Chips of Red Paint

by K. Martin Beckner

  “Why would you want my autograph?” I asked.

  “It’s not every day that I get to meet a real hero. You saved your friends life today.”

  “Wow, you really think so?” I asked.

  “I’m sure of it. He got to the hospital just in time. If you hadn’t ran and got help when you did, it might have been too late to save him. You nearly had a heatstroke trying to help your friend. The thermometer has been near the century mark the last few days.”

  “I don’t feel too much like a hero.”

  “Most of the real heroes don’t.”

  “What do you want me to write on the paper?”

  “You can just write, ‘To Doctor Landrum’ and sign your name. I think that’ll do it. I’ll hang it up in my office.”

  “This is the first time anybody’s ever wanted my autograph,” I said and wrote, “To Doctor Landrum, the greatest Doctor ever.” I signed my name very neatly, and handed it back to him.

  “Thank you very much,” he said and placed the notepad back in his pocket. “You’re way too kind.

  “Now, how would you like to get out of here and go home?”

  “That would be great,” I said, “but can I go see Charlie first?”

  “I don’t see why not, but I’m not the boss in that department. You’ll have to ask your mother and the nurses. I’ll stop by up there and see if I can talk Nurse Ratchet into letting you spend some time with Charlie. He’s on medications, so don’t be surprised if he don’t have much to say. He’ll get through this. It’s just going to take time. That snake released a nasty amount of venom. He must have stepped on it or something and made it angry.”

  “Somebody stole my clothes while I was asleep,” I said. “Do you know what happened to them? I can’t go home like this.”

  Dr. Landrum laughed out loud and said, “I think there’s a clothes bandit running around the hospital. But seriously, they took them off in the emergency room yesterday, trying to get your temperature down. You were dangerously overheated. You were so exhausted you must not remember any of it.”

  “Yeah, I was pretty worn out yesterday. I guess I fell asleep. I was so tired I don’t even remember them sticking this tube in my arm.”

  Shortly after the doctor left the room, an older nurse, grey hair rolled up in a bun, wearing a little white hat, came in the room and removed the IV from my arm. I was afraid it was going to hurt, but it didn’t, to my relief. My grandmother showed up with a fresh set of clothes a little while later. I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, took a shower, put on the clean clothes, and brushed my teeth. I felt like a new person.

  “I’m ready to go see Charlie now,” I said.

  “Let me make sure it’s okay first,” said my mother. She left the room, came back a few minutes later, and said the nurse said it would be okay as long as we came back before leaving the hospital. There would be paperwork to sign. She picked up the phone and asked for Charlie’s room. Brenda said for us to come on up.

  “Brian, how’s it going?” said Charlie in a groggy voice, when I walked in the room. My mother and Brenda stepped out, saying they were going to look for some coffee. “You should see my leg now. It’s a mess. They got it wrapped up, I think, so I can’t look at it and wig out. It’s totally black and blue. Thanks for helping me, Man.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I sure hate ‘cause Mr. Miller died. You know, he died trying to carry me down the hill. I guess he had a heart attack or something. He turned out to be a really good man. And to think, we thought he was going to kill us that first night we met him.”

  “Yeah, I know. He was really something great. I miss him already. I miss him telling those old stories he told.”

  “Me too. Do you think he told the truth?”

  “Yeah, I think a man that nice would only tell the truth. Except, of course, when he was kidding.”

  Charlie laughed and said, “Yeah, like the Bigfoot story. He had me going for a minute.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “They’re supposed to be sending me to Nashville today. I guess the doctors there are better at dealing with snakebites. I’ll be glad when my leg gets better. It hurts about all the time. That medicine they give me makes me sleepy. That’s about all I want to do is sleep. It’s a wonder I wasn’t asleep when you came in.”

  “I stayed all night in a room downstairs,” I said, avoiding the subject of his leg. “They said I got too hot, and they had to give me IV fluids. That’s the first time I ever had an IV.”

  “Me too,” he said, showing me his arm with the IV tubing attached. I showed him my Band-Aid where the tubing had been.

