Written by Tom Davis – Uncle Bud didn’t move. The pool of blood around him grew larger with each heart beat. He wore nothing except for a towel covering his feet. Aunt Josie couldn’t do anything but hiccup and cry. Beau, hiding under the sewing machine table, thumped his tail against the wall. His big brown eyes darted between me, Aunt Josie, and Uncle Bud. I knew Beau couldn’t help it, but I didn’t think anybody else would see it that way.
It all happened when Mama had my sister Marrlee and appendicitis all at the same time. Aunt Josie was keeping me and Beau for a week or so until Mama could get up and around.
I liked staying with Aunt Josie and Uncle Bud, especially Uncle Bud. Even though Daddy can’t stand being in the same room with him, of all my uncles, he’s my favorite.
Uncle Bud cusses and tells dirty jokes around me. He even slips me a cigarette now and again and turns the other way while I sneak a swallow of his beer. Of course, all this happens when Aunt Josie’s not around.
The day before the accident Aunt Josie and I visited Mama and the new baby. Everybody carried on about her being the prettiest baby ever. Actually, she looked like a big pink possum.
Everybody complimented Mama on how well she looked. I don’t know why. She didn’t look so good to me. About that time Aunt Lasa came in from Atlanta. Aunt Lasa never entered a room—she burst into it. And sure enough, things seemed brighter. Daddy used to say that she could find something good about an ax murder.
Aunt Lasa gave me a big hug first off! Then she sat by Mama and started cheering her up, something I thought she needed at the time.
“Girl.” Aunt Lasa patted Mama’s hand. “You’re just plain lucky—doncha know? Here you check into the hospital to have a baby and get your appendix taken out at the same time. Why, just think of all the money you and Hoyt saved. And you were going to feel bad anyway so why not get it all over with at one time—doncha know?”
And so it went until Aunt Lasa had everyone in the room convinced that Mama and Daddy had saved enough money on operations to put us all through college.
A nurse came in and said we had to go. I went with Aunt Josie. Aunt Lasa was spending the night with Maw Maw and Paw Paw, so she went with them.
It happened the next morning.
I stayed in a guest bedroom that Aunt Josie had turned into a sewing room. I’d put my underwear and things in the middle drawer of this big oak dresser. When I packed my stuff, I slipped Sneaky, a pet grass snake I named after the song, into my bag.
Sneaky lived in a mayonnaise jar. I’d soaked its label off, punched holes in its top with an ice pick, and stuffed it half full of weeds.
When I unpacked, I hid Sneaky in a drawer near the top that didn’t look used much.
That morning I stood in my underwear poking around in my drawer. I’d fished out a shirt and socks when Aunt Josie came in. “Excuse me, Rip, I need my spare glasses.”
I stepped back. Aunt Josie opened Sneaky’s drawer and found the mayonnaise jar.
“What in the world?” said Aunt Josie. She couldn’t see so well without her glasses. And before I could warn her, she had the jar against her nose.
Sneaky poked his head up to the glass and stuck out his tongue. I can still hear the scream Aunt Josie let out. She went one way; the jar went the other, crashing into the wall above the dresser. Everything, including Sneaky, fell behind it.
The door flew open and there stood Uncle Bud. His hair—what little he had—matted and parted on either side of his ears. He wore a red, white, and blue striped beach towel stretched tight around his considerable middle. A stubby cigar stuck out the corner of his mouth.
“Josie, what in God’s name is going on?” Uncle Bud said between gasps, his big face reflecting the moment’s excitement.
“Snake!” blurted Aunt Josie, pointing toward the dresser.
“Don’t anybody move,” Uncle Bud commanded and tore from the room.
Aunt Josie wouldn’t stand near that dresser, so she ran over to Beau and me and hugged me around the shoulders.
I’d opened my mouth to explain about Sneaky when Uncle Bud appeared in the doorway—coat hanger in one hand and nickel-plated pistol in the other.
“Bud! What do you think you’re doing with that gun?” Aunt Josie gasped and squeezed my shoulders so tight I thought I’d lose my breath.
“Stay back, Josie. I know what I’m doing. Leave me alone,” said Uncle Bud as he got down on all fours and started scratching the coat hanger under the dresser.
I’ve come to reason that when somebody, especially an adult, declares he knows what he’s doing and says to leave him alone that he usually doesn’t and you’d better.
While Uncle Bud crawled around the floor, the towel worked itself loose. Beau, curious, walked over and sniffed Uncle Bud’s bottom. Unfortunately, he got too close.
The next thing I know Uncle Bud lets out a holler and raises straight up crashing his head into the drawer I’d left open. The pistol went off, rattling the windows.
When the smoke cleared, Uncle Bud had knocked himself out and in the process shot off his middle finger!
