by David Thorne
“That’s not happening. The health care system in this country is a joke. What does my hair look like?”
“I wouldn’t be worried about your hair, you have third degree burns. I’m calling an ambulance.”
“I think it’s actually starting to feel a bit better. How burnt is my hair? Is it missing any chunks?”
“There isn’t any hair. Just blisters.”
“Are you serious?”
“It’s probably all that hairspray you use.”
“I don’t use hairspray. I use American Crew Low Shine Fiber. It’s like a putty. Do you have a mirror?”
“I’ve got my phone camera, hang on... here, you go.”
“Oh my god!”
Holly rode in the ambulance to the hospital with me. My fingers looked like sausages on arrival and they had to cut off my wedding ring. I don’t remember much after that because they had to intubate me for the helicopter ride.
It wasn’t the first time I’ve been in a helicopter. Years ago, when I was working at a branding agency called de Masi jones in Australia, a client requested aerial photographs of a vineyard for a website redesign. We were in the air for about an hour and were billed $600. My helicopter flight from the Harrisonburg hospital to the Richmond burn unit, a twenty minute trip, cost $54,217.00 - I checked on EBay and I can buy a used helicopter for $43,000.00 which would leave me $11,217.00 for lessons and one of those helmets with the sunshades built in.
Coming from a country where the health care system isn’t based on buying insurance company CEO’s their third vacation home in the Hamptons, I simply couldn’t wrap my head around the amount until I later showed the invoice to JM and he explained, “That’s because America’s helicopter pilots are the best in the world.”
He then jumped a monster truck, with Kid Rock in the back singing Born Free, over twelve exploding school buses full of Mexican children. There were fireworks and eagles and afterwards, everyone ate at Chick-fil-A.
I was kept unconscious for three days, which was the best part of my two-week stay at the hospital. Every day, my bandages were removed, my skin scrubbed with a scourer, then I was bandaged back up. Holly helped me eat and drink and urinate into a plastic bottle but I wasn’t about to have her wipe my arse so I just held it for fifteen days. We’ve been together ten years and I still pretend I don’t fart.
Holding your bowels for fifteen days apparently does strange things to both the body and mind; I had hiccups for six days straight and experienced vivid hallucinations. At one point I was convinced that I was in some kind of simulation which was glitching. Windows changed location, walls flickered, nurses said things like, “Okay, I’m just going to check check check your blood pressure.” as if caught in a loop. I told one of the nurses that I was fully aware she was a simulation, so she may as well stop pretending, and everything froze, rewound a few seconds, then played back out. I blinked and was home in bed. Holly was beside me watching television and I sat up staring at her confused.
“What’s wrong?”
“How did I get here? I was in the hospital. Or maybe a simulation of a hospital.”
“You were dreaming. Go back to sleep.”
“But it was so vivid. I was working on the boat and there was an explosion and I burnt my face and arms.”
“What boat?”
“We didn’t buy a boat?”
“No. We can’t afford a boat.”
“You said it would pay for itself. In fun. You’ve no idea how relieved I am. It was the most realistic dream I’ve ever had. Every day they scoured off the blisters and scabs and I couldn’t wipe my own arse.”
“Okay, I’m just going to check check check your blood pressure.”
“Oh no.”
It could have been worse of course; there were people in my ward that looked like they were made out of wax and the patient in the room next to mine, an eighty-year-old man named Dennis, was burnt so badly in a turkey-fryer accident that both his arms had been amputated. They drew the curtains when they cleaned his burns but there was a gap at the bottom and I saw chunks of flesh attached to bandages as they dropped to the floor. It smelled like burnt pork. When I was eventually able to leave my bed and walk around the ward - holding my bandaged arms above my head to prevent blood rushing to my hands - Dennis asked me if I was his wife so he was either on decent painkillers or his wife wasn’t much of a looker. I watched television in his room for a bit while he drifted in and out of consciousness. He told me that he had just bought a new shovel. He also told me that the color of his curtains kept changing.
“We’d know if it was.”
“Not necessarily, Dennis. The simulation would create boundaries to prevent us finding out. Imagine you’re driving down a highway and you pass a field with trees in the middle of it. You tell yourself that you could stop the car and get out and walk towards the trees but you never do. There’s no reason to stop, you have places to be, and it’s someone else’s property. What if you did stop though and walked towards the trees and the closer you got, the more pixelated the leaves became?”
“I bought a new shovel last week.”
“Yes, you told me that. Did you keep the receipt?”
Dennis wasn’t in his room the next day and when I asked if he’d been moved, I was told that he’d died. It may be a dreadful thing to admit but his injuries made me feel better about my own. Or at least realize just how lucky I had been. I hadn’t lost any limbs and, as the burns on my face were mostly superficial, I didn’t look like one of those military veterans who has been on fire and lost their nose and ears but their fiancé still marries. I took a stroll through the children’s burn ward to make myself feel even better. Some of those kids were really fucked up.
