Hey! Must be a devil between us
Surgery under a false name, my blood on a fascist’s hands, and the Pixies poke my third tit.
My life is a fever dream of ricocheting clusterf*cks. Memories come in fits and, sometimes, literal spurts. This week’s batshit flashback comes courtesy of a deranged déjà vu on an operating table.
Just before Halloween, I found myself starring in a body horror in Barcelona. Locked in eye contact with a sadist as she sliced me open, I was jolted back to Argentina – and that time I had surgery under a false name. Technically, this is a story about identity theft. The statute of limitations is six years, so I’m good to tell you this now. I think.
A Scar is Born
Barcelona, 2025
My scars deserve their own chapters. A poisonous caterpillar bite. A fag burn from showing off in an S&M club. A fan heater mishap. A tit job. An op in Buenos Aires under fraudulent means. And now – a permanent reminder that I’m not entirely welcome here in Catalonia.
I’d only gone to hospital for a checkup. Not the brain (that’s a whole other clusterfuck), nor the tits (still perfect, thanks). It was a basic bitch bump, yet somehow ended up traumatic.
It kicked off with the doctor asking my age, in Catalan. I replied, in Spanish.
She turned to the nurse: “They come over, don’t learn our language. If I visited London, I’d speak English!”
I told her I understood every word. That only fuelled a 10-minute tirade.
“Where is your boyfriend from? Why did you come here to meet an Englishman? You people only come here for the sun. We have to operate now or you’ll get septicaemia.”
“Wait, what?”
Xenophobia cuts deep. Minutes later, she had my blood on her hands. I was given no choice but to stare her down while she diced me up.
It’s a strange kind of invisibility, lying still while someone cuts into your flesh without seeing you. Breathing through the panic, I had a violent flashback to being carved up on a steel table in Buenos Aires, with nobody knowing where I was. In fact, not even the doctors knew who I was.
Ah, the beautiful idiocy and chemical courage of youth. I was 33, a producer for MTV US in Buenos Aires, when I checked into one of the most upscale hospitals in South America under an alias.
Here’s what I wrote at the time…
The Life and Times of Fatty Deposito
Buenos Aires, 2010
‘Fatty Deposito’ is a lump. A five-inch eyesore of a gelatinous blob. He’s ending his life being hacked out of my body in a sketchy setup in Argentina. My wristband carries the name of a Canadian blonde whose identity I’ve borrowed.
If I die on this table, nobody will know who to repatriate. I’m not Cassandra and this isn’t my birthday.
I’m being sliced to Bach. I think it’s Bach. It’s classical. There are keys. I can hear scissors snipping near my ear as a hot Argentine doctor yanks me apart unnecessarily roughly.
So they operate how they fuck, then?
Er, hola. I’m not under anaesthetic.
I panic. They’ll realise I’m not who I say I am and lock me in a South American prison without stitching me up. The nurse peers into the opening and shrieks, “¡Gigante!” I understand that word, you giant cow.
I first noticed the lump the day after moving to Buenos Aires. I looked in the mirror and there Fatty was. A giant mass jutting out of my collarbone. No idea why I couldn’t have spotted him 24 hours earlier, while I was still in London. That’s the law of the god of sod.
Since I couldn’t afford the hospital bills or the months of tests they wanted, I looked into being someone else. Specifically, a Canadian with Argentine health insurance.
At my first appointment, the doctor looked up from the chart and asked where I was from.
“London,” I replied.
Shit. I’m supposed to be Canadian.
“London, Ontario.”
Nice save.
How they never clocked my fraud is a mystery. At every test (there were many), I’d screw up – sign my real name, give the wrong birthday, forget Cassandra’s address, or have to copy her signature off a scrap of paper.
I wondered if Fatty would grow his own personality. Maybe a tache? I’ve seen How to Get Ahead in Advertising. The devil on my shoulder could take over. Maybe I am the bad lump.
Shit, I am the bad lump.
I imagined Fatty curating All Tomorrow’s Parties, with a lineup featuring Fats Domino, Throbbing Gristle, and other lardy legends. Pixies’ Joey Santiago would get a guest slot, purely for poking Fatty at a party once (scroll to image at the top for evidence of that flirtation).
“Must be a devil between us,” I joked. “Not sure why I said that. Where is my mind?”
He laughed, awkwardly. Nothing like a third tit to derail a conversation with an indie legend.
I set up a Facebook page dedicated to Fatty Deposito, but deleted it for fear I’d die and its presence would haunt people. They’d sigh, “Do you remember when she thought her lump was funny – and then the tumour killed her?”
For Fatty’s last night on Earth, I took him to one of the world’s top concert venues, Buenos Aires’ grand Teatro Colón opera house. It was well boring. We walked out at the first intermission.
I wondered if I’d feel lighter once the devil was gone. Tomorrow I’d be transformed into a selfless, caring woman. Maybe it was Fatty poisoning my good nature all along.
Today, only a scar remains – and the knowledge that I committed medical fraud in Argentina. The emotional scar comes from the sad fact that I later spotted Fatty lurking in pictures from five years earlier. Not one person had noticed the lump growing. Nobody was familiar with my body.
I obviously need a boyfriend.
I can show him my lump in a jar.
Moral of the story? Get health insurance. I’m finally paying for it after 48 years. The brain’s a lost cause, but at least the tits are covered.
Goldapple x
Coming Soon: The Ticking Dick – Argentina’s Spiderman tries to kill me.
This was written while listening to the Pixies, obviously. Disclaimer: If there are typos, I blame brain damage.
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Why was I not at the party with Joey?? 🤣