I considered the gravitas of my actions only once before deciding to bandage a part of my body. I had wondered if girl I sit next to in Sociology lecture would believe the stories behind my injury. I had wondered if my friends would notice the injury and try to aid me as I walked around the bustling city. I had wondered if they would be annoyed and the constant reference to my injuries. I began to question myself as I wrapped the bright blue bandage around my knee. Around once, then twice, and fastened it securely on the back of my leg.
I had spent an hour trying to figure out which body part I should bandage. The wrists were too obvious, my back to hidden, my left ankle too obscured by my new Adidas superstars. So I settled on my knee. My knee could play a central character in thousands of stories that could have caused injury. I began to picture a tumultuous decent down the cement stairs of 55 E 10th street, a catastrophic encounter with a street sign marking the fire line as a no-park zone, an awry Uber making direct contact with my kneecap in the middle of a rainy overcast afternoon.
I push those thought away instead focusing on the Yoko Ono’s words. I must only make up the story when someone asks about the bandage. After they conceptualize my torn meniscus or envision my ruptured patella. I imagine sealing those ideas in a brown box with duct tape and pushing the box to the corner of my mind. I concentrate instead on how my clothing could showcase the cotton elastic tape. My left knee can be seen easily seen through the holes in my distressed denim jeans. I imagine how Yoko Ono must have felt as she decided what she would be wearing to perform “Cut Piece.
Ono had to have realized the importance of what she wore as one by one individuals began to cut off pieces of her clothing. Just as Ono believed that the clothing worn in “Cut Piece” must be of significant emotional value, I too believe in the importance of clothing for this performance. In this case, the performer’s clothing must showcase the fictitious injury, without explicitly drawing attention to the bandage. It must highlight the injury, without divulging why the bandage is needed. I cut two the strands of denim stretched across my knee and stand ready to interact with the world.
The first person to notice my concocted injury is my roommate Mackenzie. She watches at a distance as I stand, testing the strength of the KT tape, a bandage only previously used to provide Kinesiological relief to my wrists during my last tennis season seven months ago. The bandage holds. I wonder if I should limp or walk slowly with a painful expression on my face. Mackenzie yells from the bathroom as she brushes her hair. She asks how I had injured myself. My mind races as it begins to devise a horrible intricate backstory to my injury. I begin to speak.
I weave a tale about howl had joined a boxing club called Work Train Fight, about how I was learning to shadowbox, about how my personal trainer Clint “West Coast” Paterson had allowed me to practice the Muay Thai Kick on a punching bag before I was ready, about how the force of the impact was too much for my poor, weak knees to bear. Her eyebrows rise when I describe my gym. My heart stops. I believed that my ruse was up, that she had detected my lies and had realized that I had spent most the day yesterday reading a publication by Nicholas Birns.
She pauses and exclaims that she hadn’t known that I boxed. She too had tried to box at Work Train Fight. She suggested that I put my more weight on my support leg heel to give me more momentum to pivot on the ball of my left foot. I responded that I would try her techniques once my knee had healed. I turn on the heel of my right foot and walk out of the door. The next person I speak to is an acquaintance in my sociology class. Nick occasionally discusses anthropological concepts with me before Sociology Lecture egins.
I wonder if he will notice my bandage. I throw my backpack on the floor and keeping my left leg elevated slowly sink into the maroon theater seat. I pause as the seat creaks, watching to see if he had understood my odd behavior. He doesn’t notice my bandage, nor does he comment on my eccentric sitting technique. Instead, he begins to ramble on about his horrid interview with a research hospital that had occurred yesterday. I nod, knowing that I cannot talk of anything else but my bandage.
I begin to think of ways to turn the conversation back to my alleged injury as I interject my condolences through a commiserative face and despair for him in my eyes. I wait for a lull in this once sided conversation before beginning my story. I begin my sympathies by saying that I too had had a difficult twenty-four hours. I explain that I had been walking through Washington Square Park with two friends when Thad seen a man in a wizard hat telling fortunes near the fountain. I recount how he had ushered my friends and I over, gesturing us to sit on the floor next to him as he read the black and red tarot cards that he had