The Current Under the Cloth

Doing the right thing was sometimes the easiest thing but, often, though, the hardest thing. "If left untended, things invariably tend toward chaos," a professor explained in a biochemistry class. This professor was the essence of what happened when something was left untended.

"Class, look at my eyes," he said. "Can you see this cataract on my left eye? Look at my arms. Can you see the misshapen veins protruding from my forearms?" He wore an unfortunately out of date golf shirt, but proved his point by turning his forearms toward the class to show a moonscape of veins that appeared to be attempting to escape his body through the epidermis. While giving us a side view, there, clipped to his belt, was the small device that looked like a physician's beeper.

"See this?" He unclipped it from his belt, but it held fast to his body as he unfurled the small wires. "This is what happens when you spend your youth injecting anabolic steroids because you think that because of all your bodybuilding, you're going to be the next Mr. Universe."

We all stared at him. He was always complaining about his eyesight. He was always talking about his blood sugars, but this was the first time this man was talking about his abuse of steroids.

"Class, when I stopped juicing, I went cold turkey. I would love to tell you about the toll the steroids had on my testicles, my hair, my breasts, but I'm sure you've read the literature. I stopped letting myself get dehydrated before competitions. I stopped the multi-hour sessions in the gym. I stopped the brutal dieting. And what happened?"

We were silent in the classroom.

"Chaos," he whispered it like the dirtiest word. He was silent for a good minute, and no one looked away from him.

He walked away from the lectern, standing in front of the beam of light projecting his PowerPoint on the screen behind him, obscuring the dancing electrons of the Krebs cycle. This part of his lecture had nothing to do with the lesson on the screen, but no matter. This was the best lecture of the semester.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you have an opportunity to maintain something in a different way, in a way that allows you not to ignore it altogether, you will not have chaos; you can achieve a kind of homeostasis, if not true homeostasis." He paused, giving a hiccup of a laugh before continuing, "You might have some bastardization of chaos, but not full-throttle-I'm-having-a-stroke-and-my-body's-shutting-down kind of chaos."

The professor removed a dull handkerchief from his pants pocket, pulled his glasses from his face, glistening with sweat. I noticed the handkerchief was kind of grey, probably from not having a water softener in a city where the water was hard enough to cut glass. I noticed the professor's face mirrored the color of the cloth. This was a go- or no-go moment. The man was diaphoretic, diabetic, and generally, unwell. Call 9-1-1, or let it go? I looked around the room to see if anyone else had noticed the professor's symptomology.

The professor replaced his glasses, gave his head a little shake, as if he were answering a question in the negative. He looked out to the lecture hall of faces. "You're all free to go. Have a nice weekend. We'll pick up with the Krebs cycle on Monday. Please memorize all the chemical formulas and make sure you know the locations of all the electrons throughout. There will be a quiz. I have told you all you need to know."

The lecture hall emptied. I was one of the last to leave. I knew no one contacted emergency services; I knew I hadn't and wouldn't; and I knew the professor would not be here on Monday.

***

Was the professor the first person I could've helped but didn't? No. I was like a human EKG, MRI, CT scanner, PET scanner, x-ray, echocardiogram, PCR, ELISA…any diagnostic test. The first time I was aware of what I could detect, I was around three.

My mother and I were at the pediatrician's office. While we were waiting to be seen, there was a woman with a baby whose face was drawn and furrowed like he was in incredible pain. His cry wasn't the cry of fatigue or hunger, but agony. His eyes were closed tightly, tears, sliding out of the sides, and his tiny feet were tucked toward his body as if trying to climb inside his torso to stamp out the pain.

"Mommy," I said, tugging my mother's arm. "That baby can't swallow his milk. I see it filling up his chest floaties. If they don't fix his milk, he's gonna drown."

My mother looked at me, pulled me onto her lap and said, "Can you tell me that again? I don't think I was listening the first time."

I repeated what I said to my mother, a nurse. While we were in the exam room, I was lost in the colorful jungle animals on the walls, my history was being taken, and my mother was casually speaking with the doctor. She relayed the observation that perhaps the baby in the waiting room was aspirating on thin liquids.

Several months later, I had to go to the pediatrician again for vaccines. My doctor said to my mother, "Marcy, you may have saved that baby's life. I immediately spoke to my partner, and she ordered a swallow test and switched that kiddo to thickened liquids. He's doing fine now and thriving." My mom gasped.

In the parking lot, she strapped me into my car seat, ruffled my hair, and kissed my forehead, "Winnie, I don't know how you did it, but you worked a miracle."

