“But won’t that kill him?”
“I doubt it, Kate, he’s obviously lost a lot of blood and his blood pressure is probably not enough to make a difference between a pressure bandage or your pinching his artery.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t, but we need to move him and that’s my best guess. Now move your fucking hands!” I shouted.
I had never spoken to Kate that way and her face showed it. Tears began to roll down her cheeks again as she removed her hands and stood up. I pushed the bandage hard into his neck.
“You’re a fucking asshole, Dad. Why couldn’t you just listen to me?” She started to move away.
“Wait, I need your help. Come back here, please. We don’t have time to fuck around right now. I’m sorry. You’re right. Think of me however you want, but right now you need to help me, please,” I said, as I looked at her through wet eyes.
She crouched back down.
“Now hold this while I tie it around his neck. It shouldn’t matter too much for the time it takes to get back to the car if it’s too tight and stops the blood on this side too.”
I tied it, and double knotted it.
“You need to help me carry him, okay. Pick him up by the armpits and I’ll try to manage his legs with my cast.”
It took us a few tries to get him in the air and balance between us, but we hobbled as fast as we could back to the car. The natural pain killer adrenaline that was coursing through my body allowed me to use my right forearm to keep his legs from falling off my cast. I walked backward because Kate had the heavier end. We weren’t exactly graceful, but we made it.
Getting him in the back seat of the car was another horrendous undertaking, but we managed. Kate got in the back with him and I told her to loosen the knots and just put pressure on his neck with her hand.
We drove ten miles down the highway before we got a cell phone signal to call for an ambulance to meet us on the way back to town.
As many times as I asked her, Kate was never sure if Brandon was still alive until we reached the ambulance and the EMTs were able to find a weak pulse.
19
I was sitting in the surgery floor waiting room. Kate was across from me. She had not spoken to me, let alone looked at me the whole time.
The elevator doors opened and I saw Donna walk through them. She scanned the room for a moment until she spotted us. I stood up and started to walk toward her. She quickened her pace and met me with a hard slap across the left side of my face.
“What the hell did you let happen to our son? How the fuck did he get attacked by a bear?” she spat at me. Her eyes were slits, her lower jaw was protruding, and her lower lip quivered.
Did I blame her? No. I was beating myself up over the whole thing, too. I just stood there and took her verbal onslaught. I deserved it.
“What kind of a father are you? I can’t trust you with our children anymore. I leave you home with them, and Kate is attacked. I let you take them to the woods and Brandon comes back clinging to life. What has happened to you, Howard? Why was he attacked? Huh, Howard? Were you on those sleeping pills again?”
“Uh, no,” I mumbled
Kate stood up and walked towards us. “I think it was because Brandon smelled like fish, because when I found him, I noticed it, and when I was in the back of the car with him, I noticed it.”
“What do you mean?” Donna asked Kate, and then turned to look at me. “Why did Brandon smell like fish, Howard?”
I heard the question, but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. “Didn’t I make him wash his hands after we came back from fishing, or before dinner, for that matter?” I thought to myself.
“He always washes his hands before dinner, Donna.”
“Yeah, but his clothes smelled like fish,” Kate said.
“That’s ridiculous,” I exclaimed. “He…”
"Why do you say that’s ridiculous?" Donna asked. “Did you guys go fishing? Did Brandon catch any fish? Did he handle any of your fish?”
“Well, yeah, he caught some, he didn’t keep any, though, and I don’t really know how, uh, I just don’t know, we always fish different parts of the creek. When he saw the bear the first time, he was downstream from me and that’s when he hurt his foot.”
“Excuse me? What did you say?” Donna moved a step closer. “You saw a bear. And. Brandon hurt his foot? When was this?”
“Yesterday, Mom,” Kate said.
Donna slapped me again. Forward and backward, as she screamed, “You didn’t come home after you saw a bear and Brandon hurt his foot. You stayed the night after that? Who are you?” She threw her hands up to her face and covered her eyes. “I don’t know you. My husband, Howard, wouldn’t have done such a foolish thing. The Howard I know wouldn’t have been so fucking stupid!”
“Donna, I’m sorry, I was tired, I didn’t want to…” I couldn’t finish my thought. I was too tired and spent. I turned and went back to the couch I was sitting on sat back down. Elbows on my knees, head cradled in my hands.
“That’s how you’re going to be?” Donna’s voice creaked.
I didn’t say a word. I was no longer there. My thoughts drifted towards Brandon and how he looked lying on the ground with half of his face ripped off. Donna didn’t have to tell me I fucked up. I know I fucked up big time. No matter what I said to her, she wasn’t going to listen to me.
“So why bother?” I thought.
“That’s it, Howard, sit there and do nothing. That’s just like you.”
I didn’t move, I didn’t say a word.
“Goddamn you, Howard!”
I raised my head and looked at her, shrugged my shoulder and said, “What would you like me to do? What can I possibly do now?”
“Nothing, Howard, just sit there and do nothing, because when this is over…”
“Here comes Dr. Morrisey,” Kate said.
