by Phil Truman
This time he had made only one other stop on his way home at a place called The Tally-Ho Tavern, which sat invitingly on the side of the highway on the outskirts of Muskogee.
White punched on his emergency flashers, and exited his truck to investigate. He looked in through the windshield, and saw a lone occupant slumped against the groundside door. White couldn’t tell if the person was out cold or dead. The small pool of blood on the doorframe underneath the driver’s split open scalp aided in his opinion to the latter, and he also recognized him as Artie Lancaster.
White pulled his small cell phone from a breast pocket in his overalls, flipped it open, and punched in some numbers.
“Zuhgey Pleece thiz Pete,” came a response after two rings.
“Pete, this here’s White Oxley.”
“Hey, White. What’s goin’ on?” Pete said, happy to have someone break into his boredom at the Tsalagee Police Station.
“Well, there’s been a wreck out here on County 118 ’bout a mile west from my place. And—”
“Really? Anyone hurt?” Pete said, a little more enthusiastically than he should have.
“Well, yah. It’s Artie Lancaster, I think. You need to call the sheriff and tell them to get on out here, and tell them they might better send a ambalance, too.”
“Ten-four, White. I’ll ten-five your ten-fifty and ten-fifty-two, and get ’em at your ten-twenty, pronto, er, ten-eighteen, I mean.”
“Aw right, then,” White said and closed his phone.
He leaned forward and looked in through the groundside windshield again. “Artie,” he said in a loud voice. “Can you hear me, boy?” No response came, so he put his hands up against the glass with his mouth an inch away. “Artie?” he implored.
Artie moved his head slightly and groaned. His eyes fluttered open. He groaned again, and closed his eyes.
“You hang on, son,” White yelled back at him through the glass. “I got help comin’ for ya.”
* * *
Galynn, standing next to the hospital bed, looked down at the patched and plastered up body of Artie who lay in a comatose sleep. The young woman shook her head and sighed. She could not believe he would do this to himself.
Galynn and Artie had known each other since childhood. Artie was a little less than a year younger than her, and they’d gone most of the way through school together. At the end of his first grade year, Artie’s teacher told the school administration that the boy was so cotton pickin’ smart it would be a waste of time to place him in the second grade, so they bumped him up to the third, making him and Galynn classmates.
Some of the kids in Mrs. Walkingstick’s third grade class didn’t cotton much to a snot-nosed first grader being put in amongst their more learned class. They decided he’d have to pay some dues for not having to suffer through the riggers of second grade, as they had. Jimmy Mack Botts, the leader of that group, considered himself somewhat an expert in the third grade experience, as he had already had one previous year of it.
Galynn didn’t agree with Jimmy Mack’s position toward Artie, and told him so on several occasions when he and his gang started to inflict torment. “Leave him alone, Jimmy Mack!” she would shout, shoving him. Jimmy Mack would shove her back, usually to the ground, and call her a “baby brainiac lover.” Then his entire entourage would chant, “Galynn and Artie sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”
This went on for several weeks during the start of that school year, then, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Break, Artie decided to put a stop to it.
Going into the boy’s restroom after lunch, Artie found Jimmy Mack and two of his toadies waiting for him.
“Hey, punk,” Jimmy Mack said and grabbed Artie’s arm preparing to give him his usual Indian burn, but Artie jerked his arm away. Jimmy Mack smirked and advanced swinging a roundhouse haymaker. Artie ducked under it and came up with a quick right jab to Jimmy Mack’s nose, sending him backwards a couple of steps with a surprised look; then cupping his hands around his schnoz when it started to bleed.
Artie, fists clenched, watched Jimmy Mack and his gangsters for a few seconds to see if they’d retaliate. None came, so Artie quickly went about his business, washed his hands and left the restroom. Jimmy Mack stayed, crying and bleeding into one of the sinks; his boys stood beside their dethroned leader, looking confused.
Jimmy Mack never bothered Artie again. In fact, offensive and defensive tackle Jimmy Mack Botts eventually became tailback and linebacker Artie Lancaster’s biggest attack dog when they both became players on the high school football team.
