Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation (3 page)

And then I actually am flying. Forward, over the horse’s head, and that metal spike,
and a bunch of negative space, and I tumble to the ground, smacking into the cement
headfirst. This is followed by an awkward somersault, and I am flat on my back, my
Popsicle-and-dirt-bearded chin quivering with impending tears.

When you are a kid, there is that moment after you’ve fallen, when you can’t decide
how
you feel. Things hurt, but not that much. Not yet. You can’t breathe, and you’re
a little confused, because just a few minutes ago you were having SO much fun, but
now you’re lying on the ground in a heap and all that joy has turned to sawdust and
Bactine in your mouth. You have to take a minute to gather your thoughts, because
an injury means the end of fun for the day, and maybe a lot longer than that. So you
ask yourself: Am I really hurt? Sometimes it’s up to you to decide, and sometimes
the injury decides for you. In this case, I wanted to keep playing. But the injury
decided for me.

I staggered to my feet, ready to finish my ride.
⁶
But as I stood there, thinking I could “walk this one off” as my father often admonished,
the faces of my friends said it all. I was getting a crowd-sourced diagnosis on this
one, long before the term had been invented. Their expressions provided ample nonverbal
evidence that I was in deep, deep
poos
.

I looked down. A spreading stain, a bright and crimson line, ran downward from my
chin to dangerously near where my junk might be, if I had been old enough to have
developed junk, or even know what junk was. It was a long and continuous streak, and
growing increasingly bloody by the minute. Even my five-year-old brain knew that a
rusty spike slicing you open longways couldn’t be a
good
thing. My mom had squawked enough about the threat of tetanus and lockjaw coming
from dirty metallic items for me to know that I couldn’t just lick the back of my
hand and wipe this one away like I did a skinned knee or a rivulet of boogers. This
was a job for someone with gauze and ointment and a bottomless supply of kisses for
my boo-boo.

The dreaded truth settled in my head with a thud; the thing no kid ever wants to accept.
It was time to go home.

And as I realized that, the five-year-old part of my five-year-old brain finally kicked
in, and I did what a normal little kid would do. I burst into tears and ran all the
way back to my house.

When I arrived there, looking like a mad scientist had tried to flay me open like
a tiny Frankenstein, my mother freaked out in appropriate fashion. When I told her
what had happened, as she was dabbing my torso with bubbling peroxide and wiping my
salty tears, she asked, in that annoyingly reasonable way adults do, “Why would you
play with that toy when you knew it was broken? Why would you do something you knew
was clearly dangerous?” To which I gave an answer I was sure was apparent to all but
the most dim-witted of people. “Mommy. It looked fun.”

In retrospect, it
was
fun, once it was confirmed that I wasn’t going to get lockjaw or tetanus or leprosy
or cooties. Courting danger, facing fear, and engaging in life fully without caution
or conservatism was a fantastic time. And, yes, the possibility existed that I would
get hurt, but the possibility also existed that I would have a shitload of fun. And
that was just too strong an enticement to ignore.
⁷

“And whose fault
is
this?” my mother demanded. “Did one of the other kids push you to ride? Was it that
hoodlum Malik? I always knew he was bad news. I am calling his mother.”

“No.” I shook my head. “It was my fault.”

Even then, I knew I had no one to blame but myself.

Did I learn my lesson, my mother wanted to know? Did I realize that the world was
dangerous? That I needed to be careful? That I should approach foreign objects with
caution, and wear shoes, and put on a sweater, and avoid rusty nails and never ride
broken hobbyhorses again? Did I?
Did I?!?

Yes.
I nodded. I had learned my lesson. I would be more careful.

But the truth is that all I had learned was that it might be a good idea to wear a
shirt occasionally. And that the next time I found a free hobbyhorse lying around,
I was damn well going to jump on that thing and teach it who was boss.

This was a harbinger of things to come. The first time I ran headlong into danger,
not just fearlessly, but gleefully embracing what would surely and inevitably be my
demise, without caution or restraint. That horse was corroded, barbed, and threatening,
its tiny horn tipped with rust and the bloody remnants of a thousand tiny broken dreams.

