Suddenly, I wasn’t hurting anymore. I raced over to him and dropped to my knees. When I touched him he screamed even louder. He was totally hysterical and the only thing I could think to do was to slap him the way they do in the movies. So that is just what I did. Amazingly it worked. He stopped screaming, but he was still blubbering and in loads of pain; of course I didn’t blame him in the least. I can only imagine how much his leg must be hurting.
“MOTHER-FUCKING-SHIT!” he swore loudly.
Now, I’ve had quite a bit of First-Aid training. That was something that both my parents as well as Gary had insisted on. And for the most part their reasoning had been the same; as much time as I spend at the beach, I should know how to help myself or someone else in the event of an emergency. However, learning First-Aid and practicing it are two entirely different things.
“SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! ALVIN! MY LEG, MY LEG IS FUCKING BROKEN! OH FUCK ALVIN!” Larry cried as he pulled on the front of my blood stained coat.
“Larry! Larry listen to me! You better just lie still. I am going to get some help!” I said, starting to stand up.
Larry grabbed the dangling strap of my backpack and wouldn’t let go.
He looked right into my eyes with his one still open eye. Had he not been so badly injured, I might have taken some pride in the fact that I’d caused his other eye to nearly swell completely shut and surge blood.
“You can’t leave me! Oh fuck Alvin, please don’t leave me! I’m sorry! I’m sorry I hit you! Oh fucking-shit Alvin, please don’t leave me here!” Larry was bawling and spraying my face with blood as he spoke.
“Larry, your leg is broken and there is no way I can carry you!” I said, trying to make him understand, but he was quickly loosing himself in the pain again.
“Hey listen, damn-it!” I slapped him again, but not as hard as I had the first time. “Alright, I won’t leave you, but you have to stop freaking out and help me here!”
If things were not bad enough, the snow was now falling worse than I’ve ever experienced in my life and I don’t mean light fluffy white Christmas snowflakes either. I’m talking heavy, wet snow that all but blocks out the sun and makes it near impossible to see more than a couple feet ahead of you at the most. Within minutes all traces of our struggle in the snow, including our blood was covered over again making it seem as though the fight had never happened.
As quickly as the snow was falling, still the blood from his leg seemed to seep into the fresh snow. I knew I had to stop, or at the very least slow the bleeding. I thought about it for a few seconds and then took off my backpack. It took a lot of effort, but I was able to finish ripping the loose strap, which I used to tie around his leg, just above the knee. As I pulled to make it as tight as I possibly could, Larry let out a wail of pain in the form of a long drawn out list of colorful expressions. That must have been the final bit of pain to put him over the edge because Larry simply lost it. He gave himself over to the pain and his fears. He became entirely unhinged, screaming things like, “I’M GOING TO FUCKING DIE! I’M GOING TO FUCKING DIE HERE IN THE SNOW!”
Perhaps it was a combination of fear, anger and panic that caused me to hit him like I did. This time I didn’t slap him, I punched him and I mean I punched him hard; harder than I have ever punched anyone in my life.
For a full second Larry was silent and stared at me in utter disbelief and then his eyes closed and he drifted into unconsciousness.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” I cussed, realizing that I had just knocked him out.
“Now what am I going to do?” I angrily asked myself, “I can’t leave him here. He’ll get buried alive in a matter of minutes in this fucking blizzard!”
After I had carefully freed his broken leg from between the two trees, I grabbed him by the wrists and began to drag him toward the entrance of the park. Man, Larry was heavy! I had only moved him about thirty feet when I decided to leave my backpack behind. It was just too much for me to drag Larry and lug all my books too. Like I said, it was snowing so much that I couldn’t see. I could only hope that I was moving us closer to the park entrance, otherwise the two of us were probably done for and frankly, I did not want to end up a ghost like Chris!
I heard something loud that sounded like a truck, or perhaps a road plow and that gave me hope that we were nearing the street. Then headlights blazed only a couple yards away. A horn blared and the lights swerved, followed by the crunch of metal against metal.
“What the hell are you doing in the middle of the street kid!” a man’s voice shouted.
“HELP! MY FRIEND IS HURT BAD! I THINK HE’S DIEING!” I screamed and realized that I was lying down again.
I must have fallen when the car nearly hit us. There really was no way to tell, but I had drug Larry all the way out of the park and into the middle of the street were the two of us were nearly hit by an oncoming car.
Things happened so fast after that. The police came, a fire truck came and then an ambulance which took Larry away. A minute after Larry was gone two more ambulances arrived, one for the guy that had been driving the car. He’d bashed his head on his steering wheel because he hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt. Even though I insisted that I was okay and didn’t need to go to the hospital I was forced into the third ambulance.
