C42
Public Record
Excerpt from novel: Best Cellar

Faye tried to get out of the tub but was too weak to lift herself up.

Her eyes were stretched open looking at me and the drain
and her tongueless future, probably.
She slumped backward against the wall
and any part of her face that wasn’t bloody was all pale
and the blood kept falling out of her mouth.
I put her arm over my shoulder to lift her out of the tub
and gave her a towel to hold under her mouth.
She caught all of the dripping with the towels as we stumbled out,
but once we got to the carpet she threw up all the blood she had swallowed.

Up to this point I had been assessing the damages:
for blood on the tile, powdered bleach and a wire brush;
in the grout, baking soda and a toothbrush;
the towels, toss them in a neighbor’s garbage can and set it on fire.
This was all relatively easy,
and doable before Edith would get home in three hours.
But blood is a hell of a thing to get out of white shag carpet,
not to mention blood that reeks of stomach acid.
To make it all worse, she was trying to talk
but it sounded like her mouth was full of marshmallows,
which was annoying. The first-aid kit wasn't where I thought it would be
so instead of gauze I stuffed one of my socks into her mouth to soak up the blood.
With her mouth held open like that I saw that her front teeth had both chipped pretty good.

Getting her dressed was another task altogether.
Her eyes were half-closed
and her knees were shaking so bad she could barely stand up.
When we both fell onto the bed again a bloody sock plopped into my lap.
I draped a bath robe around her and newlywed-carried her over the threshold
while her head dangled like a maraschino cherry by the stem.
I laid her on the asphalt to look up at the sunrise
while I stretched a tarp over the passenger seat.

Thresher Charles