But Galynn became another matter. She continued to bother Artie, even more so since he’d stood up to Jimmy Mack. Not only did she admire and appreciate his courage, but the act also stopped Jimmy Mack and his gang from taunting her. Galynn and Artie became fast friends in grade school, girlfriend-boyfriend in the middle years, and steadies in high school. Artie won a football scholarship to a small college in Missouri, and Galynn found grant money and scholarships to study art at Oklahoma University.
On a warm summer night in ’95, the night before Artie had to leave for Missouri, they sat out on Galynn’s front porch swing and made each other promises. They promised they would write every day, and that they would remain steadfast and continue to love each other deeply and always. But love, and promises made from love in the summer of eighteen year olds, have no foresight. Young love has ardor and intensity, even good intentions; but rarely does it have persistence.
Artie found himself so run over and beat up by athletes bigger and stronger and older than himself, so brow-beaten by coaches at his every mistake, that he fell quickly into a pit of discouragement. His loneliness intensified and he retreated further into the world of his one bright longing—his true love Galynn. He diligently kept the promises he’d made with Galynn. She, on the other hand, did not.
By mid-November Galynn’s communications had became less ardent and less frequent. When the two returned home for the Christmas break, Artie found Galynn warm, but not as affectionate. When he asked her what was wrong she replied, “Nothing. I just have a lot of stress at school.” She then sat with her arms folded across her chest and looked sadly away from him.
Artie, confused and angry, could only ponder the mystery of why such opposite ways of dealing with stress existed in men and women. A thought intruded that perhaps another possibility existed, but he refused to consider it.
The week before Spring Break, in March of ’96, Artie received his Dear John letter. It came in the middle of spring football drills, and it had two effects on him—it broke his heart and crushed his spirit. Artie decided he didn’t want to return to school the next fall, that he needed to take a semester or two off to sort things out and decide what he wanted to do.
Through that summer, he hung around home helping his dad managed the little farm, such as it was—a few cows, a few chickens, and twenty acres of hay meadow—and his dad’s small welding business. Artie didn’t return to school that next fall and spring, nor the year after that.
When he visited Arlene’s, Artie would always ask Jo Lynn how Galynn was doing. He hoped it sounded more like a question in polite conversation than a serious query.
Jo Lynn was nobody’s fool when it came to hound dog expressions on broken-hearted boys, especially the one on the face of the boy whose heart her own daughter had broken. Jo Lynn had always thought Galynn and Artie were meant for each other. She didn’t think Galynn would find anybody better than the kind, gentle, and devoted Artie Lancaster. But when the big bomb came, Jo Lynn couldn’t soft peddle it to Artie.
“So how’s Galynn gettin’ along these days?” Artie swirled some gravy covered roast beef on his fork into the mashed potatoes on the plate, and shoved the bite into his mouth.
Jo Lynn set down the sugar dispenser she was filling, and sighed. She’d been dreading this moment since first getting the word the night before. Jo Lynn picked up a counter towel and began wiping the area in front of Artie’s plate. The
re just wasn’t anything she could do but come right out and say it.
“Artie, honey,” she started.
Artie held his fork midway between his mouth and plate. He looked at Jo Lynn with trepidation. He saw tears filling her eyes as she looked back at him.
“Artie, Galynn has gone and got married.”
“She did?” Artie asked in disbelief; hoping this was some kind of cruel joke on Jo Lynn’s part, even though her expression and eyes told him it most assuredly wasn’t.
“Yes, hon, she did. She called last night. Said they went out to Vegas and just decided to get married while they were there. And I guess that’s what they did.”
“Well,” Artie said, nodding. “Well,” he said again.
“Oh, Artie, sugar, I’m so sorry,” Jo Lynn said, her eyes overflowing. She used the counter towel in her hands to dab her face and eyes. “I’m so mad at her I could spit,” she said, her voice both angry and weepy.