And it would be mine. Oh, yes. It would be mine.

For that experience, for the ride, the injury, and the scar I still bear to this day,
I can only blame myself. It was no one’s fault but my own. I did it to me.

This is the essence of a self-inflicted wound, metaphorical or other. You’d like to
project blame, point the finger, claim accident, bad luck, confluence, coincidence.
But the truth is the blame lies squarely with you. And the only way to salvage the
experience is to try to find a way to learn from it, to grow as a person, take responsibility,
and move on.

That kind of personal examination and growth is what self-inflicted wounds are all
about. A long, slow movement toward adulthood, and the learning and growth that can
only come with a few scrapes and scars.

As for me, I blame the horse.

( 2 )

The Time I Almost Set Myself on Fire

“As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of
the world is wounded by its own skill.”
—
H
ELEN
K
ELLER

“I just fucked up my hand slicing a bagel. Stupid bagel.”
—
A
ISHA
T
YLER

When
I was seven years old, I set my house on fire.

I realize that this sounds vaguely
Carrie
-like, only without all the religious zealotry or repressed sexuality. Also,
way
less blood.

In my defense, it wasn’t
totally
on fire, and it wasn’t my entire house. Technically, it wasn’t even a house but an
apartment. An apartment with shag rugs, marbled mirrors, and sparkly cottage cheese
ceilings. An apartment just begging to be dirtied up a bit. It’s possible I may have
been harboring a bit of misplaced anger at the apartment that had less to do with
interior décor and more to do with the fact that my parents had just separated. But
in my mind, at the time, that apartment was just asking for it.

My parents were in the middle of their first trial separation, and my mom, sister,
and I had moved into a two-bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood in the hills
of Oakland, California. Safe, quiet, walking distance to the bus stop. A nearby 7-Eleven
provided easy access to neon-blue frozen drinks when needed. A secure underground
parking spot offered protection for my mom’s badass 1974 Mustang.
¹
Not too shabby, considering the solemn circumstances under which we made the move.

I can’t say I was happy about my parents’ separation and impending divorce, but I
honestly can’t say I was sad, either. I was a kid, for chrissakes. I didn’t know how
the fuck to feel. People often lament about divorces and what they do to children.
There is a lot of handwringing about nuclear families and dual parenting and kids
needing continuity—and about the damage divorce does to their sense of stability,
their belief in the permanence of things, their tender, nascent optimism, and a bunch
of other misty-eyed laments.

But I’ll tell you what else fucks with a kid’s optimism and sense of stability: when
your parents fight all the time. That shit can really suck. Listening to your parents
yell, or cry, or stomp off in anger, or worse, that deafening silence that falls over
a home when the two biggest residents aren’t speaking to each other, and only reply
in jagged monotone when the kids ask for seconds or beg to be excused from the dinner
table
²
—
that
is damaging. That shit is no fucking fun at all.

This may be heresy, but as a child of divorce, I can say it wasn’t
that
big a deal. I’m sure at the time I found it a bit more traumatic, but looking back,
it all seems much ado about nothing. My parents didn’t get along. They wanted different
things. They broke up. They both seemed moderately happier afterwards. That was good
enough for me.
³

So. Was I sad about the divorce? At the time, I couldn’t say. What I did know was
that all of a sudden I had a lot more unsupervised time on my hands, and that time
was ripe for getting into trouble. Epic, thunderous trouble.

Starting with setting some shit on motherfucking fire.

I didn’t actually
mean
to set anything on fire. This was not some destructive act of rebellion. I just liked
to cook. Or, more accurately, I liked to eat. Cooking was a means to an end, and that
end was eating awesome shit. I have always loved to eat. I am a large person and I
have been this large, essentially, since birth. A big baby. A robust toddler. A giant,
stumbling kindergartner who could destroy a roast chicken in seconds, crack the bones
for their marrow, and come back for more. I looked old enough to buy beer when I was
thirteen. I am the go-to in any group when some shit needs getting off a high shelf.
A girl this big needs sustenance.

