"She has AIDS!"
"Don't touch her. She's contagious!"
"Disgusting!"
I heard the rushing rocks before I felt them pelt my back. It didn't hurt. Not really. It was just a dull thud near my shoulder blade. Already, though, I could feel the wetness of the blood leaking out of the pimple that had burst.
I turned and stared blankly. Piss Pants Rick, Dick Ear, and Petey Boy had their hands poised with more rocks waiting. I didn't go to school with these boys, but I had played baseball with them. Their fathers called me "honey". Their mothers congregated on the same park bench as mine, smoking and gossiping. I knew their secrets and shames. Everyone did.
Piss Pants Rick earned his nickname on a Boy Scout camping trip. Too afraid to leave his tent in the ink blank night, he refused to make his way to the outhouse and opted to piss in his pants. The act would have been less shameful had he not repeated it three nights in a row.
A fleshy bit of skin protruding near his ear was responsible for Dick Ear's name. He was constantly tugging on it, and his face would go all dreamy and far away.
"Hey, Dick Ear," his friends would taunt. "Dreaming about sticking that thing in your mother?"
Dick Ear would pull his reluctant fingers away from his ear and slip his thumb into his mouth.
Petey Boy was named after a dog. His father was a slow and nervous man. When he found out that his large and oppressive wife was expecting a baby, he had to go to the nervous hospital for some "rest". The only way his wife could convince him to come home, as the story goes, was to allow him to name the baby. Petey Boy was his much-loved childhood Schnauzer. We couldn't help but bark and whistle whenever Petey Boy and his father played fetch. I mean, catch.
I popped my watermelon gum noisily between my teeth, working it into a pulpy mass and poking my tongue through its center. My mouth was dry sand paper. The juice of the gum eased it somewhat. Puffing out my cheeks, I blew a bubble as I walked slowly towards the boys. The bubble burst, and I picked the sticky bits of gum off of my lips. My red-rimmed eyes burned and itched, blinking back the constant throb of a headache that had taken up permanent residence behind my eyeballs.
I stopped just a few feet short of the boys. They were poised nervously, as if preparing to steal second base. I couldn't blame them really. I guess I did resemble the images of the scabby, shrunken men on television - the ones with AIDS. I wasn't sure what I looked like. I tried not to spy my image in the mirror. I didn't want to see what would be staring back at me.
"You guys are right. I do have the virus." It was an effort for me to speak. Each time I opened my mouth, my lips cracked and bled, splitting in the corners. I swallowed and tried not to lick my burning lips. The boys shifted and cackled nervously, looking uneasily at one another.
"Yeah, you got the virus. Like anyone would fuck you!" Piss Pants Rick stepped forward defiantly. Dick Ear and Petey Boy stepped closer, feeling more confident in his shadow.
"No. Nobody fucked me. Wanna know how else you can get it?"
I could almost see their brains racing to remember the brief lessons on sex and AIDS education. A panic flashed in their dim-witted eyes, as they wondered what they had missed while snoozing in the back of class.
I took the sticky gum out of my mouth and held it out to them, like an offering.
"The spit on my gum!" I hissed as I wound up my left arm and watched them race away from me.
High, feminine shrieks escaped from their fleeing forms as they tried to escape. But it was too late.
I focused my aim on the fat rolls protruding from the back of Piss Pants' sweatshirt. I missed my mark, and the spit-soaked wad of gum landed smack in the tangle of his dirty curls. The gum hit him like a shot from a rifle, and he landed face down with a thud in the grass. He writhed and screamed, swatting at the back of his head.
"Guys! Help! Get this thing offa me. Come back!" Piss Pants shrieked. Dick Ear and Petey Boy paused briefly to look at their fallen friend, but I was hot on their heels. They ran for their very lives as I chased them, gathering up as much spit as I could spare. Unfortunately, Accutane had drained me of most of the moisture in my entire body, and I was dry after two measly shots. Still, I was proud of my efforts.
The real payoff came the following day. I glimpsed Piss Pants, his hair sheered close to the scalp. He had the lumpiest, most misshapen head I had ever seen. I almost felt bad for him.
