My Trip to the Nations

 My Trip to the Nations 

Or

Of Rivers and Indians

The sun has burnt the ground and bleached the earth. Since mid-June, the rain we’ve received has reminded me of the water mother used to sprinkle on her ironing.  It’s only been enough to provide steam.

I got the call on Friday.  My brother, who has been ill this week and tested for COVID twice, was taken to the ER by an old neighbor, a friend, a spirit-sister. Not COVID. 

It’s an infection of the foot.  In his bones.

I was to have gone to a choir dinner with a 70s theme that evening, but it was not to be. We made our apologies; saddled up the Honda Ridgeline; headed south.

Jean and I have been making this trip for more than thirty years.  Three decades.  We’ve done it with a single small child; with two small children; with two children and their kid sister.

And now by ourselves.

I’ve long been cognisant that Baxter Springs, Kansas was the first cowtown, so my mind shifts to cattle drive mode about the time we cross into Oklahoma. What would it’ve been like to drive a herd of cattle up this way?  In the movies, it’s all about crossing rivers and Indians.

My brother texted me as we made our way down.  He first says they are going to amputate his leg.  Then his foot.  

We cross the Arkansas in Tulsa.  It is a shallow creek compared to its normal self.  

At about the same time we would’ve been at the choir dinner, we stopped for provender in Stroud, getting corn nuts, peanut butter crackers, and iced tea.  We pass the Sauk-Fox Casino south of there without undue interference: they only make us slow to 55 for a couple of miles.

We pass the Seminole casinos as we enter and leave their territory as well, crossing the North Canadian and South Canadian respectively.  Like the Arkansas, they are a tiny fraction of their normal flow.

We arrive at the hospital at 8:30pm and make our way through the halls to my brother’s room.  The signs say masks are required, but I don’t put one on.  They still let me in.  Things are lawless down in the Nations.

My brother is not alone.

Friends are there with him. More than friends: a sister and a brother from another mother.  

We’d all been neighbors 40, 50, 60 years ago.  We know things about each other that only siblings know. We know them; our parents knew their parents; our grandparents knew their grandparents.  And before that, the place we lived was not a place.

Some things are stronger than blood.

My spirit sister had taken my brother to the ER when his “COVID” turned out not to be COVID.  

They are going to have to amputate.  We don’t know where.  Still don’t.

When bones get infected, it’s difficult to cure the infection even when the patient is not diabetic which my brother is.  Where they make the amputation will depend on where the infection ends.

My brother lives alone.  Well, alone with his dog.  

Whatever happens, brother will not be able to take care of his dog for quite a while.

In the room the doctors come and go, but nobody is talking about Michaelangelo.  They are talking about pockets of infection in the metatarsals.  Options of mid-foot amputation versus below the knee amputation. General surgeons versus orthopedic surgeons.

It is becoming more and more apparent that nothing will happen until Monday.

We need to drive our herd north.

We go to brother’s house.  It used to be my house, my parents’ house.  It was the last house built by my mother’s father. He was 72 when he did it.

We retrieve my brother’s dog, Billy.  He is a clinically insane Boston terrier, but maybe they all are.

We then drive our herd north.

Before we cross the North Canadian, we stop for chicken fried steak--one of the local delicacies--at a place called The Catfish Roundup. It’s within spitting distance of the Seminole Casino, but we are not molested.

We arrive home at 6:30pm with our new charge and find a place to put him after letting him run around in the sunburnt grass and the baked earth.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like'' the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube. )