Skin Deep
Lucas squeezed a zit on his nose, and a tiny drop of puss burst onto the mirror. He reached for a square of toilet paper, and wiped it away. A red dot remained on his face where the zit had been. In a few minutes, it would just be a small scab; far less noticeable than the pimple.
Still, Lucas rubbed the spot, and hoped the redness would fade before he left for school. He smiled at himself, tilting his head back and forth. Did it look weird if he showed more of his teeth? He gave a natural smile his best effort, mimed laughing, then scowled. What was the use?
He wrapped a towel his waist and exited the bathroom.
“Finally,” groaned his sister, Julia, who stood by the doorway. She charged through the door, and Lucas felt the handle pulled from his grip as she closed the door behind her.
Lucas just yawned, and walked back to his room.
There were clothes, school papers, and sports gear strewn about the floor. Paths stood clear of debris, leading to and from the bed, closet, dresser, and desk.
Lucas shut the door, and picked up a pair of underwear from the floor. Was this clean or dirty? He sniffed it. Lightly worn. He considered for a moment, then dropped it back to the floor, and picked up a fresh pair from his dresser.
The clock read 7:25. He was running five minutes behind schedule if he was planning to eat breakfast. But, if he skipped breakfast, then he had ten minutes to spare. There was barely a second thought, and Lucas threw himself, face-down, onto the top of his mattress. Ten minutes of sleep counted for something.
Lucas was taking a deep breath, on the verge of falling asleep, when his eyes shot open, and he inhaled sharply.
“Ahh!” he cried, and slapped at his back. Something had bitten him, right between his shoulder blades.
Lucas stood up and scanned the room. Something large and black buzzed near the ceiling fan. It looked like a wasp: thin body, thick hind-section. It had hooked mandibles on its head, though, like some exotic beetle.
Lucas swiped at it with his arms, then thought better of that. He reached for a notebook and swatted at the fan. He heard a small tick!, and saw the insect-thing lying on the floor, legs dancing in the air. It flipped over and took off again. This time, it flew towards the open window. It smacked against the glass twice, but escaped just as Lucas was winding up to crush it. The black dot disappeared into a tree.
Lucas rubbed his back. He felt a welt right next to his spine. It stung when he touched it. He sighed; this was just his luck. Later, he’d tell Dad that there was a wasps’ nest nearby.
So much for his nap. Lucas finished dressing, gathered his homework into his backpack, and left for school.
All through the day, Lucas kept touching the lump on his back. It still hurt, but the pain was diminishing. He couldn’t tell its exact size, but by feeling it out, it seemed to have the diameter of a dime.
Not too bad. He’d gotten bruises from paintballs that were worse.
By the time he got home, the swelling was already fading. He took off his soccer clothes, showered, and dried himself off. After wiping away a bit of steam from the glass, Lucas looked himself up and down. He sucked in his stomach and tried to tell if his abs or pectorals were more pronounced. He moved on to his arms. The team had done pushups as part of warm-up drills; were his triceps growing, or was it the recent exercise?
Then, he turned around to see how the welt was looking.
His back was red from the hot shower, but he could still make out the lump. It didn’t hurt anymore when he touched it. As he looked closer, though, he thought he saw some sunburn across his shoulders and upper back. A patch of skin was deeper red than just the rest.
Lucas grabbed a bottle of Aloe vera gel, and spread it across his back.
He put on a towel, and went back to his room.
There’s no way he picks Rachel!” said Julia. She stabbed the pork chop on her plate with a fork, then began sawing away a piece.
“What? Why not? She’s pretty,” said Mom.
“Sure, but she’s totally not into him.” Julia finished cutting, and placed the cube of meat into her mouth. She spoke between chews. “If he can’t see-- that she’s just trying-- to get attention, then-- maybe he’s as crazy as she is.”
Lucas stared at the center of the table, shoveling food into his mouth with a glazed look in his eyes. He reached for a dinner roll and bit off a piece without buttering it. His appetite didn’t earn more than the occasional look of amusement from Mom.
“You have to be a little crazy to go on one of those shows,” said Mom.
“Hey Dad,” said Lucas, “there was a wasp in my room this morning. I think there might be a nest nearby.”
“What? Are you okay?” asked Mom.
“A wasp nest?” mumbled Dad. He kept chewing his food.
Lucas nodded. “I’m fine. It flew out the window. It was really big, though.”
“Do we have any wasp spray?” asked Mom. She wasn’t paying attention to her food anymore. She gesticulated with her fork as she spoke. “You know, I thought I saw some bees on the porch yesterday. Bet it was wasps. I’m so glad I didn’t make them angry.”
“I’ll check the garage,” said Dad. “If we’re out of spray, I’ll run to the store and get some.”
