The cat won’t stop making its noises.  It has to shit.  Or maybe it’s hungry.  I can’t help with either.  It’s not my cat.  I fed it a few cans of tuna, now it hangs around all day, a distraction.  I don’t mind having it around, but I don’t like it waking me up.  Cats don’t make the best sounds.

I got up and limped into the bathroom.  There was a nail in my foot.  There was a nail in my foot, yesterday.  A good rusty one with a twist at the end.  Someone hammered it through a scrap piece of wood and laid it out there for someone like me to step on.  It bled awful.  I’ve never seen so much blood.  I had to throw my sock away.  Actually, I threw both socks away.  If a sock doesn’t have a match, there’s no point in keeping it around to confuse things.

I peed with an erection.  It isn’t easy.  A mess more than anything.  You’ve got to get a hold of it and push your hips way back.  If you get in the shower you don’t have to worry about it.  Just aim at the wall and let the water take care of the rest.  I didn’t want a shower, so I had to do it the old fashion way.

I got done and cleaned up the mess.  That cat was still being a pain.  I yelled at it in Spanish.  “Goddam cat,” I said.  That’s all I knew how to say.  My Spanish was no good.  The cat didn’t listen, anyway.

There was no work.  It was a slow week.  A slow month, really, but I was getting by.  It’s good to have a week to spend with your own thoughts now and again.  The trouble with constant work is that the problems, rouge thoughts, bad habits, internal chaos – it all gets soaked up, absorbed.  It’s like you’re running a mop over everything.  Then when you get that break, a little time to yourself, it all seeps out.  It bleeds out like my foot after that nail.  You’ve got time to think about it, and you better.  Otherwise, it will start to go bad in your guts and in your brain.  The doctors won’t tell you, but people die from that sort of thing.

I hobbled back to my room and bent myself in half trying to get a good look at my wound.  The nail didn’t go all the way through.  Almost.  They say you’re not supposed to pull that sort of thing out.  What do they expect?  Stay there nailed to a pile of junk wood?  Hop to the doctors and have them yank the thing out with pliers?  I went ahead and pulled it out myself.  That was a nightmare.  You’d think a foreign object would slide out clean like a thumb tack from a bulletin board.  It wasn’t so easy.  It was in there.  I thought it had barbs for a second.  Then it popped out and the blood started pouring.

It drained right out of me.  Left a long trail.  A broken red line leading from the scene of the crime to wherever I was.  I used the sock to stop the bleeding, but it wasn’t effective.  My shoe filled up halfway.  There was so much blood in that shoe that it started pumping out the sides.  I remembered after that to raise the wound.  My mother taught me that.  Above the heart.  I don’t know the reasoning.  She’s right though, it worked.

I had to lie on my back with my foot up on a chair. I tied the sock around it.  It was looking bleak.  The pain died off, but I wasn’t sure if it would ever stop leaking.  I thought that maybe I’d die there on the ground with my foot up.  I never saw the light.  I got a hellova head rush, dizzy spells, nausea, but never any light.

I’m not flexible, so it was difficult to get a look at the puncture wound.  I had to fold my leg underneath me like a hurdler and crank my neck to the side. The injury looked more like a fire ant hole that had been invaded by something larger.  All around it was pulsing red and it worked up to a mound.  I gave it a squeeze and it oozed, clear, then yellow, then red.  I didn’t know what that meant.  I know what red and yellow means on a snake.  There’s a saying for it, “Red and yellow, kill a fellow.”  Maybe it was a sign.

I walked on my heel back to the bathroom and looked in the cabinets for some disinfectant.  There wasn’t so much as a Band-Aid.  I went to the kitchen, slow and painfully.  I looked in there for something.  I knew there were natural remedies for that sort of thing, but I wasn’t sure what.  I got a cup of water and mixed in a little vinegar and salt.  I poured that on my foot.  It wasn’t good.  Felt like the fire ants were clawing their way out.  I didn’t pour any more on after that.

It was bleeding again.  I knew I’d have to mop, but it would be pointless while I was dripping everywhere.  I went through the trash to find the one good sock.  It was stuck to the bloody one.  I pulled them apart and tied it around my foot.  I found some duct tape after that and wrapped it on tight.  It looked silly.  It felt foolish too, but it was better than nothing.  I hopped back to my bedroom and laid on the floor with my foot on the chair again.  The phone rang.  I didn’t get up to answer it.