Donna turned in that direction. “Oh, Sal, please tell me everything’s all right. How’s Brandon, Sal? Please tell me he’s all right.”
He hesitated before he said, “Donna, Howard, come, let’s sit.”
He motioned to the couches with his left arm and put his right hand on Donna’s back when she turned and stepped towards the couch.
“Why do we need to sit, Sal? This isn’t good. Oh, Sal, please tell me that Brandon is all right. Please tell me he’s all right.” Tears began running down her cheek again.
Sal looked at me, then looked at Donna and shook his head as he looked toward the floor and said. “I wish I could, Donna, Howard, I really wish I could.”
Donna screamed and stood up, “Oh, noooooooooo, no, no, no. You’re lying to me. Where’s my baby, take me to my baby. He can’t be dead. Take me to my baby. You’re lying to me!” she cried.
Sal stood and tried to calm her. “Donna, come, sit down. I wish to God that I didn’t have to tell you this. I wish I could say everything is going to be fine, but I just can’t this time. I just can’t. I’m so sorry.”
Donna turned toward me, jumped on top of me and flailed her fists back and forth, hitting me in the face, my arms, my chest, screaming “You son of a bitch. You killed my baby, you son of a fucking bitch.”
I sat there and took all of it.
Sal tried to get her off of me with little success and turned to ask Kate for help. She just shook her head.
“Nurse,” he yelled toward the station. “Help me.”
One nurse motioned to another nearby and rushed to Sal’s aid. The three of them pulled her off me. I didn’t move. I didn’t say anything. I just sat there, tears streaming from my eyes, looking straight ahead wondering why all of this shit had to happen to me. “What did I do to deserve all this?” I asked myself.
20
“He’s been there for hours,” the head nurse said to the relief nurse. It was 10:00 pm and the evening shift at the hospital was changing to the night shift. I knew they were talking about me but I wasn’t listening to them. I had my head in my hand, my
elbow on my knee and I was numb. I didn’t want to move, I didn’t want to face all of this. I didn’t know how to face all of this.
Donna went to see Brandon shortly after Sal came to see us and I stayed in the waiting room. Donna did not come back, nor did Kate. Everyone must have thought I just went home because I didn’t hear anything from anybody after that. The head nurse didn’t bother me, either, I just sat there. Head in my hand, elbow on my knee, sobbing occasionally, and wishing I were the one dead, instead of my son.
Parents aren’t supposed to outlive their children. It is a coping mechanism that people just don’t have in the 21 century. Sure, in the 19 century and before, the death of a child was a sad event, but not an unusual one. Since the extraordinary advances in medicine in the 20 century, the death of a child was a horrifying event, and much less common.
I was utterly and completely out of my head. The same scenes flashed over and over in my mind. The angry bear on the other side of the river, Brandon’s foot stuck between the rocks, his bandaged foot, me actually noticing that he smelled like fish, but forgetting about it after my second seven and seven. The sounds in my dream that the bear’s claws made ripping through Brandon’s skin. His face dangling from his head as he tried so desperately to get away from the bear and me, coward that I was, watching the whole scene unfold in front of me before I had the sense to defend my child’s life. Then, when I went after him, my failure. The faint line between reality and dreaming that I just couldn’t grasp. “Did I actually see Brandon being attacked?” I asked myself. I didn’t know.
I sat there and tried to contemplate the meaning behind all of the events that had happened over the past week. What my dreams had to do with reality. How they possibly could have anything to do with reality. Why the first time I dreamed such a real, vivid event, I had taken a sleeping pill, and the second time, I hadn’t. Was it my brain? Was it the alcohol? I’d never had anything like that happen to me before when I drank. Hell, I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before, period.
“It must have had something to do with Janie,” my mind began to rationalize. “Maybe Janie was haunting me. Maybe her necromancy was powerful enough to alter my dreams in such a fashion.
“Maybe her necromancy was powerful enough to change the events of my dreams into a real event.
“Maybe her father had something to do with strengthening her necromancy.”
In any case, I was scared to death. The dreams were getting more horrific. “My daughter was raped, now my son was killed by a bear because I was too selfish to protect him, now what?
“What is going to happen next? God only hopes that I will have a dream about my death and not wake up,” I thought.
I had very little to keep me going at that moment. I needed to find out what was happening to me. I was sure it wasn’t medical; at least I would not have even thought to talk to a doctor about it. So there was but one thing left to do.
“Go back to see Gerald,” I said.
I thought that I would go to see Frank, first, though. I wasn’t going to that pharmacy by myself.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I looked up to see Donna standing above me.
“What are you still doing here?” she asked.
“I, uh, I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“How about home?”
“I mean, I don’t have anywhere I want to go.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She sounded offended to me.
“Look, honey, I don’t know what I want; all I do know is that I want to be left alone.”
“Really, I thought you might want to come home. Kate and I invited Janie over for dinner?”
“What did you just say?” I looked at her. Her eyes flickered like an old moving picture.
