Two major points: One. I'm not as smart as Mother's cats. And two, I wasn't born with claws. As I said, I'm a frigging reject.
And get this, I ask Doc. Doc's my dad, an authentic M.D. with a whole bunch of academic letters following it. They're on the return address of his business envelopes.
He doesn't mind that I call him Doc. Fact is, I think he kind of likes it. My brothers and sister call him "Father." I don't because he isn't a priest. I guess at one time, or other, he wanted to be a priest but became a doctor instead. Which gave me a chance to be born. Mother wants us kids to call him Father. You think maybe that's why I don't?
"Say, Doc, is there a pill that'll wake me up before I pee in my sleep, or one that'll expand my bladder to the size of a basketball?"
Doc shrugs. "I don't think so, Gordy," he says, "but don't worry. You'll grow out of it.'
Grow out of it? I'm eight years old. Next thing you know, I'll be a twenty-one year old man, still peeing in his bed. If Doc doesn't know what to do, how should I know what to do? I'll tell you: Nothing. Besides, with the mornings I've been waking up to, what if I don't make it to nine years old?
Morning. I can smell her. Even her breathing's angry. She orders me to wake up. Gordon Bartholomew Hoffman, a.k.a. Gordy, might be a reject. But he is no fool. I keep my eyes closed. Why rush the process of getting my face rubbed on a sheet, its threads feeling more like chunks of Manila rope instead of fine cotton. And why would I volunteer to drown?
"Wake up," she screams.
Finally, I no longer hold off because she might do something unexpectedly while my eyes are closed. She might have a butcher knife in one hand. At once, I open both eyes in order to make certain she's not carrying. She's not. Whew. "Yeah?"
"What do you mean, yeah?" she howls.
Next, she answers her own question. "I'll tell you what's yeah. You and your piss bed. That's what's yeah."
"You think I'm crazy? That I stand on my bed at night and do it on purpose?"
"You're not crazy," she screams. "No, you're not crazy at all. You don’t get up to go to the bathroom. You're lazy. That's what."
"Listen to me. I have an afternoon paper route. A Sunday one, too. I mow the lawn. I shovel the sidewalk and driveway during the winter. I walk a mile to the Meat Mart and back every Saturday to pick up the cuts you want for the next week. And you call me lazy? I'm not lazy. I'm stupid. I wet the bed and can't figure out why."
"You're not only lazy, you're a liar." Next thing you know, she grabs a hank of head hair and slams my face and rakes it into the wet sheet real hard. I'm having a hard time holding my breath and pushing up at the same times. She's strong, I tell you. She pulls me off the bed and tosses me to the floor. She's kicking me everywhere and screaming, "Lazy. You're nothing but lazy, Mister Lazy Bones."
Need you ask? Of course, I'm crying. Howling, in fact. I'm hurting just about everywhere. Besides, it's really painful when I inhale. Come to think of it, exhales aren't a cakewalk, either.
Crazy Annie, my younger sister, whose bedroom is across from mine, stands at the doorway and screams, "Stop it. You're going to kill him."
"Good," screams Mother. "I'm getting sick and tired of washing his sheet every day. Every goddamn day." When she finishes screeching, that's when she really gives me a couple of hard whacks to the torso. I can't take this much longer. I'm going to die. Maybe, then she'll be sorry. Truthfully, that's just wishful thinking on my part. At least with me dead, she won't have to live with a reject in her family.
Crazy Annie tries again. "Sheriff Becker and his deputies will come. Chief Exner and his officers will be next. Cop cars will surround our house. The neighbors will know you're a murderer. They'll talk and talk and talk about you. I won't have any friends because my mom's a murderer. Then, you'll be sorry. You'll be sorry for sure. The judge will find you guilty. He'll send you to Taycheedah. Do you hear me, mother? Taycheedah. You'll do life in Taycheedah, and I won't come to visit you, neither."
Double negative, Sis, but thanks anyway. Keep on yelling. She's not kicking.
