A Miracle of Catfish (48 page)

“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.

[…]

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.

They let him out the next morning about ten o'clock and Toby was there waiting in his room while Cortez changed back into his overalls. They had some stupid rule in the hospital where anybody who got discharged had to ride a wheelchair down in the elevator and then get picked up out front. He started to argue at first and then realized that the quicker he got into the wheelchair, the quicker he could get the hell out of here. So he got into it and Toby went out the back way to get his minivan. […]

The automatic doors opened and the nurse pushed him out onto a concrete apron and then stopped the chair just short of the drive. […] He saw Toby's minivan pulling around at the far end of the parking lot and he started getting up.

“There's my ride,” he said, and the nurse helped him, not that he needed it. Just because you were old, people thought you were feeble. He didn't need anybody helping him stand up.

Toby pulled his minivan to a stop right in front of Cortez, and he started to get out and come around, but the nurse opened the door for him and Cortez sat down in it.

[…]

“You got all your stuff?” Toby said.

“I didn't have nothing,” Cortez said.

“Okay, then,” Toby said, and he took his foot off the brake and they started rolling in a tight circle to get out of the entrance. “You need to go anywhere before you go home?”

“Yeah,” Cortez said. “If you don't care. I need to run out to Wal-Mart for a minute. I want to see about a good rod and reel.”

“You in the market for a new one?” Toby said.

“Yes sir,” Cortez said. “I am today.”

When they got out on the bypass, some old guy was out in the ditch with a garbage bag, picking up cans.

Jimmy woke up that same morning and his tooth was hurting really bad. Worse than bad. It was the worst thing he'd ever felt. It had been hurting pretty bad when he'd gone to bed the night before, but he hadn't wanted to tell anybody because he still didn't want to have to go see the dentist, so he'd just slipped a couple of aspirin out of the medicine cabinet and taken them with a glass of water, and then gotten into bed. It was Thursday. A school day. But the pain had caused Jimmy to wake up early, and now he was standing in the dark hall with his hand pressed against the side of his mouth, with bolts of pain shooting through his whole head. His mama and daddy were both still asleep. His daddy didn't usually get up until six, and sometimes his mama got up and fixed breakfast for Jimmy and Evelyn and Velma, but it was often only cereal, which of course beat nothing. Bacon and eggs would have been a lot better, maybe with some pancakes, but Jimmy didn't get that too much on school mornings. His mama had been staying up later and later, even during the week, and sometimes it caused her to sleep past the time for Jimmy and his half sisters to get outside and wait for the school bus. But Jimmy didn't know how he could get on the school bus today. He was afraid he was going to have to go to the dentist. And he was going to have to wake his mama and his daddy up. He didn't want to, because he knew he wasn't supposed to go into his parents' room if the door was closed, but he had to. His tooth was hurting so bad that tears were squeezing from his eyes.