On Thursday, September 19th, at 6:22 a.m., Douglas Sullivan, high school history teacher and devoted husband, cut his chin while shaving in the shower. It was a small cut. The nick was just below the lower lip and just above the modest cleft in his chin; the cleft that his wife Sandy had found adorable twenty years earlier, when they were in love.
Closing his eyes while shaving, Doug began thinking about the western migration, the topic for his sophomore students that day. He was replaying in his mind vivid scenes of rolling wagons crossing great plains into colossal sunsets. Not historically accurate, but poetically apt. He asked himself: why the sun is always setting?
Ouch!
The cut felt like the bite of a horsefly.
Getting out of the shower, Doug towel dried his hair vigorously, breathing in the green apple shampoo scent. Doug wrapped a towel around his belly, puffed like a pastry, creatively adjusting the towel to accommodate his curving midsection.
Wiping the steam off the mirror, thrusting his face close to the glass, Doug searched his face for the cut. His heart skipped a beat when he saw it for the first time: a trickle of fire engine red blood slowly gathering courage to roll down his chin, like Custer’s troops at Little Big Horn.
Tearing off some toilet paper, wadding it up, Doug placed it over his cut. He pressed firmly, applying pressure to stop the bleeding. “A metaphor for life,” he thought, gathering more toilet paper. He watched as the blood slowly seeped through turning a deep crimson color. The blood would dry. He was sure the bleeding would stop by the time he started breakfast.
Only, it didn’t.
“What happened to your face?” Sandy asked, sitting down at the table with her coffee.
“What do you mean?” asked Doug.
“Babe, your chin – it’s bleeding.”
“Oh yeah,” Doug remembered, “…. cut myself shaving.”
“It’s bleeding on your shirt.”
“What?” Doug’s fingers felt the small, wet clump on his chin just above his adorable cleft.
“Look at your shirt,” she said.
“Goddamn it,” he said to himself. He only had two other clean dress shirts, both of which were a size too small: all day his stomach would bulge.
“Here,” she handed him a handful of paper towels, and he pressed them against his chin.
“It’s just a nick,” he said.
“I’ll get a Band-Aid from the medicine cabinet.”
“We don’t have any Band-Aids,” Doug said.
“I’ve got some under the sink,” said Sandy.
She returned with a variety box of Band-Aids and pulled out the jumbo one.
“Isn’t there something smaller?” asked Doug.
“No,” she pulled back the wadded paper on his chin.
“How does it look?” he asked.
Sandy groaned, rolling her eyes: “It’s fine. Once you are at school, I’m sure the bleeding will stop.”
Only, it didn’t.
In the school parking lot, Doug looked at himself in the rearview mirror. The bleeding had not stopped. The Band-Aid looked like it was about to burst with an overflow of blood, like the elevator doors in The Shining. Hurrying into the school, pressing the paper towels on his chin, Doug went straight to the school nurse.
“Hello, Mr. Sullivan,” said the nurse, a round woman with her hair pulled up high on top of her head; she looked like a human pineapple. The nurse set about removing the Band-Aid from his chin: “That’s some cut.”
“It’s just a nick,” Doug said, watching as she took a thick handful of cotton wadding and bandages, swaddling his chin like an infant. Even if it made him look ridiculous, Doug was certain this would finally stop the bleeding.
Only, it didn’t.
By the sixth period, he was working lunch duty, sitting by Mrs. Johnson: “That’s a lot of blood on your chin, Doug.”
Doug hurried into the bathroom. His chin, wrapped in a bandage the size of an enormous Styrofoam cup, the blood seeping through to the surface.
He hurried back to tell the nurse to tell the dean to tell the principal to tell the department chair to tell the students that his seventh period class would not meet today. He had an emergency.
Driving to urgent care, Doug wondered what was happening; he felt a cold sweat spread across his body.
“What’s the matter with you?” said the receptionist at urgent care, seated behind the desk behind the glass behind the line.
“I cut myself shaving and it keeps bleeding.”
“Why is it doing that?” she asked, typing violently on her computer.
“I’m not sure,” said Doug
“You on blood thinners?” she asked
“No,” said Doug.
“You need stitches?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to see a doctor,” said Doug.
“Wait over there,” she said, her hand indicating the general direction of a dozen green chairs arranged near a large screen t.v.; the screen hovering in the air like an angel in the sky, playing clips about wellness. Doug sat in the corner seat, towel pressed to his chin, next to an elderly gentleman with a pained expression clutching his stomach, and a woman reading a magazine, with no apparent symptoms. When his name was called, Doug went in to see the doctor.
“Let’s take a look,” the doctor said. “Now tell me what happened.”
Doug relayed the facts of his situation, as the doctor examined his chin. “That’s quite a gash,” he said.
“It was just a nick, can you put in some stitches?”
“I’ll be right back,” the doctor said.
In the quiet of the room, Doug noticed the clock on the wall, the large red second hand sweeping slowly and surely across the clockface. Doug reached for his cellphone and called Sandy. She didn’t pick up, so he left a voicemail.
“Honey, I’m at the urgent care. They are taking a look at the nick. It’s the strangest thing, my chin won’t stop bleeding. I think it’s getting worse. Call when you can.”
The doctor returned: “You’re going to need a blood transfusion. We’re going to get an ambulance to take you to the hospital. Do you have anyone who can go with you?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Ok, well, before you go, I’m going to try to stitch this wound, but you’ve gotten down to the bone. How did you do that?”
“Shaving,” said Doug
“It must be some razor,” said the doctor.
Doug asked: “Have you ever cut yourself shaving?”
“Once,” said the doctor, touching his beard.
“Can you stop the bleeding?” asked Doug.
The doctor put a pencil behind his ear and smiled: “I’m sure they can deal with this at the hospital.”
Only, they couldn’t.
When Doug arrived, he was sent into the X-ray room and subjected to a series of tests. Blood was drawn by a serious old doctor, who looked wise as an owl.
“Can you stop the bleeding, doctor?” Doug asked.
“Of course. Hey, this won’t go on forever. It will stop eventually,” said the doctor, “I’ve never had a patient die from a small cut while shaving, and I don’t intend to lose one now. That’s why I’m giving your case to Dr. Stevenson.”
Dr. Stevenson, a small man with a tremendous moustache and duck-like feet, told Doug he would be dead by midnight.
Doug was given a blood transfusion, as they hooked him up to the iv, his wife called back.
“Honey, I just got your message,” she said, the bustling sound of crowds and announcements could be heard in the background.
“Where are you?” Doug asked.
“At the airport,” she said, ” Babe, I’m leaving you and going off with my new lover Daria, from the gym.”
“Honey, what do you mean? I’m dying,” he said.
“We all are. Don’t be dramatic.”
“Sandy, I’m dying for real.”
“Oh Babe, don’t do that,” she said, and then she hung up.
The nurse at the front desk lifted her head and looked at Doug: “Sir, I’m sorry, but given your level of insurance, we are only allowed to provide ten pints of blood. After that, you’re on your own.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You’ve run out of pints,” she shrugged, “we have other patients who are dying faster than you.”
“The doctor said I’ll be dead by midnight,” said Doug.
“Central time zone, or Eastern? You should always get the time zone with something that serious.”
The official cause of death was listed as “exsanguination,” death by loss of blood. Doug thought differently. “It was just a nick,” he whispered to himself with his final breath, closing his eyes, turning his attention to the wagon trains rolling west into a colossal orange setting sun.
His body was sent to the morgue, where the bleeding finally stopped. The mortician was able to mend the nick, and all those who attended his funeral commented on how well Doug looked.
So clean shaven.