Doc sticks his head into the doorway. "Jan, what are you doing?"
"He's your son, goddamn it."
"What do you mean, 'He's my son'?" Doc's kind of sounding more than upset.
"You do it from now on. You start cleaning up after him. Every morning. Every goddamn morning. You wash his sheet. I'm sick and tired of it. If it wasn't for the rubber sheet underneath, you'd be buying a mattress every month. That's what you'd be doing. Instead, you go out and buy him a goddamn piano. Why does Mister Pissy Pants need a piano? Tell me, will you?"
"He wanted one."
"He wanted one? That's why you bought him a piano? You're just as stupid as he is."
"He practices each and every day, and his teacher says he's advancing much faster than other children his age."
I hope they keep arguing because she isn't kicking. I try to halve my inhales, which helps. Not much, though. A bit. I think I'm going to live. I really don't know if I want to.
"So what? He's your son. You clean up after him."
Doc's down on his knees and at my side. "Where does it hurt, Gordy?"
I touch my ribs. "I can't breathe."
"You can breathe."
"It hurts awful.”
"What hurts awful?"
"To breathe."
"Get up. Go to the bathroom. Wash up. Get dressed. You're coming with me. ."
"I can't."
"You can. I'm taking you to the office."
He helps me get up. Breathing's agonizing. It really is. I nearly buckle over from pain. Doc's right. I can breathe. If I couldn't, I would've died minutes ago. Doc knows that. He knows a lot. He's got all those degrees. I stumble to the bathroom, shut the door, turn on the water, and splash the cold on my face. I stand on the tub and stretch to the right in order to look into the mirror.
It's like somebody else is looking back at me. He's pathetic. I feel so sorry for him. I cry harder. Blubber, even. He does the same thing. I guess so. Because he's me. Finally, with soap and washcloth, I wash off the stink down below. I dry off. I still can't breathe right. I can hear her and Doc through the door. She's still yelling. He's not. At least, not now although he hollers in the evenings. Last night, he hollered plenty. Next thing you know, he'll start hitting her, giving her black eyes, swollen lips, missing teeth.
When it's dark, she's screaming at him instead of me. It doesn't matter. Morning, noon, night, she's always yelling. I'll bet that's how she's been ever since she was born.
At night, when Doc comes home after being at the Elks Club, he stumbles up the front stairs. If anybody else in our whole wide world could see and hear him, they'd conclude easily he was as drunk as a skunk.
Not her. Why can't she? Instead, Mother's like a traffic cop. Stops Doc dead in his faltering tracks at the front door. "Let me smell your breath." I assume he refuses to exhale on her because she yells even louder a few seconds later. "Let me smell."
I figure he must've given her quite a whiff because the next moment she gets even louder yet. If that's possible. In reality, it's nearly impossible. I assume all the neighbors can hear. Even old Mrs. Hahn who chops heads off of chickens. She's probably listening in. "You've been drinking."
Give the woman a kewpie doll. Doc's been drinking? Wonder of wonders. Chickens cluck. Cows moo. Horses neigh. Lions roar. Fish swim. Doc drinks. Why do you bother him? Why don't you let him go to bed and sleep it off?
But, no, you won't do that. Will you? Eventually, he'll yell back. Then, he'll slug you. And you'll bleed and cry. And I'll feel sorry for you. That Irish temper takes time but it will rise just like morning's sun. And when it does, you'll get it. Especially when Doc starts yelling back, you'll get it good. For certain.
Maybe that's why in the morning she has an attitude. I hadn't thought of that until now. It's not me peeing the bed. It's her getting even with Doc for what he's done the night before.
"Calm down, Jan. I'm taking Gordy to the office. He has a fractured rib. Or worse." Doc's like a different guy in the morning. I suspect that's due to his temporary sobriety.
Doc got two awards at the last Midwest AMA meeting in Minneapolis. one for being the best diagnostician in a contest the organization sponsored and two, a Big Ben alarm clock, for appearing late for most morning meetings.