  “I wonder what Stephanie is up to,” I said. “I wonder if she’s heard about what’s happened.”

  “I’m sure she has. It’s all over the news. Everybody from Bowling Green to Nashville knows about it. We’re famous, I think.”

  “Wow, I didn’t think about it like that. I guess we are pretty famous now. I’ve already had to sign an autograph for the doctor.”

  “Hey, and you know what?”

  “What?”

  “My mom said Channel Thirteen is wanting to do an interview with me and you both. Everybody will be wanting our autographs then. Who’d you say wanted your autograph?”

  “The doctor.”

  “Wow, I’ll have to see if he wants mine too.”

  “I hope I don’t get nervous if we get on TV,” I said.

  “Well, right now you don’t have to worry about it because our parents have decided we can’t do any interviews until my leg gets better. I heard them talking earlier when they thought I was asleep. She said they released some kind of statement thanking people for their support, or something like that, so there wasn’t any reason we needed to get on TV.”

  “That’s a bummer,” I said. “My parents haven’t mentioned anything to me about it yet, but that would be exciting to be on TV.”

  “Parents act like they don’t ever want you to have any fun.”

  “I know.”

  My mother and Brenda walked in the room carrying Styrofoam cups of coffee.

  “It’s time to go, Brian,” said my mother. “We’ve got to get downstairs, so we can get your paperwork signed and get you home.”

  “Sure wish I was going home,” said Charlie.

  I felt a pang of guilt at these words. I knew that it would probably be a long time before he got to go home. I also knew that unless the doctors were able to save his leg, he would never quite be the same again. I hoped desperately that he wouldn’t blame me for it.

  “I wish you were going home too,” I said. “I’d trade with you if I could.”

  “You know you wouldn’t,” he said, slapping my shoulder, “but I appreciate the thought. You’re the best.”

  About an hour later, a nurse’s aide, who had insisted I ride in a wheelchair, was rolling me down a long hallway towards the elevator. My mother walked beside us, carrying my few belongings. We passed a room where an old man was yelling, “Help me. I’m cold and hungry,” over and over. The place smelled a mixture of urine and disinfectant, with the occasional smell of feces thrown in for variety. There seemed to be beeping sounds coming from everywhere. When one set of elevator doors opened, there was a woman inside arguing with two police officers, telling them that the president was going to hear about this nonsense, that she wasn’t crazy and didn’t need to see a psychiatrist. A young man standing beside us said he’d just wait to go up on the next elevator. Finally, the doors below a lighted arrow that pointed towards freedom parted, and we rode down to the lobby. My dad had parked his white Cadillac Eldorado in front of the hospital, and he was standing next to it, the big passenger-side door opened wide. I leaped from the wheelchair and onto the back seat of the car; I was ready to go home.

  Chapter 19

  My bedroom was just as I’d left it. My mother said she couldn’t bear to clean it while I was missing. I got to work right away picking up my toys and making my bed. I took pri
de in my room and never left it messed up for very long. Having been away from my room for a while made me appreciate it even more. It occurred to me that my backpack was still at the cabin. The thought of the backpack left alone in the now abandoned cabin gave me a moment of sadness. My spirits quickly lifted when my dad came in the room and asked me where I wanted to eat. Without hesitating, I chose McDonald’s. My mom objected, but my dad told her that it was my night to choose the restaurant. I ate a Big Mac, and it still seems like the best burger I’ve ever tasted.

  The next morning I got up early and told my mother that I wanted to go see Miss Green. I wanted to say something nice to her, after the way I’d run away from her and called her a witch earlier in the week. I realized now that she had been trying to warn me of something, the rattlesnake, I believed, and wasn’t trying to scare me.

  “Oh, Honey, Miss Green died a few days ago, the same day you ran away. The mailman found her on the porch.”

  With all that had happened lately, these words struck me hard. Miss Green really had been a nice woman, and right before she died, I’d said mean things to her. Now she was dead, and I could never take those words back. She died thinking I was a mean, hateful person. I figured she probably wouldn’t have died if I hadn’t been so mean to her. It was starting to seem that there was a cow pile everywhere I stepped lately.

