| From Chapter Sixteen....A Pearl of Great Price Diana Parker stood in the upstairs hallway and fumed. How dare this old woman come into her home and accuse her of not doing her job! How dare she say that a woman had no right to a meaningful career, or that her house was a train wreck! A train wreck! And how dare her own husband talk about her behind her back! How dare Aunt Pearl care for my son while drinking from some brown bottle! Diana clenched her fists in a fury, then took a deep breath. She could hear Rex snore from behind his locked bedroom door. This is ridiculous! I have lost control of my own home! And this old witch thinks she can…thinks she can… As she was about to end her search Aunt Pearl’s elusive ‘cough medicine,’ Diana noticed that the top to the toilet tank was turned backwards. She mindlessly picked it up, in order to correct it, and noticed a dark brown corked bottle inside the tank, nestled comfortably next to the flush valve. Diana’s eyes flew open wide as she snatched the bottle from its cove. She pulled out the cork and sniffed…RUM! Aunt Pearl is an alcoholic! Wait until Avery hears this! Diana corked the bottle tightly, then raced down the hallway to Rex’s room. She tapped on the door, and a sleepy-eyed Rex opened it. "Whuh…hi, Mom, is it time for pork chops?" Diana’s eyes blazed. "It most certainly is not! Look what I found in your Aunt Pearl’s bathroom! Hidden in the toilet tank! Is this the brown bottle you told me about? Rex?" Rex rubbed his eyes and stared at the bottle his mother shoved in his face. "Yes, ma’am, that looks like the bottle Aunt Pearl keeps in her locked china cabinet. It’s her cough medicine." Diana snorted and shook her head in triumph. "It most certainly is not any damned cough medicine! It is RUM! Alcohol! Your Aunt Pearl is a drunk! Come with me right now!" Diana Parker grasped Rex painfully around his arm and dragged him to the stairs. "Watched my only child all summer, drinking and doing no telling WHAT in that house, and comes in here and criticizes me and my housekeeping and my career and my ability to raise my child, and my own husband agrees with her, and OVER MY DEAD BODY!" As she shouted this last statement at no one in particular, Diana, pulling Rex, reached the top of the stairs that led into the kitchen where Aunt Pearl was chopping onions for her special mashed potatoes, and where Avery Parker, Junior was happily sampling quarters from a deep red tomato that his Aunt Pearl had sliced for him. Diana’s loud voice startled Aunt Pearl, who had only seconds before complained to Avery that the poor excuse for kitchen knives she’d found in this house were dreadfully dull and needed sharpening in the worst way. "OUCH! MY LORD GOD IN HEAVEN I HAVE SLICED OFF MY THUMB!" Aunt Pearl raised a hand to the sky as blood oozed steadily from a deep cut. She swallowed hard, stared at her thumb, which was as yet attached to her hand and in absolutely no danger of falling off, then she promptly fell to the floor in a large heap. The kitchen knife flew from her hand and landed with its blade stuck in the vinyl floor. "OH MY GOD, AUNT PEARL!" Avery jumped off his barstool with a tomato quarter in each hand, but finding himself unable to grab Aunt Pearl, shoved the tomatoes in his mouth. "MHEMPH MEMPH! MDIANMMA! MHEMPH!" Rex raced down the stairs and helped his father gently lift Aunt Pearl’s head. "It’s ok, Dad, it looks like she cut her thumb…see, it’s bleeding really bad!" Avery nodded furiously and tried to chew the tomatoes in his mouth. "MPHESS, MPHI MPSEEMPH. MDIANMA!" Diana Parker stood her ground at the top of the stairs, and held out a dark brown bottle in Avery’s direction. "DO YOU SEE THIS? YOUR PRECIOUS AUNT PEARL WAS HIDING THIS BOTTLE OF RUM IN THE TOILET! AVERY! DO YOU HEAR ME? SHE IS A DRUNK!" Avery Parker ignored his wife and began to tap Aunt Pearl on her cheeks. Rex placed a cold dishrag on Aunt Pearl’s forehead and silently wondered if this meant there would be no pork chops for dinner. Aunt Pearl opened her eyes and said woozily, "Lord, Avery, did you save my thumb? I think I heard it fall into the garbage disposal, Lord