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FIRST AID

DAVID McKENNA


��Drew’s son Bryan uses a fishing hook on a string to pull a first-aid kit across the kitchen table. A ballpeen hammer on the table’s edge clatters to the floor between the table and the sink. Drew, filling a bucket with hot water, says “Whoa!” as the hammer skips near his feet, but Bryan is already reading instructions from the little plastic kit in an earnest, careful monotone: “Use only in treating minor burns, cuts, scrapes and insect bites. For poison, broken bones, bad sprains and per-sistent bleeding, phone doctor and police.”
��Drew says, “Bryan, you’re a hell of a reader.” He turns off the faucet, removes the bucket of soapy water from the sink and places it on the floor, then stretches painfully to pick up and replace the hammer, which is about the same weight as the bicycle lock he smacked the big skinhead with.
��Bryan holds up a ball of cloth. “Look what I found. Special doctor’s tape.”
��“That’s gauze,” Drew says, crouching beside the cabinet under the sink. “I used it last summer when you cut your arm climbing that fence.”
��“And you put triple antibiotic on it,” the boy says excitedly. “The same stuff you used on your leg today. I’ve got four other kinds, and some itch creams.”
��Drew emerges from the cabinet with a scrub brush and rag. “Starting a hospital, dude?”
��“No,” the boy says in the matter-of-fact tone he uses to discourage people from poking fun. “I’m making a doctor’s bag.”
��Four first-aid kits are gathered on the table in front of Bryan, along with the black metal bait-and-tackle box his grandfather gave him. The boy has removed hooks and tackle weights from the box and is slowly replacing them with the plastic kits and with individual tubes, packages and imitation surgical instruments.
��“Still looks like a tackle box,” Drew says, grimacing as he stands with the scrub brush and rag.
��“It’s a doctor’s bag,” Bryan insists. “See the little ledges?”
��He opens and closes the lid of the tackle box. The shelf in the box where the weights used to be rises and retracts with each opening and closing.
��“OK, it’s a doctor’s bag,” Drew says. He’s accustomed to his nine-year-old’s brief but intense passions, his compulsive hoarding and rash disposal of objects that catch his eye. Last month it was baseball cards.
��“Don’t forget to leave some of that stuff in the medicine cabinet,“ Drew says, wincing as he rubs the bump on his skull. ”In case your mother has an accident, or I get another boo-boo.”
��The words sound grimmer than Drew had intended, and he can’t quite smile. What a surprise, all that blood this afternoon.
��Bryan dismisses his father’s suggestion with a vigorous shake of the head. “If you get cut, call me,” he says brightly.
��“Thanks, Doc,” Drew says, picking up the bucket with his free hand and heading for the door.
��“If you get stung by a bee, call me,“ Bryan adds, holding up a handful of what looked like packaged condoms. “Insect Sting Relief. I have four of them.”
��Drew spills water onto his sneakers as he limps out the back door and into the driveway in the twilight. The outdoor porches of his South Philadelphia neighbors are deserted. He guesses that the heat will keep them inside with their air conditioners humming.
��The brown smear on the inside driver’s-side door handle is first. He opens the door, dips the brush in the bucket, shakes off excess water, and scrubs around the handle and armrest. Next is the driver’s seat, floor mat and steering wheel, all stained with dried blood.
��He presses the brush against the wheel. The horn beeps loudly. He stops his zealous scrubbing, curses his stupidity, looks around. No one appears on the porches, but it’s impossible to tell whether anyone’s watching from a window.
��He dips the rag into the bucket and hastily wipes the scrubbed areas. A screen door two houses down slams as he locks the car door and tries to retreat to his home. A fat man holding a bucket appears with a St. Bernard. The man fiddles with a wall spigot, picks up a green garden hose and squirts water on the dog.
��“You’re hobbling,“ the fat man says before Drew can reach the kitchen door.
��“Fell off my bike, Franco,” Drew says. “Leg’s a little sore.”
��The fat man looks him over thoroughly. “Better slow down, marathon man. That exercise’ll kill you.”
��Drew slips inside, angry with himself for mentioning the bike, for not having the presence of mind to muster his usual parting shot about Franco’s weight.
