Turtleface and Beyond by Arthur Bradford Read Free Book Online Page B

right there and he yanked back the control bar, stopping the chipper and preventing it from sucking me all the way through. People get killed that way all the time! When I tried to remove myself from the chute though, it seemed that my leg was stuck.
    Clifford kept saying, “You’re going to be all right. I stopped the chipper.”
    â€œThen get me out,” I said.
    â€œI can’t do that,” he said.
    â€œWhy not?”
    Clifford just said, “Don’t look down there, okay?”
    I wish I could tell you more accurately what it felt like to be lying there with my leg stuck in the chipper. I believe we all have this mechanism in our bodies which shuts off overwhelming pain. What’s the point of registering such discomfort? All I felt was this very strange pressure telling me something was not right.
    â€œWell, shit,” I said to myself. “Who would’ve guessed my day would be turning out like this? Not me!”
    And then I thought about Lenore. Perhaps this was how she had felt while that van was lying on her arm. I should give her a call, I thought. It had been over a year since our last encounter and as I mentioned before she’d been on my mind quite a few times.
    An ambulance arrived at this point and they injected me with some chemicals which caused me to pass out.
    *   *   *
    I lost the lower part of my leg, almost to the knee. Chopped into mulch by that chipper! I learned this in the hospital once I woke up. To be honest, I was not overly alarmed at the time and thought it wouldn’t be a great hardship living without this section of my leg, but it turned out I was wrong about that.
    It took me months to get used to the prosthesis. On several occasions I stepped out of bed thinking I still had two feet and fell over onto the floor. I had those phantom pains too, where I thought my foot was itching or cramping up, but then I’d remember it wasn’t even there! The city paid for my rehabilitation and eventually I made it back home and found an acceptable routine. It was then that I called up Lenore.
    â€œI’m surprised to hear from you,” she said.
    â€œI’m surprised to hear from you too,” I replied.
    â€œYou called me.”
    â€œRight, I know that. Listen, how would you like to go out on a date with me?”
    â€œA date? Okay, I guess. How about lunch?”
    â€œGreat.”
    I picked Lenore up at her place, the same place where she had been living before, and we went for a drive out to the countryside. I’d decided we would have a picnic lunch, somewhere wide-open and beautiful. It would be a stark contrast with Clifford’s half-assed magic show.
    As we were driving I said to her, “I lost part of my leg.”
    â€œYour leg?”
    â€œYes, my right leg. I got caught in a wood chipper. That’s why I’m driving with my left foot now, see?”
    Lenore looked down. I’d learned to drive with my left foot. It was safer that way.
    Lenore looked back up at the road and said, “There’s a cat.”
    A cat jumped out in front of the car and I hit it.
    â€œOh man,” I said.
    I stopped the car and we got out. The cat lay in a heap on the road.
    â€œShit,” I said. “Fuck.”
    â€œI think it’s dead,” said Lenore.
    â€œI know it’s dead,” I said.
    I took a blanket from my car, the blanket I’d been intending to use for our picnic, and scooped the body up as best I could. I placed it in the trunk. I didn’t want anyone else to run over it.
    There was a house nearby and Lenore said, “I guess that’s where he lives.”
    â€œHe or she,” I corrected her.
    â€œI bet it’s a male cat,” said Lenore. “Only male cats do things like that.”
    Together Lenore and I walked up to the house so that we could give the owner some bad news.
    â€œYou walk pretty well with that fake foot,” said