Kissing the Cold Feet of Jesus

I was pulling ivy in my front yard. I hate ivy. It’s ugly and makes me think of rats and cigarette butts. It was late winter, early spring. My nose and hands were cold. I was wearing a jacket. I braced a foot on a slope and pulled a massive vine out with all my might, and toppled over. My nose was running. My body ached all over and I wanted to throw up. I had spent the morning in chemo. I had a wig on under a knit beanie. Cancer-wise, I was totally “passing.” More than a few strangers asked me where I had my hair done.

Did they really want to know? After my hair began falling out in clumps, which is a repeated scene in horror movies for a reason, I solemnly entered the hospital wig shop where a very nice lady working in the shadows somewhere between “beauty” and “death” shaved my head. She did it in a special curtained-off cubicle because I didn’t want to see it in the mirror. “How many brothers do you have?” she said, as she worked. “Four,” I answered. “I knew it by the scars!” she said. Our bodies bear all kinds of secrets, from our scalps to secretly mutating cancerous cells.