"What the hell happened to you?" Kids shouted. "You look like a shaved ass hole!"
Piss Pants Rick looked over and saw the serene smile on my face. I nodded and bowed in his direction. His eyes narrowed and his hand shot protectively to the back of his bald head. His lips pursed with want, insults tickling his tongue waiting to be hurled at me like hand grenades. But he kept his mouth shut and hurried away.
Kids weren't the only ones who were cruel. I couldn't go around throwing my gum and spitting at everyone who called me a name, so I devised other ways to deal with the daily insults and assaults.
I flipped through beauty magazines in the salon. Mom was treating me to a new 'do to help me feel better about my appearance. As I sat and waited for my turn, something tickled my bare arm and nuzzled against me. I jumped in my seat at what I thought was a cougar cozying up to me. Dead black eyes glared at me as razor sharp fangs poked out of a tiny but ferocious muzzle. Claws hung at the end of little legs. A furry body lay lifeless on the shoulder of the middle-aged woman who had sat down beside me. An identical little creature lay draped over her other shoulder. I scooted away from the snarling fangs of these animals, sneaking peaks to make sure they wouldn't come to life and take a nip at me.
I felt more than one set of eyes piercing my skin, and slowly turned in the direction of the coat. The furry creatures, and their owner, were glaring at me. The woman's scowl was more menacing than that of her creature companions. I blushed guiltily and shrugged, assuming she had spied me staring at her roadkill coat.
Don't you ever wash your face? You look absolutely filthy!"
The busy chit-chat of the salon and the hum of the hair dryers screeched to a halt. Scissors clipped shut. Aqua Net hung suspended in the air. All eyes were on us.
Before I could open my mouth and eek out a response, a deep growling erupted from within the woman's coat. It began as a dull rumble, like distant thunder, but quickly escalated into a guttural grumbling, full of phlegm and menace. I pulled away cautiously. The woman was frozen in fear, her eyes piercing pools of terror. Her coat began to shift and move about her. The limp creatures on her coat suddenly came to life, spit flying out of their ferocious mouths, salivating for a piece of flesh.
Their claws dug into the make-up caked on her aging face, searing away the flesh in shreds. Pulpy strips of cheek hung like fillets. One creature feasted on her ear, while the other tore away at her deep peach lips. Then, they began fighting over her pointy nose. Within seconds, it was nothing more than a cavernous hole. She screeched and screamed and swung at the greedy creatures, while we watched in horror as her face was torn away.
The woman flopped onto the cold tile floor and the creatures pecked lazily at what was left of her face. The bell hanging above the front door dinged as a woman entered the salon. The creatures, still attached to the coat, took off running out of the salon, dragging the half-eaten woman behind them. The salon remained still for a moment longer, and then everyone snapped back into action. Blow dryers clicked back to life. Scissors clipped. Gossip resumed. And I continued to search for the perfect layered look.
"What the hell is your problem, lady?" Annie, the salon owner, was sticking her scissors into the woman's face.
"Excuse me?" she responded indignantly.
"Can't ya see she's just a kid? Get the hell outta here before I stick my scissors up your ass!'
Annie, whose own face was deeply pitted with acne scars, looked like a woman possessed. She poked her scissors so close that she could have trimmed the woman's nose hair. Annie was convincing enough that the woman rushed out of the salon without a word.
"Don't you pay her any mind, honey," Annie gripped my chin firmly and planted a lipstick kiss on my cheek. She was the first person to touch my face in months.
An hour later, I walked out of the salon with Joan Jett's rocking hair, and a little bit of her attitude. Annie had invited me back for a free facial, and promised me she would take care of business if she ever saw that woman out on the streets. I believed her.
Mom didn't much like my haircut, but that was forgotten once I told her what had happened. She lit up another Salem Light, blind to the one she already had burning in the ashtray.
"She's lucky I wasn't there. What the hell's wrong with people? Son of a...." She trailed off before spewing forth the slew of curse words she would not say in front of us.