That seemed to placate Mom, though she returned to the topic several times throughout the rest of the meal. Lucas was the first to finish eating, so he excused himself, washed his plate, and went back upstairs to do homework.
Lucas must have gotten burned worse than he thought. The next morning, he noticed that his whole back stung under the heat of the water. When he checked in the mirror, he saw tiny red bumps spread across his shoulders, down to his sides, and almost to his tailbone. Some sort of rash had broken out. He checked the Aloe vera gel, and saw that its “use by” date was three years ago. Lucas threw away the bottle.
Peering down at his right shoulder, he examined the tiny dots. He remembered their neighbor, a girl named Mindy, who didn’t catch chicken pox until she was in the third grade. She got them from her younger sister, and Lucas remembered seeing her face and arms and legs dotted with the little red lumps. He thought his back looked similar now, but denser, and contained to just his back.
He prodded one of them, and felt a tiny bit of pressure, like a deep pimple. Lucas placed his thumbnail on one side, and his index finger on the other, then squeezed.
A sharp pain shot through Lucas’s shoulder, and he felt his muscle spasm. He gasped, and released. The spot remained sore, but the intense pain subsided.
Lucas leaned backward over the sink to get closer to the mirror. He touched several more of the lumps, and felt a similar sensation of pressure.
Throughout the rest of the day, Lucas tried to sit forward in his chair and not to lean on any walls. The soreness of the rash continued to increase throughout the day. Eventually, he couldn’t concentrate on the lesson, and took a pass down to the nurse’s office.
“Bad Aloe?” asked Mr. Fryer.
“Yes sir,” said Lucas. Mr. Fryer touched Lucas’s back with a gloved hand. “I think it’s an allergic reaction. Ouch!”
Lucas pulled away, arching his back impulsively away from Mr. Fryer’s hand.
“Well, it could be. I’ve never seen an allergies specific to Aloe vera juice, but it can cause irritation for certain people. Have you had a reaction like this before?”
“No, never. My sister’s allergic to peanuts, though. She gets hives.” Lucas reached for his shirt, but Mr. Fryer held up a hand.
“Hold up. I’m going to give you some cream that might help reduce the swelling. You can either wait here, or, if you’re feeling up to it, go back to class.” Mr. Fryer scribbled on a clipboard, then started searching through a cabinet. He found a bottle, and poured some pinkish lotion into one of his hands.
The lotion was cold as Mr. Fryer applied it. Lucas tried not to move as the occasional sting emitted from the rash.
“Alright,” Mr. Fryer said, discarding his gloves. “You can stay here and lie down, or you can go.”
Lucas started pulling his shirt over his head.
“I think I’m feeling better now,” he said. “I’m gonna go.”
“Alright.” Mr. Fryer nodded. “You should probably head to a dermatologist, though. I’ll send a note out to your parents about it. Try not to pick at it.”
Lucas felt embarrassed thinking about his parents receiving an email about their son’s rash. It wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to.
As he walked down the hall, Lucas felt better. His back was still sore, but he could feel some of the tension being released.
The pain started to rise again later that evening.
They were playing a game against Kilian County High School, and Lucas wasn’t feeling very energetic or mobile. He could jog, but anything above that started to make the pain worse.
At one point, a sudden jolt of pain became so intense that Lucas closed his eyes, clenched his fists, and waited for it to pass.
He heard voices calling, “Lucas…..! Come on, mid, what are you doing?! Look out!” just in time for the ball to nail him right in the back.
Lucas collapsed in a swell of pain. His back felt like it had been electrified. The breath had been knocked out of him, and he gasped to recover.
When he didn’t get up, the ref blew the whistle, and several teammates helped Lucas limp off of the field. He heard a low round of applause from parents as he made it to the bench, but Lucas didn’t feel very applause-worthy.
On the bus home, Lucas avoided conversation about what had happened, and shrugged off any concern with an “it’s fine.”
When he made it home, just went over to the couch and lay down on his face.
He fell asleep almost immediately.
When he awoke, Lucas wasn’t sure if it was early evening or early morning. The windows were dark, but he heard activity from the kitchen. He was drenched with sweat, and he had a light headache as he looked around.
As he say up smell of meat sauce and pasta filled his nostrils. Mom, Dad, and Julia were cleaning up the table.
“Oh, look who’s awake,” said Dad. “Long day at school?”
“He’s always passing out like that,” said Julia, “how else do you think he stays up so late.”
“For the record,” Mom said, touching Julia on the shoulder, “we can see the light on in your room sometimes until 3 a.m.”
Julia rolled her eyes. The conversation continued, but Lucas was half-dazed, and couldn’t keep track of it. He rubbed his eyes and started to stagger towards his room.
