The Bandaid

It was a lazy summers day, droll with the buzzing of lethargic flies and the slow rumbling of luxury vehicles parading their shiny spoilers by the beach side.

'Percy! Get over here!' A middle-aged man moved towards the promenade, joining a group of men in Hawaiian shirts, expensive ones at that. Inside a hip cafe with noticeably attractive waitresses, their smoky breaths and stubborn fishbellies cemented their place at the table. An old pastime had somehow edged its way into becoming integral to their daily lives, the absence of a youth's vitality and impatience for change degraded the accomplished entrepreneurs to idle old men, not better than their less successful counterparts of the 'good old days'.

'Draw.' Sicilian spoke, whilst passing a cigar from his lips to the ashtray, tapping it evenly, as if he was calculating how much ash should fall after one inhale.

Cards, Percy's suite was the club. Twenty years ago- stumbling into a room with yellowed wallpaper and sticky carpet, Sicilian, Amp and Enter were playing Big Two. On his way to the restroom, Percy had scarcely turned around when Amp asked, 'What's your name?', 'Percy, Percy Jerkins' he replied. After relieving himself, he joined, his name was Percy forever. As the last member to incident upon the loosely knitted club, he was assigned the last suite, the weakest.- How many times had he heard the words 'Draw', 'Play' and 'Pass' all these years. Rising from the anonymity of minor businessmen, each of the members rose in their ranks, yet instead of flying at will to Vegas or Macau to satisfy their gambling itch, they chose to meet to play. 'It's tougher competition,' Amp once joked.

Yes, it's tough competition when you have the weakest suite, Percy thought then. Always a step behind in the game- a slap on the back, a greedy chuckle- greeted his every loss. Not once had he won a game. As senility wound its fuzzy-edged clasp around his throat he felt a sense of indignation creeping into his mind, to win, to better any of these men. Even his nickname was inferior. Sicilian, Amp and Enter were words spoken by these men on entry into the club, the first word was ambiguous and was as mysterious as online poker with the exception of Percy.

The flab of Percy's face wobbled as he drew, the noon sun shone unrelenting on his bald patch, the glint of the cafe's glass counter reflected a shard of bright light into his eyes. Sitting opposite, Sicilian kept his D&G shades on, balanced on the bridge of his nose with a cigar between his teeth, shaded under the table's umbrella. Amp kept his 2000 Tree day cap on, and sucked a minty as his eyes darted warily between the cards and the hands. Cunningly understated, Amp kept his wealth a secret by appearance, a weakness for women was his only vice, which he kept in check by vowing never to marry. Enter, Enter...Percy shot a brief glance to his right as Enter played to his turn. The youngest of the posse he was on the whole, good-natured, but reportedly he was a devil in disguise where investments were concerned.

After 3 rounds, Amp threw down his cards in victory.

'Good game, good game,' the gentlemen rose after handing over the cash, and Amp paid the bill as tradition went. Reaching out hesitantly for the waitress' backside, he refrained at the last moment, unsure whether his charms were as polished as they used to be. Silician grinned, but his eyes were hidden by the shades.

***

Incidentally, all the men were also wandering bachelors, with the exception of Percy. So as the club's members meandered their way past the palm tree lined beach, Percy rushed home expecting a monotonous delivery of insults from his wife. Ducking clumsily out of the Mercedes-Benz, Percy hurried through the door and hearing a shear of garden clippers he assumed that Ruth was tending the nursery. Believing that he had snuck into the house undetected, Percy tore explosively down the hallway towards the study in fear that he would be spotted at the last minute ('Promise me you won't go tomorrow, we're tight on cash at the moment,' said Ruth. But they were really tight on the cash that was shared between them- Percy had stored half his savings into an individual Swiss account).

Sprinting past the kitchen, Percy heard a scream and had reached the restrooms before noticing an ugly, bloody gash across his arm. In searing pain, he dropped to the floor in agony. Blood was everywhere, a major artery must have been severed. The item to blame, a butcher knife, spun across the tiled surface of the hall, bumping handle-first into Percy's leg.

