I’m the one they call for the dirty work

“I haven’t gotten my period and I’m worried,” says my friend Renee, over a group FaceTime one day. 

“If you need me to push you down the stairs, I’ll book a flight,” I tell her. 

“That is actually so sweet,” she says. 

When people ask who would you call in jail? they always point to me. I collect the compliments like sea glass in my pockets. Will I judge you? Yes. But I’ll also bail you out. Assault, battery, petty theft. I’m the warm voice on the other end of the phone that will make fun of you, and bring a gun to the knifefight. The people I love, I battle for them, all teeth and dusty boot soles, no questions. 

I’m the one they call for the dirty work. I’ll fistfight the girl in the bar that made you cry. I’ll hold your hair back while you puke in the neon Manhattan streets. I find the address of internet bullies. I scream at people on the subway to make room for a friend with food poisoning. I’ll help you release frogs from the laboratory and bring you hot soup in feverish bedsheets. I make the phone calls people can’t make. I hold heads against my chest and rage my wars with tiny fists. 

I don’t mind sitting on the uncomfortable green felt chairs in the ICU and watching the tubes snake in and out of your nose. I sleep with my phone ringer turned high, ready to be buzzed out of sleep for a midnight emergency call to stop a friend from succumbing. I call through the underground tunnels of my relationships with nothing but an oxygen mask and a grim smile. I like drafting your work emails where you should stand up for yourself. I light everyone’s cigarettes and spend hours in a bar with you while you search for your other half. 

I feed the cats whose parents are in Europe. I hold you down to squeeze your blackheads and prick my fingers gathering flowers. I uncoil to my full height in front of sharp-tongued mothers-in-law and I’m always the one to go downstairs to grab the pizza. It’s not grunt work if it’s those you love, not to me it’s not. 

I’m glad I get my hands bloody so yours can stay clean. I hold things others find too heavy, that sink people into the deep blue depths of crisis. I clench my teeth and gather it all up in my arms and I’m not afraid to say, you can ask me for anything. When eyes are empty and the bell tolls, I pick up my skirts and I do the damn thing. I don’t mind it all. I don’t mind asking for ketchup when you can’t. I don’t mind chasing down cabs in busy streets and trading dinner orders when you didn’t like yours. I’ll take the scratches when I help you bathe your cat and speak up when people cut us in line.

I do wonder though, who I would call in jail.