Topic: A Scar

Author: Chris Dunn

“No, it was the Tower of London,” James insists. “Arms and armor.”

“You could not be more wrong,” I protest. “It was Artists of the Baroque period. Rubens and Caravaggio. Giant pictures of curvy women. I remember distinctly.”

“You were in the back seat of a VW Rabbit, and Christy hit a patch of ice-”

“You’re right about the car, but there was no ice. It had just started raining, and you told Christy – who was driving on her learner’s permit, as I recall – to go easy around that big turn up by the WPA wall. She took her foot of the gas and put it on the break, and that’s what caused the whole thing. Technically, it’s all your fault.”

This is not the first time James and I have had this argument. James is one of my oldest and dearest. He sat two seats behind me in our Freshman homerun at Roger Bacon High School, but the common denominator of our shared nerdom bypassed Dan Floyd’s superfluousness and we quickly became fast friends. I’ve got lots of stories with him in them. The time we bowled into Lake Michigan… Nervous parties with friends of friends… Drunken wanderings through the streets of Chicago… Cooking popcorn in the toaster… The list is endless, but this story concerns how I got this scar on my shin, and it starts like this…

I’m standing in a large gallery - you know, with those high, echoey ceilings you find only in museums – staring at a naked woman whose curvy buttocks are easily bigger than my head. All around me are similar works by various baroque artists, but I’m having a hard time enjoying it – even to the point I typically enjoy art, which isn’t much – because I’ve got a wad of paper towels stuffed inside my sock and blood oozing into my shoe. I flag for James’ attention and when he glances my way I mouth, “Can we go?” while tapping my calculator watch. No dice. We came all this way, and there are still another five or six galleries to see, which – thanks to the nature of artistic periods – all contain paintings that look relatively the same. With a melodramatic sigh, using my whole body so James can't claim he missed my frustration, I give up and go looking for a bench. This is all his fault!

I mean, technically his kid sister Christy was driving. That was part of the deal. We could take one of the Geers’ family cars, provided we let Christy use the opportunity to get some practice in for her driving test. We agreed, jokingly teasing at the great risk we were taking, putting our life in the hands of a ditzy girl. Then again, who was I to tease anyone? I wouldn’t get my driver’s license until many years later, and under shady circumstances at that. The teasing was largely familial for James and maybe a bit flirtatious on my part. No one really thought anything would happen.

And nothing did. Not for the first 93% of the journey anyway. I sat crammed in the back seat of the VW while James gave directions and suggestions which his sister mostly followed and occasionally mocked. Then, just as we were approaching the Cincinnati Art Museum which resides on one of Cincinnati seven hills, namely Mt. Adams, it started to rain. The road up the hill is as curvy as a baroque woman’s backside including one major curve of nearly 200 degrees. As Christy approached the dangerous stretch of road, and I was distracted looking for the WPA plaque which adorns the adjacent, retaining wall, James cautioned his charge, “Now be careful. This spot can be tricky when it’s slick like this.” Christy dutifully removed her foot from the gas and placed it lightly on the break, but at just that instant a man appeared in the road waving his arms. Two cars had already failed to navigate the turn and their conjoined front ends sat sprawled across the middle of the road. The waving man was trying to warn us, and Christy complied by slamming on the breaks. The wheels locked, and we slid right past the flailing man – thankfully – and straight into the two wrecked vehicles. 

I was thrown against James’ seat - since I never could be bothered to wear a seatbelt when seated in the back. The VW bug – like most VW Bugs even in the late 80s - was old, and a small lever under the seat was missing the little rubber covering which was meant to keep the metal end from turning into a sharp protuberance during a collision. This small, round post with the sharp edges ran up my shin and then punched through my pants, my sock and my skin at the moment of impact, leaving a perfect, circular puncture wound about a half centimeter in diameter behind in its wake. 

The bug was totaled, and my injury was deemed too minor to bother the cops with. A tow truck arrived for the vehicle while Christy cried herself out of a ticket, and forgoing all reason, we went to show. I played it tough, limping up the hill to stuff my sock with paper towels while assuring my friends it was only a scratch. But the scar remained, and the story was told for years as a cautionary tale about the dangers of young driving and the hazards of circumstance.

As I prepared to type this tale out for this week’s submission, I bared my leg before my sister.

“I can’t see anything,” she said.

Looking down, I couldn’t blame her. Other than an odd patch of slightly less hairy skin, there was nothing to see. Then, I messaged James to confirm that it was just us three in the car. He agreed we were a trio, but insisted there was a patch of ice and that the exhibit was of arms and armor and not the period where – as my art teacher had said – “Fat was where it was at!” But I remember the paintings, Christy’s scream, and the man’s flailing arms… The powerful impact as sudden deceleration pancaked me against the passenger seat... I see it all in my mind, as clear as the mark on my skin. Running my hand along the flesh, I can feel it. At least, I think that’s it…