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| Saint Sebastian River Bridge [Click image to call up all published instalments] |
Sunday,
June 18, 1922,
concluded
They were in luck. The doc’s door stood open and Charles Hunter’s “Tickled to Death” ragtime piano poured out into the yard, where three apple-faced young men in white britches, black-and-white-checked jackets, and white straw boaters, were making smoochie with two of Lottie’s girls under one of them fancy little pole barns out in the yard. What did they call them, he thought wildly. Pergolas. Pavilions. Why did he care? His brother was bleeding to death on his floorboard.
The girls went from kissing on one of the three fellows to another; no one seemed to mind. Red pulled right up to the door and hollered for help. The truck had had a horn at one time, but it hadn’t worked since they’d bought it, used, for three hundred dollars cash.
He was around to the passenger side when Dr. Wilbur strode out onto the porch. His massive shoulders, chest and upper arms pulled his gleaming white shirt tight around them and stretched his paisley vest. He’d discarded his coat, and his sleeves were rolled up like a pugilist at a betting fight.
He took in the injured man, the blood dripping from the floorboards, and Red’s face, flush from crying. “Well, damn, son.”
He shook his head. “Let’s get him inside.” He let out a piercing whistle and the two Mollies came scooting from the pergola, leaving three very disappointed young men.
“Get the table ready, my dears! This poor fellow is in serious trouble.” He saw Red’s right eyebrow ride up in surprise and grinned. “They’re my nurses. Training for a better life than they can expect at Lottie’s, don’t you think? They still make a bit of money on the side though, if you’re interested.”
With Wilbur holding up Guy by his armpits and walking backward, Red took his feet and they scuttled with him up the three steps, across the deep porch and in the door. He was surprised Guy didn’t wake up and scream; the leg sagged horribly, and blood spattered the floorboards.
Red saw over Wilbur’s shoulder that straight ahead, through French doors where this fine home once boasted an entrance hall, waited a narrow white operating table. Bright gooseneck lamps glared, trays of shining instruments gleaming in the harsh glow.
The two girls had tied on aprons and wore cloths over their hair. They stood ready by the tray tables where wicked-looking knives and sharp clamps waited. The Victor-Victrola blithely started up with Hunter’s jaunty if dark “Back to Life.”
The disappointed young trio got in their Willys-Knight 88-8, and lit out, likely for Lottie’s, up the road by the water.
Inside, Dr. Wilbur injected Guy with something, and he dropped into a sleep much deeper than before.
“Who is this man?” he demanded of no one in particular.
Red nodded, “My brother, Guy Dedge. I’m Red Dedge.” He held out his hand, but the doctor just looked at it. He took it back and had an urge to wipe it on his pants.
One of the girls handed Wilbur a folded white cloth, and he placed it over Guy’s mouth and nose. He took a brown bottle and dripped clear liquid onto the rag. A cold, chemical odor filled the room. Chloroform. Something else fathers in the Great War had told their sons about, a blessing to the wounded.
Guy was absolutely still; he seemed to be barely breathing.
The doctor and the “nurses” simply waited, wordless.
A scratching sound filled the silence and Wilbur cocked his head towards the foyer where the Victor-Victrola complained quietly of the end of the record. The little brunette girl went out the doors and, in a few moments, Tom “Millions” Turpin’s “Saint Louis Rag” rolled happily out the front door into the night.
Inside, Dr. Wilbur injected Guy with something, and he dropped into a sleep much deeper than before.
“Who is this man?” he demanded of no one in particular.
Red nodded, “My brother, Guy Dedge. I’m Red Dedge.” He held out his hand, but the doctor just looked at it. He took it back and had an urge to wipe it on his pants.
One of the girls handed Wilbur a folded white cloth, and he placed it over Guy’s mouth and nose. He took a brown bottle and dripped clear liquid onto the rag. A cold, chemical odor filled the room. Chloroform. Something else fathers in the Great War had told their sons about, a blessing to the wounded.
Guy was absolutely still; he seemed to be barely breathing.
The doctor and the “nurses” simply waited, wordless.
“All right ladies, let’s turn him.”
Red stepped forward to help, but Wilbur held up a hand. “We know what we’re about, son.” It was true. In a minute, with some fancy finagling with the sheets, Guy was on his stomach, having been turned over his good leg; Red hadn’t thought of that.
The doctor strapped on an apron of his own, cleaned his hands in alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, and bent to look at the back of Guy’s left calf.
Red didn’t need to be a doctor to know it looked bad, he could see it plain enough. That bushwhackin’ son of a bitch must of been close and had that gun choked down full bore to do that kind of damage, God damn him to hell for it.
