No More Bullies

by Frank Peretti

  “Are you okay?” Gene yelled loudly.

  Joyce pushed herself back up in the seat. She put her hands under her bulging abdomen and pulled gently. “Yes, I think so.” She straightened her rumpled, heavy coat covering the baby. “I don’t think we hit the dashboard.”

  Gene let his head drop backward on the top of the seat as he exhaled a sigh of relief. “Thank You, Lord.”

  “What happened?”

  Nothing came to mind. “I don’t know, but I better find out.”

  “Yes, please.” Joyce winced as she felt another contraction grip her body.

  Gene reached for his wool cap. “Stay right here. I’ll see what we’re looking at.” He put on the cap and grabbed his wool scarf. “Make sure the car keeps running so the heater will work; give it some gas once in a while so it doesn’t stall.”

  “You be careful.”

  “I will. Don’t worry.” He wrapped his scarf tightly around his neck, put on his gloves, and opened the car door. The bitter cold air, filled with icy flakes, poured into the car as if into a vacuum. He quickly stepped out into the snow, slamming the door behind him.

  The Ford’s headlights lit the area in front of the car, but it was difficult to see into the front wheel well. As Gene’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, he stooped down, felt for the tire—and felt nothing. No tire, no wheel. Only the lug nuts remained, still fastened to the brake drum. He squinted in the darkness, peering through the blowing snow, trying to trace any track the departing wheel might have left. It could have landed in a nearby ditch, but searching for it would be next to impossible.

  The car had a spare, mounted on a wheel, of course, so that option made perfect sense. He could replace the lost wheel with the spare, just as if he were changing a flat tire. Tomorrow in the daylight, after Joyce and their new baby were comfortable in the hospital, he could return and maybe find his other tire.

  The trunk lid groaned and snapped away the ice in its seams as Gene opened it. He groped, found the spare, then loosened the clamp and pulled it out. He let it bounce on the ice—Good! It still has air in it!—then rolled it to the front of the car where he leaned it against the fender to keep it out of the snow. Now for the tire jack. He shuffled back through the snow to the trunk.

  He quickly found a tire iron, but his groping hand couldn’t encounter a jack no matter where he searched.

  Then it hit him, like a sledgehammer in the stomach: I left the tire jack in the school bus!

  He’d been driving the school bus to make some extra income—pastors of small, rural churches often did that sort of thing—and he’d needed the jack aboard the bus last week. That’s where it was, right where he’d left it. He sagged against the rear of the car, filled with frustration for such an oversight. His wife was in labor, their car was slouched forward on three wheels, it was thirty-two below, it was dark, and he had to replace a tire without a jack!

  What to do, what to do? Think! He looked through the car window. Joyce had leaned back on the front seat, her eyes closed, no doubt confident that her loving husband could rectify whatever the trouble was and they’d soon be on their way to the hospital. No use in frightening her. Let her rest.

  What to do? He prayed, “Oh, Lord, help us. There’s nobody around for miles, and we’re about to have a baby in the freezing cold. What can I do?”

  Looking around for an answer, any answer, his eyes fell on a road sign just within the car’s headlights, a yellow diamond with a bent black arrow advising of a left turn ahead. It was bolted to a four-inch-by-four-inch post. A long post. Eight feet of it was above the ground, and there had to be at least another two feet under the ground.

  A lever.

  He needed a fulcrum. He peered into the dark trunk and spied his old, metal toolbox. It was only about eighteen inches long, ten inches wide, and about twelve inches deep, but it was rugged and strong. He pulled the box from the trunk and set it next to the bumper of the car, his gloves sticking to the metal in the cold.

  Now to get that post out of the ground. The storm and the snowplows had piled the snow waist-deep around it. Gene pushed his way through, and then he dropped to his knees and dug the snow away with his gloved hands. The ground beneath was hard and crystalline with ice. He attacked it with the tire iron, gouging and chipping, scooping up the loose chunks with his hands. He dug and dug, the knees of his pants soaking through, his eyes watering, his nose running, the frost forming on his eyebrows, sweat pouring down his face despite the bitter cold. How deep does the highway department put these poles, anyhow? He stood up and wrestled with the post. It wiggled!

