Ms. Got Rocks

by Jacqueline Colt

  Her finger was still caught and the crevice did not open. Pulling her small pry bar out of her tool belt and using as much force as she could, she wedged it into the wider end of the crease to the right of the finger.

  To get the small pry bar into position, she had moved her feet, now she was floating on her head in the water. Her body was hanging upside down with both of her feet braced against the enormous rock, with her right wrist twisted. On the count of three and breathing as evenly as possible, she pushed as hard as she could against the pry bar. Nothing moved except the pry bar flipped out of the crack and fell to the river bottom.

  “Shit, damn, hell.” Rocky yelled around her mouthpiece.

  The crayfish moved away from her anger.

  The pain was easing somewhat. With chattering teeth Rocky moved back down to the riverbed. Trying not to twist her right wrist and hand, she rolled her upper body under her right arm and reached for her six-foot long pry bar.

  If she could jam that into the little space she might be able to loosen it enough.

  Rocky realized she was going to lose some skin having to use the twenty pound pry bar on her fingers like that, but that was the only option she could see she had left.

  “Reach Rocky, pull that arm, grit your teeth and stretch,” she coached herself.

  The bad pain was back and yellow flashes from it were zapping through her eyes and she was back into that yellow gray spiral down into nothing.

  “It can’t be done; the damn thing is too far away,” Rocky told herself.

  She had stretched farther than she thought she could ever stretch. However, the long steel bar was still four inches from the grasp of her long legs.

  “Think Rocky, think, what are the options?” She was trying to think, but it was hard when she was this cold.

  Even in the wet suit, she was shivering with shock and pain. Soon she would not have to worry about anything. The shock would kill her in eight stupid feet of water. Water that she could stand up in and if she bounced on her toes she could breathe without the hookah. Yet, not breathe with her hand stuck. Rocky instinctively knew she was getting deeper into trouble.

  “The longer my finger stays in there,” she told herself, “the more swollen it will be and the harder it will be to get out of the rock.”

  Rocky pulled her knife out of the sheath on the outside of her right leg. Moving into the position that both her legs were curled against the rock, Rocky cut the diving glove.

  She sliced up the palm to the fingers and peeled that neoprene back, a wave of blood spurted into the river flowing around her chest. Cutting the glove around her palm to the base of her index finger Rocky tried to pull that finger out of the slit glove. Rocky sent herself back into agony. She vomited the nothingness in her stomach into the river water again.

  The dive knife was very sharp and readily cut through the tough neoprene of the diving glove, but each tiny sawing motion took Rocky’s breath away with pain. The glove was now cut. Her thumb and three fingers were loose from the it.

  Slowly waving the bloody water away from that hand, she could see her middle finger. The end of her finger above the second knuckle was under the rock slit and was connected to the rest of the finger by a two-inch long piece of skin and whatever else held fingers together.

  Rocky stared stunned at her finger, half the finger was amputated, what was holding the rest of her to the rock was that one big strip of her skin.

  All Rocky could think of was that she wanted the rest of her finger. Pulling another dental pick out of the pack, Rocky jammed it to the left of her finger and pried up and down. Again, using a second pick, up and down she worked, wedging them into the rock face like pitons. But, the massive rock face did not move.

  Putting her last pick back into the pouch Rocky floated in the river by that little strip of skin, muscle and tendon.

  She hovered and shivered. Knowing the situation, she seemed to have forced the pain into the background and the problem resolution portion of what was conscious of herself was taking command of her agonized body.

  There.

  It was done and over, Rocky was free. She shoved her dive knife back into the sheath and spit her hookah out and dry heaved multiple times into the bloody water surrounding her.

  “I’m not leaving my finger for some fucking crawdad to eat,” Rocky yelled into the water. “My finger is coming too.”

  She pushed off a short distance to the long steel bar and single-handedly jammed it into the break in the rock and applied all the remaining energy she could force against it. She blasted down on the bar against the granite.

  “My guts are going to squirt out my ass,” she thought.

  Once more Rocky jammed a small piece of granite into the slot next to her piece of a finger and pounded the pebble wedge in with another rock as far as she could get it to go. Using the wedge, she again put all her weight onto the bar.

  The unattached finger drifted out of the rock slot and floated lazily toward the surface like a little white piece of cork.

  She grabbed her finger and stuffed it into her pouch. As she pulled the pry bar out of the rock face, the slot expelled all the nuggets at the front of the crevice right onto the sand in front of her face.

  “Yeah,you bastard rock you can pay for having my finger put back together, you son of a sea bitch,” Rocky yelled around her mouthpiece as she pushed off from the bottom.

  Rocky left the dredge anchored where it was and swam the short distance to the bank and rolled herself out of the water.

  “I don’t know, but I think I have to get my finger into ice water before too long. I need to stop the bleeding on my hand. I have to get up and moving now,” Rocky was barely conscious but thinking nevertheless.

  She was staggering, but it was like someone else was manipulating her. Someone else was getting the Ziploc bag out of the kitchen and poured the ice cubes onto it. That someone else dropped Rocky’s white dead looking finger into the bag.