Doc Wilbur lifted flaps of bloody skin with some kind of probe, peered inside, and shook his head. Farther down the leg he shook his head some more. He looked up at this poor fellow’s brother and held his gaze, letting his message sink into the scared boy’s mind. Red began to shake and cry again. “His…leg? Can you save it?”
Wilbur sadly shook his head one more time. “The bones are shattered. The blood vessels, the muscles…there’s no way to prevent gangrene.”
The boogie man of all Great War veterans, the “gas gangrene” they only spoke of in hushed tones of horror. Living humans rotting before your eyes and nose, raving with fever and pain.
Red’s hands went to his face. He bent double, holding in a long scream that wouldn’t quite leave his lips. It came out more like hiccups.
One of the girls, the yellow-haired one, put her hand on his shoulder. Millions Turpin’s old “Harlem Rag” seemed to come to him from miles away, as if the gramophone was not in the foyer but the next county.
Red stepped forward to help, but Wilbur held up a hand. “We know what we’re about, son.” It was true. In a minute, with some fancy finagling with the sheets, Guy was on his stomach, having been turned over his good leg; Red hadn’t thought of that.
The doctor strapped on an apron of his own, cleaned his hands in alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, and bent to look at the back of Guy’s left calf.
Red didn’t need to be a doctor to know it looked bad, he could see it plain enough. That bushwhackin’ son of a bitch must of been close and had that gun choked down full bore to do that kind of damage, God damn him to hell for it.
Doc Wilbur lifted flaps of bloody skin with some kind of probe, peered inside, and shook his head. Farther down the leg he shook his head some more. He looked up at this poor fellow’s brother and held his gaze, letting his message sink into the scared boy’s mind. Red began to shake and cry again. “His…leg? Can you save it?”
Wilbur sadly shook his head one more time. “The bones are shattered. The blood vessels, the muscles…there’s no way to prevent gangrene.”
The boogie man of all Great War veterans, the “gas gangrene” they only spoke of in hushed tones of horror. Living humans rotting before your eyes and nose, raving with fever and pain.
Red’s hands went to his face. He bent double, holding in a long scream that wouldn’t quite leave his lips. It came out more like hiccups.
One of the girls, the yellow-haired one, put her hand on his shoulder. Millions Turpin’s old “Harlem Rag” seemed to come to him from miles away, as if the gramophone was not in the foyer but the next county.
“Mr. Dedge? I’m sorry, Mr. Dedge, but someone has to authorize this surgery. You’re the next of kin present. Do we have your approval to remove the leg?”
Remove. What a word, as if you were getting thrown out of a high-class whore house. “Remove him.” Chop, hack, carve, amputate! Jesus loves his mother, Guy’s leg was coming off. How the hell was he supposed to explain to his sister Effie Sue up home in Jasper? He’d promised her he’d look after Guy, him bein’ younger, they both knew, bein’ no indication of which one of them needed taking care of.
The blonde girl’s hand tightened on his shoulder. She spoke softly. “You can do it. You just have to be strong.”
He turned red-rimmed eyes on her and saw a world of hurt and sorrow in her own. Girl like her, what she must have gone through every day, she should know all right. He nodded, tears flowing, and finally said it. “Yes sir. Please. Otherwise, he’ll die, right?” Like that fact would somehow exonerate him of blame for the decision.
The doctor known as Wild Wilbur nodded. “Yes, son. He will. Badly. In great pain, agony really, and with fever, out of his mind. Completely mad.”
“Then yes. Do it.”
The girl’s hand on his shoulder gripped harder for a second, then she pushed off him lightly like another boy would, back when he was boy. When he’d played with other boys, him and Guy, and the world wasn’t a dangerous place, a place where boys got their legs shot off.
The other girl, who had changed the record, was shorter, with dark hair and a pleasingly rounded figure. She turned to a breakfront and opened the glass doors. From inside she took a beaker of dark liquid, and Red wondered what it was for. She took two cut crystal glasses and poured out good measures in each.
He smelled the familiar odor of rum, but quite a bit finer than the two-week-old stuff Guy made. She handed one to the doctor and one to Red, looking up at this handsome, tree-top fellow before her, with a sly smile that said rum wasn’t all that was available.
“Flor de Cana,” she said, “de donde Nicaragua! Rhum mas fina, delicioso!”
Red savvied Spanish a bit: “Flower of the Cane, finest delicious Nicaraguan rum.” He turned it up in one, and the imperturbable doctor’s own considerable black furry eyebrows headed skyward. A long “ahhhh” followed. “Well, damn, son,” Wilbur said again, and turned up his own.