“Why, you remember Janie, don’t you, darling, the woman you ran over with your truck? She and Brandon are spending time together now. They have a common bond. You killed them both.”
“But, that’s not fair, Donna, I didn’t kill Brandon.”
“You might as well have,” she said with a dark and sinister voice not her own. Her eyes flashed red and I could see fire reflected in her pupils.
Startled, I turned around to see if there was actually a fire behind me. When I turned back to face Donna, she was holding Brandon’s head in her left hand. The left side of his face sans skin. His eyes were open and moving opposite the motion of his head swinging back and forth.
“Oh my God, Donna, what have you…” was all that I had spoken before she pulled a long breadknife from behind her back and swung it down across my face.
“How do you like that, you murderer?” she asked as she continued to bring the knife down on my head, forcing the skin off of my face with the dull serrated blade. “Do you think Brandon felt this way when his face was being ripped off by the bear?”
“Yeah, Dad, do you think?” Brandon’s head spoke.
“Help!” I screamed to the nurses at the nurse’s station.
The both looked up and smiled, then went back to their charts.
“It doesn’t hurt that bad, does it, Dad? It hurt worse when the big teeth of that grizzly chomped down on my leg and ground his jaw back and forth on my hip as he dragged me along.”
Donna dropped Brandon’s head down to level with my leg and he latched onto my inner thigh with his teeth and started to chew. I threw my head back and screamed.
“How do you like that, honey?”
I screamed again.
“Howard! Are you okay?”
I looked back down to where Donna was and there was only Sal standing there, his brows drawn down, frowning.
“What are you still doing here, Howard?” he asked. “Donna called me and told me that you hadn’t been home, yet, and I told her that I would see if I could find you here.” He studied my face for a moment.
“Why are you still here, Howard? You need to go home and get some rest.”
“Yeah, Sal,” I answered him, lookin’ down at my feet. “But that’s how all of this happened in the first place.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“That’s okay, never mind,” I said as I stood up and walked away from him, heading toward the elevator. I didn’t know if I was going to go home or not, but I did know that I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
The elevator doors opened, and I got in. There was an older lady already inside and I nodded to her as the doors closed.
“Why don’t you go home and play with Brandon and Janie,” the woman said.
“What?” I screeched at her.
The woman turned to look at me. Her eyes followed from my face, tracing down to my shoes, and back up again. “I didn’t say anything, sir. Are you feeling okay?” she asked with a smirk on her face.
I punched her right between her eyes.
21
“Howard Cushman,” the guard said. “You’ve made bail. Howard Cushman, front and center.”
I got up from the filth-covered bench that I was sitting on in the holding cell of the Carthright County Jail.
“Who posted for me?” I asked the jailer.
“Some woman is all I know,” he replied.
“Thanks,” I said, as I walked through the door of the cell and the jailer clanged the door shut behind me.
What a relief to get out of that place. Not that anyplace was much better right then, but there were some twenty men in that holding cell. It smelled like piss and shit and body odor. Everywhere you sat, touched, or looked, someone had spit in that spot.
I had never been anywhere near a jail until then. Having gone through what I’d been through in the past 24 hours, sitting in the holding cell was miserable. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I didn’t want anyone bothering me, but when you have twenty-some men in the same room, you’re bound to get bothered. Just their stench bothered me.
Even though I was relieved to get out of there, I knew what was waiting for me when I got home. It was not going to be much better except, perhap
s, it smelled better there.
“Battery, Howard, really? You battered an old woman?” was the first thing Donna said to me. Not “hi,” not “how are you,” not “glad to see you.”
I didn’t answer her and started walking toward the door.
“Wait, Mr. Cushman, you have to sign for your possessions,” the clerk said.
“Let her do it.” I pointed in Donna’s direction.
“She can’t sign for them, sir.”
“Then keep them,” I said. Donna squinted at me and showed her lower teeth.
“For chissake, where do I sign?” I asked. “Apparently the wolf lady is taking me home tonight,” I mumbled.
“What?” Donna asked.
“Nothing,” I replied.
When we both left the building and walked to the car, Donna only unlocked her door. She would usually do the double-tap and open all the doors, but not that time.
“Hey, what are you doing?” I said, as she started the car.
She looked at me, put the SUV in reverse, and flipped me off as she punched the accelerator.
“Fucking great! She bails me out but makes me walk home,” I said to myself. “Fucking great!”
The evening had turned to darkness. The waning moon was just about to go down. There was a constant hum as cars passed by on 270. “How ironic is that?” I thought. “I must be about a mile from where all of this started in the first place. In fact, since I’m walking, I’ll be walking right by it.”
“Maybe I’ll go to Frank’s house instead,” I said to the night. He lived in the other direction, a little further going there than going home, but I didn’t think I could have gone home right then.
“Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. Go see Frank. I want to see him anyway, what better time than now,” I thought.
“Well, except he might be in bed. What time is it anyway?” I said.
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket, but the clerk at the jail turned it off before she stored it. “Of course,” I said aloud.
Dream Sweet Page 9