From the first week she knew him, Anna wanted to inflict injury upon Josiah. She’d imagine holding his palm in her hand, nails digging into the soft flesh until he had to cry uncle. If she voiced these concerns, he likely would have blamed it on her concussion – but that was his fault, too. Anna pushed thoughts of him out of her mind as she moved rolls of Sparkle paper towels from their cardboard box to a pyramid stack on the Walmart shelf. The backs of her thighs ached from maintaining her squatting position, the heels of her shoes digging into them.
Josiah rounded the corner into her field of vision with one hand held in the other. The closer he got, the more evident it became that the plastic food service glove he wore was filled with blood. The aisle was free of customers – an abandoned cart filled with 2-liters of Mountain Dew set askew at the opposite end, blocking it. When he held the injured hand out to her, her throat constricted, and saliva pooled in her mouth. “Christ, that’s awful.” She sat back deeper on her heels, holding onto the cool metal edge of the shelf in front of her for stability.
His hand pulled away from her face and into his chest. “I need you go get some Band-Aids, or something.” Leaning against the shelf behind him, he hid his injured hand in the other.
With one palm pressed to the tile, Anna pushed herself to standing, pushing the saliva back down her throat. “Band-Aids aren’t going to cut it. You need stitches, Superglue, maybe, but that would be pushing it.” She took his hand, cradling it in her own, and examined it through the glove. Her fingertips prodded the injury.
His hand jerked away from hers and he brought the fingers of his good hand to his lips, miming smoking a joint. “Can’t. I might get fired.”
There was a whine to his voice that irritated her and the puppy eyes he was making made her want to break his nose. Her lips pressed together in a thin line as she mulled it over. “Okay. Give me ten minutes and meet me outside.” Anna walked towards the front of the store. Overhead, the fluorescent lighting blinked, causing a high buzzing noise as they went off and on as the clouds shifted into, and out of, the skylights overhead. She did not pause while pulling from pharmacy shelves a bottle of peroxide, individual dressings, and then – from crafts – a packet of needles and spool of thread. She slipped each item into the front pocket of her navy apron, stepping around customers with eyes focused on the tile so that no one stopped her to ask questions. The nametag she held in her hand bit into her fist uncomfortably.
***
They met through mutual friends, as most of these things happen, and by the time they’d spent three hours together had decided they were best friends. Anna grasped at the straws of this super attractive man wanting to spend time with her, hoping that it would lead to something more – even when it should have been obvious that he saw her as a smoking buddy, not girlfriend-material. So, when he asked her – rather politely – if she’d like to join him in the bathroom, she accepted.
Her startled face likely gave her away when he turned on the shower faucet to fill a bucket with water before he pulled a rigged 2-liter soda bottle out from under the sink. A giant cobweb floated in one corner of the shower, the concrete cold beneath her bare feet. “What’s that?” There was barely enough room for the two of them: Josiah sitting on the toilet, knees nearly touching the opposite wall, Anna sitting on an upturned paint bucket, knees pressed into the underside of the sink.
“This, dear, is a gravity bong.” Josiah pushed the plastic down into the water, lighting the metal stud in the top, and pulled up the bottle slowly while it filled with thick smoke. With a wink at her, he removed the cap, pressed his mouth to the opening, and forced the bottle down slowly, filling his lungs with its contents. The smoke that poured from his open mouth a few minutes later clouded the air in the room. “Your turn.”
Anna hesitated, but her better judgment was clouded by lust. Leaning forward from where she sat put her lying over his knees. After a deep breath, she pushed the air from her lungs and did as he instructed, pulling the smoke from the bottle as he pushed it down.
She cleared the bottle, as he had, and sat up long enough to grin widely at him when she was finished. Then the room spun and she leaned backwards a few inches too far, going right through the unsecured door, down the four concrete steps that led up to the tiny bathroom, her head contacting with the concrete floor at the bottom with a hollow thud. That was how she got the concussion.
***
In the parking lot, they sat on the asphalt beside Josiah’s truck, knee to knee. Josiah gripped the butt of a cigarette between his lips as he held his hand out to Anna. The glove peeled away from his skin with a sucking sound, the drying blood leaving strings between the glove and his hand. Anna was careful not to drip any onto her khakis as she tossed it into the bed of the truck.
