Tourniquet

Jim Carlyle is in the kitchen washing dishes. His wife of eleven years, Abby Carlyle (nee Baker), usually handles the chore, but today Abby is out with the girls. It's her best friend Monica's thirty-sixth birthday, and Jim is glad to oblige. He still feels guilty that his brother Paul left Monica and Lewis, Monica's two-year-old son (and Monica with another baby on the way), so abruptly, without any explanation; and he hopes Abby and their mutual friends can cheer Monica up, at least for today. Because she's a good-hearted woman, one of the best. Jim can still hear how broken she sounded on the day she knew Paul left, her violent sobs punching his eardrum through the phone's receiver. He wished then, and still does, that he could make it up to her. What was so shocking was that Paul Carlyle was nothing if not a devoted husband, his letter so strangely angry that Jim couldn't believe Paul had written it. I'm going to murder you if I ever see you or that little twat's bitchfaces again, so don't bother looking for me, it concluded, venom hastily scribbled in red ink on yellow legal pad paper. That was four months ago; and while Monica's life has regained some sense of normalcy since, she's far from out of depression's woods. She'll occasionally ring Abby in the middle of the night, crying deliriously, repeating the question "What the hell went wrong?" over and over again in a hoarse, wavering whisper.

Jim frowns as he scrubs a bowl crusty with tomato sauce and again ponders Monica's question. What the hell did go wrong? There are no answers, only guesses; and this, he knows, is the source of Monica's nagging hurt. Paul never missed a day of work in his life, nor did he fail to call his wife three times daily from the office. Death, taxes, and Paul's phone calls, Monica used to joke, were life's only assurances. So when Paul didn't call or come home on the evening of March 2, it was a surprise to all who knew him. Monica rang Abby first, then Jim and Paul's parents, who were vacationing in Florida. She got the same advice from both parties: call the police immediately. Which she did. It wasn't until two days later than Monica discovered Paul's vitriolic letter in a decaying paperback (William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist) nestled in their bedroom bookshelf. I hate you and never want to see you again, you cunt, it began. If looks can be priceless, Monica Carlyle (nee Sampson), upon reading that letter, had a look that was worthless. Her features crumbled in on themselves like an imploding building.

Have a good time, Mon, Jim thinks. Monica can't drink, what with the baby, but he hopes the other girls don't get too sauced and bring up Paul, hence reopening a healing wound. He places a white ceramic plate on the dish rack to his left and then his thoughts turn to basketball. The Kings are playing the Sixers at seven-thirty, and while both teams suck (no season tickets this year, breaking Jim's twelve-year tradition of watching every Kings home game live and in Chuck person), he wants to see if rookie Kenyon Harding is the real deal. There are a few bottles of Bud in the fridge, some Ruffles in the cupboard...Let's make it a night! he decides, unaware that destiny's hand trumps his one-pair plan for a quiet evening.

Jim Carlyle is amazed. The dishes finally washed and dripping water like sweat on the foreheads of perspiring point guards, he removes his rubber dishwashing gloves -- his pink rubber dishwashing gloves -- to see his left hand dripping blood. His palm has a one-inch-deep cut which runs from above his thumb to just below his pinkie, and it's bleeding heavily. A stream of sanguine water flows down his raised arm, staining the arm of his Eddie Bauer golf shirt like an ink blot on paper. But that's not the most incredible thing, not by far. Jim is short two digits. This equation doesn't take long; where once there were five, now there are three: his thumb, ring, and pinkie. This little piggie stayed home, he nearly cackles before grabbing a soaked dishtowel to stop the flow. And the weird thing is that there were no knives in the sink.