��The water in the bucket is reddish-brown, prettier than the stains in the car or those on the biking shorts, T-shirt, helmet, socks, shoes and gloves he crammed into the plastic trash bag upstairs. It’s either wait until trash day or walk somewhere and dump the bag. Driving’s out of the question, at least until he gets rid of the bloody gloves and the rest of the evidence.
��He grips the bucket handle with both hands, waddles to the sink, pours the dirty water and turns the tap on full blast. The water fades to pink and swirls down the drain.
��Bryan has sneaked up behind him. “Here are the drops.“
��Drew’s heart skips a beat. “What you say?”
��“The drops,” Bryan repeats, shaking a small squeeze bottle at him. “For earaches.”
��Drew exhales. The heat is getting to him, or he’s losing his hearing. It sounded like “the cops.” Today Drew thought the skinhead blocking his way on Kelly Drive said, “It’s not even for a bicycle,” as if to scold him for riding on the shady sidewalk instead of on the sun-scorched, heavily trafficked highway.
��Skinhead looked like a fighter. Like someone who works for Joey Bag o’ Nickels, a South Philly bookmaker well known to cops and compulsive gamblers. Once Drew starts betting on sports, he can’t stop until the binge runs its course and he’s blown big money. This time, it’s a lot more than he can afford to repay.
��Drew hit the brakes, Skinhead stood there smiling. A lone rower on the Schuylkill grimaced in the distance. Drew said “Fuck you” and, bang, they were into it one-on-one in 90-degree heat, 10 yards from the river. Drew, like any sensible street fighter, used everything at his disposal to bash the guy. Skinhead landed a few blows, but not the first, the one that counts, which Drew delivered by whacking him across the head with his titanium bike lock.
��A two-minute fight but very messy, and probably unnecessary. Drew was peddling to his parked car — he passed a earphoned jogger and a mumbling hobo — when he realized Skinhead actually said, “It’s too hot even for a bicycle,” the same way a neighbor would ask “Hot enough for you?” because he has nothing to communicate except, perhaps, that the two of them are united in suffering.
��It was too late to ride back and apologize, even if Skinhead was still breathing. So Drew threw his bike in the hatchback and drove three miles to his home, blood running down his leg and staining the white plastic wheel every time he gripped it after touching the cut on his head.
��Now he’s clean, and so’s the car. He places the empty bucket under the sink, and tells himself no one could connect him to the incident. Skinhead doesn’t know him, and probably never heard of Joey Bag o’ Nickels. Who outside of Drew’s circle would believe such a name? Most likely, Skinhead can’t remember his own name.
��Drew hurts like hell, but doesn’t look like he just won a life or death fight. Most of his wounds are invisible — strained tendons and joints, sore ribs. He touches the scrape on his shin, already a large, thin scab. Bryan has crept up behind him again to examine the wound.
��“Next, try No More Germies,” the boy says, dangling a plastic packet in Drew’s face. “I have five packs.”
��Looking in Bryan’s eyes is like looking in the mirror, or through bright little windows at a gathering storm.
�� ”I’m better now,” Drew says. “Save your medicine for your next patient.”
��“No More Germies are hard to open, unless you have these,” Bryan explains, reaching into his bag, looking deadly serious as he holds up a metal object smaller than his index finger.
��“Little scissors,” he shouts with an abrupt, self-satisfied grin.
��Drew smiles. “Don’t take the big scissors, or your mom’ll have a fit.”
��“If she needs ’em, she can borrow ’em,” Bryan says, flashing pinking sheers and then barber’s scissors.
��“She can borrow these too,” he adds, holding up three spools of thread. “Unless I have to operate on somebody.”
��“Let’s hope you don’t,” Drew says, stroking the boy’s long brown curls and picturing him 10 years from now, handsome and steely and wild. “You don’t have any anesthetics.”
��“He’ll sleep, no problem,” Bryan says, lifting the hammer off the table. “I’ll smack him on the head a few times with this.”
��“That’ll do it,” Drew says, fingering the bump on his head and blinking at the light in Bryan’s eyes.


��—End—



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