oldnumberseven

Jack Woolcott was in a stainless steel tub with his legs stretched out, and his head rested upon a web work of gauze. Molly sat in a folding chair beside the tub. She lathered Jack’s face with shaving soap. Molly shaved him well, and cleanly. Jack lay with his head back in the gauze webbing. He enjoyed the shaving.

‘Listen, Molly who do you want to play in the game?’
‘Kansas City and San Francisco.’

Molly was a fan of the Montana and Young rivalry. All of the sports stations’ talking heads talked about the two quarterbacks, and the possibility of a clash between them.

‘Did you play?’
‘Sure,’ Jack said. ‘When I was a kid. I played tight-end.’
‘Tight-end,’ Molly said.
‘Don’t laugh too hard, or you’ll steam your visor all up.’

There was a road to the left that led to a city beside a canal. The road to the right led into very high mountains with precipices streaked with red and black veins of rock. Still there was snow in the mountains. The melting snow formed a stream that ran black with the dark rock behind. The stream ran down the Cliffside and ran bright blue over the slate and down into the gorge. The water fell first on a high rock, then formed a river. White poplars grew in the river valley.

In the corridor there were reproductions of famous impressionist paintings, framed behind glass, and mounted to the wall. Kate Woolcott stood under the neon tubes that lined where the wall and ceiling met. She stood in her winter coat with her back to the wall, and a book bag slung over her shoulder. She wore a trilby cap. Kate took the cap off and ran her fingers through her black hair. She held her cap by the brim, and touched it against her thigh.

There was a room along that hall with chairs, tables, and donated periodicals, and two women, and a man. There were always two women and a man, and they left the room with their overcoats over their arms. The old man glanced at Kate. The three went on down the hall to the security door. The old man worked the intercom, and spoke their family name. They all three shared the same name. The door buzzed and the old man swung it open, and escorted the two women through.

Kate walked across the hall, and studied a print. She moved along the hall from one picture to another, and waited for Molly.
Molly will come and say; ‘Go on in, you can go on in now.’’
Kate touched the lapel of her coat.

‘I want to kiss your wounds,’ Kate said, ‘and watch them heal. I want to watch you grow stronger each time you look at them.’
‘I don’t remember any of it.’
‘The medicos gave you something so you wouldn’t. You fought them the whole time, and they tied you down. You tried to take out all your tubes.’
‘I’ll be a better patient.’
‘All your friends were here. You don’t remember?’
‘No,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t remember any of it.’
‘They were lined up out the hall.’
‘I wish I could remember.’

Kate read to Jack. He lay in the bed propped up on some pillows and listened to her voice. Kate held the book open, balanced in the long fingers of one hand, and ran the other through her hair. Jack listened to her timberline voice read him the adventures of Peter, Katarina, and August. The orderly came down the hall, and warned the visitors that is was past time to leave. Jack walked Kate down the hall.

Kate said; ‘I think of you often,’
‘I love your guts, kid.’ Jack said.
‘They told me you had a rough time earlier. You’re past the hardest part now.’
‘It could be anything,’ Jack said. ‘It could be a high mountain pass or a nurse come to check your blood pressure. They give me trouble.’
‘You are past the hardest part.’
“Sure.’

Jack remembered a moment of wishing when the smoke blinded him. The flaming curtains lay on top of him, and he rolled off the couch in the flames. The smoke blinded him, and he wished.

‘It’s funny,’ he thought. ‘You’re only afraid of it now.’

It was winter in the high mountain pass. There were pillars of ice in the precipices. Snow hung on the branches of the poplars. The river receded and there was ice along the banks.

On Thursday the ward was full and the rooms were doubled up. The nurse brought Henry. Henry’s wife, and her mother and father followed the wheelchair. The nurse and wife helped Henry from the chair to the bed. Henry was wounded while working under a diesel engine truck. The fuel line leaked and dripped down onto his lamp. The bulb exploded and the fuel conflagarated.

Henry’s father-in-law said: ‘It should not have exploded like that.’
‘They must have cut that diesel with something,’ Henry said.

Henry’s right arm was bandaged from his fingertips to his shoulder. He maneuvered himself onto the bed into a sitting position by way of his elbows. Henry winced whenever his burned hand touched the bed. Henry’s wife and mother-in-law kissed him, and his father-in-law shook his good hand. Henry blotted at what seeped out of his bandages with a towel.

In the night Henry slept and snored, and woke himself with the snoring.
‘You asleep Jack?’
‘No.’
‘Was it the snoring? I am damned sorry if it was.’
‘No, I was thinking.’
‘Listen Jack, you want an orange?’ Henry peeled an orange one-handed. ‘They’re good oranges, my wife brought them for me.’
‘It’s winter.’
‘She gets them from relatives in the Dominican Republic.’
‘I don’t want any god damned orange.’
‘Listen Jack, I’ll peel this one for you and we’ll eat some oranges.’

Henry and Jack sat up in their beds, and wheeled a table between them and ate slices of oranges.