  The barely conscious Rocky dumped the first aid kit on her bed and pulled out lengths of gauze.

  “What do I have to stop the bleeding?” Rocky whispered as she looked around the neat sparsely furnished bedroom. She grabbed a wash cloth from the linen closet and wrapped it around her finger stub. The blood almost immediately soaked through the wash cloth. A box of maxi pads was in the linen closet and Rocky used her dive knife to cut one into two pieces. Even though exhausted she managed to put the pieces on either side of her finger and fit the wash cloth back on. Tucking the whole box of sanitary napkins under her arm Rocky grabbed her purse and keys as she staggered for the truck. She was pretty sure she could drive to the hospital faster than she could call and wait for an ambulance.

  “Margie will take care of me at the hospital. She won’t let anything bad happen to me,” Rocky whispered again and again as she stumbled down the porch steps to the old truck.

  “I’m all right, I can drive, Ill be back soon,” Rocky told her dogs, through tears were running down her face. “You girls guard the cabin. Love you,” she told them as she gingerly slid onto the truck seat. The two dogs settled back onto their mats on the shady porch. They would be fine until she got back.

  Chapter 21

  Rocky decided that she could steer all right with one hand, once she was down onto the paved county road. The truck did not h assist iave anything powered assist in it. She and her Dad liked their trucks that way. The trip would probably be harder than she thought.

  Shifting with her mangled, swollen, right hand was almost impossible on the steep, rutted mountain road. Rocky held the wheel with her left knee and reached across with her left arm to shift with her left hand. Once she was onto the county main road she might do better. The hospital was only a thirty minute drive from the cabin.

  Pulling her purse into her lap when she was at the first stop sign on the county road Rocky dug into the big tote bag for her cell phone.

  “What the hell did I do with my cell phone? What the hell good is that
damn nuisance, unless it is around for emergencies?” Rocky was conscious enough now to swear at the steering wheel about the ever missing cell phone.

  “Keep driving Rocky,” the voice inside her head was saying to her. “By the time you find it to call the hospital, you will be at the hospital.”

  Rocky pulled the truck into the emergency entrance and the security guard told her to park over in the lot across the street.

  “This is parking for emergencies and ambulances only,” the old man said to Rocky.

  “Screw that, I’m not driving this rig, one foot farther,” Rocky said even though the guard could not hear her. She ripped the makeshift bandage from her bloody finger stump and holding the bag containing the end of her finger in it with her blood dripping right hand, Rocky waved it at the guard. She flipped him off with her bloody middle finger, and rolled down the window tossing her truck keys at him.

  “Park it yourself, if you want it in the other lot. I want my finger sewed back on,” Rocky called to the astonished man.

  Rocky hopped out and kept trudging on into the ER entrance to the hospital.

  The admitting clerk was not too happy with Rocky’s plastic bag of finger and melting ice cubes on the pristine counter. Rocky attempted to answer the clerk’s questions without waving her bloody self around the counter area.

  "Can you hurry, I need to sit down."

  "I am hurrying." the admitting clerk frowned at her and her bloody finger ooze.

  The kid standing next to Rocky was trying to get a better look at her gory finger in the bag. In an attempt to keep him from bumping into her finger, Rocky was edging farther away from the admitting clerk. That was making it even more difficult to get to see a Doctor. That was too much; Rocky was feeling weak in the stomach again.

  She felt herself being lifted, by something very powerful and smelling of some very strong cologne smell.

  “Oh, I’m seeing a face looking down at me,” Rocky thought from her position flat on the floor of the waiting room. She was lying flat on something and the ceiling was rapidly moving. She rapidly moved around a corner and into an examining room.

  Someone wiped something stinky under her nose and started questioning her as they removed what was left of the makeshift bandage.

  Rocky could see the clock on the far wall; it was after noon. She remembered going into the river at around ten that morning.

  “What do you mean you can’t put it back on? Do you mean that you can’t put it back on ‘cause it is medically impossible, or you don’t know how?” Rocky demanded of the doctor.

  “Miss Clancy I know how and it can go back on. This hospital does not have the operating room facility, staff or equipment to do that. We are a small hospital.”

  The Doctor was extremely offended by Rocky’s blunt questioning.

  “We will get you over to General in Sacramento and they can do it. But we are pushing the time frame to get it on with a chance of success,” the Doctor continued, regaining some of his aplomb after being questioned in that manner.

  The doctor left Rocky alone in the ER cubicle. She looked at her swollen purple hand and looked at the clock that was now at two in the afternoon. Two whole freaking hours wasted, only to find that they couldn’t do anything. Rocky was not fine with that result at all. That called for someone taking the initiative.

  An ER nurse told her that the ambulance would be back in forty-five minutes, it had responded to a coronary call. The only other ambulance in town was in the shop for repairs.

  “Well, don’t that cut all?” Rocky summed it up in her head.

  “The two-hour drive down to Sacramento puts me there in time for the rush hour commute. Perhaps by six I can be there. That is pure dee moose shit,” Rocky stated in no uncertain terms out loud, which was extraordinary for someone who barely swore ever no matter what.

