I'm in the backseat of my car wrapping my arm in t-shirts to look like a cast so when roadside assistance shows up to fix my flat I can tell the man, probably a strong looking man, that I know how to do it, that I know how to use the jack and do the thing with the bolts and change a bad tire for a good one, "It's just that my arm is broken," and with that, he won't see a twenty-seven-year-old kid, but rather a man bound by injury, and I'll shrug off the sympathy, say I've broken bigger and stronger bones before; and I'll try to reach for the toolbox that I keep in the trunk for this very performance, yes, here's how it'll go: I'll reach for it to show him that even now with the help of a capable body, I haven't given up, neither effort nor pride, and I'll wince a bit, but not too much, because if men are bonded by one thing, it's pain and how we deal with it—and it's not of his business or mine what the pain actually is, a broken arm or an insecurity, what matters is that we hurt and we limp along.

He'll tell me to relax, nod to the curb like he's offering me the best recliner in his house, the one reserved for his one day off, the one close enough to a table to set a beer, far enough from where the kid rolls a toy tractor across the carpet, between the kitchen where his wife cooks and the TV where his football team wins the coin toss; and I'll first shake my head no and say that I like to stand, but in time, I'll open up to his offer, I'll sit and stare ahead, and I'll do some nodding of my own, a gesture of approval, as if to say, while watching him work with parts I can't name and with hands I can't relate to, "That's right. Just like that. That's exactly how I'd do it."


.

Darren Nuzzo is the author of I'LL GIVE YOU A DOLLAR IF YOU CONSIDER THIS ART.

Read his postcard.

Detail of oil painting on main page: "Night Singers," by Edward Henning (1955).

W i g l e a f               03-14-20                                [home]