by Larry Brown
He took a deep breath and lowered his nose and mouth back into the water. That took some of the strain off his back, and he sat there, with the sun-heated water waving in his hair, holding his breath and fumbling with the latch on the safety belt, just his eyes sticking up above the water. Of all the stupid-ass things to do.
He had to do something quick. He wondered if he could get to his knife and cut the safety belt. It was made from a piece of nylon strapping about two or three inches wide, and his knife was sharp, but the belt was tight across his left front pocket where the knife was, and he couldn’t get his hand underneath it easily. He was scared to move too much, afraid the tractor would slide on down in the soft mud in the bottom of the pond. He believed he could feel it creeping that way just a bit at a time, because it was getting harder to hold his head out of the water. He tried again to get his hand in his pocket, but it wouldn’t go. And the belt wouldn’t unlatch. He knew what he was going to have to do. He was going to have to get hold of the rim of the seat with his broken right arm and try to push himself down in the seat enough to take the pressure off the safety belt, and that was going to hurt. But he’d been hurt before. He’d fallen fifteen feet off the roof of his house one time, putting some tar around the flashing on his chimney, and broken his ankle. Took him three months to get over that. He’d been slammed into the side of the barn by a bad bull one day and had broken five ribs. Took him a month to get over that, lying in a bed hurting and taking aspirins. A brindle cow had knocked two of his jaw teeth out with a horn one day. He shot her with something like pleasure even though she was worth about five hundred dollars. A strand of barbed wire he’d been stretching across some posts had snapped once and cut him up something terrible. Blood all over him when he went back to the house, like to scared his wife to death. Took eighty-seven stitches for old Doctor Little uptown to sew him up from that one. But he was going to die right now today if he didn’t get that safety belt unlatched. So he lifted his broken arm and made his hand go to the rim of the seat and he pushed on it. And cried out when he did. He could feel the broken bone ends rubbing together. He could hear them. It hurt about as bad as anything he’d ever had hurt, maybe worse than when he’d passed some kidney stones ten years back and pissed blood, too.
“Lord God!” he said aloud, and hot tears squeezed from his eyes. But his left hand found the button on the safety belt and he felt it release. He grabbed the steering wheel and slid off the seat deeper into the water, but his foot was still hung. His right arm was screaming with fire inside. He was kind of squatting on the right side of the tractor, trying to get his foot loose, but it wouldn’t come. And if the tractor slid any deeper into the water it was going to pull him down with it. He didn’t know why his foot wouldn’t come loose. He couldn’t understand why it was hung. He guessed the jolt had slid him sideways in the seat, even with the belt on, and he was still twisted around, and his face kept going down in the water.
And then he thought to himself, with some kind of detached peace that came upon him without warning: What the hell you struggling so hard for? You had seventy-two years. Which is more than lots of people get. Had children. Had women. Raised cows and cotton. You done what you wanted to all this time. And you known all this time one day you’d have to answer for all that other stuff. For her. For her baby. Everybody dies so what’s wrong with today? It’s a pretty day. Let go, old man.
But he couldn’t let go. He wanted to see Lucinda again. And he wanted to see these fish grow. So he struggled back up out of the water and tried to gain his strength back. He thought the tractor had stopped moving. But his foot was hung and he’d have to stick his whole head underwater to try and get a better angle for pulling it loose. And that was going to be impossible to do with one broken arm. He figured that his foot was between the side of the transmission and the mud. He could feel pressure bearing down on it, but it didn’t hurt. Maybe that meant it was hurt bad. Or maybe the blood was cut off.
And then he realized again that he was surely going to die. He was on the side of the pond that couldn’t be seen from the road, and nobody was going to come along and see him down here. Somebody would have to walk right down here to be able to see him. So that meant nobody was going to come. Or not until it was too late. He couldn’t just lie here in this water for days. He’d finally get so tired he’d have to put his head down and that would be it. He’d strangle to death on water. His own water. The water he had hoped and wished and almost prayed for.
No, nobody was going to come along. He was going to stay right here for a couple of miserable days and then he was going to drown. Hell. They might not even find him until the buzzards started circling. Which they would. They’d spot a dead cow within an hour if she was out in the open. They’d find him soon enough. He remembered again the hordes of them walking the backs of the dead fish in the river all those years ago.
And then that little boy who lived down the road in that trailer, the one with the go-kart, the one he’d yelled at to get the hell off his place, was wading out in the water toward him with a piece of rubber hose in his hand. He had a scared face and what looked like a pair of binoculars around his neck. But he kept on coming.
“Get back!” Cortez said. Then he said: “You know how to swim?”
“No sir,” the little boy said. He’d stopped, standing in almost waist-deep water. Holding that piece of rubber hose. And where had he seen that before? Now he knew. He’d seen two pieces of it. Lying there at the bank on the shallow end, just on the other side of the tractor. He’d thought maybe the dozer guy had broken a hydraulic line on his dozer and had fixed it out there, but then he remembered that he hadn’t seen the pieces of hose until after the fish man had come and gone.
