- Tinker Toys and Fireplace Pokers -
-( 1997 )----------
Sherry had barely even finished thinking that thought before
she counter-thought to herself, “What the hell am I thinking? Anything makes taking an order for six
hundred gross containers of 5/16” diameter ball bearings seem drastically
bland!”
JP had explained to her how he had suffered a horrible accident
when he was five years old which had resulted in the loss of his right eye. He
had gone on to tell her, including the preface, “as unbelievable and crazy as
this may sound,” of a procedure he
had quite recently read about wherein it might be possible to regain the sight
in the affected eye. He admitted to her that the procedure appeared to be quite unorthodox and questionable to say the least. But when you’ve lived the last
twenty years with half your normal sight and you hear of news that may return
your vision to normal, no matter how far south of “alternative” the procedure may be, it’s a road you owe to
yourself to explore.
Sherry leaned back in her office chair and raised her hands
up to the sides of her head. As she closed her eyes, she rubbed the tips of her
fingers hard into her temples in an attempt to massage the thought process into
adequately interpreting the feasibility of JP’s fantastic tale. She leaned
further back in her chair – her fingers continuing along the sides of her head
until they met and interlocked with each other behind her neck. She sat there,
motionless – staring out the front window – not focusing on anything. Thinking.
After a few moments, Sherry sat upright, reached across her desk and picked up the phone. She punched in the number
for New Orleans directory assistance.
“Directory assistance – what city please?”
“Yes,” answered Sherry, "New Orleans please. I need a number
for La Ficelle - Mam'zelle Louise Ficelle.
-( 1986 )----------
Dr B sat at the terminal at DFW Airport waiting for his trans-Atlantic flight. Looking at his watch, he noted that he still had nearly an hour before
the plane would start to board. Once on board, and once they wait for what always
seems like ten times longer than it needs to be while other passengers take
their sweet time at finding a place to stuff their carry-on luggage and refuse
to promptly find their seats and properly buckle themselves in – and then once
they wait a little while longer while the flight attendants go up and down the
aisle asking those same people (all of whom
know darn good and well that they need to keep their seats upright and table
trays in the locked position until the flight is well underway) to put
their seats upright and to return their trays to the locked position – then and
only then will the captain pull away from the gate. After that ordeal, it will be a simple matter of spending the
next twenty-four and a half hours on the plane – stopping briefly in Atlanta and
then De Gaulle in Paris – before landing at Ivata Airport just outside of Antananarivo, Madagascar.
So there Dr B sat, in the DFW terminal, running the next
twenty-six or so hours of his life through his head. He had brought a book to
read on the plane – which he had started to read while he sat there waiting to
board – but then put it back in his carry-on after reading half-way down the
first page. He decided people-watching would be more entertaining for the time
being.
While in the process of people-watching, he noticed a young
boy walking with his father. A boy –
probably about five years old – walking along side and holding his dad’s hand.
The boy had a white gauze bandage held in place with surgical tape over his
right eye. As Dr B watched them walk by, his memory wandered back in time – back
to the living room of Dolores Bugtussle’s home in the winter of ’77.
The first big snow had just fallen and it was a perfect evening for the winter's first fire in the fireplace and for Dolores to invite Dr B over for dinner. Since they lived only three houses apart, he was a frequent dinner guest in the Bugtussle home. JP was playing nearby, running his little toy trucks up and down the roads he had outlined using bits and pieces of his Tinker Toy sticks. The series of images ran through Dr B's head - just like they had time after time again since the day it happened: Getting up from the chair to go over and adjust the logs with the fireplace poker; Moving them around until he got the biggest blaze possible going in the firebox; Turning around to get Dolores' approval of his fire-building skills; The memory of her face as it changed from a face of laughter to one of shear panic; The sound of JP's scream; The realization that JP had been running to see what he was doing at the fireplace at the exact same moment that he had turned with the hot fireplace poker pointing outward in his hand.
Alphonse had never been able to fully forgive himself for
that accident nine years ago. By every rational thought, he knew that it was
just that, an accident. But that didn’t relieve the pain he felt or the deep sense
of responsibility for his careless actions of that night. For the last nine
years, he had searched the vast resources available in the medical field for information
– fully knowing that nothing existed that could help young JP. At some point in
time, that guilt – that deep sense of responsibility – really starts eating at
a person. When you’ve lived with that unbearable amount of guilt for the
last nine years and then you hear of a procedure
that may return a young boy’s vision to normal – no matter how far south of “alternative”
that procedure may be, it’s a road
you owe to yourself to explore.
---------------------------------------------------
“Just set the tray down on this desk here,” instructed
Detective Bass to Randy, the delivery boy from the deli two blocks over. Randy set the tray down the pulled the ticket loose from the top Styrofoam box and handed it to Arnold.
“I’ll need you to sign this one please, sir,” said Randy.
Arnold reached up to his shirt pocket – patted it – no pen.
Sal reached into his jacket pocket and handed his pen to Arnold. Leaning over
the desk, Arnold took the ticket, set it on the desk and started to sign it. No
ink came from the pen. He immediately moved his hand over to the edge of the
desk blotter and scribbled little circles on the blotter until the pen started
writing. He signed the ticket and handed it back to Randy – gave Sal back his
pen.
Sal and Arnold sat at the desk eating their
lunch – not saying anything to each other - just enjoying their sandwiches and chips. Arnold was halfway through with his sandwich when he glanced down and noticed the scribbles that he had just made with Sal's pen - the black circular scribbles. The blotter was the same blotter that had been on his desk for a couple of months or so - displaying all the same doodles that had been doodled over the course of those same couple of months or so - with the exception of the blue scribbles made with the pen from J Bugtussle's bike bag just the day before. Those blue scribbles were nowhere to be seen.
(Back: Part 8 - Madagascar Chameleon)
(Next: Part 10 - Folklore, Myths and Legends)
(Back: Part 8 - Madagascar Chameleon)
(Next: Part 10 - Folklore, Myths and Legends)
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