"It's okay, Mom." I assured. "Her face was eaten off by her fur coat." Mom looked at me, shook her head and sucked on her cigarette.
I was standing at the corner, waiting for the light to change. A little girl next to me was nibbling on a chocolate bar, holding her mother's hand. I was starving. I hadn't eaten a solid meal in days. My lips had become so blistered and swollen that I could no longer chew. My mother had to puree all of my meals, and I sucked them up through a straw. The doctors assured us that this was normal, and that the side effects would soon lessen and my skin would heal. I held on to their words, and to the vision of myself at the end of treatment, eating a four-course meal with clear skin.
I peeked down at the little girl and smiled. She grinned back and hid behind her mother's leg. We played peek-a-boo and giggled at each other. The mother smiled down at her daughter's playfulness, but her jaw went rigid when she got a glimpse of my complexion. I recognized the look of disgust in her eyes and waited. She jerked the chocolate bar out of her daughter's hand and pointed an angry finger at me.
"See? This is what you'll look like if you keep eating chocolate. You wanna look like her?" The mother glared accusingly at me and threw the chocolate bar in the garbage. The mother stepped off the curb and walked into the street, leaving her daughter behind. She stopped and turned towards us.
"Well, come on! What're you waiting for?"
Before the little girl could step off of the curb, a bus came screeching down the street and knocked the mother out of her socks. The bus kept on going, with the mother splayed across the windshield like a squashed bug. The girl and I looked at each other, shrugged, and giggled. We took a seat on the curb, and the girl produced two chocolate bars from her pocket. We ate slowly and gratefully, as the mother's socks blew away in the wind.
I didn't tell Mom about that one. I was afraid she'd patrol the streets with a baseball bat, and bludgeon to death the first mother she saw who fit the description.
I often woke up with my pillow and sheet smeared with blood. I never knew if I had gotten a nose bleed in the middle of the night, or an infected pimple had burst. It was harder to leave the house on days like these.
In fact, I didn't leave the house on those days. But someone else did. Some days, it was Laverne, or Shirley. Men seemed to respond to Shirley more, with her sweet and feminine ways. On my Shirley days, I walked softly and gracefully. I couldn't fully get behind Shirley, though. I just couldn't see myself being that attached to a stuffed cat. Laverne, who boldly sewed her signature "L" on each sweater, seemed more my speed. On my Laverne days, my smile was sly and my gait was sturdy. As strangers' stares penetrated my skin, I sang Lavarne and Shirley's down-in-the-dumps pick-me-up song: "Woops there goes another rubber tree plant." I didn't really know what it meant, but it always seemed to work for them.
Sometimes, I called on Laura Ingalls to get me through the day. I thought of her life on the prairie, and realized she had it much tougher than I did. At least we had indoor plumbing. When kids were calling me names and my first reaction was to lash out, I thought of Pa and the always tender advice he gave Half-Pint. I imagined myself hitching up the team alongside Pa, and telling him of the mean things that had been said to me that day. With a glint in his eye and his homemade pipe stuck firmly between his teeth, Pa would say: "You'll grow out of it, Half-Pint. And you'll be the prettiest girl on the prairie." And just like that, I could breeze through the names being hurled at me with relative ease. Of course, I also knew that Half-Pint could beat up almost any boy on the playground.
My favorite, however, was Jo from the Facts of Life. Jo was really prettier than all of the other girls, but hid it under her pigtail and motorcycle helmet. I relied on her more often than the others. Affecting my best Bronx accent, I would scrunch my face up into a scowl and display my fist to anyone whose stare lingered too long.
"Whaddya lookin' at?" I would ask icily. "Ya wanna knuckle sandwich?" Sometimes people would laugh, but more often than not, they would look away.
"Yeah, that's what I thought!" I would yell after them.
On the toughest days, I would picture myself jumping onto Jo's motorcycle and riding clear out of town, wielding a tire iron and smashing anyone who got in my way.
