by Bill Parsons
Pickin' Pete Stepped On A Rake
Pickin' Pete Stepped On A Rake
Midpoint
The Day Pickin’ Pete Stepped On A Rake
Published and written by: Bill Parsons
Distributed by: Smashwords
Copyright 2016 Bill Parsons
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Short story about Pickin Pete, a dude mentally challenged due to injuries sustained in a car wreck years ago, and the nearly catastrophic events that lead him to an eventual change in his world view.
The Day Pickin’ Pete Stepped On A Rake
There had been a time when Pickin’ Pete had been smart. Well, perhaps smart may be stretching the definition of the word a bit, for the man never had been smart, as in wise. His ability to make sound decisions had always hovered around zilch--that was, until recently, years after he had become dumb, and not to long after he had made a really stupid decision. Considering all the stupid decisions Pickin’ Pete had ever made in his life one would think he would’ve known better. But this decision, at least, may have been the one to have brought up smart like the handle of a stepped on rake and smacked Pickin’ Pete square in the face.
So anyhoots, let’s say that at one time Pickin’ Pete had been intelligent, as opposed to dumb. His intelligent quotient had been miles and miles above his smart quotient, which, remember, had never been much above nil. Pickin’ Pete had been a stellar machinist and tool and die-maker, could machine any tool or part to the minutest degree. He had also been punctual, never late for work and always completed his assignments on schedule, most times before. His work always passed muster, was always on spec, and never once during the ten years Pickin’ Pete had been a machinist of the highest caliber had his work received a complaint. Not once! Pickin’ Pete was proud of this and still had all his merit awards and certificates packed away and held in storage. He had more employee of the month awards than he had known what to do with, and even one employee of the year award, from the one company he had been able to stay with over a year--actually nearly two years. An accomplishment, considering he had worked for seven different companies the ten years he had been a machinist, and completed five separate drug and alcohol rehabs during the same approximate time span. Yes, quite an accomplishment.
So, although Pickin’ Pete had been intelligent, he made stupid decisions, even in those days before dumb had quite literally busted him upside the head. One stupid decision he used to make before dumb had stricken had been to get drunk, smoke crack, snort pills and then drive. More often than not the result of such stupidity had been that Pickin’ Pete reached his destination: home, anotheer bar, dope man’s house, wherever. A few times he had been pulled over for DUI. However, on three occasions he made neither his destination nor jail--he wrecked. Of these three wrecks, Pickin’ Pete still possessed photos stuffed in a shoebox held in storage.
The first two wrecks, a Mustang and a Ford Ranger, resembled mangled masses of twisted metal, from which no one surely could have emerged alive. However, from these horrific looking wrecks, Pickin’ Pete had not only emerged alive but survived relatively unscathed--a broken leg from the Mustang, a broken wrist from the pick-up. The third wreck--a ninety-eight Cutlass--looked nowhere as bad as the first two. It received four flat tires and a crushed right front fender after it slammed a guard rail at sixty miles per hour. But this time Pickin’ Pete hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt and the whiplash broke his neck and caused his head to hit really hard against the windshield. This wreck put him in a coma that lasted a little over a year. Yes, this wreck scathed Pickin’ Pete.
During Pickin’ Pete’s coma there had been surgery on his back--a few fused discs and other stuff--so that it pretty much had heeled by the time the coma lifted. His head trauma, however, would never heal. There had been surgeries to release pressure when his brain had swollen, though this had been the extent of it. There had been no surgeries to repair the damage done his brain, for none existed. The damage had been irreparable. Dumb had stricken, grabbed hold of him and would never relinquish its grip. Cognition had been impaired, and intellect, and nerve damage had been quite extensive. Memory, too, had been shot through with holes. No longer could Pickin’ Pete crunch numbers, an essential skill in his trade. Even writing and adding up grocery lists was extremely challenging, and paying bills and taking care of finances were tasks now performed by his father. Also challenging were household chores: taking out the garbage, washing dishes, doing laundry, cleaning house. Junkies handled these tasks for him, losers and rejects that were always in and out, sometimes for days, sometimes for months, sometimes only hours. His place had become a magnet for them, because he never said no, unless he was close to his last pill. Then he always said no.
