Fresh Ink: "Don’t Pass Me By" by Eric Gansworth

The only thing giving Hayley away were her Indian eyes. I don’t mean that they had a melodramatic tear dangling out of them like a pull chain.

The disembodied Barbie heads freaked me out.

“You could use a sprucing up,” Hayley added. “I could even those out.” She touched the scroungy tip of my sneh-wheh, clucking at my split ends.

We knew the splayed woman wasn’t real.

“Resusci-Annie is a simulator, to help us learn to properly administer CPR.” He paused and then elongated the next three words, “Cardio...Pulmonary...Resuscitation. Now, she is not a toy!” he added, as if we’d suddenly tried to play with her. “She’s a lifesaver.”

They speculated that my locked elbows were clogged with embedded dirt, but my skin was just naturally darker there, and a few other places.

Between the TV chimps and the other kids afraid of The Big Indian, I had an armada of empty desks around me most days.

We were each extremely well versed in these particular parts on our own, but it was safe to guess that none of us had ever used the alien words printed at the end of each arrow tip.

This worksheet featured a line-drawn Naked Boy with generic features and similar stubby equipment.

I could imitate Mr. Corker’s voice, asking her if she knew how to Label the Parts Using the Correct Anatomical Terminology.