Chapter 7

Sue ellen

It comes from the heart

I rubbed lotion on the parts of my face that weren't mine.

In the rapid search for skin donors, the doctors had taken skin from three different people. One black man in his thirties, one dead 45 year old mother of two, and a 15 year old boy who had been the most recent victim of one of their failed heart surgeries.

I never found out where the skin had come from on their bodies, but it was probably for the best. It was bad enough that I spent my first month in the hospital with a black chin that still had a tattoo of a Heart on it, and I didn't need to find out that I as wearing some guys asshole on my face. I can't blame the doctors tough. Considering my condition when I came in, it was a miracle that they could even get what they did. If I was trying to restructure a person's face with the barely usable pieces my doctors had left of mine, I'd take what I could get.

They gave me bleach treatments to try to make my chin look better, but it didn't matter. I was so mangled, that I couldn't even tell which parts of my face were even mine.

The hospital wanted me to feel like I was. Still pretty. I still don't know if it was genuine kindness or an attempt to keep one name off the suicide list for the year, but they sent me a line of luxury beauty products. I guess they thought I'd use the blush to highlight all of the scars, and folds of patched together flesh.

Every morning I had to run my Fingers along the many parts of me the xacto had taken away. I saved my lips and my right eyelid for last. It was the only way I could keep from crying.

I ran the lotion along the two scars on my upper and lower lid which was little more four useless flaps before Dr. McDonald patched It up.

It was time for my proudest feature. It brought such unity to the mangled mess on the front of my head. My left eye was gone the moment binky Stuck his knife in it. The doctor said I had ten percent vision left over after they fixed all the cuts and replaced all the bits of scraped off cornea. I even heard him tell my mother that there was no use in repairing it after the amount of damage binky had done.

I guess I should be thankful that all she cared about was my appearance. Her tenacity with the doctors saved what I could confidently say was a hideous bloodshot, cloudy red orb that, generously, I could consider a human eye. Still, it was better than the flesh that covered the rest of my face. It looked like a dozen rolls of flesh colored toilet paper had been soaked and thrown onto a human head.

There was no time to weep, no time to waste. I wiped the patched up hollow where my left eye had been. I never bothered to clean up more than that when Francine was coming by.

Her life must've had no black spots between our weekly visits. I never covered my face, never combed over the bald spot where they had dug put the broken xacto blade from my skull.

She walked in quietly through the door, silent as a mouse.

"Hey." She wore jeans more torn down than a hood rats, a sweater grayer than it was red, and no bling, but I could see the tan lines of ten rings on her dark fingers.

"Hey there." I sat up in my bed.

"You sound better sue. You're really learning how to form those words now huh?"

"what, so I didn't know before?"

"no, oh god. I'm just saying it sounds like the muscles in your lips are working right again."

"Well thank you Francine."

She sat by my bedside, holding a constantly buzzing phone, but not answering. Eventually she looked at my face. "so how's It been going? What have you been up to?"

"Oh you know, just avoiding mirrors, and trying to distract myself from the crushing loneliness. What about you?"

She awkwardly laughed, and looked down at her phone. She couldn't even acknowledge a straightforward bitchy remark.

Her cheeks were bright red only moments after staring at her phone. "Hold on one second."

She walked out, and I put my head up against the door.

"What the fuck do you mean he's dead... oh yeah, Arthur. I believe that... I hired you all for muscle Molly. If I slink comes back miraculously with the package, and its light, you're losing your job… the hammer? You're telling me the hammer was involved?" she said nothing after, and I heard her put the phone away.

She entered looking as sorry as the last time. She looked down at me, the little cat lying in a hospital bed.

"So it is drugs then."

Her eyes widened. "Excuse me?"

"I thought it was whores you were running. Hell I guess it's better that I wasn't stabbed so that a bunch of sex slaves would be brought to Elwood.

"Sue…"

I looked right at her "I'm passed it. I don't care."

"I would care, sue." Tears moistened her sweater. "I would kill me."

She sat at my bedside, within arm's reach of me. I couldn't touch her shoulder. "You can come by anytime. Assuage your guilt; make a show of how merciful you are. Do whatever. Just be honest when you're in here. If anything else, be that.

She wiped the tears from her eyes. "I will sue. I have to leave." She stood up

"Take some eyeliner with you. You're gonna need to look strong when you face your men."

She turned around. "No I can't take it. It's yours."

I didn't have to say anything. All she had to do was turn around and look at me.

She took the makeup.