Cuts Like a Knife

She stood at the bathroom sink, razor in hand, unable to look at herself in the dimly lit mirror anymore, unsure how it had ever gotten this bad.

Her looks had always been a point of conversation; first ridicule when she was younger, then amazement as she got older. By the time she got to college she had found ways to temporarily conceal her much talked about physical attributes, but it was nothing that she could hide all of the time. Even when she thought that she had done her best job of hiding any traces of what she considered to be a curse from God himself, everyone else knew what was going on and they waited patiently for her to be not so guarded. They waited for her to just not care one day so that they could all point and stare at what she had to offer.

She remembered the pointing. She remembered the staring. She raised the razor once more, dug the blade into her face, and set it down again.

After a while, she tired of attempting to conceal it and decided to just let herself be natural. After all, no amount of clothing would ever be able to fully hide what she knew to always be the “elephant in the room.” If she was around, people were staring at her and people were talking about her. It was impossible to not stare and after years of constant attempts to mask what she had been blessed/cursed with, she just gave up. Soon, she was being invited to parties and other social gatherings not because of the beautiful person she was, but for everyone’s amazement and amusement at what they saw.

She thought back at how hard it was for her to ever date. Sure, guys would approach her, buy her drinks, and make small talk for awhile, but she always caught their eyes glancing downward and being intimidated by what they saw. She knew that they were interested in one thing and one thing only and there was nothing that she could do about it. She was a victim of her own body and no amount of flirting or intelligent conversation was going to change her fate. She was destined to be alone.

As another tear rolled down a much traveled path on her face, she dug the razor into her skin once more. This time, there was a trickle of blood, but she ignored it as the cold steel felt good. It was doing its job.

After two and a half years at college, she could finally take it no more. She was sick of the looks, sick of the judging, and sick of the laughter. But it wasn’t just the guys that were laughing – the girls would often join in too. Comments such as “how can she live like that?” and “If I were her I would definitely go see a plastic surgeon” never fell on deaf ears. She heard them all and she knew that they were right. What could she do though? Her parents were divorced and neither made enough money to help her out, plus she was a full time student who wouldn’t be able to pay for anything if it weren’t for student loans. But she had to do something to fix herself. She had to do something to feel normal.

Luckily, one day as sat in her dorm room reading a newspaper, she saw an ad looking for very “special” girls. The ad stated that the girls should not be shy and should feel very comfortable being on stage. At first she disregarded it and continued to peruse the rest of the want ads, but none seemed to offer what the original ad had to offer – Big Money Nightly. Gathering up whatever pride she had available, she went to the bathroom and rather than conceal her issue, she did whatever she could to flaunt it. As she walked from her dorm room to her beat up Volkswagen in the parking lot she garnered more stares than ever before. Students were gawking and professors were tripping over themselves at what they saw before them. Choking back the tears of shame, she walked with her head held high knowing that she was on the road to stopping all of this once and for all.

She raised the razor again. It was getting easier now as the pain of her past and her present were slowing being erased with every cut. This would end all of her shame. This would, for the first time in as long as she could remember, make her feel “normal.”

Upon walking in the door, the manager noticed her attributes and hired her immediately. He told her that she was what he’d been looking for his entire life and that together, they were going to make a ton of money. She liked the idea of the money, but hated the idea of objectifying herself on a nightly basis. Still though, it was a means to an end and she desperately needed that end. She wanted to know…no, she NEEDED to know what it felt like to not be different. To not be stared at. If she had to do it this way, then so be it.

Within five minutes of being hired, the manager was on the telephone with a photographer to take some immediate pictures. He wasn’t going to let an opportunity like this slip away. If they were going to make a ton of money, they were going to make it as soon as possible. He got off the phone, gave her an address, and told her to come back tomorrow night for her first night of work.

The photo shoot was horrible. The photographer kept asking her to get into various outfits and poses that made her feel even more uncomfortable and embarrassed than she had ever felt before. When she asked what the photos were for, she was told that she was going to be on flyers that would be posted all over town. And, if it went well enough, they would be posted all over every town that she would travel to where people wanted to pay to see her. “Honey,” he told her “you may even end up on billboards or on a poster in some kid’s room.”

After another stroke of the razor, she was able to look in the mirror and see what she had done to herself. She was startled to see what cold steel can do to human flesh and had to sit down on the edge of the tub to compose herself. The sink and floor were a mess but she didn’t care. Soon, she wouldn’t have a care in the world.

