By Jim Knipfel

GONNA HURT YOU bad…Gonna bust you face up with my boot. I'm in a hurtin' mood today. Don't care how many come at me—I'll kill you before you can even lay a hand on me. I got bail money in my pocket, so I don't give a fuck what happens. You think you're tough? You ain't tough. I'm tough, and I'm gonna fuckin' kill you…"

It had been a year and a half since I last ran into him. Like this, that last time had been on a mid-afternoon downtown train. He'd singled me out in the crowded car that last time, too, after imagining that I'd given him some dirty look, then set about threatening me for the rest of the trip home.

I'd seen him go after others on the same train in the past. I'd no doubt that he'd been singling people out on other trains over these past 18 months. Now it was my turn again.

"—You ain't tough. People like you should get a Golden…uhh…a Emmy award or something for what you do. I'm the real thing and I'm gonna hurt some people… Gonna fuckin' shoot you…"

The first time, it was kind of amusing, mostly because back then he kept using the word "murderize." What was almost funny this time was his whole "tough guy" angle, given that I spent the trip with my head down, peering through a magnifying glass an inch above an open book.

The one thing I will give him credit for was taking my attention away from my throbbing finger.

It had started about 10 days earlier. I'm a compulsive nail-biter, and so I'm used to seeing blood after chewing too deeply sometimes, or ripping off more of a nail than I planned, or yanking out hangnails at the root. That's all this was, I thought: Flesh around the fingernail was a little sore and red, is all. It'd be fine the next morning. Three days later I decided it was an ingrown nail. I've only had one of those, and it worked itself out after a couple days.

Two days after that conclusion, though, it wasn't any better. In fact, the swelling was spreading, the whole first joint of my index finger glowing a brilliant magenta. I stopped by a drugstore to pick up one of those over-the-counter treatment jobbies, but after getting it home, I saw that the instructions included the verb "pry."

I was in no mood to do any prying, so I set the ointment aside.

Meanwhile, my finger continued to darken and swell. It looked like someone had shoved a cranberry under the skin at the base of the nail. It throbbed as if on the verge of eruption. If I accidentally brushed it against something, I nearly screamed. I kept it covered and padded and soaked in antibiotics, but nothing seemed to help.

One night when I'd about had enough of this, I pulled out the needles, thinking I'd just lance it, the way I'd lanced so many other parts of my body in the past. But I stopped myself at the last moment, remembering that all those other times had been disastrous and ugly. With this thing already looking as if a midget Indian was set to burst out of it, I didn't care to take any chances.

It wouldn't have been such a big deal, really, had it been on the left hand, or even another finger on the right. But this involved my right index finger—one of my three primary typing fingers. I was still capable of typing as things stood—but there was no saying how long that would last. Finally, I broke down and called a doctor. The earliest appointment they could give me was five days away.

The swelling continued. With the bandage off, I looked like one of those cartoon characters who'd just whacked himself with a hammer.

The night after making the appointment, I stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up some things. While reaching for the sausage, I didn't see the sign that was hanging below the shelf, and slammed the tainted digit into it. I was alone in the aisle at the time, but still refrained from screaming. Instead, I stood there, stock still, for a minute or two, waiting for the wave of shocking pain to slide through, then out of my body. Once it had passed, I gingerly placed the sausage in my basket and moved on to the checkout.

Once home, I removed the bandage again. The flesh was swollen more than ever, ballooning up around the nail and down to the knuckle. But something was different. A misshapen patch of it had turned a sickly white.

I didn't want to think about it, so I replaced the bandage and opened a beer.

I couldn't help but be reminded of Mr. Vollrath (hell of a name—we just called him "Vollrath" as if he were some evil alien bent on world domination). Vollrath taught my eighth-grade social studies class. He was an abrasive character, with a shrill voice and a slew of nervous tics. Much of it we could overlook, but not his right index finger—or what was left of it. Lopped off at the first knuckle, the finger was about an inch shorter than the others, and squared off at the top.

We probably could have ignored that, too, if Vollrath hadn't insisted on jabbing the chalkboard with the stub to make his points while lecturing. Every time he did that, you could feel the entire class wince.

No, I wasn't looking forward to that. Come Friday night, though, with the shape the finger was in—I wasn't sure I'd have a choice. The doctor might just walk me over to the old paper cutter and be done with it.

Then, later that night, I looked down and saw the blood dripping from beneath the bandage. Not a lot, but some. Enough to drip. I unwrapped it again, cleaned it up and looked. Something—something there along the right side—had burst, it seemed, and now a mixture of blood and pus was seeping out of the tear.

I didn't want to think about that, either, so I rewrapped it and had another beer.

Over the next two days, the swelling began to subside. Not completely, but enough to notice. It was still dark red, still a bit distended, still hurt like hell, but just not as much.

This always happens. Something goes wrong and I wait just long enough to call a doctor to ensure that whatever it is will have gone away completely by the time the appointment rolls around. Time after time I've sat sheepishly on examination tables, forced to say, "Well, you see… It was like this…um…"

Strangely, that might explain why I was slightly relieved the morning of the appointment to find things still looking mottled and nasty.

That afternoon, I met up with Morgan and we went to the doctor's office. We'd both seen this guy in the past, and knew that he was a good and straightforward physician.

When my name was called, I followed him into a small examination room and sat down on the edge of the table.

"So what seems to be the trouble?" he asked, as he scanned through my file.

"Well," I said, "it's like this…ummm…" I began to peel the bandage away, still feeling sheepish that the thing wasn't uglier than it was.

"Yup," he said, after glancing at it only briefly, "you're swimming with infection."

"I figured."

He explained that the lack of circulation made fingers a horrible place to get an infection. Then he wrote me a prescription and sent me on my way. It all took about 30 seconds.

As we left the office, I decided I'd probably wait and get that prescription filled the next day. Instead, Morgan and I went back to her place, ate chili and drank some beers.

Weird thing is, through all of it, the one thought that was never far from my mind was, "Man, it sure will be good to bite that nail again." o