have mercy, don’t turn on that garbage disposal! Rex, honey, you’ll have to fish around in there and find it and put it on ice, child, so they can sew it back on! No organ donor’s thumbs for me, no sir, I’m not gonna meet St. Peter at the Pearly Gates wearin’ somebody else’s digit!" "Calm down, Aunt Pearl, you didn’t cut off your thumb, but it’s a pretty bad gash. Do you think you can sit up for a minute? Rex, go see if we have any gauze in the medicine cabinet! Diana! Get Aunt Pearl a drink of water, and…" Aunt Pearl opened her eyes wide, stared at the ceiling, and gasped. "Lord, Avery, stop lyin’ to me, I know I cut it off because I’m already havin’ those ghost pains where it used to be! Oh Jesus God, it’s St. Peter himself, coming to get me…what a beautiful white chariot, I wish you all could see it! Lord have mercy, there’s Lawrence, riding shotgun… Lawrence…you should be ashamed of yourself, dyin’ and leaving me all alone, now hold those horses so St. Peter can come and get me…Lawrence…this is Rex, your grand-nephew! St. Peter, I’m sorry about my thumb, but my nephew’s wicked, lazy wife scared the breath right out of me, and…LAWRENCE! Move out of St. Peter’s way, so he can find my thumb…" "AUNT PEARL! You stop that this instant! Aunt Pearl! You are not dying, and you did not cut off your thumb! Now sit up here and have a drink of water…DIANA! I asked you to get Aunt Pearl a glass of water!" Diana Parker stomped over to where her husband and son were trying to raise Aunt Pearl from her romp with the dead. She angrily waved the brown bottle in Avery’s face. "First of all, Avery Parker, if you want your Aunt Pearl to have a glass of water so badly, then why don’t you get up off your sorry ass and get it yourself! And second of all, if Aunt Pearl’s so thirsty, why don’t we just give her a big gulp out of this RUM bottle I found inside the COMMODE!" Aunt Pearl bolted upright and reached for the brown bottle as her bleeding thumb sprayed Avery’s tan slacks. "You give me that! I might have known your wife would snoop around in my bathroom, Avery! And I’ll have you know, missy, that’s my special cough medicine, to clear my lungs, because I have the tuberculosis! Never mind that I cough so hard at night, my lungs come clean out of my mouth and I have to stuff them back in, but no, no cough medicine in this house! Oh, Lord, Avery, do I have to bleed to death before I get any medical attention? There’s nearly five pints of blood on this floor, oh my sweet Jesus!" Aunt Pearl moaned but tightly grasped her bottle with her non-injured hand. Avery scowled at his wife. "I can’t believe this, Diana! Look what you’ve done to Aunt Pearl! She dropped everything to come here and help us, and not only have you caused her to injure herself, you’ve become a common snoop! I want an explanation!" Diana shook her fist at Avery. "Don’t you yell at me, Avery Parker! This is not my fault! I heard every word you and your precious Aunt Pearl were saying about me! That woman is a drunk, and she’s not staying another night in this house!" Rex gingerly wrapped gauze around his Aunt Pearl’s thumb, but he soon realized that it wasn’t having any effect, so he calmly walked to the telephone and dialed 911. "Yes, ma’am, I need an ambulance…my aunt has a severe injury…917 Mountain Shadow Road…no, ma’am, that’s just my parents fighting in the background… Please hurry!" Rex patted his Aunt Pearl on her turbaned head as his parents screamed at each other. "Don’t worry, Aunt Pearl, the ambulance is on its way. You’ll be ok, I promise." Aunt Pearl smiled. "Rex honey, listen up, here, take your Aunt Pearl’s cough medicine, and pour me a little into that water glass right quick, ok? Oh, God, the pain of losing a limb. Go on, now, Rex, hurry up with that cough medicine." Aunt Pearl winked at Rex, but Rex wasn’t in the mood to risk his mother’s wrath, even though his parents had just stormed out of the kitchen. "No, ma’am, I can’t do that. You need to go to the hospital and get stitches and I don’t think you should be drinking anything but water right now, Aunt Pearl. Here, take a sip…" "LISTEN HERE, YOUNG MAN, don’t you sass