Pickin’ Pete was fifty-seven and lived in a trailer purchased out of the proceeds of the insurance settlement from his bad wreck (yeah, go figure, he must have had a good lawyer). The trailer was set up in a fair sized park in a small rural community about twenty miles north of Knoxville, Tn. just off I-75. It was a single-wide, two-bedroom with a spacious wooden deck out front. The deck was covered and furnished with cushioned deck furniture--two chairs, couple of iron framed, glass topped tables, a settee--which had been stolen by, and purchased from, one of his junkie friends for a few pills. Also stolen and purchased for the same price, was the gas grill that kept company with the deck furniture and from which Pickin’ Pete enjoyed eating steaks, chicken breasts and hotdogs a few days out of the year when, one--he could afford them; two--convince someone to do the grilling; and most pertinently, three--when he was hungry, which wasn’t very often since he had discovered meth.
Before the wreck, and meth, Pickin’ Pete had been a plump guy, with a full head of dark locks and a thick full beard. Now he looked emaciated, no hair on top, with long scraggly strands rimming his skull. And for some inexplicable reason his beard now grew in only thin sprouts, like hair growing from moles. His natural teeth had long since fallen out, been knocked out or pulled, so now he wore false teeth, that was, when he felt the need. And he walked with a terrible limp, as though one leg was inches shorter than the other, although this was not the case. It was simply the way Pickin’ Pete walked, probably due to the nerve damage done his brain. Taken as a whole, Pickin’ Pete put one in mind of the crypt keeper in one of those stupid monster movies.
At least Pickin’ Pete was no longer a drunk or a crack head. However, the meth was so much worse than the crack ever had been, and Pickin’ Pete absolutely could not function without a pill, preferably morphine. As a result of the injuries sustained in the bad wreck, Pickin’ Pete was guaranteed pain medication once a month for life, but these lasted usually a mere two weeks--for he was generous--which meant he was forced to beg, buy or cajole(hustling was not an option, as that skill had went the way of his ability to crunch numbers: swiped)pills for the remainder of the month. He managed, although just barely, and quite often he awoke without a pill, and there wasn’t much worse, or more unpleasant, for a pill junkie than to wake up sick. During these situations Pickin’ Pete worked the phone or lay in bed until somebody came around with a pill. There weren’t many days he did without.
Pickin’ Pete was by far more of a pill head than a meth head. He needed and consumed far more pills than anything.
But don’t take this to mean Pickin’ Pete didn’t love meth. He did. Probably more so than pills. He loved the energy boost, and the twisted sense of sexual pleasure. The feelings were intense, perverted and held him captive. The thing was there was never enough of it. So when it came around he bought as much as possible, and stayed up on it as long as he could, sometimes for days on end.
Another thing Pickin' Pete loved about meth: when he was high on it he thought he could play guitar. Before the wreck he could wail, doing justice to some Jimi, Skynard, Zeppelin, etc. Afterward, though, Pickin' Pete could barely string together three chords, let alone put together riffs, and the simplest scales were a challenge. But one evening after the sex, paranoia and geeking played out, he had been sitting in his recliner when his guitar caught his eye. So he began strumming. To his astonishment his fingers moved over the strings in an organized manner and he heard music. His fingers felt fluid and dexterous, moving deftly from one note to another in a seemingly continuous series of motions. He got lost within himself, played for hours and enjoyed every moment. His fingers felt, and ears heard, music, which stirred his heart. To him it sounded good. He just couldn't understand why he couldn't hold an audience. If he played longer than a few minutes people tended to disappear--which he attributed to MTV, Pepsi and Lil Wayne. How these played into it he had no idea. He just knew they did and he hated all three.
