Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

“Joe, can you tell me how this happened?”

“Attacked. I was attacked.”

“I’m going to call the police, then I’m going to call an ambulance.”

“No. No. No ambulance. No police. Please.”

“Where’s the phone?” she asks, and only then do his words start to sink in.

Before she can ask him why, he reaches out and wraps his hand around her wrist. He tightens his grip, manages to keep a hold for a few seconds before it falls away. “I’m Joe Victim,” he says, “but Joe doesn’t want to be a victim. No police. Just medicine.”

Gently she reaches out and picks up the corner of the sheet. Joe starts to shiver. She slowly lifts it aside not sure what to expect, but certainly not this, and what she sees makes her gasp and tears well up and spill down her cheeks.

“Oh, my poor sweet Joe,” she says. “Who did this to you?”

“Nobody,” he answers, only managing a whisper.

“We need more help.”

“People can’t know. People laugh at Joe. Laugh more if they find out.”

“I have to call the police.” She reaches out and grabs hold of the phone.

“No!” Joe screams, sitting up and grabbing hold of her hand again, his hand wrapping around her wrist with so much force she’s worried he’s going to break it. “They’ll kill me!”

Then, the pain of sitting up hits him, he flops down, his eyes roll back in his head, and he passes out.

Sally stares at the phone. What are her obligations here? To help Joe, that’s a certainty. Does she do what’s best for her patient, or does she follow the patient’s wishes? If she makes the call, what happens if Joe is right and people come back to hurt him? The police can only do so much. She puts the phone down. She has made up her mind. God has brought her here to help Joe, not to risk putting him in the path of more violence.

She balls up the sheet and puts it on the floor, out of the way. Standing by the side of the bed, peering at the wound, she can’t help but think she’s invading Joe’s privacy, but of course she’s a nurse now, a professional. This is what she trained for. This is what she wanted to be.

Yes, but a professional would know when she was out of her depth. She would know when to call for an ambulance.

That’s exactly right. This isn’t what she trained for. But a professional making that decision could get Joe killed, if what he said is true. At the very least she’ll see what she can do to help him, then reassess the decision. She reaches up to bring the crucifix up to her chin. She holds it there for a few seconds before taking it off and wrapping the chain around Joe’s hand so Jesus rests in his palm. Moving back she crouches down to look at the wound from another direction. Joe’s penis is lying on an angle, upward across the base of his stomach and pointing at his shoulder. He’s placed a piece of duct tape across it, to hold it away from the wound.

“Poor Joe,” she says, almost in tears. The way to continue is with the basics. She tells herself this over and over as she pulls on a pair of latex gloves, and as she does, she notices other pairs lying around the apartment. What does Joe use them for? Cleaning, most likely. She reaches over and pushes down on the side of Joe’s thigh, trying to get a better look at the wound without touching it. His testicle has been squeezed, mashed, and destroyed by a tool. Her guess is a pair of pliers, or vise grips.

“Mugged,” Joe murmurs. His eyes are open again.

“Who mugged you?”

He doesn’t answer. Just keeps looking straight ahead.

She continues to assess the wound. The testicle has to be removed. She wishes there were a way around that, but can’t see one. There’s no doubt it has to go, just as there’s no doubt she lacks the qualifications-or even the confidence-to do the procedure.

“We have to get you to a hospital, Joe.”

“Can’t. They’ll come back. Hurt me. Please, can you make it better?”

She smiles down at him. “Of course,” she says.

The first thing she does is open the window. It has to be close to a hundred degrees in here, and already she’s sweating. Fresh air starts to roll in. While she waits for some water to boil, she soaks a cloth in cold water and rests it on Joe’s forehead. He hardly seems to notice.

Her first-aid kit is more advanced than most, as it contains items she has owned since nursing school. One thing she’s missing is any form of local anesthetic, but if she’s lucky Joe will stay unconscious through most of this. Actually, Joe needs to be the one who is lucky.

She pulls out the handle of her scalpel and drops it in the boiling water. The blade is wrapped in foil, already sterile. She unfolds a plastic sheet and tries to roll Joe on his side and slip it beneath him, but he’s too heavy. She does know how to move patients, but not a patient with a testicle that has been ripped into shreds. She rocks him slightly to the side and does the best she can. She leaves the tape over his penis. It’s a crude job, but effective enough. She soaks a few small pads in iodine, then begins to wipe the area around the wound. The risk of infection is high, but this is the best she can do.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to a hospital? Joe?”

Joe is staring at her as if he wasn’t expecting her to be here. His eyes move to the goldfish bowl on the table. She hadn’t noticed it until now.

“Joe?”

“Please. .” He points to the empty bottle of wine. She takes a closer look and realizes it’s still about a third full. She reaches out and hands it to him. It will help, she thinks. She also pulls the belt out of his discarded and bloody jeans. The belt will help too.

She looks down at her hands. They’re no longer shaking. She rips open the foil packaging of the scalpel blade and prepares to go to work.

I dream of death and wish I was there. I dream of pain and this is where I live.

My teeth bite down on the end of the wine bottle and I start swallowing what I can. I’m lucky I even own wine. I bought it six months ago when it was my mother’s birthday. I thought we might celebrate. She accused me of trying to poison her, and I ended up bringing it back home. Normally the smell of wine is enough to make me gag. Now I cling to the feeling it’s giving me, a feeling of hope that I might just slip away from all of this. I try to hold my tongue aside so I don’t have to taste it, but it doesn’t work. I feel like vomiting after a few seconds, but the more I get through, the less concerned I become about the taste, and the more I begin to enjoy the sensation it’s giving me. I let my head rest against the pillow, and look at the person crouching in front of my crotch. The person is wearing a surgeon’s mask, but I can tell it’s a woman. I pray it isn’t Melissa. I don’t know why she’s here. I can’t remember calling for help, and I realize I must be hallucinating. Or just lucky. My face is growing numb, and my vision becomes slow. When I turn my head it takes my eyes a second to catch up.

The pain starts to flare up again. I look around the room, but the surroundings are familiar, not like they ought to be if I were in a hospital. I try to bite down on the bottle, but find I am already biting down on something else. It’s my belt. Not the sort of thing a doctor would use.

My hands are shaking, and my entire body feels warm. I don’t know how the doctor does it, but she moves so quickly that one moment she’ll be holding something sharp in the air, and the next she’ll be dabbing something on me. I blink once, she changes position; I blink again, she’s somewhere else-I’m slipping in and out of consciousness. Mostly her words are disjointed, but she’s trying to reassure me. I watch as she removes pieces of skin and flesh, then I can watch no more.