ch.10
between a rock and a hard place
lee returned to the farm after taking couple of steers into bellaire auction house. lee had some bills that were pestering him and he felt he needed to pay to get them off his back. lee thought to himself , it sure seems as if all i get done is fight fires , as soon as you get one thing under control, something else flares up, oh please someone give me some relief. the amish lumber yards were screaming for wood to harvest and his farm had plenty. he could use this also to pay bills but in some ways would it would be against what he stands for. lee felt his job as steward of the land was failing as he was no longer in charge of the debt . it was in control of him , and through no fault to lee.
carl always thought insurance was something he could do without. if one was to ask him and he would say , thirty years of milking and farming and he never needed insurance once. but in one fell swoop darla needed it once and for all. the neighbors banded together and performed charity drives , and then there was the benefit auction to help them pay their bills. lee went around the farm gathering anything that would sell and put it in the auction. the neighbors paid to much for everything, but it was nice to see a group of people come together for carl and darla. darla was able to attend the thank you party lee held for everyone involved on the farm . darla sat at the main table and greeted one after another as if to say goodbye to all. a week later she as under chemo and by the time of her death, looked like a different woman laying in the casket as her body had withered in her final days.
any thoughts of carl grieving for lee's mom were quickly dispelled, he didnt help with any of the funeral arrangements and was actually mad she wasn't there to wait on him hand and foot. in her later months, darla wasn't helping anyone . instead it was lee's sister who was doing all the work for the most part till she couldn't do it, as it required a nurse. then it was a nursing facility she went to . carl never once visited her there, instead often wondered why she wasn't there to take care of him. darla was a rock and understood carl was sick and urged the family to be patient with him. lee thought at times at what carl said to him many times growing. up . maybe a good whack to the head with a 2 x 4 will get his attention. his wife of 56 years lay in a hospital bed with cancer , and the least he could do was make an effort to see her . but he didn't. not even when he knew she was going to die.
lee thought to himself . yeah he is sick , that self righteous old hypocrite. moans and whines because no one likes him but the old son of a bitch couldn't take the time to see his dying wife on her deathbed. lee found it hard to take care of carl for days and weeks following the funeral. lee stayed home with his dad as no one else could handle him once he finally figured out she was gone. in moments of lucidity carl would cry out for her and at other times he cried wondering why she left him alone there on the farm. he acted out and was combative at times till lee had the dr. order a life saving nerve pill for carl. lifesaving and nerve pill are often not used in the same sentence except when dealing with carl. if the dr,. would not have prescribed the pill then most assuredly lee would have killed the man by now. all the more reason not to take him to the nursing home or the the graveside to see darla one last time. . lee in some ways was glad to avoid the scene he would have caused if he had been there . lee was not quite sure of the outcome of what carl would have done, not out of pity for his wife, instead for himself, as he was now left alone.
the months after his mom passed away were tough as carl 's mind never really settled on the fact his wife was gone, and at times sat and looked down the lane waiting for her to appear. or he would ask lee where she was. lee would make an attempt at telling the truth but carl would immediately call him a liar, and ungrateful shit. lee just sucked in his breath and just went on with what he was doing. this was tiring lee out emotionally and physically. lee could much more easily take care of the 50 beef cows they had, then spend ten minutes caring for his dad. as he was thinking this. that is when his dad yelled from the bathroom.
" goddamnit lee get in here , give me a hand!' carl yelled.
" just a second dad what is it?" lee asked . emergency's were common place with his dad . as nothing could be more important than his wants and needs at any given moment. also lee knew carl was in the bathroom and it just wasn't the place that lee liked helping his dad. still lee rushed to see what the commotion was as he had thought he heard his dad fall. and he did.
carl had one foot, in through his walker as he lay in a crumpled up mess at the foot of the toilet , his sweat pants around his ankles and toilet paper streaming from the crack of his butt. the floor was wet from urine and his head was bleeding from were he cracked his head against the tub as he was going down. lee rushed to the phone and called 911 gave instructions on where he was in the house , and then went to the door and propped it open, as the cold winter wind rushed into the house to purge the stale air within. he ran back to the bathroom and extricated his dad from the walker and then just turned his dad around and sat him up against the tub. still in a sitting position and he pulled the toilet paper from his legs where it was now entwined. lee asked his dad.
" how you doing dad?'
" you are dumber than you look, how the hell do you think i am doing" returned carl briskly. nothing wrong with his mind now lee thought as he grabbed a cold washcloth and applied it t the growing bump and laceration on his head, blood was everywhere. lee took another washcloth and dabbed at the streaks running down the old mans body , all the time pressing the first wash cloth to his lacerated scalp.
" goddamn sweat pants , got my foot caught in the crotch and it tripped me up. what happened to my overalls? help me get my pants on i look stupid." carl said grunting as he struggled to pull his pants up to no avail as he was still sitting on his bare ass on the linoleum floor.
" go get your mom and get here in here to help me. she is never around anymore when i need her."
" she's busy dad" lee said quickly realizing his dad was losing it . although he seemed to be ok except for the cut and bump he still was in la-la land when it came to reality. lee cleaned the blood out the cloth he was using to cover the wound on his head when he heard the sirens coming up the lane. lee looked at the cut and it was deep with a big goose egg on it. it was definitely needing stitches and he would go to the hospital.
lee managed to get his dad to hold the cloth to the wound and rolled him to one side and pulled his sweat pants on as far as he could and then he rolled him the other way and managed to get them kinda up , enough to cover all those parts one would hardly want to see on an old man in dire straights . as soon as he finished the medics were standing at the door of the bathroom with a gurney and a medic kit. they took over from lee and started asking questions. carl was silent as he sat there on the floor taking in what he could with his hand still pressed to the wash cloth lee asked him to hold. when asked, he released it and a fresh torrent of blood streamed down the side of his face. the medic grabbed a gauze pad and stopped the bleeding temporarily and started an iv. he was lifted onto the gurney and was soon in the ambulance and headed to the hospital . never again to return home. (to be cont. )
21
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