“Oh, by the way,” said Dad, turning in his seat to face Lucas. Lucas paused and propped himself up in the doorway. Dad frowned. “I looked today, but I couldn’t find any wasp nests around the house.”
Lucas nodded. He continued moving down the hall. It seemed neither Mom nor Dad had seen the note from the nurse’s office yet.
“Let me know if you see any more,” Dad’s voice echoed down the hall.
Lucas slumped into bed. He tried to roll over, but another wave of agony rushed along his side, up his spine. He stood back up. The pain didn’t stop. He gritted his teeth, and the urge to scratch at the rash was overwhelming. He had to do something, anything to relieve the pain.
Immediately, he rushed to the bathroom and stripped off his shirt.
His back was inflamed. This morning, it looked like it was covered with clusters of acne, but now the individual lumps had expanded into puffy boils. Some had developed into pustules, and others had a dark grey or blackish center.
Lucas touched one again, and the sense of pain was instant, like a red hot coal the size of a pearl had been placed on his back. His skin felt hard beneath the lumps, like there was a pocket of something building up just below the surface.
He knew he wasn’t supposed to, but Lucas couldn’t resist the need to scratch at them any longer. If he didn’t ease the discomfort now, he didn’t know if he could bear it.
Lucas dug at a cluster of lumps with his fingernails. He winced from the pain, but just kept scratching. There was a release of pressure, and Lucas felt skin and blood beneath several of his fingernails. He turned on the water to rise his fingers, but a smell reached his nose, like rotten breath.
Lucas’s stomach turned, and he slowly moved his back to face the mirror. Several of the lumps he’d scratched at had broken open. Beneath a smear of blood and puss, he saw tiny black beaks. They poked out from his skin like the bulbs of onions breaking through the soil. Each one was just larger than a sesame seed, and they opened periodically, as if breathing.
Hands shaking, Lucas scratched at a different area, and saw the black objects revealed beneath the red bumps.
He lunged for the toilet and began to retch. His stomach was empty, though, and all that came out was a trail of spit and bile. The image replayed through his head. Each time he banished it, he caught that horrible, putrid stench again, and a new wave of nausea arose.
Finally, Lucas pulled himself away from the toilet. His breathing was slow, and he forced himself to look at his back. The hundreds of twitching, gasping beaks continued working away.
Lucas reached for a box of toiletries, and scrambled through it. He tossed bandages aside, and unused travel-size tubes of toothpaste. He found tweezers, and a box of unopened razor blades. As he set down the box, he also grabbed a roll of gauze and set it beside the sink on the counter.
He knew what he had to do. It was like removing a splinter. Lucas held the razor in one hand, and remembered when he was seven, and Mindy told him that a mole on his ear made him ugly. That night, Lucas had found a pocket knife, and cut off the mole. He’d run screaming into his parent’s room with part of his ear missing and blood trickling down his face.
Lucas breathed deeply. He held the tweezers next to one of the beaks, and then he closed them.
The pain came again, but Lucas was expecting it. He groaned, and squeezed tighter with the tweezers, pulling at the same time. But it wouldn’t come free. The thing, whatever it was, sunk deeper into Lucas’s shoulder; he could feel it holding on. His nervous system was alive with pain. He let go after almost a second and a half, but it felt like an eternity.
His muscles seized up, but Lucas shook out his arms and shoulders. He peered back into the mirror, and reached for another one with the tweezers. It pulled back as well, but this time Lucas guided the corner of the razor against its hard beak. He felt excruciating pain as he pushed the razor down and under the shell of the thing, and pried it up.
It was like uprooting a weed from his back. Suddenly, he felt a snap, and the tiny black object pinged out of the grip of his tweezers. A black, clam-shaped object lay on the tiled floor of the bathroom, still clinging to a piece of flesh it had rooted itself to. A trickle of blood dripped down Lucas’s back and along his fingers.
It opened. And closed. And opened.
Lucas felt dizzy. He reached out for the counter to support himself, but his head lolled back, cracking into the bathtub.
Ceiling tiles rushed overhead, as Lucas began to regain consciousness. There were people above him, rushing beside him.
“...okay. You’re going to be…”
He blinked rapidly. He made out the shapes of men and women in scrubs.
The world went black again, and Lucas awoke staring at the floor. His head rested on a pillow like those used in massages. He looked up, and saw surgical equipment: scalpels and needles and scissors and clamps.
Lucas’s back was still in pain. Horrible, agonizing pain. He smelled something rotten. He wanted to hurl.
A masked doctor looked over. He turned Lucas’s head so that he was staring at the floor again.
“You’re all right, Lucas. This won’t hurt a bit.”