‘That girl that comes to visit you,’ Henry said. ‘She your wife?’
‘Kate.’ Jack said. ‘Yes.”
‘What book she read to you yesterday?’
‘Borderliners.’
‘Every time they had a smoke in that book, I wanted one. The wife always get on me about smoking. Know what I tell her?’
‘No.’
‘I tell her not to get hysterical.’

The red and white lights whirled, and reflected off the snow, and the mens’ breath hung in plumes in the air. Blood, and soot, and black streaks stained the snow. Bill and Jack saw the red and white lights break around the bend in the road, and reflect off the snow that hung in the pine branches. The volunteer fire department ambulance rounded the alley. Snow gathered on the roof and in the gutters, and melted with the heat of the fire. The new water ran dark down the soot black wall, and ran through a trough along the ground into the clear bright snow.
Bill said: ‘It wont be long Jack.’
The two sat in the snow. Bill held Jack.
‘I can’t see. I’m blinded.’
Jack shivered.
‘Blinded.’
Bill said; ‘Just stay awake and you’ll be fine.’
‘Christ,’ Jack said.
In the ambulance Jack quieted with the medic’s assurances.
‘Don’t cut off my hands,’ Jack said. ‘Wait for the Doctors.’
The fireman swung the rear door shut, and knocked twice. The driver worked the clutch, and pressed the throttle. The tires spun in the snow. The sky was gray and blue, and a helicopter came over the trees, and dropped to a concrete slab that was marked by a white cross outlined in a red circle. The rotors beat slowly. An orange windsock stood sideways, and medics’ winter breath went in that direction.

Henry said; ‘I’ll bet you’re happy.’
Jack pulled the shirt slowly over his head.
‘You’ll be out soon.’
‘They told me maybe tomorrow.’
‘We’ll have a drink sometime.’
‘Sure.’
‘I’ll send you some oranges.’
Jack fastened the buttons of his shirt with a tool that resembled a needle threader. And he buttoned his shirt slowly. So many buttons, he thought.
‘How long were you in, anyway?’
‘About a month and a week.’

On the best days, which were few, the physical therapy was easy for Jack to take. He was grateful for the knowledge, and only wished the acquisition had not nearly killed him. Jack wished he learned it out of a book. The hour hand on the ancient clock that sat upon the table pointed to a quarter past the hour. All Jack’s dressings were sterile that morning. It was with the therapist bending his fingers that they bloodied. The chair was black metal with gray pads on the back and arms. The Schwayder Brothers manufactured the chair in Detroit, Michigan, and at the time of purchase the chair was valued at eight dollars and ninety-five cents. The physical therapist sat across the table and held Jack’s hand in her own. She manipulated the stiff joints. There was a framed picture on the wall of a hand in cross section. The picture depicted all the bones, ligaments, muscles, and tendons that made up a hand, and Jack studied this picture. At the worst, jack closed his eyes, and breathed deep. He breathed through his dry mouth, and his mouth dried with the deep, deep breathing, and breathing in rhythm to the therapist’s manipulations of the joints until he was up upon the pain, and the exhale began before the manipulating pain. Jack felt the sharpness on him. The sharpness came quickly no matter how you breathed and what kind of rhythm you were in, and Jack felt the pain come, and felt it come upon him, and he drew a deep breath against the pain. The pain topped him up and he let it go, and let it wash over him. There was a slip in his head like an engine that threw a rod.

The therapist said; ‘We’ll take a break for a few minutes.’
Jack said, ‘all right,’ and leaned back in the chair, and let all his
breath go out, and drank water.
‘I would never be a spy,’ Jack said. ‘As soon as they started this
stuff I would give up all the government secrets.’

Jack said; ‘It must disgust you.’
‘No,’ Kate said. ‘Once I wanted to kiss your wounds.’
Jack drank a whiskey.

Jack went around the room. He gathered a washcloth, handkerchief, and paper towel.
‘Close your eyes.’
Jack placed the washcloth over the back of Kate’s hand. He traced with a fingertip and varying pressure alphas, deltas, and gammas upon her hand through the cloth.
‘Can you say what it is?’
‘No.’
‘Now?’
‘No.’
Jack traced with more pressure.
‘Triangle.’
‘The washcloth is after waking up. That thick, hardly any feeling, then
after using my hands for a while the paper towel. Give me your legs.’
Kate stretched her legs across Jack’s lap. He wrapped the handkerchief around her thigh.
‘This,’ Jack said as he traced upon her thigh. ‘Always. No change
throughout the night or day.’
Jack folded the handkerchief into squares and placed it upon Kate’s thigh.
‘This is where the lighter exploded,’ Jack said. ‘This too, always.’

Jack lay on his back, propped up by some pillows with his legs straight out. He felt the scars on his hands and legs, and the columns of smoke came off him, and ran parallel to the ceiling. The smoke gathered there, and thickened. Then, there was only Bill’s voice; ‘Let go!’
‘Let go! Let go of the goddamned banister!’
Jack felt his head bounce off the staircase, then he was dead weight. Bill rolled him in the snow. The blood and soot stained the snow, and a thin stream of water went along a trough along the flame-blackened wall.

Kate said; ‘And the one along your back?’
‘I feel it only sometimes.’
Kate traced the scar with her finger.
‘It’s like a snake.’