still not a statistic

XII.
Every day, reliably, stolid: in the middle of Harvard Square, stood the guy who sold the homeless newspaper Spare Change. He stood there all day, every day, and his monologue was loud and cheerful and unchanging:

Spare Change! Hey big guy, hey pretty lady, would you like to buy Spare Change? Big guy! Big guys! Hey, pretty ladies! Big guy with the two pretty ladies!

It was my junior year in college, shortly before the hedgehog incident. I was sick, I had a midterm that day. In a rare display of studiousness, I was still trying to study even though I could barely stand up. The doctor pronounced that there would be no more school for me, and perhaps to prevent me from trying, dosed me up liberally with codeine.

The codeine knocked me out of commission -- not literally -- for a whole day. Then it knocked me out -- literally.

At some point in the middle of the night, I got up to use the bathroom. I remember fumbling in the dark. Then I woke up on the tile floor of the bathroom.

Blood, I thought idly, a lot of blood. I looked in the mirror, and for some reason the reflection of me made perfect sense: Of course, head wounds always bleed a lot. I wiped it up, used the bathroom, and went back to sleep.

When I woke up about twelve hours later, my hair had dried into vile bloody Medusan spikes and my right eye was a brilliant puffy purple. I took a shower, and my hair returned to normal. My eye did not.

Some people thought it was funny to joke that my then-boyfriend had beat me up.
He didn't actually think that was very funny at all.

The next day I was well enough to return to classes, and so I walked through Harvard Square:

Hey big guy! Pretty lady! Big guy, Spare Change? Pretty lady with the -- What happened to your eye?!

It's the only time I ever heard him break his rhythm.

Wednesday 06 February, 04:02 PM