I'm no doctor nor do I want to become one. I'd rather be a fireman, fighting fires and saving kids who are sticking their heads out of second story windows of their smoke-filled bedrooms and crying real hard. Naturally. They're scared they're going to die.
Gordy to the rescue. I'd climb a ladder and when I made it to the windows, I'd say in my deep baritone, "Gordon Bartholomew Hoffman at your service. Everyone calls me Gordy. You can stop crying. I'm here to save you." I'd pick them up as gently as possible and put them on my shoulder. "You'll be okay, now."
When we're on the ground, the kids with tears in their eyes and soot on both cheeks, forehead, and chin will look up and say, "Thank you, Mister." They're smiling, grateful for my saving their lives. Me, the former reject and now big hero with a Capital H.
"You don't have to thank me," I tell them. ”I was just doing my duty."
And off I'd go to the next fire.
It wasn't that long ago I wanted to be a Marine like Clint Eastwood in "Heartbreak Ridge." No matter what part he plays, cowboy, construction guy, detective, Old Clint always kicks butt.
Me? I'm too small to kick butt, but if I become a fireman when I grow up, I can remain in town. I couldn't live in town as a Marine. Maybe, when she'd read in the newspaper or watch it on TV news that I saved another kid from smoke inhalation or being burned to death, she'd admit I wasn't lazy. Or her piss-in-the-bed reject. Come to think of it, maybe she wouldn't.
Back to the present. I totally agree with Doc. At least one rib's busted and the ragged edges could've punctured a lung. Maybe both lungs. Who knows? Maybe I'll die before I get to Doc's office. Then, she'll be sorry. Yeah, maybe then she'll cry over her reject's coffin. That is, If Chief Exner releases her temporarily from the local hoosegow with two officers, one at each side. Naturally, she'd be cuffed. And probably be wearing leg irons, too. She'd be doing the prisoner shuffle.
Come to think of it, she probably wouldn't. Cry, that is. She'd be screaming at the pair of cops for bringing her to the funeral parlor.
And get this, I ask Doc. Doc's my dad, an authentic M.D. with a whole bunch of academic letters following it. They're on the return address of his business envelopes.
He doesn't mind that I call him Doc. Fact is, I think he kind of likes it. My brothers and sister call him "Father." I don't because he isn't a priest. I guess at one time, or other, he wanted to be a priest but became a doctor instead. Which gave me a chance to be born. Mother wants us kids to call him Father. You think maybe that's why I don't?
"Say, Doc, is there a pill that'll wake me up before I pee in my sleep, or one that'll expand my bladder to the size of a basketball?"
Doc shrugs. "I don't think so, Gordy," he says, "but don't worry. You'll grow out of it.'
Grow out of it? I'm eight years old. Next thing you know, I'll be a twenty-one year old man, still peeing in his bed. If Doc doesn't know what to do, how should I know what to do? I'll tell you: Nothing. Besides, with the mornings I've been waking up to, what if I don't make it to nine years old?
Morning. I can smell her. Even her breathing's angry. She orders me to wake up. Gordon Bartholomew Hoffman, a.k.a. Gordy, might be a reject. But he is no fool. I keep my eyes closed. Why rush the process of getting my face rubbed on a sheet, its threads feeling more like chunks of Manila rope instead of fine cotton. And why would I volunteer to drown?
"Wake up," she screams.
Finally, I no longer hold off because she might do something unexpectedly while my eyes are closed. She might have a butcher knife in one hand. At once, I open both eyes in order to make certain she's not carrying. She's not. Whew. "Yeah?"
"What do you mean, yeah?" she howls.
Next, she answers her own question. "I'll tell you what's yeah. You and your piss bed. That's what's yeah."
"You think I'm crazy? That I stand on my bed at night and do it on purpose?"
"You're not crazy," she screams. "No, you're not crazy at all. You don’t get up to go to the bathroom. You're lazy. That's what."