  Gene dropped to his knees again, digging faster, gouging harder, his breath turning to ice in the car’s headlights. He stood and slammed into the post with his shoulder, so focused on the task and so cold, he barely noticed the resulting bruise. He went to the other side and rammed it the other way. He slammed into it a few more times, back and forth. More digging and gouging, then some shaking, pulling, heaving one direction then the other. It had to come out. It couldn’t be much deeper. Got to keep—

  The sign tipped over.

  With a desperate heave, Gene pulled the signpost off the ground and dragged it over the snow to the front left side of the car. His toolbox, his fulcrum, was ready. He pushed the part of the post that had been in the ground under the car’s bumper and positioned the center of the post on top of the metal toolbox. The road sign at the other end lay flat, about fifteen inches off the ground. With the lever and fulcrum in place, he shoved the spare tire up against the wheel well. If he could raise the car just enough, long enough . . . if he could get the wheel on the lugs quickly enough. If. He might only get one chance at this.

  He tried the makeshift lever. He could make the car rock upward, lifting the axle and brake drum off the ground, but he couldn’t lift it far enough to get the wheel on. He needed more weight on the road sign. Gene looked around in the darkness, hoping that he might find a few rocks that he could pile on the sign, or maybe a heavy log. No such luck.

  There was only one thing to do. He looked through the window at his young wife. Ordinarily, she was a small, petite woman, but with the extra weight she had been carrying through the pregnancy, she could barely waddle from place to place. Gene breathed a silent prayer of thanks for Joyce’s extra pounds. Her weight, combined with his effort, might be their only hope.

  Gene opened the car door. “Joyce! I need your help!”

  The cold air shocked her awake. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I need you to get out of the car. Wrap up warm. And please don’t make any sudden moves. Just very carefully slide out of the car. Here, take my hand. I’ll help you.”

  Joyce reluctantly tightened her scarf around her neck, buttoned her coat, and put on her gloves. She moved her right leg toward the door, while Gene held both of her hands. Slowly, carefully, she slid her leg out and placed her foot awkwardly in the snow.

  “You’re doin’ fine, Joyce. Just go slow. Take it easy. I’ve got a good hold on you, so don’t worry; you won’t fall.”

  Joyce struggled to pull herself toward the doorway, getting colder with every moment. Finally, her left foot pushed down into the snow, and she eased upward, Gene’s strong hands and arms there to steady her. The moment she was standing, another contraction wracked her body, and she nearly tumbled over in pain. “Oh! Oh, Gene!”

  Gene held her tightly until the spasm passed, and then he slowly released his grip. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Joyce straightened as best she could. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to come over here and sit on this sign,” Gene said, leading his pregnant wife by the hand toward the driver’s side of the car. “Watch your step.”

  “Sit where? What are you talking about? Gene!”

  “Right over here.” Gene pointed to the road sign as he helped Joyce through the snow. “Careful now. All you have to do is sit on the sign and try to put as much weight on it as you can. We don’t
have a jack, but if you can bounce on the sign a bit, I think the car will come off the ground enough that I can get the spare tire on.”

  Joyce recognized her husband’s incredible presence of mind and ingenuity in rigging the lever and fulcrum from the post and toolbox in the freezing cold. She didn’t even bother to question whether it was dangerous for her or the baby to be bouncing on a road sign. She carefully stepped up to the sign, turned, and planted herself on it. Then, by pushing against the ground with her feet, she raised her end of the signpost for the first bounce. She relaxed her legs and let the sign sink beneath her.

  “Don’t bounce too hard!” Gene called, kneeling in the snow next to the wheel well, waiting for the precise moment when the car raised enough to slide the tire on. “I don’t want the post to snap.” With a grunt, he shoved the tire closer.

  The Ford inched off the ground, slightly at first, as the post caved in the top of the toolbox with a crunch.Another bounce, and the Ford creaked upward six more inches. They needed two more, if the lever could just hold long enough!

