sparkledame

February

The air smelled clean, like Ivory soap. But then you felt the wind, a cold hard slap on your soft skin. Like a strike in the face from your lover that you didn’t see coming.

Dirty snow crunching. Discarded cans, bottles and garbage seemingly everywhere. Who still litters? It’s 2016, not the 1970’s. The snow is angry. It should be pristine and wedding-dress white. Instead it is brown and mucky, like an old forgotten river.

Crunch. A mitten propped up doll-like on a tree branch. One boot, laces un-done, lying in a bush like a body about to be discovered by the special victim’s unit. A hoodie left lonely and abandoned on a bench. Maybe this was an urban art exhibit by one of those media savvy types, soon to be featured in The New York Times.

The snow actually does make a crunching sound, it’s true. Crunch. Crunch. “Is your dog a lover or a fighter?” asks the man. His eyes are both watery and wild, his energy a mixture of deep sadness and frantic rage. “He’s a Lover” you say, trying to act casual, even though you want to take your elderly one eyed dog and run away across the street. “Good boy, good boy,” the man says as he lovingly strokes your dog. His watery eyes no longer wild, but soft, like pillows. He walks off and you and your elderly one eyed dog watch him go, both suddenly missing him. Why didn’t he stay longer?

Mister Lover stealthily slithers up to a large pizza crust and starts eating. You consider wrestling with him to try and retrieve the dirty pizza, but change your mind. He is old. Let him enjoy his garbage picking, it makes him feel like the King of the streets he once was.

Crunch, crunch. A couple walks by, two women holding hands. They look content. They look like they know that if one of them gets sick, the other will take care of her. A guy wearing grey skinny jeans and a low ponytail ambles along. He is carrying a granny style purse with giant knitting needles sticking out of it.

We finally arrive home. “Slowly baby, slowly” I say to Mister Lover. The front porch steps are slippery and his once powerful legs are now just little twigs. We make it up to the door and he lets out a soulful howl. A “damn that was a good walk girl!” kind of howl. February is really not so bad.

Manhattan

“Manhattan is over. No one wants to live there anymore. It’s all about Brooklyn now,” Stan declared. What a pretentious prick, thought Mark. He put his earbuds in, trying to zone out with music while kicking salt off his boots. Damn weather, he mumbled to himself. He thought about his day and the Epic Fail it had been. His boss had reamed him in front of the whole team. Then at lunch his usual sandwich guy had been out of pastrami, so he’d had to get a chicken wrap. A freakin chicken wrap. He hated wraps. Only pussies ate wraps.

“Brooklyn is where all the artists live, the techies, the movers and shakers. Manhattan is just the old guard now. It’s over,” Stan droned on. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Mark thought. What had he ever done in his life to deserve sitting next to Stan Kolonsky every night on the subway? God had a twisted sense of humor. He closed his eyes and thought about his mom’s meatloaf that he’d be eating soon. She served it with a spicy red sauce. It was a Saracino secret family recipe. He loved his mom. His mom rocked. He saw Stan’s mouth moving but he couldn’t hear him. The Guess Who flooded his eardrums. Searching his left pocket he found a PAM and popped it in his mouth like a tic-tac. He thought about texting Sally to see if she wanted to hook up this weekend. She was kind of dim, but she was hot. His mom was on his case about asking out Carla Rota, the young widow down the street. Carla was good-looking, but there was no way he was dating a widow. With a widow you’re never their #1 man. Their #1 man is always their dead husband. Of that Mark was sure. He started to PAM-out and it felt good. He felt the sharp edges starting to melt away like he was a piece of plywood that had just been sanded down. He smiled at Stan. Three more stops and he’d be home.

Beauty Prep

It was six thirty AM, time for Sharon to start getting ready. She liked to look good for her surgical oncologist’s morning visits. She asked her nurse for a bowl of water and washcloth. Later in the day she would get a proper bath, well, as proper as you could get while lying in bed. But for now she just wanted to wash away last night’s grime. She washed her face, neck and armpits. She followed up with a moisturizing wipe, the kind used to take makeup off, it left her face with an attractive glow she thought. Then she brushed her teeth, using a styrofoam cup as her sink. As soon as she finished, a strong wave of nausea overcame her. Fuckety fuck fuck she muttered. She rode the wave for a few minutes – “nausea surfing” she called it – then thankfully it passed.

She propped up her travel mirror on the table next to her hospital bed. Looking in the mirror her first instinct was always to burst into tears. Her face was pale and scarily thin, she looked like a refugee from some godforsaken country. She had lost twenty-five pounds and her hair was falling out, shedding like a dog all over her pillow. But her daily beauty ritual of “putting on her face” as her grandmother used to say, (may she rest in peace), was essential to Sharon’s emotional survival. It gave her a sense of normalcy and the tiniest feeling of still having some control over her life and body. She applied blush to the deflated apples of her cheeks, plucked a few stray hairs, then added a tinted lip balm. Obviously she didn’t do a full red carpet look, if for no other reason than she didn’t have the energy. She finished primping by putting on scentless hand lotion and wrapping her bright pink Pashmina over her bony chest.