I guess all the blood made them think I was hurt worse than I really was. I got five stitches in my bottom lip, two above my eye and my right wrist had been wrapped with one of those ACE Bandages. Apparently I had sprained it without even knowing I’d done so. Probably when I had punched Larry that last time; or maybe when I was struggling to drag his unconscious boy through the park.
All of that occurred long before my parents and grandparents arrived at the hospital. Boy, let me tell you that I wasn’t looking forward to seeing them. When one of those nice nurse ladies told me they had contacted my parents I started to feel ill. I was at the hospital for nearly two hours before they arrived. Surprisingly, they didn’t look mad at all. In fact, all four of them looked more worried and concerned than anything else.
Not long after they arrived a police officer came in to ask me a bunch of questions about what had happened. I had thought about lying and saying that Larry and I were mugged, but I figured that they probably already talked to Larry and knew the truth. So I told them exactly what happened. Of course I left out the part about me wetting my pants even though it had been obvious when I’d arrived at the hospital because my pants began to smell of pee as soon as they began to thaw.
It took nearly an hour and a half for us to get from the hospital to my grandparents because of the snow, which hadn’t let up at all. However, I only know that because I was later told that is how long it took. You see, minutes after getting into the car I fell asleep in the backseat, sitting between Mom and Grandmother. I guess I was worn out because I slept until nearly suppertime that same day.
I awoke in my normal room, lying in my normal bed and for all of ten seconds I felt normal. Then came the dull aching all over! There was less parts of me that weren’t sore than there were parts that were. I groaned as I tried to get out of that darn bed. I tried a second time before giving up. Since I couldn’t get up I reached up and felt my fat lip, which felt fat and prickly due to the swelling and stitches. I also discovered by exploring with my other hand, that I was diapered again, which from the feel of the front of the disposable diaper, was a good thing.
It took more than a little effort, but I got all those covers pushed off and saw that the diaper was indeed filled to capacity. With the covers off I was able to roll over onto my side, swing my legs over the side of the bed and then push myself up so that I was sitting, facing the back of the room.
Now that I was sitting up, I could feel the weight of my swollen lip. It felt like I should lie back down, but I didn’t want too.
What happened next was actually funny enough to make me laugh. I put the palms of my hands down on the mattress, pressed down and lifted myself to my feet. My right wrist sang out under the strain. However, as soon as my butt left the mattress, the diaper came right off of me, slid down my legs and made a cartoon like splat when it hit my feet and the floor.
I began giggling when I heard it squish and my giggles turned into laughter as I slipped my feet out of the wet, dripping diaper.
“Not one of Mom’s better diapering jobs!” I chuckled loudly.
“That’s because your grandfather did it.” Came Mom’s soft voice from the opening door.
I spun around so fast that I nearly fell to the floor.
“Careful sweetheart!” she cried out while rushing to my side to help me regain my balance.
Turning to fast had made my lip begin to throb but despite it I managed to still mildly giggle about the diaper which had tripped me up.
I then asked, “What time is it?”
“A few minutes after five.” She said.
“WHAT?” I nearly shouted.
“Well the medicine the doctor gave you made you sleepy.” She said.
“No, not that.” I said waving my hands as if to erase that part of the conversation, “I mean why did you let Grandfather diaper me?”
Mom grimaced, “Alvin sweetie, your Grandfather feels so bad about yesterday and he wanted to help. I didn’t have the heart to tell him no.”
“Moooom!” I complained, “But he saw me naked!”
Mom grinned nervously and I could tell by that grin that she knew something I didn’t.
“What?” I asked unsure if I could handle knowing.
Mom bent over, picked up the dripping diaper and started toward the armoire to put it in the diaper pail.
“What do you remember from the hospital?” she asked me in an uneasy tone and I told her what I remembered which was exactly what you just read above.
“So you don’t remember that, when we arrived, you were sitting on your hospital bed in your birthday suit?” Mom said hesitantly.
“I was what?” I gasped and grabbed the footboard with my sore hand to balance myself. I began pleading with her, “Oh no! Mom, tell me you are joking! Please!”
She turned around and was grinning from ear-to-ear and I knew that she wasn’t joking.
“Oh Mom! That’s humiliating!” I said, trying to cover my face and hurting my mouth in the process.
Mom walked back over and gave me a soft hug, “Well, they couldn’t very well leave you sitting there in your clothes. They were soaked with blood and pee and…”
“OH NO!” I moaned because I knew she was going to tell me that along with the blood and pee, I’d also soiled my pants. Now, thinking back on it, I probably did it while trying to drag Larry out of the park. I had been straining pretty earnestly so I probably pushed the contents of my bowels out without even realizing it.
Not knowing what to say after that I just groaned loudly.
