Paul turned to me as the Buick sputtered down the
street. “If you step out of line even once, I’ll call Uncle Billy and he’ll get
the county here to take you to the orphanage for the weekend.”
I snorted. “Wow, new friends. Get me in the girls
dormitory, huh?” Billy was a cop and it would not be surprising to see a police
car drive by a few times on the weekend. It was doubtful he would stop in
unless he saw other emergency vehicles on the scene.
And so at precisely 1:41 p.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time, June 20, 1959, Paul and I began life as the odd couple. I checked
my watch one more time. On Monday I wanted to be able to tell my friends how
many hours I had been left on my own. I wouldn’t mention the presence of my
older brother, who in any case wasn’t watching me. He shut himself in our
bedroom closet with a portable record player and his Bill Haley records. The
player’s power cord snaked out from under the door to a nearby electrical
outlet.
Twice I tipped the plug out of the socket momentarily
and the record slowed down. From behind the door I heard him swear and punch
the little player until I coughed and he realized what was happening. He chased
me through the house and down the front stairs and part way down the street. But
that was the only excitement all afternoon. The neighbors didn’t start
hollering at us, so it turned out that all went well until after supper.
Around five o’clock Paul came out of the closet and made us a light supper. Except for
well timed derisive comments, I let him accomplish his work. Although Paul had
been assigned the cooking chores, he didn’t know how to cook any better than
me, but he was considered more careful around fire. Specifically, I wasn’t
allowed near the stove since curiosity got the better of me the month before
and I heated up a D cell battery in one of Mom’s Revere Ware copper bottomed
pots over an open flame. I did indeed employ a safety precaution by placing a
lid on the pot. You could still see the round impression on the ceiling left by
the lid when the battery blew up. The explosion made the neatest sound. Not a
bang, but a sharp whoosh with a green flash of flame shooting up from the pot.
When supper was
over we sat back and finished up a dessert of candy and bananas. I noticed Paul
massaging his chest.
“I think I’m having a heart attack,” he said and
leaned forward hunching his shoulders. We hadn’t even begun to argue about who
would wash or dry the two plates and two milk glasses.
“You can’t have a heart attack,” I said. “You’re only
sixteen.” But he really didn’t look so good. His face was pale and he wheezed
with each breath.
“My chest hurts something awful,” he said.
“It’s the
peanut butter and fried baloney sandwiches you made us,” I said. “Topped off
with the marshmallow chocolate cookies and the chicken corn candy for dessert. It’s
called heartburn.”
“I don’t think so,” he moaned. “It really hurts.”
“Should I call Uncle Billy?” I said.
“Hell, no. Mom and Dad would never leave us alone
again. Ever.”
I was getting concerned. “But if it’s a real heart
attack, maybe we should—“
“Can’t you think of something? Remember the time you
said toothpaste would work for Athlete’s Foot? Well, it did.”
“It did?”
“You made it up?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “It was based on my long
experience in topical ointments.”
“You’re full of crap,” he said.
“Watch your tongue. I invented the use of ketchup for
itchy scalp.”
“It worked?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen Mrs. Bletcher on my
paper route since I recommended it to her. Seemed logical to me.”
“My chest really, really hurts,” he said and moaned
again.
I racked my brain and finally an idea came.
“Take the long
wooden spoon Mom uses for spaghetti and stick it down your throat as far as it
will go.”
“You mean, like a sword swallower?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Don’t swallow all of it. When it
hits bottom, with just an inch or two sticking up out of your mouth, twist it
around two or three times.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, it’ll mix up all the stomach acid with your food
and that’ll take care of the heartburn.”
Paul sat there silent, his face a mask of pain.
“It might
work,” I said, “if you don’t choke to death.”
He moaned again.
“Can you ride your bike?” I said.
“To where?
”The hospital. It’s only a mile or two over Pleasant Street. Maybe three.”
“I don’t think I can ride that far.”
“I’m sure it’s just heartburn,” I said.
He seemed to be getting worse as he pushed his
knuckles back and forth over his chest. I had to think of a solution.
Another helpful thought came to me. “Where’s the
Reader’s Digest Brain Surgery Manual?” That’s what we called the Home Health
and First Aid book Mom kept on a bookshelf in the living room. I went and got
it, brought it to the kitchen and thumbed through the heavy book waiting for my
older brother to get over what I hoped was a bad case of heartburn.
“Here’s a diagnosis chart in the book,” I said. “Let’s
go through it. Is the pain inside or outside the chest?”
“Inside.”
“Above or below the solar plexus?”
“What’s a solar plexus,” he said.
“If you don’t know what it is, you don’t have one. Left
side or right side?”
“The middle.”
“Well,” I said, “the middle more to the right or the
middle more to the left?”
“The middle of the middle.”
“Have you had this pain for over thirty days or less
than ten days or –“
“I just got it, for cripe’s sake!”
“Have you participated in any strenuous activity in
the past 24 hours? Lifted heavy objects or worked overtime?”
Paul ignored me.
“Does your skin possess a pallor or grayness?”
“I don’t know. Does it?”
“Just your hands from changing the bicycle tire this
morning. Is there pain in your left arm?”
“I’m calling a cab,” said Paul.
On the phone he gave our address and asked how long it
would take for a taxi to arrive. He said he needed to go to the hospital and
volunteered he might be having a heart attack, but refused the suggestion to
call an ambulance. “I’m only sixteen,” Paul told the dispatcher,” so I don’t
think it’s bad enough for an ambulance.” Dad would have his own heart attack if
he had to pay an ambulance bill.
The taxi cab arrived in fifteen minutes and pulled to
the curb in front of the house. Mom and Dad and Michael pulled in the driveway
seconds later as Paul and I were about to get in the cab. Gone only a few
hours, they surprised us.
“You guys are certainly traveling in style,” said my
father as he got out of our car and came over to the taxi. He didn’t look very
well, his summer tan now rather peaked.
Paul began to whine. “My chest hurts something awful,
Dad.”
“Paul’s having a heart attack,” I said.
Dad nodded and smiled. “No, he’s not. He’s got the
flu.”
Mom walked over to us and Michael ran along behind her
with his tin box. The tape was mostly off and trailed down like a ribbon..
“Your father has to go inside now and lie down,” Mom
said.
“What’s the matter with him,” asked Paul.
“He has a bad case of the flu. It hit him just as we
were leaving the city. We spent the afternoon in the hospital emergency room.”
“Thought I was having a heart attack,” Dad said.
“You’re OK, Paul, you’ll have the heartburn for a little while longer, but it
goes away when you start throwing up.”
“Thanks, Dad.” said Paul.”
“But that doesn’t last too long either,” said Dad. “When
the chills and the muscle pains start, the vomiting is over.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Paul said again.
“Good thing, too,” said Dad, “because that’s when your
other end cranks up.”
Paul was looking worse.
“I should go inside now, Dad.,” he said. “David will
give you his blessing.”
“I think I’ll wait for his ordination,” said Dad.
Mom lit another Chesterfield. “I’ll have to call the family and tell them why we
didn’t show up. Oh dear, they planned for us to stay overnight.”
Dad laughed. “They’ll forget all about us when they
get the gin and whiskey out.”
Over the next few days all five of us came down with
the symptoms. I told Michael we’d caught the flu from his Teddy Bear.
“Serves us right,” he said, “for stuffing him in a tin
box with only two air holes.”
copyright David Griffin, 2014