And then there was the picking, the behavior that had dubbed him. Whenever he was tweaked out on meth Pickin’ Pete invariably picked at himself. Not like a normal face picker either, who picked by sight in the mirror, or at illusory bugs seen crawling in various spots under their skin. No, Pickin’ Pete didn’t need sight to get at his meth mites. He picked by feel, and had four favorite spots: the shoulders of each arm and both cheeks. When high Pickin’ Pete picked at these spots absently, obsessively and continuously to the point of picking bloody holes in his skin. Once, Pickin’ Pete’s long time roommate, Bill the Pill, not long after having moved in, asked Pickin’ Pete, “Pete, what in the world are you digging for?” Pickin’ Pete’s gaze had become vacant in concentration as his fingers worked a certain spot. “I can feel it but I just can’t get the damn thing,” Pickin’ Pete said, then pulled his hand out from under his shirt, fingertips glistening blood red. He squinted closely at his pinched thumb and forefinger, shook his head in consternation and complained, “Missed again.” Then he shot Bill the Pill a sheepish grin, turned and limped off, mumbling something as he went while stuffing his hands back into the folds of his shirt.
Pickin’ Pete’s picking produced scars. They looked ugly, and terrible, and resembled grated craters carved out from either side of his face. And they were embarrassing, so much so that when not high on meth, in order to go out in public without being gawked at any more than his normal condition warranted--scraggly hair, emaciated look, wild stare and Igor-like limp--Pickin’ Pete donned makeup, flesh toned foundation, to mask the scars. It worked, although often you could tell it was there because it had been caked on and would become pasty, and sometimes gooey-looking when he perspired, which he nearly always did, especially in summertime.
In addition to Pickin’ Pete’s picking being nasty, ugly and oh so strange, the worst part was the seriously harmful health consequences such odd behavior produced. You see, Pickin’ Pete was no longer clean. Since his accident he might bathe weekly, and that on a good week. The concept of good hygiene seemed to have went the way of his intelligence and sanity and lost all meaning to him. The act of washing his hands was simply no longer a consideration for Pickin’ Pete, unless prodded by someone who cared(yeah, and good luck finding this caring person). It was nothing to see Pickin’ Pete pick a hole in himself, break to scratch an unwashed nether region such as, say, an itching hemorrhoid, or sweating testicle, and then resume his meth mite mining with the same mining tool, of course with the chain of motion unbroken: flesh picked hole, to nether region, to flesh picked hole. Do you see, dear reader, where this is heading? Yup, straight to the E.R., at least three times a year on average. And he would never go right away. He had to be nearly death bed sick with staph before Pickin’ Pete’s father could make him go. He had almost died a few times. But things had been getting better under Bill the Pill’s watchful eye, probably the only roommate to have ever given a toot for Pickin’ Pete. However, Bill the Pill had a thousand-pound gorilla clawing bloody furrows down his back, too, so his toot didn’t toot quite so loudly at times. Still, Pickin’ Pete had made only one hospital trip over the past year and a half. Pretty tootin’ good if one were to ask Bill the Pill.
Pickin’ Pete was possessed of many other oddities and peculiarities too numerous to detail in this short tale, such as his penchant for donning pimp gear--fur coat, shades and plumed hat--once he was geeked out on meth; his obsession for strawberry ice-cream; and his fascination with hats and fishing rods--his utility building was full of fishing gear he rarely used. And set in one corner of his living room was a deluxe hat rack that hooked probably every sort of hat imaginable, or at least could be imagined by a bunch of ignorant, Hillbilly junkies. Anyhow, suffice it to say, Pickin’ Pete was one very strange and disturbed individual.
One early morning in July around two Pickin’ Pete retired in an ill temper, for he knew tomorrow would be rough and more than likely pill-less. His doctor’s visit and check day was yet a week hence, which meant he would be broke and without pills until then. Bill the Pill had hustled up a few earlier, which had been grand at the time but did nothing for tomorrow. It was too late in the month to get money from his father, and the day held no prospects. So his plan was to stay in bed and hope someone called with a pill, or at least the hope of getting one. Otherwise he was in for a long painful day.
