The Drunken Master

The Drunken Master

There are things which you do which when you look back border on insane or at least defy any sense of rational thought. Drunkenness is a form of insanity. It is also a fully-fledged form of stupidity unless that is; you would do the same thing if you were sober.

At eighteen life was about pushing boundaries. Emotion was something to repress, every crack was to be sealed and disguised and pain was nothing more than a physical condition, which with disciple you could push further and increase you pain threshold. I was of course a way of running from your own demons but I could not see it.

I possessed a SBS (Special Boat Service) commando dagger; it was eight inches or so with a rubber handle and a stiletto blade. The dagger was more of a stabbing knife than cutting so the point was extremely sharp. I had purchased it through mail order at sixteen with a cheque from my bank account and by ticking an “I confirm I am over eighteen” box.

On returning one night for the pub and before going to bed I thought I would have a go at spinning the knife between my fingers as I sometimes practiced. It was going well until the dagger slipped my grasp, hit my right foot below the big toe and first toe before bouncing off onto the floor and embedding it’s point partially in the floor.

The sharp stab of pain was slight but when I looked down, the blood was pouring onto the carpet, the blade had pieced hit a vein in my foot. In typical drunken fashion, I lowered myself to my knees to watch the blood pool under my foot before the drunken thought process caught up with the situation.

I had been given some candles previously, which I had been burning primarily to get rid of them and I found myself lightening one with matches I kept handy for such a purpose. Having made sure there was hot wax beneath the wick, I poured the clear wax on the wound by which time I could not see as it was obscured by the amount of blood from the wound.

Logic was on holiday enjoying a cocktail on the beach. I knelt there for a while as the wax turned a milky red and pink colour as the blood mixed with it. I marvelled at the oddness of the colour mildly fascinated before sense gave me a poke and pointed out my foot was still bleeding from under the thick globule of wax. I rubbed the wax from my foot, as it was useless; the wound was back to full flow. I knew what I had to do.

I stood up balancing myself, keeping my injured foot off the ground and used the walls as makeshift crutches for support. I made it my past my sister’s room and down the stairs to the kitchen feeling like a one legged ninja sneaking around a camp in the middle of the night. I flicked the kitchen light on and paused, Sarah was still asleep, and there were no sounds from upstairs. I took a knife from the kitchen draw and fired up the front left gas burner on the cooker and placed the end of the knife in the ring of fire.

How long did it need to heat? No idea, I do remember I expected the end of the blade to glow like metal did when pulled out of a blacksmiths furnace, probably down to alcohol, and for some reason I remember being slightly disappointed at the lack of a glow. The blade looked more or less like it did before I started despite sporting a tint of blackness towards the tip but nothing more. I took it off the burner got down on my knees to find that I could not see the wound due to the amount of blood. I took potluck.

I pressed the hot knife into the main blob of blood on my foot and after a second of hissing there was pain. It registered like it was at the back of the room rather than on my foot, it was there but manageable. I held it for a couple of seconds then withdrew the hot knife. I still could not tell whether my foot was bleeding or not. I gave it another go for good measure and after a brief pause, once more just to be sure. I wet a finger under the tap and rubbed the wound clear. Job done.

I turned off the gas burner. Put the knife under the tap and turned round to find blood trails and smudges across the kitchen lino. A handful of kitchen towel cleaned up the blood and I hid the knife in my room to be disposed of later since it was now tinted permanently with blackness on the top where it had been heated. The bloody paper towels where shoved in a plastic bag to be hidden in my room until I could get rid of them then I went to bed barely feeling the burnt skin on my foot.

In the morning there was no hangover and crazily no pain in my foot, only a mild soreness. I got dressed for work and then came the test, putting shoes on.

It was difficult. In fact it was bloody painful but worse was to come. Walking the fifteen-minute journey to work was an experience. The pain was extraordinary and had me sucking my teeth with each step when my foot bent and with it the quarterized skin. I could have easily phoned in work, had the day off maybe two until the wound had charmed down but I battled on. The pain was relentless.

I managed the pain and was able to walk without gasping or flinching but it was impossible to walk without a limp, a limp which wasn’t going to go un-noticed at the office where I worked as a clerk at the time.

“What’s the matter with your foot?”

“I was in dad's garage working over the weekend and I dropped a heavy box on my foot”

Not exactly the ally bi of the century but it was as good as it was going to get. It was responded to with “You should go to casualty and have an ex-ray you might have broken bone in your foot”

Not exactly what I had in mind but it was easy enough to get round and there were no further questions. I made my way through the day and walked home almost un-phased by the pain. Then it came to taking my shoes off.

It was going to hurt. It was going to hurt big time. No maybes. The wound had wept puss and my sock was wielded to my skin. I had peeled the sock off my foot but could flap my foot around and the inside out sock still stayed on firmly in place. It was not going anywhere without help.

A test tug confirmed it was going to hurt like hell removing it. Fast or slow? Decisions decisions. I figured fast risked ripping the skin open and it would be back to square one, which was going to result in more blood loss and a more painful prospect of a second burning. Slow was order of the day. Very slow.

Ouch! Ouch! Fucking Ouch! A slow peel took a few minutes to complete and then the sock was free, encrusted and yellow stained to an extent the area was as hard as if it was starched from puss. I cleaned the wound with a dry cotton bud and that was it. No plaster. Leave it free for the rest of the night in the open air and let nature do the rest.

There was of course another explanation needed since I had a slight limb. What to say to dad?

The lie was easy.

“I dropped a heavy box on my foot at work, a card index box”.
There was the obligatory lecture on the accident book and did I report it was it logged, well it should have been, have to be careful you haven’t broke a bone and that was the end of that.

I still bare the scar on my left foot to this day. When I told my sister about the incident years down the line she said, “Why didn’t you just wake me up? I would have taken you to hospital.”

ED02