The kind of plastic that is malleable to the point it becomes your stress buster as you run marathons or power through long hikes in the Shenandoahs.
The kind of rum that was affordable to me as a college kid making maybe pennies an hour.
The kind of survival that makes me sit up at night and write this embarrassing tale after four years of wondering, “How am I here right now?” It really is a more favourite question of mine to ponder, compared to more scary ones like “Why am I here right now?” which I’ve left to God to help me clear an answer out of my muddled head in digestible quantities. Much like my liver.
My liver is the one organ in the my body (and most other human bodies) that has the ability to regenerate itself. But of course, to a point. The average human can consume up to 15mg% of alcohol an hour, as it takes several hours for the liver to clear the blood of that alcohol content(1). Liver or alcohol clearance researchers please feel free to supplement this factoid. Let’s do some plugging about chugging into that equation: 500mLs of grade F alcohol / 3 hours minimum of grade A partying and hanging out with chums = ~167mLs of alcohol. Standard deviation of this number is ~+/- 10mLs given the precision of my memory about time and quantity- all I recall is having a water bottle full of rum when I walked into the restaurant and an empty one when we all walked out. So given those assumptions and margins of error, I consumed over 100mLs of alcohol per hour that night I went out to fit in.
“Fitting in???” Yes. Super cliche reason to drink. Proud to say that I fell for it. Why was I so concerned about my image? Who knows. My current state of not giving two shits is radically surprised by former self’s stupidity in this regard. Four years and all I have to show for it is a liver and second (and third and fourth) thoughts when it comes to drinking. Maybe this counts as growing up. A little.
IF only the story ended there. Heels. The modern day equivalent to Chinese foot binding. Something I’ve been ranting about since sophomore year of college during philosophy class. And then let go of as an argument when I saw that guys liked my butt better in heels. So much more important than standing up for my rights, right? I recently donated the pair of heels from that night to goodwill, praying that the person with size 8.5 feet would have better luck carrying themselves around in them than I did.
When I fell, *Sam said he didn’t dare come see what happened because he heard the crack of my skull on concrete. I was a healthy girl ~140 pounds and 5’6” so that’s a lot of gravity (140 pounds*0.45 kg/1 pound*9.8 m/s^2= 617.4 N of force) just standing up straight on the sidewalk. Which I tried my best to do until I blacked out standing up. The next thing I knew Kevin was freaking out and so was Julie. In fact Song, B.R and Manishk were too. And then I was in the living room with faces staring at me. Mike’s brotherly voice came in and out, “Minu…dude…minu…can you drink more water please?” All I remember is getting up to look at the mirror and start howling about how no one will marry me with a face like that, and that it would make my parents mad. So naturally, my atheist self at that time throws out a prayer, “Force of the universe, if you can hear me, please don’t let my parents find out I was drinking.” I kept repeating this sentence in my head as I ate something, fell asleep, woke up and took the bus home.
Man. Coming home that morning was tough. I luckily had Julie to stick with me the whole night and help me feel a little bit more human than I did the whole time I walked back to my house. My mother’s face was utter torment for me to watch. It was the same face from when I had skinned my entire leg skateboarding, except this time I wasn’t laughing and saying that it will be ok.
“Who did this to you?” No way. My mom is giving me an out!!?? “Uh…” “Minnu. What did you say to someone for them to have done this to you? Tell me!” Still had to pretend like I was a good science student though, right? “No mom I was carrying books last night and I fell.” “-___- what.” “Yeah so I had those five exams right? So I was carrying those books around, I was walking up the stairs and I couldn’t see so I fell.” “…Minnu…go to your room and lie down please. I can’t look at you right now.”
I could. I had a purple left side of the face and a fairly normal looking right side. On the purple side, my face was swollen twice the size of the non-purple side, there was blood dripping from the top of both my eyes into a pool at the inner corner of my eyes, and coming out through my nose. My mother had been a general practitioner in India and has seen her share of burn victims and wounded protesters from Chennai. This woman couldn’t understand how this could have happened to her daughter, who was wondering the same thing.
I made some turmeric paste for the rising bump on my forehead and resigned myself to living a life with the disfigured face. Shameless turmeric plug- that herb is so anti-inflammatory that I now do not have any noticeable swelling on my forehead whatsoever. Other than the occasional adult acne.
I put on some shitty song on the radio and wondered how I would get through the week of interrogations from my parents. Not to mention looking like Halloween during thanksgiving of senior year. And the graduate school applications I was now filling out thanks to getting a green card after ten years. No more visas to limit my work hours! Now I can slave away, pay taxes, get drunk and fall on my face!
“Minnu who did this to you? Which boy?” You’re kidding me. Could my dad not smell the alcohol seeping out of my skin? “No naani I was carrying books and I fell…” I finished lamely.
He storms off and watches TV, sipping from his one beer the whole night. I go to the living room and try to make conversation but neither of my parents would look at me. “Tomorrow we are going to the doctor’s office. Good first day of thanksgiving break for all of us.”
My sister at this point knows what had happened and is watching in horrified younger child silence as all of this unfolds, amazed at my ability to get away with anything. I was ashamed to say the least. What if this had been my sister following my example and then not making it through alive?
“Alive? Of course you’re alive! In fact from the way you fell, that bone should have been pointing inward and causing massive brain damage, and your eyes seem to be just as bad as before so looks like you’re good to go,” the doctor concluded from my x-rays. She also looked at me through squinted eyes, asked my parents to leave the room and told me to tell her what really happened. Panicking, I blurt out that I had been drinking and fell. She gives me a stern look and says, “After all that your parents have done for you? You could have been dead from the fall.”
The fall. Everything after the fall was bleak. I spent the break ruminating over my poor choices, wondering why my parents were putting up a facade about my drinking. Not one question or comment out of their lips was about drinking. Were they just ignoring this fact? Could be. In any case I let them have more silence than words to their questions and kept myself on a fresh turmeric paste regimen. That and all the great Indian food like rasam, fish, string beans, sambhar, and rice thanks to my parents. I healed very well and was able to start working out the next week without smelling like rum.
Years later, after Jesus found me, He helped me dig up this long-buried memory to unpack and I realized how much of a miracle that night had really been. I had prayed for my parents to not find out I was drinking and they didn’t until I told them last year- three years after the fall. More importantly, God did me one better- he kept my chums around to give me enough water to clear all that alcohol, and a break from school to heal me to the point where my liver, my forehead, and my brain had not been damaged. As far as I know at least. I’m growing my liver back and, just like my faith, it seems to be doing just fine. My brain and forehead, well, who knows. Time will tell. Until then I’m not drinking more than a few sips for polite accommodation to my hosts at dinner parties.
So I DO know how I survived that night. It was through a very non-committal prayer to a fairly unrelated request that got supplemented by the much needed physical healing. Thanks God, you’re the best!
Or, The Best. I never know whether to make compliments into titles when it comes to God. I should re-read A Prayer for Owen Meany to get more comfortable with capitalization.
(1)http://forcon.ca/learning/alcohol.html
*Names changed to protect privacy of those not willing to be embarrassed yet.
*** THIS IS NOT A STORY WRITTEN TO SING OF MY BRAVADO AND ENCOURAGE YOU TO DRINK HEAVILY AND EXPECT THE SAME MIRACLE. THIS AESOP’S FABLE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE PHRASE “EXPECT MIRACLES, BUT DON’T BE AN IDIOT ABOUT ALCOHOL”***