  Gene worked feverishly, shoving the tire into the wheel well. “Keep going! Sit as close to the end as you dare!” He put his shoulder under the wheel well, ready to push up with the next bounce. “One more bounce!” The signpost was bowing on the ends. It wouldn’t last much longer. “Once more, now! Bounce on it, now!”

  As Joyce bounced on the edge of the sign, the car eased upward just far enough. Gene slammed the wheel onto the lugs and held it while the car came back down on the tire.

  “Hallelujah!” he shouted, scrambling quickly to retrieve the lug nuts with his bare fingers. The cold bit into his skin, but he couldn’t care less. He had to get that tire secure. He twirled on one lug nut, then another, then another. His fingers felt like tree trunks as he reached for the tire iron to cinch down the nuts. The cold iron stuck to his hands but he kept working until—

  “Okay!” The tire was on, fit and snug.

  Joyce was still sitting on the road sign like a child on the low end of a teetertotter. Gene bounded through the snow to help her off the sign before she slipped into the snow.

  “We did it!” he cried as he wrapped his arms around her and helped her to her feet. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m okay. Just freezing!”

  He got her back in the car, closed her in against the cold, then he returned to that blessed, hardworking, God-sent road sign. Exhausted and nearly frozen, he mustered his strength, picked up the post, and lugged it back to where he’d found it, dropping it back in the hole. It was tilting a bit, but it was back on the job—not that many travelers might be along to see it anytime soon.

  Gene hurried to the car and jumped in behind the steering wheel. He tried to squeeze his fingers around the wheel, but it took several minutes before the feeling returned to his fingers enough for him to drive. “Thank You, Lord,” he said.

  “Yes, indeed. Thank You, sweet Jesus,” Joyce echoed. “And now, please help us get to the hospital.”

  Gene revved the engine that had continued running through the entire ordeal, and they were off again, Joyce’s contractions growing more frequent and more intense with each mile. When they finally arrived at the hospital, it was approaching 3:00 A.M. on Saturday morning. Gene left the car in front of the emergency entrance and ran in to find a doctor, a nurse, anyone who could help him get Joyce into the delivery room. At that hour there was no doctor, but he found a few orderlies.

  “Let’s just get her inside to a delivery room,” said one, “and then we’ll proceed from there!”

  “Here—please call our doctor.” Gene handed a piece of paper with the doctor’s name and phone number on it to one of the orderlies as a woman in a blue uniform whisked Joyce down the hall on a gurney. In those days, fathers were not permitted in the birthing room, so Gene was directed to a room where he was instructed to wait.

  Meanwhile, the intern took Joyce to an empty delivery room and helped her get situated. A nurse came in and told her, “We haven’t been able to reach your doctor by phone, but we’ll keep trying. Just try to relax, and don’t worry. We’ll be right down the hall in the nursery. Ring this buzzer if you need anything.”

  “But I’m—”

  “The important thing is that we don’t want the baby to come too soon. Don’t force anything. Give yourself time. That way when the doctor gets here, you’ll be ready.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be that long.”

  The nurse scowled. “Try to wait until the doctor gets here,” she said curtly. Then she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  Joyce lay flat on the gurney for what seemed like hours, enduring the contractions, counting the minutes between them. The contractions were coming very quickly now, and they were much stronger. The baby would be born soon. She reached for the buzzer and pressed the button. She waited, trying to relax, gathering her strength for the impending delivery.

  No nurse. She waited. And waited. She pressed the buzzer again. Still no nurse came through the door. The door was closed, and Joyce didn’t dare try to get off the gurney to call for help. She squeezed the buzzer again— harder, holding it there. Where are they? She could feel the baby pressing against her. “Help!” she called out. “Somebody, please! Help me! The baby’s coming!”

  Joyce squeezed the buzzer again, alternately pressing and releasing it, pressing and releasing. Wherever the buzzer was ringing—if it was ringing—somebody was bound to notice. Finally, a nurse she’d never seen before— she turned out to be the head nurse from the floor below— came running into her room, took one look at her, and slapped an ether mask over Joyce’s face. That was the last thing Joyce recalled. She still had not seen a doctor. She’d hardly even seen a nurse.