She held his hand over the grass area next to them and doused it with half the bottle of peroxide, the clear liquid fizzing over the wound and landing in white foam piles on the grass. She wiped the damaged thumb with one of the pieces of gauze. Josiah flinched. Inhaled. “Where’d you find all of that?”
“Amazing what you can find in a Walmart when you really look. How did you manage to mangle yourself with the slicer? You do realize there’s a whole chunk missing, right?” To their right, there was a clacking of cart wheels rolling past them. Anna put her hand over his wound and turned her head in the direction of the customer, leaning her head in close to his. The woman didn’t even glance towards them as she walked past, yelling into her cell phone about her debit card being declined. Anna smiled. “Where did it go? If you had it, I could stick it back on. It might grow back together.” Anna was reminded of slicing her toe with a family-sized can of Del Monte green beans, her grandmother sandwiching the toe back together with Neosporin – the toe forever flat on top. Her skin crawled at the thought.
“Pretty sure it went into the bag with the woman’s roast beef.” The corners of his lips turned up.
“Well, okay. She’ll be back.” Anna pulled the gauze back and examined the wound, pushing the nail of her thumb into the middle of it. “Not much I can do, sew up the ends but that missing chunk is going to scar.” She pulled out the needle she’d slipped into the knee of her pants and held a lighter to it, then threaded it with the spool of white thread from her pocket. She rolled the thread between her fingers, pulling it back out of the needle’s eye to double it over and thread it through again.
Anna sat up on her knees and laid his hand across her thigh. He looked away as she leaned closer. The wind blew out the neckline of her shirt from her chest, and she hoped he might glance down it. “Ready?”
Josiah nodded as she pulled the thread through the first bit of flesh, and left it to dangle as she tied a knot in the end. She pulled on the needle to check the knot for hold. Above them, perched on one of the overhead parking lot lights, a crow squawked and beat its wings. After pushing the wound closed with her fingers, she pulled the needle through again.
Josiah reached up and ran his fingers through his short Mohawk, gripping the hair between his fingers and pulling. Anna remembered buzzing his head, running her fingers over his bare scalp, the prickly hairs that were left on her chest as she leaned close to blow his head clean, checking that her lines were straight though they were always slightly off. The tingly, minty scent of his shampoo had stayed on her hands all day.
“He’s not going to want you that way, he’s pickier than you.” Words of their mutual friend echoed in her mind as she pushed her fingers together, harder, accidently sticking the needle into the raw middle. He flinched, but did not make a sound. The needle slid in and out five, six more times before Anna knotted the thread again, leaning in to break it with her teeth. The sweet, copper scent of his wound filled her nostrils.
With a thumbnail on either side of it, she tested the stitches, pulling the edges of the wound apart. It remained closed. She pulled out a tube of Neosporin and a large bandage. Josiah leaned his head back against the truck, another lit cigarette pressed between the thin line of his lips, their usual rosy fullness gone. Anna listened to him breathe, watched his eyelids twitch with the movement of his eyes behind them. “You better not pass out on me.” She smeared the ointment over the stitches and the last of the open wound. “I’ll leave you here, sure as shit.” She tore open the bandage after wiping her fingertips on her pants, leaving a glistening red stain.
He cracked open one eye, nodded, licking his bottom lip carefully. “I’m fine.” He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and held it out to her.
As she took it, she glanced down at her watch. “If I get in trouble for a long break, I’ll rat on you in a heartbeat.” She smiled as she exhaled, her face tilted towards the sky.
“Snitches get stitches.” He held a straight face.
“I guess you do owe me one now.” She pressed her palm down against the warm, gritty asphalt. “Are you going to be okay?” From her pocket, she retrieved two clean gloves, pulling first one over his hand and then the second over the first. “I don’t think it’s that noticeable.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Someone’s going to ask where you’ve been.”
“You’re right.” He looked around, lowered his voice and leaned close to her face, his breath hot against her mouth. “I was taking a shit. Or… I was fucking one of those fine cashiers you’re keeping up front all to yourself. I’ll leave a sock in the freezer as proof.” He raised his hips and wiggled them for emphasis.