Artie nodded some more, but didn’t say anything for a while. Finally he got up off his counter stool, fished out a ten and put it on the counter. “Okay, then,” he said. “Well.” He began putting on his jacket. “I’ll see you later.”
That was the early spring of ’99. In July of ’01 Artie’s dad died. Artie stayed at his home place running the welding business, but not much else. On October 1, 2001 he asked his Uncle Buck to rent out the place if he could, and he joined the Army. Artie told the recruiter he wanted to go to Ranger School.
In May of 2003, Artie stood in the gun turret atop a humvee, his thumbs on the butterfly trigger of the fifty-caliber machinegun. He was covering his platoon leader, Lieutenant John Eisenberg, and his buddy Specialist Fourth Class Butch Ouderkirk. His humvee, the lead vehicle in a three-vehicle convoy headed down the road to Ramadi, had stopped to help a pregnant woman. She had flagged them down, as she stood by a car on the side of the road. Lt. Eisenberg had ordered Ouderkirk to stop the humvee some thirty meters from the woman and her car. The two soldiers then exited the vehicle to go see how they could help her.
When the car exploded, it knocked Artie back into the rim of the turret breaking the right transverse process bone on his second lumbar vertebra, and the spinous process on his third lumbar vertebra. It also bloodied his ears, and shot a piece of jagged steel into his left shoulder. His lieutenant, his buddy Ouderkirk, and the pregnant woman were blown to bits.
The blow to his lower back bruised Artie’s spinal cord so that he was unable to stand or walk, but after a couple months of recuperation and physical rehab in Germany, he regained most of the function and mobility in his lower body.
Artie’s wounds proved significant enough to get him a medical discharge and a monthly disability check. He returned home to Tsalagee in January of 2004; cleaned the dust and cobwebs out of his old home place, settled in with no particular plan in mind, and took up drinking as his main occupation.
A couple of weeks after Artie moved back, his Uncle Buck came over to see if Artie needed anything. When Buck saw the disarray inside and outside the house, and the growing collection of beer cans, he told Artie that he sure could use a hand over at his place. Buck thought maybe an honest, hard day’s work would deter his nephew from a determined, hard day’s drinking.
The work on Buck’s farm did slow down Artie’s drinking, but things still gnawed at the boy. The day Buck died, Artie had taken up temporary housing in the county hoosegow for another one of his displays of public drunkenness. When he heard about his uncle’s death, it filled him with guilt and grief. Had he been sober, he reasoned, and working with Buck, his uncle would still be alive.
For a while Buck’s death sobered him. When they put his Aunt Lorene in a nursing home, he continued to look after the Buchanan place. But when his “cousin” Sunny came home to stay, bringing her four cats, wind chimes, dream catchers, incense, her yard fairies and gnomes, and her somewhat patronizing attitude, he quit coming over. Besides, she told him she didn’t require his help.
In April of 2007, Galynn filed for a divorce and moved back home in May to live with her mother. Artie hardly noticed, though, as by that time he’d gotten well back into his drinking which, eventually, led him into that culvert on County 118.
* * *
The young ER doctor at the hospital approached Galynn and her mother with an expression of practiced indifference.
“Are you Mr. Lancaster’s family?” he asked.
“No,” Jo Lynn said. “We’re just his... friends. Artie don’t have any family around here.” Her eyes looked imploringly back at the doctor, anxious that he give them some news. The frazzle-haired young doctor looked back at Jo Lynn with weary eyes.
“Okay,” he said, and looked down at his clipboard. “Well, here’s what we’ve got. Your friend...” He consulted his papers again. “Arthur, sustained a compound fracture to his left radius and ulna.”
The doctor looked up at Jo Lynn and Galynn, and said condescendingly, “That’s the lower arm bones,” then back at his papers and continued. “Three fractured ribs, a dislocated left ankle, a lacerated scalp, and a concussion. He’s probably going to require some pins in his arm. We’ve called in an orthopod, and we’re sending Arthur on up to surgery.”
He paused to let the two women absorb his words so they could form the usual questions. When they took longer than he wanted, he continued without them.