And when I was a kid, my favorite thing to do was the thing I was absolutely forbidden
to do: put a big pot of oil on a flaming stove, and fry shit up. Let’s face it, kids
love crispy foods.
⁴
They are always in search of a chip, or a fry, or a crunchy extruded shape of some
kind. Once I figured out that crispy food did not come exclusively from the store
or drive-through, that one could
make
these morsels of delight in the comfort of one’s own home, in almost unlimited quantities,
I was hooked. No matter the time, I was always down to get high on my own supply.

Maybe I was drawn to the danger of it, too; the irresistible lure of the forbidden.
Because while I was older now, and entrusted with more responsibility, I was still
a child of only eight years, prone to accidents both unforeseen and entirely predictable.
And each day I was given
very
specific instructions by my mother, repeated slowly and with meticulous diction every
time she left the house.

No oil. No stove. No fire.

So of course, the second my mother would leave the house, I would find a pot, fill
it to meniscus-challenging capacity with oil, and turn that bitch on high.

I never had a problem, either. I was careful, I told myself. And more than that, my
mom was just being controlling, overprotective, and a poo-poo face besides. She had
no idea what she was talking about. I could fry just fine. I didn’t need supervision.
And I wanted French fries. No one would stand in the way of me engaging in the heat-catalyzed
sorcery that turned two small brown tubers into the most extraordinary and life-changing
pile of crispy heaven sticks ever to be dipped into a tomato-based condiment. My mother
and her admonitions were dream-killers, to be dismissed without regard. And I had
done so, hundreds of times, to no ill effect. I made French fries, my mom remained
blissfully ignorant, and the balance of power in the universe was maintained. Who
was hurt in this transaction? No one.
⁵

So on this particular day, I was flouting my mother’s wishes once again. But this
day was different. This day I was in a hurry, because I was flouting not one rule,
but two: 1) do not cook, and 2) do not wear your mother’s favorite white chiffon top.
Ever
.
⁶

I was feeling fancy,
⁷
so I had gone into my mother’s closet with an eye to turning this morning into a
solitary fashion statement. I first took care to check any pockets for forgotten change,
⁸
and then searched out her favorite top. Not coincidentally, as this was my favorite
top, too. I was at the age where everything my mother liked, I liked. I was constantly
trying to emulate her in every way. From adoring the Ohio Players (whose adult-themed
music I did not even
begin
to understand) to cinching my belts so tightly they gave the impression, however
painful, that I had hips, to copying the way my mom laughed—an adorable little scream-shriek
of surprise followed by openmouthed peals of delight—I wanted to be like her, and
I would stop at nothing. Nothing at all, including sneaking into her closet and wearing
her clothes like some tiny, creepy serial killer.
⁹

And on this morning, I went for the gold: her prettiest, most expensive top, one she
saved for special occasions. It was white, layered chiffon, with flowing satin ribbons
and a watercolor painting of cranes and irises on the front. It was the closest thing
my mother had to a princess dress in her closet, and since I was a little kid, it
pretty much was a dress on me, albeit short and a little slutty, as if I was going
to a late night kegger for woodland faeries.

Since I was circumspect and modest, even at that age, I decided to rock it tunic style.
I pulled her mommy-sized white chiffon frock down over my seventies-era gauchos with
the flowers on the butt pockets (don’t hate) and sauntered into the kitchen to prepare,
then enjoy, a greasy platter of Idaho’s finest.

Realizing that I was compounding my trespasses, I thought it would be smart to get
all this criminal activity done and over with alacrity. My mother was running errands
and had taken my little sister with her, but who knew how long they’d be gone? The
worst possible arrangement of events would be for my mom to walk in while I was eating
clandestinely produced French fries dressed in her date-night finest. So to move things
along, I turned the oil up on high, the better to get it ready to fry quickly.