Anna pressed the knuckles of her fist against his temple, a little more roughly than she’d intended, before pushing herself up to stand. She dusted the asphalt crumbs from her palm and offered it to him.
He righted himself using her arm as leverage and ran his fingers through his hair again, pulling it back upright.
“Keep the glove on and maybe nobody will notice.” Anna already strode towards the building, heels pounding the pavement, away from him.
***
She had woken up the night of the concussion with Josiah’s face inches from hers, his friend standing behind him, while he pulled up her eyelid with his finger. Before she announced herself, he said “Her eyes are reacting fine to light. She’s fine.” She thought he didn’t sound so sure.
When she did open her eyes, his friend was shaking his head. “You should probably take her to the ER. What if she’s got a concussion?”
Anna propped herself up on her elbows, pushing Josiah out of the way and shook her own head. The back of it throbbed. “I’m fine.”
The friend muttered but moved away, leaving them sitting alone on the cold concrete floor. Josiah lifted her hair from her neck and rubbed his hand over the back of her head, beneath the hair, his fingers massaging the place that now ached. With eyes closed, she leaned her head into his palm.
In response, he pulled away. “Doesn’t feel broken, no lumps. Do you feel okay?” He went into the kitchen and came back with a cold bottle of water.
“I feel fine. I’ll walk home tonight, but I feel okay.” Anna moved herself to the couch, curling into the corner seat as she rubbed her own head.
Josiah turned on the stereo and tuned it to something she didn’t recognize. “You sure you’re okay?”
She opened her eyes, pleased that his usually jovial tone showed genuine concern. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
That evening ran through Anna’s head as she sat behind the Customer Service Desk, waiting for the customer to come in with the bloody hunk of Josiah’s thumb.
***
“Do you think she ate it?” Josiah asked.
Anna stood in Josiah’s kitchen, stirring a pot of Tuna Helper. Her nose wrinkled into her forehead and she leaned into the counter, arms across her chest. “Surely not, that’s gross.”
“Maybe she did, though. Didn’t even know it – do you always check your lunch meat before you eat it?” He turned his head to grin at her over the back of the couch. “Thought it was just a chewy piece of fat.”
Anna sighed and laid the dishrag in her hand down on the counter. “You’ve got a sick imagination.”
He came into the kitchen, got a spoon from the dish drainer and dipped it into the simmering pot. “Thanks for dinner.” The flat back of the spoon made contact with her butt.
“Keep that crap up and I’ll eat it all myself.” From the box in the pantry, she pulled a can of Diet Coke, pouring it into an ice-filled glass.
“You’re not much fun tonight. What’s wrong, concussion acting up?”
***
“Is your concussion making you stupid?” He asked her when, at a party they’d decided to hold, she invited a coworker he particularly disliked. “It must be, because if it wasn’t there’s no way you would have thought it was okay to invite him to my place.” Josiah had her cornered in the kitchen, gesturing the neck of his beer at her.
Anna liked the way his face was red and tense, that he was mad about it. She took the bottle from his hand and drank down the last of it. “Maybe I like him. What’s that to you?” She laid her fist against her hip, doing her best to posture confidence.
“One, he’s an idiot and you’re not. Two, he’s got that fucked up hand…” Josiah rubbed the back of his own hand while he spoke, taking his bottle back from her and sitting it down hard on the counter.
Over his shoulder, she could see Troy sitting on the couch in the living room by himself, looking at something on his phone while the other guests chatted in the other half of the living room. For a moment, she felt bad for inviting him just so he could serve her purpose, but she had a plan that she felt couldn’t fail. “He was in a wreck, that’s not his fault. Besides, it’s healing okay.”
Josiah moved the arm that was blocking her into the corner. “Whatever. Just don’t leave him here if you leave, or I might do something stupid.”
Anna went over to where Troy had sat down on the couch and sat herself down in his lap, her arm sliding around his neck while she sucked his earlobe into her mouth. Over his shoulder, she watched Josiah for a reaction but he showed none. Even when they both stood up and she led him by the hand to the back of the house, to the spare bedroom she used when she couldn’t make it home. She shut the door behind them, but did not lock it.