Mom released her hug and placed a single finger under my chin to lift my head up so that she could examine my face.
“You look a lot better than you did when we first saw you.” She said.
“I do?” I asked.
“Yes and you even sound almost normal too.” She said and I gave her a puzzled look so she added, “You were talking like you had a mouth full of walnuts.”
“I was?” I said, not remembering any of that either.
“Do you feel up to a quick bath?” she asked after leaning down and ever so softly kissing my stitches above my eye.
That’s when I began to wonder who had cleaned all the blood off me before.
“Did they give me a bath at the hospital?” I asked her.
She nodded as she took my elbow and lead me to the bathroom. “But they didn’t do a great job of it so after we got you home and into bed your grandmother gave you a sponge bath.”
I felt embarrassed all over again.
Boy, that water in the tub sure felt great. Mom, in her great wisdom had filled the tub with cool water. When I first dipped a toe into the tub I gasped as I had been expecting a warm bath. I lowered myself into the water and kept sinking until only from the chin up was left exposed. The cool water soothed away much of my body’s aches and pains. I didn’t even mind that Mom bathed me as if I were a toddler again. While she washed my body I asked and she told me about Larry and that he was doing well when we left the hospital.
“He kept telling your father and me over and over again how you saved his life.” She said.
“Really?” I gasped in disbelief.
Mom grimaced and smiled at the same time, which came across looking like she was constipated or something. “He also wanted us to tell you, that he was very sorry for trying to beat you up.”
“Wow, he really said that?” I said with honest surprise.
“Only about a dozen times.” Mom said and then she stopped washing under my arm for a moment.
“He has the nicest parents too!” she emoted.
I really couldn’t believe how much I had missed or didn’t remember from the hospital.
“You met them too?” I asked.
“Yes, when they came to see how you were doing and to thank you for helping their son.” She told me, “But when we went to see their son, he wouldn’t tell us why the two of you were fighting in the first place.”
I had a sense that Mom was expecting me to tell her the reason for the fight. I could only shrug my shoulders because I didn’t have a clue as to why Larry had suddenly decided that I needed a beating. And then, completely out of the blue it came to me.
“What?” Mom asked, sensing that I was having a revelation and boy she was correct too.
“When Bertha, uh that’s the girl that asked me to the dance…” I began.
“What dance?” Mom interrupted.
Oh yeah, I hadn’t yet had the chance to tell anyone about the Snowball Dance or about smelly Bertha saying I was going to be her date. So I had to back up and tell Mom all of that before I could continue.
“So you see, I think the reason Larry got so mad about Bertha going with me instead of him is because he likes her.” I finished saying.
I then looked up at Mom for confirmation that she understood now.
“So when you hang out with these friends of yours, you’re not getting into any trouble, are you?” Mom asked.
“Mom! You totally missed the point!” I said with frustration and pounded the surface of the bathwater, causing it to splash into Mom’s face.
“Alvin!” she complained as she reached for a towel to dry herself with.
“So do you like her too?” Mom finally asked.
“What?” I said in an awful gasp, “Oh Mom, don’t be gross!”
But Mom had no idea how grotesque Bertha was. I guess for her, Bertha was just some girl at school who thought I was cute.
After my bath Mom helped me get diapered and at first I protested being diapered, but Mom somehow convinced me that it was for the better. She even shot down my attempts to haggle my way out of the diaper and into a GoodNite instead. Once my loins were adequately clad, had my wrist rewrapped and was dressed in my pajamas I felt almost normal again… almost!
When Mom opened the door to my bedroom, so that the two of us could go down for some supper, we both were startled to find Grandfather standing there, about to knock.
The three of us just stood motionless for several awkward seconds before Mom said, “I’ll leave the two of you to talk for a minute.”
And that is all that the talk between Grandfather and me took; one minute. I apologized right away and he stuck out his hand as he said, “I am sorry too. Let’s put it behind us as if it never happened. What do you say to that?”
“Uh, yeah… sure.” I said, unable to believe that he was going to let me off the hook like that.
“Just do me one favor, would you?” he added and I couldn’t help thinking, “Oh brother, here it comes!”
He smiled as he said, “For your Grandmother’s sanity, keep your pants on when roaming the house. What-What!”
I could tell by the way he said it that he was attempting to be humorous so I smiled, shrugged and said, “Yeah, I guess I can do that.”
After supper I started feeling tired again so I excused myself from the table. Both, Mom and John excused themselves as well. I had thought they were just making sure I got back to bed and tucked in properly. However, I wasn’t quite that lucky. They did help me get into bed, but then they sat down on either side of the bed, effectively surrounding me. To make a long lecture short, I only just barely escaped grounding by the skin of my teeth.