Everett's Body

Sexy didn't quite cover it. The thesaurus didn't help much either. Luscious, provocative, spicy, none of those alone quite described it. Sometimes Everett would try to make up words to describe his body. Lavonkrative sounded too clinical. Shashonic sounded too much like a hair product.

Everett spent most of his time thinking about his Adonic figure. Packages of dinner rolls called to mind his rippling abs. He went out of his way to meet people in front of picture windows in order to catch a reflective glimps of his flexed bicep while shaking hands. Everett always wore short sleeves.

His thighs were impressive, but not so intimidating that they strained his pant legs and his eyes seemed to grab the light right out of the air and glow. Not in a creepy way either. In a perfect way, and it was all of these things together, all of these perfect trees that created his unbelievable forest.

Everett liked to be admired. He loved to see how many women he could distract from their dates in restaurants. The stir he could cause in a gay bar was downright frightening. He was not entirely selfish, though. When stumbling upon an unattractive couple getting married in a park or ugly tourists photographing themselves in front of landmarks, Everett would do his best to insert himself in the frame, creating a much more appealing tableau for posterity.

His life was a happy one, save the knowledge that, when he died, his gift of beauty would no longer bring joy to the lives of others. This haunted Everett. He toiled over the issue at night when he should be sleeping, or at the very least moisturizing or tweezing. He spoke with theologians who urged him to abandon his vanity and look forward to a new life with the glory of God. He spoke with psychiatrists who guided him to nourish the beauty within, but none of this could satisfy his fear.

Finally, after years of turmoil, Everett decided to donate his body to science. Then he could be studied and admired and doted upon. In fact, the image of a room full of intrigued and jealous medical students pouring over his long/lean body, tan against the gleam of a shiny steel table, was oddly exciting to Everett.

And when his time finally came, at the merciless had of a distracted and speeding city cab, Everett's body was taken for study. But, as his spirit hovered, anxiously waiting his final scene of awe striking, an electric buzz rang out. First his left leg was sawed off, a knee sample for would-be orthopedist in Paducha. Then the other for podiatrists in training at The Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine. The pelvis and the torso were separated (going to Ft. Lauderdale and Omaha, respectively). His brain was removed and sent to future neurologists at Cornell and the remaining head was taken for practice rhinoplasty. If there was an upside, it was that both arms remained together for a tennis elbow study. Perhaps some young lab technician would recognize the perfect tricep symmetry.

And when all of this had finished, Everett cried one perfect spirit tear.