Around nine-thirty A.M. Pickin’ Pete was awakened and felt a momentary surge of hope, until he recognized the waker. It was Broke Bob, who showed up three or four nights a week and rarely had anything more than twenty bucks at a time. However, Broke Bob had shown up last night and already spent his twenty. Pickin’ Pete’s hope popped like a pricked soap bubble.
“Huh?” Pickin’ Pete muttered. Broke Bob had been trying to ask him something but Pickin’ Pete missed it.
“I need to use your car,” Broke Bob said. He owned a truck but it had recently been confiscated in a meth lab raid. Now he was down to bumming rides. At least Broke Bob was in possession of a valid driver’s license.
Pickin’ Pete had, amazingly, retained the intellectual capacity and motor skills needed to drive a car. He owned a two-thousand-six Corsica, and still drove fast--albeit no longer drunk. For some odd reason the desire to be drunk abandoned him--especially if he was pill sick and on his way to get one. “Please tell me you’re on your way to get a pill.”
“Nope. I need to go to my house to get a chainsaw. I think I found a buyer.”
“You gonna bring me something back?” Pickin’ Pete whined.
“If I sell the saw,” Broke Bob answered, picking up a jangling set of keys from atop a bedside table crowded with items--overflowing ashtray, smokes, used needles and dope spoons, cup of water and any number of miscellaneous junk.
As Broke Bob turned to leave the dark room Pickin’ Pete stopped him. “Bill going with you?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want y’all using my car to go buy boxes,” Pickin, Pete demanded. By boxes Pickin’ Pete meant psuedophed--a key ingredient in the manufacture of meth--for Bill the Pill was a meth cook. Pickin’ Pete had lost one car--and a truck--in the past for hauling people around to purchase meth making materials and really didn’t want to lose another one. However, Pickin’ Pete was the type of person most people walked over top if, scorned or otherwise ignored. As long as he received some dope out of the deal he generally didn’t care. But he was tired of losing vehicles. The routine was beginning to grow real thin. “I mean it, Bob. No boxes.”
“I got you, Pete. No boxes,” Broke Bob replied as he hurried down the short, dark hallway. Pickin’ Pete heard t
he front door slam behind Broke Bob.
Pickin’ Pete closed his eyes and tried to ignore the aches of withdraw that had begun to throb behind his eyes, in his joints and clamp down on his lower back. And just before he fell back to asleep he couldn’t shake the feeling that despite his demand, his car would be used to buy boxes. He just hoped they brought him back a pill, or something. “You better bring me back a pill,” he screamed into a silent empty trailer. Then he fell into a fevered, fitful sleep.
*****
Hours later Pickin’ Pete awoke. He looked at his cell phone, which lay atop the bedside table and read three forty-five P.M.. He had missed three calls. How had he slept this late, this long and through three missed calls, for his ring tone was dialed up as loud as it would go. He never slept through his calls. He must have been really tired. Nevertheless, his body ached worse than earlier, and he wanted a pill desperately.
Pickin Pete’s bedroom door was ajar--as it almost always was--and he could hear someone out in the kitchen, banging and clanging things around. He remembered lending Broke Bob his car and figured it was he and Bill the Pill out there making such a racket. Pickin’ Pete’s heart picked up an extra beat at the thought they may have a pill. Then the aroma of baking corn muffins reached his nostrils and he realized Broke Bob and Bill the Pill were not the cause of all the racket: it was Stringy Sarah. One entire shelf in his small pantry was crammed with boxes of corn muffin mix(seemingly a staple at the food pantries from which came the majority of Pickin’ Pete’s food)because he hated the stuff. But Stringy Sarah liked it, was the only person in his junkie circle who ever baked the damn things.