me! You uncork that stopper and pour some cough medicine into that glass right now! If I have to spend three weeks in the hospital while they re-attach my thumb, I need to take some extra cough medicine to tide me over!" "Aunt Pearl, you won’t even have to spend one night in the hospital! Look, here’s the ambulance now! Stay right here, and I’ll go open the front door." Rex realized his parents now stood on the back porch shouting simultaneously at one another and waving their arms. He ran to the front door and opened it for the paramedics, who flew by as he shouted, "KITCHEN! TO THE LEFT!" In his haste to greet the paramedics, however, Rex left the brown bottle in Aunt Pearl’s possession. Rex and the paramedics watches as Aunt Pearl took a long pull from the bottle. "AUNT PEARL! Did you drink out of that bottle?" Rex lifted the brown bottle from his aunt’s hand, and noticed it was only now one-quarter-full. He looked at one of the paramedics, who cleaned Aunt Pearl’s wound in preparation for transport. Aunt Pearl moaned loudly and lay back on the floor. She closed her eyes. "Hey, mister, sir, you better take this bottle to the hospital, too." "Why’s that, son?" "Because I think it’s full of rum, at least, that’s what my mom says, and I think my aunt here just drank about half of it when I ran out to let you in." The paramedics eyed one another and grinned. "Well, yep, guess we’d better take it with us, then, for testing! Ok, ma’am, we’re all ready to go…do you think you can walk to the ambulance? Ma’am…can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?" The paramedics waited anxiously for Aunt Pearl to respond…she was a very large woman, and they did not relish the idea of lifting her onto a stretcher or carrying her all the way to the ambulance. "Son, what’s your name…Rex…ok, Rex, did your aunt hit her head?" "No, sir, she cut her thumb with a knife, and fell down, but she didn’t hit anything, and she’s been sitting up and talking, so I don’t think she has a concussion." "Well, thanks, Rex! You’re a smart guy! Your aunt’s gonna be just fine, I’d say!" "Thanks, I’m a Boy Scout, and I’ve had basic first aid training. Ummm, my parents are outside…having a discussion…should I go get them?" Aunt Pearl opened her eyes in dismay as the conversation drifted away from her injuries and her dire state of medical emergency. "Whuh…where am I? Who am I? Lawrence, don’t you leave me! St. Peter, come back here this instant! Did you save my thumb, young man? Did they tell you I’m already having ghost pains? Rex, honey, get these men some ice so they can save my thumb! Do you have any Demerol? I need some Demerol right now!" The paramedics rared back as they caught a whiff of Aunt Pearl’s cough-medicined breath. "Ma’am, you’ve just got a bad gash on your thumb and a few stitches will take care of it. There’s really no need for you to ride in the ambulance. We’ll wrap this good and tight, and your family can take you to the ER." Avery and Diana entered the kitchen and stared curiously at the paramedics who were talking to Aunt Pearl. Rex smiled sheepishly and said, "I called for help." Aunt Pearl suddenly closed her eyes and made no response to the paramedic’s comments or questions. He stroked her cheek and patted her hand, then nodded at Avery. "It’s just a deep flesh wound, sir, why spend three hundred dollars for a ten-minute ambulance ride when I can wrap this for you and you can take her to the Clinic, but it’s up to you. Ma’am...ma’am, I’m a paramedic. Can you hear me? You’ve got a bad cut to your thumb and your family is going to take you to get it stitched. Do you think you can walk to the car if I assist you?" Aunt Pearl blinked, frowned, and looked the paramedic straight in the eye. "Young man, I am sixty-nine years old, I have survived over a thousand heart attacks, I have tuberculosis, my gall bladder is ten times its normal size, my thumb has been severed and I have just lost seven pints of blood. I will thank you to pick me up, put me on that stretcher and carry me to that ambulance right now, the way God and Medicare intended!" Copyright 2002 by Bunkie Lynn; all rights reserved. |
