How I got the scar on my lip
Kim
The summer after my freshman year in high school, I was at a pool party at a boy's house. I think I knew his sister. Their parents must have been away for the evening, because we were drinking and swimming in the pool (a favorite combo of reckless youth often leading to disastrous "carousing" with glass bottles and bare feet.) It was late and I knew that I should go home. I was drunk and my girlfriends decided to walk me. As I was waiting for my escorts to gather their things, I picked up a bike that was laying on the lawn and started riding around the cul-de-sac, circling the island of shrubbery. I had my tiny purse with its stylish, long, thin strap dangling from my wrist and swinging as I rode. All of a sudden the strap must have caught in the spokes of the bike and I was flying over the handlebars. I opened my eyes and saw my friend Jeanie Carrasa's face leaning over mine. I was laying on the pavement dazed as a group of teenagers amassed around me. Two of the boys (who had probably been boy scouts) were shouting instructions "Don't move her head! Don't move her at all!" My friend Jeanie looked at me and said, "She's bleeding from her head!" and started crying and whispering prayers (she was catholic and drunk.) Next, Jeanie's father (a volunteer fireman who had heard the call over his radio) arrived with an ambulance. After they loaded me in one of the technicians asked me if I had been drinking. I said yes. When I arrived at the hospital my mother was already there. I remember that they had to hold me down to give me the local anesthetic and then I felt nothing. I had spilt my upper lip clean up to my nose. The surgeon did a good job. He said that there would be a lump of scar tissue on my lip that he could easily remove after the rest of the wound healed and the stitches had been removed. I had the stitches taken out but never went back for the rest of the procedure. I donŐt know why, I just never did.
illustrations by Kim
