Black hand

The associations are nasty--pre-WWI Serbian irredentists, Camorra extortionists, Spanish La Mano Negra anarchists, even a band of vampires (fictional, we hope)--but what to do? My right hand was in fact black. The symbols for black hand criminals were really black palms, whereas it was the back of my hand that was deeply, extensively and disgustingly (not beautifully Nubian) black. I was ashamed to put it on the table was I taught because with its lines and patches it looked diseased and rotted.

What had happened was a trip and a sprawl as I went over Bunker Hill. My hands took the brunt and blood poured from two skin tears one on my wrist and the other just below the knuckle of the  middle finger. There was no pain and no danger (and no damage to my running ability) but flying drops spattered my shirt and shorts, and flowing trickles crusted my fingers. The blood looked pretty gruesome on the surface and there was hematoma underneath.

After I'd washing off and fussed with bandages, you, my trusty wound maintenance workers, got to work. You plugged the leaks, keeping the red cells in. You constructed as scaffold upon which new skin cells could cling and collect. You dissolved away piece by piece the bed of dried bruise blood that had made my hand so unsightly. The wounds have scabbed and dried out and are starting to pucker. You're still busy I know, fellas, but I want to let you know how much I appreciate your yeoman work.

My conscious mind, the one I can (barely) direct, couldn't begin to manage this and the many other processes that keep me operational. Multi-layered systems with complex feedback capabilities are in charge of my body when I exercise, sleep, eat and countless activities, so I don't have to think, and in fact usually don't.

Sometimes I and one or more of these systems are at odds, as when in the class after lunch one of us wants desperately to sleep, but mostly we play well together.

In fact, I've been in your debt over and over again, from the way you produced granulation tissue which closed me us when I was burned, through all the accidents and mishaps of my life till now. I remember during the dark days of adolescent acne that I cursed you for making me repulsive. But that passed, the scars have healed, and for decades you've only wish me well (some excisable spots aside).

Would that the black hand emblematic of a social compact to do dark deeds were as readily restored to good color as my hand. Some analogue of the active systems by which I am healed should be at work in the body politic. After talking to my friend Yori these evening about what we can do for the elections coming up, it occurs to me: maybe regeneration strategies are in order. Thanks, crew, for making me think.