  “I’m sorry to have to break the news to you. Especially with everything that’s happened this week.”

  “You know, Mom, she really was a nice person, wasn’t she?”

  “No, I don’t think she was.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, surprised by her unexpected answer. All my life I’d heard about what a nice person Miss Green was, despite all the rumors that were spread about town, and now that I had finally decided she actually was nice, my mother was telling me I was wrong.

  “I hate to tell you this, but you’re going to find out anyway.”

  “Find out what?”

  “Do you remember hearing people talk about how one of Miss Green’s husbands disappeared years ago, and no one ever heard from him again?”

  “Seems like I remember something about that.”

  “Well, yesterday morning his mummified body was found in Miss Green’s basement. They suspect he may have been poisoned, but they won’t know anything for sure until they do an autopsy.”

  “What?” I exclaimed, shocked.

  “Yes, and after all those times I sent you up there alone, it really scares me to think of it.”

  I sat down at the kitchen table too stunned to respond. And to think, I had been up there all by myself, talking to Miss Green, while right down below us in a dark cellar was one of her mummified husbands. I imagined him in a fine suit, his hair grey and wild, his dry skin stretched tightly over his skeleton, his yellow teeth exposed in a horrific grin. I knew there would be nightmares to come. I resolved to keep a light on at night for a while. I did lie in bed for a few nights after that thinking about Miss Green’s husband and about all that had happened the last few days, but I never had any nightmares about it, to my relief.

  Once my parents got over their initial excitement about having me back home, I found myself grounded for a month for running off like I did. I really didn’t mind at first. I kind of felt like hanging out around the house for a while, playing with my toys and the dog. By the end of the first week, however, I was ready to get out and explore the world again.

  I found one way to get out of the house. My mom, still leery of leaving me alone when she had shopping or some other business to attend to, would sometimes drive me over to my grandmother’s house to spend the day. If I asked her nice enough, on some days Miss Hazel would take me on little trips in her Ford Pinto. We’d go to places like the Frosty Freeze, and I’d watch nervously as she would eat a whole ice cream cone. One day I had a special request. I wanted to visit Mr. Miller’s grave. She told me she’d have to think about that one. First of all, she’d have to find out where he was buried. Next, she wasn’t so sure my parents would approve of such a mission, though I’m not sure why.

  A week later we were ready to go. Hazel had called around and found out that, like most everyone else that had passed away in town, Mr. Miller was buried at the Promise Land Cemetery. We didn’t mention our trip to my parents. Hazel said we weren’t exactly keeping it a secret. She said if they asked us specifically if we had been to the cemetery, we’d tell them the truth. Otherwise, we’d keep it to ourselves.

  I felt a little nervous as we approached the cemetery. Miss Hazel parked the Pinto in front of the sexton’s house and went inside to get directions to the grave. I sat in the car and looked out the windows at the graves that surrounded me. It occurred to me that the gravestones represented people who had once been alive, who had once had hopes and dreams, who had once thought themselves important. Their lives were now represented by cold stones, some simple rectangles, some elaborately carved masterpieces, hinting only of their worldly monetary value, telling nothing of the richness of their lives and personalities. Eventually, like the eroding engravings on many of the moss-covered stones, the memories of the people buried there would fade away, as the people who had known them also passed away. But another more powerful thought occurs to me now. Looking back on all the things that happened that summer, it occurs to me that every gravestone in every cemetery represents someone who, in one way or another, changed the world forever.

  After driving the car around in circles lost for a while, Miss Hazel, all the while complaining about the sorry directions she’d been given, finally located the grave in an older section of the cemetery. Mr. Miller shared a stone with his beloved Sarah. As the stone was quite elaborate, it was evident that at some point he had spent a lot of money to memorialize his wife.