As Wilbur turned to work, he saw Red staring at an alligator hide over the mantel. It stretched the width of the room, which had to be at least fourteen feet.
The yellow-haired girl stuck a long, fashionably skinny cigar in the doctor’s mouth, and lit it with a lucifer she scratched to life on the bottom of the operating table. Wilbur nodded to the other girl, who poured him another heavy-handed shot from the beaker.
Red stuck his glass out too. Only man in that room needed a drink more was fast asleep, about to have his leg cut off.
Nodding to the alligator, it’s brownish-yellow hide gleaming gold in the bright light, Wild Wilbur said, “I took that beauty with a Bowie knife, back about fifteen years ago. She put up quite a fight.”
Red, sipping his rum, literally stepped back in surprise. “You hunt ’gators with a knife?”
As he tossed the first gobbet of Guy’s butchered leg into a rolling iron bucket, the surgeon shook his head. “Nahh, I was hunting wild hogs. I was crawling down this hog tunnel, see?”
Red did see; hogs tended to make runs through heavy brush which were covered over by the weeds closing overhead.
“Now, you always carry your knife in your teeth, crawling down the hog tunnels, because the cheeky bastards will surprise you. Can’t be fumbling your weapon out of a belt or ankle sheath with two hundred pounds of enraged razorback charging down on you, hey?”
No one knew if Wilbur Sampson was really British, but his accent suggested it, and nobody Red knew had the balls to ask him. He looked more like an Italian or a Greek, with his dark complexion and his arms and the part of his chest exposed by his open shirt thickly covered in black curly hairs. This burley fucker hunted wild pigs with a God-damned knife? “So how did you happen to, ahh…”
“What, bag the alligator? Well, you see, she was in my way. I was hot on the trail of a truly magnificent hog, which ended up running near three hundred bloody pounds, and was not of a mind to allow her to interfere. So I killed her, went and got my hog, then went back to skin and butcher her too.”
The doctor kept his gaze intently on his work as he spoke, busily tying off blood vessels and cutting away gruesome chunks of meat that looked for all the world like raw pork.
Red stared for a second, his stomach churning, then gulped his second shot of rum. A fourteen-foot alligator is “in your way,” and you kill it with a Bowie knife for the inconvenience? Red began to understand why they called him Wild Wilbur.
His eyes went back to what the doctor was doing, and he nearly gagged. Guy’s leg, what was left of it, was almost separate from his body.
Wild Wilbur kept tossing bits of bloody mess into the rolling bucket, sometimes missing, so that they splatted nauseatingly on the floor.
The scritch scratch of the end of the record sent the brunette into the foyer again. As Guy’s ravaged leg became completely detached from the rest of his body forever, Scott Joplin and Louis Chauvin played “Heliotrope Bouquet Rag” into the uncaring dark.
Remove. What a word, as if you were getting thrown out of a high-class whore house. “Remove him.” Chop, hack, carve, amputate! Jesus loves his mother, Guy’s leg was coming off. How the hell was he supposed to explain to his sister Effie Sue up home in Jasper? He’d promised her he’d look after Guy, him bein’ younger, they both knew, bein’ no indication of which one of them needed taking care of.
The blonde girl’s hand tightened on his shoulder. She spoke softly. “You can do it. You just have to be strong.”
He turned red-rimmed eyes on her and saw a world of hurt and sorrow in her own. Girl like her, what she must have gone through every day, she should know all right. He nodded, tears flowing, and finally said it. “Yes sir. Please. Otherwise, he’ll die, right?” Like that fact would somehow exonerate him of blame for the decision.
The doctor known as Wild Wilbur nodded. “Yes, son. He will. Badly. In great pain, agony really, and with fever, out of his mind. Completely mad.”
“Then yes, do it” |
The girl’s hand on his shoulder gripped harder for a second, then she pushed off him lightly like another boy would, back when he was boy. When he’d played with other boys, him and Guy, and the world wasn’t a dangerous place, a place where boys got their legs shot off.
The other girl, who had changed the record, was shorter, with dark hair and a pleasingly rounded figure. She turned to a breakfront and opened the glass doors. From inside she took a beaker of dark liquid, and Red wondered what it was for. She took two cut crystal glasses and poured out good measures in each.
He smelled the familiar odor of rum, but quite a bit finer than the two-week-old stuff Guy made. She handed one to the doctor and one to Red, looking up at this handsome, tree-top fellow before her, with a sly smile that said rum wasn’t all that was available.
“Flor de Cana,” she said, “de donde Nicaragua! Rhum mas fina, delicioso!”
