The Rot

Rhoda unzipped her tight jeans and sat down on the toilet. She had forgotten to lock the door to the bathroom, and her mother was surprised when she came in and saw Rhoda on the potty. But her reaction was not to that. It was to the unbelievable odor, what she would later describe as a combination of Elmer's glue, eucalyptus, Parmesan cheese, garlic, rotten fish, a paper mill, and the usual bathroom smells of feces and urine. The rose-scented air spray, if anything, made the smell even more nauseating.

Rhoda's mom looked at her legs and said, "Oh, no. I think you've got it."

"What?" Rhoda said. She had had a little itch for the past week or so, but it hadn't gotten bad until that very afternoon.

"We'll have to see Dr. Collins, I'm afraid," Rhoda's mom said.

Rhoda wore another pair of tight jeans to school the next morning, but after she left school at noon when her mother picked her up, they went home, where she changed into a knee-length dress with a cotton slip underneath. An hour later, they were at Dr. Collins'.

"How long have you had this itch?" Dr. Collins asked Rhoda. Dr. Collins was a middle-aged woman.

"Maybe a week or so. I hadn't really noticed it till yesterday afternoon."

"Do you wear tight jeans?"

"Sometimes...a lot of us do."

"She wears tight jeans every day, Doctor," said her mother. "Just like all of her friends, and just like most of us used to when we were her age."

The doctor frowned. "Yes, I know. Rhoda, do you like to wear dresses?"

"No way," Rhoda said. "They're not cool."

"Unfortunately, 'cool' is not the operative word here. You have a serious chronic subcutaneous infectious in your groin. You will have to wear extremely lightweight clothing to permit air circulation around your legs for the next few weeks. Whether those clothes are fashionable or not is irrelevant... I will also give you some medicine to take twice a day. Come back in three weeks and we'll see how things are going."

"Is this what they call, 'the Rot'?" Rhoda asked meekly, dreading to hear the answer to the question.

"Yes," said the doctor. "It also means if you fail to follow the directions closely, we may have to amputate one or both of your legs. Fortunately, the directions are easy." She handed Rhoda a prescription for some pills and an anti-itch ointment.

As they pulled out of the driveway from the doctor's office, Rhoda sulked and looked out the car window. "I can't believe I've got the Rot."

Her mother clucked her tongue in a way that always annoyed Rhoda. "I think we caught it early enough to save your legs. We can fill this prescription at Knott's."

The car pulled into a parking lot across the street from the drugstore. Rhoda walked with her mom to the druggist's. She nearly freaked when a gust of wind blew up the hem of her dress, exposing the hem of her cotton slip.

"It's all right, Rhoda. Nobody saw anything," her mother reassured her. "Anyway, that's another good reason to wear a slip." They got the medicine without any further incidents.

Rhoda wanted to change out of her dress when they got home, but her dad was there, fixing coffee for Mrs. Harrison, a former neighbor who now lived across town that had come to visit.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Harrison; how nice of you to call," said Rhoda's mother, who Rhoda thought was lying.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, Rhoda. My, Rhoda, you are dressed nicely today. I see you're even wearing a slip. It's nice to see a young lady practicing some modesty...for a change."

Rhoda started to do a slow burn. She wanted to leave, go to her room and never come back. Or, better yet, change into her tightest jeans. But she knew that would be impossible.

"Rhoda, you need to put this on your legs," said her mom, handing her a tube of ointment.

Rhoda was not happy that this conversation was happening in front of Mrs. Nelson. However, it gave her an excuse to leave the old busybody.

Ten minutes later, she had changed into a T-shirt and one of her mother's skirts, which was really too long for her but covered her legs and the slip.

"The Rot," said Mrs. Nelson, tut-tutting. "You remember little Twyla, don't you, Mrs. Kirkpatrick?"

Rhoda's mom nodded. Rhoda suddenly had a bad feeling about this conversation.

"She was left-handed, so they cut off her right leg first. Cut it off at the hip." She smacked her lips. "Of course, they thought they could save the left leg. But they had to cut that one off the next year. She's confined to bed now. Can't even use a wheelchair."

Rhoda's skin crawled. Was this to be her fate, as well?

At last, Mrs. Nelson left, and Rhoda relaxed and got a little more used to wearing the skirt.

School the next day was going to be hell. She would stick out like a sore thumb wearing a dress when everyone else was in tight jeans. But when she got there, one of the boys told her he liked her skirt (it was the one she had worn the previous afternoon after she changed). She heard what sounded like Tara Buscher and her friends pointing at her and laughing, and her suspicions were confirmed after school while passing a group of girls waiting for their bus.

"You got the Rot, don't you?" Tara sneered. "I always knew you practiced poor hygiene. You're gonna wear dresses for a year, then they're going to cut off your legs, one by one."

Rhoda showed her the middle finger.

Tara repeated the gesture, then said, "You can get it a lot quicker now that you're wearing a dress! Ha! ha! ha!"

Similar incidents to this occurred after school for about a week. Friday afternoon, however, Rhoda went into the girls' bathroom and smelled an odor that was a combination of Elmer's glue, eucalyptus, Parmesan cheese, garlic, rotten fish, a paper mill, feces and urine. As Rhoda pulled up her new dress and prepared to go, she heard a voice crying in the next stall. Although the stall had a door, and the door was closed, she knew the voice was Tara's. Even though the Rot was even worse on her own legs (Dr. Collins had assured Rhoda and her mother that it would take another few weeks before the Rot got better), Rhoda smiled. Tara would most likely be wearing a dress Monday morning.

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