Poster Child by Emily Rapp Read Free Book Online

were horrible. Every day, Mom gave me a sponge bath and directed a small fan or cool air from a hair dryer down the cast's narrow top opening. It felt delicious to feel air move inside that closed space, but it did little to alleviate the mix of smells—dried sweat, crusted blood, shit—that wafted up from the stale, gluey air trapped against my skin.
    In addition to the heat and smell, the logistics of the cast were a challenge. I had to go to the bathroom through a small square—like a trapdoor—between my stiff, separated legs. If I needed to use the toilet at night, I had to shout and wake up my parents. Sometimes I peed in the cast and endured the awful smell until it faded into the others.
    Mom "petaled" my cast—an old technique she had learned in nursing school. She cut strips of adhesive tape, each about the size of a Band-Aid, and put half of the strip outside the cast and half inside. Petaling created a smooth surface at the rough edges of the cast. After the tape had been soiled by shit and urine, it was simply peeled off and discarded. "It was like laying the petals of a flower," Mom explained. "Although it was never going to smell like a flower down there, it did smell better and the cast didn't scrape against your skin."
    I liked to go on long drives in our yellow station wagon. That way, I could still cover distances, even though I was immobile. That summer, when we drove to Illinois to visit my aunt, uncle, and cousins, I sat propped up on pillows in the back of the station wagon and watched through the windows as the land rolled away in reverse, changing from rocky and hilly to flat fields decorated with silos. In the distance, the land met the sky in a smooth line. Andy handed me treats and books over the middle seats that he was happy to have to himself for a change.
    When we arrived in Illinois, the body cast had been on for several weeks, and Mom insisted on combing out the tangles in my long hair, which she'd arranged in a high, messy bun. She propped me up against the couch in my aunt and uncle's living room and tried to distract me by playing cartoons on television and offering sweets.
    "Maybe we should just cut her hair," Dad said, watching as I screamed and protested. "It sounds really painful." At this, I howled louder. I was definitely in favor of a haircut. Who cared what I looked like? This painful process didn't seem worth it.
    "No way," Mom replied, spraying my hair with more detangler. "I won't cut her hair." When she was ten years old, her mother had open heart surgery, and Mom went to live temporarily with her aunt and uncle. The first thing her aunt did was take her to the town barber to have her waist-length hair cut short so that it would be easier to care for. She'd hated it, she said, because she'd felt like a boy when she wanted to be a little girl. "She's keeping all of this," Mom said, fingering a strand of my hair and preparing to rake out a tangle. Dad shrugged and left the room.
    "Ready?" Mom said cheerily, picking up her comb. "Almost done!" I groaned as she handed me a butterscotch candy.
    The June air was sweltering hot. I heard the shouts and giggles of Andy and my cousins Erica, Beth, and Sarah as they played in the backyard. Periodically, the screen door would screech open and then close again as one of them ran in to check on me. I heard the deep tones of Uncle Aaron's voice as he talked to Dad. I heard the clink of ice as it melted down in their Manhattans.
    After all the knots were out, Mom washed my hair in the kitchen sink; gentle as she'd tried to be, my scalp stung. The comb moved smoothly through my wet hair. "See," she said, squeezing the ends of my hair with a towel. "All better." I glared at her.
    Dad carried me out to the back porch so I could sit on the patio, propped up on pillows. I looked out over the yard and watched the fireflies bob and spin in the thick, early evening air. I put my hands in my sweet-smelling hair as it dried, wavy and heavy. I