Fiction based on real life experience... for class...




HYPOGLYCEMIA

Josh shuffled down the hallway toward us, a sheepish grin covering his pointed face. The red paint on the stone reflected on his cheekbones and swept him with a devilish mischievousness. Twan bounced behind him as optimistic, overconfident football players often do. The new ring glistened under the fluorescent lights of Underground Ink.

I saw all this as I perused the black portfolios and photo albums that littered the small coffee table in the waiting room. (My peripheral vision is amazing for a half-blind bat.) Laurie spoke first with the attitude of somebody who couldn’t believe she was bothered to go see the newest piercing.

“You’re done already?” Her voice bit to the core, whether or not she was in a bad mood.

“Yeah,” Josh responded quietly, taking a seat next to me. “We ready?”

“Dude! It was so cool! He didn’t even feel it!” Twan cheered. He was too loud; you didn’t even need to see his tanned Adonis body to know he spent years out on the football field screaming his lungs out. He laughed the I-just-smoked-too-much-pot laugh and sat down to look at the photo album Laurie was glancing through. “Oh, my god! Hahaha… look at those! Yeah…!” He’d found the genital piercings.

Phil, the hulk of a hairy man who pierced Josh, came out tearing his gloves off. “Remember. Soap and water. Every day.”

“How long do I need to keep it in?” Josh asked, looking up. Hunched over in his chair, perched on the edge of the cracked red leather, his sharp chin angled drastically upwards, he looked like a chick ready to take flight for the first time.

Phil sighed and rubbed his wild goatee. “Four to six weeks,” he replied.

“Mmkay,” Josh responded, rubbing his goatee. The motion seemed to be as contagious as yawning, because Twan glanced into the conversation and ran his fingers across his own chin. Josh stuck out a hand. “Well, thanks, man. Y’ have a good night.”

“Yup. You, too, man. You, too.” Phil headed back to the dungeon that was his piercing room.

I sighed and shut my portfolio with a flair. “Alright. Let’s go!” And with that, I stood up, watching to make sure everybody around me got up, too, because I like to be the leader like that.

The four of us carefully descended down the tilted stairs and hugged our coats and sweatshirts around us as the negative-degree windchill bit at our necks.

Twan turned to give a dopey grin to the group and ask, “Okay, guys, now what?” but Josh had just quietly called to me.

“I… I feel dizzy.”

Well, that’s not good, I thought to myself while Josh slow-motion slid to the cement ground beneath us. Knees unbent, hands hanging limply by his side, the waif of a young man looked like a ragdoll just tossed off the porch because it was no longer wanted. I reached out, too tardy, and felt the soft suede of his old coat slip through my numb fingers. His body didn’t make a sound as it hit the pavement; he was so thin.

“Wait. Wha--?? JOSH! Oh, my god! Josh, Josh!”

He’d faceplanted, unconscious, right before our naïve eyes. Twan and I rushed to his side, begging whatever’s out there to not let him die. His bony head rolled to the right as he convulsed for the breadth of a second while I caught a full view of his eyes rolling, possessed into the back of his skull.

This isn’t happening! I shrieked in my mind, shaking his shoulder. “Josh!” I called.

…Because, of course, an unconscious kid will simply come back because you called for him.

“Josh, Josh, man. Come on, man. Josh…”

“He’s kidding, guys!” Laurie called from behind us. She was dancing around the situation like a horse on a tether, chewing on her thumbnail, afraid.

A noise like snoring rumbled from Matt’s mouth.

Snoring! He’s joking! I punched his chest, “Come on, Matt, this isn’t funny!” I said.

I’d misheard. The snoring noise was an increased difficulty in breathing. Was Josh choking on his tongue?

“Josh… Josh, buddy… Come on, man…” Twan cooed, trying to coax him back to life. “Laurie! Go inside and get some water! Josh, buddy. Here. Let’s roll him over.” Josh’s feet then lay among the skeletal bushes and bone dry pebbles.
Twan saw it first. “Holy shit, man! He’s got a gash!” The pot laugh was the only noise along the roadside.