'Oh honey, I'm so sorry, you were running so fast I didn't have time to move the knife out of the way!' Ruth lamented (For Ruth was walking briskly out of the kitchen holding the knife when Percy made his cowardly dash).

So it was to the emergency room, and then the professional doctor, and then to the exclusive private hospital. So exclusive in fact, that as Percy regained consciousness after fainting from excessive blood loss, a grim looking doctor approached him sensitively about how his arm was literally paralysed unless...('What, What?!' Percy screamed.) the doctor had hesitated, 'It could be a little over of your budget, but there is a special treatment that has been developed that could save your arm.' Ruth clutched the doctor's arm in a moment of anxiousness and said that any amount of money was worth 'Poor Percy's arm'. Slightly embarrassed, the doctor excused himself from the room and reappeared with a platter. Well, a medical platter lined with antiseptic instead of gold leaf, on which a strip of bandaid, broader than the generic type, was set. Percy remembered some monotonous insults being traded across the room before the doctor explained that though in its prototype stages, the bandaid had been soaked in a solution of cell regeneration formula, of which only 5 mL were produced- all going into the production of this prototype.

The damaged nerve, the doctor assured would regenerate by itself if the bandaid was placed over the tissue covering it, 'complete permeation through the tissue, you should notice that the arm may well increase in strength'. Of course, there were some unresolved issues about its use, 'It is not recommended that it be used for more than a week or so, but that is with most bandaids anyway,' the doctor had said. Nevertheless, Percy was free to go after only a one hour operation to sew up the wound and apply the bandaid.

'Two million dollars!! You are definitely not going to poker after this,' Ruth shouted as they sat in the car. She was thinking of the sacrifices she would have to make, no more spa treatment and botox injections for at least a month.

When they had arrived home, Percy retreated into his study and pretended to be signing some paperwork. He spent the next few days slinky around the house like a hunted animal, his wife was the tiger. ('DON'T DO THAT!', 'Put that back where you got it!', her nerves were on edge without the solace of luxury life) Never before had five days felt so long, so long that when the phone rang Percy jumped and took a few seconds to respond to Sicilian's laidback greeting.

'Up for a game, eh Perce?' he enquired.

Shaking his head, Percy replied, 'No, I can't come, I've cut my left arm.'

Sicilian chuckled, and said 'hope it's not serious' in a smiling voice.

'I went to hospital for it, and the treatment cost 2 million, so I'm banned from the game,' Percy grudgingly explained.

Despite the cool attitude, time had not left an old friend's compassion unweathered. Sicilian offered to give Percy a lift ('You know, just to join the club,' he said). As was the effect of solitary confinement on riling inmates, Percy immediately agreed to be rescued from the confines of his home.

'Friday, ten o' clock, I'll come through from Nest terrace,' Sicilian planned.

***

'Percy boy, hey!' Amp and Enter simultaneously chimed. Observing the bandaged arm, they gave a lighter back slap and let Percy sit in the most shaded corner of the table. Percy replied graciously to their concerned inquiries and reclined in the wooden chair, expecting them to start the game.

Instead, they sat around exchanging cigars and shifting in their chairs. An awkward pause ensued. Enter spoke first.

'Percy, we heard that you had a special bandaid of some kind, can we see it?'

Percy felt obliged to comply, all eyes were on his left arm. It took a minute to unwind the additional bandages. Even Percy did not know what the wound looked like, his wife made it her responsibility to change the bandages.

'Where, where is it?' Amp leaned over to investigate, as did Sicilian. Enter was sitting the closest to Percy, and turning the arm over, he uttered an obscenity and turned pale. Percy's mouth was gaping in horror, his eyes as wide as a mad dog's.

The bandaid was nowhere to be seen. Instead, they saw a bandaid-shaped slice of flesh, slightly elevated above Percy's skin. A little lumpy and off- centered, the skin cells appeared to be growing awry and at an accelerated rate from the original bandaid.

Hands shaking, Percy tapped the protrusion lightly- it felt just like his own skin.