“You can breathe through this,” the little boy said. “I saw it on a movie.”
Cortez was getting tired and he couldn’t help letting some water get into his mouth, and he kept spitting it out. Some went down his throat and he coughed a couple of times.
“I’m gonna climb up on the wheel,” the little boy said.
“Be careful,” Cortez said, and it was all he could think of to say.
The little boy waded on out, almost up to his chest, and then he caught hold of the big black cleats on the huge back tire that was sticking out of the water and he started pulling himself up on it.
“Hold on,” the little boy said. “I’m coming.”
And he was. Like a monkey or a trained acrobat. He clambered up on the side of the wheel and he knelt there with water dripping from his clothes and tried to reach for Cortez’s hand. Cortez put his hand up and he felt the little boy’s fingers, small, soft. Raif’s had felt like that. He held on to them. Deep shame flooded his whole face. The way he’d yelled at him.
“Here,” the little boy said, and handed him the piece of rubber hose. Cortez knew exactly what he meant. Put it in his mouth and breathe through it underwater. But he didn’t think he could do it. Not with one arm broken. He handed it back and held on to the steering wheel again. His arm was killing him.
“I can’t use that. You got to go call for help,” Cortez said.
“Yes sir, I already did,” the little boy said. “I run home and done that soon as I seen you tump over.”
“You did?” Cortez said.
“Yes sir.” Looking down at him from the tractor tire. Not that far away. A few feet. He had freckles and a crew cut. His teeth were real bad. That was a damn shame, to let a kid’s teeth get into that kind of shape. Why in the hell didn’t his daddy take him to the dentist? Or his mama?
“Who’d you call?” Cortez said.
“Nine one one,” the little boy said. “Lafayette County Fire Department. They on the way right now.”
Cortez lay there in the water and looked at him. It was kind of hard to look at him. The little boy even smiled at him.
“What’s your name?” Cortez said.
“Jimmy,” the little boy said.
Cortez nodded at him, water dripping from
his nose. He could feel some of it drying from the sun, which was hot on his face.
“I’m sorry about hollering at you,” he said.
“That’s all right,” the little boy said. “You Mister Sharp, ain’t you?”
“Yeah I am,” Cortez said. “You can just call me Mister Cortez if you want to.”
“They’ll be here fore long, Mister Cortez,” the little boy said. “I’m gonna stay right here with you,” he added.
Cortez nodded, and it was hard for him to swallow, but he did.
“I thank you,” he said.
[…]
48
It was quiet in the hospital room now, finally, at last. It was late and the nurses had turned the lights down in his room. The TV up on a high shelf in front of Cortez’s bed was flickering dim bursts of color over the sheet that covered his legs. He had the volume turned down and he’d already found out that the hospital TV didn’t have nearly as many channels as the system he had at home. They didn’t even have the Western Channel up here. His foot was sore but okay.
His arm didn’t feel too bad now. It was throbbing a little was all, and they’d given him something for pain. It had a cast on it and he was ready to go on home, but they wouldn’t let him yet. They were keeping him overnight for observation. They said. Shit. They were just trying to squeeze some more money out of his insurance company. He hated having to wear the little hospital gown. He’d been admitted too late for supper, but one of the nurses had gone down to the kitchen and had brought him up a banana and some pudding and some cereal with milk. He was still kind of hungry, but he didn’t guess you could get anything else around here to eat at this time of night. He’d have to wait for breakfast. But the nurses had said that it came early. Maybe they’d let him go home after he ate breakfast. He sure hoped so. Being up in here made you think about dying.
And he didn’t like this bed. He was used to his own bed and he didn’t think he was going to be able to sleep in this damn thing. It was hard. And it wasn’t big enough for him. And he wasn’t a damn bit sleepy anyway. He’d called Toby and told him where he was, and Toby had come down to see him, and they’d talked some in his room. Toby had tried to talk him into calling Lucinda and letting her know what had happened, but he wouldn’t do it. He was afraid she’d come over and bring that retard with her and he didn’t think he could handle that right now. He told Toby he’d call her later, after he got back home. If they let him out tomorrow, Toby was going to come get him and take him home. Cortez had made the ambulance crew take him down to his house so he could get his keys from his truck and lock the house and water the heifers before they took him to the hospital. They’d acted like they didn’t want to do it at first until he’d started coming off the cot and going for the door, and then they’d changed their minds. He wasn’t about to leave his house unlocked all night long. Too many thieves running around these days. And if they thought he was going to go off without watering his stock, they were nutty as a fruitcake.