  I stood silently for a time looking over the stone. It was a rather large tombstone of white marble, Corinthian columns flanking each side. Limbs from a huge magnolia tree hovered gracefully above the freshly dug gravesite. Looking over the magnolia tree, I noticed that some of its flowers were young and not yet blooming; some of its flowers were blooming to perfection; some of its flowers had turned brown and decayed. I thought of the time I’d spent with Mr. Miller on the knob and about how I had learned so much in such a short time. I thought of the old truck. I thought of what Mr. Miller had said about not wasting your life away. Mr. Miller had certainly wasted some of his life away, but in the end, like the old truck, he’d still had a few chips of red paint, enough red paint to enjoy those last few days of his life, letting go of the past and having a good time with Charlie and me. Thinking over these things, I read the epitaph that was inscribed near the bottom of the tombstone:

  Neither Death Nor Time

  Will Ever Steal My Love For Thee.

  I realize now the truth of the words. Time can only rob us of the things we can touch; it can’t rob us of the things we feel. Although Mr. Miller is gone, he will always be with me in some way. Memories of those days on the knob are a part of who I am and will be, so many building blocks of my life.

  “You know what, Miss Hazel?”

  “What’s that, Honey?”

  “I don’t feel sad like I thought I was going to.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because Mr. Miller’s where he wants to be. I don’t think he ever did feel right living on this earth without Sarah. Now he can be with Sarah in Heaven forever and ever. People don’t die in Heaven.”

  “Child, you’re going to make me cry. Oh, I’m crying already, and I didn’t even know the man.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “No, it’s okay. It don’t take much to make this old woman cry.”

  We stopped to get ice cream our way back to my grandmother’s house. That way if anyone asked where we’d been, we’d just say we’d been to the Frosty Freeze. I never did tell my parents about going to the cemetery. It was something between Miss Hazel and me, and I kind of like it that way for some reason.

  Chapter 20


  Hazel didn’t live long enough to see me become President, but like most people, I never became President. She did live long enough to attend my High School graduation, and I was proud to see her there. She had a stroke about a month later and ended up in a nursing home. I made a point to visit her at least once a week, although sometimes I wondered if she knew who I was. Hazel died shortly before I left home for college. She went to sleep one night and never woke up. I still miss her terribly.

  Charlie did lose his leg from below the knee. The snake had released a lot of venom, as the doctor had said, and it had taken a long time to get treatment. However, his leg may have been saved if Mr. Miller hadn’t applied a tourniquet. Mr. Miller had thought he was doing the right thing by applying a tourniquet. In some ways I’m glad he didn’t live long enough to find out differently. I guess we’re all composed of a lot of mistakes; we just have to figure out how to take our mistakes and make something good out of them.

  Charlie was devastated and angry for a while, but he got over it and soon learned how to get around as well as he did before. After a while, if he wasn’t wearing shorts, you couldn’t tell there was anything wrong with his leg unless he rolled up his pant leg and showed it to you. He got to calling it his bionic leg. I even got a little jealous for a while that I didn’t have a bionic leg.

  Charlie’s a bank president now and lives just down the road in Nashville, Tennessee. He became a lot better student in school after losing his leg. Before losing his leg he had barely made passing grades. Charlie’s younger brother, Jake, born about a year after the snakebite, now runs the family dairy farm. Charlie never was much into farming, too much work, like carrying the buckets of water up the hill. I’m still good friends with Charlie, and our families get together often.

  As for Stephanie, a few months after Charlie’s snakebite, she suffered through a tragic and life-changing event. Her mother was killed by that so-called boyfriend of hers. He got drunk one night, something ticked him off, and he shot her three times. He shot himself in the head when he was done with her. Fortunately, Stephanie wasn’t around when it happened. She was home alone, like she so often was. It turns out the boyfriend wasn’t a very good shot. He spent the next ten years, before dying in a nursing home, an invalid, depending completely on someone else to take care of him. He was mostly paralyzed and had to be fed through a tube in his stomach. He’d yell at the nursing home staff sometimes, like he was trying to curse them, but his speech was so slurred no one could understand what he was saying.