The manager and photographer were right. After posting the flyers up all over town it seemed everybody within the entire county showed up that first night. And, if they couldn’t get in that first night, they came the second. And, if they couldn’t get in the second night, they came on the third. Soon everybody in town had seen her and people who had already seen her on stage were coming back a second and then a third time just to see her again. Every night she would get on stage and do her thing, and every night the crowd hooped and hollered and screamed for more. They couldn’t get enough of her and the nightly receipts were proof of that.

At the end of the first week, the manager came to her after the show to find her quietly crying in her dressing room. When he asked her what was wrong, she simply wiped away the tears and asked when she was going to get paid. The manager reached into his pocket, pulled out two wadded up twenty dollar bills and handed them to her. She looked first at the money and then at him and asked where the rest of her pay was, but he just laughed and said that the money doesn’t come from getting on stage. The real money comes from merchandise and video sales and, if she was willing to take that next step, he would be there to help her with it. Seeing as though it would take forever to get the necessary procedure done making only $40 a week, she reluctantly made the decision to drop out of school and do whatever she had to do to make more money. Her fate was set.

“Just a few more ought to do it” she thought to herself.

Sadly, what was supposed to be just a job ended up turning into a career. Sure, the merchandise and video sales were helping her financial situation, but travelling town to town to make appearances cost a lot of money, and not having the common sense to make her employer pay for it, she was struggling to break even. But, whenever she could she would sock away five or ten dollars in the hopes that the money would multiply and that she would soon have enough; enough money to get out of this lifestyle and enough money to be normal. But that day just never seemed to come.

It had now been eighteen years since she started on this journey. Eighteen years since she got on stage for the first time in an attempt to end her despair. She had long ago forgotten why she even started on this path as what was originally a means to an end became a routine that she found it easier to stick with rather than try to escape from. She was now 38 and her body, through the wear and tear of her lifestyle, had aged far beyond her years. The crowds didn’t come to see her anymore with the exception of few stragglers who just couldn’t help themselves, and the money, even though it never once rolled in as was originally promised, was almost nonexistent. The man who originally hired her had quit and moved away years ago with the help of all of the money that she made for him. New managers had come and gone and it was now to the point where whoever was pointing her in whatever direction was just another face taking money from her.

The newest guy, a young guy in his mid twenties, finally had to sit down with her one day. He told her that it just wasn’t happening anymore and he had to let her go. The money was not coming in and, in fact, he had to shut down the entire operation. He said that with the advent of the internet and all of the available sites, she just wasn’t that big of an attraction anymore. Had she been younger than maybe she could get on with someone else, but at this stage she was probably better off looking for a new career.

She went back to her motel and sat down on her bed. Eventually, the tears began flowing down her cheeks and what started as light whimpers became sobs of excruciating pain. She had no idea how she got here and no idea where to go next. Eventually she stood up, walked over to the mirror and stared at herself. She must have stared in that mirror for an hour absolutely disgusted at what she saw. How did it ever come to this? Her life was not supposed to have turned out this way. It was right then and there that she decided to end it. She couldn’t take it anymore

She quickly went over to her bags and got out her savings. She hadn’t counted it in awhile as she was always depressed with the result, but she now needed to know exactly how much she had. She laid the crumbled bills in separate piles across the stained motel mattress and, when it was all counted, thought that it just may be enough. She then leaned backwards, nearly falling off of the bed in the process and opened up the nightstand drawer that housed a telephone book. She flipped a couple of pages, found the number she was looking for, and made a call – a call that would end her life as she knew it.

She raised the razor for what she hoped would be the last time. The blade was getting dull and the pain was now shooting through her with every stroke. The amount of blood was increasing, but she just didn’t care. After the last cut, she could barely raise her head but forced herself so that she could see the results of her actions prior to leaving. What she saw made the tears start streaming from her eyes even faster. She cupped her hands under the running water to splash on her face and clear away the remains of the damage. Looking back up into the mirror she saw what she hadn’t seen in almost twenty years – a beautiful face. She began to get dizzy and fall backwards, but was caught by the nurse attending to her. The nurse stood her upright, explained that they get that a lot, and carefully guided her into the operating room.

The Bearded Lady was finally going to get electrolysis.