I didn’t see anything. Then, the first trickle of blood made its way down across his chin and down his neck. It left the stark white bone in his chin to glitter in the moonlight.
Sixty seconds after he hit the ground, Josh’s eyes rolled back around. His eternally sad, green eyes mutated from silvery to evergreen and looked hazily, still out of focus, up at Twan. “Wh-who the fuck are you?” he slurred.

Twan laughed. “I’m Anthony, man. Who the fuck are you?”

And Josh laughed.



After Phil had eagerly cracked open his first-aid kit for the first time since Opening Day and after Josh’s chin had been MacGuyvered together, we went in our respective cars “straight to the ER, no ifs, ands or buts.”

Except, we stopped at McDonald’s on the way. Josh was still shaking, even though Phil had made him drink some sugar and carb-filled concoction.

As I tested out the breaks on his Ford Focus, Josh said, in between moments of whiplash, “I’m hypoglycemic. Remember that conversation… I’m a ticking timebomb? Yeah. If I don’t eat my blood sugar crashes.”

“…And you didn’t eat today, at all, did you?” I stated.
He laughed as if it were funny. “No, because—I already told you this—my stomach eats itself since I’m clinically anorexic and I don’t feel hunger. Number six with a Dr. Pepper!” he called over me to the little black voice box.

“Six-forty-five,” the box responded and we drove up to get in line to pay our dues.

“I feel dizzy,” I heard from my side and whipped my head around. “Joking!” he said quickly, raising his hands in surrender, still laughing.

“Well,” I sputtered, “I’m glad you can joke about it.”
All Josh answered me was in a laugh. At the window I recognized the woman who took his money and Josh’s phone beeped irritatingly, announcing a call from his father.

“…Yeah, yeah. I got it done,” he said, grinning idiotically while his wound opened up again and bled through the temporary gauze Phil had adhered to his face. “Oh, just wanted to let you know, I passed out again and we’re going to Urgent Care…” The second window opened as Josh flipped his phone shut and declared, “Asshole!” to the surrounding neighborhood.

“What?” I asked, handing him the syrupy beverage. We pulled into a parking spot to wait for Laurie and Twan.

“I tell him I’m going to the ER and all he can say is mumble, ‘Y-you-you you’re no son of mine. I have no son,’ because I went and got my lip pierced! Asshole!” Josh and his dad had a long history of mutual hatred. “So, do you like it?”

I grinned, relieved to see him so animated. “Yup. Yeah, it’s cool.”

Laurie and Twan pulled up beside us, Twan shoving greasy fries into his tailored mouth. We rolled down our windows to communicate and I ran inside to get some water for Josh. When I returned, Twan and Josh had been in a fight with five angry polaks. With baseball bats and crowbars. Laurie was arguing on the phone with her non-boyfriend, who lived in Kalamazoo and truly believed that she and Josh were fuck buddies.

I handed Josh his water.

“Thanks, love. You’re a lifesaver.” And, almost dramatically, he grabbed my arm. “You guys, I-I don’t feel well,” he stammered. “I feel dizzy.” He responded to his own words about as fast as we did. “Kidding!”

The looks of fear woven with annoyance must have been worth sounding so repetitive because Josh laughed again and promptly winced as his wound surged fresh blood.

“Come on, guys. Let’s go,” Laurie directed. “It’s gonna be a fuckin’ long wait and I’m already bored.”

Our two-car caravan pulled onto the highway.

Above the humming of Flyleaf, Josh said, “God, this is so embarrassing…!” He attempted to drink his pop with half his mouth taped shut and immediately gave up. “Why me? Why now? God really must love me. Fuck you, man!”

“You know it’s not going to be half as humiliating as when your brother finds out you bit it,” I acknowledged.

“Hahahaha… I know!” he responded sarcastically. “Ol’ Justin’ll have a real fun time tonight. I can’t wait! Yeaah… Sorry for ruining your guyses night.”

I chuckled. “Ya know, you’re still alive and the night’s still young. I think we might be able to salvage something.”