O.D. #3

                “This one’s been around the block a few times,” the paramedic remarked upon examining Vita’s boots.  Black electrical tape held together the worn, pointed toes.
         “Goddam,” another paramedic cursed as he jumped away from her arm.  “We got a bleeder,” he informed his pal.
         The first paramedic moved up to her opposite arm laughing at his friend.  “Amateur,” he called him before he tore the paper covering off a new syringe with his teeth.  He spat the paper onto the floor of the ambulance.  “Let me show you how the pros do it,” he wheedled.  He tapped for a vein then took a stab at it.  It seemed to go in smoothly until he adjusted it to fit the I.V. tube.  “Fuck!” he cursed as the blood spurted onto his pressed pants.  “Man, I just got these cleaned,” he complained while his partner got the last laugh.

         Babel voices came as if through a tube—hollow and far away.  Vita Larsa felt as though she were suspended in darkness, as though she had been abandoned in a starless region of outer space.  Voices.  Under and over and all around her—sometimes they seemed to shout.  She tried to listen, tried to speak, but she could not feel her lips.  She could not find her own tongue.  She was sure they were sending her messages, but she could not find her ears; she could not tune them in.  She seemed to exist as nothing more than consciousness—a disembodied brain suspended in a jar of formaldehyde.  As quickly as it came, terror washed over her like a wave and moved on to make way for the next wave of surrender.  She rode that one back into a memory.

         A placid lake ringed by willows and pines, a bright blue, cloudless sky nearly white with hot summer sunlight—sweat clung like dew on the fine hairs of her forearms.  Her thin, cotton blouse stuck to her knotty spine and to her newly-formed breasts.  Crouched and trembling, she held a hammer in her right hand and a nine-penny nail in her left. 
            “Hit it, Vita” a boy to her right demanded.
            “Knock it cold,” another insisted behind her.
            A muddy brown fish flapped weakly on a rotting piece of lumber beneath her.  She raised the hammer and closed her eyes as she swung.  It missed its mark and thudded on the board.
            “Give me that,” the leader of the ring of boys grumbled impatiently.  His name was Michael.  He was strong and vicious and brutally handsome for his age.  He swiped the hammer from her hand.
         Vita stood and moved aside while Michael knocked the fish lifeless, while the rest of the boys cheered him on.  He grabbed her hand which held the long nail and yanked her back down beside him.  He placed his fingers firmly over hers and squarely positioned the point of the nail in the center of the head of the catfish.  “Don’t move,” he warned her.
         Vita felt the crushing blow.  She heard the crunch of bone.  Michael hammered again.  She slipped away from his grip and stood aside as he finished the crucifixion of the catfish.

         “Vita?”  That one rang clearly—so clearly it startled her back to the void.  Babylon calling—the dark angel appeared and cradled Vita deep in her wings.  She lifted her through the darkness of outer space until she saw stars.  Her angel had no face—just shadows soft and swirling and coffee black.  She raised her wing and held something up for Vita to see but all she could see was shadows and rain-bowed coronas behind the dark angel.
         “What’s that?” Vita asked, but she fell back into the vortex of blackness, while her own voice, suspended up there, stuck on the wrong speed.  Babel tongues ebbed like waves, and then came again, crashing—splinters of undecipherable syllables splashing through the darkness.

         She loved the ocean, especially on a dark night—New Moon, when she could not see the water, yet she knew it was there.  She rose from the camel-colored sand and shuffled toward the black water.  The sand grew firm and smooth beneath her bare soles.  A dying wave tickled the tops of her toes.  She followed it back to its source.  When the water reached her thighs, she stopped.  She leaned over and cupped the salty water in her hands.  She washed her face, her shoulders, and her bare breasts.  She continued toward the blackness until the water reached her belly.  She lay herself down on the waves on her back and savored the feel of her hair snaking like seaweed away from her skull.  “I baptize myself,” she said to the sky, “Vita Ballyhoo.”  She did not care much for the meanings of words; it was the sound that she loved.  She named herself, from late spring until Indian summer, with words that felt good on her tongue—Omaha, bungalow, Kalamazoo.  Baptism was her favorite sacrament.

         “Vita,” the voice called.  She heard her angel approach and she was not afraid.  She could not see her, yet she knew she was there returning for her.  She felt her angel touch the crook of her arm while she floated in the darkness.  She felt as though she were in a black tube, but the angel reached in and tried to pull her out.

         Michael grabbed her arm roughly.  “It’s a holy sacrament,” he hissed at her.
         “I enjoy it,” she tried to explain, “I think it is a beautiful ritual.  I’m glad someone thought of it.”
         He spun her around.  Her face was close to his.  “Only a priest,” he spat in her face, “can perform a baptism.”
         Vita brushed the tiny drops of spittle from her forehead.  “I’d rather do it myself or with someone I know and love,” she argued.  “I don’t know any priests,” she offered, as she slipped from his grip and headed for the water.
         Michael was afraid of the dark, though he would never admit it.  He was even more afraid of the water because he could not swim.  Vita knew once she got in the black water, she was safe.

         “Vita,” the voice came softly.  Again she saw her angel swirling, hovering, and floating down to take her in her arms and fly her out of the black tube.  She felt her feathery wingtips at the crook of her arm, at her wrist, then at the back of her hand.  The shadowy halos swept around her head and she was so beautiful Vita wanted to kiss her face if she only could find her lips.
         She used to kiss the back of her own hand to see how it would feel if she kissed someone’s hand.  There was that boy from Clarendon.  He didn’t like it.  He snatched his hand away.  It surprised her because she thought it felt nice when she did it to herself.  She wondered if an angel would mind . . .
         “Vita?” the angel asked as she held something for her to see.
         “What’s that?” Vita asked.
         “Something to help you,” the angel replied.
         “Sleep?” Vita asked.
         “No, don’t go to sleep,” the angel pleaded.
         “I’m so tired,” Vita told her as her voice trailed off.  Tired—the echo of it floated above her.

         She dreamed she floated on an air mattress rocking on the waves.  Little white dots stippled the dark, moonless sky.  Some fell into the sea.  Michael called to her from the shore.  She rolled onto her belly and paddled up to his feet.  She kissed the fuzzy top of his toe.  He snatched his foot away and thrust a towel at her as he remarked, “Some day you are going to fall asleep out there and drown.”
         She laughed at him.  He was afraid of the water.  She refused to take the towel and get out.  He threw it at her and it missed the raft.  It sank beneath a film of water and humped the shore in rhythm with the gentle waves.  Vita stood up and turned her back on Michael.  She headed back out to sea until the waves lapped at her knees.  She lay down on the raft on her belly.  A gush of salty water raced between her breasts.  She paddled long, smooth strokes until something caught the back of her hand.  It jerked deep into her skin and pulled her back.  The pain—she felt her flesh rip.  She felt a hook tear into her vein.  She cast a frightened glance over her shoulder.  Michael stood on the shore with a large fishing rod; he reeled her in like a marlin.

         “I think she’s coming to,” a new voice said.
         “Vita, wake up,” her angel called.  “Come on, darling.  Wake up.”
         Vita opened her eyes.  She felt her angel’s soft hand at the back of her neck.  She fed her sweet nectar and a glass of warm water.  Something inside opened up.
         “Turn her over.  Don’t let her choke,” the new voice commanded.
         Something bubbled into her throat and stuck there like churning debris trapped beneath a waterfall.  She felt her angel’s fingers in her mouth and she wanted to kiss the back of her hand.  She wanted to kiss her angel’s wings so tenderly that she would fly her away from this mess, fold her in her arms, and carry her over the ocean like a star.