popped cheese crackers into his mouth and thought about Hannah—the
real
Hannah. He missed her. Despite all she’d lived through, despite all of the angry cuts on her skin, she helped him. If he could bottle her essence, he’d drink it. It would be swirled with dysfunction, but it would only make it easier for him to digest. He simply thirsted for her.

Hannah number two stopped by the work site with a hot lunch for him. She stood before him, offering it to him like some sort of Stepford wife with a plastic smile and vacant eyes.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”

“I brought you lunch.” She smiled.

“Lunch is over, princess.”

She walked over to the garbage dumpster and tossed the food in.

“Hey!” Bob yelled, “I would have eaten that.”

She ignored him and stood in front of Matt again, smoothing down her skirt. “How about dessert?”

Matt chewed his last cheese cracker and took a drink of his soda. He didn’t answer her; he stood up and pulled her between the two work trucks.

“You wanna fuck? I didn’t wear panties,” she said, lifting her little pink skirt up a few inches.

“Nah, I’m tired, just suck me off.”

She hesitated before getting on her knees, and even more so when she saw how sweaty he was. Matt’s face was partially shaded from the sun. A shadow from one of the trucks cast a rectangle over his left eye while the right side of his face reflected the high noon sun. He closed both eyes and lost himself in memories, like flickering through pages in a magazine—colorful pictures and stark typesetter articles about the night skies he had slept under and the shooting stars that arched over him. Something kept startling him—pictures were out of place—a girl with bloody legs and eviscerated kneecaps.

Matt pushed Hannah number two off of him and returned to the joint compound bucket next to Bob.

Bob laughed. “I only saw one head sticking up over the bed of the pickup, so I figure someone needs to brush their teeth, huh?”

Matt didn’t answer. He stared ahead, waiting for Hannah to leave. She did so without even approaching him, and he knew why—animals can smell fear and she sensed she had made a momentary slip down the food chain to ‘prey’ instead of equal. He
could
hurt her, and he wanted to. He
chose
not to.

Some things never left Matt. As he returned to the ditch he was sketching into the soil, he abandoned the shovel for a pick axe, and drove the end into the earth with his thoughts.

Four different men had raised children with his mother, so it made no difference to her which one was around. When Matt was six, she settled in with the one who raised him until he was arrested—Vince.

Vince had a minion which helped him raise the children—a three-foot piece of a broken shovel handle with the words “Board of Education” scrawled on it with permanent black marker. The Board of Education’s wood grain was imbedded with Matt’s genetic code via blood, skin, hair, and body pulp matter.

There were scratches rutted into the painted walls of the hallway. Vince would run his stick along the wall as he made his way back to Matt’s bedroom. The first bump-slide was the stick sliding across the bathroom door. The second bump-slide was the laundry room door. Next was a long slide to Matt’s room. It would stop at his door before Vince’s boot found the familiar spot on the bottom right hand corner to kick.

Matt knew not to fight it. Fighting meant extra swings, kicks, broken ribs, black eyes, and bloody knots on his skull. Whatever was wrong with Vince, The Board of Education tried to exercise out of Matt. There were other tortures. Talking back meant digesting a bar of soap and subsequent days of vomiting. A missed curfew equaled two days of no food.

Soap-induced vomiting spells and weeks of welted faces were days off of school for Matt to avoid questions. Whenever the school counselor did asked questions, he lied. When Children and Youth Services came, he lied to them, too. He knew none of the people would rescue him from Vince, so he made the best of it by lying to them. He hated them anyway—the concerned outsiders who had all of the evidence but never acted. Even with a silent witness, they had to know. Matt was a product of an abusive home and a system which failed him.

Vince thought of alternative punishments that didn’t leave evidence. Once Matt forgot to shovel the dog shit out of the back yard and Vince produced two slices of white bread with week old dog shit between them. Matt was forced to eat the dog shit sandwich. The second bite made him vomit on the kitchen table. He was told he would have to eat that too, but his vomiting became so violent, Vince gave up on the ill-planned torture. Matt was pushed out the back door, into the yard, where he finished his puking into the grass, bent in half, while he learned from The Board of Education anyway. It was one of the lowest moments of his life, and he looked across the street and saw Hannah standing at the edge of her yard, watching dumbly with her blossom mouth perched into an ‘o’ shape. She ran inside after she had witnessed enough of his humiliation.

Matt shit psychologists and ran Everglade circles around counselors. He was the danger lurking in the tall grasses, and they knew it. They couldn’t break what needed to be fixed and they couldn’t fix what was broken. He lived on an infinitely looping drive belt of abuse and consequences. If he hadn’t been so intelligent, he would have spent his life being examined. The system wasn’t equipped to handle a “probably”. Matt would never be caught again. With this satisfaction, he left the work site without a word and walked towards the nearest bus stop.

Thirteen stops until the bus deposited Matt in Prospect. Three blocks to Marcus’s cousin’s house. Two knocks until they let him in. Each person who fought Matt had a line they wouldn’t cross. Matt’s lines were non-existent. There were only two of them, including Marcus, and no one pulled a gun. If Matt’s gun was with him, he would have shot them clean and quick. He won the fight because he tried to kill them with his hands and he failed. Rage gave him the advantage.

His knuckles were split and his left eye swelled shut. He was glad he didn’t have a broken nose because the blood would have been hard to hide as he walked home. He held his ribs—several knees had met with his right side during the fight. It made breathing difficult. A few miles down the hill, he stopped and sat on a curb. Across the street was a pay phone. Even though it was the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, he called City Hall and asked to speak to Hannah.

*

Hannah left work and drove to meet Matt. She pulled up by the sidewalk near the pay phone from which he had called her.

“What happened to you?”

“Fuck, Hannah. I got into a fight. What does it look like?” Matt did not have patience for her questions; he felt hot and was in pain.

“I’m sorry.” Matt thought she apologized too much. Hannah dug in her purse wi
th one hand while she drove and emerged with a pill bottle in her hand. “Take these.”

“What are they?” Matt reached for the bottle with one hand while the other arm was still wrapped around his waist, holding his ribs.

“Percocets. Do you want me to take you to the hospital?”

“Fuck, no. I’ll be fine.” Matt swallowed the pills without anything to drink, making a face as they disappeared. “I’ve looked worse than this before.”

“What happened? Weren’t you at work today?”

Matt’s head drooped back against the seat and he looked at Hannah with swelling eyes. “I was in Prospect.”

Hannah glanced at Matt, and then looked ahead. She drew the back of her wrist up against her mouth and grimaced as she fought back tears. She inhaled in steps, like a ratchet clicking. Her arm lowered and she sighed deeply. Matt realized Hannah did not know he knew about her rape.

They arrived at Matt’s house after a few minutes. Neither one spoke. Hannah stayed in the car as Matt went inside. From the small window at the top of his door, he watched as her head bobbed against the steering wheel—her sobs hysterical, but silent due to the distance between the
m
.