***

In kindergarten, I was the prettiest girl in class—until Libby moved to town. Then she was the prettiest girl in class. Her hair was sometimes pulled into a ponytail, high atop her head, and it glistened and gleamed just like the models' hair on the shampoo ads. If she wore her hair down, it flowed like the dazzling crystals of a fast-moving brook. When she walked into a room, every eye looked her direction. They were no longer looking at me. I really wanted to be her friend, her best friend. But Libby wanted to be best friends with Holly, who had been my best friend. Holly did her best to be both our best friends, but she was being pulled between the two alpha females of the class, and poor Holly couldn't win.

Then one day, Holly, Libby, and I were having an uncomfortable recess trying to decide who would be the leader in Follow the Leader. I saw the bad thing in Libby, which turned out to be many bad things. And the closer I looked, I saw they made a map throughout Libby. The little bad things (cells, I would later learn) flowed up and down a network of (also what I would later learn) veins and arteries. I saw concentrated areas of where the cells were coming from, and I saw where they were going. Her body was a factory for the bad cells, and the cells were also going to hide behind her knees, in her underarms, and somewhere up her skirt. I later learned her bone marrow was making bad cells, and the cells were attacking her lymphatic system.

I could have said something, but I didn't. Leukemia took Libby, and I went back to being the prettiest girl in class, and Holly went back to being my best friend.

***

In high school, there was a boy. He had bright blue, dancing, laughing eyes. He was a book smart boy with no common sense. In middle school, he held my hand. In junior high, he kissed me. The kissing was fine. Neither of us knew much about kissing, and we practiced on each other frequently, and eventually, we both improved our respective techniques. By the time junior high ended, we had done some pretty healthy groping of each other. Through all the growing up and growing together, we never lost our friendship, even though we were, for all intents and purposes, boyfriend and girlfriend.

His mom drove us to the eighth grade dance, and he gave me a single white rose that he had woven through a thin, delicately braided leather bracelet. He was careful and gentle in placing the bracelet on my wrist, making sure not to pull the ends of the bracelet too tightly through the clasp he had improvised. If my mother had been wearing pearls, she would have clutched them at the sight of how young, innocent, and perfect this sort of love could be.

My friend-boy went to camp in Vermont for the summer. We sent each other emails and texts (he had 30 minutes of technology time 3 times a week), and on occasion, he sent photos. He shared that he had kissed some other girls, but I was still his number one. I didn't mind because we were 14 years old. We weren't going to marry each other. And, besides, he would be coming home at the end of the summer, and all the distance and kissing didn't change our friendship.

High school began in August, and this was maybe the biggest tragedy for us. Our paths diverged. I was a STEM girl. He was a jock. He hung out with some of the upperclassmen who took him under his wing. I hung out with my STEM friends. The boy and I didn't hang out anymore, and what had once been our steadfast communication became nothing more than a leaky faucet.

One Saturday, though, we worked on the same service project, and I saw it. His liver couldn't keep up with him. "You going to Steph's party this weekend?" he asked. "It should be wild."

"I wasn't invited," I answered, pulling weeds out of a long-neglected flower bed. "Besides, I have an AP bio test to study for on Monday." I stopped what I was doing and looked up at him. "Are you all right?"

"Winnie, I am so all right. I am having the time of my life. Why do you ask?" he said, looking at me skeptically. "Have you heard something? Should I be worried?" It was only then I saw the tiniest glimpse of the boy with the laughing eyes again.

"You look tired, I think. You go to all the parties, and I guess I just worry," I said softly.

"You don't need to worry about me, Win. Promise," he said, and he chucked me on the shoulder. After we finished our day together, we said our goodbyes.

I saw the evidence plain as day: his liver wasn't going to make it through high school, but it didn't matter. He was in a car with way too many kids in it, they'd been drinking, and at the end of the night, the car was wrapped around a telephone pole.

Before chaos could take the day, stupidity had stolen it.

***

You might see me one day. Winnie Walters. Dressed entirely in black. Glasses with large black frames and black lenses so dark you wouldn't be able to make eye contact with me. Black, wide-brimmed hat. Even if you thought you could make eye contact, you could not. If you really wanted to know, though, if you pressed very hard, I could retrieve my bag of tricks and see the work of chaos inside you.

This ability, to read you like a blueprint, to find every nook or cranny that could crack the foundation of the house wasn't without a price. If I studied you closely, I would reveal the truth of unbridled chaos as it flourished inside your body. If you were already showing the fault lines of poor craftsmanship, one chat with me could stop your heart.

The thing was, chaos, disorder, disarray, entropy…whatever was the popular science…it had always existed. But I was the diviner, the monster, hiding from everyone, but most notably, hiding from myself.