To: little whip
Just as a point of fact, it became infected because it had what's known as a 'parrot's-bill' nail. This has exactly the shape the name implies and grows downward, into the flesh, as it grows in length. It's also hard as iron. In order to trim it, my mother made me soak the thing in hot water for 30 minutes prior to cutting it.
Whatever dirt had inched its way beneath the nail was inevitably ground deep into the flesh. Why this became a problem only in my early twenties I have no idea, but after a series of especially painful infections I finally decided to have it removed. Twenty seven years later I still have 'phantom' sensations of it being there, and the scar tissue is horribly sensitive. The pain caused by any injury in that area is only equalled by that of a severe blow to the testicles. It's just as debilitating and just as long lasting.
The actual twisting caused relatively little pain, because the majority of the nerves involved are located at the site of the scar, what was the 'base' of the 'thumb'. The actual neck had very few nerves (or so I was told) and suffered little in the way of pain.
But those around me did. To my delight.
At a different level but in a similar vein... many years later I used to go drinking with a friend who had lost both his arms. He had been a trawlerman, and had gotten both his arms caught in the nets as they were being hauled aboard the trawler. The winches had ripped both his arms from their sockets. Because his arms had been pulled off rather than being cut he suffered very little loss of blood relatively speaking (the major veins and arteries had snapped back, sealing themselves shut) and survived the incident with little difficulty. He was equipped with two fearsome looking hooks (as I, at around eighteen or nineteen, had been similarly equipped)and we made a very impressive picture as we dropped all three hooks on the bar one after the other.
He and I drank in some very rough places, both alone and together. But not a soul ever bothered us. Which was entirely sensible, because I used to use mine to rip open cans and a skull would have been pierced just as easily as a can, if not more so.
His name was Arthur. He was a good mate. He had a fund of stories about his time as a trawlerman, and not the least trace of self-pity. We got along very well together.