Red savvied Spanish a bit: “Flower of the Cane, finest delicious Nicaraguan rum.” He turned it up in one, and the imperturbable doctor’s own considerable black furry eyebrows headed skyward. A long “ahhhh” followed. “Well, damn, son,” Wilbur said again, and turned up his own.
As Wilbur turned to work, he saw Red staring at an alligator hide over the mantel. It stretched the width of the room, which had to be at least fourteen feet.
The yellow-haired girl stuck a long, fashionably skinny cigar in the doctor’s mouth, and lit it with a lucifer she scratched to life on the bottom of the operating table. Wilbur nodded to the other girl, who poured him another heavy-handed shot from the beaker.
Red stuck his glass out too. Only man in that room needed a drink more was fast asleep, about to have his leg cut off.
“I took that beauty with a Bowie knife” |
Red, sipping his rum, literally stepped back in surprise. “You hunt ’gators with a knife?”
As he tossed the first gobbet of Guy’s butchered leg into a rolling iron bucket, the surgeon shook his head. “Nahh, I was hunting wild hogs. I was crawling down this hog tunnel, see?”
Red did see; hogs tended to make runs through heavy brush which were covered over by the weeds closing overhead.
“Now, you always carry your knife in your teeth, crawling down the hog tunnels, because the cheeky bastards will surprise you. Can’t be fumbling your weapon out of a belt or ankle sheath with two hundred pounds of enraged razorback charging down on you, hey?”
No one knew if Wilbur Sampson was really British, but his accent suggested it, and nobody Red knew had the balls to ask him. He looked more like an Italian or a Greek, with his dark complexion and his arms and the part of his chest exposed by his open shirt thickly covered in black curly hairs. This burley fucker hunted wild pigs with a God-damned knife? “So how did you happen to, ahh…”
“What, bag the alligator? Well, you see, she was in my way. I was hot on the trail of a truly magnificent hog, which ended up running near three hundred bloody pounds, and was not of a mind to allow her to interfere. So I killed her, went and got my hog, then went back to skin and butcher her too.”
The doctor kept his gaze intently on his work as he spoke |
Red stared for a second, his stomach churning, then gulped his second shot of rum. A fourteen-foot alligator is “in your way,” and you kill it with a Bowie knife for the inconvenience? Red began to understand why they called him Wild Wilbur.
His eyes went back to what the doctor was doing, and he nearly gagged. Guy’s leg, what was left of it, was almost separate from his body.
Wild Wilbur kept tossing bits of bloody mess into the rolling bucket, sometimes missing, so that they splatted nauseatingly on the floor.
The scritch scratch of the end of the record sent the brunette into the foyer again. As Guy’s ravaged leg became completely detached from the rest of his body forever, Scott Joplin and Louis Chauvin played “Heliotrope Bouquet Rag” into the uncaring dark.
Wild Wilbur was telling the whores a story about a friend of his who’d come over for a drink, and to brag that he’d finally fucked the daughter of a local cattleman that very afternoon. “‘I even ate her out,’ he said. I said, ‘You ate her out?’ ‘I sure did.’ ‘You silly ass,’ I said, ‘I fucked her after lunch today. How did my dick taste?’”
The girls screeched laughter.
Red felt sick. Guy’s leg was gone. They were tying off blood vessels, leaving a flap of skin to fold across the gaping wound. How could Guy farm with one leg? Could they even keep the farm? And with no farm, how would he ever convince Lola Bostick to marry him? God damn the Ashleys! God damn Guy!
He gestured to the dark-haired girl for another shot of that damned good rum, then shuffled out into the front room where the Victor-Victrola was. Scott Joplin’s “Pineapple Rag” tinkled cheerily. Crickets sang in time, out the door into the dark.
The girls screeched laughter.
Red felt sick. Guy’s leg was gone. They were tying off blood vessels, leaving a flap of skin to fold across the gaping wound. How could Guy farm with one leg? Could they even keep the farm? And with no farm, how would he ever convince Lola Bostick to marry him? God damn the Ashleys! God damn Guy!
He gestured to the dark-haired girl for another shot of that damned good rum, then shuffled out into the front room where the Victor-Victrola was. Scott Joplin’s “Pineapple Rag” tinkled cheerily. Crickets sang in time, out the door into the dark.
The drunken, abandoned young trio from the pergola had absconded for likelier prospects. Even the mosquitos had gone home for the night.
Red sat on the porch slider and sobbed like a lost child.
Red sat on the porch slider and sobbed like a lost child.
| Copyright © 2022 by Roger Owens |
What a harrowing episode! Gripping!
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