The You I've Never Known(18)

Ah, no, we don’t need that, insisted Dad. Give me an ACE Bandage, I’m good.

Mister, you’ve got a couple of hellacious fractures. ACE Bandages won’t fix those.

But don’t you worry. We’re a long way from town. It will take them at least an hour to get here. You should be sobered up by then. You ought to know better than to take a chance hurting your beautiful daughter. I’ll be right back.

Dad wanted to protest, but he couldn’t

stand on his leg, let alone climb back up the embankment. I remember hating

the way I felt, wearing pee-stinking

clothes. But when Leona returned,

she confirmed the ambulance was on

its way before locating clean undies and pants in the car, and helping me into them.

By the time the EMTs came scrambling

down to the rescue, Dad had realized

he’d be staying in the hospital for

a few days. What about my little girl?

I don’t know why, but Leona volunteered,

If you can trust me, I’ll take her home.

Everyone at the hospital knows who I am.

These guys right here can vouch for me.





They Could and They Did


Besides, Dad didn’t really have much of a choice, so he said why not. Leona was nice—she even took a couple

of days off work so she could care for me—but I cried and cried,

terrified I’d never see my daddy again.

I clung to him and begged to stay right there in the hospital. Promised I’d be very good. I’d already lost my mommy. What would happen

if Daddy didn’t come back? Leona pulled me into her lap, stroked my hair, soothed my fears with the motherly touch

I must’ve been missing. After enough time absorbing Leona’s kind attention, I said okay, she could take me with her.

Mid-hysteria, something meaningful must’ve passed between Dad and her, something a little girl wouldn’t realize, because after surgery to repair

his damaged limbs and a couple days recovering in the hospital, Dad joined me at Leona’s place, which is a bare-bones sketch in my memory. It was small, but I got my own bed, and I remember the sheets smelled sweet citrusy, like Ma-maw’s lemon meringue pie.

There were trees outside the window that looked like giants with big groping hands reaching for me when the light was low and the wind blew strong.

I can’t pull images of the furniture, except for a recliner that had seen better days. I wasn’t allowed to sit in it. Leona said it belonged to her resident ghosts, not that I understood right away. Eventually, the reference became clear, in recollections of framed photos that hung on every wall— a series featuring a mustached man and a curly-haired blond toddler, even younger than I. Turned out Leona’s husband and child had died in a train derailment a couple of years before. She didn’t like to talk about them, and enough time had passed that loneliness made her ripe fruit for Dad to pluck. I don’t know what drove us to finally leave, but his injuries had healed, and we went in her dead husband’s car.





Over the Years


We’ve probably switched

cars three dozen times.

One way Dad made a few

extra bucks was by selling

a car for more than he’d

invested in it, then finding another “deal” he could fix, drive, and dispose of again.

He’s an ace mechanic. Once, I asked him how he knew

so much about engine repair.

Pops taught me the basics, he explained. And I took auto shop in high school. I might’ve dropped out and made my living the way I’m making it now, but the army wanted to see a diploma.

That’s about as much as he

ever told me about his teen years. He doesn’t talk much about his time in the service, either, but oh, the alcohol-induced stories I’ve heard about the ins and outs of helicopter rotor repair!

All that thinking about cars brings me back to why I can’t have one. That has to change.





But It Won’t Today


This birthday is just about

over, no car for me, and what the hell was I thinking? I’ll have to find my own way to autonomy.

But then, I always understood that, didn’t I? We bump into the driveway, safe and sound despite Dad’s compromised state.

“The sleigh knows the way,”

I say out loud, “so Santa, please don’t sweat it.” The sentiment floats up from out of the depths, disturbing Dad, who throws

the gearshift into park, turns off the ignition. He turns to look at me. What did you just say?

I repeat the sentence while

trying to discern what’s got him so riled up. “I have no idea where it came from. Do you?”

He sits in silent contemplation, as if searching for the right thing to say, but ultimately comes back with, Nope, never heard it before.





My Gut Reaction


To his answer is one word: bullshit.

I’m dying to respond with that single word exactly: Bullshit.

Except that word requires all caps: BULLSHIT.

No, more effectively, rapid all-cap fire: BULLSHIT

BULLSHIT

BULLSHIT

But that’s my gut, not my brain, and my brain is where my own bullshit

comes from, at least, according to Dad.