I say “sit” but momentum grabs his shoulders and head over heels he disappears over the edge of the hay stack. Hold my breath but this time he groans, fuck. I am coming. Do not move. I am almost there. I butt myself down the bales like a slide. Come around stack. Tony is on his back, wedged in the corner. Blood on the floor. His knees are moving. His arms shift. Move your hands, let me see. Bald plate is scarlet with blood. It flows like a faucet. Clean cloth, where is a clean cloth. Towel in the tack room. I pull it out. Push it to the top of Tony’s bald head. Hold his leather gloved hand soaked with blood under my hand. Push. Push hard. I am running for the car. Border collies run against my heels. Open the hatch back, both dogs jump in. I am running to open the gates. My feet scratch against the gravel. I am running to grab my purse. Little yellow Focus to the barn door. Can you walk? Dizzy against me. Stagger to the car. I am running around the side of the car. I am driving. I am out to open the next gate and running to close it as soon as the Focus is through. I am running to the next gate and running to close it when the Focus is on the county road. Drive fast. Do not slow for curves. How are you. What is your social security number? Do you have a pen to write it down?
The border collies lick the blood off the back of his neck.
They put a collar on him. Tell him not to move. They ask him if we were fighting. If I pushed him. Why is he so skinny? His ribs show. I sign the papers. They say it doesn’t always hurt, a compression fracture of the atlas, just when you turn your neck: and then that’s all she wrote. Paralyzed. Don’t let him move they say to me now. CT scans will give us the bare boned truth.
Nurses, gray scrubs, are wheeling him off to radiology.
Then I am driving home to get the animals in before dark. I am leading them. Talking like this is nothing. Do not worry animals. Do not be nervous. Flow with me. The border collies run in front instead of behind. Border Collies know the truth. I give the other animals their grain. I leave the goat door open. The dogs get food in the kitchen. They both look at me with astonishment when I close them into the house. And then I am in second gear down the gravel driveway with all the gates wide open.
A broken neck. Paralyzed. Cross that bridge when we come to it I say in a phone message to somebody.
Tony is lying on the stretcher. The collar is off. He is covered with warm flannel blankets. No break he says.
The next day, Tony and I talk to the Mennonite tractor dealer. We tell him the old John Deere is not exactly what we are looking for. He says his father used to have one just like it. They have their place. We tell him about the accident. He tells us about almost getting crushed by a baler. God was talking to him he says. I watch his wife, her cap, white apron, the way her dress blows her across the parking lot. Sun so bright it sheers.
No comments:
Post a Comment