Feeling completely exhausted from the effort she lay back down, but then noticed that her overnight drainage bag was full of urine. Worried that it might overflow, she buzzed her nurse. A different nurse appeared this time. “You’re going to have to start urinating on your own, you’ve had this catheter in for too long, ” the nurse said with a bossy edge to her voice. “My bladder nerves were damaged during surgery, they’re taking awhile to bounce back.” Sharon said, trying not to reveal any emotion. The nurse gave her a chastising look, her expression suggesting that it was somehow Sharon’s fault that she wasn’t able to urinate. Dear God, where was her sweet nurse?

Ten minutes later her surgeon and his team of oncology residents were staring down at her. They always seemed very tall to her. It felt like being surrounded by tall, large headed aliens who were staring down at their human specimen restrained on a metal table. A very handsome resident, Dr. Josh Doukas, pulled her gown aside and inspected her ten inch long abdominal scar. “Looking good, looking good,” he said. She felt humiliated. Her sad little tummy, all mangled and grotesque. Why did Josh have to be so good-looking? “Now let’s take a look at your stoma, how has your output been?” If there is one thing a girl does not want to be asked by a handsome medical resident, it’s “how is the fecal waste matter that is flowing out of the red intestinal stump on your stomach?” Sharon wanted to disappear. Instead she smiled and patted the hideous bag affixed to her belly, the one that was collecting her waste. “It’s working well, though I’m still only eating soft foods.” The surgeon and his team continued to ask her questions and discuss her case amongst themselves. Sharon was a bit of a Cancer Celebrity, in that she had a very rare type of terminal cancer. The doctors, though they made a decent effort to hide it, were actually quite excited to have her as a patient – she was a fascinating case.

After lunch the physiotherapist and her assistant came by to help bring Sharon on a walk. They were both plain looking, lovely young women. Makeup free, hair pulled back in ponytails. The types who wore Patagonia jackets and comfortable European made shoes. Along with Sharon’s bladder, there had also been damage done to the nerves in her left leg. Apparently it had something to do with being splayed out on the operating table for twelve hours. So much to Sharon’s surprise, when she had awoken from surgery she’d found that she couldn’t walk, one leg was fucked up. The three of them walked slowly, Sharon’s urine bag attached to the walker, her giant splinted leg awkwardly inching forward and brutal pain shooting out from her incision area. She had once read about doctors who performed “vaginal tightening surgery” and for a moment Sharon wondered if her surgeon had tightened her tummy while stitching her up. The pain was enough to bring on another wave of nausea. She bent her head into the little plastic barf bowl that the assistant always brought on their walks and threw up a little clear liquid.

Sharon succeeded in making it across her room and halfway down the long corridor. This was considered a victory and for her prize she was offered a pain killer drip and some frozen yogurt. Sharon passed on the yogurt, but was excited about the painkiller drip. Maybe this is what it felt like to be a heroin addict – you looked forward to it, it was the highlight of your day. What if she became a drug addict? Then again she thought, who cares? I’m already dying, so why the hell not? She laughed to herself as the drug hit her body. She felt warm and cozy and happy. The sweet nurse – Louise was her name – stopped in and put a couple of pillows under Sharon’s legs so that they were angled upwards. “Sleep well Darlin,” she whispered to her.

Balls

“Do you have an extra ball at home?” he asked, his voice tinged with harshness. “Excuse me?” I answered, confused and annoyed. I’d been enjoying my daily shot of bliss – hanging out at the dog park – and I didn’t want to chat with a random peacoat wearing hipster boy with facial hair and faux broken-in chinos. I looked at him sideways, hoping that if I just ignored him he would disappear. But he crept towards me, one fake workboot at a time. “Your dog stole my dog’s ball. I recognize his sweater.” I stared at him and was about to start laughing when I realized he was dead serious. His eyes were full of well-seasoned anger, anger that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with balls.

A swoosh of fur went flying by, as a bossy Corgi herded a crew of six dogs, including mine. Surely I possessed enough feminine charms to get Random Hipster Boy to calm the fuck down. I smiled, flashing what I hoped was a Julia Roberts style warm grin. “That’s too bad about your dog’s ball, but Leroy didn’t take it, he’s not into balls and never has been.” I kept my tone light and airy, imagining pink spun sugar swirling out of my mouth. The spun sugar seemed to work against me, as Random Hipster Boy seethed with a newly enhanced level of anger. “I saw YOUR dog, in that red sweater, leave the dog park with my dog’s ball in his mouth.” My smile froze, pink spun sugar stuck to my lips. He was probably the type who would toss poisoned chunks of hot dog into his neighbor’s backyard, killing their pooch in retaliation for a perceived act of aggression, like their Maple Tree’s leaves falling on his deck. “Well, I’m not sure who stole your dog’s ball and again, I’m very sorry for your loss, but I assure you it wasn’t Leroy. But, you know, I have a 20% off coupon for PetLand and I’d be happy to buy a few new balls for the park.” As if on cue his dog ran up to him. Sweet Jesus it was ugly. It looked like a caramel dipped ferret. “Good boy Hashtag, good boy,” he said. “His name is Hashtag?!!” I cried. I couldn’t help myself, the words just flew past my lips, I tried grabbing them out of the air but it was too late. Random Hipster Boy eyeballed me hard, while Hashtag barfed up some kind of pebble-grass mix. “Next time you come to the park bring Hashtag’s ball with you!” He was fuming like a cartoon character from a 1940’s comic book drawn with its head exploding. He turned to leave. A ragtag pack of two Beagles, a Pitbull, three Chihuahuas and Leroy flew by, the same bossy Corgi herding them from behind. Sand and dirt filled the air and the Beagles howled.