Medium Tough Summary and Analysis
Written by Craig Davidson, Medium Tough is a short story that describes a chapter in Dr. Jasper’s life. It all starts off when the Dr. was getting treated for his condition. Jasper has a condition where half of his body is feminine whereas the other half is male. As he states, “One hand washed the other. The right: huge, thick-knuckled, bones lashed by a meshwork of heavy ligatures. The left: long and bony like the hand of Nosferatu, metacarpals projecting beneath the thinnest stretching of skin- the bones in a bat’s wing. The right arm: a bowling-pin like forearm roped with freaky striations, a grapefruit-bulge of biceps. The left, a pair of sticks jointed at the elbow” (pg 90). Although Jasper has a sick condition, that doesn’t stop him…show more content… In the beginning of the story he operates on a newborn girl, Isla, due to a tumors in her brain. He cut into her skull to remove the tumor. They were slowly starting to lose her right as Jasper saw what was in her skull. It was a foot, she was in fact a parasitic twin. But being a doctor isn’t the only thing that Jasper does with his time. He is also an arm-wrestler. He goes to small events where he competes in contests. The first one he competed in, he won. Although the second one, he lost. After the second one he went to a strip club where a lady invited him to go have sex at her apartment. At the apartment before anything happened, the ladies son walks in asks for something to drink. Jasper sat down at the table with the little boy, who was also sick with CF, and showed him how to arm-wrestle. After that, Jasper was called in to the hospital for an emergency premature birth with signs of IVH. When he entered the room he was it was Penny laying there on the bed. Penny was a lady whom had an affair with Jasper a few times. As he was operating on the infant, he noticed that the baby boy had similar features that Jasper had. At the end of the story you don’t figure