The Cohabitants This Week

The man is fussy about the way she touches his heels; those great white loaves hinged to his ankles. They are causing him pain, encrusted as they are with thick calluses lined with splits, thin stress fractures cutting into his flesh. So many pounds per square inch for so many years. Plus fishing. His loaves no longer wish to suffer under the great weight of the man and his water hobby. This is their existential crisis.

He has failed to heed their warnings and now, they are cutting him. At least, this is how the woman sees it. The frequent cycles of wet, damp, dry, splash and wade, soak and sun are sucking the moisture out of his hindfeet, sending him an SOS signal from their dank Hoka swamp. But he has ignored them. This is their quiet quitting. Silently in his shoes his heels fuck with his neurology. They demand better working conditions. He winces, seeming to finally succumb to their demands. But it’s a trick. The woman knows this. The man’s heels wish to spend their remaining days aloft on the footrest of his electric recliner. But it won’t be for long. The man must fish.

And so, the woman flutters around him like a lost moth, circling his chair with concern, advice and a handful of ointments, her most expensive skin cream, band-aids, and a pair of clean socks. She wishes him to moisturize his feet generously at night and then wear clean socks to bed. But the man has his own ideas about how to repair skin splits. His big medicine is super glue. The moth flutters frantically. This is the worst idea ever. They argue. She flaps. But to no avail. The man insists he has a “methodology”. (Yes, that word is in quotes.) They are, after all, his heels.

For a few minutes this dichotomy is too much for her. The use of harsh industrial chemicals on his raw flesh seems backward. Why not apply maggots or leeches? She wishes to nurture his splits with tenderness, to coax them to come together like alienated relatives at a family dinner. She believes with the right encouragement and a $30 tube of moisturizer, his skin will heal itself. But the man is unyielding. There is no room in his socks for her namby-pamby goop. Super glue is his way. It’s the manly way. If she can’t abide it, he will apply the glue himself. Even though he can’t see his heels. 

The idea of the man, any man, messing around with an open bottle of super glue while sitting over the rug in the livingroom is too much for her. She remembers when her parents used to keep a stack of old newspapers in the basement and thinks how handy that would be now. She could cover the floor with newspaper like he was a new puppy being house trained. Instead, she grabs the bottle of super glue and reads the label. It says nothing about super glue being used to close an open wound. This kind of off-label application of industrial chemicals is dangerous. She looks at her phone and reads about the medical uses of liquid skin. There are a dozen brands. Walgreens is just five minutes down the road. She begs him to wait for her to go buy some and return. 

He thinks she is being ridiculous. This is a simple repair job. Everyone knows super glue is the best way to heal skin splits. He has used it on his thumbs a million times. She takes issue with his use of the word heal. She thinks this is medicine. She’s always wanted to be a doctor. Home surgery is her specialty. No insurance necessary. He rolls his eyes with such force they clack like billiard balls.

And so, she relents. On her knees before him with his recliner prone and his feet in the air, she arranges her implements: manicure scissors, a cotton swab, a tiny patch of waffled gauze, and a roll of paper towels in case something goes horribly wrong. She listens patiently while he explains the process, imagining herself as Hot Lips, the nurse from MASH. She is going to glue the man back together like a broken toy.

With a cotton swab she dabs the clear liquid plastic into the threadlike canyon of inflamed flesh that curves against his heel. Now thick with super glue, she presses a slim strip of gauze into the split and paints the gauze with more glue until it is completely encased. Minutes later the gauze has hardened into a layer of plastic as though she melted a Lego on the man’s foot. He is pleased. His pain is gone and having a plastic heel makes him feel invincible. This is something she must simply accept.