"Listen to me. I have an afternoon paper route. A Sunday one, too. I mow the lawn. I shovel the sidewalk and driveway during the winter. I walk a mile to the Meat Mart and back every Saturday to pick up the cuts you want for the next week. And you call me lazy? I'm not lazy. I'm stupid. I wet the bed and can't figure out why."
"You're not only lazy, you're a liar." Next thing you know, she grabs a hank of head hair and slams my face and rakes it into the wet sheet real hard. I'm having a hard time holding my breath and pushing up at the same times. She's strong, I tell you. She pulls me off the bed and tosses me to the floor. She's kicking me everywhere and screaming, "Lazy. You're nothing but lazy, Mister Lazy Bones."
Need you ask? Of course, I'm crying. Howling, in fact. I'm hurting just about everywhere. Besides, it's really painful when I inhale. Come to think of it, exhales aren't a cakewalk, either.
Crazy Annie, my younger sister, whose bedroom is across from mine, stands at the doorway and screams, "Stop it. You're going to kill him."
"Good," screams Mother. "I'm getting sick and tired of washing his sheet every day. Every goddamn day." When she finishes screeching, that's when she really gives me a couple of hard whacks to the torso. I can't take this much longer. I'm going to die. Maybe, then she'll be sorry. Truthfully, that's just wishful thinking on my part. At least with me dead, she won't have to live with a reject in her family.
Crazy Annie tries again. "Sheriff Becker and his deputies will come. Chief Exner and his officers will be next. Cop cars will surround our house. The neighbors will know you're a murderer. They'll talk and talk and talk about you. I won't have any friends because my mom's a murderer. Then, you'll be sorry. You'll be sorry for sure. The judge will find you guilty. He'll send you to Taycheedah. Do you hear me, mother? Taycheedah. You'll do life in Taycheedah, and I won't come to visit you, neither."
Double negative, Sis, but thanks anyway. Keep on yelling. She's not kicking.
Doc sticks his head into the doorway. "Jan, what are you doing?"
"He's your son, goddamn it."
"What do you mean, 'He's my son'?" Doc's kind of sounding more than upset.
"You do it from now on. You start cleaning up after him. Every morning. Every goddamn morning. You wash his sheet. I'm sick and tired of it. If it wasn't for the rubber sheet underneath, you'd be buying a mattress every month. That's what you'd be doing. Instead, you go out and buy him a goddamn piano. Why does Mister Pissy Pants need a piano? Tell me, will you?"
"He wanted one."
"He wanted one? That's why you bought him a piano? You're just as stupid as he is."
"He practices each and every day, and his teacher says he's advancing much faster than other children his age."
I hope they keep arguing because she isn't kicking. I try to halve my inhales, which helps. Not much, though. A bit. I think I'm going to live. I really don't know if I want to.
"So what? He's your son. You clean up after him."
Doc's down on his knees and at my side. "Where does it hurt, Gordy?"
I touch my ribs. "I can't breathe."
"You can breathe."
"It hurts awful.”
"What hurts awful?"
"To breathe."
"Get up. Go to the bathroom. Wash up. Get dressed. You're coming with me. ."
"I can't."
"You can. I'm taking you to the office."
He helps me get up. Breathing's agonizing. It really is. I nearly buckle over from pain. Doc's right. I can breathe. If I couldn't, I would've died minutes ago. Doc knows that. He knows a lot. He's got all those degrees. I stumble to the bathroom, shut the door, turn on the water, and splash the cold on my face. I stand on the tub and stretch to the right in order to look into the mirror.
It's like somebody else is looking back at me. He's pathetic. I feel so sorry for him. I cry harder. Blubber, even. He does the same thing. I guess so. Because he's me. Finally, with soap and washcloth, I wash off the stink down below. I dry off. I still can't breathe right. I can hear her and Doc through the door. She's still yelling. He's not. At least, not now although he hollers in the evenings. Last night, he hollered plenty. Next thing you know, he'll start hitting her, giving her black eyes, swollen lips, missing teeth.