Sometimes, though, assuming Jo's identity got me into trouble. It was during a spelling test. As I was waiting for Sister Alice to pronounce the next word, a fat drop of blood like a rain drop splattered across my loose leaf paper. I pinched my nose and tilted my head back, raising my clean hand in the air.
"Sister Alice," I called out, "I need to use the bathroom." Dark droplets of blood plopped on my white uniform shirt.
"Lord God above, Noreen. What have you done?" Sister Alice asked suspiciously. We had recently had a visit from an ex-drug addict who warned us against the perils of drug use. He demonstrated the effects his cocaine habit had had on his nose by stuffing a tissue up one nostril and retrieving it from the other nostril. The boys in my class thought he was cool. The girls thought he was cute.
"Sorry, Sister. I guess I partied a little too hard this weekend." The class hooped and applauded in approval. What did she think I had been doing? Picking my nose with a pitchfork.
"To the nurse's office. Now. I'll deal with you later." Sister Alice promised.
That night, Sister Alice followed through with her threat and called my mother. Mom's face turned scarlet as she nodded her head.
"Yes, Sister. I'm sorry, Sister. It will never happen again, Sister. It's the medication. She's just not herself right now." I bit my nails nervously, wondering what my punishment would be.
Mom slammed the phone down and stared hard at me.
"She wants to know if you have a drug problem or if you're trying to get suspended with that smart mouth."
"Mom, I'm sorry. But what did she think I had been doing? Picking my nose with a pitchfork?" Mom sighed heavily and shook her head. I waited for my punishment, but it didn't come. Instead, Mom opened up the freezer and handed me a cherry ice pop, leaving me alone in the kitchen.
Cherry ice pops had become my salvation, easing the ache of my lips and the dryness of my mouth. As I sucked greedily on the frozen treat, my breath froze at what I saw staring at me in the reflection of the toaster. My features were distorted, as if I were looking into a funhouse mirror. I was puffy and swollen, so raw and red that I could understand the disgust in strangers' stares. I walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind me, standing in the darkness.
Closing my eyes, I flipped the switch and willed myself to look. I knew it was bad, but I had no idea what I had actually become.
The acne I had had before Accutane was almost cute in comparison to what was happening now. The pimples on my face, neck, back and chest were competing for the title of "Miss Hideous America". Godzilla lurked beneath the surface of every inflamed boil, waiting to burst through and spew hot lava. Blood and pus pooled beneath the pimples, turning my skin blue-black in some spots. Traces of dried blood dotted my face like fault lines on a map. Crunchy scabs encrusted my mouth. I was completely unrecognizable.
I snapped the light off and stood in the dark before the mirror. My mind raced, trying to find the thought that would make my appearance more bearable. I would get better. The doctors had said so. But when? And what if they were wrong?
I went to my go-to guys for support, but this time they had nothing for me. Laverne and Shirley were slouched at the kitchen table, crying into tall glasses of milk and pepsi, Noxzema slathered across their faces. Pa had no words of wisdom. He blew out the candle and left me sitting alone in the dark barn to figure it out for myself. Jo, always ready with a stiff upper lip and a wisecrack, was stranded on the side of the road, covered in grease, trying to fix her broken down motorcycle in the rain. I was on my own.
Snapping the bathroom light back on, I stared hard at my reflection until it all became a blur. And then, a new fictional character emerged. This character bore a greater resemblance to my current physical state. I couldn't believe I hadn't realized it before. I was becoming - The Fly!
I was strangely comforted by this fact. I ignored the obvious worries, such as my ears falling off or having to puke on my cheeseburger before I could eat it. Instead, I remembered Jeff Goldblum's character being exhilarated at the change that was taking place inside of him. I too was undergoing some sort of transformation. My old face was literally falling off, and someone new was waiting underneath. I didn't know who or what it was.
The doctors said this would happen. I would get much worse before I got better. It was part of the process. Even Jeff Goldblum, with his collection of rotted-off body parts in the medicine cabinet, believed he was falling apart to become something better, stronger. I looked at my reflection. Jeff Goldblum stared down at me from his perch on the ceiling. He nodded at me confidently. If he believed it, then so could I.
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