I was there in the clinic with him when he came to. We’d gotten a makeshift tourniquet placed just above the wound, just like we’d learned in boy scouts thirty years back. I’d slung him over my shoulder and got him in the truck, hauled ass into town with his complexion lookin’ like a Hummel figurine. I remembered to paint a big bloody ‘T’ on his forehead for the medics.
It was a close call. Lotta blood poured outta his leg. Praise Jesus or Yahweh or Allah or what have you that he got so many folks who think so highly of him all over the gawdamn place. They came and donated blood, fed his animals, took care of his mom and dad, and just kinda held their breath until it was sure that he was gonna make it. Some Reader’s Digest shit right there. Dear This American Life; We were out smoking bufotenin one night in the cemetery tryin’ to call up some ghosts with the Ouija board when, wouldn’t you know it…
He woke up Wednesday afternoon and I was right there to give him a cigarette. Knew enough to cut the oxygen first. I’d seen Wade Spencer’s dad after he caught his own damn head on fire, smokin’ a cig stuffed in his tracheotomy hole while his oxygen was still flowin’. Looked like his head got smeared with strawberry jelly and charcoal. Sorta like mine. No more eyebrows and only two-thirds of my hair left. Good bit of scar tissue in my future. I was gonna molt like a big ‘ol rattlesnake and leave a gauzy sock of dead skin for someone to find and marvel at. I’d need to find a good rough fencepost to rub my head against in atonement for what I done to my friend before I could properly lose all that dead skin. Aloe vera and polysporin weren’t gonna cut it. You could see that on the nurse’s face when I’d go to visit. But ain’t nothin’ got infected neither. I just looked like a gawdamn monster.
But enough about my own problems. I was there for Uncle Dave. I’d almost killed the guy, and it weren’t the first time. We’d almost killed each other on at least five different occasions, datin’ back to Lake Powell trip in boy scouts. But I think this here incident put me up by two. Last time was on the four wheeler when I sent him headfirst into a juniper, tore off his bottom lip. Now this. At least they had him on some good dope, but I still didn’t feel right about it. Boy was tougher’n naugahyde though.