When it's dark, she's screaming at him instead of me. It doesn't matter. Morning, noon, night, she's always yelling. I'll bet that's how she's been ever since she was born.
At night, when Doc comes home after being at the Elks Club, he stumbles up the front stairs. If anybody else in our whole wide world could see and hear him, they'd conclude easily he was as drunk as a skunk.
Not her. Why can't she? Instead, Mother's like a traffic cop. Stops Doc dead in his faltering tracks at the front door. "Let me smell your breath." I assume he refuses to exhale on her because she yells even louder a few seconds later. "Let me smell."
I figure he must've given her quite a whiff because the next moment she gets even louder yet. If that's possible. In reality, it's nearly impossible. I assume all the neighbors can hear. Even old Mrs. Hahn who chops heads off of chickens. She's probably listening in. "You've been drinking."
Give the woman a kewpie doll. Doc's been drinking? Wonder of wonders. Chickens cluck. Cows moo. Horses neigh. Lions roar. Fish swim. Doc drinks. Why do you bother him? Why don't you let him go to bed and sleep it off?
But, no, you won't do that. Will you? Eventually, he'll yell back. Then, he'll slug you. And you'll bleed and cry. And I'll feel sorry for you. That Irish temper takes time but it will rise just like morning's sun. And when it does, you'll get it. Especially when Doc starts yelling back, you'll get it good. For certain.
Maybe that's why in the morning she has an attitude. I hadn't thought of that until now. It's not me peeing the bed. It's her getting even with Doc for what he's done the night before.
"Calm down, Jan. I'm taking Gordy to the office. He has a fractured rib. Or worse." Doc's like a different guy in the morning. I suspect that's due to his temporary sobriety.
Doc got two awards at the last Midwest AMA meeting in Minneapolis. one for being the best diagnostician in a contest the organization sponsored and two, a Big Ben alarm clock, for appearing late for most morning meetings.
I'm no doctor nor do I want to become one. I'd rather be a fireman, fighting fires and saving kids who are sticking their heads out of second story windows of their smoke-filled bedrooms and crying real hard. Naturally. They're scared they're going to die.
Gordy to the rescue. I'd climb a ladder and when I made it to the windows, I'd say in my deep baritone, "Gordon Bartholomew Hoffman at your service. Everyone calls me Gordy. You can stop crying. I'm here to save you." I'd pick them up as gently as possible and put them on my shoulder. "You'll be okay, now."
When we're on the ground, the kids with tears in their eyes and soot on both cheeks, forehead, and chin will look up and say, "Thank you, Mister." They're smiling, grateful for my saving their lives. Me, the former reject and now big hero with a Capital H.
"You don't have to thank me," I tell them. ”I was just doing my duty."
And off I'd go to the next fire.
It wasn't that long ago I wanted to be a Marine like Clint Eastwood in "Heartbreak Ridge." No matter what part he plays, cowboy, construction guy, detective, Old Clint always kicks butt.
Me? I'm too small to kick butt, but if I become a fireman when I grow up, I can remain in town. I couldn't live in town as a Marine. Maybe, when she'd read in the newspaper or watch it on TV news that I saved another kid from smoke inhalation or being burned to death, she'd admit I wasn't lazy. Or her piss-in-the-bed reject. Come to think of it, maybe she wouldn't.
Back to the present. I totally agree with Doc. At least one rib's busted and the ragged edges could've punctured a lung. Maybe both lungs. Who knows? Maybe I'll die before I get to Doc's office. Then, she'll be sorry. Yeah, maybe then she'll cry over her reject's coffin. That is, If Chief Exner releases her temporarily from the local hoosegow with two officers, one at each side. Naturally, she'd be cuffed. And probably be wearing leg irons, too. She'd be doing the prisoner shuffle.
Come to think of it, she probably wouldn't. Cry, that is. She'd be screaming at the pair of cops for bringing her to the funeral parlor.
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