When Josiah came in, she was lying on her back, shirt off and jeans unbuttoned, with Troy kissing the pudgy place where her stomach met her jeans. His head whipped around as Josiah came in the room, causing his open belt buckle to rattle musically, but Anna had been waiting for it.
She imagined Josiah fighting for her honor, realizing that he had wanted her the whole time. Instead, he threw a stack of condoms down onto the bed next to them and went back to the door. “Don’t get herpes.” He pointed at the sore next to Troy’s upper lip – Anna had not noticed it. Anna’s point had failed to be made, so she began to pull up the zipper on her jeans, looking around the room for her top.
Troy sat back on the bed. “I don’t have herpes.” He unzipped his jeans, wriggling them lower on his hips.
“That’s okay, the moment’s ruined.” After she pulled her shirt back on, she left him kneeling there, jeans around his knees, eyebrows knitted in confusion.
***
A week after Anna gave Josiah the initial stitches, she was sitting in the Walmart Café with a prepackaged egg salad sandwich she’d brought from the deli. After pulling the bread apart and checking it for foreign materials, she squeezed a packet of mustard onto the filling and closed it again.
With her back against the wall and her legs crossed in the bench, she watched the customers pushing their carts past rows of canned biscuits, butter substitutes, and a giant display of Jell-O pudding cups. She licked the egg salad from her fingertip and leaned forward to see if Josiah was still in the deli. His head barely showed as he leaned over to hand a customer her sliced meats. The woman he waited on wore a smart business suit and sensible shoes, her lips curled inward as she took the bagged meat from him. She did not say ‘thank you.’ When the woman walked past where Anna sat, she smelled of pickles.
Anna remembered that once, in a fit of irritation at a rude customer, Josiah had thrown a bunch of bananas at someone – and, after, had placed a giant can of diced tomatoes on top of another customer’s eggs. He had been banished to the deli to make him behave. Anna imagined him hurling a length of salami at a customer who raised her voice at him. The thought made her smile.
After she finished eating her lunch, Anna tossed her garbage into the nearby trashcan. She caught Josiah’s eye and held her index and middle fingers to her lips, mouthing “Smoke?” He held up one finger and she nodded, leaning against the trash can to wait.
While waiting, she watched an elderly man standing by the edge of the egg display. He opened carton after carton of eggs, mumbling over each one and sliding it away from himself before opening another. Finally, he took one carton and began to switch out all the eggs until he was satisfied. Anna counted at least eighteen switches for a dozen eggs. He put the carton in his cart while he looked around to make sure no one watched him. Anna looked at her shoes and smiled.
Suddenly, there were cheese-scented fingers covering her eyes, breath hot against her ear. “Guess who?”
She did not move. “I’d say it would have to be Josiah, because it would be weird if it were anyone else. And your fingers smell like Colby cheese.” She bit the pinky that was closest to her mouth.
“You could’ve at least pretended you didn’t know.” After pulling his fingers back, he smelled his fingers and wiped them on the front of his jeans. “I should have washed my hands first.”
“How’s the thumb?” The thighs of her jeans made a sticky, sucking sound as she moved away from the side of the trashcan.
He held his thumb up for her to inspect – the flesh was pink, the stitches dirty lines across the newly healed skin. “Feels better, Doc.”
Anna nodded and began to walk towards the Tire and Lube department. “Good. I’ll have to cut those stitches out eventually, though.”
“Seems like we could just as easily do it now.” As they walked past to fabric table, Josiah picked up a pair of scissors and slipped them into his pocket before pulling a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from it.
Outside the doors of the automotive department, they sat cross legged against a display rack of Goodyear tires. Josiah lit a cigarette and handed Anna his lighter. She lit her own and slipped the lighter into her pocket. Lifting her chin towards the overhead awning, she exhaled, palms on her thighs, and then scooted herself around until they were knee to knee again. His palm lay in her lap. “Scissors?”
From within the building, the sound of torque wrenches replacing tires and the dripping of draining oil made her voice barely audible. He pulled the scissors out of his pocket and laid them in the palm of her hand.
Anna pulled a stray thread from the joint of the scissors. She slipped the sharp point of the blade beneath the first stitch; the thread broke easily. She pinched the thread between the nails of her thumb and forefinger and began to pull it from the flesh.
*****
Photography Credit: Jason Rice