He’d been lying there thinking about that little boy. Jimmy. Couldn’t swim but stayed there in the water with him the whole time. He was going to do something for that boy. He didn’t know what yet. But he was going to do something nice for him. He knew one thing already he was going to do for him. As soon as he got out of the hospital and got back home, he was going to drive over to that trailer and knock on the door and ask whoever answered the door if the little boy was home, and if he was, he was going to tell him how much he appreciated what he’d done, and then he was going to tell him he could go fishing in the pond any time he wanted to. That was about the least he could do for him. And the fish weren’t big now, for sure, but by next year, they’d be ready. Especially if he fed them until the water turned cold. That ought to be at least another month. What he wished he could do was buy something for that boy. He didn’t know what. A fishing pole maybe? What about a nice rod and reel? But he probably already had a rod and reel. He probably went fishing with his daddy. Cortez had seen some fishing poles sticking out the back window of that ’56 a few times. That boy’s daddy had probably already bought a rod and reel for him. But it didn’t matter. He could always get him another one. It wouldn’t hurt anything for a little boy to have two fishing poles. Maybe one for Sundays.
He was worried as hell about his tractor, too. Somebody from the fire department had called down to the hospital earlier and told him the wrecker had gotten it out okay, and that it didn’t look like anything was damaged on it, and that they’d left it sitting at the side of the pond, but Cortez was afraid water had gotten into the motor, or the fuel lines, or the fuel tank, and he knew he was going to have to call the John Deere dealer, probably the one down at Batesville, and tell them what had happened and get them to bring their big trailer up here and load it and take it back to their shop and do whatever they’d have to do to get it back running. He couldn’t do without his tractor. Not with winter coming in a few more months and him having to move hay bales for his cows. And he still needed to put in those fence posts down by the creek. Shit. Maybe he ought to just buy a new one. One with a glassed-in cab. He’d seen those boys who were raising cotton down on DeLay Road on their big tractors and they all had glassed-in cabs. Air-conditioned. And they had heaters you could turn on in the winter. It sure would make it nice, hauling that hay around in February when everything was so muddy and cold. But he still needed to get the 4020 fixed and not let it just sit there with water inside the motor. If he bought a new one he’d need it in good shape for the trade-in.
He heard a knock on the door and the door opened and another nurse came in. She was older than the other nurses, and gray haired, and she’d been in before, and Cortez had noticed that she had a nice big butt on her, just like he liked, and that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. He pulled the sheet up over him a little higher and she walked over to the bed. Her name was Carol.
“You awake?” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “This bed ain’t big enough for me to stretch out good.”
“They all the same size up here,” she said. “I got to take your temperature again.” […]
“How’s your arm feel?” she said, country as hell.
“It’s all right.”
“It ain’t hurting?”
“Not too bad.”
“Want me to get you something for pain?”
“Naw, I’m fine.”
He sat there. He was wanting to maybe flirt with her a little bit, but it had been so long he’d about forgotten how. He looked up at her. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get out of here. She was still pretty.
“I wish I had something else to eat,” he said.
She moved closer and moved his pillow a little and adjusted it for him some. Brushing him with her hands. A soft breast nudged the side of his head. Accidentally? Hell no. They always let you know. By look or touch.
“What you want, honey?” she said.
Honey, huh? He wondered if she’d go out with him. But if they went out, where in the hell would they go? He didn’t know any place to take a woman. But the whole town seemed to be full of restaurants now. He guessed he could take her to one of them.
“What they got?” he said.
“The kitchen’s closed,” she said. “But they’s a machine down on the first floor has food in it.”
“Like what?”
She slipped the thermometer into a pocket of her uniform and put her hands on the rail of his bed. Her hands didn’t have nearly as many liver spots as his. And she was still a well-built woman.
“They’ve got hamburgers and hot dogs,” she said. “I think they keep some pie in there.”
“What kind?” he said.
“I don’t know. Probably chess or pecan. You want me to go down and look and get you a piece if they have some?”
“You don’t mind?” he said.
She patted him on the shoulder.
“I don’t mind a bit,” she said. She stood there and looked down on him. “We don
’t have many patients on the floor tonight. You lucky you didn’t get killed.”
He wondered what she’d been before becoming what she was now. Did she have kids? Had she been a homemaker? Was she a grandmother?
“I know it,” he said. “I been driving a tractor fifty years and I never thought I’d roll one of mine.”
“Maybe it’s time for you to stop driving it,” she said.
“I can’t,” he said. “I got to feed my cows this winter.”
“Or maybe just sell them cows,” she said. “Most people your age have done retired.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know. And most of em’s right down the hill there at the old folks home in wheelchairs, hoping somebody’ll come see em.”
Cortez liked her. He started to ask her how old she was, but he didn’t want to do that since it seemed nosy. Instead he said, “You got a boyfriend?”
And she laughed. He liked her laugh, too.
“I ain’t had one of them in a long time,” she said. “Last one I went out with was nothing but a drunk. And I’d already put up with one of them for thirty years. My husband.”
“You ain’t married to him no more?” Cortez said.
“He died,” she said. “Cirrhosis of the liver. It took him a long time to kill his self but he finally did it.”
“I’m a widow, too,” Cortez said.
“I’m sorry,” she said, but she didn’t look that sorry to him.
“That’s all right,” Cortez said. “All she did was gripe and holler at me through this damn police bullhorn she had when I was out on my tractor trying to work.”
“Well,” the nurse said, and tried to hide a smile. She was just standing there, but her hand came out and touched him on the shoulder again. He knew he had a date then.