“There doesn’t appear to be any internal bleeding, but with that concussion and the surgery, we’re going to have to keep him a couple of days for observation.”
“He’s going to be alright, then?” Galynn finally asked.
“His condition is serious, but none of his injuries appear to be life-threatening. Pending surgery, he should be able to go home in a couple of days, three at the most.”
Chapter 9
Punch Makes a Motion
Nan Dorn wrote, Monday June 3, 2007 at the top of the page on her steno pad.
The Founders Day Committee meeting started at 7 p.m. that evening, and Punch had left Sunny’s house at five that morning. The night before started out well enough, but ended badly. Punch had tossed Cornflakes—one of Sunny’s cats—across the bedroom and against a wall with a whump when it tried to get in bed between them at 4 a.m. He tried to explain to the outraged woman that he’d dreamed a skunk was trying to crawl into his sleeping bag. But Sunny didn’t buy it. She knew Punch’s attitude towards cats.
Sunny and Punch were sworn adversaries at the committee meetings, and they wanted to make sure everyone there knew that. This evening, owing to the morning’s Cornflakes incident, acting the charade wasn’t a problem for either of them... or much of a charade for that matter.
After Nan Dorn read her distorted and mostly fictional minutes of the last meeting, Chairwoman Purinton asked if corrections or additions were needed, briefly glancing sideways toward Mary Jo Waxworth.
“Yes, I have a couple,” Mary Jo said on cue.
Once the committee discovered early-on Nan’s minutes read more like a super market tabloid than factual committee proceedings, they decided to covertly record them. Doctor Mary Jo Waxworth, the town’s large animal veterinarian, brought a small recorder with her and taped everything. She had a transcription service she used for her practice, and had them transcribe the meeting recordings, too. The committee used those “addendums” to recall what was actually said in the previous meetings instead of Nan’s wanderings.
After Mary Jo handed out her “corrections and additions,” Nan would look at them and say, “Oh... Well...” But she never looked the least upset, or seemed to take offense; so it became a win-win for the committee.
When Chairwoman Purinton opened the meeting to old business discussion, Jorge Estavez, the General Manager of the town’s only casino and Soc Ninekiller’s son-in-law, raised his hand and cleared his throat.
“I tink Ponch ray-said a good point de las’ meetin’.” Jorge leaned back in his chair and ran his hand down the length of his yellow silk necktie, tucking it neatly insi
de the buttoned coat of his navy pinstriped Armani suit. Jorge always came to these meetings dressed to the nines. But then, Jorge seldom dressed any other way.
“What point is that, Mister Estavez?” Chairwoman Purinton asked.
“Well, I don’t think eet would be a good idea to glorify the Heezpanic community een such a way as Meez Griggs suggested. I think eet would create too tense an atmosphere. Theez town hass a proud heritage, which was established long before any Heespanic influence. My wife’s family hass been aroun’ here for almost a century and a half, ass whell as families of some of the pioneers.”
Most of the committee nodded in silence for a while as they digested Jorge’s comments. Several thought it had the ring of a political speech. All present had heard the rumors that Jorge would throw his hat into the ring in the upcoming mayoral race.
Punch spoke first. After his tirade at the last meeting, he found he kind of liked getting involved. Plus, he wanted to beat Sunny to the draw.
“I second what Jorge said.”
“There has been no motion to second, Punch,” Euliss chided.
“Well, I still liked it. I motion that we keep what he said.”
“That’s not a motion you can make,” Euliss said with pursed lipped condescension. “It’s already in the minutes. Isn’t that right, Nan?... Nan?”
Nan’s chin snapped up from her chest. “What?” she asked. “Yes, of course,” she added, and then started writing on her steno pad.
“Okay, then I make a motion we do the things he talked about,” Punch said. He glared at Sunny. Sunny glared back at him.
“That’s still not a well-defined motion, Punch.” Euliss was becoming impatient. “You can’t just—”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Mary Jo broke in. “I’ll make a motion. I move we gather some artifacts about the history of this town, about its founders, to build a commemoration for the Founders Day celebration.”