  “I can fly myself there in less than an hour and take a cab to the hospital and have time left over,” Rocky was beginning a plan of action.

  When the nurse came back into the room, Rocky asked to get her finger back. The nurse looked quizzically at Rocky.

  “Humor me, I’ve had that finger for a long time and I want it with me,” Rocky attempted a smile as she told the nurse. “Which hospital am I going to in Sacramento?”

  “Land General, Dr. Morrisette, has already alerted them and they will be waiting for you,” the wary nurse said.

  “Is Margie working today?” Rocky asked.

  “No, she and all the department head nurses are in conference in Sacramento. As a matter of fact, they are at Land General,” she smiled like that info would reassure Rocky.

  After another wait, the nurse returned her fingertip. It was nicely packed in ice and some clear liquid.

  As soon as the nurse had left the room Rocky grabbed her purse. She downed a handful of aspirin and drank the entire pitcher of water.

  That was when she noticed she was barefoot and still had what was left of her wet suit on. At least now she was warm. There was some cash and ID in her wallet, and the plane keys are next to the truck key, which was left with the security guard out front in the parking lot.

  Rocky rested on the examining table catching her breath for a bit. Weighing the pros and cons of flying herself to the city this afternoon, it did not seem the best idea.

  "Ms. Clancy, the ambulance service called back that they will be an hour and a half, but you are their top priority after that. You lay back and relax, now,” the nurse smiled at Rocky and left, gently closing the door to the hall.

  For some reason, after all that had happened that day, the idea of laying back and relaxing should have been appealing. However, neither the nurse nor laying back was appealing to Rocky.

  Sliding off that examining table, Rocky retrieved the bag containing her finger. Tucking it gently into her big purse, she snuck down the hall to the main ER doors. By getting past those doors undetected, she could get out of the hospital.

  The waiting room was packed with people and she hoped no one would even notice the woman with the ragged black skin diving wet suit, blood dripping down her purple hand with a bloody finger remainder and ice in a baggie.

  There was probably one chance in a billion no one would notice. Not one person said a word to Rocky as she made her way outside.

  The old truck was parked neatly in the emergency parking lot. Rocky quickly as she could manage, walked through the parking lot trying to look totally casual at it. The keys were in the ignition.

  Rocky slowly slid onto the seat, she laid her finger bag gently on the passenger seat and braced it with her purse. Taking two deep breaths, Rocky decided that she could not fly the plane into Sacramento, that would be too stupid even for her.

  Rocky thought, “If I pass out again I could devastate blocks of homes, killing God only knows how many. If I think I am passing out when I’m driving, I can pull over to the side of the road.”

  There was plenty of gas in the truck, Rocky pulled another maxi pad from the box and cut it in half with her dive knife. Adjusting the wrapping to fit it on her bleeding stump of a finger, Rocky almost fainted again from the pain. She wedged the baggie finger securely onto the seat, and started the engine and drove unsteadily out of the parking lot.

  “This is not too bad, if I don’t have to stop for traffic signals, then I won’t have to change gears,” Rocky told herself. “I truly hope that Margie is still at Land General when I get there.”

  The tears again started sliding down her face.

  She had been driving an hour and the traffic had increased as she got closer into the hub of Sacramento. The way the traffic was flowing, she should arrive at the hospital in fifteen minutes. The pain was now coming in mind raking waves and her chest hurt when the truck hit a bump in the pavement.

  Immediately that she commented on the good traffic flow, it came to a shrieking halt and the huge line of vehicles waited in the sun. Rocky got out of the truck and looked forward up the line of traffic. She could see police vehicle
s. There must be an accident up ahead.

  Rocky checked the bandage around her hand and the bleeding had finally stopped.

  “Is that good or bad? Rocky wondered, “Do the little blood vessels close up and not come apart again to get put together with their other part?”

  “I want some water.”

  Getting back out of the truck, she looked in the truck bed for a bottle of water. There was no water there.

  Rocky eased back into the driver side, thinking she would get off the freeway to get water. The line of cars was starting to move although slowly because everyone had to see what was slowing the traffic down on this hot afternoon.

  Creeping closer to the hospital, her dive watch was also creeping closer to commute drive time and she wanted off this freeway before that gridlock happened.

  A nice breeze was coming in from the west,that confirmed that the time must be around or after four in the afternoon. The wind started coming up around four each afternoon and cooled the city for the night.

  Rocky could not drive and reach over with her left hand to roll down the passenger side window to take advantage of the breeze.

  “Maybe I should go with power windows for the next truck,” she snorted. “Next truck if I make it out of this alive.”

  Just ahead was the turn off for the hospital. It was a short drive from there.

  "I think I'm going to make it." The tears started to trickle down her cheeks she thought of Margie being there at the hospital for her.

  There it was, she was safe now. Rocky parked the truck in a proper spot and walked what seemed for miles into the ER desk. She gave her name to the nice lady and the world spiraled into black and gray all over again.

  Chapter 22

  “Hey, Rocky do you plan to sleep all night, or are you dead or what?” That was Margie speaking, Rocky struggled up from the gray spiral.