Uncle Bud started bleeding all over the floor. Aunt Josie, crying, called for the Lord’s help. Beau hid under the table. I ‘bout wet my pants.
Aunt Josie pulled herself together enough to call the hospital. She told me to wait outside and bring ‘em in. She said she’d stay with Uncle Bud.
In less than five minutes, an ambulance fishtailed around the corner. Dan Edwards and Mike Cavanaugh got out and ran up carrying a stretcher. Dan, average height and a little potbellied, smiled a lot for no good reason. Mike, tall and skinny with the head of a chicken, walked with one shoulder lower than the other. He’d pulled his long brown hair into a pony tail.
I took ‘em in to Uncle Bud.
“God-all-mighty, he’s bleeding like a stuck pig!” Dan wasn’t known for his bedside manner.
“Look-a-here what I found.” Mike held up Uncle Bud’s finger.
“Gimme,” said Dan, digging out a handkerchief from his back pocket. “Sometimes they can sew ‘em back on.”
Dan and Mike fiddled with Uncle Bud while Aunt Josie and I watched helplessly. After they’d stopped the bleeding, they wrestled his 300 pounds to a belly-up position on the stretcher. The robe Aunt Josie threw over him fell off, and he showed himself again.
“Rip, get the front door,” Aunt Josie said. “I’m calling your Daddy. Be there directly.”
I opened the door and followed Dan and Mike out. Both cussed as they struggled with Uncle Bud.
Dan, leading, stumbled. Mike and I watched as Uncle Bud, stretcher and all, tumbled down the front steps. Uncle Bud had had better days.
Dan rung his hands and yelled at Mike to help him. As they gathered Uncle Bud up onto the stretcher, Dan nodded toward Uncle Bud and said, “Rip, if you won’t say anything about this mishap and the doctor can’t sew that finger back on, I’ll make sure you get it.”
Before I could answer, Aunt Josie ran out of the house, and off they went, siren blasting.
I sat on the front porch hugging my knees, thinking about what to tell Daddy. I remembered when Tommy Sanders’ dog wouldn’t stop chasing old man Kendrick’s goats and Tommy had to give him away. I reckoned, if Uncle Bud died, this sure beat chasing goats.
Daddy never did like the way Beau chewed up things. On occasions, he even referred to him as that “good-for-nothing dog.”
On the way to the hospital, I told Daddy everything that happened—except the part about Dan and Mike dropping Uncle Bud. For Beau’s sake, I tried not to make it sound so bad.
We walked into the waiting room. Aunt Josie sat perched on a green naugahyde sofa turning the pages of a Saturday Evening Post but not really seeing ‘em.
“How’s he doing, Josie?” Daddy said. Daddy usually referred to Uncle Bud as “that no-account-Bud,” but around Aunt Josie he always called him “he” or “your husband.”
When Aunt Josie said, “Doctor Malloy says he’ll be okay, Hoyt,” I thought I saw disappointment on Daddy’s face.
We heard the door open behind us and Aunt Lasa burst into the room. “Josie,” she said running over and giving Aunt Josie a one-armed hug, “everything’s going to be all right—doncha know? Why, while Bud’s laid up here, I bet he’ll lose fifty pounds. And since the best thing to take your mind off this is to go shopping, we’ll go pry you some money out of Paw Paw and buy that sofa you’ve been talking about—doncha know?”
Aunt Josie was in good hands, so Daddy turned me around, and we left to pick up Beau and my stuff.
I said nothing until we pulled into the driveway then said, “Daddy, what are you going to do about Beau?”
Daddy thought a minute, cleared his throat, looked at me, and, as a big smile stretched across his face, said, “One thing I’m not going to do. I’m not ever going to call Beau a ‘good-for-nothing dog’ again.”
Daddy and Beau became best friends. I never did tell anybody about Dan and Mike dropping Uncle Bud, even when they tried to figure out how he broke his wrist.
Dan came through. I’ve got the finger in a little bottle of formaldehyde hid under the house. Mike offered me $5.00 for it, but I’m gonna hang onto it a while longer.
Aunt Lasa’s right. It’s a mighty bad bundle that doesn’t have a little good stuffed into it somewhere—doncha know?
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TOM DAVIS’ publishing credits include Poets Forum, The Carolina Runner, Triathlon Today, Georgia Athlete, Proud to Be: Writings by American Warriors Vol. 3, A Loving Voice Vol. I and II, Special Warfare., and Winston-Salem Writers’ POETRY IN PLAIN SIGHT program for May 2013 (poetry month).
He’s authored the following books: The Life and Times of Rip Jackson, The Most Fun I Ever Had With My Clothes On, The Patrol Order; and The R-complex.
Tom lives in Webster, NC.
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Available to Order: Tom Davis’ Memoir, The Most Fun I Ever Had With My Clothes On: A March from Private to Colonel. http://www.oldmp.com/davismemoirs