It’s a two-hour drive from Richmond to Harrisonburg, through rural areas with farms and pastures backing onto the Blue Ridge Mountains. As Holly and I passed a field with trees in the middle of it on the way home from the hospital, I asked her to pull over and got out. I intended to walk all the way to the trees but about thirty feet from the car, the field got marshy and I was only wearing hospital slippers so I went back.
It’s been several months since the accident and I no longer jolt awake during the night and run my hands through my hair to put out the fire. I had to wear a baseball cap for a while but hair grows back. It was actually looking pretty good but then I cut it. I have some scarring on my arms and my left hand doesn’t work very well, but I never really used it that much anyway and it’s a good excuse for not pitching my own tent when I go camping.
“I’d do it myself, Spencer, but I was burnt terribly in a boat fire and no longer have full use of my left hand.”
“Yes, I know you were burnt. You don’t have to say the whole sentence about boat fires and hands every time.”
“Hand, not hands. It’s just the left hand that I no longer have full use of. I guess I could probably manage.”
“No, I’ll do it for you.”
“Thanks, Spencer. How many bags of Skittles do I owe you?”
“Eight. And a full size Snickers for blowing up your air mattress.”
“I’ll remember the pump next time.”
“You said that last time.”
“Yes, well, I’ve had a few things on mind, Spencer. I was burnt terribly in a boat fire and no longer have full use of my left hand but yes, I should have stopped, dropped and rolled and then immediately grabbed the pump and put it in my car so I wouldn’t forget it. How many bags of Skittles will it cost for you to carry me to my tent?”
“There’s nothing wrong with your legs.”
“Yes, but it’s muddy.”
When I was feeling up to the task, I drove to clean up the mess in Bushpig and discovered Joe and Andrew - Lori and JM’s offspring - had already vacuumed the fire-extinguisher residue and cleaned the area of soot. They’d also finished hooking up the water pump, which was nice of them. I checked the clamps just in case because they’re both huge fuckups.
JM offered t
o tow the boat to the lake in his pickup truck. It meant listening to farm emo but it also meant travelling faster than walking speed. A wheel came off the boat trailer and hurtled past us half way to the lake. It made it about three hundred feet down the road before hitting a bank, jumping over a wire fence, and coming to rest in the middle of a field. A couple of cows walked over to have a look so it probably made their day. I can’t imagine they get much stimulation.
The three-wheeled trailer - previously four-wheeled - was a tad lop-sided and the boat sat at a jaunty angle, but it was still towable. We had to drop our speed though and didn’t make it to the lake until dark.
The owner of the marina where I’d rented a boat slip had left for the day but I called him and he told me to put the boat in the water, tie it to the dock, and he’d take care of it the next morning. I’d been hoping to take the boat out for a short cruise but at least it was at the marina and would be ready for Holly and I to take out the next weekend.
Neither JM or I had backed a boat down a boat-ramp before but it only took eighty-two tries. With the rear wheels of the truck submerged and a cheer, the boat finally floated free. JM pulled the trailer out of the water and uncoupled it while I secured the boat to the dock with ropes. There were three cleats on the side of Bushpig and I used about thirty granny knots on each to make it sure it wouldn’t float away.
On the way home, about thirty minutes from the lake, JM and I stopped in a town called Bedford and had a beer and hot pretzel at a small brewery called Beale’s. They sold t-shirts with their logo on them but I didn’t buy one because the tag said Gildan. I’m not a fan of Gildan. Sometimes I’ll see a t-shirt I like then discover the tag says Gildan and be furious that it wasted my time and interest. They’re made out of fiberglass and staples and shrink to 1/8th of their original size when washed.
I’d brought along a light jacket for the road trip and put it on before going into the brewery. It was summer and too warm for a jacket but the burns on my arms were still quite evident at that stage and I was self-conscious about them. I hadn’t worn the jacket since the day Holly and I bought the boat - the day the guy who sold it to us had handed me the title, keys, and drain plug.
The drain plug is a fairly important component of boating. It’s a hefty but short bolt, about an inch in diameter and length, located at the back of the boat in the hull.
It’s important to remove the drain plug when trailering a boat as it allows water that has collected in the bilge during boating to drain, and prevents water collecting in the bilge from rain while being stored. It’s just as important, and the first item on every boating check-list, to remember to put the drain plug back in before launching a boat. Otherwise the boat sinks.
“Best pretzel I’ve ever had.”
“Yes, not bad, JM.”
“You didn’t like your pretzel?”
“I didn’t say that. It was a decent pretzel.”
“Too salty for you?”
“No, I like a lot of salt on my pretzels.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“There isn’t one. It wasn’t the best pretzel I’ve ever had but there wasn’t anything wrong with it. Maybe I’ve just had more pretzels than you.”
“Well that’s bullshit. I love pretzels.”
“Maybe I’m just more of a pretzel connoisseur then. With a more advanced pretzel palette.”
“That’s a joke. You smoke cigarettes. I’m surprised you have any taste buds left at all.”