  Sometime later—how much later, no one knows—the doctor finally arrived from his amblings somewhere out in the cosmos and got involved with the birth of the child. Because of the forced delay in delivery, the baby had shifted around to a near breech position.

  “Forceps!” he called to the nurse. She slapped them into his hand, and he managed to clamp them around the baby’s head. They had to reposition the baby to be born naturally. There was no time for a Cesarean section at this point. The baby needed to be born now . . . or never. They worked feverishly, pressing on the mother’s abdomen, pulling on the forceps, repositioning, pressing, pulling. Finally, with one last yank, the baby was born.

  But not without injury. At some point the forceps had slipped off the head and traumatized the right side of the neck just under the jaw. No matter. The little boy was badly bruised, but he was breathing and very much alive!

  A short while later, the doctor stepped into the waiting room where Gene was pacing anxiously. “Congratulations, Mr. Peretti. It’s a boy.”

  Gene made it to the recovery room only moments after Joyce woke up. In her arms lay a baby boy, his eyes closed, his tiny body bundled in blankets. “Oh, Joyce!” Gene gushed through tears of joy. “Thank You, God! Thank You for this new life.” He kissed Joyce lightly on the forehead and gazed lovingly at their child. “So, I guess we’re naming him Frank Edward.”

  Joyce smiled. “Mm-hm.” They’d already discussed what they would name the child once they knew its gender. They would name a boy after Joyce’s brother Franklin and give him Gene’s middle name. “Frank Edward.”

  “Hello, Frank! Nice to have you with us.” Curiosity, and then concern, quelled his smile. He fingered the blanket away from the baby’s neck. “What’s this?”

  “The doctor said it was nothing to worry about,” Joyce replied, but her voice was troubled, unbelieving. She lifted the child and turned him gently. The baby’s head just wouldn’t lie naturally. The neck seemed strangely crooked. “Do you think something’s wrong?”

  Gene stroked the tiny head and said nothing.

  “Gene?”

  Their eyes met, and neither could hide what each was sure of.

  Something was wrong with their child.

&nb
sp; COMPLICATIONS

  Chapter Three

  It’s called cystic hygroma, defined by the medical dictionary as “a lesion caused by a mass of dilated lymphatics, due to the failure of the embryonic lymphatics to connect with the venous system.” It’s a birth defect that usually develops on the side of the neck, so I suppose the role of the doctor’s forceps in delivering me is debatable. Whatever the case, the folks at the hospital never got a clue—or never wanted one.

  As was customary in 1951, Mom’s doctor insisted that she stay in the hospital for several days before he would discharge her, and those days became a disconcerting la-la land of denial on the part of the medical staff. My head still rested awkwardly, I wasn’t eating much, and what little nourishment I could handle didn’t stay with me long. Whenever Mom expressed her concerns to the doctor and nurses, they all pooh-poohed the problem. “Don’t you worry, Mrs. Peretti. You’re gonna have a big, strong boy there. Just like his dad.”

  Mom also asked about the small lump on the side of my neck.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Mom’s nurse assured her. “The doctor used forceps to help draw the baby out during birth, so it’s probably just a little bruise. It will clear up in a matter of days, and your baby will be fine.”

  Well, they were the medical experts, weren’t they? Mom and Dad accepted the assessment and took me home, fully expecting the lump to dissolve within a few days.

  It didn’t.

  Instead, it grew larger . . . and larger. Within a month, the lump on my neck had swollen to the size of a baseball. I could barely swallow.

  As God’s providence—oh, so mysterious and so painful at the time—would have it, Dad’s ministry at the little church came to an end, and it was time to move on. Dad’s folks, my grandparents, lived in Seattle, so we traveled there to live with them while Mom and Dad figured out the next direction for their life and family. Concerned that the lump on my throat was expanding, Mom took me to another doctor, to get a second opinion. This physician took one look at my neck and declared emphatically, “We need to get him to the hospital right away!”