“You chew tobacco. I’m surprised you still have lips.”
“Why are you always so argumentative?”
“Me? You’re the one outraged that I didn’t think the pretzel was the culinary equivalent of She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy.”
“Shut the fuck up and get in the truck.”
“Hang on, I’m going to have a quick cigarette first.”
My cigarettes were in a pocket of my cargo shorts but my lighter wasn’t. I patted my shorts, then my jacket, and felt something in the right-hand pocket.
“How could you forget to put in the drain plug?”
“It was dark and I was tired after the long drive. Can you drive a bit faster?”
“What you need, is some kind of checklist.”
“Yes, that’s an excellent idea. Very helpful.”
“A checklist with ‘put in the drain plug’ as the first item.”
“You’d never even heard of a drain plug until ten minutes ago so don’t act like you’re Captain Nemo.”
“The fish?”
“Yes, the fish. How long before we get there?”
“Twenty minutes. How long will the boat take to sink?”
“I’ve no idea, I’ve never timed it.”
“The Titanic took two hours and forty minutes to sink.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, I watched a documentary last week on the History channel. If they’d just stayed straight instead of turning to avoid the iceberg, they wouldn’t have sunk at all.”
“Good to know. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“It took us thirty minutes to get to Bedford and we were in Beale’s for almost an hour, so, if it takes thirty minutes to get back, that still gives us forty minutes.”
“Based on how long the Titanic took to go under? It was a much bigger boat.”
“Yes, but it was also a lot heavier.”
I’ve no idea how long it took Bushpig to sink but it was less than the Titanic. We stood on the dock watching bubbles break on the surface - most were steady runs as trapped air trickled through small gaps but occasionally there was a big ‘bloop’. Bushpig’s bow stuck out of the water four or five feet but the rest was completely submerged. We had to be careful where we stood as a large section of the dock had been ripped away - a credit to my knot-tying abilities. An Igloo cooler popped out of the water, startling us both. I tried to reach it with a plank from the broken dock but I knocked the lid open and it filled with water and sank.
“Hey. Just calling to check how you’re going.”
“All good, Holly.”
“Is the boat in the water?”
“Yes.”
“Are you on your way home?”
“Yes.”
“You’re being very short. Is everything’s okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Long day.”
“Are you going to stop for dinner on your way home?”
“No, I had a pretzel.”
“Was it good?”
“It was alright.”
“Okay, I’ll see you in a while. Tell JM to drive safely.”
“I will. Oh, hey, is the boat insured?”
“Yes, why?”
“No reason. Bye.”
I was planning to tell Holly when I got home but Lori called JM while we were still an hour from home and he told her what had happened. With Lori knowing, fifty other people knew within minutes and someone posted on Holly’s Facebook page, “Sorry to hear about your boat. Thoughts and prayers.”
I once bumped into Lori at a supermarket, while I was grabbing a few things on my way home, and before I got to the next aisle, Holly messaged me, “Why do you have four loaves of bread in your cart? We don’t need that much bread.”
Our insurance covered the cost of having the boat raised and the dock repairs. The cost to repair a waterlogged twenty-year-old cabin cruiser is apparently greater than its worth so they wrote the boat off and wrote us a check. We discussed buying another boat but ended up using the money to pay off some of my helicopter ride and medical bills. We did rent a houseboat on Smith Mountain Lake for a few days before summer ended though; we got stuck on a sandbar and Holly broke her left ankle when she missed the bottom rung of a ladder. She had to wear a big boot and milked the injury for months.
Also, I learned recently that it’s bad luck to have bananas on a boat and, while we were prepping Bushpig for the lake, Holly ate a banana onboard. I’m not saying the fire and the boat sinking was entirely her fault but it’s worth
noting.
Kevin’s Retorts
Kevin, an account rep at the agency I work for, announced he is retiring next month. He turns sixty-five in January but doesn’t look a day over eighty. I told him this and he retorted, “Please, you look like three raccoons wearing a corpse,” then dropped a stapler in my coffee. Kevin has a penchant for dropping things in coffee. I’ve had pens, a mobile phone, a Pantone swatch book, and a hotdog in my cup. The larger items are preferable as I only find the smaller items after I’ve emptied the cup. Once I found half a box of paperclips in the bottom, which is paramount to attempted murder. While I won’t miss having to guard my coffee after he leaves, I will miss Kevin’s daily retorts. As such, I decided to document a week’s worth:
New desk photo
“Is that your family, Kevin?”
“No Mike, it’s someone else’s family. I just knocked on their front door and asked if I could take a photo. ”
The kitchen
“Last one to use it should have to clean up their mess before the next person. It’s just polite.”
“Nobody asked about your weekend, Melissa.”
Sandwiches ordered for lunch
“Are you really not going to eat any of them, Kevin?”
“No thank you, mayonnaise monkey.”
Hairdresser appointment
“I’m thinking about getting it cut short.”
“Good idea, Jennifer. Let me know if you’d like any beard grooming tips as well.”
5.20PM